The Women in Black (13 page)

40

The great doors were opened and the phalanx of grim-faced viragos cantered through the breach and down the marble steps; it took a good five minutes for the whole formation to pass him as the Ruritanian lieutenant-colonel, standing well clear, reviewed it. Well done, ladies, he said to himself: off to as fine a fl ying start as I have seen these dozen years.

This he knew was merely the advance guard; supplementary troops would continue to arrive in large numbers for the next hour, in slightly lesser numbers up until lunchtime, and in still considerable force throughout the afternoon. The elite regiment of the first day would be replaced by the only slightly less determined battalions of the second and subsequent days, but look at it as one would, the scene at Goode’s for the next ten days would be, not to put too fine a point on it, a battlefield; honours would be won, and indeed merited; trophies would be displayed; lives might not be lost but wounds of one kind or another would most certainly be sustained; the sale was now in progress.

Each fl oor of the great building revealed substantially the same sight: of hundreds of women, all caution, all dignity abandoned, fighting for their rights to possession of frocks, skirts, jerseys, shoes, blouses and hats at greatly reduced prices. Who could blame them, who so much as criticise? They were driven not by any impulse so mere as greed or vanity, but by a biological law which impelled them to make themselves fine; and now they hoped to fulfil its diktat without at the same time making themselves broke. They were treading the ancient and ever-fine line; a few of them were bound, by reason either of superior taste or of extraordinary luck, or both, to succeed in the enterprise. It was with such hopes that they came in their hundreds from distant Kogarah, faraway Warrawee, impossible Longueville and Wollstonecraft too, and the lieutenant-colonel wished them godspeed.

The
echt
North Shore matron was here; and so was Joy; and so was Myra, with commissions from Doreen as well as a few requirements of her own. The mother of Frank’s boss’s notorious sons was here and so were the sons themselves, all headed straight for Children’s Shoes; and Mrs Miles had been prevailed upon by Lisa to at least
look
at the Sportswear and Casuals with a view to spending her twenty pounds on some new clothes for herself which she could simply put on her back with no more ado, and above all no slavery over a hot and vexing sewing machine. ‘It’s practically as cheap in the end, Mum,’ said Lisa, ‘because there’s my staff discount on top.’ So they were to meet in the lunch hour and review the situation to date.

Eva, Trudi, Anna and Marietta got here well within the first two hours of opening, and Dawn arrived just before lunch. She entered in the wake of Lady Pyrke, who had annually for the past thirty years or more arrived at just this hour on just this day for the purpose of acquiring one dozen new sets of under wear, heavily discounted; this solemnity accomplished, she would walk, steadily oblivious of the heat and the crowds, all the way to the Queen’s Club where she would have a little poached fish and a long sleep, a copy of
Time and Tide
open on her lap. Her chauffeur had instructions to call for her at three.

The only exception to the scene of lawful bedlam was, of course, Model Gowns; there the fl ag of decorum might never be lowered. Those who might not be intimidated by their first glance at the prices, would be by an indefinable something in the eye of Magda. She knew at the slightest glance who her potential customers were: she knew not only who would buy this year, but also who might, with the right encouragement, return again to buy next; and she knew who would never buy. Upon Joy she might faintly have smiled; upon Dawn, she would barely perceptibly have frowned. As it was, here, just before three o’clock, were Mrs Martin Wallruss and Mrs Bruce Pogue, who having lunched together at Romano’s were moving in for the season’s final kill: three frocks for the price of two, with parties in their dozens still to come. The last column in

Magda’s stock book began to fill up nicely, and Lisa, glancing across from the midst of the mayhem at Ladies’ Cocktail, wondered in anguish if she would ever see Lisette again.

41

‘Rudi! what are you doing here? Do you want to buy
a frock
?’

‘My dear Lisa—I had quite forgotten that this is your bailiwick too. Isn’t that a splendid word, bailiwick. No, to tell you the truth— as you are my friend I hope you can keep a secret—I wish to speak a few words to Fay. Is she here? Oh, how unfortunate. Well, I shall wait until she returns. Perhaps I shall buy a frock after all—they are all so cheap at the moment it is a pity not to. Which do you recommend? This, now—would it suit me?’

‘Rudi, you must go away, Miss Jacobs will have a fit if she catches me talking to you. Go away and come back in ten minutes or so.’

‘Oh well, if you do not want me, I will say hello to Magda, where is she? Oh, I see, thank you. She will not want me either but I shall ignore that. Goodbye for the present.’

‘Fay, Rudi is here looking for you. He’s with Magda.’

