The Tropical Issue Read Free Page A

upset. He said, ‘Poor dear Johnson,’ sadly to me, and turning, walked out the studio door, pouring charm all over the housekeeper.
    I didn’t mean to be charming to Ferdy. As soon as he came back, I put in my tuppenceworth, coloured or not.
    ‘I won’t,’ I said.
    I’ve doubled as Ferdy’s assistant before, and the insults get to be real. Ferdy’s assistants are always away at the dentist’s, or the police station.
    The doorbell rang.
    ‘You will,’ said Ferdy. ‘There’s Natalie.’
     
    There are times when I get fed up, living among giants. Everyone knows what Natalie Sheridan looks like: five foot ten, waving (natural) blonde hair, hollow cheeks and a 36–26–36 figure with no silicone in it, below the neck anyway.
    Today she was wearing Halston, and had just had her hair put up in a blonde chignon plait round the corner, as we had cause to know, because her usual hairdressing lady had had a call to Kensington Palace and couldn’t fit in a personal visit.
    She was also wearing a diamond brooch, a fancy ring, and a scent specially brewed for her.
    She gave Ferdy a prim kiss on each cheek while she drew her gloves off; shook hands with me without a flicker of shock; and observed that it had been very good of me to come up specially from Scotland, and she hoped I had had a good journey. Which was more than Ferdy’s silicone had thought to produce.
    Then she turned away, saying, ‘Well: there isn’t much time, is there? Miss Geddes and I will be as quick as we can,’ and walked out towards the guest bedroom.
    I waited until she was out of earshot.
    I said, ‘Ferdy! You’re scared of her! You’re a famous photographer with a house in Barbados and a prostate problem and two accountants under the doctor, and you’re scared of that plastic think-tank!’
    At that moment the plastic think-tank came back to the doorway and said, ‘Are you coming, my dear?’ Musically.
    I found my legwarmers beginning to move towards her quite fast, and I let them.
    A lady used to high command, was Natalie Sheridan.
    The bathroom had a good chair and make-up lights round the mirror. I took off a couple of things and put on my overall, and then began to lay out my stuff on the vanitory, with the door open a bit so that I could see when my client was ready.
    The maid, a hefty American pensioner referred to as Dodo, was in the bedroom stripping Mrs Sheridan down to the waist like a paint job.
    The lady from the designer’s, who was used to it, sat bolt upright in a corner doing a visual check of Mrs Sheridan’s latest known measurements.
    Murmuring into the telephone was a smart young secretary-man from an agency, perched on one of the beds among all the laid-out clothes and tissue paper. My shawl and quilted jacket, I noticed, had been shoved in a heap on a pillow.
    As well as smart, the secretary was red in the neck due to an eyeful of Mrs Sheridan’s two suntanned boobs, plump as onions and alert, each of them, as a breeding budgie.
    She was in the middle of dictating cablegrams, which the secretary did his best to receive through the back of his head until she draped a towel round her shoulders.
    After that he watched her nervously. There were still six inches of tanned skin to be seen between her skirtband and the edge of the towel, which was white, Turkish and monogrammed JJ in one corner.
    Still talking, she lifted and looked at the corner, revealing a budgie.
    The man from the agency jack-knifed quickly over the phone. Natalie said, ‘Miss Geddes – may I call you Rita? Perhaps, before we begin, I should just go and see Mr Johnson. Across the hall, I suppose?’
    I stood in the bathroom doorway, a tube in my hand. Having invaded pal Johnson’s flat, she was about to walk into his sickroom. I said, ‘Mr Johnson’s asleep.’
    ‘Oh, you know his room then,’ said Mrs Sheridan. ‘This way?’
    She was already out in the hall, and would soon hear the musical effects, so I didn’t stop her. It did cross my