Bright Young Dead

by Jessica Fellowes

  At that moment, Joe’s back was turned to the club as he conducted his band of musicians. There must have been twelve of them or so, seated and dressed in sharp suits, each one with an instrument – saxophone, trumpet, trombone. Abruptly, the beat changed and Joe swung around, grasped the tall microphone that stood on the stage before him and began to sing. It was only then Louisa saw that Joe was black-skinned, with high cheekbones, even white teeth and an expression in his eyes that seemed to look directly at her and ask her to jump right in. He sang a song of – what else? – starry nights and love, each note like molten gold.

  Louisa felt the rhythm take her body over and before she knew it, she was moving into the dancers who pulsed as one, shimmying and sliding to the hot jazz. Every hair on Louisa’s body seemed to stand on end and she felt as if her skin could light touch paper. She had been wearing a jacket over her simple tunic dress, but she shrugged it off and threw it onto a chair. If she never saw it again, what did she care? Joe’s voice wove its way through the bodies like a silk scarf wrapping around them. Louisa felt herself reined in tighter and tighter. As she got closer to the centre, she exchanged brief glances and smiles with the others there, men and women alike, both friendly and seductive. A line of sweat ran down her front and still she kept moving. Her shoulders shook and her hips swayed until she had the startling revelation that they were all in motion as a single, amorphous living thing. Her mind was filled with nothing but the music and Joe’s voice of romance and darlings. Everything, everything, fell away and the only thing that mattered was to keep on dancing. A man would come close and start to move in symmetry with her and she would smile, allow him and then, when she had had enough, she would sidle away and carry on alone. She was happy like that. Once, a woman who wore a dress of lilac feathers, came closer than any man, slid up and down her side and breathed into her ear, ‘Keep going just like that.’ So she did.

  No one knew she was a servant. No one knew she grew up on a Peabody Estate. No one knew the things she was frightened of in the night when she lay alone, before dawn stroked her with its rosy fingers. No one knew that she was exultant in happiness in this moment, in a way that she had never known before and was suddenly terrified she would never know again. They knew nothing of her, she knew nothing of them and nobody cared. It was perfect.

  Of course, it had to end.

  The band stopped, Joe announced a break and the dancers fell away. Louisa’s legs burned, the sweat on her back cooled and her mouth was dry. She spotted Clara and Pamela, still together, and walked over to them. Pamela grabbed Louisa: ‘Isn’t he wonderful?’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Who?’ said Louisa, though she knew she didn’t need to ask.

  ‘Joe Katz!’ said Pamela, her voice breathless. She, too, had been dancing and her hair was delightfully loose, the curls shaken out. So everyone was in love with Joe, and Louisa saw several women crowding around him as he walked to the bar.

  ‘Where’s Nancy?’ asked Louisa, conscious of her duties now the music had stopped. She had no idea what time it was. Pamela pointed to a table close by and Louisa saw Nancy there, smoking a cigarette and in conversation with Charlotte. She was wondering whether she dared interrupt, when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around and at first couldn’t see anyone, but when she dipped her head slightly she saw Harry standing there, a wide grin on his face. Harry was a friend of Guy Sullivan’s and they had been in the railway police force together. He was diminutive but with the good looks of a Hollywood film star, all deep-blue eyes and a dimple in his chin. ‘Harry!’ she exclaimed. Knowing somebody in here had elevated the experience by several notches – now she really felt a part of it.

  ‘Miss Louisa Cannon,’ he said silkily and took her hand to kiss it, one eyebrow lifted as he did so. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you here.’

  ‘How are you?’ she said, happily. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m in the band,’ he said, jerking his thumb to the stage. ‘Good, isn’t it? That Joe is quite something.’

  ‘You’re in the band! I didn’t see you. What instrument?’

  ‘Ha, well, God left a few inches off when he made me, I can’t be seen when I’m sitting in a chair,’ he laughed. ‘I’m on the trumpet. I quit the police, do the music full time now. Couldn’t be better.’

  Louisa felt a wave of nostalgic pleasure wash over her. ‘It’s so lovely to see you, Harry. How’s Guy?’

