A Vision of Loveliness

Part Two





Chapter 18


In surrendering herself outside marriage,

a woman sacrifices inner status.





Madge had pitched up at Carpenter’s just in time for the next round: a bottle of light ale; a brandy and soda; gin and French for Sylvia; gin and tonic for Janey; a double Scotch and water for Reggie (as long as someone else was paying) and three double gins with orange for Madge who’d missed nearly an hour’s drinking time and wanted to catch up. Ted the barman lined them up tidily in front of her then neatly clammed a fresh ashtray over the full one.

Madge had spent the best part of the missing hour fighting for mirror space in the ladies’ powder room of the Café Royal, making good with Pan-stick and eye pencil after a day’s work in a fur showroom off Bond Street somewhere where she was part saleslady, part house model. She was tall and very skinny (thanks to a special diet of Camp coffee, Granny Smiths and gin) and well-groomed enough to show off the skins. Although she hadn’t ever been particularly pretty, she looked so much classier, so much happier once she was safely wrapped up in a full-length ranch mink with dolman sleeve and half belt that she turned out to be surprisingly good for business.

Madge had grown up just outside Aldershot and her first pair of high heels – stolen from her big sister when she was sixteen – had carried her up the hill to her first army dance, her first glass of gin and the first in a long line of stupid, randy men who didn’t care if she lived or died provided she came across. At least Reggie paid the electricity bill for the grotty ‘open plan’ bedsit in Clapham that she shared with her Mario Lanza records and a pair of blue Persian cats (Bezique and Canasta). Reggie even paid the vet’s bill once. Suzy said that Madge ought to come to some sort of arrangement with that vet. Cut out the middle man.

The thick peachy paint on Madge’s cheeks cracked slightly as she smiled her thanks for the drinks. Alpaca Pete gallantly slid off his stool and she hoicked herself up on to it, wincing as the top of her high-waist girdle rolled over and wedged itself into her ribs.

Pete was in the middle of a very rude joke.

‘So. The eager young bridegroom says, “Don’t worry, my angel. Hubby doesn’t mind if you make naughty noises in your knickers.” Well, anyway, next morning after a night of mad, passionate love – close your ears, Janey my darling – his lovely young bride tiptoes across the honeymoon suite to the bathroom and she goes and farts again: “That’s right! Stink the f*cking place out!” ’

Madge, already knocked for six by the three double gins, practically fell off her stool laughing. You should find his funny stories extremely amusing. Only it wasn’t amusing. Jane wasn’t laughing although she would have photographed that way: head thrown back, Suzy-style, to show those lovely white teeth. What was funny about it? Poor cow, stuck for life with a pig like that. Doreen always said a man wouldn’t respect you if you let him take ‘liberties’. All the books said the same. Doreen never went into details about these stolen liberties but the pickled-onion look on her face suggested terrible ordeals from the inside pages of the News of the World: hands over stocking tops; interfered with; consenting party; intent to ravish; intimacy took place; the flogging you so richly deserve.

Jane’s stocking tops had been strictly off limits (for Johnny anyway). Johnny might be a textbook boyfriend but men were men all the world over. Jane had an idea he had a woman in Streatham he went to (which would explain him killing time in the Locarno that night). He knew South London surprisingly well for someone who lived in Gloucester Road. What was the exchange rate south of the river? Fur? And if so, which sort? Squirrel if you were lucky.

Johnny had been taking Jane out two nights a week but his presents were all strictly by the book: a bottle of scent, the odd silk scarf. No big stuff. No payments – there’d been nothing to pay for. Jane had drawn a prim line at doorstep kisses. When Mr Right does make an appearance he won’t be pleased to learn that one slice of the cake has already been enjoyed.

Jane had actually passed the cake plate round quite a few times since she’d left Norbury but only when there was a very good reason – a decent bit of fur or a really well-paid modelling job. People said you could tell ‘that sort of girl’ just by looking at her, but could you really? Jane sipped her gin and straightened her smile in the mirror behind the bar. The same face. The same smile.

