Before I Met You

33


1995




CHELSEA EMBANKMENT WAS far more beautiful than its name might have suggested. On one side sat the Thames, fringed with evenly spaced trees and lampposts shaped like dolphins. On the other side the houses ranged from blowsy mansion blocks to narrow town houses, and, as Betty walked westwards along the wide pavement, clutching Arlette’s photograph in her hand, to clusters of pretty stucco cottages. She held the photograph before herself and slotted it into the panorama like a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle. There, she thought, there it was. She found a pelican crossing and headed to the other side of the street. The cottages, which looked grey in the photograph, were actually painted in sugary tones of pink and blue, and the trees that had once been tiny saplings were now full-size chestnuts, but it was, undoubtedly, the same place.

She positioned herself in front of the cottages and realised she was standing in the exact spot that the photographer must have stood in to take the shot. And then she moved forward a few paces and put herself on the precise corner of the precise paving slab that Arlette was standing on looking slightly wistful next to her friends on some unspecified evening back in 1920-something. She felt an energy as she stood there, a jolt of something amazing and strange. Arlette had stood here, she thought to herself, a girl of her own age, alone in London, just like her.

She stared for a moment at the man in the photograph, a happy man with dark, straggly hair and a scruffy overcoat on. But he looked artfully unkempt; his features were refined, his stature proud and tall. Betty wondered if this man might be G. And as she wondered this she turned to appraise the row of pastel-coloured cottages behind her and saw that the smallest of the six, the one closest to the spot where the picture had been taken, had a blue plaque attached to the front wall. She moved closer and read it:


The painter and photographer

Gideon Worsley

lived and worked in this house

1918–1923


Betty blinked and looked from the plaque to the photo and from the photo to the plaque. Gideon. Gideon Worsley. He was G. The scruffy man with the beautiful nose must be G, she thought. He looked like an artist. He had a camera. And he was in a photograph directly outside a house that now bore his name. And if he was G, then Arlette was A, which meant that it must have been Arlette and Gideon who had scratched their initials into the tree at the bottom of the garden in Abingdon Villas, which meant that Arlette must have lived there. But if Gideon Worsley had been Arlette’s lover, then how did he fit into the rest of the story? What did he have to do with Clara Pickle and Soho jazz clubs?

She found a bench and sat down. Then she pulled out the rest of the photographs and flicked through them urgently, looking for any more images of this man, this artist and photographer. But she found none. This was the only picture Arlette appeared to have of him.

She took her disposable camera from her bag and took some photos of her own, of the cottage, of the plaque. And then, pulled along by an overwhelming wave of momentum, she opened the garden gate, walked up the lupin-lined path and knocked on the door of the cottage with the plaque. She knocked once, then again, but nobody came to the door. She looked up at the windows on the second floor but saw no signs of life. She sighed. Her day as a private eye had brought itself to a natural close. And anyway, it was nearly four o’clock; it was time to go to work.


Amy Metz got to her feet and fixed Betty with a terrible shark-like stare.

‘Betty, I presume,’ she said in a mockney/California drawl.

Betty gulped and looked at Dom. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘hello. Er, yes.’

Amy narrowed her eyes and offered Betty a limp-wristed hand to shake.

‘I’m Amy,’ she said, somewhat unnecessarily. She was wearing a short leopard-print tunic with sheer black tights, and her violently red hair was pinned on top of her head with a big diamanté butterfly. On her feet she wore red platform boots and she smelled, overwhelmingly, of Opium. Her pretty face was gaunt and pale, and her thin arms were covered in scratch marks and patches of eczema. She looked, Betty thought, nothing like she did in photos; she had none of the glitter and the mystery.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘first off, I gotta tell you, I am not happy that Dom has been leaving my kids with a fricking stranger. OK? And I’m not saying that is your fault. It is obviously not your fault. OK? But this is not a situation that I am happy about. In the least.’

Betty gulped and let her gaze fall to the floor. Amy Metz was only about five foot tall but had the fearsome aura of a giant.

‘But,’ she said, letting her features soften by an iota, ‘Dom tells me you’re great with the kids and Donny tells me you’re the bee’s fricking knees.’ She smiled sardonically. ‘So listen, Betty,’ she spat out her name as if she doubted its veracity, ‘what we’re gonna do here is make this official, OK? I’ve got some agency girls coming over the next day or two so I’m gonna get you in for an interview. OK? At my house. I want you to bring a CV, some references. OK? We’re gonna do this properly.’ She threw Dom a withering look, then turned back to address Betty. ‘OK?’

‘Er, yes,’ Betty said, adjusting the strap of her shoulder bag, which she had not yet had a chance to put down. ‘When?’