  ‘Haven’t seen too much of him lately. It’s not really his kind of thing this club, but we should try to get him along now you’re turning up here. He’s always pleased to see you, you know.’

  Louisa blushed. ‘I know. I like seeing him, too.’

  Harry gestured to her empty glass, ‘Let’s get you a drink.’ He summoned a waiter and asked for a bottle of champagne. ‘Why not?’ he said, seeing her face. ‘We should celebrate seeing each other.’ When they had their drinks and found a spot to sit down, Harry lit a cigarette and turned to her again. ‘Now, tell me, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, this place. It’s full of disreputable types. Musicians, gangsters, women of the night … Mind you, it’s safe here. We never seem to get a police raid.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ said Louisa, pulling a shocked face which quickly gave way to a chuckle. ‘Those are my people,’ she joked. There was a pause and she stopped smiling. ‘What do you mean, gangsters?’

  ‘Oh, nothing like the hoodlums you read about in New York, though some of them like to pretend they’re the same, for the glamour. But we get a few, drug runners mostly. And –’ he bent in close, whispering in Louisa’s ear ‘– Alice Diamond. She’s a regular.’ He sat back up and tapped the side of his nose with a finger.

  Louisa’s blood ran cold. Alice Diamond came in here?

  ‘She’s not here tonight, usually comes in on a Saturday. After a good day’s haul on Bond Street, I should imagine. She’s known as an underground queen, running a gang of forty girl thieves, or so the story goes. You wouldn’t know it to look at her though, all chichi dresses and diamonds on every finger.’ He grinned, pleased with himself for providing such good gossip.

  ‘When did you last see her?’ said Louisa, completely sober now.

  ‘Just last weekend. She’s pretty regular. Think she likes old Joe, but then – who doesn’t?’

  Louisa gave a weak smile and knocked back her glass. If Alice Diamond came here, this could be her chance to meet her, and find out what she could that would help free Dulcie.

  All she knew was that she would do whatever it took. If she couldn’t beat Alice Diamond and her gang, then maybe she’d have to join them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The following morning, Louisa woke relieved to remember that the three of them had made it back to the party in Lower Sloane Street in time – at least according to the clock in the hall – sneaking in to say goodbye to their host. It hadn’t looked as if anything had turned for the better in their absence and when Louisa considered the night she’d almost missed, she sent a prayer of thanks into the air. She didn’t believe in God, despite all those Our Fathers she’d recited at school and the weekly Mitford trip to church where Lord Redesdale timed the vicar’s sermon (‘not a second over ten minutes’) but after hearing Joe Katz’s music, she suspected some other kind of spiritual magic had been at work.

  Harry’s mention of Guy Sullivan had unsettled her too. Louisa realised it had been some months since she had last seen him. In so many ways, to fall in love and marry Guy would be a nice, simple and probably happy ending. At twenty-three she knew her mother thought her time was running out. But so far as Louisa could see, marriage for a man might mean the beginning of a new chapter, with a wife to look after him and children to watch grow up, but for a woman it meant years of domestic toil. When she read in the newspapers about the women who were working as scientists or politicians, even flying planes in America, she never failed to notice that these wom
en were rarely married.

  She shook her head. What did all this matter? There was work to get on with.

  Louisa left the kitchen where she had lent a hand to Gracie, and knocked on Pamela’s door.

  ‘Good morning, Lou,’ said Pamela, hitching up her tweed skirt and grunting slightly as she did up the buttons. ‘I think I’d better have half a grapefruit for breakfast. There was an article about it in The Lady. Apparently the juices in the grapefruit burn away anything bad you eat afterwards.’

  Louisa took the Nanny Blor line of ignoring this sort of comment but in any case Pamela was anxious to discuss the night before. ‘You don’t think Muv will find out what we did, do you?’ she continued.

  ‘There’s no reason she should, unless you say something.’ Louisa tried to sound a warning note in her voice, hoping it would keep Pamela quiet.

  ‘No, I won’t. She wouldn’t understand anyway. It was like another world there, wasn’t it? That music, and the dancing … So many gorgeous dresses and, oh. Cocktails.’ She put a hand to the side of her head and grimaced.

