‘We’re not doing fuck all about fuck all until I’ve had a bloody drink. God. God! What a day! One ugly bitch after another, all wanting miracles.’
He threw his overcoat on the chair and flopped down on the sofa so hard that the leg made of magazines slithered dangerously sideways.
‘Have you got any Scotch?’
Suzy pulled a face.
‘Glenda drank it. Is it cold out?’
‘Of course it’s bloody cold out. It’s bloody cold in here.’
‘Then we’ve got some nice cold champagne. It’s that or instant coffee, darling.’
‘God, girl, you are just so piss-elegant. All right, champagne it is. Now what are you two tarts after? At least it’ll make a change from those trolls.’ He put on a sort of Iris-type drawl: ‘“I need a new image. I was thinking a sort of Julie Andrews.” Julie Andrews! Eamonn Andrews more like.’
Suzy eased the top off the champagne bottle and filled three mismatched pub wine glasses. She opened the tin of cocktail snacks. All of the Twiglets had gone.
‘Bottoms up, dear,’ said Big Terry and he and Jane followed Suzy down the steam-choked passage to her bedroom.
It was more like a dressing room really. The bed, a small single, was pushed into the far corner next to the chest of drawers. The only other furniture was a huge old enamel-topped kitchen table with a big three-part mirror lit by a pair of desk lamps and a long piano stool to sit on. A dirty great chrome dress rail with one wheel missing completely filled with coats and frocks ran the length of the left-hand wall.
‘We found it in the street one evening. Perfect, isn’t it? Now sit down and let Terry look at you.’
She pushed Jane down on to the piano stool in front of the table and tweaked all the pins out of the makeshift chignon so that her hair dropped down below her waist.
‘My God, girl! Are you growing it for a bet?’
Terry was enjoying this more than Jane, who looked glumly at herself in the brightly lit mirrors. The borrowed lipstick had worn off and she looked very plain suddenly. Very Norbury.
‘Cheer up. Soon sort you out. You know what, my love,’ said Terry, fingering the last few feet of her hair, ‘it’s not bad stuff. Not bad at all. And the colour’s strong all the way down. Could have a very nice piece made with it if you like. Then you could pin it in when you wanted a bit of glam.’ He drained his glass and got his scissors out of his back pocket. ‘OK. Let’s get weaving. I haven’t got all fucking night.’ He whipped a pink cotton cape out of his kit bag, brushed her hair hard and began shearing it off, carefully laying the cut pieces side by side on the table.
By the time Suzy came back from her bath, Jane was seeing how it felt to flick her hair from side to side – something she hadn’t done since she was about six. The towel on Suzy’s head said ‘Dorchester’ and the one round her body said ‘His’.
‘That’s better! I’ve left the bathwater. You’ll be finished by the time my hair’s dry.’
Terry was extracting a hand-held hairdryer from his bag. It looked like a huge, ointment-pink revolver. He looked warily at the wonky Bakelite socket in the corner.
‘Now where can I plug this in? I don’t want to fuse all the fucking lights like last time.’
It was a funny sort of bath. Open your eyes and you could be in Doreen’s back kitchen but close them and it was like the time Jane had begged for all the buttonholes at the cousin’s wedding and sat there tickling her nose with asparagus fern and going giddy on the scent of the fat white flowers. She wrapped herself in yet another big white towel and carefully cleaned the bath with Liquid Gumption as the water ran out.
Suzy’s hair was all dry when Jane tiptoed back into the bedroom – Walk about on tiptoe whenever you can. It will lengthen your line, improve your balance and work on ankle puffiness and falling arches. She sat beside Suzy on the piano stool while Terry decided what he was going to do. It was only when she saw the two of them in the mirror without make-up that Jane realised why the old drunk in the pub had given her the crocodile bag. Terry looked interested suddenly. Chances were he really did have a friend who was a photographer.
‘Mmm. Bookends. Very kinky. Are you going to dress the same or do you want to go for a contrast?’
Jane didn’t dare say what she wanted but Suzy seemed to have tossed a coin in her head.
‘I think a twinset would be a giggle, don’t you?’
‘Well don’t blame me if you get asked for a sandwich, that’s all I can say,’ said Terry, bafflingly, as he set to work backcombing and spraying Suzy’s hair into place.