‘Tomorrow, eleven a.m. Dom’ll give you the address. Meantimes, I’m happy for you to sit with the kids tonight. Yeah? I’ve got an idea of you now. Well, half an idea, at least.’ She threw Dom another rancid look. ‘If you need anything tonight,’ she said, ‘anything at all, you call me, OK. Not Dom. Me.’ She passed Betty a small business card and then, after some hurried but intense kisses and cuddles with her three children, she was gone, into a waiting car and towards a gig in Guildford.

The house was silent for a moment after her departure. The three children sat in a row on the sofa looking slightly dazed and Dom sat quietly on the arm of the sofa, chewing the inside of his cheek. After a moment he pulled himself straight, dragged his fingers through his unkempt hair and raised his eyes towards Betty’s.

‘Er, yeah. Sorry about that. I didn’t have a chance to warn you. Donny was full of Betty this, Betty that, all day apparently. Amy asked who Betty was ...’ He shrugged, rubbed his hair again. ‘I suppose I should have known it would happen.’

‘So ...?’ Betty tried to form a question she knew needed asking, but couldn’t quite find the words.

‘I think she’ll give you the job, I really do. I mean, getting the kids to like you is most of the battle, and they already do. And Amy is a big fan of cutting corners financially so if she can get someone without having to pay out an agency whack, she will see that as a huge bonus. And if you get the job then, well, we’re talking big salary. Travel. Some extra benefits. A car ...’

‘A car?’

‘Yeah, our nannies get a car. A little runaround. Paid taxes. Health care.’

Betty sat down heavily on the armchair, her shoulder bag buried in her lap. Her dreams were coming real and the reality was only now hitting her. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘But hard work, yeah?’

He nodded. ‘Really hard work. Long hours. But fun.’ He glanced at Betty and then down at his fingernails. ‘I’d’ve thought. Anyway, even if you don’t get the job, I’ll still need a baby-sitter. I am out, quite a lot.’

‘Yes,’ said Betty, ‘I know.’

He looked up at her and smiled. ‘Do you think I’m a bad father?’ he asked, his eyes cast down towards his feet.

‘What? God, no! Why would I think that?’

‘Well, you know, what Amy just said, leaving my kids with a stranger, going out when I should be hanging out with them, all that, you know ...’

‘It’s your job,’ she said. ‘You’re a pop star.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s part of the job description. And as for leaving your kids with me, well, you and I both know the truth about that. You and I both know that I’m a safe pair of hands.’

He looked up and smiled at her gratefully. ‘I haven’t always been the best judge of character,’ he said, alluding silently but heavily to the mother of his children. ‘But I guess that’s one of those things that you get better at, the older you get. Anyway,’ he pulled himself up straight and moved Acacia from his lap onto the sofa, ‘I need to get ready. And these guys,’ he rubbed Acacia’s curls, ‘need some tea. There’s a Bolognese on the hob.’

‘Yummy. Homemade?’

‘Er, yeah, but not by me, Amy brought it with her.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘See. Bad father.’ He stood up and surveyed his children. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘hands up who’s hungry?’

‘Me!’ shouted Donny, waving both short arms in the air. ‘I’m completely and totally starving.’

‘Come on then,’ said Betty, getting to her feet and offering Donny her hand. ‘Why don’t you come and help me get tea ready?’

‘Can I eat raw spaghetti?’ he asked, hopefully.

‘Do you like raw spaghetti?’

Donny nodded.

‘Well, then, of course you can.’

‘Yes!’ Donny punched the air. ‘Yes!’


After the children were in bed (and this time she managed to settle Astrid on just the third visit to her bedroom), Betty rolled herself a cigarette and took it to the window on the first-floor landing. She felt the same sense of strangeness she’d experienced earlier, standing on the pavement outside Gideon Worsley’s cottage, that sense of echoes and reflections, of being in someone’s shadow. As she pulled open the sash, felt it stick, pushed it again, heard the sound as it reeled itself loose and the window lifted in its frame, she felt like she’d slipped through a mirror to the other side of her life.

She lit the roll-up and perched herself on the ledge, in the same place that she’d first seen Dom, and she looked across the courtyard, through a haze of steam and smoke, to the other side of the mirror, to the fire escape outside her flat. For a moment she saw a ghostly vision of herself: blond and fresh, full of silly dreams. The fresh blond version of herself smiled at her across the courtyard and Betty smiled back. She wasn’t that person any more. She was fatter and darker and older and wiser. It struck her that the changes she could see in herself mirrored the changes she’d seen in Arlette between the photograph outside Gideon Worsley’s cottage and the photograph of her sitting on the floor between the legs of black men. The same face, two completely different women.

And then she thought of this job. A full-time nanny. In Primrose Hill. It would be round the clock, unsociable hours, it would be total responsibility for three small children, it would mean obeying orders and following routines. It would give her absolutely no freedom at all. And after today, after her meeting with Alexandra, her visits to the houses in Holland Park and Chelsea, she knew that what she needed more than anything right now was time.