  Pamela carried on poring over the details of the clothes worn, the drinks served and, of course, the canapés that had occasionally appeared. ‘Such a sweet idea, tiny little squares of toast with pâté, and spoonfuls of caviar on biscuits. Do you think Mrs Stobie would do something like that? Farve would have an absolute fit.’

  Louisa smiled with her but felt suddenly fatigued at the thought of their return to Asthall Manor. Were her ties to the Mitfords coming loose? She wasn’t conscious of having pulled the string but nor was she in any rush to stop it coming undone.

  ‘Do you know what Miss Nancy’s plans are for the rest of the day?’

  ‘Not much, I shouldn’t think,’ said Pamela. ‘She said something about meeting up with Clara for tea.’

  ‘Would you like to come out with me?’ asked Louisa. ‘I’ve got an idea.’ Something had just occurred to her and now she couldn’t let go of it.

  Pamela sat up on the edge of the bed. ‘Yes, do let’s. I need the fresh air.’

  * * *

  Not ten minutes later the two of them stood before a hair salon, the December wind buffeting their coats, their hands firmly holding onto their hats. Inside, through the plate-glass shop front, they could see elegant women sitting at chairs, men standing behind them, wielding scissors like Greek gods wreaking revenge.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ said Pamela.

  ‘Yes, quite sure.’ Louisa felt a curlicue of excitement and giggles wind up through her chest.

  Inside, a young woman sitting at a desk looked up; her hair was perfectly coiffured in waves that shone like a newly fallen conker. ‘Can I help you, madam?’

  ‘Yes, I’d like a shingle cut, please.’

  The walls were painted in lilac and there was a miniature poodle lying on a basket by the receptionist, its fur dyed the same shade. Pamela shook Louisa by the shoulder and pointed to it, alarm on her face.

  ‘It’s like Antoine de Paul’s,’ said the receptionist pointedly, and when she saw the name provoked no reaction, she sighed and went on, ‘You know, the famous hairdresser Monsieur Antoine?’ Louisa wasn’t sure that imitating a hairdresser’s poodle-dying techniques was a recommendation but she wasn’t going to back out now.

  Pamela took a seat on a low white sofa by the window and picked up a Tatler, while Louisa was led to a chair before a mirror. Unpinned, her hair hung down to below her shoulders, neither curly nor straight, an unremarkable colour. After it had been washed, she watched as long chunks of it fell to the floor, before the hairdryer and hot tongs that sizzled and made her ears twitch nervously. When it was finished Louisa looked at herself in amazed admiration. She had shining waves which brought her hair out into a richer shade of brown and the short, blunt edges of the bob made her chin sharper, her eyes bigger.

  Pamela looked up from her magazine. ‘Oh my goodness. Farve’s going to have convulsions.’

  Louisa felt so good, almost powerful, that she whispered to Pamela as if she was sharing a secret. ‘Don’t you want to do it, too?’

  Pamela gave a little gasp. ‘Oh!’ She blushed, and then she looked down at herself despairingly. ‘I do. I think. But I don’t dare.’ She paused. ‘Nanny would be cross to hear me talking like this. You know she always says nobody’s looking anyway.’ They both laughed at this, knowing Nanny’s nuggets of wisdom well.

  Back out on the bright streets of Chelsea, they walked along enjoying the Christmas decorations in the shops. Louisa felt buoyant and it helped that she attracted one or two glances from young men as they walked past.

  Pamela said, ‘You know, I can’t change my hair too drastically but perhaps I could order a new dress?’ A rueful smile. ‘I’ve got some birthday money to spend and Sebastian made a comment about the one I was wearing last night that wasn’t rude exactly but…’

  Something came back to Louisa in a flash. She’d completely forgotten about it but now she scrabbled in her pocket for a scrap of paper – she’d written it down in pencil when she’d left the prison then dismissed it from her mind. She brought the note out, Mrs Brewster, 92 Pendon Road, Earl’s Court. ‘Yes,’ she said to Pamela, ‘Dulcie mentioned a seamstress to me before. Maids share useful information like that, you know.’

