‘Mrs Simpson used to have the one on the first floor.’ Suzy’s voice was slightly distorted by the fact that her mouth was stretched wide as she reapplied her lipstick in the mirrored wall of the automatic lift. ‘Dougie’s old mum says there used to be Secret Service men all over the place whenever the Prince of Wales popped round. Never saw the same milkman two days in a row.’
Jane had read about ‘luxury’ flats in the News of the World. She’d never been quite sure exactly what they meant by ‘luxury’, but she now decided it must mean white wall-to-wall carpet, central heating, glass coffee tables, two bathrooms, a real bar with little stools and every drink you could possibly want. It also meant a great big painting of a girl with no clothes all done in blues and greens and purples as if she was covered in bruises. Jane had a good nose round when she went off to the toilet. Lavatory. Lavatory. She opened one door but it was a cupboard full of beer and wine and whisky and Dubonnet and boxes of chocolates and great big tins of Twiglets and cheese footballs. The bathroom was wonderfuclass="underline" thick, thick carpet; fat pink towels on a hot chromium-plated rail and matching pink toilet paper – lavatory paper – with a spare roll hidden under a great big dolly in a yellow lace crinoline.
There were already people at the flat when they arrived, all sat drinking in the vast, L-shaped sitting room. There were a couple of men (who brightened up no end when Jane and Suzy walked in) plus a fat platinum-blonde called Connie who was still wearing last night’s cocktail frock. She said she was ‘going on somewhere afterwards’ but you could tell from the state of her hair – which looked like a lacquered bird’s nest – that she’d never actually made it home. Next to her on the gold brocade settee was a very, very thin dark-haired woman in a turquoise suit. She looked like the Duchess of Argyll with a headache and her lipstick was all stuck to her capped front teeth. Her name was Iris and she was divorced. Her face sank like a failed sponge at the sight of Jane and Suzy.
‘Iris, darling,’ lied Suzy. ‘Cheer up, sweetie. It may never happen.’
‘Lovely woman, Iris,’ she explained later in an undertone, ‘give you anything: smallpox; syphilis . . .’
Iris liked to give as good as she got.
‘And who’s your little friend, Susan?’
Cheek. The volume in the room had dropped, ready for a bit of theatre. Iris could be very good value once she got warmed up. Jane picked out a nice ritzy voice.
‘Jane James. And you are?’
‘Iris Moore.’
‘How do you do, Mrs Moore?’
It worked really well. The ‘Mrs’ definitely took the wind out of her sails. Aged her ten years for a start.
Dougie was an old army pal of Reggie’s: a posh old lech with a handlebar moustache and wandering hands. He was wearing a Sexy Rexy double cashmere cardigan, a checked Viyella shirt and a cravat. What Doreen would call a right ponce. Dougie, who had begun life with a two-gin start on the rest of the world, had been drinking solidly since just after breakfast but, drunk or sober, he was a good host and stepped in at once with offers of drinks and more drinks. It wasn’t really his flat; it belonged to his mother who was installed in the corner. Dougie managed to keep up appearances cravat-wise but he actually had his digs over a laundrette in Paddington.
Dougie had swelled with pride and happiness at the sight of Jane and Suzy. He had resigned himself to spending the afternoon with his 75-year-old mother and the dry, sour prospect of Connie or Iris for a bit of slap and tickle later (Reggie said they usually came across after a few stiff drinks and a bit of help with the gas bill) but this was much more like it. Or failing that there was always Good Old Madge.
‘Hello. Ladies, ladies, ladies. Hello, Madge old girl. Just what the doctor ordered. Got to look after myself, you know. I said to Reggie just now, “If I’m not in bed by ten o’clock, I’m going home.” ’ Shrieks of polite laughter from the sofa. Dougie leered happily in Jane’s direction. Nobody seemed to mind her gatecrashing.
‘What’s your poison, my love? We can cater for your every whim here, you know. Little drop of fizz?’
‘Super.’
Jane had taken up a pose on the sofa, her crossed legs revealing a couple of inches of firm, young thigh. Alpaca Pete was out in the kitchen shelling lobsters and Madge and Sylvia – who always pulled their weight – cut up the flesh and arranged it on some toothpicks they found in a little novelty holder on the bar. Jane helped herself to a bit of the lobster. Very nice. Much nicer than crab. Or whelks. Not that they ever had whelks in Norbury. Doreen said they were common but they were actually just far too chewy for a woman with all her own teeth.
Dougie returned with a crystal saucer full of bubbles and perched his cavalry-twilled arse on the arm of Jane’s sofa, the better to leer at her bust. He didn’t actually twirl the ends of his moustache but he looked as if he might.
‘Very, very glad you and your little friend could drop by and help us celebrate.’
Jane set her eyelashes to ‘stun’.
‘Oh Dougie!’ Dougie, honestly, she’d only just met the man. ‘Is it your birthday?’
‘No. Good Lord no. Never have birthdays. No actually it’s Mother’s.’ He had his arm along the back of the sofa and was telling Jane what a trim little figure she had and how she was like a French film star he’d once met.
‘Really?’ Whoops. It came out as ‘reel-y’. She’d have to watch that. ‘I must go and wish your mother many happy returns.’ Heppy returns, that was better. ‘Will you intra-juice me?’
He couldn’t very well not.
‘Mummy, this is Janey, er, Janey, friend of Reggie’s. Janey, this is my mama, Frances Pillman.’
Jane shook hands firmly (but not too firmly). ‘How do you do?’ NEVER ‘Pleased to meet you’.
Dougie’s mama was sat in state in a Chanel suit on a little gold throne thingy. She was seventy-five going on thirty-six. She bestowed one of her brisk, downward-turning smiles on Jane. Her mother had taught her to smile that way to avoid crow’s feet but a lifetime of sour half-smiles seemed a heavy price to pay for smooth cheeks. She might have had a nicer life if she’d looked like she was really enjoying herself.
Her hair was dyed exactly the colour that Doreen’s hydrangea used to be. Would all those fat artificial curls go back to being toothpowder pink if you stopped feeding her the special stuff? She wore it in a fancy, heavily lacquered bouffant (either she kept a hairdresser in the wardrobe or she slept sitting up). Her face was thickly smoothed with peach Pan-Cake, her eyelids were a pale silvery blue, her cheeks rosy with Bewitching Coral and her lips painted Lilac Rose which was already seeping into the sphincter of cross little lines that fanned out from her mouth. Her teeth were a sort of dirty Daz white and beautifully made – like Uncle George’s, only smaller. Her weedy grey eyebrows had been overwritten by new ones drawn on neatly by her maid who lived in a funny little warren of box rooms on the eighth floor under the roof. She usually managed to get them symmetrical but they were never the same twice. Today she looked very, very surprised and slightly annoyed.
Mrs Pillman had eaten a cheese football when she first sat down which had stuck to her plate and taken a lot of shifting so she’d been keeping to liquids ever since and had now clocked up four glasses of champagne which had done her temper no good at all. She’d taken an instant dislike to Connie and Iris who had ignored her after the first brief gush of introductions. She was itching to share her feelings.
‘Do you know those women?’
‘Not really.’ Rarely. That was more like it. ‘I think they’re friends of Reggie, the chap over there in the blazer.’