Johnny clearly had no idea of her own double life and – after a few false starts – didn’t seem to mind the ice-maiden treatment. That was probably why he was still chasing her three months after that first fantastic date in Lawrence Green’s red-velvet dress, dancing rumbas till two in the morning. He’d bought her sweet champagne and when the diddicoy kid came round with the single red roses he gave a fiver for the whole basket. Waste of money really: they’d only die off. You could have bought the whole three dozen for fifteen bob in Berwick Street. Or two pairs of stockings. Or six lipsticks.



Jane had hated the sex lark at first. She couldn’t say she’d been disappointed exactly because she hadn’t really expected much. Suzy acted as if she quite liked it but then Suzy acted as if she quite liked caviare and Jane knew for a fact she didn’t – she used to throw up in the Ladies’ afterwards. Even if you did turn out to like it, sex was still a men’s thing. A woman’s ability to reach orgasm enables her to share her husband’s pleasure but a sexual climax is no more essential for starting a family than a mink coat or a lipstick.

There was certainly no climax the first time but there was a mink, thanks to some friend of dear old Henry’s – like Ollie only a bigger tipper – who paid for his Norbury virgin with a nice little trip down Bond Street. Mean bastard in other ways, though. Took her to a hotel for the night another time (rotten old Regent Palace, no private bathroom) and then left for a business meeting after breakfast in bed and a bit more how’s-your-father, never thinking how was she supposed to get home in strapless navy taffeta and a mink jacket. She had to get the chambermaid to zip her back into the dress and there wasn’t enough money for a taxi in her beaded evening bag which meant an excruciating ride down Piccadilly on a number 9 bus, her gown and petticoats sticking out under a cheap raincoat borrowed from the same chambermaid, her mink stuffed into a laundry bag. She’d slipped back into the flats through the side entrance rather than let the porter see her in that state. She felt like a tart. She looked like a tart . . .

The sapphire bracelet brought back happier memories: an Italian business associate of Henry’s who took her to the White Elephant club and told her in a sexy Rossano Brazzi sort of voice over a dozen oysters that she had beautiful eyes, a beautiful neck, beautiful ankles, beautiful shoulders. You name it. It was hard to know what to say in reply, really. She decided to play safe and drop lashes, raise lashes, lean forward (giving him an even better view down the front of her frock) and work the old ‘Are you trying to seduce me?’ line. He lapped it up. He wasn’t trying to seduce her, he was going to seduce her. And then he began to whisper a few of his plans for the rest of the evening. She couldn’t understand a word but just the tone of his voice made a peachy blush spread steadily across her chest. He could hardly wait to get cracking.

Jane was exactly his type. Not a virgin (virgins made him feel bad) but Unawakened. He enjoyed himself. She didn’t have a lot of conversation but she was clean, she was the youngest, prettiest, best-dressed woman in any restaurant, she knew which knife and fork to use and she went like a rabbit (after a little instruction). A hundred and fifty pounds (including purchase tax) had seemed cheap at the price.

Apart from doing a stock-check on her charms, he didn’t really say much himself. She tried asking him about business – Many men like to talk about their business affairs and you must be sure to find it all very interesting – but he just smiled and pointed out another place of interest: her hands; her knees; her ears. His English vocabulary was fairly extensive (on parts of the body, anyway). Jane had learned how to stretch a yawn into a smile (she’d watched Suzy doing it). Sergio even taught her a bit of Italian, mostly just things he wanted her to say to him – ‘Piu forte! E cosi grosso! ’ – things like that. He didn’t tell her what any of it meant but she had a bloody good idea. She did manage to get a few useful phrases out of it: colours; fabrics; what is your wife’s size (a large sixteen by the sound of it). Bracelet length was ‘I manici lunghi fino al braccialetto’. She actually got mixed up one night after a long evening of oysters and champagne and began moaning ‘fino al braccialetto’ at the height of passion. She thought he’d never stop laughing. That was how she got the sapphires.

None of Henry’s other friends had Sergio’s technique, but at least Jane knew what was expected of her now and could make all the right noises. Enough to earn a nice little suede jacket, a quadruple string of Japanese cultured pearls, a smart dress watch and her very own Hermes alligator bag (they definitely did take the price ticket out). There hadn’t been any nasty accidents – so far. A doctor friend of Henry’s (Henry had a lot of friends) had a sideline in rubber goods and had been happy to supply ‘Mrs James’ with a disgusting little brown thing that seemed to do the trick. Failing that, there would always be the Evening News.

