A Vision of Loveliness

A Vision of Loveliness - By Louise Levene


Part One

Chapter 1


Wear gloves whenever you can bear to;

go without a handbag as often as possible.



‘Bag bag bag bag bag bag BAG.’

It was the old woman in the greasy tweeds. As she leaned towards Jane with the handbag, the hairy fabric of her skirt gave off an unmistakably nasty, leaky smell.

‘You forgot your bag, duckie.’

It wasn’t Jane’s handbag. She wasn’t even carrying a bloody bag. But she was flustered by the old woman’s unexpectedly posh voice, by her sweaty yellow face as she loomed across the table of empties, holding the handle by one tobacco-stained hook.

‘Your baaag, deah.’

Jane took it, too embarrassed to start explaining. They were about to leave the pub but Tony had gone to the Gents’ and she didn’t want to be stood in the street on her own. Not round here. She glanced down at the bag on her lap. It was an impressive-looking mock-croc affair and it clunked open expensively, releasing a delicious whiff of suede and scent and a glimpse of an Hermes label. Not mock croc at all. Croc croc.

Jane fidgeted the mirror from its special pocket and pretended to be admiring herself while she scanned the inside: handkerchief; comb; compact and a face: a face that gazed gorgeously out at her from a shiny black and white card. Jane’s eyes batted between the mirror and the snapshot: pretty faces, late teens, dark hair, wide eyes; but the girl in the bag peered out with a look of such friendly, flirtatious glamour, such fabulous finish, that Jane wanted to run to the Ladies’ and borrow a lipstick. Just behind the photo was a torn manila envelope. She clicked the bag shut.

There must have been a hundred quid in that envelope. Jane looked about her as if expecting the rightful owner to pounce but there was no one in sight who could possibly lay claim to a beautiful crocodile bag full of fivers. Jane and Tony had got to the pub just after it opened and there had been no one there then either. It must have been sat under the bench since lunchtime – more than likely, given the state of the floor.

The old woman was eyeing her nastily over her pink gin. Tony still wasn’t back. Jane pretended to take an interest in the pub’s characters – that’s what Tony had called them. Loud-mouthed drunks more like.

The pub had filled up with Friday drinkers. By seven o’clock most of the ‘swift halves’ would have dried up, leaving the regulars to it, but for now the small bar was heaving. An optimistic little sales rep in a sheepskin jacket with dandruffed shoulders was telling a home-dyed blonde that he had a friend who took photographs. His showroom was always on the lookout for new models for the new models – if you took his meaning. Jane sized her up with a saleslady’s eye. A large fourteen. She wouldn’t stand a chance modelling anyway: too short; too top-heavy. The blonde, who would put up with a lot for a large gin and orange, stroked absently at her squirrel-fur jacket and patted her coarse platinum flick-ups. She didn’t bother to listen. If she had, she would have heard it before. She was perched on a bar stool and the man patted her knee as he spoke. It wouldn’t cost her a penny. She stared down at his paw resentfully but there was talk of dinner at the Regent Palace (paper napkins, but you couldn’t have everything) and she decided to let the hand slither across the nylon and under the hem of her tight skirt.

A pair of regulars were squirming round her to the bar, smoothly borrowing a ten-bob note from a familiar face in the crowd as they passed.

‘Who are all these people? Your pub’s not your own. Where are they all from, for God’s sake?’ said one of them, a tall, fat man in a big black hat and a poncey pink Indian silk scarf knotted at his neck. And suede shoes. Poof, probably. Only poofs wore suede shoes.

‘Streatham, darling. Streatham Common. I told you we should have gone to the Fitzroy,’ drawled his friend, a rat-faced toff in a covert coat the colour of dishwater and a striped tie so horrible it had to mean something. You got them like that in the shop: debs’ delights with frayed shirtcuffs and stiff collars: pricing cashmere but buying lambswool.

‘Don’t they have any f*cking pubs in f*cking Streatham?’