‘You can have Glenda’s room, Janey. It’s a bit of a tip but there should be some clean sheets in the green holdall just inside the door.’
Glenda’s room looked like someone had picked it up, changed their mind and dropped it again. The sheets on the bed were greying and covered with make-up and coffee stains but the clean sheets were very clean indeed. They were still in their cellophane packet: brand-new Egyptian cotton; king size.
‘Are you sure about these sheets?’ she called across the passage. ‘They’re doubles.’
‘Are they? Damn. Oh well, never mind. Just do the best you can.’
‘But you could take them back and change them if you’ve got the receipt.’
Suzy giggled.
‘Mmm. Rather you than me, darling.’
Jane made the bed and neatly paired off the shoes – all three and a halfs – that littered the floor. Glenda’s dresses and coats had all been hung neatly from the picture rails but sweaters and stockings and smalls were thrown around anyhow. Glenda sounded a bit of a slag, what with the spiv and Spain and everything. Jane stuffed all the dirty sheets and clothes into the green holdall, hung the violet dress that Tony had given her on one of the hangers and switched out the light just as Terry – who was a very fast worker – was putting the finishing touch to Suzy’s hairdo: a lick of gold pencil along a single strand of hair running from the parting to the immaculate French pleat. From the back it looked like the chocolate brazil in a box of Black Magic.
Suzy shoved along to the edge of the stool so that he could give Jane the same treatment. While he worked, Suzy drew her face back on, transforming herself from fresh-faced teen to starlet with a few strokes of sponge and pencil and carefully gluing back the fluffy nylon fringes of eyelash to create all those killer glances. Next, she whizzed along the line of frocks behind her, picking out two dark blue dresses with full, ballerina-length skirts, square necks and low, low backs: one in grosgrain, the other in velvet.
‘If you can keep completely still, Janey darling, I can do your face for you in five minutes flat.’
‘Oi,’ said Terry. ‘Fill my glass first. I’m dying of thirst here. God this place is a dump, Suzy. That last place in Onslow Gardens was a dive but this is a fucking slum, girl.’
‘It’s four quid a week between three and it’s only a five-minute walk from the White Tower.’
‘Suzy, babe, a girl of your calibre’ (he pronounced it to rhyme with fibre) ‘doesn’t walk to the fucking White Tower. I shouldn’t think you even know the bloody way from here. Why don’t you get wise and get one of your gentlemen friends to find you something a bit more chi-chi?’
‘We’ll see. I might be moving this week, as a matter of fact.’
Jane saw her own face fall in the mirror even as Suzy was powdering it. She’d been thinking of what she could do with Glenda’s room. Get rid of all her rubbish. Buy a nice big mirror second-hand somewhere. Paint it, even. But she didn’t really fancy staying on in the flat on her own with some strange Lorna living in the box room and doing the washing up.
‘Chin up, Janey. I need to do your lips. Janey might be moving too. I only met Janey today. You remember that lovely crocodile bag I got?’
Terry pulled a funny face. ‘Yes, duckie. One of your more memorable adventures.’
What adventures? But Suzy gave a little frown and shook her head. Subject closed.
‘Anyway. I left
the bloody thing under a chair in that ghastly pub Dickie always goes to and Janey found it and then found me and gave it right back. Two hundred quid in cash, the lot. I’m not joking, Janey darling.’ She looked straight at Jane in the mirror. It was like talking to her reflection on the dressing table after work, paying herself compliments. ‘I’m really not joking. I don’t know a single soul on this earth who wouldn’t have taken the money and kept the bag for themselves. Not a single soul.’
‘Well it’s no bloody wonder with that crowd. God! I had that Madge in the salon this morning. No normal person wants their hair done at half eight.’
‘I wondered where she’d been. Did you dye it that colour just for a lark?’
‘Not likely. You don’t pull strokes like that with Madge, babe. She’d break your fingers. No. She actually bloody chose it. With her figure and that striped number she looked like a fucking Belisha beacon. There.’ He stood back to scowl at his work. ‘That’s the best we can do, I suppose.’
He’d got one French pleat going clockwise, the other anti-clockwise, and there was a long curl escaping down on to the shoulder – opposite shoulders. Jane thought it looked a bit contrived but they seemed pleased enough.
‘Get your drawers on, girls. I haven’t got all night.’