She lit her roll-up and inhaled, and then she remembered that there was one thing she needed more than time. She needed money.

She sighed.

She would go to the interview. If nothing else it would be fascinating to see inside Amy Metz’s Primrose Hill mansion. But as to what happened after that, if Amy offered her the job, she had absolutely no idea, none whatsoever.





34


1920




ONE MONDAY MORNING in early May, Mrs Stamper invited Arlette into her office behind the curtain at the back of the shop floor. She seemed twitchy and uncomfortable, and had a slightly oily, grey pallor.

‘Miss De La Mare,’ she said, grimacing slightly, ‘please, sit down.’

Arlette smoothed her skirt behind her and sat before Mrs Stamper, rather apprehensively.

‘I have a small announcement to share with you and I would be obliged if you didn’t share this with other members of staff, but I discovered yesterday that I am to be a mother.’

Arlette stared at her in surprise. She had often wondered at Mrs Stamper’s lack of children and had not liked to mention it in case it were to upset her.

‘Yes,’ she said, registering Arlette’s surprise. ‘It was unexpected. After ten years of marriage myself and Mr Stamper had rather thought that it wasn’t to be. But now, well, I am terribly happy to say that it is. I have offered my resignation to the directors and they have accepted, and asked me to work out a four-week notice period.’ She paused and appeared to swallow down a wave of nausea inside a large cotton lawn handkerchief that bore her own initials. ‘They have also asked me to put forward a suitable person to take over my position. And I have put you forward, Miss De La Mare.’

‘Oh,’ said Arlette, her eyes widening.

‘Over these last six months I have found you to be both reliable and sensible. You are also bright and have a way with numbers that most of these other girls,’ she gestured beyond the curtains, ‘do not appear to possess. It is a harder job, slightly longer hours and fewer holidays, but you will be recompensed, I feel, more than satisfactorily. I will leave Mr Jones in the accounts office to tell you exactly what that will be. And, of course, a much increased responsibility. But I know you can take it on board. You are so very mature and have such a lovely way with the clientele. So ...?’ She stopped and looked at Arlette.

Arlette stared at the table top.

‘Would you consider it?’

Arlette looked up at her and beamed, entirely uncontrollably. ‘Oh, yes!’ she said. ‘Yes. I would like that very much. Very much indeed. And congratulations, Mrs Stamper. I’m delighted for you. I really am.’

Mrs Stamper smiled softly at Arlette and said, ‘Thank you so much, Miss De La Mare. And, please, call me Emily ...’


‘Whatever happened to your lovely friend Godfrey?’ asked Minu.

They were lying together on a silk-covered bed in the Mayfair apartment of a man called Badger. Badger was an absurdist who drew cartoons for Punch and wrote a rather strange column in the Illustrated London News about his social life, which had a cult following. Being referred to, however obliquely, in one of his columns was something of a badge of honour and all the socialites would pore over it religiously every Monday morning to see if they had merited a mention. As a result, Badger had become one of the most popular men in town, in spite of being overweight and a rather uncharming drunk, so when he invited everyone back after the Cygnet closed on this Friday night at the tail-end of May, everyone automatically said yes.

‘I believe he is in Manchester,’ Arlette replied, ‘but I can’t be sure.’

She was being disingenuous. She knew exactly where he was, but she did not wish to give the impression that she cared too much either way. Godfrey’s tour of Great Britain had resumed itself shortly after their last sitting at Gideon’s studio and Arlette had not seen him since. He’d taken Arlette’s address and sent postcards every couple of weeks, addressed not to Arlette, but to Arlette and Lilian. The postcards were perfunctory and light-hearted: ‘My dears, I am waving hello to you both from Liverpool. We play here for three more nights and then we take the train to Lancaster. Liverpool is wet and windy and I do not understand a word anyone says to me. I should be in London again in a few weeks. Please pass my regards to Mr Worsley. Your friend, Godfrey Pickle.’

Lilian would shriek with excitement every time one of these cards landed upon the doormat and read it and reread five, six times, as if the more she read it, the more it would reveal.

Arlette did not display her feelings. She would pluck the cards indifferently from Lilian’s fingers and say, ‘Hmm.’ Or, ‘How nice.’ Or, ‘Where on earth is Bradford?’ Then she would pass them back to Lilian, who would store them somewhere, tied with ribbon, as if they were irreplaceable love letters or tear-soaked odes.

In Godfrey’s absence, Gideon and Arlette had become something more than just friends, although it was hard for Arlette to know exactly what it was that they had become. He painted her still, apparently far from being tired of the lines of her face and the angles of her bone structure. And together they visited all the newest and most exciting clubs in London. They danced together at the Cygnet and they laughed together at the Criterion. And without Godfrey Pickle there to swallow up her attentions, Minu McAteer had become a friendlier proposition, drawing them into her own circle of friends: artists, poets, novelists and eccentrics, people with names like Bunny and Boy, people who Arlette liked but did not understand. People like Lilian, who came from backgrounds of wealth and advantage, tennis clubs and boarding schools. They welcomed Arlette into their sanctum, not because she was one of them, but because she was pretty, and because she knew Minu and Gideon; because they assumed that she was one of them.