Poor Lorna was still living on her own in St Anthony’s Chambers. Suzy’s Henry, like Glenda’s spiv, had paid three months’ rent up front so Lorna hadn’t yet bothered finding a flatmate. Jane had bumped into her in Great Portland Street on her way to a modelling job (Finefit slacks). Lorna said she’d strong-armed the landlord into repapering the hall, sitting room and kitchen (by promising not to breathe a word about the two scrubbers in the basement). He’d even offered to do the bedrooms but the only bedroom paper he had gave Lorna a headache just to look at it. She’d borrowed a Hoover from the old poof downstairs who’d said he might be able to dig her out a few odd rolls from the stockroom at work if she didn’t mind slight seconds so all in all things were looking up, she reckoned. She didn’t say anything about the baby but she had a new skirt – natty plaid number with a waspie waist – so presumably all that had sorted itself out. She’d given the professor the scrub and got herself transferred to Books and Manuscripts where one of the librarians had been very understanding. Boring. Balding. But very understanding.

Lorna said that the bloke from the BBC still rang now and then, looking for Suzy or Jane (he didn’t seem to mind which). Lorna had tried telling him to f*ck off – having had such lasting success with the Dreaded Arnold – but Michael Woodrose seemed to quite like being sworn at by women with posh voices (his mother back in Sevenoaks had a lot to answer for). He had been ringing about once a fortnight for a fresh slice of tongue pie.



Suzy had got a new job demonstrating some stupid brooch-clip thingy that let you wear a silk scarf in all sorts of peculiar ways, ringing the bloody changes on a tired old coat and skirt. She had a stand in DH Evans draped with silk squares (only they weren’t silk, obviously) and as soon as anyone came within charming distance she’d begin the spiel. Men bought them for their wives but they bought Suzy presents too. Chocolates mostly.

She hadn’t been working lately, though. There had been another small ad in the Evening News a fortnight ago and Suzy had been resting in bed ever since, kept going by regular deliveries of hot-house grapes from Fortnum’s and cups of Bovril from Annie who had moved into the attics of Massingham House where the maids and valets lived.

‘Them gentlemen’s gentlemen is all gentlemen’s gentlemen, if you know what I mean, dear.’

Annie’s gummy old face folded up with happy disgust. She was quite taken with the maid’s quarters otherwise. There was barely room to get out of the bed divan but it was all centrally heated and she spent most of her time down in the flat anyway, either washing their lovely little bits or polishing the mirrors or playing with the Hoover – ‘it’s got attachments. Does curtains and everything’ – otherwise once her two dolly birds were off out she could just put her feet up in the easy chair in her cosy kitchen, eating handmade chocolates and listening to Mrs Dale’s Diary on the wireless. Mrs Dale wasn’t Annie’s cup of tea at all.

‘Stuck-up bitch. Doctors’ wives are the worst. Like her shit don’t stink. She’s probably having it with that Caradoc bloke. They don’t let you hear what really goes on in them places.’

The only man Annie had ever really had any time for was killed in France somewhere the war before last. Died instantly they said. Never knew what hit him – unless he did know . . .

Henry had been visiting Suzy every day with silk dresses, lizard shoes, straw hats, suede gloves, a gold wristwatch (It wasn’t feminine to know the time – until she had a Rolex) and finally, jammy jammy tart, he’d promised her the deeds to the Nice Little Flat. Henry had never had it so good. He had just persuaded the London County Council to let him pull down what the Germans had left of New Oxford Street and he could afford to say sorry any way he liked.

Suzy had spent most of Thursday at a beauty parlour in Bond Street being massaged with placenta oil (which was a bit peculiar in the circumstances) before taking a cab the three hundred yards up the road to visit Big Terry at the shiny new black and white salon and turn his fully-booked afternoon into a nightmare of be-with-you-in-a-moment-madams. Then she got another taxi over to Carpenter’s and swanned into the bar looking like a million dollars (so Pete always insisted on saying).

‘Mmm. Monopoly money, darling,’ oozed Suzy.

