A Vision of Loveliness

Chapter 23


A single unguarded moment and all

may be lost. Serve a slovenly lunch-

tray, bolt your food, neglect to use

a napkin and you undermine the

certainty of behaving perfectly when

dining under the scrutiny of others.





The lease on Henry’s flat in Mount Street didn’t start until the first of April so a handsome monogrammed suitcase had arrived with two Savile Row suits, a dozen Jermyn Street shirts and ties, a beautiful Sulka dressing gown and no pyjamas (dirty old bugger). He was in the pink bathroom, shaving. He always shaved (or had himself shaved) twice a day. Either he was very considerate (so Suzy said) or he just liked shaving. Suzy was using the blue bathroom while Jane began to get ready. Jane had dug out the red velvet – he liked it last time – but Suzy advised against.

‘None of my business, obviously darling, but he’ll never propose to you in that.’ (Men might whistle at the girl with the plunging scarlet neckline but it’s the demure little miss in blue that they ask for a date.)

Jane didn’t say a word but she put the dress back on its padded hanger. No sense burning her bridges. There was a blob of icing on the bodice anyway. She’d been having dinner in Sergio’s suite and he wanted to eat petits fours from her cleavage. Fortunately it was bang in the middle so she could put a diamanté brooch over it.

‘Is the navy grosgrain fixed?’

‘Yes. Annie got it back from the cleaner’s yesterday. That stain came out completely. Do you have to wear that one?’

‘Not if you want to wear it.’

‘No but I was thinking of wearing the old blue velvet.’ Suzy had gone very debby and demure since Henry’s proposal – still didn’t wear any drawers, mind you.

‘So? Does it matter?’

‘No. No. That’ll be fine. We haven’t pulled that stunt for ages.’

Suzy secretly quite liked the double-act routine because Henry always used to play spot-the-difference afterwards: how much prettier Suzy was; how much funnier; how much sexier; how much classier. Henry was actually getting a bit fed up with Janey. The girl had absolutely nothing to say for herself. She could talk, he’d heard her do it, with the various men he’d found for her. Pale copies of Suzy’s witty chatter but Henry was already spoken for and so she made no effort at all at normal conversation – as if she’d taken her batteries out to save power. Henry would have called her a tart – only what would that have made him?

Suzy was sat in state in midnight-blue velvet on the sitting-room sofa flicking through a copy of Architectural Review – just as Penelope Swan used to do when she first met Henry. Suzy was obviously in training for the bloody Grand National. You could bet your life she’d have Annie serving tea all week so she could practise being mother.

Suzy slipped her magazine down the back of the sofa before a dinner-jacketed Henry came in brandishing a bottle of Moët and a fistful of champagne glasses.

‘Hello, Janey. How was your aunt? Young Bob get you there all right?’

Very nice manners and all that but he didn’t stop for any answers.

‘Suzy may have told you, Janey, that we’re having a bit of a celebration.’ He thumbed open the bottle, poured them each a glass and then proposed the toast.

‘To Suzy Swan.’

So it was true. But Suzy’s fingers were crossed as she drained her saucer just the same.

Jane had hardly finished her first glass (Suzy had had two in the time) when Johnny arrived. Jane answered the door (Annie was spending the night in the Fitzroy). She closed the door behind him, put her arms around his neck for a long, hot kiss, all the while checking their reflection in the hall mirror. He pulled away to look at her. They were blue but more Lovat than Dior really.

They hadn’t been out together for over a week. He’d rung several times but she’d kept finding excuses.

‘What happened to the Alice-blue gown? And who was the callow youth?’

‘A girl’s got to eat, darling.’

It was the kind of thing Suzy said but it just sounded cheap when Jane said it.

They joined the other two in the sitting room but after a quick hello Henry had gone back into the bedroom to make a phone call. He’d been trying to get hold of Penelope all day and he didn’t like leaving a message. You couldn’t always trust Samantha to pass them on.

Jane sat down next to Suzy, their skirts filling the whole width of the sofa, the blue fabrics glowing in the creamy silk light of the table lamps. Johnny downed another glass of champagne and knelt on the carpet in front of them; his blue eyes looked from one to the other but it was Jane he spoke to.

‘I know I keep asking this, my love, but what are you doing here?’

He held her hand in his but he had suddenly stuck the other hand up Suzy’s velvet skirt without even looking at her. She wriggled a bit and puffed nervously on her cigarette holder but she didn’t push his hand away. Johnny carried right on talking to Jane.

‘When I very first met you, you were a pretty girl of eighteen. Now look at you: nineteen going on thirty-nine.’

