‘I rrr-rumba,’ said Jane. She managed to say it in a slightly teasing voice.
‘I’ll bet you do,’ said Ollie, loosening his tie.
Chapter 10
Master the art of smiling even
when you’re not smiling.
‘So. Where to, girls?’
Henry suggested Edmundo Ros in Regent Street and Ollie also seemed keen.
‘Good spot for a rrrr-rumba,’ growled Henry, encouragingly.
Suzy wasn’t convinced. They were probably only suggesting it because there was no chance of either of them bumping into anyone they knew. Suzy wanted the River Club – Henry was a member – but Ollie had obviously been there with Angela. They finally settled on some members-only cabaret joint in Beak Street.
Henry drove and was annoyed when he couldn’t park right outside. There wasn’t a table, either. Nor was there likely to be now that Ollie had decided to take charge. Henry was obviously good at handling waiters: friendly, clubbable, gracious, grateful. Ollie wasn’t. Ollie tended to stick to restaurants where he was known: his own club in St James’s or some little place in Jermyn Street (he could crawl home from there). Sober, he was too self-conscious to catch a strange waiter’s eye. Drunk, he was tense and toffee-nosed and generally made waiters want to spit in his soup (which they quite often did).
He had started giving the maître d’ the full my-good-man treatment which was being met with a completely dead bat (No one will think you a man of consequence if you incessantly bully the waiters). Ollie then added insult to injury by tucking a ten-shilling note in the top pocket of the man’s dinner jacket saying he was sure he’d be able to find them a nice table near the band. The maître d’ took the note out and looked at it as if it were a currency he didn’t normally accept and put it in the cloakroom lady’s saucer. What he really wanted was for another foursome to come in so that he could show them straight to a table and put this public-school berk in his place. You could see him keeping his eye on the door, hoping. Instead the next best thing happened: he spotted Suzy.
‘Ah! Mademoiselle!’ All smiles suddenly. Hand kissing. She was looking very lovely this evening. No idea that the gentlemen were friends of mademoiselle. Coats were whisked away and they were led through the maze of tables to a semi-circular booth near the band. There was a delicious smell in the room. Like someone sneaking a quick fag while frying a steak in the perfumery department. A ‘Reserved’ sign magically disappeared.
Again the thrill of heads turning. Jane was almost giddy with it. It was fabulous. Like Miss United Kingdom walking past the judges’ table in evening wear. Every eye on her: admiring her face, her figure, her legs. Marking her out of ten. All they needed was clipboards.
Ollie slumped ungratefully into a seat and ordered champagne. The waiter brought sweet instead of dry but Ollie was too depressed to send it back and besides, the girls seemed to prefer it. Suzy took a happy sip from her saucer then decided that it was time for a bit more nose-powdering and the two of them filed out to the Ladies’.
The mirrored room was packed with what looked like hundreds of women straightening seams, fixing straps, re-gluing eyelashes – like the emergency ward in a dolls’ hospital. A girl in embroidered organdie sat with a broken zip, grubby pink deceivers spilling out of the front of her bodice, black tears snaking down her face while Elsie, the attendant, who had already clocked up over ten quid in half crowns, stitched up the back of her dress. All of them had had far too much to drink. One little gang of tarts were out for a good time with a bunch of loud-mouthed old northerners in town ‘on business’ (they were actually down South for the weekend to service the weighing machines at a sweet factory in Lewisham). Jerome wouldn’t have let them in as a rule but a nice crisp fiver bought them a table by the kitchen door.
‘What’s yours like?’
‘Hands all over the place – talk about Bolton bloody Wanderers.’
Two shrunken-looking women of thirty-odd made a beeline for a pair of vacant stools. Both were wearing greasy old gowns in tired duchesse satin. They’d managed to get the zips done up but only just and there were great fat folds of back bulging out over the top. They sat dabbing listlessly at their strawberry blonde perms – hard to know why, as every strand had been lacquered to a standstill. You could see nasty poultrified bits of razored armpit every time they moved. It always offends the eye to see a thicket of hair under an upraised arm.
One of them slyly eyed Jane and Suzy but then forgot to put her mirror face back on before looking away and got a sudden, terrifying glimpse of her own vinegary expression. Not just older. Older was bad enough. She looked suddenly panic-stricken. Was that what she looked like when she wasn’t looking? Did all that envy and bitterness show through on the outside? You could see the trouble she had getting her face in order: chin up; eyebrows slightly raised to take up some of the slack. The possibility of a smile. Anything to lose the ghost of the sour old bag she had just seen.
‘What a lovely dress!’ She very nearly said ‘dear’ but swallowed it in time. ‘Dear’ would have widened the age gap still further.
‘Thank you.’
Jane found a smile and turned back to the face that Suzy had made: the neat lick of eyeliner; the smart eyebrows; the bewitching sweep of long black eyelashes. Wasted on Ollie, mind you.
‘Was that a man?’ a posh, bored voice was wondering.
‘Was what a man?’ Her friend had peeled off her stocking and was putting a fresh corn plaster on her little toe. You could smell her feet.
‘That tall one with all the feathers.’
‘Don’t be silly, Vanessa. She had a huge bosom. Jerry couldn’t take his eyes off her.’
‘So? Jerry never looks at their faces, darling. Looked like a bloody man to me.’
‘God I hate the West End on Saturdays. Talk about Nescafé society.’
‘No choice, unfortunately. Jerry’s Swedish clients always make this sort of trip at the weekend so they don’t lose a minute in the office. Bloody Lutheran work ethic. Are you going to that charity canasta party Monty Manafu’s doing?’
‘Never even met the man, darling.’
‘Yes you have. You must have. At Audrey’s. That wine-tasting evening she had for the spastics. Little fat chap. At Christ Church with Roger.’
‘No, honestly I haven’t.’
Vanessa wasn’t letting go.
‘You do know him. Little fat poof. Lot of gold teeth.’
‘Vanessa. I’d remember.’
‘You do remember. Little fat poof, darling,’ she lowered her voice, ‘little fat black poof.’
‘Oh him! God no!’
Jane sat on her dainty golden chair and checked her teeth for lipstick while Suzy dabbed needlessly at her forehead with a miniature pink puff.
‘The maître d’ seemed very friendly,’ said Jane.
‘Used to know my father years ago but he was only lapping me up like that to annoy poor Ollie. What a twerp, though, honestly. And so rude! We shall have to do a bit better than that.’
Suzy filled the fading centre of her Butterfly Pink lips, tweaked a tissue from the lace box on the shelf and gave it a hard, passionless kiss.
‘Ah well. Back to work.’
Work? Was it?
Ollie was suffering.
‘So, Suzy. Mam-zelle. You seem very, very friendly with the head man here. This your usual table then? Are you on commission? They’re all raking it in, Henry. That’s how the system works, old boy. Isn’t it, Suzy darling?’