A Vision of Loveliness

Chapter 6


Just follow this simple, practical advice

and you, too, can evolve into a charming

and attractive woman. A magnet to

any single man and the natural focus

of attention at any social gathering.



It was only when she was actually walking out of the shop that it dawned on Jane that finding Miss Crocodile might not be as easy as all that. Why hadn’t she just taken the bag round to the police at Vine Street? It was too late to take it in now and, anyway, the more she thought about it, the more she worried about the price tag and that envelope full of tenners – she hadn’t dared to count it.

She walked along Piccadilly but carried on right past the side street where the oyster bar was. Instead she headed for the department store on the corner. She slipped off her coat as soon as she got inside, folding it round to the plain black silk lining: that was better. She swanned over to the perfume counter, swinging the Hardy Amies carrier with the violet dress and crocodile bag inside it. The salesgirl sprang to attention. She was thinking of changing her scent. Did Madam have anything in mind? Madam sniffed pickily at several before putting a big cold squirt of Joy on her wrist. The costliest perfume in the world. That was probably the only reason people bought it. It was a bit sickly, tell the truth.

‘I won’t buy it today, if you don’t mind. I need to get someone else’s opinion first.’ The saleslady smirked understandingly. They were used to people killing time. They got through six bottles of Joy a month: five for the browsers; one for the saleslady.

Jane faffed around playing shops and being madamed a bit more before finally putting her coat back on and heading off for Carpenter’s.

You could see into the restaurant from the street. It was nearly half past one but the place looked pretty dead with only a handful of old bachelors slurping down a few dozen oysters at the brass and mahogany counter. There was a rather lively little crowd in the bar next door but they could hardly be waiting for tables.

Jane stood by the door pretending to study the menu but looking in through the lumpy yellow glass panes. Bingo. There in the middle of that laughing group, lit by the lamps that dangled above the bar, was the girl in the photograph.

She was sitting on a high stool apparently in the middle of telling a funny story. She was wearing a shortish, short-sleeved dress in peacock-blue ribbed silk with a bubbling bib of black and blue beads. Her legs were crossed (high on the thigh, natch) and they dangled temptingly over the edge of the stool.

Jane opened the door and slipped inside. The funny story was in full swing and the girl was telling it brilliantly. She had a delicious voice – like an actress but more natural. The accent had golden touches of Army and In-ja all gingered up by a spicy vocabulary that she used almost innocently, like Brigitta swearing in a foreign language.

‘So. The chap says, “Fifty quid! That’s a hell of a lot of money. What’s it made of?” ’ She giggled a little. ‘Now you mustn’t blame me for this. It was Dickie’s story so any complaints and you know where to go.’

She took a tiny sip of her gin and tonic, looking at them saucily over the rim of her glass, making them wait.

‘Anyway. The man trying to sell him the wallet says, “It’s made from elephant’s foreskin.” ’

She said it in a shocked stage whisper and the bar was already yelping with laughter. There were four men and two other women, older. The men wore tweed jackets or blazers, the women smart weekend clothes and just-set hair.

‘“Well, I’m sorry,” says the chap, “but fifty quid’s still a lot of money just for a wallet.” “Ah, yes,” says the other man, “but if you rub it, it turns into a suitcase.” ’

Mayhem. One of the women – black and white striped suit and hair the colour of bottled orange juice – had a laugh like an air-raid warning.

‘Trust Dickie to teach a girl a story like that.’

The girl seemed very pleased with the success of her joke and had another taste of her gin. One of the men – handsome, curly dark hair, mid thirties – moved in to offer her a cigarette from a smart silver case. She took it and leaned forward to find the flame. It was beautiful to watch her raising her eyes to his as she sucked the cigarette alight. Jane knew how to do this (she’d practised in the bedroom mirror when everyone was out) but she’d never actually dared put it to use. The girl looked so sexy doing it. It wasn’t a trick to waste on any old Tony.

Jane edged closer to the laughing group. The girl saw her first and smiled expectantly at the mousey little person in the funny grey coat but it was the dark man who spoke.

‘Hello, young lady. You looking for someone?’

