A Face To Die For Read Free Page B

the evening.
    'No problem, darling, there'll be several spare men,' said Vanessa, breezily. 'You'll be well taken care of, I promise. Stay the night, if you like?'
    'I'd love to! Thanks.'
    Sounds promising, I thought, provided there are some decent males amongst them. Up to now I’d always sensed that for some reason men weren’t all that attracted to me? Certainly at college very few boys had seemed interested in me. My one quite intimate relationship in my second year with a boy called Adam hadn't lasted long and apart from another brief crush on a rather good looking male teacher, who turned out to be a homosexual, I'd soon come to the conclusion that men were basically a huge disappointment.
    Unlike most of my fellow female students, the opposite sex had never seemed all that essential to my life. Of course that didn't mean it couldn't all change; should the right man turn up. Who knows, perhaps he would at this party?
    Vanessa studied me. 'I say, you aren't prudish, are you, darling? Because you simply can't afford to be with Guards Officers.' Vanessa’s eyes flashed. 'They are the absolute worst for telling smutty jokes! Such fun though.'
    I shook my head; confident I was no prude. Well, I didn't actually know any dirty jokes myself, but I was more than prepared to adapt to whatever their idea of fun was. Besides, socialising with Vanessa's crowd promised to be an entirely new experience. More importantly, I hoped that mixing with them might improve my social standing a bit.
    Determined to fit in from the start, I'd already sort of adopted their rather plummy way of talking. Of course I wasn’t ashamed of my middle-class background or my own classless London accent. I was nonetheless acutely aware that I lacked their silver spooned breeding. Still, I seemed to have been accepted by them now, and the party invitation proved it.
    My mother and stepfather Philip now moved in similar circles too. This was because of Philip's highly successful restaurant business, which currently attracted a very wealthy clientele. Many of their friends were pretty ‘well-to-do’, with connections in high places.
    Looking back, Mum's only previous contact with such people had been through her earlier dressmaking business when several very upper crust ladies had been regular customers. However, like me, she'd had no trouble either, slotting into a life mixing with them. So now that everyone at work had accepted me I decided there must have been good breeding somewhere in our background for us both to have done this.
    The truth was that shortly after the war my father did Mum, my older sister Belinda and I, one huge favour by walking out on us. This was, or so we’d been told, after he’d got heavily drunk one night and had viciously struck my mother across the face, giving her a bruised and swollen, black eye. Our neighbours had luckily witnessed it and a real hoo ha had developed, with them defending Mum. As a result he finally packed his bags and left. Apparently it hadn’t been the first time this had happened. Thank God he never returned, and because of this, some years later, she was granted a divorce.
    Meanwhile she'd met Philip Jones at a wealthy client’s wedding, and it seemed to me from that day on, our life improved hugely. Philip, who I decided, was probably worth a bob or two, had to wait until Mum was finally free, before marrying her in September 1952 at Ealing registry office; making us all very happy.
    I recall it was a thrilling, golden sunny day with Belinda and me as her bridesmaids. Of course she’d made our pretty ankle length, cornflower blue, organza dresses as well as her own dove grey silk gown, chosen from designs in the current Vogue pattern book in Rowse’s departmental store.
    Thinking back, I imagine it was probably Mum's influence that instigated my early passion for fashion. When Dior's New Look in 1947 brought a womanly shape back in again, I remember how she was inundated with customers wanting