‘Oh God—I’ll just go over there and see him—thanks.’

There was no mistaking the gleam of delight which had sprung into her eye. Gosh, thought Lisa. So.

‘Fay, at last. As I could not telephone you I came all the way here in my lunch hour to see you and ask you if you will risk an outing with me on Friday night. Please say yes. We might go to a film and then have dinner, or whatever you would prefer. Say yes in principle, we can discuss the details over the telephone if you will ring me tonight, here is the number. Oh, I am glad. Tonight then, don’t forget!’

‘Lesley, all right,
Lisa
, there’s someone called Michael Foldes rang you up here just half an hour ago, he says he’ll ring you again this evening. Oh, I see. Hmm. Well if he wants to take you out he has to pick you up here so I can meet him, even if he is a friend of Magda’s, I don’t know who he is, anyway how can he respect you if he doesn’t meet your parents first or me at least. Yes, well, he’ll just have to wait until Saturday night, he can wait that long if he really likes you, and so can you. I hope he isn’t too old for you. No, well that’s all right then. Shore, did he? Well, that should be all right.

He sounded very nice, very polite. He doesn’t sound Continental at all. Yes, well I suppose he is really an Australian then, if he
grew up
here. There’s the telephone now, you answer it, it might be him again.’

‘Dave said I could spend fifty pounds, so I had a look at the cocktail frocks, you know we’ve got that reception coming up, but I couldn’t see anything I liked; I’ll see what they’ve got at Farmer’s or I might wait until the sales begin at Double Bay, I think there’s one at Jay’s next week. I got some things for the kids, did you? Yes, it’s worth it. Yes, I saw Patty just for a moment but she was that busy I didn’t really have time. Do you? Yes, but she’s always so pale, there isn’t that much difference. Well, what do you expect? He’s been gone nearly two weeks, it doesn’t look as if he’s in a hurry to come back. If he’s coming back. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s just shot through. Good thing too. No, well, she might miss him
now
, but she’ll get over it. It’s not as if she’s got kids to remind her. There’s no one to worry about except herself. She’s got time to start again if she’d just pull herself together and smarten herself up a bit.

‘Well, she’s not a child for God’s sake, she’s old enough to look after herself, she’s older than me, I can’t be running around after her. Why doesn’t she go and stay with Mum? She can leave a note for him, it’s more than he bothered to do for her. If Dave did that to me I’d divorce him on the spot. All right, look, I’ll phone her tonight, I’ll find out what she wants to do at the weekend; she can come to the beach with us if she wants to, but she probably won’t. All right, I said I would, so I will, but I can’t see why you’re making such a fuss. She’s old enough to look after herself. Yes, all right. Ta-ta.’

Joy put the receiver down and examined her fingernails. That’s what I should have looked at, she thought. I knew I’d forget something. You can get some real bargains in cosmetics at the Goode’s sale. Oh well. Must get the kids bathed.

‘Kids,’ she called. ‘Inside now—bath time!’

Remind me to ring Patty after I’ve fed them, she told herself.

Oh,
gawd.

42

Lisa had a few minutes in hand at the end of her lunch hour so she popped in to Model Gowns to say hello to Magda.

‘
Mon Dieu
!’ exclaimed the latter. ‘It has been a madhouse here. Look!’ and she waved a hand towards the Model Gowns in their mahogany cabinets.

Their ranks were indeed seriously depleted; Mrs Bruce Pogue and Mrs Martin Wallruss had been succeeded by others of their ilk and the frocks which now remained had very ample room to breathe. Lisa looked, hardly daring, and saw her beloved in the first glance. Magda noted her involuntary tremor.

‘Oh, go and look,’ she said. ‘See if there is anything left to tempt you.’

Lisa forced herself to laugh.

‘I’ve found the one I want already,’ she said.

Magda looked at her again. Ah, well, it was after all a case of true love: she resolved suddenly to indulge it. There was in any case the more serious matter of the cultivation of the taste: if that should involve a degree of heartbreak, so be it.

‘Oh yes, the little robe
de jeune fille.
Though I’m afraid all the
jeunes filles
with cash in this city have more the idea of attempting to look like women of the world, it is only their mothers who want to look young, that frock is no use to anyone when it is too small for
les mamans
and too young for
les débutantes.
I am tired of it: why don’t you come in here in your lunch hour tomorrow after you have changed, and try it on? It is your size I think precisely. You can have a
fantaisie
for a few moments, it is good for the soul. Wear your high heels, to get the right effect.’

