Another Side of Paradise Page 5

  I’d heard that when people die, it’s easier to love them, but I hated my mother even then, refusing to consider that this poverty-stricken woman had no choice but to send me away to an orphanage. Had she loved me? I would never know, or ask that question aloud. My sole inheritance was a tiny, dog-eared picture taken when I was about two that I found in her drawer. I was dressed in an apron, wearing little black boots, clutching a wooden spoon.

  I thought only of the sullen child in the picture, now a genuine orphan.

  Chapter 8

  1920

  I was ashamed of my absence of grief, but I was free. I was also penniless and in desperate need of a job. I wanted to look up and see sun, not raggedy laundry strung tenement to tenement, and longed to forget the percussion that poverty brings. The bawl of starving, sickly children. Never-ending quarrels. The lamentations of hollow-eyed women beaten by husbands reeking from the smoke and beer of their pubs. I was determined to turn my back on the squalor, and was sufficiently naïve to believe that if I willed myself to expunge my past, I could. I did not realize your history is a shadow that follows you everywhere.

  I started to look for work in a busy shopping district. With no references, I had no luck. I did, however, have pearly teeth—for that I could thank the orphanage’s regular trips to the dentist and complete absence of sweets—and the good fortune of tripping over a newspaper ad: Wanted, girls with good teeth, no experience necessary, to demonstrate new toothbrush. I applied for the job and was hired on the spot to start the next morning in a department store close to the West End.

  Nearby, on a street whose better days were long past, I found a tiny room. Dark and dank with one small window, it faced a back lane and cost ten and sixpence, twice the rent of Stepney Green and half my salary. While it wasn’t Mayfair, it was the West End, the holy of holies. I moved in my paltry belongings and offered goodbye to no one—not neighbors, not Heimie or my other siblings, not even a letter to Morris, who had moved up north and whom I hadn’t seen since the Asylum. I cut off my past like a butcher hacks away a hunk of gristle.

  On my first day of work I set up my display and practiced my spiel. “Good day, sir or madam.” Smile. “Have you tried this new toothbrush that cleans the back of your teeth?” Smile. “You’ll see it’s as different from old-fashioned brushes as chalk is from cheese.” Place in customer’s hands and point out feature. “Today we have a special price.” Smile.

  I heard chuckling and turned to find an older saleswoman. “I can’t believe you’re going through such a harangue to hawk a toothbrush.” She extended a hand and smiled. “Ruth Houghton, cosmetics.”

  “Lily Shiel,” I said.

  “Happy to meet you, Shielsy.”

  That day I sold nine toothbrushes, all to men. The next day, eleven, again exclusively to men. From then I decided I’d try to sell only to men, who clearly cared more about dental hygiene than did women. Let the ladies’ teeth rot.

  I learned how to josh with customers, who would often say I was beautiful. Was I? My face had turned heart-shaped, with distinct cheekbones. My ash blond hair, uncut since the orphanage and released from its bun, waved to my shoulders. My nose was narrow and pert. My eyes were a mix of pewter grey and the mossy green of an unripe apple. My lips, full with a natural cupid’s bow. Skin, classic English, creamy but rosy. I could not claim the pieces added up to beauty, and no one at the orphanage or Stepney Green had made this assessment, but I couldn’t dispute that far more men stopped to chat with me than the other salesgirls, and the conversations frequently led to a purchase. Though I could not explain the effect I had on men, I was determined to play this ace. I started to toss my head, bat my eyelashes, and from Ruth bought a red lipstick that I applied carefully each morning. Saying they’d be happy to hire me, several men left calling cards. I tucked them away in a box.

  One blustery December, a morning passed with not one sale. It was nearly noon and I was afraid I’d lose my job. A tall, thin gentleman in a bowler hat blew through the door. I nearly assaulted him, saying “Sir, sir, may I have a moment of your time?” Like a bobby, I blocked him with my arm.

  “By jove,” he said. “Aren’t you lovely?” I liked his accent, far more melodic than my Cockney inflections. Thanks to Ruth, I could identify it as posh. He laughed. “Well, if you can sell this”—the gentleman held up the ridiculous toothbrush—“you could sell the Pope a harem.” I guessed his age to be late thirties or older, but with the twinkle of Peter Pan, he added, “I’m in sales myself, iron and steel as well as fancy goods. I could always find a place for a girl like you.” He handed me a pound along with his card. “You can keep the change if you promise to ring me tomorrow.”

  I promised, and with that, he bolted into the downpour and disappeared under a black umbrella.

  That’s how I met Johnny.

  Three weeks later the toothbrush company went bust. That evening I searched through my cards until I found one that read The John Graham Company, Major John Graham Gillam, D.S.O. The next morning I showed it to Ruth.

