There was a picture of Jane stuck in the background behind the typewriter looking demure in a navy dress and jacket while Suzy wore the same thing only with the red bits showing and a flower in her hair looking deliriously gay in the arms of some deb’s delight in a dinner jacket. The deb’s delight (who lived with an antique-dealing friend in Lower Sloane Street) got paid half as much again (being a man, of sorts) but no one remembered him. It was the two girls – ‘the virgin and the gypsy’ Pete called them – bastard – that caught the eye. Mr Feldman had already bought some junior page ads in the Daily Sketch but Vogue was much more exciting.
Frockways couldn’t run them up fast enough and Solly Feldman was already looking at swatches so that he could rush out a Summer Secrets range. They were doing the shoot on Monday.
The photographer’s studios were in a dirty back alley off the King’s Road somewhere. The desk and typewriter had been borrowed from the secretarial bureau downstairs and the bare boards of the freezing cold room were covered with coloured paper stapled to the floor by his assistant. For the next shoot Jane was going to be sat at the bloody typewriter again in Capri-blue shantung back to back with Suzy, a vision in blue and white on a garden chair having her glass refilled by the deb’s delight in blazer and yachting cap.
Suzy had got tired of showing off and had begun to tell them her latest funny story.
‘So she says to her fiancé: “Uncouth? Your mother thinks I’m uncouth? Did you tell her about Daddy’s place in Gloucestershire? About the flat in Park Lane? Does she know I went to Roedean?” and the boyfriend nods every time. “So what’s this ‘uncouth’ crap about?” ’
Madge laughed so hard the top button on her skirt flew off.
Jane suddenly felt a hand on her upper arm.
‘It’s Jane, isn’t it? Long time no see.’
She turned to see a tall, quite nice-looking blond bloke. She did the shy, puzzled look she used for bridal wear and played for time while he carried on talking. She watched his eyes flicking over her. Noticing. Noticing the smart make-up, the model-girl hair, the perfect manicure, the flirty eyelids of a pretty girl who knows to the nearest orchid exactly how pretty she is.
‘I hardly recognised you, to be honest, but I remembered the outfit. You look smashing!’
So did Tony. Everything that had made her squirm had gone. It seemed that he’d moved from Hardy Amies to be head of bought ledger or something at Sharp and Butler further up Savile Row. Old Mr Sharp wouldn’t let anyone be seen on the premises in a fifty-shilling suit so for the first twelve months your wages were docked until you’d paid cost price for a bespoke Sharp and Butler single-breasted special. The haircut was thanks to a word from young Mr Butler who had also taken Tony to an unofficial sale at the shirtmakers Sharp and Butler used for the dummy in their window. It only remained for the elderly typist to leave a deodorant on his desk one lunchtime (the accounts department had had an emergency whipround) and the result was a new, improved Tony, fit to be introduced to the gang.
‘This is Tony Cole, an old friend of mine.’ He couldn’t remember that many names at once but immediately offered to buy a round so they liked him anyway.
Jane could see the cash register in Suzy’s eyes clocking up the eleven-ounce made-to-measure blue worsted, the Jermyn Street shirt and tie. Not bad at all. Like Prince Philip without the uniform.
‘Janey and I have been showing off.’ She let him look at the Frockways ad.
‘It doesn’t do either of you justice.’ He smiled at Suzy but it was Jane he really wanted to talk to. He lowered his voice while the others carried on yacking.
‘You disappeared off the face of the earth. None of the girls at Drayke’s knew where you’d gone. Just pulled faces and said you’d had two weeks in lieu and that was that.’
‘Old Drayke never let anyone work notice. Reckoned they just caused trouble and nicked all the stock – or let their friends nick all the stock. I’m only sorry I didn’t get a chance to thank you for the dress and coat. That was so thoughtful of you.’
‘Miss Winter insisted. Like it was made for you, she said. So. You still living in Norbury?’
A spasm crossed her face as if someone had trodden on a corn and he tumbled at once that Norbury was a no-no. She papered smoothly over his mistake.
‘No. Auntie’s still down at the cottage in Norbley,’ she fantasised, suzily. The picture still tickled her. Doreen was on a sunny seat in the orchard this time, shelling peas for lunch. ‘I did want to stay with her but the journey was taking far too long so I’ve moved up to town with Suzy.’
‘Whereabouts?’
Hooray. Hooray. She had been lying in her beautiful blue and gold bath, dreaming about bumping into old friends and boyfriends – she was usually wearing the violet dress and coatee, funnily enough – and telling them where she lived and what she did. But she was beginning to give up hope. When did Norma and that crowd ever come to Piccadilly?
‘Suzy’s got a place in Massingham House – just behind the Dorchester.’
It was his face’s turn to do a little dance this time.
‘Strewth. That must cost a packet.’
She had been going to rattle off the widower-in-Hong Kong story. She’d told it often and she told it well but she didn’t think Tony would believe it somehow. His sharp rag-trade eyes had already totted up Suzy’s Harry Popper suit; the Bond Street coiffure; the shiny black crocodile bag. Clothes no honest woman could afford to buy. Even the top photographic models didn’t earn much more than a tenner a day. His face sort of winced then he turned back to Jane.
‘So. Will you finally let me buy you dinner?’
‘You don’t give up, do you?’ Tilt head three-quarter left profile to three-quarter right profile, lowering and raising lashes. ‘I can’t tonight.’ Never tonight – she’d grown as strict as Suzy about that and besides she had a dinner date and tomorrow was supposed to be a double date: her and Johnny; Suzy and Henry. She didn’t fancy it much. She might let Tony take her out for supper on Sunday. It always seemed a pity to spend so many hours getting sanded down and varnished and then not get any appreciation. Tony was bound to be very appreciative. It all depended where he wanted to go.
‘I might be free on Sunday.’
‘How about the Guinea? Only round the corner from you. They do a pretty good steak.’ Very nice too.
‘That would be lovely. I should be ready by eight.’ He lit her cigarette and she gave him the full works, sucking hungrily on the filter as she looked up into his face with those big, blank brown eyes. It was too easy really.
‘Party time, darling,’ whispered Suzy, who had just checked her smart new wristwatch. She slithered neatly off her stool – Don’t ruin the whole effect by pulling down your girdle – stubbed out her cigarette and kissed Pete’s cheek goodbye. It was a long time since Pete’s hand had strayed above the fifteen denier but Suzy was very good at staying pals. You never knew when you might need that glass of stout.
‘You ladies back here tomorrow lunchtime?’
‘Very possibly, darling, but right now we’ve got to love you and leave you.’
‘Can I give you a lift?’ Tony again. His car, quite a smart-looking Zephyr Consul, was parked on the corner outside. First the suit and now this.
‘Not bloody likely,’ laughed Suzy, who’d been taken to My Fair Lady three times. ‘I’ve got the taxi waiting, darling.’ Darling. He wasn’t her bloody darling.
Chapter 19
A man should date a girl purely for the
privilege of her company, not to buy her
intimacy. Her pleasure in his hospitality