‘Of course I will.’
‘You have got your passport, your ticket, your spare glasses?’
‘I’ve got everything, Marigold.’
Everything except me. He had never, in all the time she’d known him, asked if she fancied coming with him. The fact that she wouldn’t have wanted to go had nothing to do with it. She’d just like to have been asked. Art had been asked. She knew that.
And then it was over. David heaved on his rucksack and kissed her goodbye.
She stood at the window and watched him disappear towards Paddington and the boat train and his new life without her.
Chapter Six
Eugenie didn’t find it as easy as she expected to pick up on her previous men. The one positive aspect was that they all remembered her. No-one said, ‘Eugenie who?’
The most gratifyingly enthusiastic was one called Ray who insisted on meeting her that very evening and could even remember the Italian restaurant which had always been ‘their’ place. They had the same Escalope Milanese, the same carafe of rough red wine (in his youth, Ray had been to Tuscany) and his conversation was the same old merry-go-round as before. Except it wasn’t very mirthful because according to Ray, the country was going to the dogs. London, in particular, was a disgrace.
‘I thought London was supposed to be Swinging,’ Eugenie said.
That was the point. The whole point, Ray ranted. The insane way those kids dressed. Even the blokes had flowers in their hair.
The music they listened to. Well, music! People sounding as if they were in a fight. They didn’t know what proper music was. The other night he’d been to a piano recital at the Wigmore Hall. And know what, there was just a handful of people there. He’d felt embarrassed for the poor pianist, felt like going up afterwards and apologising personally.
‘And’ he gave Eugenie what had at one time been a winning smile, ‘fancy a spot of Bedfordshire?’
Eugenie had not fancied a spot of Bedfordshire. She was dying to tell Babs all about it, but the Charles’s were in the Caribbean until Easter, so the Manzi’s lunch fixture was off until then. When Eugenie had said a polite goodbye to Ray and taken a taxi home, she crossed Ray’s name off of her list of possibles and, the following evening, carried on with her quest.
The married ones were, without exception, cheating on their wives in a very organised fashion, often alleging to dating agencies that they were single. One had contacted the Eros Escort Service which claimed to be Warrant holders to the Corps Diplomatique et Consulaire. NO NEED TO BE ALONE IN LONDON cooed their advert, SELECT A CHARMING PARTNER FROM THE EROS ESCORT SERVICE.
‘Corps Diplomatique?’ spluttered the man. ‘The only French she knew was how to get a French letter on me with her gob. When I said gosh, that’s awfully clever, she told me in detail, and at length, how she’d practised on a banana.’
Some men had moved. Other men’s domestic circumstances had changed, and the phone was answered by a suspicious-sounding female. Others had moved to another country, and the suspicious female was a killer secretary. One had lost his well-paid job and could no longer afford expensive dinners and the London hotel she still insisted on, because now taking a man home was a double NO.
Medway Mansions was no longer just her home. It was hers and David’s. And at weekends, when her new boyfriends disappeared into the bosom of the wife and family she wished they’d stop talking about, then Medway Mansions was just hers.
I am not lonely, she told herself. I am getting on with my novel. Minx. She had turned to a fresh page in her foolscap pad, and headed it up: MINX – USEFUL NOTES.
‘Count A compliments Jeanette on her dress. J says she stopped off at Worth in Paris on the way to Nice. Worth! The top Parisien couturier – though he was born in England. Aunt’s nose seriously out of joint, Count A suspects ‘demure’ J enjoys needling aunt. But why?
‘Tennis party. Count A strolls along to watch and sits, unobserved under some trees. He notices the way J is leading on each boy in turn, playing them off against one another as deftly as she can volley at net.
‘Count A gives her a lift back to the hotel.’ Eugenie Sellotaped to the page a Times advert for a car called an Overlander, which came complete with curtains.
‘Count A chides her for her performance. She laughs and says the boys like her so much, they have invited her to meet their girlfriends. J says she bets she can get the blonde boy off his girlfriend.
‘Count A thinks – she’s practising. The Minx is testing the water for the woman she wants to be.’