Suzy kissed a few cheeks and popped herself up on a stool, crossing her legs with a soft whizz as nine bob’s worth of five-strand 15-denier s-t-r-e-t-c-h nylon rubbed itself together. Her crocodile bag was tucked over the sleeve of her suit jacket and under her arm was the very latest Vogue.

‘Big Terry let me have his. He’s got a hairdo in it.’ She flicked through the pages quite casually before holding out the open magazine to Alpaca Pete.

‘See anyone you recognise?’

And there they were, Jane and Suzy in a full-colour, half-page ad for Frockways’ Double Dates.

Three months ago Lawrence Green had recommended them to a man called Feldman who ran a huge budget-fashions business in Eastcastle Street. He had a whole new line and the sample run had been such a hit that he’d decided to advertise. There was a big craze for anything reversible and Solly Feldman’s Double Dates were a stroke of genius.

‘What is it?’ Poor Reggie was going cross-eyed looking at the same girl in two frocks.

‘Basically, darling, it’s a frock with great big lacy holes in the skirt, double-sided petticoat underneath. One side matches skirt: invisible. Other side red or gold lamé or sky-blue pink: bingo. Ready to party the instant you clock off work.’

Reggie glanced obligingly at the picture. ‘Cunning. Very cunning.’

Double Dates. The perfect day-to-evening ensemble for the budget-conscious career girl who’s really going places! Just switch the petticoats and reverse the matching coatee and your Frockways Double Date is all ready for a night on the town. Twice the appeal from only £9 15s the set. Extra contrasting petties available from 59s 11d. Coatees from £4 10s. Sizes 8–16.

There was a picture of Jane stuck in the background behind the typewriter looking demure in a navy dress and jacket while Suzy wore the same thing only with the red bits showing and a flower in her hair looking deliriously gay in the arms of some deb’s delight in a dinner jacket. The deb’s delight (who lived with an antique-dealing friend in Lower Sloane Street) got paid half as much again (being a man, of sorts) but no one remembered him. It was the two girls – ‘the virgin and the gypsy’ Pete called them – bastard – that caught the eye. Mr Feldman had already bought some junior page ads in the Daily Sketch but Vogue was much more exciting.

Frockways couldn’t run them up fast enough and Solly Feldman was already looking at swatches so that he could rush out a Summer Secrets range. They were doing the shoot on Monday.

The photographer’s studios were in a dirty back alley off the King’s Road somewhere. The desk and typewriter had been borrowed from the secretarial bureau downstairs and the bare boards of the freezing cold room were covered with coloured paper stapled to the floor by his assistant. For the next shoot Jane was going to be sat at the bloody typewriter again in Capri-blue shantung back to back with Suzy, a vision in blue and white on a garden chair having her glass refilled by the deb’s delight in blazer and yachting cap.

Suzy had got tired of showing off and had begun to tell them her latest funny story.

‘So she says to her fiancé: “Uncouth? Your mother thinks I’m uncouth? Did you tell her about Daddy’s place in Gloucestershire? About the flat in Park Lane? Does she know I went to Roedean?” and the boyfriend nods every time. “So what’s this ‘uncouth’ crap about?” ’

Madge laughed so hard the top button on her skirt flew off.

Jane suddenly felt a hand on her upper arm.

‘It’s Jane, isn’t it? Long time no see.’

She turned to see a tall, quite nice-looking blond bloke. She did the shy, puzzled look she used for bridal wear and played for time while he carried on talking. She watched his eyes flicking over her. Noticing. Noticing the smart make-up, the model-girl hair, the perfect manicure, the flirty eyelids of a pretty girl who knows to the nearest orchid exactly how pretty she is.

‘I hardly recognised you, to be honest, but I remembered the outfit. You look smashing!’

So did Tony. Everything that had made her squirm had gone. It seemed that he’d moved from Hardy Amies to be head of bought ledger or something at Sharp and Butler further up Savile Row. Old Mr Sharp wouldn’t let anyone be seen on the premises in a fifty-shilling suit so for the first twelve months your wages were docked until you’d paid cost price for a bespoke Sharp and Butler single-breasted special. The haircut was thanks to a word from young Mr Butler who had also taken Tony to an unofficial sale at the shirtmakers Sharp and Butler used for the dummy in their window. It only remained for the elderly typist to leave a deodorant on his desk one lunchtime (the accounts department had had an emergency whipround) and the result was a new, improved Tony, fit to be introduced to the gang.