Aye-aye. Lang-guage. The smoky room was suddenly short of oxygen as drinkers on all sides sniffed disapprovingly. The landlord’s face flickered a warning and the double act closed down, concentrating on their scrounged gins. Too bloody cold to go looking for another pub.

There were actually some very nice pubs in f*cking Streatham. Proper pubs with saloon bars and carpet.

The smelly old woman had started up again.

‘I sa-a-a-aid: You-wouldn’t-like-to-buy-me-a-Drink, would you, duckie?’

Tony had fought his way through the bar and was signalling for Jane to join him at the door. She grabbed her coat from under the bench and slid the handbag down the side of her carrier, taking care not to crush her new outfit. The owner’s name would be inside somewhere. She could sort it out tomorrow lunchtime.

‘A drink, duckie.’

The woman kept her money in an old Oxo tin which she was now banging up and down on the table. The pub had only been open since half five but there were already four sticky dead glasses crowded in front of her next to the half-finished Evening News crossword and the tin ashtray was full. The Edwardian drawl had become loud and shrill, rising above the chinking hum of the bar.

‘Drink. Deah.’

Jane stood up to go, lifting her carrier clear of the glasses as she sidled out from behind the table, her knees hobbled by the heavy little stools and snagging her already laddered stockings. The old woman lurched out of her seat and grabbed Jane by the sleeve of her sweater.

‘The least you can do is buy me a Drink.’

She turned to address the room but the room kept its head down, afraid she might start on them. She rubbed Jane’s sleeve between her twisted yellow fingers.

‘Crocodile and cash-meah but she can’t find the price of a gin. Mean little Bitch.’

Tony had been waiting for Jane by the entrance but the tide of fresh drinkers washing into the bar had forced him outside. His puzzled face appeared round the door.

‘I’m sorry. My friend’s waiting.’

Jane inched towards the exit, carrier bag on one arm, coat on the other. Men made a show of making room – ‘Let the little lady through’, ‘Not going are you, girlie?’ – but actually edged even closer, brushing against her body as she passed. She felt helping hands at her waist, on the small of her back, the inevitable pat on the backside.

‘I’m sorry. I thought you were right behind me. Meet someone you knew?’

‘Some woman wanted me to buy her a drink. Never seen her in my life. She was drunk. Do you often go in there?’

‘It has a lot of Atmosphere,’ said Tony, apologetically, as he helped her on with her coat. ‘Augustus John used to drink in there.’

Did they really. What difference did that make? It was still a horrible pub.

‘You sure you won’t change your mind and have a bite to eat?’

Not on your life. If that was his idea of a nice pub she dreaded to think what the meal would be like. Foreign probably.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t. Aunt Doreen has tea on the table at seven. I’ll be lucky if I make it. It’s nearly half six.’

‘Another night?’

Oh God. How to make him stop? Crew-cut, fifty-shilling suit, nylon shirt, body odour. Did she have to spell it out? She’d only agreed to ‘one quick drink’ as a thank you. Without Tony she wouldn’t have the precious contents of her carrier bag: a Hardy Amies cashmere and wool dogtooth-check costume. Buy the best suit you can afford. Tony worked in the accounts department at the Savile Row boutique and told her that they were selling off that season’s samples and misfits at an invitation-only sale on Friday lunchtime. Jane had got there on the dot with £10 from her post office savings. Hardy Amies suits retailed for nearly thirty guineas – six weeks’ wages – and she wasn’t sure what kind of discount she’d get. In the end the pricing was up to Tony who let her have it for a fiver.

She had spotted her suit straight away: short, exquisitely draped jacket, real horn buttons, pencil-slim skirt with a nice deep wrap at the back. She tried it on in the back room filled with half-naked size-ten salesgirls and under-buyers looking for a bargain. There was a really nice violet dress and coatee as well but she couldn’t afford both and the black and tan dogtooth was more of a classic. The house fitter wouldn’t leave off about Jane’s stock-size figure. Not a single alteration. Jane could hardly wait to get home and try it on again.

‘How about Monday?’

‘Monday’s my day off. Look, I’m sorry but I’ve got to get the bus. Thanks awfully for the drink.’ Awfully. She blushed as she said it. What was all that about?

