by Mia Dolan
Marcie immediately perceived from that particular observation that Gabriella Camilleri knew a little more about her husband’s business associates than either her husband or Tony Brooks gave her credit for.
On first entering her room, Marcie felt a great sense of having been somewhere similar before. The double sash windows overlooked the trees in the park, just as the attic room at Johnnie’s parents’ house had overlooked trees.
The room was furnished with a single bed, a bedroom suite with a wardrobe far too big for the few clothes she’d brought with her, plus a small writing desk and a chair. Luxury of luxuries, she even had her own little electric kettle, a teapot and crockery. A small coffee jar sat beside a small tea caddy, a cup and saucer. A jug of fresh milk was provided daily. She even had her own biscuit tin.
A green satin counterpane covered the bed; she’d seen similar in Hollywood movies covering the likes of Bette Davis and Audrey Hepburn. The whole ambience of the room was far and above what she’d been used to back at Endeavour Terrace. Even so just thinking of the little room she had shared with her baby had brought tears to her eyes.
‘I will make you tea,’ Gabriella had decided, presuming that Marcie was feeling homesick.
‘No need. Honestly,’ she protested.
‘You must be missing your family, your grandmother in particular?’
Her father hadn’t said a word to the Camilleris about her circumstances. They’d agreed that it was best if they thought Marcie was just a girl looking for a break in the big city. As far as they were concerned her returning home every weekend would be to keep an eye on her elderly grandmother rather than to visit her baby.
At their first meeting, a smiling Victor Camilleri had limped across the palatial living room to shake her hand.
‘Tony’s girl! So sad to hear of your predicament,’ he said in a heavily accented voice. ‘A lovely young girl like you should have had more time with her man, more time to make babies.’
He patted her hand as he said it, his voice oozing sympathy though his smile was slightly odd exposing large, yellowing teeth. Despite the kind words she felt like Red Riding Hood.
‘My husband is not home very much,’ Mrs Camilleri explained. ‘He has many business interests that take him away at all hours.’
I bet, thought Marcie. Her father had always been involved with the seedier side of London life and nightclubs in particular. Tony Brooks had explained that he worked for Victor Camilleri looking after his various properties. She took it as read that one of these was a nightclub.
Marcie learned that there was no swaying Gabriella once she’d decided on what was going to happen. She found that out in the sewing room once she’d seen Marcie in the black and white quartered mini dress originally intended for the Isle of Sheppey’s one and only boutique.
‘Stand up,’ she’d said on sight of Marcie wearing the dress.
Marcie had done as ordered.
‘Is that a Mary Quant?’ Gabriella had asked, her eyes moist with admiration, her breath slightly hushed as though she were in church and afraid that God might hear her.
Beaming with pleasure, Marcie shook her head. ‘No. It’s a Marcie Brooks.’
‘Really?’
Praise coming from someone as elegant and knowing as Gabriella was really welcome. She had such an eye for fashion, such a way with the clothes she wore. Marcie found herself wondering how come she’d ended up marrying a man with one leg shorter than the other. He has money, she countered. You shouldn’t forget that.
It didn’t take long for Gabriella to get her designing and making dresses like the one she was wearing and the others she’d made for Angela Babbington.
The design studio and sewing room were immediately above the boutique on the King’s Road. The boutique was called Daisy Chain. A huge plastic daisy hung over the door.
Marcie loved the place. Being here had lifted her spirits. She could forget the awful things about her home on the Isle of Sheppey, though she would never forget the good things.
Each weekend she went home. As the train or her father’s car neared Sheerness, her hunger to see her daughter increased. Leaving first thing on Monday morning was hard, but once she was nearing London her spirits lifted again. There are things to look forward to, she told herself – things in London and things on Sheppey.
There were some things about living with the Camilleri family that reminded Marcie of home.
Gabriella Camilleri insisted on saying grace before dinner. She also attended mass twice a week.