He put away his gear then sat on the stool smoking a smelly French cigarette while they dressed.
Suzy hung her towel over the top of the door and quickly wriggled into stockings and suspender belt. No panty girdle this time. And no panties. Then she stepped into her dress.
‘You are a very, very dirty little girl – you know that?’
‘Just shut up and zip up, Terry Thomson.’
And there they both were. Like bookends.
‘Not bad. Not at all bad. You ought to have another word with that Dickie. You could probably get quite a lot of photographic work with a gimmick like that. Especially bras, with your Advantages.’
‘No thanks. Do lingerie and you never do anything else. Look what happened to Gloria.’
‘Eight guineas a day and a nice little flat in St John’s Wood? You should be so lucky, dear.’ Terry wound the flex round his hairdryer and tied Jane’s spare hair in a knot held in place with a hairclip.
‘Do you still do Gloria? What colour is she these days?’
‘No idea, duckie. She started wanting her bush and her poodle dyed to match and that’s not really my scene. She’s got an arrangement with young Rodney. Remember Flash Rodney? Always did like dogs, Rodney.’
Suzy and Terry were making for the front door but Jane just sat there looking at herself in the mirror. Her make-up was perfect and her hair was all sprayed into a shining brown cone.
She could hear Suzy seeing Terry out: ‘No I insist. There were two of us, for Christ’s sake! And you’ve got Janey’s hairpiece to see to. I’ve got nothing smaller, anyway. No really, darling. Take it while I’ve got it. I’ll probably be asking for credit next week.’
‘Just you try it.’
Noisy, dry kisses on cheeks.
‘Bye, babe. Take care of yourself. Ta-ta, Jenny!’
She shouted goodbye but she couldn’t tear herself away from the mirror. Suzy stepped briskly back into the room.
‘Now then, sweetie. You look the business. Let’s see if Glenda’s got an evening coat you can wear. Glenda used to have a very nice silver Furleen number. Here it is. Super. Now then. They’ll be here in half an hour. You’re not going to show me up, are you? Can you do French?’
Jane looked up suspiciously. She could only think of those dodgy little cards in the window of the post office on the high road: ‘French lessons offered by strict disciplinarian’; ‘Lost: a ring inscribed “I love Dick” ’. What kind of a date was this?
‘I’ve got an O level.’
‘No no, darling, not that plume-de-ma-tante nonsense. Proper French. Restaurant French. Can you order a meal?’
Jane knew the sample menu in Lady Be Good off by heart.
‘I think so.’
Suzy seemed unconvinced.
‘So. What will mademoiselle have to start?’
‘Saumon fumé.’
‘Get you! Very ritzy. OK, salmon’s off.’
‘Er. Pâté maison.’
‘And to follow?’
‘Entrecôte.’
‘How would madam like it cooked?’
‘Er. Grillée?’
‘No, darling. Oh dear. You are funny. You’ve got the outfit, you’ve got the walk but the rest is all theory, isn’t it?’
Jane wanted to cry. Cow. Laughing at her. How was she supposed to know? She wasn’t being wined and dined in the West End every night in her Persian bloody lamb. You try learning about menus when you lived on tinned pie.
‘Oh my God. Don’t start crying whatever you do. I’ll have to start the whole face from scratch. No, honestly, it’s really rather sweet.’
Sweet. Patronising bitch.
‘“How would you like it cooked?” means “How long do you want it cooked for?” Just say “medium”. Oh, and don’t for God’s sake hold your knife like a pen. OK, here’s your bag: lipstick; comb; tissues; rubber Johnnies – only kidding.’
A car hooted in the street but Suzy just pulled a face and carried on getting ready. She put in a pair of pearl earrings and found Jane some clip-ons.
‘Why don’t you get them pierced?’
‘Don’t fancy it.’
Doreen had pierced ears. A cousin had pierced them with a pin and a potato in about 1922. The holes had gone through crooked and Doreen used to make Jane put her studs in. You had to wiggle the flabby white flap of flesh around between finger and thumb to find the hole in the other side. Doreen had taken Jane and June into Croydon to have their ears done hygienically as a treat one Christmas just after the war – ‘Ears pierced while you wait’. June was thrilled but Jane (‘ungrateful cow’) had screamed the place down every time the woman came near her with the hole-making machine.
Uncle George, who never said a word about such things normally, had said, when it was being talked about over tea the night before, that he did rather think that piercing little girls’ ears was just a bit, well, common. All hell broke loose.
‘Common?’ Doreen had screamed. ‘Common! You! Telling me what’s common? Your mother,’ she shrieked, ‘your mother – (Old Flannel Feet) – had four-teen kids. What the bloody hell do you know about common? Common! Fucking cheek!’ (a word Doreen never used – it was common). Her rage carried on bubbling up for weeks afterwards. He’d say something – ‘that’s nice, dear’; ‘good morning’; anything – and she’d look at him, face like a bag of spanners, and start all over again: ‘Common!’
The doorbell rang this time.
‘That’s better,’ said Suzy, tickling a drop more scent behind each ear. ‘OK, darling. Party time.’
Chapter 9
A diner in the smart London eating
places is in the kingdom of snobbery.
Getting down the stairs was a nightmare. Only one of the lightbulbs worked and Jane had to cling to the handrail all the way down to be sure of not turning on her new heels: dyed-to-match satin stilettos borrowed from Glenda’s little shoe department.
A door opened on the first floor and a little old lady in a wraparound paisley overall and a curly yellow wig stuck her head out.
‘That you, Suzy darlin’?’
‘You shouldn’t open your door at this time of night, Annie. There are some very strange men about.’
‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ she cackled. Annie didn’t trust dentists. ‘Need any washing doing?’
‘Ooh, yes please, Annie. I’ll bring it all down tomorrow. This is my friend Janey. She’ll probably have a few bits and pieces as well. Will that be all right? I’ll give you another two bob.’
‘Whatever you like, Suzy-Sue. What Ever You Like. Pleasure to do it, lovey.’ She turned to Jane in the half darkness as if sharing a wonderful secret: ‘Lovely little bits she’s got. I’ll hold the doo
r open till you get all the way down. I got that caretaker geezer to put a new bulb in but those two tarts in the basement nicked it.’
‘Goodnight, Annie darling. See you tomorrow.’
Suzy and Jane carried on down the stairs.
‘Annie’s marvellous. She does all my stockings and smalls for half a crown a week. It beats scrubbing away at the sink – especially our sink. You’d have to do a week’s worth of washing up before you could even get near it.’
The street was almost completely dead. Even the pub on the corner closed at weekends. Suzy’s date was vrooming his engine to show how busy he was but he leaped from the driving seat as soon as he saw Suzy and opened the nearside passenger door. Big man. Cashmere overcoat.
‘Janey James, this is Henry Swan.’
‘How do you do, Miss James? Suzy’s told me a great deal about you’ – no she bloody hadn’t – ‘I’ve brought an old friend of mine along for the evening. I hope you don’t mind. I’ll manage the introductions properly when we get to the restaurant. Mirador all right, darling?’
‘Mmm. Super.’
Mr Swan’s friend stayed put in the front while Henry Swan got Jane into the back of the car before ushering Suzy round to the other side. Nice manners. The car was nice too. There was a nice, pricey, leathery smell, like being inside a great big crocodile bag. An armrest had been folded down between Jane and Suzy like a big fat square of fudge and each seat was as wide and comfy as an armchair – comfier. Comfier than Doreen’s cut moquette anyway.
Henry was speaking. ‘Hard to be sure in this light of course but you are both looking exceptionally pretty. Aren’t they, Ollie?’
‘ ’ceptionally pretty,’ drawled Ollie in a cashmere slipover-y, Tattersall check-y sort of voice.
Ollie was old too. Early forties. Balding slightly. ‘British Warm’ overcoat, brown trilby. He didn’t smile much but there was a funny clicking sound whenever he did. Not a raspberry jam man, Jane suspected.
As the huge car pulled up outside the restaurant Jane could feel her stomach beginning to tighten. Suzy seemed up for a good time but it was just one big obstacle course as far as Jane was concerned from the moment they got inside. Even the blowsy old blonde who looked after the coats seemed to be pricing every armful. The Persian lamb went down all right but there was the trace of a sneer for Jane’s borrowed Furleen which was a bit rich coming from someone who lived on the shillings left in a saucer. God only knows how she’d have reacted to grey bouclé. Spat on it, probably.
A Vision of Loveliness Page 8