A Vision of Loveliness (17 page)

It was already getting dark and she was dreading the long, wobbly walk from the bus stop at the other end but what Doreen would have called a Well-Spoken Young Man stopped in Portland Place on his way to work at the BBC and offered to carry her bag and was she busy that evening? She wasn’t sure. As far as she could tell there was only lobster bisque and stale Ryvitas in the cupboard.

She couldn’t very well let him carry the bags up the stairs – though he did ask. She imagined his face at the sight of the flat. This nice clean Oxbridge boy with his brainy tweeds and college scarf.

Jane explained about the elderly aunt she was lodging with using a wealth of Suzy-style detail: arthritic; war widow; very old-fashioned. But she did let him have the telephone number. He might not be Mirador material but he’d be all right to practise on.

Chapter 13

The all-male gathering can be a hearty
occasion. The female equivalent – a poached
egg on toast listening to the wireless with
a friend – is simply an evening wasted.

Suzy, now smoothed, plucked, varnished and moisturised, was tricked out in a rather natty weekend get-up: dogtooth-checked slacks and a black cashmere polo neck. She looked very pretty but much younger without her face on. She was lying on the three-legged sofa after a long day of self-improvement, reading a copy of
Queen
and smoking her way through a packet of Woodbines – she saved the good fags for going out.

‘That was quick. Did she cut up rough?’

‘No. Not at all. She helped me get all my things together.’

Suzy arched her body into a long, pin-up stretch.

‘God, I’m starving! I’ve had nothing but black coffee and cheese footballs all day.’

‘I know how you feel. I decided against staying for lunch. Auntie was just having something on a tray.’ She pictured Doreen with a bit of smoked haddock and a glass of hock. ‘I wish I’d said yes to the dinner date now.’

‘Not on your life, darling. Kiss of death.’

Suzy had run out of coins for the meter and the flat was freezing again. Jane clunked her last two shillings into the slot and gingerly lit the gas before slipping reluctantly out of the red coat and hanging it up on the rail that Suzy had wheeled into the passage. The shoes had all been pegged into pairs and bundled into one of the three tea chests. The other two were full of cashmeres, underwear, handbags and hats. The whole arsenal of Suzy’s charm. They had made the place look a tip but without all those glamorous things lying about, the flat was as dirty and sordid as Doreen’s back kitchen.

‘Well it’s much too cold to stay indoors.’ Suzy went through to the bedroom and started work on her face, blotting it out with a grubby little bottle of make-up base, then drawing the whole lot back on again. She scrabbled in an old tobacco tin for a matching pair of false eyelashes, pulled off the snotty strings of old gum, squeezed a skinny worm of glue on to each one from a tiny tube, and patted the lashes into place, beefed up with two coats of automatic mascara.

‘Your turn.’

Jane slid into her place on the piano stool and Suzy repeated the whole process.

‘Where are we off to then?’

‘Well we can’t stay here eating Twiglets. I was thinking we could treat ourselves to a sherry and nuts at Claridge’s and see what develops.’

She helped Jane put the finishing touches to her face and gingerly ran the comb over last night’s hair-do – when Big Terry pleated your hair, it stayed pleated.

Jane had her eye on a gorgeous fuchsia-pink corded velvet cocktail dress but Suzy knew better.

‘Not on your own in Claridge’s, darling. They’ll take you for a tart and chuck you out. We’ll have to pretend to be meeting someone to be let in the bar at all.’

Apparently unaccompanied Sunday night drinking in a West End hotel – always supposing they let you in, unchaperoned – called for smart tweeds. Not too mumsy but nothing to frighten the horses.

Jane was about to slip into her Hardy Amies when the phone rang.

‘Oo? Oh you mean Mrs White’s niece. Oo wants her?’

The posh voice stammered feebly.

‘Er. It’s Michael. Michael Woodrose.’

Jane covered the receiver with her hand.

‘It’s the man I met at the bus stop. He was rather sweet. Works at the BBC. He’s about to finish his shift. Wants to know if I fancy some supper.’ Supper sounded cheaper than dinner.

