A Vision of Loveliness (14 page)

‘They’re lovely hands. You don’t mind my saying that, do you, Monica?’

Of course she didn’t but then poor, dozy little Monica didn’t know what came next. He lowered his voice. Definitely foreign.

‘And you’ve got a lovely figure.’

She wriggled and looked a bit coy.

‘You shouldn’t be shy about it, Monica. Having a beautiful body is nothing to be ashamed of. You don’t mind me saying you’ve got a Lovely Figure, do you?’

Monica squirmed some more, loving it. All the hours in the mirror, all the busty gymslip years melting away in the heat of his compliments, but she was scared, too. Nobody had ever said things about her body before. ‘Pretty dress’ yes. ‘Nice eyes’ maybe, if she was lucky. But not her body.

‘Because you have got a Lovely Figure, Monica.’ He lowered his voice but Jane could still hear.

‘You’ve got the Most Beautiful Breasts I’ve ever seen.’

Worked like a bloody charm. Even Jane was a bit excited but Monica went a very funny, dark pink colour that clashed horribly with the orange of her hair. Not just her face but her neck, throat and what could be seen of that beautiful cushiony cleavage. Monica was obviously horrified but you could see it was turning her on. It was all going according to plan. She might not come across that night but she’d get home, take off her green Vilene frock and suddenly everything would have changed. She’d look in the mirror and her body wouldn’t be her own any more. She wouldn’t be able to look at that fat, white bosom without thinking of him. He had already taken possession: moving in was just a matter of time.

Ollie was now asleep so Jane had to make do with the admiring eyes at nearby tables that kept straying from their own dates to check out the brunettes in the next booth. Which was all very nice but their admiration – no,
desire
was probably a better word – was all but cancelled out by the glum glances of the wives, girlfriends or paid help sat with them. It was one thing to make the effort – everyone made the effort but you were never really supposed to look like the picture on the packet.
Are you quite sure you want to be the best-dressed girl in the room? The men won’t dare approach you and the other women will hate you
.

But there was one man staring more fixedly with a strange half smile on his face. He was stood at the bar and he was wearing a dark blue suit.

She could sit and be watched and hope he’d come over. Only he wouldn’t. Not with bloody Ollie sat there snoring.

She got up and walked – the best, most beautiful catwalk – through the tables and up to the bar. Heavy velvet skirts tick-tocking over her slim little ankles, pretty French-pleated head held high. The barman (who was only twenty-one) practically fell over the counter leaning forward to catch her order. What could he get her? She smiled her sweetest smile.

‘Do you know what I’d
really
like?’

It went all quiet. They knew what they’d like. And what they’d like her to like. Dirty buggers. Later that night in the bathroom mirror the barman – debonair, roguish, utterly confident – leaned further forward, raised one eyebrow (hours of practice) and replied, ‘I think I know
exactly
what you’d like.’

But not now. Now he was too shy.

‘Could. I. Have,’ and she looked her man right in the eye as she said it, ‘a Nice Cold Glass of Orange Squash?’

She climbed neatly on to one of the bar stools, crossed her legs (just so) and smiled shy and sidelong at the blue suit.

And he looked the same look. The same slow, sexy eyes mapping the length of her calves but everything was bigger, louder and better dressed, as if Streatham had just been a rehearsal for their big scene.

‘Very pretty shoes. But can you dance in them?’

‘You bet.’

It wasn’t a jive this time; it was a rumba. And he could rumba. They didn’t speak again until he had piloted her back to the bar, one hand on her waist.

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘What
is
a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?’

He looked around the room: the tarty girls and their ‘businessmen’ staggering off the dance floor in a cock-eyed conga; Ollie fast asleep; Henry warming his hand up Suzy’s skirt.

Was he with anybody? She scanned the tables vaguely and spotted a large group of rather drunk but rather smart-looking people over in the corner. An unnaturally tall, long-legged showgirl in a lot of feathers was with them.

‘I just came over to make a telephone call. I ought to introduce myself. My name’s John Hullavington.’

‘Great name. Your own?’ What a good line that was.

‘My very own. And you are?’

‘Jane James. Really.’ She nearly gave him the ‘
Do
call me Janey, everybody does’ routine but she stopped herself in time. He wasn’t everybody.

A blonde woman had broken away from the laughing group in the corner and was heading in their direction.

‘Time for another dance, Miss James.’

Not a rumba this time. Much slower. The lights were lowered but Jane could see the woman hastily changing tack and making for the Ladies’ instead, as if that was what she’d meant to do all the time.
It is not best behaviour to dash away and dance with some fascinating stranger who has caught your fancy
. Suzy was back on the dance floor with Henry and smiled approvingly, pointing to the table where Ollie was snoring in front of an empty champagne bottle. His fake teeth had slipped their moorings, making his face go a funny shape.

John’s voice was warm and soft in her ear.

‘I’m afraid your dancing partner isn’t much use.’

‘Oh. I wouldn’t say that.’

Wide surprised eyes ringed with shiny pale blue. Like a dolly. As if they’d click shut if you pushed her over. She breathed in, pressing herself a shade closer and felt his arm snake tighter around her waist, his lips brushing against her neck. He smelled nice: expensive shaving soap and tobacco.

‘Is this a slow foxtrot?’

‘Certainly seems that way. Why?’

‘Oh nothing.’ She gave a careful little giggle. ‘It’s just that I can’t do the slow foxtrot.’

‘Could have fooled me.’

He held her still tighter and smoothly reversed them in the direction of the table where Henry and Suzy were back whispering sweet nothings to each other. Nuzzling and stuff like bunny rabbits.
Public intimacies between the sexes only render them absurd to other people
. Henry was much too old for that lark. He pulled away as they approached the table.