Tony insisted on walking her through Soho to the bus stop in Regent Street. The butchers, cakeshops and smelly delis were all shut up, blinds pulled down inside the windows. The coffee bars were quieter now that the pubs had opened. The usual warm, fatty whiff of roasting meat was already farting out of the back of the Regent Palace but it was too early for proper restaurants and it was far too early for the tarts – thank God – although Jane did glimpse one old trollop in a dressing gown pinning a card to the side door that led to her room above a chop-suey joint in Wardour Street: ‘busty young model upstairs’, apparently. Flat as a board she was. Imagine paying fifty bob for that. It was supposed to be more if they took their clothes off but it was hard to see why, looking at her.

It was a very cold, very aggravating walk, packed with opportunities for Tony to try and pin Jane down to a definite night. She tried talking about the miserable January weather but he kept a painful grip on the conversation, dragging it back to this date they were supposed to be having. He insisted on waiting in the queue with her, even though he lived in the opposite direction, but after only a minute the golden glow of Jane’s bus swung round the bend and she ran up the stairs to escape the sound of his farewells, to escape the possibility that people might think he was hers.

It was lovely and warm on the top of the bus and she slid thankfully into a seat, enfolded in smoke. A man in an old, smog-stained Burberry sat down next to her although there were several empty seats further along. His thigh was pressed the length of hers and, although it couldn’t really be helped on those skimpy double seats, some spark of unwelcome electricity, some unsmelled smell, told her that he knew what he was doing. Jane pulled her coat huffily round her and inched closer to the window, making herself as small as possible and opening up the tiniest crack of daylight between her thigh and his. He gave a faint grunt and immediately exhaled into the extra space. Jane flashed a cross glance at him: pale, sickly complexion, home-cut hair and an evil smell of Scotch and stale sweat.

The conductress had stomped heavily on to the upper deck, guarding the passengers’ heads from her ticket machine with her fingerless-gloved hands.

‘Any more fares please! You together?’

Cheek. Jane paid her fare and dug her book out of her coat pocket: Lady Be Good. As they reached Lambeth Bridge a huge drop of dark brown water landed splat on the page explaining how to tackle various hors d’oeuvres: Want him to think you mysterious and sophisticated? Don’t, whatever you do, order corn on the cob. She looked up to see the whole tobacco-stained ceiling trembling with tarry, fat droplets of condensation.

The night was colder still by the time they reached Norbury and Jane huddled inside her coat as she tripped along the lightless windows of the shopping parade. Vanda Modes – Vanda, honestly, the woman’s name was Edie. The huge walk-in windows were full of chipped, jazz-age mannequins dressed in snappy outfits, all identified with special labels (mis)printed on Vanda’s little machine as if Vanda were afraid that Norbury wouldn’t know the names for such clothes. Stylish gaberdine two-piece. Sporty ensomble. Casual jacket. Day-to-evening. Young seperates.

Jane had had a Saturday job with ‘Vanda’ as a schoolgirl. The windows might be full of winter fashions but at least a quarter of the turnover was corsets: slim pink boxes full of the things stacked in the light oak glass-fronted fixtures by size and length. White, pink, even black – service with a sneer here: either you were a slag or you didn’t wash your underwear, both, maybe, but never neither. The decent pink and white ones were worn by straight-backed old ladies who had been taught to dress when they came of age and who saw no reason to give up Mr Marcel’s waves, the tailor-mades, the smart little blouses and the figured rayon foundation garments they had worn as girls. The smart little blouses were also Vanda’s bread and butter: lawn; rayon; Viyella. They were lined up in the window on fantastical wickerwork torsos, their rude pointy bosoms tilted up shamelessly at passing eyes.