‘I wonder how it would feel,’ said Minu, looking at Arlette mischievously.

‘How what would feel?’ she replied, half knowing in her heart the path her friend was leading the conversation towards.

‘To be with a man like Godfrey. A coloured man.’

Arlette bristled slightly. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘I mean, to feel a mouth like that against yours,’ she breathed. ‘To touch that hair. I mean ...’ she rolled onto her side and propped her head against her hand, staring into Arlette’s eyes. ‘I think it would be rather dreamy, don’t you?’

‘I can’t say I’ve ever thought about it,’ Arlette replied drily.

‘No,’ sighed Minu, ‘of course you haven’t. You have eyes only for Gideon.’

‘That is not true,’ she huffed.

‘It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Gideon is lovely. And he’s also very eligible. And it is clear that he utterly adores you ...’

‘Oh, nonsense.’

‘Not nonsense. He would marry you tomorrow.’

‘I’ve only known him for six months, barely that.’

‘Yes, but he is twenty-five and I have never known him to be close to a girl before. He needs to marry and it is clear to me that he would like to marry you.’

‘Well, I am only twenty-one and I feel I hardly know him. Marriage is not on my mind.’

‘And that, Miss De La Mare, is exactly what makes you such an attractive proposition. Well, that and your lovely accent and your creamy complexion and your tiny waist and big blue eyes and your little feet that look like they’re shod by fairies in the night ...’

‘Such silliness,’ Arlette tutted playfully, and Minu laughed.

‘You’re the silly one,’ she retaliated, ‘having no idea how lovely you are, sitting around like a maiden aunt when you could be taking London by storm. I mean, Arlette, what do you really think of us all, with our crazy ways? You’re here every night, you join in, but you always seem to be ... I don’t know ... more of a spectator than a participant, like you are studying us, possibly for some sort of anthropological purpose. I mean, do you even like us?’

Arlette laughed. ‘Of course I like you!’

‘But do you ... do you approve of us?’

Arlette paused. She was in a world that she would not have chosen for herself, but did that mean that she did not approve? She nodded and smiled and said, ‘But of course I approve. We are all young, we have all lost people we love. I should be more disapproving of people who locked themselves away from a world of freedom that was so hard won.’

Minu smiled. ‘Such wisdom. And there I was thinking that all I was doing was having lots of silly fun.’ She paused and took a sip from a tumbler of something brown and ice-filled on Badger’s bed-stand. ‘So what do you think will happen to you, Arlette? Will you stay in London? Or will you go back to your little French island and think wistfully of your wild days in London?’

‘I think I shall stay,’ she replied. ‘Unless I am called upon to return. I have a good job and now I have a promotion and pay rise I can afford to rent a room of my own. I have friends and a social life ...’

‘And dear Gideon ...’

‘Yes. I have dear Gideon.’

‘And you have me.’

Minu curled an arm around Arlette’s shoulder and rested her head against the crook of her neck. Arlette smiled. ‘Yes. I have you.’ They lay like that for a moment until the bedroom door opened and two men burst in, both clutching champagne flutes and with their arms around each other’s shoulders. One said, ‘Well, well, well, beautiful Minu and beautiful Arlette, in an embrace ...’

And the other said, ‘Almost Sapphic, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Spellbindingly so,’ replied the first. ‘I don’t suppose, ladies, that there is room on that bed for two more?’

Minu sat up straight and sighed dramatically. ‘Foolish boys,’ she said, ‘Arlette and I clearly have eyes only for each other. Isn’t that so, Arlette?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she rejoined. ‘Absolutely.’

‘Well, then. Perhaps we might just stay and watch?’

‘Strictly no spectators, I’m afraid, boys.’

The men bumbled drunkenly against each other, giggled and then left the room, shouting, ‘Sapphic Sex Show! Sapphic Sex Show!’ in their wake.

‘But listen,’ said Minu, turning to Arlette brightly, as though the preceding episode had not just happened, ‘I just had the most super idea. Why don’t you and I find a room together? Pool our incomes?’

‘Our incomes?’ questioned Arlette, because, as far as she was aware, Minu had been writing a novel for the past eighteen months and had no income.

‘Well, yes, your income to start with, and of course my mother and father will be happy to pay my half. They despair of me ever getting married and leaving home. And of course, once my novel is published ...’

Arlette smiled.

‘Well, what do you think? I can cook, you know. And I’m relatively neat and tidy.’

Arlette doubted very much that Minu was neat and tidy, but she did quite like the idea of a roommate. She’d known Minu for only a few weeks, but apart from Gideon and Lilian, she was the closest friend she had made so far in London.