Suzy was still squirming and there was a frightened look in her eyes. ‘You could marry me and live happily ever after or you could end up like this lovely little slag with her Mayfair flat and her middle-aged minder.’

The Dior-blue eyes flicked across to Suzy’s panic-stricken face. ‘Or does old Harry turn you on? Who knows? Maybe she actually likes it. Maybe she actually likes fat, droopy old men. Do you, Suzy?’

This was a lot more than two glasses of champagne talking. Johnny had been back to Gloucester Road to dress but he’d obviously been killing time in some Curzon Street drinking club for the last hour.

‘Suzy here’s a beautiful girl, aren’t you, Suzy? Clever, kind, sexy – very sexy – but she’s not really a model, Janey my love. She’s a tart. A Very Smart Tart. She sleeps with old men to have a nice Mayfair roof over her head. You have to get away from all this.’

Jane half expected Suzy to rat on her about Sergio and the Mutation Mink man and the others (Jane would have) but she sat tight saying nothing, wriggling uneasily at the pressure of his fingers. For a moment she looked as if she were going to cry again. Her eyes had been glumly cast down but as the bedroom door clicked shut she flashed Johnny a look. Reproach? Hatred? Desire? A little of each, Jane suspected.

Johnny pulled his arm out from beneath Suzy’s petticoats, carefully wiping his fingers on her stocking as Henry came back in.



As they all somehow crammed into the lift Johnny suggested they go for a spin in the car he’d borrowed. Sports model.

Suzy appeared to have made a complete recovery. ‘Oh you lucky thing! Henry says I can’t have a little runabout until I’ve passed my test but I can’t very well practise in the Bentley, can I? I’ll never get a licence at this rate. What breed is it, darling? Is it small enough for me and Janey to have a go in?’

‘If you don’t mind left-hand drive.’

It was a brand-new red Volvo that belonged to a chap in the overseas department who had gone back to Stockholm for a fortnight’s holiday. The girls managed to bundle into the back but it was a bit on the small side and poor old Henry looked suddenly very big and old and stiff, cooped up in the passenger seat, rather than stretched out at the wheel of his Bentley. He’d got his arm caught in one of the straps at the side of the seat.

‘What’s this supposed to be?’ You could tell he was getting fed up.

‘Safety belts. It’s a new thing. All the new Volvos have got them.’

‘Bloody Swedes. I don’t see why we can’t just take a cab. Or walk. It’s only a few hundred yards, for God’s sake.’

Suzy pulled a face. She hated arriving anywhere on foot. It looked cheap. And Henry was starting to sound like someone’s dad. He’d be talking about petrol coupons next.

The restaurant was crowded with out-of-towners but they were shown to a decent table anyway (waiters clearly had a sixth sense about good tippers). The girls got their usual admiring stares only now there was the odd whisper to go with them – Suzy might be right about Frockways. There was even some poor deluded cow wearing one of the bloody things – even the black with gold lamé wasn’t nearly dressy enough for the Coq d’Or.

They’d all ordered oysters except Johnny but when his soup came he called the waiter over and complained that it was cold.

‘It’s vichyssoise, sir,’ he hissed, happily. He always enjoyed this one.

‘I don’t care what it’s supposed to be. It’s stone cold.’

The waiter stayed dead pan and whisked the soup away, planning the usual kitchen revenge. Henry and Suzy had hardly noticed but Jane felt sick with embarrassment. Johnny’s soup came back hot but he had more sense than to drink it. Instead he began cutting up his bread roll with his butter knife. An old bitch in beige lace at the next table eyed him with utter contempt. Models. What could you expect?

When Johnny’s steak arrived he took a sip of Chablis, tucked his napkin into his collar and began sawing away at it, holding his knife like a pen.

It was more like two tables for two than a foursome. Suzy had angled her body away from Johnny and seemed determined to keep talking – or get Henry talking – anything to keep Johnny quiet. Henry was telling Suzy about a property he’d just acquired in South Kensington somewhere – a friendly little bargain he’d struck with Jane’s Mr Mutation so maybe the girl wasn’t such a bad idea after all. The house was a complete wreck at the moment, all carved up into poky little bedsits, but it would be ideal, apparently. Ideal for what?

‘I wouldn’t care where it was.’ Which was sort of true. Eaton Square would have been fine too.

Johnny had dropped his napkin and was asking the waiter for another serviette.

‘Why are you doing this?’ hissed Jane.

He looked at her hard and drained another glass.

‘Doing what, Janey? What am I doing exactly?’

‘You know perfectly well what you’re doing.’

Oh God. Don’t whatever you do complain. You sound your shrillest and look your worst when you do. She’d better keep that note out of her voice. Only married women could afford to take that tone. ‘You can’t see the look on the waiter’s face.’