  ‘Dulcie? The maid that…?’ Pam trailed off uncertainly.

  ‘Yes, but don’t worry about that. This is the name of Miss Charlotte’s dressmaker. I expect there will be a dress that Miss Charlotte needs picked up. We could do her a favour and ask about something for you at the same time. There’s no harm in that, is there?’

  ‘No.’ Pamela smiled warmly. ‘Not at all. Thank you, Lou-Lou.’

  ‘Right, then,’ said Louisa, feeling full of gladness and hope, that magic that only a new frock can bring. ‘Let’s go – there’s no time like the present.’

  And arm in arm, with extra springs in their feet, the two women fairly bounced to South Kensington station.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Pamela and Louisa caught the London Underground to Earl’s Court and, following directions from a ticket officer, made their way down a couple of shabby side streets before arriving at Mrs Brewster’s building. The front door had been left on a latch – there were several flats and clearly one or two of them had custom that came and went with some regularity – and they climbed the threadbare carpet to the third floor, where there was a small brass sign with a card that announced BREWSTER. They knocked and soon heard a shuffle on the other side and two bolts being drawn. An old woman pushed her head between the door and the frame. She looked more belligerent than nervous but Louisa decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  ‘Hello, I’m Louisa Cannon and this is Miss Mitford. Beg pardon for not telephoning to you first but we have been recommended to you by Miss Charlotte Curtis.’

  The door swung open and the tiny but unbent figure walked off down the hall without waiting to see if they followed her. She turned into a room on the left that was little bigger than the boot room at Asthall Manor and scarcely more furnished. A long wooden table stood in the centre, a pile of materials folded at one end, with various sewing tools beside it. A black and gold Singer machine occupied the head of the table, as solidly as any man of the house. The walls had evidently been papered some years ago, the seams buckling and edged with accumulated London grime. Draped over the backs of chairs, or hanging off randomly banged-in nails in the wall, were a variety of dresses, none of which would have looked out of place in a smart shop in Knightsbridge. The dressmaker herself wore a white apron tied around her frail figure. There were pins stuck in her apron straps and ribbons trailed out of the pocket. When she reached the table, she touched it, as if winning a race, and then walked around to the other side, standing behind it. Louisa had the distinct feeling that she did that to protect herself. Yet, Mrs Brewster gave them a smile and Louisa noticed now that though her skin was lined, it was olive-dark, too, and while her hair was flecked with grey around her templ
es the rest was jet black and pulled into a full bun high on her head. When she spoke, they were surprised – though perhaps they shouldn’t have been – to hear a strong Italian accent.

  ‘Signorina Curtis sent you?’ she enquired, her eyes lively.

  ‘Yes,’ said Pamela. She and Louisa had agreed on this small white lie beforehand. ‘I’d like a new dress, something more fashionable. Well.’ She gestured to her suit, which was dark green and woollen, perfectly serviceable for Sunday church in Asthall but not for an afternoon in town. Louisa had felt a pang when she’d done that, perhaps for the end of Pam’s childhood. The Pamela of even a few months ago couldn’t have cared less what she was wearing, so long as she was outside riding her beloved horse or chatting with Mrs Stobie about the plans for Sunday luncheon.

  ‘I understand perfectly, signorina,’ said Mrs Brewster. She put her hands together and looked around the room, her narrowed eyes alighting on a simply cut but ravishing dress of silvery devoré velvet with a scoop neckline, not too low, and a drop waist. ‘Something like this?’ She walked around the table and held it up against Pamela.

  ‘Yes,’ said Pamela, delight infusing her voice. ‘Just like this!’

  ‘You cannot ’ave this one. This one is meant for Miss Peake but we can do it like this for you, a little bit different, no?’ She went over to her pile of materials and pulled out a long length of velvet the colour of honey, almost a match for Pamela’s hair. ‘This, I think,’ she said, holding it against Pamela’s collarbone. ‘With perhaps this…’ From her pocket she brought out a deep-pink satin ribbon. ‘Something like this for the belt?’