Miss Freda beamed and gently lifted the hat from Evelyne’s head as though it were precious crystal, and laid it in the box. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Evelyne lift the mirror, studying her new hairstyle, her fingers tracing the coils.
‘It is a very simple hairstyle, no? I can show you in two minutes how to do it. The hairdressers here have no idea, all they do is snip, snip, everyone’s head looks the same, or they frizz, frizz with the perms.’
Freda turned the small ‘open’ notice on the door to ‘closed’, and clapped her hands in delight as she moved towards Evelyne.
‘Come, we have some coffee, some croissants, unless you are in a hurry? Come, darling, then I show you, it is very simple.’
Miss Freda’s back room was piled ceiling-high with hatboxes. On a small worktable were laid out roses and ribbons and nets in different shades. Evelyne sat watching the bird-like woman as she chattered away and made up a hat right in front of her eyes.
‘I come from Vienna, but I tell everyone I am French, I sell only Paris creations. As you can see this is a long way from France, no?’
From a small drawer she took a box of labels and waved them at Evelyne.
‘I print them specially, but I don’t think it is a lie because my hats are copies from French magazines, only the price is French.’
She covered her face like a small child as she twittered with laughter, then still talking fast she began sewing and serving coffee all at the same time. It tasted different from the coffee she had been served at David’s house, stronger, thicker and sweeter with no milk.
Miss Freda taught Evelyne how to do her hair, then she brought out a small velvet box filled with tiny jars and fluffy powder puffs. She showed Evelyne how to whiten her hands, instructed her to cream them every night until they were soft. Then she tipped Evelyne’s chin up, stared into her face, and searched through her box, bringing out a tiny pot. She opened the lid carefully and, with the tip of her little finger, dabbed a very soft, pale-pink over Evelyne’s lips … she sat back and clucked and nodded, then, ‘Oh, la la.’
Apparendy quite unconcerned about the shop being closed, Miss Freda insisted on plucking Evelyne’s eyebrows, careful not to make them too arched as was the fashion, just, in her words, ‘tidying them up a little’. After every move she sat back, her tiny head bobbing up and down like a bird, constandy repeating, ‘Oh, la la …’ She even painted Evelyne’s square-cut fingernails with clear polish. Then she carefully packed the daisy hat and tied the box with ribbon.
‘For you, darling, I will charge fifteen shillings.’ Evelyne tried to argue, without much enthusiasm, as even fifteen shillings for a hat that did not really come from Paris, France, was terribly expensive.
‘Will you come and see me again? I would like it, I don’t have many friends, you see, I came over many years ago as a lady’s maid.’
She whispered as if afraid someone would overhear. ‘First I was in Liverpool, then we travelled to Wales and I was just so unhappy that I left and … voila, here I am, cherie … so you must go, but come and see me again.’
Miss Freda locked up her shop, bolting the door, and sat studying her accounts. She looked at her face in the mirror, how she hated to bow and scrape with her ‘oh, la la’s … she sighed. If she didn’t get more business there would be no shop, and she would have to go back to being a waitress, but never the other thing. She would never do that, and looking at herself she knew that not many men would want her now anyway. She put one of her specials on her frizzy head, lifted her chin and decided she was not that bad, not that old, thirty-eight wasn’t old at all … then she sat at her sewing machine, surrounded by net and roses.
The boarders looked up briefly, but went back to slurping their soup. Mrs Pugh did notice the difference, and remarked to her reflection in the spotless hall mirror that the rest was obviously doing wonders for the girl. Catching sight of a spot of dust she flicked it with her finger.
‘Something most definitely is …’
As she came out of the dining room, Evelyne passed Mrs Pugh in the hall.
‘Are you not having pudding, Miss Jones? It’s semolina with jam.’
Evelyne smiled and said she was too full, then went up the stairs to her room. Mrs Pugh stared after her, pursing her lips. The girl had done her hair differently, that was what it was. She hoped it didn’t mean she had any funny ideas, any fancy men … then she marched back into the dining room.
‘It’s semolina, with strawberry jam,’ she announced.
The two elderly boarders were fast asleep at the table.
Evelyne had a dress rehearsal in her rented room. First she practised her new hairstyle, then she sat for over an hour in just her camisole and bloomers with the hat on. She watched herself smiling … she had never been so preoccupied with her face or her body and she wasn’t as sure about her appearance as Miss Freda was, but she certainly did look quite nice.
The following morning, Evelyne was dressed and ready when Mrs Pugh called to her that there was a car waiting for her, and she slowly descended the stairs from her rented room as Mrs Pugh stared, open-mouthed. She was dumbstruck, the girl moving slowly, slightly unsteadily down the stairs couldn’t be Miss Jones … but there she was, looking as if she had stepped straight off the front of a French fashion magazine. Mrs Pugh looked up into the girl’s face as she passed in a cloud of sweet perfume, immaculate from head to toe. ‘My God,’ she thought, ‘the girl must have a fancy man, and a rich one at that.’ Well, any funny business and she’d pack the girl’s bags, she couldn’t afford any gossip, not just as she’d got her two regulars installed, and for life, judging by their ages.
The hired car had been Hugh’s idea. He’d told her, ‘Don’t go up in a ruddy horse-drawn carriage, they’re old- fashioned. Hire yourself one of the newfangled motors with a uniformed driver’. It had cost her one pound ten shillings, and she had the car for eight hours. Now as she stepped out of Mrs Pugh’s front door she knew it was right. The chauffeur moved smartly to open the door, and even gave her a tiny bow.
Mrs Pugh almost pulled her net curtain down from the window, she was so eager to see everything that was going on. All the nets along the road flicked. Mrs Pugh could see her nosy neighbours, and tutted to herself, they were always at their windows, she couldn’t understand why. That she was doing exactly the same thing never even occurred to her. The car moved slowly off and Evelyne sat back, savouring the smell of the leather upholstery and her perfume. So far so good. They drove slowly along the kerb as the chauffeur searched for the right house. Evelyne was so tense she sat forward on the edge of her seat. She knew exactly which house, it was printed indelibly on her mind, but she was taken slightly aback. The house didn’t look as grand as she remembered. The brass didn’t gleam as bright as hers back in the village.
She pressed back against the leather as the chauffeur walked up the path, rang the bell and waited. Her heart was beating rapidly and her lips felt dry. She licked them and tasted her rose-coloured lipstick. Her heart lurched as the door opened and Mrs Darwin stood framed in the doorway. She was nodding and speaking to the chauffeur. The years hadn’t been kind to her either, she was much fatter and more flushed than Evelyne remembered her. Her chins wobbled as she nodded her head up and down, and she looked past the chauffeur towards the car. She was trying to see inside, and Evelyne pressed even further back against the seat.
The chauffeur gave Evelyne no hint of what had been said as he walked back to the car and opened the passenger door.
‘The housekeeper said for you to go straight in, Miss.’ Evelyne was grateful for the chauffeur’s firm, white- gloved grip on her elbow. She walked slowly to the door. It had been left ajar, but Mrs Darwin had vanished from sight. There was no sign of Minnie either. The comforting grip on her arm withdrew as the chauffeur returned to the car. She was alone, and instead of being full of confidence she could feel her body trembling.
Mrs Darwin stood at the bottom of the stairs. She gave a small bob and gestured for Evelyne to enter the drawing room. The smell of the house — the strange mixture of polish and medical spirits — sent a shudder through Evelyne, and she was again the gawky girl who had come here with Doris Evans. Mrs Darwin didn’t recognize her.
‘It’s me, Mrs Darwin, it’s Evelyne, don’t you remember me?’
The big woman squinted, stared at her, and then her jaw dropped and she slapped her hands to her fat cheeks in total amazement. She went to give Evelyne a hug, then stopped, flustered. She flapped her apron, stared, turned away and stared again, and then her huge face crumpled into a strange, half-laughing cry.
‘Lord above, oh God Almighty, gel, if you don’t look like visiting royalty, then … can I kiss you?’
It was all right suddenly, and Evelyne bent right down and felt the plump, wet lips kiss her cheek.