‘There you are, Janey! I’m afraid old Ollie’s a bit of a spent force this evening.’

Henry looked up at John, checking his barber and his tailor while he waited for an introduction.

‘Henry, this is John Hullavington. John Hullavington: Henry Swan.’

‘I’m afraid I should go back and join my party. I’ll see you again, I hope? May I telephone you?’

Suzy gave him the number, the smart Langham exchange giving no inkling of the cracked old phone hanging on the wall in that cold, dirty corridor. John took a gold fountain pen from his inside pocket and wrote it down in a neat leather diary.

‘Johnny, where
have
you been?’

The blonde had finally tracked him down. Citron yellow was definitely not her colour. She was furious and she was making a right mess of it.
Does he seem enraptured by another woman’s company? Say nothing. Don’t interrupt their tête-à-tête
. She should have stayed at the table and flirted like mad with one of the other men. Instead she was chasing him all over the club like she was his mother or something. There was only one more mistake to make and she went right ahead and made it.

‘And who’s your little friend? I didn’t know they still did dancing partners here.’

Jane took yet another leaf from Suzy’s book and decided to look hurt rather than put out. John smoothly introduced everybody.

‘And I don’t think you know Oliver Weaver? Ollie was at school with Charlie. How’s Angela, Ollie?’

Ollie looked miserable and bewildered to be woken up by someone who knew the wife. The blonde dragged John away. Ollie began demanding the bill – asking nicely seemed beyond him. Jane and Suzy made a last visit to the powder room.

‘That was fast work.’ Suzy looked surprised, like Jane couldn’t pull a fella without her help.

‘I’ve met him before.’

‘Rather a dish. I wonder if he’ll ring? Not if the girlfriend has anything to do with it.’

At which point the blonde swung through the powder-room door with a friend. They could see her reflection in the mirror but she hadn’t yet spotted them.

‘Swine! Leaving me stranded with some feathered pervert while he was off dancing with that skinny little tart.’

‘Oh don’t be silly, Amanda. It was only a dance. You’d already said you didn’t want to. And you are as good as engaged, aren’t you?’

Maybe not. Not from the look on Amanda’s face, anyway.

The skinny little tart and her friend got up and twirled critically in the mirror, checking for laddered stockings, stray curls. It was past midnight and the blonde – who was the wrong side of twenty-five – was looking a bit lived-in. It would have been fine if the evening had been going well but misery can do terrible things to the face: pouches of disappointment round the mouth, tramlines between the eyes. You might wake up one morning married to a face like that but not if you’d seen it coming.

Gushing goodbyes from Jerome at the door and then back into the car. Ollie got in the back with Jane this time. They were dropping him off in St James’s first but he was determined to get full value for the five-minute drive down Regent Street. He had an arm round Jane’s waist and a hand on her knee and his tongue in her ear, telling her what a very, very,
very
pretty girl she was. His hair had a stuffy, old-man smell, bay rum or something. His hand was fumbling its way up her nylons just as Henry stopped smoothly in front of Ollie’s flat.
Tell him you had a lovely evening (don’t thank him; he thanks you).
A dirty, wet goodbye kiss and it was over but she could still taste his spit on her lips.

When they got back to the flat Henry turned the corner into the mews beside the block and parked under the lamp post. Suzy took the bunch of keys from her evening bag while Henry nipped round to let Jane out.

‘You run on up, Janey darling. Henry and I need to have a little chat.’

Jane turned to wave goodnight to them from the steps and Henry’s hand was already under Suzy’s navy-blue grosgrain like a rat up a drainpipe, inching above the stocking to where her knickers ought to have been.

The flat was freezing but it was far too cold to get into bed. She found a red rubber hot-water bottle hanging up on the back of the kitchen door and put the kettle on for it. She got as far as taking her frock off but had to huddle back into Glenda’s fake fur while she crouched over the gas fire in the sitting room. She was just warming up again when the phone went. It was gone One.

‘Hello?’

‘Jane?’ A deep, husky, slightly sleepy voice. ‘Were you asleep?’

‘No. I only just got back. I half got ready for bed but it’s so
cold
I had to put my fur coat back on.’

Silence. She could just hear the noise of the club in the background. He must be calling from the booth in the lobby.

‘Are you still there?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he sounded a trifle huskier, ‘I just had a vision of you half undressed in your furs.’ Another silence.

She looked across the corridor at the big gilded mirror: the strapless bra; the girdle and suspenders; the high satin shoes all framed by the silvery fur of the coat and lit by the street light outside. She thought of the fat girl and her wily little spiv.

She lowered her voice to a gravelly whisper.

‘Did you?’

‘Mmm.’

She caught her breath at the tone of his voice. Now she too would never be entirely alone in the mirror. She wedged the receiver into her neck and unhooked her bra, nipples brushing the chilly satin inside the coat. She could hear him breathing.

‘I’ll telephone tomorrow. Sweet dreams.’

‘Yes.’

Chapter 11

Every girl, whatever her face, figure
or finances, must put in the hours if she
wants to keep and improve her looks.

Suzy was already up and busy when Jane finally woke. Every heater in the place was switched on while she got to work on her weekly beauty routine: face masked in clay; legs and armpits plastered with smelly white cream; toes clamped apart with a little sponge thingy while the cherry-red nail varnish dried.

‘Good morning, my darling. I can offer you black coffee, black tea or lobster bisque. Shall I run you a bath? The hair removing stuff’s on the shelf in the kitchen.’ (
Bristly calves are a cardinal sin
.)

Suzy was reading the
Sunday Times
.