It was a hideous evening. In three short weeks I seemed to have grown a world apart from Charlie and his flash trendy friends, waiting round in Tramps all night for something to happen, only interested in being the first ones to latch on to the latest fad. Suddenly their values seemed completely dislocated.
We went to Annabel’s and I couldn’t stand it, then we moved on to the Dumbbells, then on to somewhere else and somewhere else. Finally Charlie took me back to his flat and we played records.
I have to hand it to Charlie; he seemed to realize instinctively that I was at suicide level and didn’t attempt to pounce on me in his usual fashion. Perhaps it had something to do with his having a new girlfriend who was off modelling in Stockholm for a couple of days. I looked at my watch. It was three o’clock.
‘What’s the matter baby?’ he asked. ‘Have you fallen for some bloke at last? I’ve never seen you so piano, you’re not even bitching how bored you are by everything this evening. You look different too.’
He took off my dark glasses.
‘Boy; you do look different. I must say I rather go for the Ave Maria look.’
It would have helped if I could have cried on his shoulder, but I’d gone beyond that stage now, I was just numb with misery.
‘Take me home, please Charlie,’ I said.
Next day, life picked up about half an inch. For an hour I endured the torture of listening to Lorna babbling on at breakfast about the marvellous time she’d had with Gareth.
‘After dinner, we went up to the top of the Hilton for a drink, and looked out over the whole of London, it was so romantic,’ she said, helping herself to a third piece of toast and marmalade. Her mascara was still smudged under her eyes. I hoped it wasn’t sex that had given her such an appetite.
Then she started to ask me awkward questions about the new job I’d lied to Gareth that I’d got.
‘It’s in Knightsbridge,’ I said.
‘Well you must give me the telephone number because you’ll be moving out of here.’
‘I’ll be travelling a lot,’ I said hastily. ‘And they’re always a bit dodgy about personal calls to start off with. I’ll write and tell you.’
‘It sounds marvellous,’ said Lorna, selecting a banana. ‘But if by chance it doesn’t work out, Gareth says there’s a marvellous new agency started up in Albemarle Street called Square Peg. They specialize in placing people who want to branch out in completely new fields.’
‘I’ll take the address just in case,’ I said.
As soon as she’d gone, pleading with me to come and spend the weekend soon, I had a bath, painted my face with great care, took my last two Valium, and set out for Square Peg. They turned out to be very friendly and businesslike, and despatched me straightaway to a public relations firm in the City.
The firm’s offices were scruffy, untidy, and terribly hot. The secretary who welcomed me looked tired out, and her hair needed washing, but she gave me the sort of smile that all those personnel bitches I’d worked for were always banging on about.
‘It’s been a hell of a week,’ she said. ‘The air conditioning’s broken and the heat’s been terrible. It’s crazy hard work here, but it’s fun.’
The boss was a small dark Jew called Jakey Bartholomew, who seemed to burn with energy. His foxy, brown eyes shone with intelligence behind horn-rimmed spectacles. He had to lift a lot of files, a box of pork chops, and a huge cutout cardboard of a pig off a chair before I could sit down.
‘We’ve just landed the Pig Industry account,’ he said grinning. ‘I’m trying to persuade them to produce kosher pork. We’ve been going for nine months now, and we’re taking on new business all the time because we provide the goods on a shoestring. Do you know anything about public relations?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Just as well. You haven’t had time to pick up any bad habits.’ He ripped open a couple of beer cans and gave me one.
‘We’re a small outfit, only ten people in the firm, and we can’t afford passengers. We need a girl Friday — you can see this place is in shit order — to keep it tidy, make decent coffee, and chat up the clients when they come. Then you’d have to do things like putting press releases into envelopes, taking them to the post, organizing press parties, and probably writing the odd release. It’s very menial work.’
‘I don’t care,’ I said, trying to keep the quiver of desperation out of my voice. ‘I’ll do anything.’
‘If you’re good we’ll promote you very fast.’
Suddenly he grinned, reminding me of Gareth.
‘All right, you’re on, baby. Go along to the accounts department in a minute and get your P.45 sorted out. We’ll start you on a three months trial on Monday.’
I couldn’t believe my luck; I hardly concentrated as we discussed hours and salaries, and he told me a bit more about the firm. He was very forceful. It was only when I stood up to go that I realized I was about four inches taller than he was.
‘The agency was right,’ he said. ‘They insisted you were a very classy looking dame.’
I didn’t remember the agency saying any such thing when they telephoned through. They must have rung again after I’d left.
I then took a long 22 bus ride out to Putney where the Evening Standard had advertised a room to let. Everywhere I could see the ravages of the drought, great patches of black burnt grass, flowers gasping with thirst in dried-up gardens. As I got off the bus, a fire engine charged past, clanging noisily. Although it was only the end of July, a bonfire smell of autumn filled my nostrils.
The house was large and Victorian on the edge of the common, the front rooms darkened by a huge chestnut tree. A stocky woman answered the door. She had a tough face like dried out roast beef, and muddy, mottled knees. She was wearing a flowered sleeveless dress that rucked over her large hips. Rose petals in her iron grey hair gave her an incongruously festive look. At present she was more interested in stopping several dogs escaping than letting me in.
‘I’ve come about the room,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ she said, looking slightly more amiable. ‘I’m Mrs Lonsdale-Taylor. Come in, sorry to look such a mess, I’ve been gardening. Come here Monkey,’ she bellowed to a small brown mongrel who was trying to lick my hand.
‘Mind the loose rod,’ she said as we climbed the stairs. In front of me her sturdy red legs went into her shoes without the intervention of ankles. Her voice was incredibly put on. I was sure she’d double-barrelled the Lonsdale and Taylor herself.
The room was at the top of the house; the sofa clashed with the wallpaper, the brass bed creaked when I sat on it, rush matting hardly covered the black scratched floorboards. On the wall were framed photographs cut out from magazines and stuck on cardboard. The curtains hung a foot above the floor like midi skirts. It would be a cold and cheerless room in winter.
I looked outside. In spite of the drought Mrs Lonsdale-Taylor had been taking great care of her garden. The mingled scent of stocks, clove carnations and a honeysuckle, which hung in great honey-coloured ramparts round the window, drifted towards me. A white cat emerged from a forest of dark blue delphiniums and, avoiding the sprinkler that was shooting its rainbow jets over the green lawn, walked towards the house at a leisurely pace. It was incredibly quiet.
‘It’s beautiful here,’ I said. ‘You’re lucky to be so countrified living so near London.’
I bent to stroke the little brown mongrel who’d followed us upstairs. He wagged his tail and put both his paws up on my waist.
‘Get down, Monkey,’ said Mrs Lonsdale-Taylor, aiming a kick at him. ‘He was my late husband’s dog, I’ve never really taken to him. My husband passed on last year, or I wouldn’t be taking people in.’