Suzy’s hair was all dry when Jane tiptoed back into the bedroom – Walk about on tiptoe whenever you can. It will lengthen your line, improve your balance and work on ankle puffiness and falling arches. She sat beside Suzy on the piano stool while Terry decided what he was going to do. It was only when she saw the two of them in the mirror without make-up that Jane realised why the old drunk in the pub had given her the crocodile bag. Terry looked interested suddenly. Chances were he really did have a friend who was a photographer.
‘Mmm. Bookends. Very kinky. Are you going to dress the same or do you want to go for a contrast?’
Jane didn’t dare say what she wanted but Suzy seemed to have tossed a coin in her head.
‘I think a twinset would be a giggle, don’t you?’
‘Well don’t blame me if you get asked for a sandwich, that’s all I can say,’ said Terry, bafflingly, as he set to work backcombing and spraying Suzy’s hair into place.
‘You can have Glenda’s room, Janey. It’s a bit of a tip but there should be some clean sheets in the green holdall just inside the door.’
Glenda’s room looked like someone had picked it up, changed their mind and dropped it again. The sheets on the bed were greying and covered with make-up and coffee stains but the clean sheets were very clean indeed. They were still in their cellophane packet: brand-new Egyptian cotton; king size.
‘Are you sure about these sheets?’ she called across the passage. ‘They’re doubles.’
‘Are they? Damn. Oh well, never mind. Just do the best you can.’
‘But you could take them back and change them if you’ve got the receipt.’
Suzy giggled.
‘Mmm. Rather you than me, darling.’
Jane made the bed and neatly paired off the shoes – all three and a halfs – that littered the floor. Glenda’s dresses and coats had all been hung neatly from the picture rails but sweaters and stockings and smalls were thrown around anyhow. Glenda sounded a bit of a slag, what with the spiv and Spain and everything. Jane stuffed all the dirty sheets and clothes into the green holdall, hung the violet dress that Tony had given her on one of the hangers and switched out the light just as Terry – who was a very fast worker – was putting the finishing touch to Suzy’s hairdo: a lick of gold pencil along a single strand of hair running from the parting to the immaculate French pleat. From the back it looked like the chocolate brazil in a box of Black Magic.
Suzy shoved along to the edge of the stool so that he could give Jane the same treatment. While he worked, Suzy drew her face back on, transforming herself from fresh-faced teen to starlet with a few strokes of sponge and pencil and carefully gluing back the fluffy nylon fringes of eyelash to create all those killer glances. Next, she whizzed along the line of frocks behind her, picking out two dark blue dresses with full, ballerina-length skirts, square necks and low, low backs: one in grosgrain, the other in velvet.
‘If you can keep completely still, Janey darling, I can do your face for you in five minutes flat.’
‘Oi,’ said Terry. ‘Fill my glass first. I’m dying of thirst here. God this place is a dump, Suzy. That last place in Onslow Gardens was a dive but this is a fucking slum, girl.’
‘It’s four quid a week between three and it’s only a five-minute walk from the White Tower.’
‘Suzy, babe, a girl of your calibre’ (he pronounced it to rhyme with fibre) ‘doesn’t walk to the fucking White Tower. I shouldn’t think you even know the bloody way from here. Why don’t you get wise and get one of your gentlemen friends to find you something a bit more chi-chi?’
‘We’ll see. I might be moving this week, as a matter of fact.’
Jane saw her own face fall in the mirror even as Suzy was powdering it. She’d been thinking of what she could do with Glenda’s room. Get rid of all her rubbish. Buy a nice big mirror second-hand somewhere. Paint it, even. But she didn’t really fancy staying on in the flat on her own with some strange Lorna living in the box room and doing the washing up.
‘Chin up, Janey. I need to do your lips. Janey might be moving too. I only met Janey today. You remember that lovely crocodile bag I got?’
Terry pulled a funny face. ‘Yes, duckie. One of your more memorable adventures.’
What adventures? But Suzy gave a little frown and shook her head. Subject closed.
‘Anyway. I left the bloody thing under a chair in that ghastly pub Dickie always goes to and Janey found it and then found me and gave it right back. Two hundred quid in cash, the lot. I’m not joking, Janey darling.’ She looked straight at Jane in the mirror. It was like talking to her reflection on the dressing table after work, paying herself compliments. ‘I’m really not joking. I don’t know a single soul on this earth who wouldn’t have taken the money and kept the bag for themselves. Not a single soul.’
‘Well it’s no bloody wonder with that crowd. God! I had that Madge in the salon this morning. No normal person wants their hair done at half eight.’
‘I wondered where she’d been. Did you dye it that colour just for a lark?’
‘Not likely. You don’t pull strokes like that with Madge, babe. She’d break your fingers. No. She actually bloody chose it. With her figure and that striped number she looked like a fucking Belisha beacon. There.’ He stood back to scowl at his work. ‘That’s the best we can do, I suppose.’
He’d got one French pleat going clockwise, the other anti-clockwise, and there was a long curl escaping down on to the shoulder – opposite shoulders. Jane thought it looked a bit contrived but they seemed pleased enough.
‘Get your drawers on, girls. I haven’t got all night.’
He put away his gear then sat on the stool smoking a smelly French cigarette while they dressed.
Suzy hung her towel over the top of the door and quickly wriggled into stockings and suspender belt. No panty girdle this time. And no panties. Then she stepped into her dress.
‘You are a very, very dirty little girl – you know that?’
‘Just shut up and zip up, Terry Thomson.’
And there they both were. Like bookends.
‘Not bad. Not at all bad. You ought to have another word with that Dickie. You could probably get quite a lot of photographic work with a gimmick like that. Especially bras, with your Advantages.’
‘No thanks. Do lingerie and you never do anything else. Look what happened to Gloria.’
‘Eight guineas a day and a nice little flat in St John’s Wood? You should be so lucky, dear.’ Terry wound the flex round his hairdryer and tied Jane’s spare hair in a knot held in place with a hairclip.
‘Do you still do Gloria? What colour is she these days?’
‘No idea, duckie. She started wanting her bush and her poodle dyed to match and that’s not really my scene. She’s got an arrangement with young Rodney. Remember Flash Rodney? Always did like dogs, Rodney.’
Suzy and Terry were making for the front door but Jane just sat there looking at herself in the mirror. Her make-up was perfect and her hair was all sprayed into a shining brown cone.
She could hear Suzy seeing Terry out: ‘No I insist. There were two of us, for Christ’s sake! And you’ve got Janey’s hairpiece to see to. I’ve got nothing smaller, anyway. No really, darling. Take it while I’ve got it. I’ll probably be asking for credit next week.’
‘Just you try it.’
Noisy, dry kisses on cheeks.
‘Bye, babe. Take care of yourself. Ta-ta, Jenny!’
She shouted goodbye but she couldn’t tear herself away from the mirror. Suzy stepped briskly back into the room.
‘Now then, sweetie. You look the business. Let’s see if Glenda’s got an evening coat you can wear. Glenda used to have a very nice silver Furleen number. Here it is. Super. Now then. They’ll be here in half an hour. You’re not going to show me up, are you? Can you do French?’