Her husband, Victor, did not go to mass. He tolerated grace with thin-lipped disdain, his eyes always open, studying the light fitting, the view from the window or the food he was waiting to devour. Sometimes he caught her peeping from beneath fluttering eyelids and grinned.
She couldn’t help but grin back.
Because both her and Mrs Camilleri worked the same hours in the sewing room and the shop, it wasn’t often she was alone in the flat when Mr Camilleri was there. But one day she’d had a headache after days of close work on lace collars that had to be carefully attached to Crimplene dresses.
On hearing the door shut, Mr Camilleri limped out of his study. Marcie knew now that one of his legs was shorter than the other following contracting polio in his childhood. His shoes were specially made, the bottom of his right shoe built up to help compensate his lack of inches in that leg.
Apart from that he was always well dressed in silk handmade suits, the trouser edges razor sharp, the jackets sitting like a second skin on his shoulders.
He had dark eyes that seemed to be continually on the move as though he were gathering information from his surroundings and storing it for future use. His swarthiness betrayed his Sicilian roots.
A younger man came out behind him holding an open file with both hands. He was wearing black-rimmed spectacles. In an instant she was reminded of Clark Kent, Superman’s alter ego. He seemed to stiffen when he saw her and didn’t smile. He stared.
‘Shall we attend to it later, Michael?’ Victor said to him over his shoulder. ‘Carry on where we left off while I take care of this young lady.’
The young man’s stare was broken. He glanced at the older man before disappearing back into Victor’s study.
Victor smiled at her. ‘Marcie. You are home early?’
Most of his statements sounded like questions, deserving of an answer when sometimes there was no answer.
She ran her hand across her forehead.
‘I’ve been doing a lot of close work recently. It’s given me a headache.’
‘Ah,’ he said nodding his overlarge head. ‘Then you should rest, Marcie. Go to your bed right now. I will bring you a glass of water and some aspirin. Yes. Aspirin will take away the pain. A little sleep and I guarantee you will be as right as rain.’
Her head was throbbing so she didn’t argue but went to her room and lay down on her bed.
As promised he came to her with a glass of water and two aspirin.
‘Take these. You will feel better then. Drink.’
He waited and watched as she popped the aspirins into her mouth and swilled it down with water. It wasn’t until they were well on the way to her stomach that she remembered that other time when a man had bid her drink. Was Victor Camilleri using the same trick as Alan Taylor?
She pinched herself. Everything seemed fine – except for her throbbing headache.
Mr Camilleri smiled. ‘There. That is better. Now cover yourself. Sleep.’
He pulled the half of the satin eiderdown she wasn’t lying on over her and patted it flat.
When she closed her eyes she felt the coolness of his palm on her brow.
‘Sleep.’ The way he said it was incredibly hypnotic – and soothing – very soothing.
His fingers stroked her hair back from her face. She felt like a child again. Victor Camilleri was treating her as if she were his own daughter. The Camilleris didn’t have a daughter; they had a son. He had a flat in Primrose Hill. H
e was following in his father’s footsteps, Mrs Camilleri had told her. That was why she hadn’t met him yet. His name was Nicholas.
‘That feel good?’
‘Yes. It does.’
‘Can I make you laugh?’
She couldn’t believe he had any chance of doing that. Her head was aching too badly, but she acquiesced.
‘My family originally intended that I should become a priest.’
Marcie’s eyes snapped open.
Victor was smiling in a Dennis the Menace fashion, cheekily but with wicked intent.
‘So I made love to every girl I came across and waited to see where my seed took root. Gabriella saved my life. We had to get married.’
Despite her headache Marcie laughed. Gabriella Camilleri insisted on saying grace and going to mass and was much more the stuff Catholic priests are made of. Victor was not.
‘I wish you were my daughter,’ he said and seemed to mean it. ‘You must meet my son.’
The way he said it was odd – as though if she couldn’t be his daughter perhaps she could be something else. And he wanted her to meet his son. If what Gabriella had told her was anything to go by, he was the best and handsomest son who’d ever lived. Perhaps it was true.