‘Well, yes,’ she said, ‘that is a very good idea. I should like to share a room with you. Very much.’

Minu clapped her hands together and kissed Arlette on the cheek. ‘Oh, how wonderful!’ she exclaimed. ‘Our own rooms! Can you imagine! They shall be the most popular rooms in town. People will be queuing outside our door to take tea with us! We will have so much fun, Arlette, so much fun!’


‘Arlette! Look! Look!’ Lilian scampered towards her clutching something in her hand.

Another postcard from Godfrey, she wagered. Arlette sighed and put down her knife and fork. It was a fine Saturday morning in June and she was halfway through a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast. The newspaper sat open before her, and Leticia sat at the other end of the table with a cold pack clutched to her temples and her breakfast going cold on the plate in front of her. James, the youngest boy, sat upon the table, cross-legged in his shoes, with the cat on his lap, looking at his mother defiantly every now and then to see if she would admonish him. But she did not, just looked at him sadly and released another sigh.

‘This weather,’ she sighed, ‘it fills my head with pressure until I feel fit to explode.’

‘James!’ said Lilian, the card still held in her outstretched hand, ‘get down off that table immediately!’

‘No,’ said James, ‘I shan’t.’

‘Well, then, I shall burn your insectarium and every last gruesome little creature in it.’

‘No!’ he screamed. ‘Don’t you dare!’

‘Well, then do as you are told, young man, and get down from that table.’

James sighed and folded his arms across himself, his jaw set tight with annoyance. ‘I hate you,’ he said.

‘Good,’ said Lilian. ‘I hate you, too.’

He flounced from the table and the cat escaped from his arms in a flurry of loose fur that fell upon the table top like snow.

Lilian took her seat at the table and looked at her mother. ‘Go to bed,’ she said coldly.

‘Oh, how I wish I could,’ Leticia sighed. ‘But I have too much to do today, far too much to do.’

Lilian raised her eyebrows, turned to Arlette and smiled. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Look what the postman brought.’ She slid the card across the table to Arlette, who read it nonchalantly.


My dear girls, here I am in Wales, which has no whales to speak of, but is a very jolly country none the less. On 5 July the Orchestra commences a ten-week spell at the Kingsway Hall in London, and myself and the Love Brothers will be taking some rooms in a house in south London for the duration. I hope that I will be able to meet up with all once again, and I will of course send you both some tickets once they have been released.

In the meantime, my best wishes to you both.

Your friend,

Godfrey Pickle.


Arlette swallowed some food and read the card again.

A ten-week spell.

Godfrey Pickle would be in London for ten weeks.

And she would have her own room.

She flushed red at her own boldness, as unspoken as it had been.

‘Oh,’ she said, circumspectly, ‘how lovely. I should like very much to see the orchestra playing.’

‘Yes!’ said Lilian. ‘So should I. But also, just to see Godfrey again ...’

‘Who,’ sighed Leticia, ‘is Godfrey?’

‘Oh, Mother,’ tutted Lilian, ‘I told you about Godfrey. He is Arlette’s coloured gentleman friend. The famous musician, from the Caribbean.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Leticia batted away the reply absent-mindedly, ‘yes. I’m sure you did.’

‘He is terribly handsome and very charming.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Leticia dreamily. And then she winced and said, ‘Actually, yes, I think I may go to bed. I really cannot bear this pain in my head for another moment. Will you tell Sally to take James to the park, and ask Susan to bring me some tea to my room? Thank you, darling.’ She kissed the top of Lilian’s head as she passed by and Arlette recoiled slightly at the overpowering aroma of old alcohol she emitted.

Lilian rolled her eyes at Arlette and sighed. ‘Foolish woman,’ she said. ‘No wonder Daddy never wants to come home.’

Arlette said nothing. The unpeeling of the pretty façade that Leticia had presented her with when she first arrived in London nine months ago had been an unedifying process and not one that she felt able to comment upon.

Arlette turned to Lilian and smiled. ‘I have some news,’ she said. She spoke carefully because she was not sure how Lilian would react.

Lilian looked at her curiously.

‘I have found myself some rooms. I will be moving out next month.’ She drew in her breath and held it, waiting for Lilian’s reaction.

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘Yes, they are in Bloomsbury. Two rooms and a bathroom. It is heavenly,’ she smiled.

Lilian’s demeanour brightened. ‘Two rooms?’ she said. ‘Then you might have room for me?’

‘Oh,’ said Arlette, ‘well, no. Minu McAteer is to take the other room.’

Lilian’s face dropped and her eyes filled with tears. ‘I see,’ she said.

‘I have upset you ...’

‘Yes,’ said Lilian, staunchly, ‘you have upset me. If I were to take rooms with someone you would have been the first person I should have asked.’

‘Oh, Lilian. it’s not that simple. You’re only eighteen. Minu is twenty-five. And your mother needs you here.’

