hands back down the front of Suzy’s pink organza dress. He looked like a man being attacked by a giant stick of candyfloss.
‘Don’t be silly. Bill can take her in the car. I’ll give him a call and tell him to be here for – eleven all right for you? We don’t need the car till tomorrow evening, do we?’ ‘We’. Not ‘I’. ‘We’.
This was very, very kind of Henry. Jane didn’t know how she could thank him enough (trembling slightly as she said it in case the randy old bugger thought of a bloody way). But he wasn’t even looking at Jane and her grateful tears would have been completely wasted if the doorbell hadn’t rung. She opened the door with bright, gooey eyes and her handsome, posh grocer was ready and waiting to whisk her down to Daddy’s Daimler which was vrooming respectfully on the forecourt below.
‘I shan’t be two seconds.’ It was imagining her suede stiletto snaking out of the passenger door that gave Jane the brainwave.
She dived back into her room. How long would she actually be spending with Doreen? Half an hour? An hour at most. At that rate Henry’s Bill could practically leave the engine running on the Bentley. Oh goody. The Bentley. She picked up the receiver and, using the end of her eye pencil to protect her manicure, dialled Joy in South Norwood.
It was more like Panic in South Norwood, actually. Where had she been, what her aunt had said about her, all that rubbish – until Jane cut her short and suggested they meet for a drink tomorrow lunchtime in the local hotel. You could hear the big gulp of oxygen Joy needed to take this one in her stride, not sound nonplussed and nineteen. She agreed to get the gang together and meet in the lounge bar of the Nelson (it was just a glorified pub really but Joy had never dared set foot in the place) at one o’clock.
Young Master James was straightening his bow tie in the hall mirror.
‘Jolly nice flat.’
As they whizzed down in the lift she explained about the aunt in Surrey and the friend of a friend in Hong Kong. Not too much detail, though. That was where Suzy fell down. Nobody wanted details.
She’d just finished brushing her teeth in the powder room – you couldn’t eat pâté and toast and wear a Willpower Dress, the bloody thing had a 21-inch waist – when the door swung open to reveal Johnny Hullavington’s shop-soiled blonde ‘fiancée’, Amanda, keen for a spot of gossip and nose-powdering between the boeuf en croute and the bombe surprise. Jane immediately ducked her head as if fiddling with the heel of her stocking. Amanda was with the long-suffering friend.
‘He seems to be being perfectly pleasant,’ said the friend, trying to swallow the yawn in her voice.
‘Yes, well that’s all very well but he still won’t talk dates. Mummy won’t shut up about it.’ Amanda was fed up with the whole thing. She’d even let him take her to bed a couple of times but there didn’t seem much point. He hadn’t been particularly appreciative and the whole thing only lasted for about thirty-five rather nasty seconds. Hardly worth taking your stockings off.
‘Yes, but did he ever actually propose? Not even afterwards?’
Afterwards? Oh dear, oh dear. Poor Amanda.
‘Oh do shut up, Celia.’
No date had been set for the wedding in other words. Serve her right. Silly cow.
Amanda and Celia both disappeared into cubicles to struggle with their girdles (Holds its shape – and your figure – with a gentle determination) while Jane escaped back downstairs. So. Johnny was in the restaurant somewhere.
Jane loped smoothly back to her table, giving the room the bland all-seeing stare of the catwalk model, while the room pretended not to look at the cartoon curves of her figure in its blue silk sheath. She could hardly breathe in the bloody thing but it was definitely worth it. They’d probably still have stared at her three months ago but only to wonder what she was doing there. Jane had a nightmare once where she walked the length of the room at L’Etoile and no one turned to look. It was only when she got to the Ladies’ and looked in the mirror and saw the old Jane – long brown hair, chartreuse velvet – that she realised why. It must happen – or not happen – to older women on a nightly basis but it must have been