‘This is Tony Cole, an old friend of mine.’ He couldn’t remember that many names at once but immediately offered to buy a round so they liked him anyway.

Jane could see the cash register in Suzy’s eyes clocking up the eleven-ounce made-to-measure blue worsted, the Jermyn Street shirt and tie. Not bad at all. Like Prince Philip without the uniform.

‘Janey and I have been showing off.’ She let him look at the Frockways ad.

‘It doesn’t do either of you justice.’ He smiled at Suzy but it was Jane he really wanted to talk to. He lowered his voice while the others carried on yacking.

‘You disappeared off the face of the earth. None of the girls at Drayke’s knew where you’d gone. Just pulled faces and said you’d had two weeks in lieu and that was that.’

‘Old Drayke never let anyone work notice. Reckoned they just caused trouble and nicked all the stock – or let their friends nick all the stock. I’m only sorry I didn’t get a chance to thank you for the dress and coat. That was so thoughtful of you.’

‘Miss Winter insisted. Like it was made for you, she said. So. You still living in Norbury?’

A spasm crossed her face as if someone had trodden on a corn and he tumbled at once that Norbury was a no-no. She papered smoothly over his mistake.

‘No. Auntie’s still down at the cottage in Norbley,’ she fantasised, suzily. The picture still tickled her. Doreen was on a sunny seat in the orchard this time, shelling peas for lunch. ‘I did want to stay with her but the journey was taking far too long so I’ve moved up to town with Suzy.’

‘Whereabouts?’

Hooray. Hooray. She had been lying in her beautiful blue and gold bath, dreaming about bumping into old friends and boyfriends – she was usually wearing the violet dress and coatee, funnily enough – and telling them where she lived and what she did. But she was beginning to give up hope. When did Norma and that crowd ever come to Piccadilly?

‘Suzy’s got a place in Massingham House – just behind the Dorchester.’

It was his face’s turn to do a little dance this time.

‘Strewth. That must cost a packet.’

She had been going to rattle off the widower-in-Hong Kong story. She’d told it often and she told it well but she didn’t think Tony would believe it somehow. His sharp rag-trade eyes had already totted up Suzy’s Harry Popper suit; the Bond Street coiffure; the shiny black crocodile bag. Clothes no honest woman could afford to buy. Even the top photographic models didn’t earn much more than a tenner a day. His face sort of winced then he turned back to Jane.

‘So. Will you finally let me buy you dinner?’

‘You don’t give up, do you?’ Tilt head three-quarter left profile to three-quarter right profile, lowering and raising lashes. ‘I can’t tonight.’ Never tonight – she’d grown as strict as Suzy about that and besides she had a dinner date and tomorrow was supposed to be a double date: her and Johnny; Suzy and Henry. She didn’t fancy it much. She might let Tony take her out for supper on Sunday. It always seemed a pity to spend so many hours getting sanded down and varnished and then not get any appreciation. Tony was bound to be very appreciative. It all depended where he wanted to go.

‘I might be free on Sunday.’

‘How about the Guinea? Only round the corner from you. They do a pretty good steak.’ Very nice too.

‘That would be lovely. I should be ready by eight.’ He lit her cigarette and she gave him the full works, sucking hungrily on the filter as she looked up into his face with those big, blank brown eyes. It was too easy really.

‘Party time, darling,’ whispered Suzy, who had just checked her smart new wristwatch. She slithered neatly off her stool – Don’t ruin the whole effect by pulling down your girdle – stubbed out her cigarette and kissed Pete’s cheek goodbye. It was a long time since Pete’s hand had strayed above the fifteen denier but Suzy was very good at staying pals. You never knew when you might need that glass of stout.

‘You ladies back here tomorrow lunchtime?’

‘Very possibly, darling, but right now we’ve got to love you and leave you.’

‘Can I give you a lift?’ Tony again. His car, quite a smart-looking Zephyr Consul, was parked on the corner outside. First the suit and now this.

‘Not bloody likely,’ laughed Suzy, who’d been taken to My Fair Lady three times. ‘I’ve got the taxi waiting, darling.’ Darling. He wasn’t her bloody darling.