Donny’s big establishment. He walked slowly towards it, not worried but curious; had he been followed? As far as he could tell, he had not.
He drew nearer Donny’s, his mind full of the man and what he knew of him. Donny was not a Donald or even donnish. In some way he had acquired the first name of Adonis, perhaps from parents with a wry sense of humour, for photographs proved that Adonis Sampson must have been the ugliest and puniest child born some fifty-five years ago.
He was no longer ugly, but his looks exerted a kind of fascination. He still looked puny, although that was almost certainly deceptive.
His shop was much larger than most along here; in fact two double-fronted shops had been turned into one. The outside was painted pale blue and gold, and it would not have been out of place in New Bond Street. One section of the window was devoted to wigs and toupees and plaits of hair, much like a theatrical wigmakers; another was beautifully dressed to show cosmetics; a third would have graced a hair-dressing salon in the heart of Paris.
Rollison stepped inside.
CHAPTER SIX
Donny’s was luxury.
Across the road were small, dingy houses with drab curtains and blackened chimney pots. Two doors away was a newsagent’s shop with a window which hadn’t been changed for years, and dust lay thick on the old dummy cigarette cartons. On the nearest corner was a fish and chip shop, with a huge sign reading: FRYING TONIGHT. To the right and the left and all about this district there was the poverty of parts of the East End, and the roughness of most of the rest. No one knew better than Rollison the quality and the oddness of many of the people, or that the squalor remained only in patches; but there was little polish on the East End of London.
Except at Donny’s.
Not far away were London’s docks. Along this very street came lascars and sailors from the four corners of the earth, some drunk, some perverts, some broke, some with money spilling out of their pockets. From the thousands of little houses which rose like mushrooms made of bricks, the stevedores left for their daily work, rough, hardy men whose labour made them dirty and whose wives were often hard put to keep their homes and their families clean. Their only sight of luxury was through a television set and visits to the pictures—except at Donny’s.
It was like stepping out of a coaling barge into a first class liner.
Coming out of a doorway on the right was a little woman with a flushed face, her flowered cotton frock obviously Sunday best, high heeled brown shoes which needed mending, and the look of a poor man’s wife. Her greying hair was a mass of lustrous curls, and a glow in her eyes told of a woman who had realised a dream. She went to a small office with two windows, like a cinema’s cash desk. There a young woman with auburn hair and wearing a pale pink smock sat like a queen.
“Well, ‘ow do I look, dearie?” the flushed-faced woman said.
“You look very nice indeed, Mrs. Taylor,” said the queen behind the desk. “I haven’t seen you looking any better.”
“I will say this,” said the happy-looking woman, “Donny’s boys and girls know their job! Lemme see, two pun fifteen shillings, ain’t it?”
“That’s right, Mrs. Taylor.” The queen spoke like one, too, and contrived to conceal from her customer that she was highly intrigued by the man who had just stepped inside the shop, but had not gone straight into the men’s salon through a door clearly marked:
The queen handed out five shillings change, smiled sweetly, and said:
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Taylor. You will tell your friends about our special sessions, won’t you, and remind them that you save eight shillings on a permanent wave and one and sixpence on a set if you come between ten and twelve and two-fifteen and four-thirty.”
“You bet I will,” said Mrs. Taylor, and bustled past Rollison.
The girl at the cash desk gave him her sweetest smile.
“Good afternoon, sir.”
“Hallo,” said Rollison, and beamed at her. She looked a little dazzled, as most young women would when the Toff smiled quite like that. “Is Mr. Sampson in?”
“I
“I’d like to be done by Mr. Sampson in person,” said Rollison, keeping a straight face. “Ask him if he can fit Mr. Rollison in?”
“Mr. Who, sir?”
“Rollison.”
“R-O-Double-L,” began the girl behaving as if she had never heard of Rollison, which was unusual in this part of Whitechapel and did much to suggest that she had been imported from different climes. Her voice was really pleasant, the refinement not really overdone. She lifted a telephone. “I won’t keep you a moment, sir, if you will please sit down.”
“Thank you,” said Rollison.
He sat in a chair more comfortable than the one at his West End barber’s. By his side was a small table with several magazines, including the Society glossies; every one was the current issue. By the side of these a little journal looked almost pathetically out of place, and because of that he picked it up, and read:
