‘It sounds marvellous,’ said Lorna, selecting a banana. ‘But if by chance it doesn’t work out, Gareth says there’s a marvellous new agency started up in Albemarle Street called Square Peg. They specialize in placing people who want to branch out in completely new fields.’

‘I’ll take the address just in case,’ I said.

As soon as she’d gone, pleading with me to come and spend the weekend soon, I had a bath, painted my face with great care, took my last two Valium, and set out for Square Peg. They turned out to be very friendly and businesslike, and despatched me straightaway to a public relations firm in the City.

The firm’s offices were scruffy, untidy, and terribly hot. The secretary who welcomed me looked tired out, and her hair needed washing, but she gave me the sort of smile that all those personnel bitches I’d worked for were always banging on about.

‘It’s been a hell of a week,’ she said. ‘The air conditioning’s broken and the heat’s been terrible. It’s crazy hard work here, but it’s fun.’

The boss was a small dark Jew called Jakey Bartholomew, who seemed to burn with energy. His foxy, brown eyes shone with intelligence behind horn-rimmed spectacles. He had to lift a lot of files, a box of pork chops, and a huge cutout cardboard of a pig off a chair before I could sit down.

‘We’ve just landed the Pig Industry account,’ he said grinning. ‘I’m trying to persuade them to produce kosher pork. We’ve been going for nine months now, and we’re taking on new business all the time because we provide the goods on a shoestring. Do you know anything about public relations?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Just as well. You haven’t had time to pick up any bad habits.’ He ripped open a couple of beer cans and gave me one.

‘We’re a small outfit, only ten people in the firm, and we can’t afford passengers. We need a girl Friday — you can see this place is in shit order — to keep it tidy, make decent coffee, and chat up the clients when they come. Then you’d have to do things like putting press releases into envelopes, taking them to the post, organizing press parties, and probably writing the odd release. It’s very menial work.’

‘I don’t care,’ I said, trying to keep the quiver of desperation out of my voice. ‘I’ll do anything.’

‘If you’re good we’ll promote you very fast.’

Suddenly he grinned, reminding me of Gareth.

‘All right, you’re on, baby. Go along to the accounts department in a minute and get your P.45 sorted out. We’ll start you on a three months trial on Monday.’

I couldn’t believe my luck; I hardly concentrated as we discussed hours and salaries, and he told me a bit more about the firm. He was very forceful. It was only when I stood up to go that I realized I was about four inches taller than he was.

‘The agency was right,’ he said. ‘They insisted you were a very classy looking dame.’

I didn’t remember the agency saying any such thing when they telephoned through. They must have rung again after I’d left.

I then took a long 22 bus ride out to Putney where the Evening Standard had advertised a room to let. Everywhere I could see the ravages of the drought, great patches of black burnt grass, flowers gasping with thirst in dried-up gardens. As I got off the bus, a fire engine charged past, clanging noisily. Although it was only the end of July, a bonfire smell of autumn filled my nostrils.

The house was large and Victorian on the edge of the common, the front rooms darkened by a huge chestnut tree. A stocky woman answered the door. She had a tough face like dried out roast beef, and muddy, mottled knees. She was wearing a flowered sleeveless dress that rucked over her large hips. Rose petals in her iron grey hair gave her an incongruously festive look. At present she was more interested in stopping several dogs escaping than letting me in.

‘I’ve come about the room,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ she said, looking slightly more amiable. ‘I’m Mrs Lonsdale-Taylor. Come in, sorry to look such a mess, I’ve been gardening. Come here Monkey,’ she bellowed to a small brown mongrel who was trying to lick my hand.

‘Mind the loose rod,’ she said as we climbed the stairs. In front of me her sturdy red legs went into her shoes without the intervention of ankles. Her voice was incredibly put on. I was sure she’d double-barrelled the Lonsdale and Taylor herself.

The room was at the top of the house; the sofa clashed with the wallpaper, the brass bed creaked when I sat on it, rush matting hardly covered the black scratched floorboards. On the wall were framed photographs cut out from magazines and stuck on cardboard. The curtains hung a foot above the floor like midi skirts. It would be a cold and cheerless room in winter.

I looked outside. In spite of the drought Mrs Lonsdale-Taylor had been taking great care of her garden. The mingled scent of stocks, clove carnations and a honeysuckle, which hung in great honey-coloured ramparts round the window, drifted towards me. A white cat emerged from a forest of dark blue delphiniums and, avoiding the sprinkler that was shooting its rainbow jets over the green lawn, walked towards the house at a leisurely pace. It was incredibly quiet.

‘It’s beautiful here,’ I said. ‘You’re lucky to be so countrified living so near London.’

I bent to stroke the little brown mongrel who’d followed us upstairs. He wagged his tail and put both his paws up on my waist.

‘Get down, Monkey,’ said Mrs Lonsdale-Taylor, aiming a kick at him. ‘He was my late husband’s dog, I’ve never really taken to him. My husband passed on last year, or I wouldn’t be taking people in.’

‘Of course not,’ I murmured.

‘I prefer a pedigree dog myself,’ she said, wiping her nose with her hand, and leaving a moustache of earth on her upper lip.

‘Well, if you like the room, it’s £15 a week all in, but you’ve got to pay for your own telephone. I’ve installed a phone box downstairs. You can use the kitchen when I’m not using it, as long as you clear up afterwards, but no food in the bedroom. I don’t mind you having friends in if they behave themselves, but no gramophones, or young gentlemen after nine o’clock. And I’d like the first month’s rent when you arrive. I like to get these things straight.’


Chapter Seventeen



Looking back, I shall never know how I got through the next few weeks. I hadn’t realized that the journey from Putney to the city would take two hours in the rush-hour, or in this heat, the bus would be like a Turkish bath. My second day working for Jakey Bartholomew I didn’t get in till quarter to ten, and received such a bawling out I thought I’d blown the whole thing. But gradually as the days passed I began to pick up the job. I learnt to work the switchboard and skim the papers for anything important and stick press cuttings into a scrap book. The work was so menial that sometimes I did scream. But Jakey was a hard taskmaster, and came down on any displays of sulks or ill-temper like a ton of concrete slabs. In the same way, he picked me up for any stupid mistakes.

Gradually too, I got to know the other girls in the office, and learnt to grumble with them about the lateness of the second post, and the failure of the roller towel in the lavatory, and have long discussions about Miss Selfridges and eye make-up. The days were made bearable by little unimportant victories — one of the typists asking me to go to the cinema; Miss Parkside, the office crone, inviting me to supper at her flat in Peckham; a client ringing up asking if I could be spared to show some VIP Germans round London.

I soon discovered, however, that I’d never be able to pay Seaford-Brennen back on my present salary, so I took another job waitressing in Putney High Street. Here, for six nights a week, and at lunchtime on Saturdays, I worked my guts out, earning £40 a week by looking pleasant when drunken customers pinched my bottom, or bollocked me because the chef had had a row with his boyfriend and forgotten to put any salt in the Chicken Marengo. At the end of each week I sent my £40 salary in a registered envelope to Mrs Smith, and received a polite acknowledgement. Gareth was still in the Middle East with Xander so at least I didn’t worry all day about bumping into him.

Every night I fell into bed long after midnight, too knackered to allow myself more than a second to dream about him. But his face still haunted my dreams and every morning I would wake up crying, with the sun beating through the thin curtains, and the little mongrel Monkey, curled up on my bed, looking at me with sorrowful dark eyes, trying to lick away my tears. He was a great comfort. I couldn’t understand why Mrs Lonsdale-Taylor preferred her fat Pekineses. I realized now how much my mother had deprived me of, never letting me have animals.

August gave way to September; the drought grew worse; it hadn’t rained for three months; the common was like a cinder; the leaves on the chestnut tree shrivelled and turned brown. People were ordered not to use their hosepipes. Mrs L-T panted back and forth with buckets of water, grumbling.

On the Tuesday of my eighth week, Jakey Bartholomew sent for me. I went in quaking.

‘You can’t send this out,’ he said.

He handed me a photograph of a girl with very elaborate frizzled curls, one of the dreadful styles created by our hairdressing client, Roger of Kensington. Turning it over I saw I’d captioned it:

‘Sweet and sour pigs’ trotters’ — one of the Pig Industry’s equally dreadful recipes.

‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ I said.

Jakey started to laugh.

‘I thought it was quite funny. Have a beer, get one out of the fridge.’