When Victor went back into his study, Michael was sitting behind his big mahogany desk perusing the file. He looked up when Victor came in and took off his glasses.
‘So that’s the girl.’
‘That’s the girl.’
‘She’s very young.’
‘Good. The younger the better,’ returned Victor lighting up one of his big Havana cigars. ‘A wife should be young so that she looks to her husband for learning about life.’
Michael lowered his eyes. ‘That should please Roberto.’
Roberto was the name by which Nicholas Roberto Camilleri was known. He preferred it that way. Michael was his half-brother, the resultant fruit of one of Victor’s many liaisons. Gabriella turned her eye to his indiscretions – just as Marcie would be expected to do.
Chapter Nineteen
MARCIE WAS EXCITED. Her father was keeping his promise to take her out on the town. It would be her first night out since coming to London.
Excitedly she scoured the shops on the King’s Road for the right shoes and ended up buying a pair of burgundy patent ones with thin ankle straps – similar to the ones she’d seen gracing Angie Babbington’s feet. The dress she bought to go with it was made of fine flecked pink wool, had a Peter Pan collar and buttons down the front. She chose burgundy tights to match.
She showed her purchases to Mrs Camilleri, who silently picked the items over, her eyes scrutinising each little button, her fingers probing into each odd-shaped buttonhole.
‘Don’t you like it?’ Marcie asked, a little disappointed at Gabriella Camilleri’s face.
Mrs Camilleri turned her dark eyes onto Marcie and explained softly, ‘Marcie, I do not think you understand. You are going to hit the bright lights of London. This dress is very nice, but it is more suitable for going to mass or for an interview for an office job. You should have bought something far more glamorous and trendy.’
Marcie sighed as she fingered the soft pink wool from which the dress was made. ‘I didn’t realise that.’ She shrugged. ‘It will have to do.’
‘And before you ask,’ said Mrs Camilleri, ‘the shoes are far too prim and proper for a nightclub.’
A nightclub! She hadn’t even realised that she was going out to a nightclub. Her father had said a night on the town. Back in Sheerness that mean a few pub visits then fish and chips on the way home. Quite frankly the outfit she’d bought would be considered overdressing back there. But here in the King’s Road…?
‘Not even the shoes?’
Mrs Camilleri shook her head. ‘They are nice shoes, but not suitable for a nightclub. Nightclubs are sexy, you know. No matter whether they are dancing on stage or sitting with their spouses, women in nightclubs are on display. We have to look as desirable as the dancers there.’
Feeling disappointed, Marcie shrugged again. ‘It’s all I have that’s suitable.’
Mrs Camilleri eyed her thoughtfully, a merry twinkle in her eyes. ‘Something will come up,’ she said at last.
Earlier when she’d been out shopping, Marcie had ruefully eyed the window displays in Daisy Chain, wishing she had the money to buy the well-made products she saw there. Daisy Chain was one of the most expensive in the whole street, catering for the Chelsea girl who usually had an indulgent father with a large bank account.
It was sheer luck that on the same day she was going out with her father she was asked to help serve in the shop. One of their regular assistants was sick. She felt no apprehension at the prospect, only a bubbling excitement. It was great to design and make clothes, but it was also interesting to meet the people likely to wear them.
It was Friday so the shop was busy though not so busy as it was on a Saturday. She got quickly in the swim of things and found herself gaining more and more confidence as she talked fashion and held her own when the customers asked questions. Time flew to midday when she and the two girls working there arranged the rota for lunch breaks. Carol was a whip of a girl with pert breasts and the longest, loveliest legs Marcie had ever seen. April was fresh faced and pretty, her hair cut short like Julie Driscoll.
The customers were interesting and so were the tales told her by the other two assistants. They could pick out what a girl would buy just by looking at her.
For her part, Marcie envied the sleek blondes with their crisp outfits and voices to match. She found herself wanting to be like them, be able to buy whatever she wanted without a second thought.