Aunt Doreen used to buy corsets from Vanda (when she bought them at all, which wasn’t often) but one year she was persuaded to try a new line in roll-on panty girdles instead. The scientific system promised ‘twice the flattening, twice the flattering’ and she couldn’t really sit down in it. It rolled on all right but after a day of toast and biscuits and boiled sweets it was completely impossible to roll off. There had been a knock at Jane’s door after everyone had gone to bed and there was Auntie Doreen in just her dressing gown, a porridge-coloured long-line bra and a gleaming white girdle. All Jane’s fault of course – ‘I only shop in the rotten place because you work there.’ Jane had had to cut her out of it with the nail clippers, each careful snip increasing the V-shaped pillow of flesh until Doreen was finally scissored free. It was one of Jane’s happiest memories. Doreen said she was going to take it back and complain but she didn’t. Of course she didn’t. She sewed it up and made it into a peg bag.

When Jane had started her Saturday job she didn’t know dolman from raglan. She still had nightmares about her very first customer. The corset fitter had been off sick and Vanda and the proper saleslady were both in the fitting room seeing to a large order. ‘Lovely woman. Difficult Figure,’ mouthed Vanda as she dived back behind the curtain, tape measure slung round the neck of her tan jersey two-piece. So far Jane had done nothing but fold and box corsets. She approached the customer with exaggerated meekness. She didn’t exactly curtsey, but her face did.

‘Good morning, madam. Can I help you?’

‘Last year . . .’ No ‘good morning’. Jane did not qualify. ‘Last year I bought a very nice shirtwaister here. Peter Pan collar. Eau de nil self-stripe voile. Do you still stock it? I’d quite fancy another colour. Greige? Ecru? Or taupe?’

It was like Chinese.

‘Sorry?’

No sale that time but Vanda had kindly sent her home when they closed that lunchtime with a carrier bag full of catalogues, a manufacturer’s colour chart, Weldon’s dressmaking encyclopaedia and a few old Vogues and told her to get weaving. The following Saturday a customer (right prat, Dulwich Village probably) demanded a peau de soie peignoir in cantaloupe and Vanda looked on proudly as Jane manfully tried to interest her in a peach rayon dressing gown. Jane revelled in the new vocabulary. Nothing would ever be green again. Emerald. Peppermint. Apple. Bottle. Chartreuse. Jade. Lime. Loden. Viridian. Moss.

Her last year at school, she spent the Easter holidays haunting fabric departments: fingering silks and worsteds, memorising the difference between chiffon and georgette, organza and tulle. Crush a scrap of it hard in your hand. If the creases don’t bounce out at once, keep looking. She’d told her aunt she was just going into Croydon but spent whole afternoons in the West End stores at the daily fashion shows, sitting at the back while the real customers – groomed to death in natty tweed tailor-mades and three-string cultured pearls – killed time and wasted money: ‘Paula is wearing Sherbet Sunrise, a sporty two-piece in lemon shantung with candystripe revers and simple self-covered buttons.’ Paula looked like a right little madam.

Jane used to wander in and out of the arcades round Piccadilly gazing at antique china and twinfold poplin shirtings until one day she saw the little handwritten sign in the window of Drayke’s Cashmere: ‘Junior Saleslady Required’. She had been interviewed by Mr Drayke himself. Where had she worked? Who were her references? Could she speak French? Jane didn’t expect you needed to speak French to fold up sweaters and make tea and take deliveries – which was pretty much all the junior was going to be doing. He was only asking her so that he’d have a reason to turn her down if the reference was no good. When she said she was doing O level French he immediately asked if she spoke Italian. Lot of Italian customers lately. What did she know about purchase tax? Foreign customers could claim back the tax – not something that ever troubled Vanda. But she knew he wanted her really because he gave her a Pringle catalogue to take home. Saddle shoulder. Batwing sleeve. Mock turtle. Geelong lambswool. Single-ply. Two-ply. Intarsia. Argyll. A whole new dialect. He rang at home to say she could start the day after she finished school.

‘Who was that man on the phone? What did he want? Strange men on my phone.’

Auntie Doreen was not happy at the idea of a West End job. Jane fancied herself. Even the promise of forty bob a week for Jane’s keep didn’t really make up for it. Doreen couldn’t remember the last time she went to the West End. What was cashmere anyway? Goats? No thank you.

