More Than You Know (18 page)

Signor Crespi was chairman of the judges at one such event and pronounced her the winner. The prize was five thousand lira, and Mariella used it to attend a course on the history of art. She gained a qualification and was employed as a guide in one of the smaller galleries in the city, where Signor Crespi was a frequent patron; he remembered her, invited her to dinner, fell in love with her, and in a fairly short space of time asked her to marry him.

It was, astonishingly, a happy marriage. Mariella was a tender and devoted wife; her only regret—and it was a deep and sad one—was that he had been unable to give her any children. When they were first married, Giovanni was in his late sixties, and very far from impotent; but as the years passed, it became evident he was equally far from fertile.

However, Mariella was a pragmatic creature, not given to regret; she was a successful member of Milanese society and enjoyed it greatly, only occasionally allowing herself to admit to a certain ennui in her life; the letter from
Charisma
magazine therefore fell into it like manna from heaven.

Having sought the permission of Giovanni, she cabled the fashion editor who had written so charming a letter, saying she would like to meet her and summoning her to the Grande Hotel et de Milan in a few days’ time.

“She’ll hate me, I know,” wailed Fiona. “She’ll be horrible, all spoilt and hard and condescending.” But she came back starry-eyed and dizzy with excitement.

“She is just amazing. So, so nice, absolutely beautiful, and terribly excited about it all. She’s going to go to all the collections, and we can talk to her after each one and hear what she has to say about it and then photograph the clothes.”

“But not on her?”

“No, no, they wouldn’t fit her; they’re all model sizes, although she’s so glamorous we can certainly do some pictures of her outside each house or something like that. She wants as much exposure as she can get, and she wants to come to the sessions too, amazingly. I told her they
were often in the middle of the night and she laughed and said, ‘So much the better.’ And, best of all, because she’s an actual client, and such a high-profile one, we’ll be able to borrow the clothes that fit more easily. It’s perfect, Eliza. Really perfect.”

“I know she can’t model the actual clothes for the sessions,” said Eliza slowly, “but maybe … maybe if she wore her own example of whatever designer we’re doing, we could include that in some way. Shoot her alongside the model, or separately, but on the same page or spread. Do you think she’d do that?”

Mariella said she would adore to.

She was staying at the Meurice; she invited Fiona for cocktails the evening before the first show. Fiona came back overflowing with excitement.

“Jacques Fath tomorrow. She always orders at least three things from them, she says. And then she’s going to Cardin, Chanel, of course, Balenciaga, Balmain, Dior—Oh, Eliza, it’s so exciting.”

She dressed by preference at Jacques Fath and Cardin—“And Pucci, naturally, I adore Emilio so”—but she was not above the ready-to-wear market as well. “Of course I wear Missoni; who would not?”

She had taken a fancy to Eliza, whom she had met in the studios, and who kept her supplied with the Italian Murillo cigarettes she loved, as well as playing cards with her while the hairdresser did her hair.

“I think it’s because you’re posh,” Fiona said. “Takes a nob to know one.”

“I’m not a nob,” said Eliza crossly. She spent a lot of time trying to shed this image, in what was supposed to be the new classless society; nothing seemed to work.

“Course you are. Anyway, I’m grateful—anything that keeps Mariella sweet.”

Keeping her sweet wasn’t very difficult, Eliza reflected as they sat chatting in the dressing room of the studio waiting for the makeup artist, presently working for
Vogue
, to grace them with her presence.

“This is all such, such fun for me; you have no idea. So much of my life is always the same, day after day after day. One day I will tell you all about it, and then you will understand.”

Eliza supposed living with a man in his seventies must have its drawbacks. Even if he was a multimillionaire.

Eliza had seen only one show: Chanel. In spite of the savage heat, a poor seat (gained by sheer force and elbowing other people out of the way—“It’s like a rugby scrum,” Fiona said. “You really do have to fight, I warn you”), an hour-long wait for the start, and a thumping headache, she would not have missed it for the world. She was amazed by the length of the thing—over two hours, one girl after another, showing almost identical suits and completely identical dresses, the differences often as infinitesimal as a change of button—and the solemnity of the occasion … it really was rather like being at some hugely important religious ceremony. What made it work for her, really, she had to admit, was the fact that Chanel herself was there, a small, rather forlorn little figure, sitting at the top of the famous spiral staircase, dressed in a pale pink tweed suit and a boater hat, smoking throughout; Eliza hadn’t quite believed she would be there, had thought it was some kind of legend. Which Chanel was, of course, a living legend.
I shall be able to tell my grandchildren about this
, Eliza thought.

There was a huge drama one day, which Fiona and Mariella regaled her with later, goggle-eyed: one of the newspapers had smuggled a photographer in; another got wind of it and there was a great chaos as the show was halted; he was identified and thrown literally out of the doors. The newspaper photographers were used to such hardship; the directrices of the salons despised them absolutely and would allow them to take only two pictures after each collection—“of the ugliest girls, and more or less in the dark,” Fiona said.

