The Decision (9 page)

‘Yes, course I remember Matt Shaw,’ Eliza said. ‘He was quite tasty as I recall.’

‘I ran into him in the City. He had quite a sharp suit on, filled out a bit, his hair’s longer. It was really good to see him. He’s working for an estate agent. Commercial variety. He’s doing well.’

‘Oh, really? Well, good for him.’

‘Yes, it’s the business to be in at the moment, that’s for sure. The potential for development in London is incredible, I know that. Typical Matt, he was delivering letters by hand, seemed embarrassed about it. I told him not to be so bloody silly. He’s got a bit of a chip on his shoulder but I do like him a lot. We thought we’d try and track down a couple of the others, have a real reunion.’

‘Yes, why don’t you?’ Eliza sounded distracted suddenly. ‘Charles, there’s something I want to talk to you about.’

‘What’s that? You’re not getting engaged finally, are you?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake. Why does everybody think I have to get engaged? No, Summercourt.’

‘What about it?’

‘I was talking to Mummy last weekend. She’s desperately worried. It needs a lot of money spent on it, not just painting it and general refurbishment, but they might need a new roof as well. They had it patched up a couple of years ago, but now it’s getting really bad. And they haven’t got a bean, she’s even talking about selling a bit more land.’

‘They can’t do that! Anyway, the trustees won’t let them. What does Pa say?’

‘Not a lot, as far as I can make out. You know how loyal she is, but reading between the lines his head’s firmly the sand. Just denies there’s a real problem. I can’t think what we can do to help, but at least we must show her some support. When are you going down next?’

‘Well, I could pop down tomorrow. I really can’t have her selling the land. It’d wreck the place. Could you come too?’

‘I could actually. OK, let’s do that. It would cheer her up if nothing else. She’s really worried, can’t sleep.’

‘Poor Mummy. Yes, let’s go and see her. I’m sure we can come up with something. Now, how’s the job? I want to hear all about it.’

Eliza was even less inclined towards marriage than usual that summer; gearing up for the autumn opening of Woolfe’s Young Generation was consuming all her energy. It had taken longer than even Lindy had expected, had been postponed twice and she had been in despair over the delay; Bernard Woolfe, initially enthusiastic, became slower and more cautious as he and the rest of the board debated endlessly the range of the merchandise, the look and feel of the department, its location within the store and what it would cost. Lindy and Eliza were both insistent that Woolfe’s did an own-label range of clothes to stock alongside the other designs, to link the youth and fun of the department more closely with the store and its gilt-edged fashion reputation; Bernard Woolfe said this would be a mistake, that should the new department fail, it would reflect badly on Woolfe’s as a whole, a question mark on their judgement.

‘Bernard, that’s just ridiculous,’ said Lindy, trying to keep her voice calm. ‘Either we believe in this thing or we don’t. If we don’t do our own line, it will look as if we’re hedging our bets.’

‘Perhaps that’s exactly what I am doing,’ said Woolfe, his dark eyes gleaming with good-natured malice. ‘Not such a bad thing, you know, when the going’s a bit rough …’

If Lindy had had her way, they would have opened within three months, ‘to beat the competition that I know there’s going to be’, but Bernard argued that unless everything was right the competition would win.

Jan Jacobson, the brilliant young buyer hired to work exclusively for Young Generation, had brought in some beautiful clothes; comparatively established designers like John Bates (of Jean Varon) and Sally Tuffin and Marion Foale would hang on rails alongside entirely new talent. He had discovered Mark Derrick, who designed apparently shapeless little shift dresses that still flattered girls’ bodies: the bodies that had seemed almost overnight to have been transformed from the shapely curves of the late Fifties to something almost boyish with neat, small breasts and flat, hipless torsos. And then there was Pattie Newton, whose clinched trench coats cut in the finest light gaberdine could be worn to work, to the theatre, even to parties over nothing more substantial than a silk slip; and Eliza herself had discovered Maddy Brown who had reinvented the sweater so that it continued downwards from the waist, to somewhere above the knee, and who also made ribbon-edged, gilt-buttoned mohair jackets in multi-coloured wool, which owed more than a nod in the direction of Chanel in shape, but were nonetheless totally original.

