‘Bourne and Hollingsworth please.’ She’d gone very Celia Johnson all of a sudden.
The streets were already dark and the taxi hurtled along Wigmore Street and on towards its destination. Suzy pulled the cabbie’s window to one side.
‘We don’t really want Bourne and Hollingsworth as such, darling. If you could take the next right, St Anthony’s Chambers is first on the left.’
It was nowhere near bloody Cavendish Square.
‘Have you really got someone coming round?’ Jane sensed that Suzy didn’t always tell the exact truth.
‘Oh yes. Big Terry.’
The taxi driver, who’d been eyeing up the pair of them in his rear-view mirror, raised his eyebrows.
‘Why’s he called Big Terry?’ wondered Jane.
You could see the cabbie straining to hear Suzy’s whispered answer. She passed a handful of silver through the window.
‘Keep the change,’ she said then looked him right in the eye. ‘And none of your business, cheeky.’
Chapter 8
These tiny details of personal grooming
might appear mere trifles when taken
one by one. But add them together and
they can make the difference between rich
and poor, married or single, happy ever
after and a miserable broken home.
If Bourne and Hollingsworth had been a bit of a let-down after the promise of Cavendish Square, St Anthony’s Chambers was a serious kick in the teeth. It was a large mansion block built of dirty red bricks with no lock on the street door and stone stairs that smelled of piss. Although there were lights on each landing, most of the bulbs were missing and you had to feel your way up the wrought-iron banisters in almost total darkness. Suzy’s flat was on the second floor. It wasn’t a luxury flat.
There were, or had been, about six locks on the front door which was scarred with the screw holes of old bolts that hadn’t quite made it.
‘Used to be burgled nearly once a week – the trouble some people will go to for the thirty bob in the gas meter – but Glenda met this very obliging locksmith. Banham deadlocks, steel plate, the works. Like the Crown Jewels, darling and very, very reasonable. I only moved here last summer. It’s a bit of a dive but it’s only four quid a week for the three of us and so central. I can be in most of the showrooms in half an hour from a standing start.’
She twisted the third key in the lock and the door swung open, releasing a terrible smell of dry rot, wet nylons and Chanel No 5. ‘Sorry about the pong. Glenda smashed a bottle of scent on the kitchen lino.’
The pay telephone on the wall of the passage had been ringing the whole time she was unlocking the door.
‘Can you smell gas, darling?’ sniffed Suzy, striking a match and lighting a fresh cigarette. ‘God, it’s cold in here. Do put the fire on. There should be some shillings on the chimneypiece.’ Chimneypiece. Swank.
Suzy slipped out of her Persian lamb coat just as smoothly and foxily as if she were trying to sell you what was underneath. She hung it up carefully on a wooden coat hanger marked Trust House Forte which was dangling from the picture rail. The phone rang on while Suzy kicked off her shoes and switched on a few lights. Finally, finally she picked up the receiver.
‘I don’t think so.’ She said this in a strong South African accent. ‘She maht be upstairs. I’ll jist chick.’
She left the phone hanging off the wall and disappeared into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water.
‘Ah’m sorry. Miss Saint John is still not beck yit.’
She smiled at Jane as she hung up the receiver.
‘No one’s ever actually seen inside the flat so you can say what you like: “I think I saw her go out into the garden” or “She may be downstairs in the billiard room” – anything. No one’s ever in, by the way: always check who it is first or run your eye down the list.’ There were men’s names written in lipstick and eye pencil on the wallpaper by the phone. ‘Oh, and if the Dreaded Arnold rings I’ve just got a job in Hong Kong and you don’t expect to see me back. Ever. Ghastly little man. Canadian. Do get the fire on, sweetie. Big Terry will be here in a minute and I need to ring the boyfriend. Have you got any pennies? It’s all very grand saying “keep the change” all the time, but you never have money for the telephone.’
Jane scrabbled in her purse for fourpence and Suzy hooked the receiver lazily over her shoulder and dialled the number, watching herself in the full-length mirror on the opposite wall – Hang a looking glass by your ’phone so that you can keep an eye on your expression.
‘Hello, my darling. Yes of course I am. But listen, I have a lovely, but love-ly little friend staying and I hate to leave her at home alone with nothing but the Black and White Minstrels for company.’ A pause while he spoke as Suzy batted her eyelashes at her own reflection. The naked lightbulb in the passage cast big, smutty shadows across her powdery cheeks. ‘You’ve got a very dirty mind, Henry Swan. Now then, the question is do you have an equally love-ly friend who might like to join us?’ More chat his end. ‘No,’ she eyed Jane thoughtfully, ‘no I don’t think so. Not yet anyway.’ Another pause. ‘Extremely. Good. Well bring him along and we’ll expect you at around nine. Me too.’ She purred the last two words. A voice that Jane didn’t yet have.
Suzy hung up the receiver then skipped off to the kitchen while Jane found another fourpence to ring Doreen. They’d only got connected a couple of years ago. Doreen had almost been tempted by a white wrought-iron telephone seat she’d seen in the Green Shield Stamp catalogue but she decided that would just run up bills. Instead the phone was perched precariously on the arm of the hall stand so you had to answer it stood up in the draughty front passage. Doreen was very suspicious of the telephone, often not saying hello at all until the person on the other end had spoken. God help anyone who had dialled a wrong number. This time she was more forthcoming as Jane had caught her in the middle of the wrestling and if she stayed away from the set too long Uncle George would switch over to Robin Hood.
‘Wot?’
‘It’s me, Jane. I’m over at Joy’s and she’s asked me if I want to stay overnight so I said I would if that was all right with you.’
Doreen just grunted and hung up, the quicker to get back to the telly. Suzy had stepped back into the corridor so Jane carried on talking, pretending to be having a normal conversation with a normal bloody human being.
‘Oh I expect I can borrow a nightie. All right, Auntie. See you tomorrow. Bye.’ She even blew a kiss. And then hung up the dead phone, ready for the grand tour of the flat.
The sitting room had bare floorboards covered by a peculiar offcut of carpet that had been woven with a fancy monogram of Ps and Hs (when they redecorated the Portland Hotel the landlord had done a deal with one of the carpet fitters he’d met in a local pub after finishing the job). The only furniture was a three-legged chaise-longue propped up on a pile of old Vogues, an armchair and a row of six red plush tip-up cinema seats. The dingy striped wallpaper had half a dozen clean, gaily coloured patches where pictures had once been. A naked light socket hung from the chipped rose in the middle but there was no bulb in it. Instead Suzy zipped round the room switching on three lamps with pink nylon shades on stands made from old dimple whisky bottles. There was only one electricity point in the room and the long flexes had all been crudely spliced together with fluffy black knots of insulating tape. The three plugs all met in one corner in a terrifying tangle of wires and two-way adaptors.