It was like being on stage. They had all turned to look at her. She stammered over her lines: ‘I think, I think one of you might have lost a handbag.’ She pulled it free of the carrier. ‘I found it yesterday.’

The girl’s eyes lit up. They were bright blue. Lobelia blue.

‘You absolute darling!’ She could say something like that and not sound stupid. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever see it again. At last I can powder my nose.’

She was wearing quite a bit of make-up, Jane reckoned – powder; rouge; eye pencil; mascara; lipstick – but it didn’t look tarty, just brighter somehow. Her nose didn’t seem to want powdering but she slipped down off the stool and put her arm through Jane’s and whisked her up the wide staircase to the Ladies’. It didn’t have a sign saying Ladies or WC or anything, just a silhouette of Alice in Wonderland on the door. There was a knave of hearts on the Gents’.

It was lovely inside. All mirrors and armchairs and big boxes of tissues and cotton wool and hairspray and tidy piles of hand towels embroidered with pale-blue oyster shells and a wonderful slot machine that gave squirts of different scent for a shilling.

‘It was really super of you to bring it back. Luckily I had a spare set of keys but it was still a huge pain. However did you track me down?’

She sank down on to one of the little chairs and reached into the bag for her compact. She didn’t even look to see if the money was there. Jane sat down beside her and peeped at herself in the mirror.

‘Just lucky really. There was your photograph and some Carpenter’s matches inside. I thought I’d come here first. I only work round the corner and I didn’t fancy going back to that pub.’

The girl pulled a face – a pretty face, but a face.

‘Not your local then? Don’t blame you. Anyway I can’t thank you enough. You’re an absolute darling. Take your coat off now you’re here. You must stay and have a drink. What a divine coat and skirt!’ Oh my dear, ‘coat-and-skirt’. Get her. Lady Muck.

She examined Jane with her head on one side as if sizing up the mismatch between head and body.

‘You really ought to wear your hair up.’

‘It only falls down.’

‘Not if you backcomb a bit underneath and then pin it right. Come here.’

She took the pack of hairpins out of the crocodile bag and, without even asking, began to twist and spray Jane’s hair into a neat chignon.

‘French pleats are nicer,’ she said, checking her own smooth profile in the mirror, ‘but your hair’s a bit long. Want to borrow a lipstick?’

It was wonderful. More wonderful than the suit really. Jane could have sat there all afternoon just looking at herself. The girl stood next to her, smiling, obviously waiting for Jane to smile back so Jane pulled her lips into a grateful shape.

‘That’s better. Do you not have a bag?’

‘I can’t afford a really nice one so I just keep my purse in my coat pocket.’

‘Tell you what. You borrow this one. I’d look bonkers carrying two.’

She handed Jane a black suede pochette she’d been carrying. Just right with the shoes.

‘You can give it back to me later.’

She finally took a proper look at the inside of the crocodile bag and took out the envelope. She still didn’t actually count it.

‘This’ll come in handy. I think this calls for a little celebration.’

Jane left her coat and carrier bag hanging on a hook and she followed the girl downstairs.

‘We haven’t introduced ourselves. I’m Suzy. Suzy St John.’

‘Jane. Jane James.’

‘Good name. Your own? Mine isn’t.’

They reached the bar where some of the life seemed to have leaked out of the little group.

‘Everybody, this is Janey James who has brought back my lovely crocodile bag and all my lovely winnings. Janey darling, this is Madge and Sylvia,’ Madge was the one with the laugh, ‘and this is Derek, Reggie and Bob and this disreputable-looking creature is Alpaca Pete.’

Pete took Jane’s hand and sized her up with his dirty brown eyes.

‘Peter Benson. How do you do?’

It was a posh voice but probably dyed rather than natural (Jane should know). He wore cavalry twill trousers, a lemon-yellow alpaca cardigan and a paisley silk cravat. Doreen would have had him down as a poof but he was just a man in a yellow cardigan.

They hadn’t looked at Jane when she came in but she wasn’t invisible now. They made room at the table while Suzy organised her little celebration.

‘I think we’d better make it a magnum, don’t you, Ted my darling?’ She crackled two of the crisp blue fivers and waved away the change. ‘Have a drink on me, Ted,’ she whispered. Flash.

