'You've done well today Annabel. I think you and I are going to get along fine. The last girl I had was useless. You obviously know what you're about. Stick with me, and I'll teach you all you need to know about this crazy business.' He then said to call him Edward, which initially made me feel quite privileged until I learned that everybody called him that behind the scenes. Only in the salon and in the presence of clients we had to be more formal.
At first Edward appeared dreadfully up tight and a tad sharp with everyone whenever his clients were due. Despite this and his rather amusing camp way of talking, I soon warmed to him. I suspected it was just for affect, however, and I was dead right. He was, as I would eventually discover, as heterosexual as the rest of us beneath it all.
Vanessa also turned out to be friendly, if a little bossy at times. Half Greek, and the daughter of a shipping tycoon - Nikolas Karos - she was, as were the other girls, working just for the fun of it. All frightfully upper class debutante types, they talked endlessly about going off for the weekend to Shropshire or Berkshire ... to Hunt Balls, polo matches, coming out parties, and other la-de-da events.
Despite her wealthy background, Vanessa didn't look at all Greek to me, especially being so blonde. But she soon explained that she had inherited her fair hair and complexion from her English mother. She lived in a flat in Eaton Square with a friend, Fiona. Eaton Square was a very expensive place to live, I thought. Clearly these girls were all pretty comfortably off with massive allowances from their wealthy fathers. I therefore, soon began to wonder why Edward had chosen me for this job. I was just a middle-class girl from Ealing. How could I possibly hope to relate to these girls with their silver-spooned, upper-crust backgrounds?
*
It was around this time that I learned that Katherine Marshall’s portrait had become the outright winner of the Montfort Photographic Award. As a result it went on show for two months in the prestigious Montfort Gallery in Bruton Street, Mayfair.
I hadn't seen anything of Katherine since college. It was my old student pal, Tony, who told me about it one evening as I waited for my bus outside Ealing Broadway Station. It was late September and I'd been working at Courtneys for about three weeks.
'Hello Annabel, how're things?'
I barely recognised him; dressed so smartly in a pukka, grey pinstriped suit. We chatted a while and I went on to tell him how difficult I'd found things in the fashion world. 'They just don't want to know you without experience,' I complained. Then I told him how I'd spent all summer hauling my work folder around London, until finally the House of Courtney had taken me on.
He grinned. 'Brilliant! So you're on their design team, are you? You were easily the best designer in your year - you deserve to be doing well.' He was clearly pleased for me.
'No chance, I wish I were.' After explaining my menial job as Edward Hamilton's runabout I asked if he'd been called up for National Service yet.
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I escaped because of slight deafness in one ear; the result of a mastoid infection as a child. So I’m attempting to break into commercial photography. Actually I've been to an interview today with a large advertising agency; hence the suit.'
I smiled approvingly. 'Very smart, I'm sure you'll be lucky.'
I meant it too - and anyway he’d already been so complimentary about my work.
'Hey, talking of luck, did you hear about Katherine er… what’s her name? You know… the girl who modelled for you in the college fashion show?'
'Katherine Marshall. Yes, I heard about the photo winning the award, but what else?'
'She’s only been discovered by the one and only Norman Parker Brown, that's all... as a result of that photograph in the Montfort.'
'Gosh. Really? Lucky devil.’
Norman Parker Brown was a famous society and fashion photographer; the best according to Tony. Royalty patronised him and his fashion work was in all the major glossy magazines, such as Vogue and Harpers.
Tony went on. 'Apparently he saw her portrait in the exhibition and asked to meet her. Since then he's doing the complete Svengali works on her. She's being groomed for a top-modelling career and by all accounts seems to be already heading for success in a huge way. Calls herself Kate now…'
'Well, she did a brilliant job for me, and she is beautiful...'
Just then my bus arrived and we said hurried goodbyes.
Oddly, the news about Katherine had quite miffed me. No denying it, the winning photograph was fantastic and of course she'd easily been the star of the college fashion show. Even so, I couldn't help feeling quite jealous of her current good fortune and over-night success. It's not fair, I groaned inwardly; some people have all the luck.