‘Get him to take us both out for a Chinese,’ stage-whispered Suzy. Claridge’s was certainly smarter but might yield nothing on a Sunday night in January.

‘Well. I’m meant to be going out for supper with my friend Suzy. Would you mind if I brought her along?’

Snookered. He couldn’t very well say no but it was nice to hear the disappointment in his voice. They arranged to meet at Ley-On in Wardour Street at eight.

‘Can you work chopsticks?’ Jane shook her head. ‘Well there’s time for the crash course before we head off. I think there are a few cornflakes left.’

Jane dashed into the icy kitchen, tipped some cornflakes into a curved saucepan lid – the single remaining clean thing in the cupboard – and found a pair of chopsticks in the dresser drawer (one said Ley-On, the other Lotus Garden). The next half hour was spent tweezing the stale yellow flakes out of their bowl and into the ashtray.

‘It’ll be easier tonight. The sauce glues the stuff together. You can always attack it with a fork if you get desperate – loads of people do – but it’s much more impressive this way. They like it when you know all the tricks.’

They. The men who bought dinner.

‘Do you ever go Dutch?’

‘Go Dutch! Wash your mouth out! Look, darling. They’ve got a pretty girl on their arm and a kiss and a cuddle on the way home. Dinner’s the least you should expect. Dutch! You are funny. So. What’s he like, this conquest of yours?’

‘Young. Private school.’

‘Public school,’ corrected Suzy. Snobby cow.

‘Quite nice-looking. Tweedy.’

‘Sounds all right. Sounds
virginal
. But it might be fun. Where does he live?’

‘Not far. Round the back of the BBC somewhere, I think.’

The planned Claridge’s get-up was switched for tight, low-cut black sweaters (Glenda had three of these) and full felt skirts. They didn’t leave the flat till gone eight. The streets were deserted and apart from the odd thirty-watt twinkle from St Anthony’s Chambers, there was no light from any of the surrounding buildings. Down in Oxford Street the fancy window dressing sulked unseen in the lightless displays. The taxi was surprised to find a fare at all – particularly one that only wanted to go four hundred yards but Suzy didn’t really believe in walking. What was the point? You just arrived with sore feet and a red nose. The cab let them know you weren’t a cheap date and with any luck Janey’s tweedy little friend would pay for it anyway.

He hadn’t much choice.

Chapter 14

The whole date through she will want to
be treated like Someone – ideally Lady
Someone. That means red carpet under
every footstep, waiters on best behaviour,
everything she wants before she realises
she wants it because you, Dream Man,
will anticipate her every whim.

Michael Woodrose was wearing out the pavement outside Ley-On when they arrived. He looked really cheesed off at being expected to fork out for the taxi.

‘Oh that
is
kind of you,’ gushed Jane.

‘I was afraid you weren’t coming.’ Idiot. Since when did a date arrive right on the dot?

He was almost handsome in a baby-faced sort of way, in his I-went-to-a-good-school uniform of tweed jacket, checked shirt and knitted red tie.

He had been slightly dreading the ‘friend’. In his (limited) experience decent-looking girls usually had a fat, spotty companion with a Sloppy Joe pullover and a hairy mole. Suzy was a rather wonderful surprise. They both were. He led the way into the cavernous restaurant in a happy wet dream. Waiters, who normally snubbed him, seemed to jump to attention at the sight of Jane and Suzy and treated him with new respect – and envy. Michael Woodrose sat opposite the pair of them, gazing from one to the other in happy disbelief. The waiter buzzed round him annoyingly.

‘Do you both like Chinese food? Or would you prefer something from the English menu?’

This was, in fact, a trick question. Michael was a terrible snob and always sneered delightedly at anyone who ordered plain roast chicken in an exotic restaurant, or ate their spaghetti with a knife and fork, or drank red wine with fish. It hadn’t dawned on him that there was a parallel universe of prejudices in which he, with his tweeds and well-drilled chopsticks, would offend on numerous counts: drinking halves of bitter; wearing ties with pullovers; tipping exactly ten per cent; bathing only once a week; poncing about in a college scarf.