Ted swerved out from behind the bar in his dapper maroon mess jacket and little black bow tie. He had a huge ice bucket in one hand and a bouquet of champagne saucers in the other. Jane knew about these, mainly from her etiquette books but also from Doreen’s sideboard which contained an odd pair – both pinched from the one and only wedding reception she’d agreed to go to. Jane used to drink cream soda out of them when Doreen was out. Cream soda was actually nicer, she thought, as she sipped the sour, icy bubbles.

There were lots of nice things to eat on the table. A mixed plate of smoked salmon and fresh crab sandwiches (on brown) and a huge glass dish divided into sections for Twiglets, Cheeselets, cheese straws, cheese footballs and green olives with red stuff inside. The glass ashtrays were printed with a picture of the Walrus and the Carpenter eating oysters. Similar prints covered the walls of the bar, as well as some grimy brown oil paintings showing silver trays heaped with lobsters and prawns and glassy-eyed fish. Jane sat there smiling over her champagne glass and nibbling shyly at a crab sandwich. She hadn’t said much but that probably wouldn’t matter. She looked nice, that was the important thing.

‘So what do you do, Janey?’ asked one of the men. Reg? Bob?

‘At the moment I’m working in the Albemarle Arcade, at Drayke’s.’ People always said ‘at the moment’ as if they were about to switch to something much, much better.

‘Ah, indeed,’ said Pete, ‘home of the alpaca cardigan.’

‘Done any modelling?’ wondered Reg. They were starting to sound like the awful man in the pub but Suzy joined in too, looking approvingly at Jane’s carefully casual pose.

‘You should, you know. Perfect for it.’

‘Suzy does modelling, don’t you, darling?’ The great advantage of this line of work is that you need only be a model. You don’t ever actually have to do any modelling to qualify.

‘Bits and pieces. Ooh, did I show you my composite Dickie made for me?’

Suzy reached into the bag and dug out the card with her photos on it. ‘He wants twenty guineas to make up three hundred but I’m not sure I really want photographic work. You have to get up too early. I’d much rather stagger around a showroom in a pretty frock for an hour or two. Money for old rope, darling,’ she said this to Jane.

The restaurant had finally given up hope of any more customers and the champagne was disappearing fast. Pete leaned over and stroked Jane’s best stockings appreciatively.

‘So! Are we all heading over to Dougie’s flat? You going to join us, Janey? Glass of Chablis. A few oysters? Spot of lobster?’

He nodded meaningfully at Ted the barman who disappeared through a side door, returning moments later with a huge parcel, beautifully wrapped in brown paper with drawings of oysters and carpenters printed all over it in navy-blue ink.

‘Mr Carter has made up your order, sir.’

He didn’t wink exactly but his voice seemed to be winking. No money changed hands.

‘Do come. It’ll be fun.’

Suzy was being helped into the blue sack jacket that matched her dress. Over that she wore a fingertip-length black Persian lamb coat: shawl collar; three-quarter-length sleeves (bracelet length) and long black leather gloves.

‘You look like a million dollars, Suzy my darling,’ purred Pete. ‘Very smart for a Saturday morning.’ Everyone thought this was very funny.

‘Susan always dresses so well,’ smarmed the woman called Sylvia.

‘Yes,’ muttered Pete, ‘and so quickly.’

Jane got her bag and her rotten grey coat from upstairs but couldn’t bear to put it on. Suzy seemed to sense the problem immediately.

‘Tell you what, darling,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t think that those buttons Do. You. Any. Favours. At. All. Do you?’

Quick as anything, she had pulled the nail scissors out of her bag and in the time it took the others to get their coats on she had snipped off all six of the big red plastic lumps and the stupid great half-belt thing at the back.

‘That’s miles better. You can hold it together edge-to-edge with the pockets.’

It did look better, a lot better. But she should have asked just the same.

Pete led the way to a big brown car parked outside.

‘We’ll all fit in the Rover, won’t we? It’s not far.’

Pete drove and the rest piled in after him, the girls perched on the men’s laps. Jane got Derek who had one hand on her knee and the other round her waist the whole way. He had a friend who was a photographer – funny the way they all did.