Eugenie sat back with a sigh, her mind dwelling on Cardiff, and the smile Dreena had given David. She’d been practising too, rehearsing for her future life. And now Eugenie had passed this on to the Minx.
Did all novelists do this? Experience something, or witness something and transform it into an episode in a book?
Anyway, that was enough for today. She couldn’t do any more. She was just missing David too much to concentrate on anything else.
She remembered the way he used to sharpen her shorthand pencils, telling her a story about Dawson using his pencil case in exams to hide his crib notes.
She missed his thoughtful presents. For Christmas, David had given her a Sony tape-recorder.
The only ones she’d seen previously had been huge reel-to-reel machines that were hefty to lug about and would have alarmed nervous interviewees. But the Sony was nifty, just six inches high. It fitted neatly in her bag and was practically unnoticed when she turned it on at interview.
She missed making sure his bathroom cupboard was stashed with Baby Shampoo that wouldn’t sting his sensitive eyes.
She didn’t like coming home alone to an empty flat, with David not there to listen, and laugh, about her day.
She missed the way, when he was shouting in a bad dream, she’d wake him up and hold him, tight, till he’d calmed down.
She missed him waking her up at four a.m., urgent for sex.
*
Early in February, in time for her twenty-fifth birthday the following Sunday, the concierge brought to her door two letters, both postmarked Cape Town. The concierge made no comment on the fact that one letter was addressed to Mrs Eugenie Plantagenet, and the other to Miss Eugenie Dare.
‘I was wondering if you could spare the stamps, Miss. The wife’s nephew, he collects them. He hasn’t got any South African. These are very nice. Very colourful.’
‘I didn’t know children still did stamp collecting,’ Eugenie said, remembering herself and the future-librarian licking transparent hinges and always on the look-out for the elusive Penny Black stamp. ‘How old is the nephew?’
‘Twenty-eight, Miss.’
Eugenie read David’s letter over her breakfast of coffee, toast and lime marmalade.
‘Darling Marigold,
We stopped off at Las Palmas and sat on camels. Bloody uncomfortable and one of them wouldn’t kneel down so the men had to fetch a ladder for the girl to get off.
Yes, I did see the sun come up over Table Mountain, and yes, this is a very beautiful country. They tell you that at least twenty times a day. But it’s a place of sublime opulence and grinding poverty. South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world. Huge problems with witchcraft murders and child rape. And I can’t, won’t accept all the signs for BLACKS ONLY / WHITES ONLY. I’ve got a temporary job – they call it leave relief – in a bookshop. The whites can come through the front door, but the blacks have to dodge down a side alley and come in through a sort of tunnel. It’s vile.
One of the black guys had a friend with a car, so they took me out to one of the townships. Shacks, filth, heaps of rubbish. The stench was unbelievable. The driver saw the look on my face and said, ‘Remember, what you call hell, they call home.’
I’d better not go on, in case this letter is censored. They do that.
There didn’t seem to be any bed and breakfast places, so I’m staying at an All Whites blokes’ hostel. I’ve learned to be very careful
. On the first night, I woke up to find a bloke had rummaged in my rucksack and was making off with my camera. I chased him down the dorm and clocked him one with a boot. The others seemed very impressed with this, because they describe me as ‘the little guy.’ As you know, I’m six foot but in this country I’m ‘the little guy.’
I don’t think I’ll stick it here more than a couple of months. You can write to me at the bookshop. Missing you like mad, especially in bed. Hope this arrives in time for your birthday.
All love always, David.’
Eugenie saved the other letter until she got home from work and had poured herself a large gin and tonic.
‘Darling! Exciting news. Reginald and I have decided to settle here in Cape Town. We have bought a ranch house with tons of garden and it’s covered in bougainvillia and there’s a banana hedge and a lemon tree and two avocado trees. I have a houseboy who cleans the floor by shuffling along with dusters tied round his ankles, and a cook who I can summon by ringing a little bell when Reginald and I arrive in the dining room. He always wears a white jacket to serve the food. Isn’t that nice? Goes so well against his dark skin.
