Wonder Girls by Catherine Jones

Author:Catherine Jones [Jones, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849838856
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

12

When they stepped into the lift, the attendant asked, ‘Going up, madam?’ and Ida replied, ‘I should say.’

Their fingers found each other as they stared ahead.

‘What are you looking for?’ Frank asked her when they came out of the lift and the doors were pulled together behind them.

‘What are you looking for?’ she replied, giggling.

Polished parquet pathways led to little sample rooms. There were sofas and television sets, magazine racks, sideboards, cushions and beds. Frank was buying for his white three-storey stucco, Ida for her serviced two-bedroom apartment in a redbrick mansion block.

Ida laughed. ‘We must want something,’ she said.

The way the shop assistant was poised reminded her of the cover of a comic she had seen on a news-stand, a shaggy purple monster stalking an unwitting victim.

‘Can I help?’ the man asked.

‘I do hope so,’ she replied.

‘The lady will choose for me,’ Frank said as Ida walked to a display, sat on a sofa, and settled her heel in the pile of a black-and-white rug with a spiral that went round and round to a dead end.

‘Come and sit down, Frankie,’ she called.

‘I’m not performing in a shop display,’ he replied. ‘This is your show.’

Frank laughed as the salesman watched her turn her head to and fro against the back of the sofa, as though she’d be careless enough to let her lipstick leave a mark.

The man turned to Frank and said, ‘Would sir like to see the colour range in that particular design?’

Ida crossed her legs and put both hands on her knee, listening.

‘Or perhaps your wife has a particular scheme in mind?’

‘She’s the boss,’ Frank replied easily. He stared at Ida, who smiled graciously at both of them.

‘I was thinking of something moderne. ’ She said it the French way, the proper way, with a curly-sounding ending.

‘Moderne, an elegant choice if I may say so, madam,’ he said, practically bowing at a lounge suite as boxy as a sofa in a Hollywood film.

‘That’s the one,’ she replied. It was as though the make-believe room gave her confidence, as though she could act as she pleased and it wouldn’t matter if she said something stupid. Frank grinned.

‘With regard to the colour scheme?’ the man asked.

‘I think we’ll keep it monochrome.’ Ida kept her eyes on Frank’s. ‘White walls, very Syrie Maugham, with the odd splash of colour, a Susie Cooper vase perhaps to bring a bit of sunshine to the room.’

‘Certainly,’ the man said. ‘We have the sofa in black, in a velvet or a damask. Would either suit your taste?’

‘Velvet, I think.’ She looked back at Frank who shrugged and said, ‘I’m just the wallet,’ and the assistant laughed and seemed to relax a little after that.

As they walked, Ida got so much pleasure from hearing the click of her heels she kept going when she would have liked to stop.

When Frank pointed at an oak veneer sideboard decorated with stiff green napkins arranged like little teepees, and glasses upturned on a silver tray, she stroked a radio cabinet as curved as the fenders of a car.

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