‘I don’t want to see the look on the waiter’s bloody face, Janey darling. He could be stood there dolled up like Marlene bloody Dietrich for all I care, Janey darling. He’s there to bring my food. When I want his opinion of my manners, I’ll jolly well ask for it.’

Christ. The beige woman was staring now and the bad language meant that her husband would have to gear himself up to complain. Last thing he wanted. It was their wedding anniversary. Twenty-eight years and she’d still never actually touched it.

Johnny called the waiter over before the man could start.

‘Excuse me, garçon, could you direct me to your smallest room?’

Suzy thought this was very funny but then Suzy had had half a bottle of Moët and three glasses of Chablis. The woman at the next table set her off laughing again. It was an attractive laugh. But loud.

‘Do you know,’ announced Suzy, in what she thought was a whisper, ‘I thought for one terrible moment that that woman was starkers. Her dress is exactly the same colour as her skin. Couldn’t work out why she had ruched tits.’

By the time the baked Alaska arrived, they were all four of them plastered.

The manager (who’d been put in the picture by the head waiter) came over for a quick ooze.

‘Was everything all right this evening, sir?’ Johnny might have made the booking but it was still Henry they spoke to.

Henry, who was busy stroking the hand of the second Mrs Swan-to-be, looked up crossly.

‘What?’

‘Is everything all right, sir?’ He looked pointedly in Johnny’s direction. Johnny was holding his coffee cup in a very poncey way. Suzy went to powder her nose without waiting for Jane like she normally did. She hadn’t said one word to her all evening. Henry got up and headed off in the direction of the Gents’.

‘Why are you doing this?’

He looked sharply at her.

‘You can’t stand it when people break the rules, can you, Jane? But only the little rules. Suzy can sleep with another woman’s husband so long as she doesn’t drink red wine with fish. That’s it, isn’t it?’

Hard to know how to play that one for the best. Nothing fancy. Just a tear or two and a broken whisper.

‘She’s my friend, Johnny.’ Was she?

Piece of cake. He took her hand.

‘I know. I know. I’m sorry. Why won’t you let me take care of you?’

Buildings had caretakers. Men with overalls and buckets keeping everything tidy and disinfected and locked up securely after dark. Why would a girl want taking care of?



Johnny paid the bill while the girls tripped outside and bundled into the back of the borrowed Volvo, their frilly petticoats bunched up around them like a pair of matching dollies packed in tissue paper. Henry, by now in a bad mood, had remembered he ought to phone the wife and tell her he was staying at his club after a late business meeting (she’d get his lawyer’s letter on Monday). He refused to be trussed back into the passenger seat and insisted on walking back to the flat on his own. It took the drunken Johnny so long to figure out the safety strap that Henry had already disappeared upstairs to ring Penelope by the time they eventually pulled into the forecourt.

Penelope was on the phone to her sister in Cirencester. No, she didn’t think there was Another Woman as such, no one serious anyway, but Henry was at that very difficult age. Her sister hooked the phone into her right shoulder and reached for her copy of Vogue. Henry listened to the engaged signal for a few furious seconds then dialled again, pulling the sitting-room curtain back to see what the other three were up to down below.

Suzy was in the mood for a test drive.

‘Johnny, darling.’ Darling. F*cking cheek. ‘You did say Janey and I could have a spot of practice while you still had the car?’

Johnny chucked the keys over his shoulder then staggered out of the driver’s seat, propped himself up against the wall by the entrance and lit one of Henry’s half coronas.

The girls climbed into the front of the car.

‘Once round Berkeley Square and back,’ cried Suzy.

‘Drive carefully!’

‘We will, darling! Very carefully indeed. Safety belts and everything.’

The red car roared back down the forecourt and reversed blindly into the side road and off into Curzon Street. There wasn’t much traffic around (most of Mayfair was in the country for the weekend) and a couple of minutes later the car was zooming back round the flowerbed in front of the main entrance. Henry peered out of the fifth-floor window as the two girls danced round the car, sitting on the bonnet and posing pertly like dolly birds at a motor show. One of them waved up at him – he couldn’t tell which – before they climbed back in on opposite sides and roared off again for another run round the block.

Johnny was starting to nod off against the wall but he was woken by the sound of tyre on tarmac as the speeding car pulled off Curzon Street a second time and back into the home straight. His bleary eyes looked up at the two dark heads above the goofy round headlights, at the gleaming chrome of the radiator, picturing the damage about to be done to the brake linings, waiting for the moment when the engine stalled to a halt once more.

The moment never came. Instead a ton of Swedish engineering carried right on accelerating into the wall where he stood, squashing his lower body like a wasp on a window pane.