Lilian turned her tear-filled eyes onto Arlette and attempted to smile. ‘My bloody mother,’ she whispered. ‘She is making me grow up before I am ready. She is making an old maid of me. I shall never leave home and I shall never be independent. I shall be stuck here with her for ever.’ Her face crumpled then and she began to cry.

Arlette put her arm around her shoulder and said, ‘Oh, Lilian, that is not true. Your brothers will be home from school soon. Then it can be their turn to look after everything.’

Lilian laughed scornfully. ‘No,’ she said, ‘that won’t happen. They will find a way to disappear, to college, to stay with friends. They will not stay here knowing the responsibilities it holds. But please,’ she grasped Arlette’s arm, ‘promise me one thing. Promise me I can come and stay with you and Minu in your lovely rooms, just sometimes?’

‘Of course you can,’ said Arlette. ‘Of course.’

‘I will miss you very much. I was so glad when Mother said that a young girl was coming to stay with us, and at first I thought you seemed a little distant, but having got to know you, well, you are nothing of the sort. You are everything that I should like to be.’

Arlette patted her hand and smiled. ‘You will be much more than I could ever be, Lilian, just you wait and see. Much, much more.’





35


1995




THE FRONT DOOR was painted gleaming ebony and the stucco work was sugar pink. Over the past couple of years, Betty had seen so many photos of this house, of this door, she felt like she must have been here before. She stared into the lens of a security camera and said, ‘My name is Betty. I’m here for an interview with Amy.’

The door buzzed and Betty pushed it open. The hallway was papered with a violently patterned paisley print in lime green and black. A black velvet chaise longue with elaborate gilt decorations stood beneath a silver-plated bust of a lion with bared teeth. The floor was stripped-back floorboards painted pink and the stairs were carpeted jet black. It was like finding oneself embedded inside an oversized Liquorice Allsort. Amy Metz stood before her in towering boots, skin-tight jeans and a black chiffon blouse. Donny appeared behind her and she tutted loudly as he banged up against the backs of her legs. ‘Watch it, honey,’ she said. Donny spotted Betty standing in the doorway and smiled shyly, burying his face in the back of his mother’s legs.

‘Betty,’ said Amy, offering her a hand, ‘come in, come in. We are in total chaos. Total and utter chaos.’ Acacia toddled into the hallway then and banged up against Donny, who banged up against Amy, who turned and lifted her arms in the air and shouted, ‘Jeez, you guys, will you cut it out!’

She took Betty into her office, a room painted black and covered wall to wall in framed black-and-white prints of her and her band live on stage.

‘Right, right, right ...’ She rustled haphazardly through a pile of paper on her desk. ‘OK,’ she turned to face Betty and crossed her pin-thin legs together. ‘So, Betty, tell me a bit about yourself.’ She had a pen in her hand and a pad on her lap and looked strangely like a journalist.

‘Well,’ said Betty, ‘I’m twenty-two. I’m from Guernsey, in the Channel Islands. I studied art at my local college.’

‘Oh!’ said Amy, glancing up at her from her notepad, which Betty noticed she was writing on in shorthand. ‘I studied art, too! Go on ...’

‘Yes, well. I was hoping to study in London but I was living with my grandmother, in her house, and then she got ill and my mum and stepfather couldn’t cope with her – or rather, she couldn’t cope with them – so they moved out and then it was just me and her, and we’d always had this special bond so it seemed only natural that I should take care of her.’

Amy narrowed her eyes at her. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘and by “take care of”, you mean, everything.’

‘Yes,’ said Betty. ‘Apart from her medical care – she had a nurse for that. But yes, I did everything. For three years.’

‘And then she died?’

‘Yes, she died. In April. And she left me a small amount of money so I came to London. To find my fortune. And instead I ended up working in Wendy’s.’

‘Oh Jesus. What a story!’ Amy cried, looking at Betty with concern. ‘Wendy’s! You know, where I come from that is the bottom of the barrel. And from the bottom of the barrel, the only way is up and outta there. So well done to you.’ She looked at Betty fondly for a moment, an unexpected change in demeanour, which Betty found rather unsettling. ‘Anyway,’ she pulled her face back to business and examined Betty’s CV, ‘so, no actual childcare to speak of?’

‘No,’ said Betty, realising that they had reached the sticking point and that if she wanted to move past it she would have to deploy the only fact that worked in her favour. ‘The only children I’ve ever looked after are yours.’

Amy glanced up at her again and Betty saw something pass through her eyes, something sad and guilty.

‘Yes,’ she said busily, ‘right. That is true. Dom tells me you took them all out. To the park. How did you find that?’

Betty shrugged. ‘Once I’d worked out how to put the double buggy together, it was fine.’

‘And tell me about your other skills. I mean, cooking, for example. As you probably know, Dom and I like our kids to eat super-healthy. What can you say about your abilities in that area?’