Carol and April giggled when she said that, declaring that it wasn’t always fathers fuelling these girls’ bank accounts. Sometimes the boyfriends themselves came in to choose gifts for their girls. They were usually much older so they told her, and she’d have to keep a straight face when they told her they were buying for their nieces.
‘They’ve got it right,’ said Carol, a sly knowing look in her catlike eyes. ‘They’re earning money just for being pretty. Beats working in a shop any day.’
‘Beats working,’ added April.
The two girls laughed. Marcie laughed with them. After all, they were only joking weren’t they?
Carol had gone out to buy something from the chemist. April was incarcerated in the ladies’ cloakroom with a packet of cigarettes and a little pink pill that even an innocent like Marcie knew was not a Smartie.
A man came in. At first she saw feathers – two very long feathers waving from the brim of a black, broad-brimmed hat. His head was bent. When he straightened she could see he was wearing dark glasses. And he was tall. Tall, dramatic and quite, quite mesmerising. She’d never seen a man like him before as he moved like an athlete between the clothes rails.
His appearance close up almost took her breath away. The collar and pocket flaps of his plum-coloured velvet jacket were edged in black braid. The silver and pink cravat at his throat gave contrast to his purple shirt and his hair was dark and shoulder length. His boots had two-inch Cuban heels. A diamond flashed in his earlobe. She’d never seen a man wearing an earring. She couldn’t stop staring at him, taking in other small things that she hadn’t noticed before. He was so wildly different – just as Johnnie had been she reminded herself.
She decided that he had to be a member of a rock group, or failing that a disc jockey from one of the pop radio stations. She’d heard they were wacky. Heard they were wild.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked brightly. He wasn’t anything like the middle-aged men who bought for their girlfriends, but she sensed he was just as wealthy and just as demanding.
He turned at the sound of her voice, looked her up and down then straightened and pronounced what he wanted.
‘I think you could. I think I would like to buy a black dress for a girl I intend taking out on a date.’
The resonance of his voice took her by surprise. I
t wasn’t that it was loud, only commanding; a deep rasp that made her toes curl up.
‘Right,’ she said, determined to make a good impression on this wildly rugged-looking man.
He took off his sunglasses. His eyes were dark brown. ‘These look nice,’ he said turning his attention to a rack of simple but well-cut dresses on the rack closest to him.
‘This one in particular,’ he said holding it aloft.
‘That one’s really lovely. Simple but beautifully cut. Do you know your girlfriend’s size?’
His eyes raked her from top to toe, perhaps a little too intimately but she excused him that.
‘About your size. Can you hold it up against you so I can see how it looks?’
‘Of course.’ She did as he said, holding a plain black dress up against her. The dress was truly lovely, fully lined black linen with a square neckline and a scalloped edging around the hem.
Throwing her hip to one side, she pointed her toe, one foot in front of the other.
‘You see,’ she said, smiling and tilting her head to one side like the models she’d seen in the magazines.
‘I think it looks lovely. Do you think you could try it on – just to make sure?’
It wasn’t usual for the staff to be that obliging, but she couldn’t think of any reason for refusing.
‘OK. Just give me a minute.’
The changing cubicle was empty. It was shielded from the shop by a thick curtain that didn’t always close that well.
Marcie didn’t give it any thought. She slid out of her own clothes and into the dress.
When she emerged he folded his arms across his chest and nodded; the peacock feathers in his hat flashed blue and green beneath the spotlights.
‘I love the dress. Love you in it too, darling. You’ve got a good figure. Nice legs too.’
These comments were not quite what she’d expected. She felt her face warming but focused on the sale.
‘And the dress?’
His hooded eyes strayed momentarily to the dress, though not for long. She felt as though he was not just stripping the dress from her body, but the flesh from her bones. It was as though he wanted to see what she was made of – like licking off the chocolate in order to see whether it was an orange cream or a nougat centre.