Opening the first page, she settled back to read. The first few entries were irrelevant, but they gave her a better picture of her family. A grandmother and grandfather who had lived a storybook love affair, complete with evil villains and heartbreak. Yet they’d come through it all to live a happy and ordinary life together.
Adie was also getting a better impression of her father. As he’d died when she was five, she had no clear memory of him. Not even a smell or other sensation. All her mom had ever told her was that he’d left them. Which was a blatant lie, she now knew. Minerva’s little brother, Addie’s father, had been a wastrel and drug addict, but he’d stuck by her mother because of her. This last insight she’d been able to determine from bits of information she’d gleaned from here and there. He didn’t leave them, he’d died. There was a very big difference.
Now she was reading about a cute kid brother Minerva loved and loathed in equal sibling measure. He was annoying and outrageous, which must have been bad, given how outrageous Minerva could be. And he was loved. His home had been a loving one.
Why had someone from such a good home ended up living such a wild life? What had sent him away from that home, never to return again, even for his own father’s funeral?
With a big sigh, Adie brought her focus back to her reading. Maybe she’d understand more as she read the journals. Right now, she had one task. Find out what happened to Georgie and stop the odious Winsley from getting the million pounds.
It was mid-January when the first mention of Georgie appeared. Though it was several months before her death, Adie focused on the impressions Minerva gave her about the woman.
16th January
Daddy and Mummy helped me move all my things into my new flat in Soho today. Because of its past reputation, Daddy isn’t happy about my choice, saying it was a rough area and good girls weren’t safe on the streets here. I convinced him that the Soho he knew during the war and the new Soho were worlds apart. This was a vibrant new city filled with young people just like me. Artists, musicians and performers. So many talented and forward-thinking types live and work here. People who were challenging the old ways of the world.
In the end, the only reason Daddy accepted my choice of accommodation was because of Georgie. Letting three teen girls live together would have been a disaster, but with an older woman—a mother—in the mix, to settle us down, it would be better. Or so he thought.
Little does he know that Georgie is probably wilder than either me or Tansy, my other flatmate. But when she met my father Georgie was on her best behavior, promising to keep a close eye on his beloved daughter. One day Georgie will make it big in films. She’s the consummate actress, as I saw for myself when she donned the role of housemother for Daddy.
Nothing more was said about Georgie for a few more entries, then she was front and center yet again.
20th January
It’s all been so exciting! I never knew that so much adventure could be mine here in London. My greatest fear had always been that the talk about this new London, this Swinging London that people are now starting to call it, would be an illusion. That my life would be no different here to my life at home. Luckily, my fears came to nothing. London is not like home in the least. It’s noisy and bustling. Everywhere I go I’m greeted with sights and sounds I never could have experienced at home.
Yesterday Georgie and I went down to High and Carnaby Streets. It’s the happening place for fashion. Of course, neither of us can afford the clothes in the new trendy dress shops. But we can look and try on the latest fashions. And that was what we did.
Because Georgie was a model before she had her son, she knows people in the ‘rag trade’, as it’s called. A friend of hers actually introduced us to Mary Quant, who’s considered the Mod woman’s greatest advocate. She personally showed us some of her mini frocks, which are shockingly short. Mary (yes, I was asked to call her by her first name!) said she called them ‘minis’ after the cars. I laughed. She said that young women needed freedom of movement so they can run and jump onto buses, unrestricted by long skirts. Just like men, was implied rather than said.
She let Georgie and I try on several of her ‘miniskirts’. I was a little nervous about coming out of the dressing room, I must admit. There was so much of my leg on view. But as no one in the back room batted an eye over a skirt that showed my knees, I relaxed. I imagine it will take a little time before I’m comfortable wearing the new style in public. But I do like the simplicity of the lines and the bright colors.
Georgie is a bit of a seamstress. Her aim is to copy some of the clothes we saw today. We might not be able to buy clothes featured in Harper’s Bizarre or Vogue but we can have close copies.
Georgie is an amazing person. What she went through with her ex-husband is horrifying. But instead of wallowing in her awful past and missing her ten-year-old son, she makes the most of every day. If ever there was someone who represents this new Mod generation it’s Georgie.
There was a gap of a month before Georgie is mentioned in detail again. In those entries Adie got an even better glimpse into that exciting time. Things