All the servants adore Reginald, of course and have tons of relatives who come begging for work, so – and this is the really great news, darling – we are going to build a separate guest wing, so you can come for holidays and stay as long as you like. You’d love it here, it really is a beautiful country.
I have told all my new friends at the tennis club about my clever daughter who is a famous journalist in London. I am enclosing a pic of me on my way to the tennis club dance. I thought the fringed dress was just me and the jacket is done with pink sequens. As my trademark evening look here, I always put a flower in my hair.
Any new boyfriends on the horizon, darling? My friends keep asking if you are engaged, or likely to be engaged. Their girls get a European trip when they leave school. At the farewell party, everyone sings, Now is the Hour when we must say goodbye. It’s so moving, I can’t tell you. What’s so sweet is that they don’t come back with snobby London ways, showing off, no it’s as if they’ve never set foot in London or Paris or Venice. They are completely unchanged. I think that’s charming and they tend to get married young, quite often to a teenage sweetheart who looks like a rugby player. The young men here are huge – must be all that vitamin whatever from all the sunshine…’
Eugenie poured herself another drink. She wasn’t too happy about her husband and her mother being in the same town. But her mother had never heard the name Plantagenet, and was unlikely to enter a bookshop. And David, certainly, wouldn’t be going anywhere near the tennis club.
She tore off the stamps on both letters, and sat down to write to David.
For her twenty-fifth birthday, the faithful Glo insisted on taking her out to lunch.
‘Not every day you hit your quarter-century. We’ll go to the Prospect of Whitby. East End, Wapping Wall. Food’s a bit ropey, but Sundays they have a Hawaian band.’
The place was packed, and the Hawaian band wore garlands of flowers.
‘I’ve got a new job,’ Glo told Eugenie as they sipped schooners of sherry. ‘I’m going to be personal assistant to a dress designer. Trouble is, I’m getting paid monthly at the Mushroom Information Bureau, so it means I’ve got to work out a month’s notice.’
‘That was why I always insisted on being paid weekly,’ said Eugenie. ‘Wanted to be poised to stop FIBing.’
‘How’s David?’
‘Says he’s learning a lot. Sleeps with his rucksack as a pillow to make it harder for people to nick things.’
After David had been away eighteen months, Revel said,
‘Hot tip from Tony. Two boys called Lockett. They’ve started their own advertising agency. Mid-twenties. Tony says they’re hot shit. Get on to the Morgue and see if you can dig anything up.’
The Morgue, Eugenie knew, was where the press-cuttings were supposed to be kept. ‘Revel, we haven’t got a Morgue.’
‘No, but the Telegraph have. I’ve got an arrangement with them. Make an appointment to see the Lockett boys, and on the way, nip into the Telegraph.’
Eugenie was reaching for her bag, and tape recorder, when her phone rang.
‘It’s me!’
‘Hi Shelagh. I’m just going–‘
‘I just wanted to thank you for telling Lady Barbara about me. It’s the biggest commission I’ve ever had! Whacking great house in Belgravia.’
‘Are you painting it all grey?’
‘They like colour. I’m doing them a red dining room. And they’ve got such a funny mixture of stuff. There’s Art Deco china, leather sofas and she’s still got a hula hoop and he’s kept all his old copies of The Spectator. I’m just so grateful, Eugenie for the introduction.’
‘That’s okay, Shelagh. Old friends, you know. Must stick together.’
Words that really would come back to haunt her.
The Telegraph Morgue had little to offer on the Lockett brothers, apart from the initial announcement in Advertising Week that Paul and Kipper Lockett were starting their own agency, called Lockett and Lockett. They already had the prestigious Orchid Lingerie account.
Eugenie took the underground to Goodge Street and walked along to the Lockett and Lockett offices in Charlotte Street. The open-plan interior was painted grey. The desks were black. Shelagh had told Eugenie that the thinking behind this kind of decor was that against a monotone background, the people would provide the colour.
Eugenie was greeted by a girl wearing two yellow hats, an electric blue jump-suit and scarlet sandals.
‘Pauly’s all ready for you, Evie. Just pop yourself along to the little glassed-in office at the end.’