‘Well, you know, if there’s healthy stuff in your fridge, I’ll give them healthy things to eat. I won’t be sneaking them out to McDonald’s behind your back. You tell me what to give them and I’ll give it to them.’

‘But can you cook?’

Betty nodded. ‘I cooked for myself and my grandmother. Never poisoned either of us.’

‘Right ...’ Amy trained her gaze back onto Betty’s CV, as if looking for something to trip her up with. ‘And what kind of activities would you do with the children? Sometimes I’m out from early a.m. until last thing; that’s a lot of hours to fill.’

‘Well, I don’t really know. I mean, drawing, obviously – we could do art things – there’s the park over the road, playgroups, walks.’

‘Hmm.’ Amy looked unconvinced.

‘What do you do with them?’ Betty asked.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘When you’re at home, during the day. What kind of things do you do?’

Amy looked trapped suddenly, and uncomfortable. She wriggled in her seat and said, ‘Well, yeah, like you say, art, crafts, walks. I meet up with other moms for coffee, the kids hang out together. Just, you know, simple stuff.’

‘Great,’ said Betty, ‘then I’ll just do what you do. Apart from hang out with your friends, of course.’

‘Well, yeah, but you can hang out with my friend’s nannies. That’s what the other girls have tended to do.’

‘Great!’ said Betty. ‘Sounds like fun.’

‘Yeah, it is.’ Amy looked puzzled for a moment, before turning back to the CV. ‘So, another important thing: discipline. Where do you stand on discipline.’

‘Riding crop always does it. Ruler across knuckles. A wooden spoon ...’ She mimed whacking herself on the bum with a spoon and laughed.

Amy blinked at her and Betty smiled. She’d walked into this house feeling utterly terrified, but within two minutes of her encounter with Amy she had seen straight through her to a small-town girl with big ideas, just like herself.

‘Right, I see, you’re joking ...’

‘Yes, sorry. No, obviously I have no training in this area, but my mother brought me up as a single parent until the age of ten and I feel she had a lot to teach me about child-rearing. She gave me lots of positive attention. She gave me firm boundaries, there were lots of rules in my house and I knew never to breach them. Lots of cuddles and kisses. It’s not rocket science.’

Amy narrowed her eyes at her. ‘Only a person who has not had children would be able to say that. Right, moving on. Hours ...’

Betty inhaled. This was the bit she was most concerned about.

‘Flexibility is key. Every day is different. Ideally I should have a live-in nanny, but I’ve never been good sharing my house. So, it would work a little like this: probably two sleepovers a week, an eight a.m. start would be regular, but sometimes earlier if I’m catching a flight. If I’m away for more than one night, the kids go to Dom, and so do you. Regular finish time would be six o’clock. I like to be home for bedtime and baths, so I’m rarely later than that. I am super-organised and I will give you lots of notice about everything. I appreciate you have a life to live and it’s not fair to keep you hanging around or have you cancelling your own plans, so we’ll work out the schedule week by week. There shouldn’t be any surprises. But, if there are surprises, I need to be able to rely on you. Sometimes you might have to cancel a plan, OK?’

Betty gulped and nodded.

‘Conversely,’ Amy continued, ‘there may be days when I don’t need you at all, like if I have family coming to stay, or if I take the kids away. I am not one of those moms who need help around the clock. I do actually like looking after my own kids. I do actually like just hanging out with them on my own.’ She smiled at Betty defensively, as though Betty might not believe her. But actually, Betty did believe her. She was just a woman, after all, not, as it had appeared at first sight, an android.

‘So, of course, the last thing we need to discuss – apart from money, which we can talk about later if I get you back for a second interview – is privacy. More than anything I need to be able to trust you, like, one million per cent. There are people out there who would pay you life-changing amounts of money to find out what happens in my house. As much as I would love for you to receive a life-changing amount of money, that is not going to happen at my and my children’s expense. So you would have to sign a lot of stuff. OK?’

Betty shrugged. She was not sure she wanted this job. She was not sure she wanted to work for Amy Metz. She felt she had nothing to lose. ‘Fine with me,’ she said.

Amy paused then, and inhaled audibly. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘there is one more thing. Dom.’

‘Dom?’

‘Yeah. Don’t go there. OK?’

Betty gazed at her blankly. ‘I don’t ...?’

Amy raised her eyebrows impatiently. ‘I mean, Dom would f*ck a pig if it happened to be sitting in his house after a night out drinking. And you are far from a pig.’

‘Oh!’ said Betty, her own eyebrows shooting towards her hairline. ‘Oh. No. I mean ... no. Of course not.’ She cast her gaze downwards, not wanting Amy to read her expression, which, she felt, might have given away some of the more carnal thoughts she had had about Dom in the past couple of weeks.