‘Oh,’ said Lisa, shaken, ‘could I really? That would be wonderful . . .’

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ said Magda, ‘but I won’t be held responsible if I hear later that you have robbed a bank in order to buy it. Of course I may sell it between now and tomorrow—we’ll just have to see.’

‘Oh,
please
don’t say that,’ said Lisa; ‘
please
don’t sell it.’

‘That is a promise I could never make,’ said Magda, laughing heartily and with sincerity.

Lisette was, of course, everything which could have been hoped, have been dreamed; like all the great works of the French couture, it was designed to look beautiful not simply as a thing in itself, but as the clothing of a female form. It took on then the property of vitality and movement; that is, of rhythm: it became finally incarnate. Lisa stood, overwhelmed, staring into the great cheval glass. She could see at the same time the back view reflected in the glass at the other side of the salon. She swayed very slightly, to see the effect of the three tiers of the skirt fl oating on the air. The frock fitted her exactly: the bodice was just short of being tight. Her arms and legs, appearing beyond the fl ounces at the shoulders, the hem, seemed now to be not thin, but slender. The frock changed her absolutely; the revelation which had come upon her when she had first been shown the Model Gowns was now complete.

There was nothing which needed to be said, and Magda herself was for once silent, at least for one entire minute. She smiled.

‘Ah me,’ she sighed. ‘Shall we deliver it, Mademoiselle, or will you take it with you?’

Lisa laughed.

‘I’ll wear it,’ she said. ‘Could you wrap my other clothes? Make out my bill as usual.’

At this moment Miss Cartright appeared, coming to relieve Magda for the latter’s luncheon break.

‘How now,’ she said. ‘Is Lisa modelling for you now, Magda? We never thought of that.’

‘It is her lunch hour,’ said Magda. ‘At this moment she is merely a customer, she is trying on a frock which has tempted her but the sale is not so far made.’

‘Yes, I see,’ said Miss Cartright. ‘How big is the sting? Seventy-five, is it? It’s a bargain all right.’

‘You know,’ said Magda, ‘I’m wondering if it won’t have to be a greater one still if it hasn’t sold by the middle of next week. You see, it is getting dirty, they all do, these whites.’

‘That’s so,’ said Miss Cartright. ‘Well, fifty after next Wednesday, say, if it hasn’t gone by then. But that isn’t likely. How are we doing otherwise? Oh yes, I see. Jolly good! Well, to our onions; you must be starving—go to lunch.’

Lisa retired to the changing room and having replaced Lisette on the hanger went to sit for the free time remaining in Hyde Park.

If Lisette were to be reduced to fifty guineas she would have almost enough money in her Post Office money box to pay for it. The thought of spending this sum, which was very much more than she had ever had at her disposal before and sufficient for at least ten ordinary frocks at the usual retail prices, was utterly intoxicating.

43

During all these days of Patty’s dislocation, even grief, her colleagues had been much too busy, first with Christmas and then with the sales, to notice the change in her demeanour. She was, as Joy had remarked, a pale creature at the best of times, and if her usual desultory chatter with its liberal if unenlightening references to her husband had ceased, the occasion for it had in any case vanished: customers and their servicing had swallowed up every available moment. Through out this period Patty had worked on doggedly, but at the end of each day she succumbed to an exhaustion which overwhelmed and even frightened her. Her appetite had all but disappeared; she dined off slices of cold ham and tomatoes, and drank cups of strangely milkless tea. Do I feel tired because I feel sick, she wondered, or do I feel sick because I feel tired?

Just try not to worry, said Dawn. He’ll come back. Well, she wasn’t worrying, no she wasn’t; she felt now too tired and too sick to worry about Frank. She wasn’t even angry any longer. She needed all her thoughts for herself at the moment, because she simply had to keep going as best she could: had to go in to Goode’s, and get through the day, and come home and get ready for the next one.

Look, just try and forget about him, said Joy, at least until he turns up again: buy some new clothes, and take a holiday. Go to Bateman’s Bay with Dawn, haven’t you got holidays due? Enjoy yourself for a bit. Come to the beach with us on Sunday, we thought we might make a day of it and go up to Manly, go on. Oh, she was so tired. I’ll see, she said. I’ll let you know. I’ll ring you on Saturday.

Come and stay with me, said Mrs Crown. It’ll be like old times.

You can leave a note for Frank! But she just wanted to be left alone.

She didn’t want to have to pretend anything: when you’re alone, you needn’t pretend, need you? Although, of course, sometimes you do: sometimes the lies you tell yourself are worse than the ones you tell other people. Now how can that be?