Suzy was enjoying herself.

‘Whatever you say, Tiger.’

The waiter’s face twitched very, very slightly while he wondered what this seven-stone weakling had to offer these two.
Tiger?
Did he take them both at once? In the waiter’s hot and sour little mind a mental picture sprang up of some delicious English sandwich. He could barely concentrate on the order.

Michael Woodrose had been looking forward to ordering. A year in the pronunciation department had given him the basics of Cantonese inflection which he very much liked showing off. Even the normally poker-faced Chinese waiters found it hard not to laugh when he said ‘chow mein’. But today’s waiter wasn’t amused.

‘You give numbers. Numbers more quick.’

‘Oh. I see,’ sulked Michael, ‘Well in that case we’d like three 12s, a 17, a 23, a 28, a 36, one 41 and three 62s.’

‘Bingo!’ exclaimed Jane.

Michael Woodrose thought that this was really a bit common but then maybe not. The other one was laughing out loud and she wasn’t common at all. Very few fillings. By now he just wanted the waiter to go away so that he could concentrate on this amazing double vision of loveliness. Because they really were lovely. More paint than his mother would have liked but he didn’t mind that. If anything, he was flattered that they’d made the effort. Big eyes – two brown, two blue – soft pink lips and surprisingly large breasts. Padded? He hoped not.

Michael thought about breasts quite a lot. Breasts. The very word made him grateful for the generous cut of his flannels. He had a little collection of artistic photographs back at the flat. And some not so artistic that he’d bought from a Maltese chap in Old Compton Street. He hadn’t much experience of the real thing. A schoolfriend’s fourteen-year-old sister – an early developer – had allowed thirty-second gropes (timed mercilessly with the second hand of her gold-plated Timex) in exchange for sherbet lemons and there had been grudging fumbles under chunky jerseys while he was at Oxford but he was – as Suzy had suspected – a virgin. He had no plans to remain one. Indeed, only last week he had been lured to an upstairs room in Wardour Street by the promise of a ‘busty young model’ only to scuttle back down on finding a desiccated old tart picking her teeth on a dirty candlewick bedspread. And now here he was with
two
busty young models. And the irony of course was that he only needed one. But which? He watched them both, pinching fastidiously at their chop suey.

They were really very alike. Suzy seemed the livelier of the two. She was asking him something about D. H. Lawrence – there had been an article in one of the Sundays and she had absorbed it very cleverly. Give her a few of the learned weeklies and you could probably introduce her to colleagues. He imagined their faces. Brian, this is Suzy. And those soft red lips would smile – a slightly pitying smile at Brian with his stained tie and his dandruff and his flat-chested girlfriend (a primary-school teacher from High Wycombe). And Suzy would read and digest
Encounter
and
Nation
and then quietly dazzle with a few smart remarks about the modern novel – not too smart, obviously –
Don’t waste time trying to be ‘smart’ with a man
.

But of course the other one was rather lovely, too (if less chatty) and she did seem to have a narrower back. He imagined slipping that low-cut jumper off her shoulders and scooping one of those ripe young breasts from its black lace brassière (he had glimpsed the strap when she reached for a spring roll). He shifted into a more comfortable position.

‘Or do you?’ Suzy was saying.

‘Or do I what? I’m sorry. I was miles away.’

Suzy flashed him an unguarded glance from under those fluffy nylon lashes as if she knew exactly where his dirty little mind had travelled to.

‘Prefer blondes?’

What was the woman talking about?

‘Er. No. No-no-no. Far, far from it.’

He toasted them ineptly with his half of lager. Suzy sipped at her pineapple juice, eyelashes working overtime. Then she tossed her head back and laughed, showing those pretty white teeth. It was the pose from the matchbook: the pose of a woman having the time of her life. Jane stored the move away for future reference and opted to lean forward and work the conspiratory giggles.