and valets lived.
‘Them gentlemen’s gentlemen is all gentlemen’s gentlemen, if you know what I mean, dear.’
Annie’s gummy old face folded up with happy disgust. She was quite taken with the maid’s quarters otherwise. There was barely room to get out of the bed divan but it was all centrally heated and she spent most of her time down in the flat anyway, either washing their lovely little bits or polishing the mirrors or playing with the Hoover – ‘it’s got attachments. Does curtains and everything’ – otherwise once her two dolly birds were off out she could just put her feet up in the easy chair in her cosy kitchen, eating handmade chocolates and listening to Mrs Dale’s Diary on the wireless. Mrs Dale wasn’t Annie’s cup of tea at all.
‘Stuck-up bitch. Doctors’ wives are the worst. Like her shit don’t stink. She’s probably having it with that Caradoc bloke. They don’t let you hear what really goes on in them places.’
The only man Annie had ever really had any time for was killed in France somewhere the war before last. Died instantly they said. Never knew what hit him – unless he did know . . .
Henry had been visiting Suzy every day with silk dresses, lizard shoes, straw hats, suede gloves, a gold wristwatch (It wasn’t feminine to know the time – until she had a Rolex) and finally, jammy jammy tart, he’d promised her the deeds to the Nice Little Flat. Henry had never had it so good. He had just persuaded the London County Council to let him pull down what the Germans had left of New Oxford Street and he could afford to say sorry any way he liked.
Suzy had spent most of Thursday at a beauty parlour in Bond Street being massaged with placenta oil (which was a bit peculiar in the circumstances) before taking a cab the three hundred yards up the road to visit Big Terry at the shiny new black and white salon and turn his fully-booked afternoon into a nightmare of be-with-you-in-a-moment-madams. Then she got another taxi over to Carpenter’s and swanned into the bar looking like a million dollars (so Pete always insisted on saying).
‘Mmm. Monopoly money, darling,’ oozed Suzy.
Suzy kissed a few cheeks and popped herself up on a stool, crossing her legs with a soft whizz as nine bob’s worth of five-strand 15-denier s-t-r-e-t-c-h nylon rubbed itself together. Her crocodile bag was tucked over the sleeve of her suit jacket and under her arm was the very latest Vogue.
‘Big Terry let me have his. He’s got a hairdo in it.’ She flicked through the pages quite casually before holding out the open magazine to Alpaca Pete.
‘See anyone you recognise?’
And there they were, Jane and Suzy in a full-colour, half-page ad for Frockways’ Double Dates.
Three months ago Lawrence Green had recommended them to a man called Feldman who ran a huge budget-fashions business in Eastcastle Street. He had a whole new line and the sample run had been such a hit that he’d decided to advertise. There was a big craze for anything reversible and Solly Feldman’s Double Dates were a stroke of genius.
‘What is it?’ Poor Reggie was going cross-eyed looking at the same girl in two frocks.
‘Basically, darling, it’s a frock with great big lacy holes in the skirt, double-sided petticoat underneath. One side matches skirt: invisible. Other side red or gold lamé or sky-blue pink: bingo. Ready to party the instant you clock off work.’
Reggie glanced obligingly at the picture. ‘Cunning. Very cunning.’
Double Dates. The perfect day-to-evening ensemble for the budget-conscious career girl who’s really going places! Just switch the petticoats and reverse the matching coatee and your Frockways Double Date is all ready for a night on the town. Twice the appeal from only £9 15s the set. Extra contrasting petties available from 59s 11d. Coatees from £4 10s. Sizes 8–16.
There was a picture of Jane stuck in the background behind the typewriter looking demure in a navy dress and jacket while Suzy wore the same thing only with the red bits showing and a flower in her hair looking deliriously gay in the arms of some deb’s delight in a dinner jacket. The deb’s delight (who lived with an antique-dealing friend in Lower Sloane Street) got paid half as much again (being a man, of sorts) but no one remembered him. It was the two girls – ‘the virgin and the gypsy’ Pete called them – bastard – that caught the eye. Mr