Then as the bus picked up speed down Ealing Broadway my thoughts turned to consider what a worthwhile contact she could possibly be for me in the fashion business. Particularly with her close involvement with the eminent Parker Brown.
Always on the look out for the main chance, I began to feel quite perky again, and why not? With Katherine heading for a top modelling career and me aiming towards eventual success as a fashion designer, it would surely only be a matter of time before she and I would meet up again? I had this uncanny premonition there and then, that somehow our two lives would be inter-linked.
Suddenly my hopes and aspirations took wing as the bus veered left down the High Street towards my parent’s home overlooking Walpole Park.
*
Later on, with Christmas on the horizon, Vanessa and her flatmate Fiona invited me to a party at their Eaton Square flat. I was overjoyed to be asked but expressed my concern about having no partner for the evening.
'No problem, darling, there'll be several spare men,' said Vanessa, breezily. 'You'll be well taken care of, I promise. Stay the night, if you like?'
'I'd love to! Thanks.'
Sounds promising, I thought, provided there are some decent males amongst them. Up to now I’d always sensed that for some reason men weren’t all that attracted to me? Certainly at college very few boys had seemed interested in me. My one quite intimate relationship in my second year with a boy called Adam hadn't lasted long and apart from another brief crush on a rather good looking male teacher, who turned out to be a homosexual, I'd soon come to the conclusion that men were basically a huge disappointment.
Unlike most of my fellow female students, the opposite sex had never seemed all that essential to my life. Of course that didn't mean it couldn't all change; should the right man turn up. Who knows, perhaps he would at this party?
Vanessa studied me. 'I say, you aren't prudish, are you, darling? Because you simply can't afford to be with Guards Officers.' Vanessa’s eyes flashed. 'They are the absolute worst for telling smutty jokes! Such fun though.'
I shook my head; confident I was no prude. Well, I didn't actually know any dirty jokes myself, but I was more than prepared to adapt to whatever their idea of fun was. Besides, socialising with Vanessa's crowd promised to be an entirely new experience. More importantly, I hoped that mixing with them might improve my social standing a bit.
Determined to fit in from the start, I'd already sort of adopted their rather plummy way of talking. Of course I wasn’t ashamed of my middle-class background or my own classless London accent. I was nonetheless acutely aware that I lacked their silver spooned breeding. Still, I seemed to have been accepted by them now, and the party invitation proved it.
My mother and stepfather Philip now moved in similar circles too. This was because of Philip's highly successful restaurant business, which currently attracted a very wealthy clientele. Many of their friends were pretty ‘well-to-do’, with connections in high places.
Looking back, Mum's only previous contact with such people had been through her earlier dressmaking business when several very upper crust ladies had been regular customers. However, like me, she'd had no trouble either, slotting into a life mixing with them. So now that everyone at work had accepted me I decided there must have been good breeding somewh
ere in our background for us both to have done this.
The truth was that shortly after the war my father did Mum, my older sister Belinda and I, one huge favour by walking out on us. This was, or so we’d been told, after he’d got heavily drunk one night and had viciously struck my mother across the face, giving her a bruised and swollen, black eye. Our neighbours had luckily witnessed it and a real hoo ha had developed, with them defending Mum. As a result he finally packed his bags and left. Apparently it hadn’t been the first time this had happened. Thank God he never returned, and because of this, some years later, she was granted a divorce.
Meanwhile she'd met Philip Jones at a wealthy client’s wedding, and it seemed to me from that day on, our life improved hugely. Philip, who I decided, was probably worth a bob or two, had to wait until Mum was finally free, before marrying her in September 1952 at Ealing registry office; making us all very happy.
I recall it was a thrilling, golden sunny day with Belinda and me as her bridesmaids. Of course she’d made our pretty ankle length, cornflower blue, organza dresses as well as her own dove grey silk gown, chosen from designs in the current Vogue pattern book in Rowse’s departmental store.