Amy smiled, clearly satisfied with her reaction. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Well, I think that’s about as far as we can go now. I’m seeing two more girls today. If I want to see you again I’ll let you know this time tomorrow. OK?’

‘OK. And would you mind letting me know if you don’t? Just so I can get on with finding something else.’

‘Sure. Yeah. No problem. I’ll give you a call either way.’

‘When?’

Amy grimaced at her. ‘Shit, I dunno, tomorrow. Some time.’

‘Yeah, right, except I don’t have a phone. Just a payphone. A communal one. I’d need to know you were calling to make sure I was –’

Amy stopped her and smiled. ‘Yeah. Of course. I get it. I remember those days,’ she laughed wryly. ‘I will call you ...’ she looked at her wristwatch, ‘... at two p.m. How’s that?’

‘That’s great. Really great.’

‘And yeah, if you do come and work for me, first thing we’ll have to do, sort you out with a cellphone.’

Betty smiled. A cellphone. She could not imagine herself with a mobile phone. But she was sure she could get used to it.


Betty stood in the doorway to Alexandra’s studio, watching while she collected things into plastic bags and hunted for her sunglasses, which were on top of her head.

‘I got us a picnic,’ Alexandra was saying, ‘it’s such a lovely day.’

They walked through the sunshine to Soho Square and Alexandra flapped out a vintage Black Watch rug and spread out sandwiches and dips and a half-bottle of wine.

‘I sometimes forget it’s summer at all, cooped up in that place from dawn to dusk. Cheers.’ She handed Betty a plastic cup and held hers towards it. ‘To summer. And to your amazing grandmother!’

Betty took a sip of wine and looked at Alexandra expectantly.

‘Had such a fascinating chat with David. I really wish you’d been there. He’d heard of most of those clubs and they were, literally, the first jazz clubs in London.’ She dragged a breadstick through a pot of hummus and waved it around as she talked. ‘I mean, your grandmother was trail-blazing. She was out there, in the thick of it, way before the Bloomsbury set, way before anyone had even heard of the Bright Young People.’

‘Bright Young People?’

‘Yes, they were a social set, back in the twenties. Crazy, wild hedonists. Written about in all the newspapers. They were like, I suppose, the equivalent of the Primrose Hill set today, you know, all leaping in and out of bed with each other, all thinking they were terribly fabulous and important. But, you know, this wasn’t really established until well into the decade. At this point,’ she pulled out the Sandy Beach and the Love Brothers programme, ‘this was all brand new. All these clubs,’ she pointed at the matchbooks, ‘the first of their kind. And what’s really interesting is that your grandmother doesn’t seem to have frequented any of the clubs that came later, when the scene was really established. It’s like she came and then she went.’

‘Back to Guernsey.’

‘Well, yes, probably. So she missed out on all the really juicy stuff. But in a way, far more thrilling to be there at the start. Breaking new ground.’

‘Did you find out who any of these people are, all these black guys?’

‘Well, I’m assuming they must be musicians. There was a big influx after the war. And this lot,’ she pointed again at Sandy Beach, ‘part of the Southern Syncopated Orchestra, and they were massive. I mean, they played for the King, played all the biggest venues. Huge deal. And there were dozens of them, from all over: the States, the Caribbean, Africa. It looks like your grandmother might have been a bit of a groupie.’ She held out the photograph of Arlette sitting on the floor between the legs of the well-dressed black men.

Betty laughed. ‘No way,’ she said. ‘Not Arlette.’

‘Well, darling, a few weeks ago would you have thought it possible that Arlette might have been a jazz club habitué?’

‘No, but I can believe it. As surprising as it is, I believe it. But being a groupie? No.’

Alexandra removed some slices of cucumber from a tuna sandwich and said, ‘Well, sweetie, you knew her better than anyone. And maybe we’ll never know the truth. But David’s going to fish out some more stuff about this jazz orchestra, see if we can find out more about them. Between us all we’ll stitch some kind of bigger picture together.’ She bit off some sandwich and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘Did you get anything?’ she asked. ‘On your mission yesterday?’

Betty beamed. ‘Yes!’ She told Alexandra about the tree in the back garden of the house in Kensington, the A and the G, the double X, and she told her about the cottage by the river, the blue plaque, Gideon Worsley. Alexandra’s eyes sparkled with delight.

‘A portraitist,’ she said, folding up the packaging of her mainly uneaten sandwich and putting it back into an empty carrier bag. ‘Well, then,’ she lit a cigarette, ‘there’s only one thing for it. The National Portrait Gallery. Let’s go.’

‘What, now?’

‘Yes. Finish that up, and we can walk over there right now, see if anyone’s ever heard of this Gideon Worsley character. You never know,’ she said, ‘they might even have some of his work on display.’

‘But, don’t you have to get back to work?’

‘Yes, I most certainly do. And I most certainly have no intention of doing so. This is much, much too exciting.’