The glass door was open. Paul Lockett was waiting, hand outstretched. ‘Hi, Evie! I’m Paul.’
I know, she thought, remembering. You’re Paul the Prawn. At that pretentious ad.agency I used to work for. I used to have to fetch the sandwiches. You always asked for Prawn. It was the most expensive. But you were always ready with the right change and a very nice smile.
And now you’re a big boy running your own agency with your brother Kipper. You could have called the agency Kipper and Prawn.
Paul ushered her to a chair made of glass. ‘Can I offer you a juice?’
‘No thank you.’ Eugenie had learned long ago never to accept liquid on an interview. If she wanted to go to the loo it would mean interrupting the interview, perhaps at a vital point. And if she didn’t know where the loo was, she had to follow what were quite often confusing directions, and then find her way back again. Added to which, she couldn’t help wondering, were the Lockett and Lockett loos open-plan as well?
Paul was circling round her. He was wearing a Liberty print shirt, pressed jeans and a two-inch white leather belt with a polished silver buckle adorned by a leaping jaguar. Behind his desk was a full-length photograph of a gorgeous model wearing what the entire nation would recognise as Orchid Lingerie.
‘You know, Evie, I’m sure we’ve met before.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Eugenie said, glad she’d arranged her hair with the curly top-knot acquired from Jason at Selfridges. She was confident that she looked quite, quite different from the mouse Paul had seen doing the filing in the corner.
He sat down. His chair was black leather. ‘Now, what you want is some hot news, Evie. I’ve certainly got that for you. Won’t be an exclusive, of course, because Ad Week and Campaign will run it, but I can give you some background that I won’t give them.’
‘Sounds like a good deal,’ Eugenie said, switching on her tape recorder. She had checked on the way here that the battery was working.
‘As you know, Evie, we snaffled the Orchid account and on the back of that, set up the agency. But one account doth not an agency make.’
He laughed, and obligingly Eugenie laughed too, but silently. Her laugh sounded too shrill on tape.
He leaned forward. ‘So we got wind there was a new chocolate bar launching.
We pitched for it. Really, really went for it. And we heard – we just heard this morning, Evie – we heard we’ve got it!’
‘Well that’s wonderful. Congratulations.’
Paul was now striding about, in a heat of agitated excitement. Eugenie wondered if she should stride about too, jump up and down, do the Can-can. Just perching on a cushionless glass chair didn’t seem adequate, somehow.
‘It’s called RAVE. Can’t tell you how much midnight oil was burned coming up with that one. Needed to be short, needed to be memorable, needed to appeal to girls. Why girls? Because Market Research tells us girls consume more chocolate than boys.’
‘Do they?’
‘That’s what the Research shows.’
Eugenie considered that the Research was half-baked. Women and men ate chocolate in different ways, that was all. She thought of David. He would never have gone into a shop and bought himself a box of chocolates. But he was rarely without a Kit-Kat. And Revel, of course, practically had to be hand-fed his chokkie bikkies by the patient Mr Herbert.
‘So we came up with a slogan. Lot of blue-sky thinking, I can tell you. But we got there! Listen to this, Evie:
‘RAVE ON GIRLS! THE TREAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO SHARE!’
Eugenie smiled, thinly.
Paul laughed. ‘Didn’t you have a brother, Evie? No? Well let me tell you, all kids hate their mother halving a Mars bar, cutting it into slices and making them share. But RAVE, we’ve made it a bit smaller than a Mars bar and, USP – that means, Unique Selling Point – we’ve added tiny pieces of orange. Now that really is a winner. Because for some reason, ages ago, mothers got it into their heads that you shouldn’t eat chocolate and orange together. Made you sick, they told their kids. Complete nonsense of course.’
‘Perhaps it was a hangover from the war,’ Eugenie said. ‘When oranges were scarce and sweets were on ration.’
‘That’s fantastic! Wow! Wait till I tell Kipper. He’s gonna flip over that!’
Eugenie was glad she didn’t work in advertising. Revel had his quirky ways, but at least he was a grown-up, doing a grown-up job.
In Bed with Mr. Plantagenet Page 11