A Vision of Loveliness - By Louise Levene Page 0,56

sliding into the back with Jane.

‘Home, James. And put the heater on, can’t you? It’s freezing in here.’

Only there wasn’t a heater. Uncle Jack had struggled to find the six hundred and sixty quid to buy the car in the first place, let alone unnecessary luxuries like radios and leather seats and heaters.

Suzy had decided against goodbye kisses. What kind of cheapskate ran a car with no heater in it?

‘Cheerio, darling. Dinner was scrummy.’ And she and Jane slipped from the car without even waiting for him to whizz round and open the door for them – not that he showed much sign of wanting to do this – and they were on the doorstep and in before he had a chance to ask for another date.

Chapter 15

Every woman who isn’t downright

deformed can approximate the

harmony that will pass for beauty.

The lights were on when they got upstairs. Lorna, still in her coat, was slumped in front of the gas fire smoking Senior Service through a silly jewelled holder Suzy had left by the phone and sipping unhappily at a toothglass of neat gin. There was a new half bottle of Gilbey’s and a fresh pile of shillings on the mantelpiece. Brighton had not been a success.

Lorna was really quite pretty (for a redhead) but she obviously wasn’t the glamour type: patch-pocketed tweed skirt; Viyella blouse; hairslide. Suzy had once persuaded her to let her do her make-up. Big Terry had put all that ginger hair into a wormy fat mound on top of her head and Glenda had lent her a frock – green strapless taffeta. She didn’t look half bad but Lorna thought she looked like a tart and said so and the Egyptologist was so unnerved by this sudden nasty rash of glamour that he couldn’t get it up until she’d washed her face and stripped down to her knickers (navy-blue school leftovers).

That was months ago and the professor had obviously not been having too much trouble in that direction because Lorna was now three weeks late and had spent the weekend in the hotel room either crying her eyes out or being enthusiastically comforted by lover boy, who had decided to take full advantage of the fact that there would be no need to withdraw.

Lorna had always known he would never divorce Aileen – charming woman, apparently, head of modern languages at a girls’ grammar school in St Albans – but she didn’t ever want to have it proved conclusively. He hadn’t even mentioned the possibility of divorce, just fretted uselessly about how One went about arranging, ahem, Such Things and wondering if any of his colleagues had any idea what One did in these situations – and whether he could trust them to keep the whole Sordid Business to themselves.

‘It might affect his chances of promotion, apparently. Selfish pig. It didn’t occur to him that I might actually want to keep the rotten thing.’

The careful curve of Suzy’s eyebrows jumped nearly to her hairline.

‘Of course it didn’t, you dozy cow. What would you want with a baby, for Christ’s sake? They’d only make you have it adopted anyway. Imagine your mother with a bastard grandchild.’

This hit home. Suzy had only met Lorna’s mother once. She’d worn flat shoes specially. They hadn’t dared show her Suzy’s flat: they’d shown her round the one downstairs that belonged to a sweet old queen who worked in a wallpaper showroom in the next street. It was very nicely decorated – him being in the trade – but Mrs Lorna was still appalled by the idea of a lavatory on the half landing. Couldn’t understand why the darling daughter couldn’t travel in from Haywards Heath every day. Plenty of people did. Gaynor Charlesworth took the train to the P & O office every morning. What would people think?

People would probably think that poor Lorna was better off out of it: finally free of Mummy and her doilies and her musical doorbells and her koi carp and her vols au vents and her hostess aprons and the ludicrous bright brown nylon wig she wore to the shops on Wednesdays and Thursdays while she was holding on for Friday’s shampoo and set.

There was a Mr Lorna, back in Haywards Heath, but he hadn’t featured in the whole no-daughter-of-mine nonsense when Lorna had first moved into the flat and Suzy had never met him. Mr Lorna worked late whenever he possibly could and spent summer evenings and weekends in the greenhouse, faffing about cross-pollinating