Mrs Green was back in the workroom so Suzy could work the lashes. ‘You must have lots of stuff hanging about from last season. What about that sale or return deal you did with Barkers? They can’t have shifted all of it. Not the small sizes. Be a darling. Janey’s got a really hot date tomorrow.’
She posed demurely on a little gilt chair, hands crossed at the wrist to deepen the round, creamy cleavage visible over the white satin rim of the bodice. Like a very naughty bridesmaid. Lawrence Green straightened his Windsor knot and gave them another flash of that smart gold tooth.
‘We’ll see how it goes this morning. I’ve got one buyer coming down from Manchester; Firbridges Young and Gay department and the head of model gowns for Debenham and Freebody – first time we’ve had her here. One of her suppliers has let her down and she needs some spring models in a hurry. Wedding gowns are big business at the moment. Nobody wants a Windsor grey costume in a register office when they can screw daddy for white faille and six bridesmaids.’ Jane thought of Eileen and her four fat cousins in home-made peach pongee.
The first buyer arrived on the stroke of half nine. A huge, heavily corseted Manchester woman who had picked out a showy fat personality to match her size. She was on the lookout for ‘soomthing a bit different’ which was why she always came up to London to service her ‘special’ customers: toffee-nosed, butterscotch-blonde matrons from Wilmslow.
In fact, as Lawrence Green well knew, ‘soomthing a bit different’ actually meant something very plain indeed. The gown manufacturers of the North West were still hopelessly addicted to bugle-beading.
Mrs Stockley loved coming to Green’s. All the gown buyers did. Goldie Green would stay out of the way while her husband worked them over: hand-kissing; flirting; smiling that handsome smile; oscillating around them like an attentive boyfriend. Almost all the buyers were single – most big stores (and most husbands) frowned on female staff keeping their jobs after marriage – and almost all of them were susceptible to a little professional flattery. Place a big enough order and you might even get lunch at one of Mr Green’s regular haunts: the Langham Hotel or maybe even L’Etoile. Like Henry Swan, he knew the value of a familiar face (and a big fat tip). Half the fun of coming to London was to be wined and dined by a witty, handsome, hand-stitched creature like Lawrence Green. And he listened. All her problem customers, their fads, their tantrums. Her staff. And the orders were always turned around nice and fast.
When he could, Lawrence liked to schedule a good fifteen-minute firebreak between appointments so that his buyers didn’t see each other coming and going. He’d have had separate entrances if he could. Everything was always Exclusive but that could mean a lot and he didn’t want two rival stores seeing each other buying. The important thing was to sprinkle the collection across as wide an area as possible so that none of the model gowns brushed against each other at the same dinner dance – the punters would be mortified and the shops would get it in the neck. The budget customers had to take their chances.
In the tiny changing room Suzy was zipping Jane into a green creation in ottoman satin – ‘In a Jade Garden’ – while Jane hastily stuffed some paper handkerchiefs into the dyed-to-match shoes.
‘Try to keep your left side to the wall. There’s a coffee stain down the skirt.’
The dress was fat and heavy with fabric, giving the ballerina-length skirts a slow, graceful sway. She swung out from behind the screen and Mrs Green began her running commentary to an audience of one (‘Janey’s gown has standaway fluting in the Balenciaga manner’). Jane had watched such shows dozens of times, played models in the mirror till her feet burned. She paused by the screen as if scanning the room for her date, raised her chin and smiled as if she had spotted him on the far side of the room, then loped purposefully towards him, swinging her hips very slightly to exaggerate the lilt of the skirt. A hasty full turn (to keep the coffee stain on the move) and then a classic pose while Goldie drew the buyer’s attention to the built-in boning – ‘for a smoother line’; the pistachio net petticoats – ‘ideal for dancing’; the clever new Seenozip and the fact