Eliza liked Maddy, she was fun, with a sweet and deceptively gentle manner; beneath it was an ambition as steely as Eliza’s own. She was the child of working-class parents, had won a scholarship to a grammar school and then to art school; she was small with long fair hair and huge green eyes, and she still lived at home and used her tiny bedroom as a studio workshop. Selling her range into Younger Generation was her greatest success yet. Eliza had spotted one of her jackets in a journalists’ office one day and had brought her into the Woolfe fold.

‘It was truly lovely,’ she had told Jan Jacobson, ‘and the girl at the magazine was so sorry they couldn’t use it, but she doesn’t have any stockists you see. I think you should see them.’

This was a familiar story; new designers, young and forward-thinking, making clothes for the new young market, had very little in the way of resources; stores liked the clothes, but didn’t want to risk unreliability of supply.

Slightly unwillingly, Jan agreed to see Maddy Brown, fell in love with the clothes and persuaded Bernard Woolfe she was worth the risk. Maddy and her one knitter, also working from home, found a couple more girls who met her exacting standards; all four of them were now installed in the unfortunate Mr and Mrs Brown’s front room.

The department was due to open at the very beginning of September. It was late to launch autumn and winter merchandise, but they had to make a huge splash with the press and by September everyone would be back from holiday and thinking winter, as Lindy put it. It was all incredibly exciting and Eliza could hardly believe she was going to be part of it.

One night that summer, she and Charles went with a party of friends to Brads, the newest of the new nightspots. It was wonderfully unstuffy, the dress code dizzily informal, the food fun – hamburgers and hot bacon sandwiches – and the music loud, it was as far removed from the polite formality of the traditional nightclub as jeans and open-neck shirts were from dinner jackets. It was soon after midnight when Eliza, lying back temporarily exhausted after an energetic bossa nova, heard someone shouting above the din.

‘Charles, old chap! Lovely to see you,’ and into view, smiling and waving just slightly drunkenly in their direction, came the most glorious-looking man.

‘Jeremy!’ said Charles. ‘Come and join us. Eliza, I don’t think you’ve met Jeremy. Jeremy Northcott. We were out in Hong Kong together. Jeremy, this is my sister, Eliza.’

‘Hello,’ said Eliza, smiling just a little coolly while digesting this Adonis: tall, blond, absurdly good-looking, the patrician nose and chiselled jaw saved from cliché by a slightly lopsided grin, showing, of course, perfect teeth.

‘Hello to you,’ said Jeremy and sat down abruptly next to her, clinging to his glass of red wine with some difficulty. ‘I think we met a couple of times at Eton, Fourth of June and so on.’

‘Really?’

She was sure she would have remembered him, he was so extraordinarily good looking, but then you did get a bit dazzled there, the standard was pretty high.

‘Yes, think so. And I was at the Harlot’s Ball the year you came out, but I didn’t manage to dance with you, too much competition.’

Eliza giggled.

‘Well, maybe we could put it right some other time,’ she said.

‘That’d be marvellous.’

He smiled at her again; he really was knee-shakingly attractive.

‘Well, what have you been doing with yourself, you old bugger?’ asked Charles. ‘Where are you living now?’

‘In a flat I kind of inherited in Sloane Street,’ said Jeremy.

‘Lucky you,’ said Charles. ‘That’s the sort of inheritance I’d like.’

‘Yes, it’s quite jolly there. What are you doing then, Charles? Working in the City, I heard?’

‘That’s right, with a firm of stockbrokers. Not a bad life. Hours are fairly agreeable, lot of decent chaps there. Pretty good really. How about you?’

‘I’m working in advertising,’ said Jeremy. ‘Terrific fun. Firm called K Parker Dutton, KPD for short. Don’t know if you’ve heard of it?’

‘I certainly have,’ said Eliza, smiling at him. ‘It sounds like complete heaven to me. Is it true you all have your own offices complete with sofas and fridges?’

‘Absolutely true.’

‘You on your own, Jeremy?’ said Charles. ‘You’re very welcome to join us.’