Vanda was very disappointed. Mona was retiring next year and she had hoped. Particularly after she had taken the trouble to train Jane in the business. But Edie was a sweet woman really. She gave Jane a very nice reference – ‘glowing’, Mr Philip called it – and a blouse to start work in. A rather nice striped lawn to wear with her navy gaberdine. ‘You watch out for that Mr Drayke. They can take advantage.’

The spiteful east wind flounced the length of the shopping parade and ripped easily through Jane’s cheap coat – three-quarter-length flannel grey bouclé, Magyar sleeve, cape collar and showy red buttons the size of liquorice bootlaces. She had bought it – or had been sold it, rather – in the previous January’s sale at Marshall and Snelgrove and regretted it the instant she got it home. It looked awful but it was still the warmest thing she had. The chill rose up from the pavement, freezing her knees, icing the bare tops of her thighs. She could feel her shoulders starting to curl up round her ears, sense her ribcage tightening to avoid breathing in the painfully cold night air. All wrong. Walk like a princess! A girl who walks beautifully is one of life’s thrills. Pretend two cords are tied around your ears, pulling you skyward. Your earlobes should be in a straight line with your shoulder.

She swung her carrier bag lightly – only not so lightly. She remembered the handbag with a sudden twinge of guilt and embarrassment. Why hadn’t she just handed it in at the bar? You’d have had to get to the bar first of course. Never mind. She could take it back to the pub tomorrow and say there had been a mistake.

She had reached the avenue now. The stained-glass front doors glowed faintly all along the street. Occasionally a thin slice of light escaped from between the skimpy cotton curtains of an upstairs window but there were no matching lights in the downstairs front rooms. Everyone was home – it was gone seven – but they were all out the back having their teas. For two or three weeks each winter a Christmas tree (usually an everlasting affair of wire and tinsel) would twinkle tartily in the bay windows of the darkened parlours, unseen by their owners but only visitors or funerals or Christmas Day would ever make it worth opening and heating the front room.

She walked a few yards past the house so that she could perform a nice Paris turn: Right foot forward, toes out slightly. Left foot across and in front with the weight well forward. Use the right foot to pivot you to the right, left leg straight. Pause fleetingly with weight on the left foot before moving off again on the right. Jane had watched the house models doing it at the big-store fashion shows and she had practised with a book that had a pattern of little black and white feet for you to follow. She fell over the first time she tried.

She closed the front gate carefully. Her aunt had a horror of dogs (what dogs?) getting into the ‘front garden’, a crudely concreted patch with a hole left for a dusty hydrangea bush which was now wearing its winter wardrobe of dead brown blooms. It had once had vivid, Capri-blue flowers but Aunt Doreen resented the idea of having to feed it whatever it was that kept it blue and it had sulked back, summer by summer, to a dirty, tooth-powder pink.

The Christmas tree was back in the cupboard under the stairs and the gap in Doreen’s elaborately swagged net curtains left a theatrical little space in the middle of the windowsill for her treasured ‘Royal Doulton’ figurine, a cheesy Victorian miss in a fat pink crinoline. It wasn’t actually Royal Doulton. The real Royal Doulton one (a wedding present) had been smashed by a six-year-old Jane (who had never been allowed to forget it). The replacement had ‘foreign’ stamped accusingly on its bottom and had come from a curio shop on the Streatham High Road.

Jane knocked on the door with the approved amount of force. It wasn’t usually loud enough to penetrate the running argument that took place in Aunt Doreen’s kitchen but if anyone rapped too hard there were more reproaches. Jane didn’t have the key-of-the-door. Aunt Doreen took the words of the song entirely literally and wouldn’t be letting Jane have one until she was twenty-one, two whole years away.

She knocked again, fractionally louder, and instants later a light appeared at the end of the passage and her aunt tore open the door, cheered up by a fresh grievance.

‘Banging and banging like that! Anyone would think it was the bailiffs!’

What bailiffs? Jane doubted very much she’d ever seen a bloody bailiff. No hello. No nice day. No kiss my arse. Nothing.

‘Your tea’s on the table. Don’t blame me if it’s cold.’