“Move this girl, would you?” Evangeline Turner, scourge of the younger fashion writers, éminence grise of the couturiers’ salons, and fashion editor of the
Daily Post
, waved her hand imperiously at Eliza. Eliza stared at the directrice of the salon. They wouldn’t move her. Surely they wouldn’t. She hadn’t asked to be in the front row; it was Fiona’s place—poor Fiona, who was lying in her hotel room with oyster poisoning. And she really hadn’t expected to be given it; front-row seats were for the big editors of the big glossies,
Vogue
and
Queen
, and the really prestigious papers, the
Sunday Times
and the
Daily Express
; assistants, if they got in at all, were usually right at the back behind a pillar.

Eliza was trying to resist the efforts of the directrice to eject her from her seat when Mariella arrived, looking rather flushed in a red silk
dress and black fur stole. She kissed her ecstatically. “Darling. Where are you going? Stay here with me; I want to show you something …”

She sat down, pulling a small Cartier box out of her bag. Eliza sank down again, flashing a sweet smile first at the directrice and then at Mrs. Turner. Life really didn’t get much better than this.

Paris was a revelation to Eliza: about how the world of high fashion really moved, about how crucial it remained to the industry, about the power of the press to make or break a house—however contemptuous the directrices might be. Her role as assistant was not to attend the shows, but to wait to collect the chosen dresses from each one—booked out to a timetable by the directrices, which could entail anything up to a two-hour wait—take them to the photographic studio, where Fiona and Mariella would be waiting, and then return them, usually to a shower of abuse for being late. She had to organise slots at the studios, taxis, sandwiches, coffee, cigarettes, had to run around quite literally from dawn to dawn with bagfuls of gloves, belts, shoes, hairpieces; on two days they did photographs out of the studio, and she had to hire limos of a sufficient size to double as dressing rooms for Mariella, who loved it, and the challenges of pulling up her stockings and even once changing her bra while the chauffeur smoked and acted as bodyguard—“Darling, this is so much fun.”

Eliza had to keep Fiona calm—not easy—wake her up in the morning—even less so—and try to stop her drinking too much at night—almost impossible. But she didn’t care; she was happier than she could ever remember, totally involved in everything; she would have scrubbed the pavements if they’d asked her, without complaint. And when finally, that last day, she found herself in charge of the session, while poor Fiona lay moaning in her bed, directing the hairdresser, choosing the accessories, and then actually daring to argue with Daniel Thexton and his insistence that Mariella put out her cigarette—“I think a cloud of smoke sort of round her face would look fantastic; let’s just try, Mariella. Yes, that’s wonderful; look, Daniel, don’t you think?”—and he
agreed
! That was tell-her-grandchildren stuff for sure.

She returned home exhausted, went to bed, and slept for twelve hours, to be woken by Fiona with the news that Jack had actually said the pictures weren’t bad at all; and when Jeremy rang a little later and
asked her whether she had missed him, she realised that she had hardly thought about him from one day’s end to the next.

Amanda had been able to help. Scarlett found herself lying in bed, in a very expensive convalescent home in the outermost reaches of North London, enduring no more than postanaesthetic nausea, mild stomachache—and no longer pregnant. She returned home after twenty-four hours and to work after another forty-eight; she felt rather tired, she told Diana as they waited for takeoff, but otherwise fine, “and just hugely relieved.”

“Not … not upset or anything?” Diana asked carefully, and Scarlett said no; why ever should she be?

“Well,” Diana said, “you might feel a bit … a bit—”

“A bit what?”

“Sad,” said Diana.

“What on earth for? I’d be feeling sad if I was still pregnant. I feel a bit poor, mind you, but—”

“Scarlett,” said Diana, “however logical you’re being about this, you have just been through a hell of a mill. You haven’t just had a bad curse; your hormones must be in total turmoil—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. I haven’t had to go through anything. Now do stop fussing; will you do the seat belt checks or shall I?”

“I will,” said Diana.

Matt and Jimbo had agreed, as they finally caught up on their paperwork at midnight one night, that they needed help.

“We can’t go on like this,” said Matt. “I mean, it’s great that we’re so busy, but I’m knackered. What do you think we should do?”

“Take on some more staff. I reckon we need a couple of trainee negotiators. They’d be dirt cheap. And then a junior, maybe, to help Louise.”

“Sounds OK. But we can’t fit them in here. We’ll have to move. Let’s talk to Louise, tell her to look out for somewhere. Once we’ve done the sums, that is.”

They did the sums, and told Louise their plans.

“Right,” she said, “you’re talking about taking on three people.”

“That’s right, yeah.”

“Two trainee negotiators and a junior.”

“Correct.”

“So I’ll have help too.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“With what exactly?”

“Well … what you’re doing now. The paperwork. The letters and filing and that.”