Thinking back, I imagine it was probably Mum's influence that instigated my early passion for fashion. When Dior's New Look in 1947 brought a womanly shape back in again, I remember how she was inundated with customers wanting versions of it. A talented dressmaker, she'd later progressed to tailoring as well. I suppose I'd followed in her footsteps instinctively. Nevertheless, my enthusiasm had always been more for the creative, designing side of things.
*
By the time I started at Art College, things had moved on a bit and Mum was more involved with Philip's restaurant business but, of course, her fashion flair and the way she always dressed so stylishly brought her many admiring compliments. Philip adored her and she'd certainly become a huge asset to him.
It seemed I had inherited the artistic talent in our family, whereas my sister Belinda was the brainy academic, the one of whom everyone expected great things, and under whose shadow I'd always stood. Therefore, her sudden death from a brain haemorrhage during her last year studying for a science degree at Cambridge affected us all hugely. I was sixteen at the time, in my first year at Art College, and it truly devastated me.
Mum cracked up completely over it. As a result she miscarried the baby she and Philip had only just discovered they were expecting. Bel's death also left me in a peculiar state of dread because of what I now had to live up to. With no Bel any more to achieve great things, as she undoubtedly would have, the onus suddenly rested on me to succeed in whatever I did.
It was a burden I carried for months after her death, and was not made any easier because I missed Belinda so much. An icy chill still passes through me whenever I recall hearing the shocking news of her death. I felt somehow unable to believe in God any more after that; questioning who or what really ordains our destiny.
I soon became more focused about my own future; determined to reach my goal - no matter what had to be sacrificed or how long it took me, to the exclusion of all else. I'd already discovered from the one brief, distracting relationship with Adam at college, how easily love - or what I thought was love at the time, can affect your judgement and send things a bit off course.
I had thus made the decision to allow only a very special person, should he exist, into my life. And even so, whoever he might be would have to be able to co-exist with my career. Naive thinking perhaps, and possibly a bit selfish, but at the time it was essential for me to concentrate single-mindedly on pursuing my dreams.
How could I possibly have known then the sort of men who would eventually decorate or cloud my future horizons?
CHAPTER 2
'Annabel! Over here!' Vanessa's arm waved to me above the crowd. The air was thick with cigarette smoke as Sinatra's Songs for Swinging Lovers played in the background. Faces turned my way; everything went slightly blurred and my mouth felt dry as, nervously, I headed towards her, standing with a group of friends on the far side of the room. Several people smiled at me as I propelled myself forward. I felt the closeness of a man grinning affably, offering me a fluted glass.
'Champers, Ducky?'
I automatically took it from his hand. 'Thanks.'
People were milling round me, laughing and chattering. Sipping my drink, I began to absorb my surroundings. Vanessa, at my side now, was reeling names off to me.
'Annabel, meet Toby. This is Felicity... she's with Angus tonight. Julia, this is Annabel. Charles... meet Annabel... Annabel, this is Rupert and Amanda ... And so it went on. Gosh, how could I remember them all?
I decided to try a method once explained to me by an American friend of Philip’s, which involved repeating the person's name immediately after being introduced. However, I soon gave up. It was impossible to do this with so many new faces.
Later, I noticed a man bending over the radiogram twiddling the knobs. Something about him drew me over.
‘Hi,’ he said, without looking round.
I studied the back of his head. It was nice head. 'Hello,' I said to it. There was something about the shape of his muscular shoulders outlined in an expensive looking fine cream Italian knit sweater. I liked the look of this man. I liked the cut of his crinkly dark hair. For one thing, he was dressed quite differently from the rest of the men there. He was tanned and looked slightly foreign; Italian or Spanish perhaps?
He glanced round. 'Sorry. I promise I'm not ignoring you…’
His intense, deep brown eyes and staggering good looks instantly registered with me. Definitely foreign, I decided. Suddenly no one else in the room mattered; I was smitten. He turned back again to the radiogram. 'I’m trying to get the tone right. Damn thing's useless!'
He sounded sort of English, apart from a slight mid-Atlantic inflection. But those incredible dark looks certainly weren't. He was the most gorgeous man I'd ever met.
I swallowed hard as nerves took hold. Speak, you idiot, I told myself. 'Er… good album. I love Sinatra.' In truth I only quite liked Frank Sinatra, but it seemed the right thing to say.
'Me too. Saw him in Vegas last year. He was awesome.' He straightened and turned to face me. Still looking quite serious, he half-smiled. 'I'm Alex, by the way, Vanessa’s brother. Did I hear her call you Annabel?' Frowning a little, his beautiful dark eyes gazed into mine, captivating me. My stomach flipped.
'Yes… that's right.' I lowered my eyes; acutely nervous of the way I was feeling. I'd never known anything like it. He was turning me into a quivering jelly!
He turned back to the radiogram. Vanessa was suddenly by my side again; one hand around my waist, the other waving a ciggie. 'Good, so you two have met at last! Of course, Alex had to turn up quite out of the blue... as brothers always do. Which I'm afraid, darlings, means you two are going to have to fight over who has the spare bedroom tonight. Unless you fancy sharing?'
Alex looked at me, then at Vanessa. He grinned, showing beautifully even white teeth.
'Vanessa! Don't embarrass Annabel! We'll do no such thing.' He gazed at me again. 'Actually, she's right, honey. It is my fault, I should have phoned first; but it was chaos at the airport when I landed. Finally I managed to grab a cab and suddenly, I was here.'
When I arrived earlier, I had noticed a smart leather suitcase and some bags in the hallway; so they must belong to him.
'Well, I'll leave you two to get acquainted,' Vanessa said, wandering off again in a cloud of smoke.
Alex's beer rested on the radiogram and, picking it up, he took a large swig. 'It really doesn't matter, honey. You have the spare room. I'll be just fine on the sofa; once this lot have departed.'
He was standing quite near me now, and I could smell the faintly citrus tone of his expensive after-shave. This man not only looked delicious, he smelled delicious too.
'Trouble is...' he whispered, 'from past experience, this lot sometimes hang on a bit. But with any luck they'll decide to go
on to a club later. I’m sure Vanessa will steer them in that direction, anyway' He leaned even closer, treating me once more to a whiff of his sexy aftershave. Again my stomach did a summersault. 'You're not one of Vanessa's usual crowd, are you?'
His soft, mildly American voice was a real turn on. I pulled myself together and shook my head. 'No… no, I only started working with her about two and a half months ago.'
'I didn't think I knew you. Don't get to London too often now, and she and I don't exactly see a great deal of each other anyway.' He wrinkled his perfectly chiselled nose. 'We’re not that close really, and we lead very different lives.'
'I…I'd no idea Vanessa had a brother. You don't look a bit alike.'
He leaned back casually against the radiogram with folded arms. 'Ah well, you see, honey, we only share the same blood father, not the same mother. Mine died when I was a small kid, and I can only just remember her.'
'I see.' By now I was totally mesmerised by him and happy to listen to him forever.
'Unlike Vanessa, I'm one hundred per cent Greek, although I spent most of my earlier years at school here in England, Eton. Papa had a couple of offices here and an apartment, so I usually saw him during school vacations.' He smiled, treating me to his melting gaze once more. 'Then when I was twelve my father married Laura, Vanessa's mother, and from then on I guess it must have been a real drag to have me around.'
I think he must have noticed my brief look of concern there.
'It was okay… I was cared for well enough and actually Laura was pretty kind to me. Even though I am told I was a real handful as a kid. Anyway, other relatives took turns having me during vacations; my grandparents in Greece especially. Then at eighteen, after taking A levels here, I went on to study at Berkeley College in the States.'
I found my voice again; as I’d now felt I wanted to know more about him. 'What about your Greek roots, Alex? Don't you want to retain them? Or have you been totally taken over by more western influences?'
A Face To Die For Page 2