‘No, sorry, whole crowd of us, including a rather tedious cousin who I’m bidden to look after. I must get back in a tick.’ He looked at Eliza. ‘Lovely to meet you again. Think I can’t take you up on your invitation to dance just now. Another time perhaps?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘We must arrange an evening,’ said Charles. ‘Been to the Saddle Room yet?’

‘Yes, I’m a member. Great idea. So what are you up to, Eliza? Working girl?’

‘Is she ever,’ said Charles. ‘You’re looking at a bona fide career woman, Jeremy. Eliza works in fashion.’

‘Really? How amazing.’

‘Well, yes, it is a little bit amazing,’ said Eliza. ‘I love it anyway.’

‘So, what exactly is it? Are you a model?’

‘No,’ said Eliza, not sure whether to be flattered because he should think that possible, or irritated that he should think modelling a career. ‘No, I work for Woolfe’s, department store in Knightsbridge. I do the publicity.’

‘Oh, I know Woolfe’s. Great store. Publicity, eh? I know what that means, taking all the fashion editors out to lunch?’

‘Well, that’s only a very small part of the job,’ said Eliza, ‘but yes, that is one of the perks. And telling them about everything in the store, hoping they’ll write about it. And then making sure—’

‘Steady on, Eliza,’ said Charles, ‘Jeremy’s supposed to be enjoying himself, he doesn’t want a lecture on the PR industry.’

‘No, no,’ said Jeremy, ‘it’s my line of country, you know. Look, I must get back to the cousin, I can see her looking a bit wan. Let’s have lunch soon, Charles, here’s my card, give me a ring. And I’ll fix that evening at the Saddle Room. Lovely to meet you, Eliza. Bye for now.’

And he unwound his considerable height from the sofa and made his way back across the room.

‘He seems very nice,’ said Eliza.

‘I knew you’d like him,’ said Charles rather complacently, ‘and he’s fearsomely rich. His family owns a bank. Now if you married him that would solve all our problems. Summercourt included.’

‘Charles!’ exclaimed Eliza, hurling a packet of cigarettes at him. ‘I said he was very nice, not that I wanted to marry him. Please stop going on about it. I am just not interested in getting married at the moment; I’m only interested in my career, OK?’

‘OK,’ said Charles.

‘Scarlett, could I possibly go up the front on the way back?’

‘OK. As long as Brian agrees.’

Brian was one of the stewards on their flight; it was the stewards who decided which girls did Economy (Down the Back as it was known) and which First (Up the Front). The posher a girl, the more likely she was to be sent down the back; it was the totties who got given First Class, acknowledged a cushier number, because they were more likely to reward the stewards – those who weren’t homosexual at least – by sleeping with them. No really classy girl would dream of sleeping with the stewards. Scarlett was seldom up the front, in spite of her slightly shaky social credentials, because she wouldn’t have dreamed of sleeping with them either; she’d actually hoped to be there this trip, for a treat, it was from Vienna, almost four hours, but Diana was looking dreadful.

‘Why, what’s wrong?’ she said.

‘Oh, I’ve got the curse, feel awful. Now at least I’ll be able to sit down occasionally.’

‘Course. I’m sorry.’ Scarlett looked at her sympathetically. Diana had terrible period pains and was quite often actually sick. ‘You go and lie down for half an hour. They’re boarding late; I’ll make you a nice cup of tea. Got any codeine?’

‘I think there’s some in first aid. Thanks, Scarlett.’

But when it was time to board, Diana was vomiting and dizzy; the captain sent her back to the sick bay.

‘You can’t fly like that. No use to anyone. Don’t worry, we’ll manage.’

The flight was only half full. ‘This’ll be a piece of cake,’ said Scarlett cheerfully to Brian.

‘Don’t be too sure. Lot of turbulence forecast.’

The turbulence was a while coming; Scarlett began to hope the forecast was wrong. She had enough to cope with without it; there was a difficult meal to serve, beef on the bone, carved in the aisle, and almost every passenger on the plane wanted theirs rare, and a French businessman demanded his blue; an extremely tiresome child insisted on walking up and down the aisle behind her, ‘helping her’ as she put it, and an American woman called Mrs Berenson was intensely nervous and clutched at Scarlett every time she went past, asking how they were doing, whether there was any turbulence ahead, when they might land, was there a doctor on board.