  “D.S.O.?” she said, impressed. “Distinguished Service Order, Shielsy. It’s for military bravery, a decoration from the Palace second only to Victoria Cross.”

  Now I was impressed.

  “Call him.”

  “But what if he wants”—I stuttered—“social favors.”

  “You take that chance, you daft girl.”

  I phoned. When I identified myself, a woman immediately put me through.

  “What took you so long?” the voice I recognized said, amiably. “My secretary and I have been waiting for your call.”

  This time, I got to the point. “Could you still find me a job, sir?”

  “By jove. Of course.”

  I didn’t ask what the position was, only its salary.

  “What are you earning now?”

  “One pound, ten,” I lied.

  “Two pounds and commission then.”

  I accepted, and the next day I reported to the John Graham Company, comprised of an office and a storeroom chockablock with beaded necklaces, table clocks, lacquered fans, and cartons of reading lamps. My new employer showed off every item, cradling it like a newborn. “I’d like you to sell all of this. You’ll be a natural, and before you know it, girls will be reporting to you.” He patted me on the arm. “You’ll start tomorrow.”

  Major John Gillam was a hero, my hero, well-dressed, well-mannered, well-spoken—and the handsomest man I’d ever met, with a pencil-slim mustache and statesman’s bearing. The suggestion of a shag never came up.

  Early that evening, I rapped on my landlady’s door. “I need a front room, please,” I said. She offered me one for twelve and six with a tall window overlooking the avenue. I moved in my things, settled in a rocking chair and opened a new Peg’s Paper, trying to see myself on every page. When I read of a young mother’s child being trampled by a horse, this was the moment when I began to convulse in weeping for my mother and the ceaseless tragedy that was her life. Then I dried my tears. I was convinced that my future was one happy ending away.

  Chapter 9

  1920

  I hung my black sateen coat on a hook and peered at Sir John Gillam from beneath a hat that tilted over my left eye like a schooner listing in the harbor. Never had I felt more cosmopolitan, or more alive.

  “Good morning, my dear Miss Shiel,” my new boss said as he rose to meet me. We exchanged a warm but proper handshake. “Won’t you be seated?” I settled myself on a straight chair across from his cluttered desk. As he bent his legs beneath him, he lifted a string of beads. “I’d like you to begin your rounds today with these lovely faux pearls. They go for only a few pence a pop. You should be able to sell dozens, and I insist that you wear one yourself. They’ll shine against your milkmaid skin.”

  I’d never met a milkmaid nor had I any idea what foe pearls were, but I hung the strand around my neck, filled the valise that Sir John Gillam provided, and set off into the rolling fog. One by one, with an
electric volt of enthusiasm, I approached each door on the list of High Street shops he’d provided.

  After three days of animated selling—a true Highland fling of effort—I had unloaded not one choker. “You should have visited us at Christmas,” any number of proprietors suggested, as if that were obvious. When I reported this failure, my employer dismissed my result with a wave of his hand.

  “Fine,” he said. “We’ll try again before Easter. But meanwhile . . .” He disappeared into the dusty storeroom behind the front office and returned with a small tin. “I daresay that in this dreary weather our Suji-Muji automotive polish is a surer bet.” As John Gillam unscrewed the lid I noticed that, like his legs, his fingers were lengthy. “This product contains a secret Oriental ingredient that gives autos a remarkable luster.” He beamed and spoke the word “remarkable” in a tone designed to sell me, accompanied by the sort of engaging, even-toothed smile I found impossible not to return. “Try the showrooms on Great Portland. You’ll find dozens.”

  I did try, though the closest I’d ever gotten to a car owner was Heimie’s mechanic friend, Archie, who always smelled faintly of petrol. At the first six establishments I was turned away. But at the seventh when I walked toward the back of a glassy hall and asked for the manager, a man shaped like a beer keg waddled toward me and listened to me with interest. “If you’d be so kind as to demonstrate your wares, I’ll gather the salesmen on the floor,” he said. Minutes later, a half-dozen men dressed in identical navy-blue suits assembled for my presentation. I pulled a rag from my carpetbag and reached for the top of the boot.

  Politely, the manager stopped me. “My dear, would you dab the product down here? That’s the spot that collects the most grime.” He gestured toward the back fender.

  This required me to kneel. I felt every eye on my arse, raised in the air like a shiny rump roast as a ladder made its way up my best pair of hose. “You see, all you need to do is rub slowly, back and forth, up and down,” I cheeped as I applied the viscous polish. I willed my hands not to shake but I could not stop the blood flowing to my face and was grateful for the sweep of my hat’s brim. Behind me, I heard a whistle. I struggled to my feet and dusted off my coat.

  The manager bought one tin of the paste. One. I dropped his coin into my coat pocket, the delusion dismantled that I could ever become a successful, dignified saleswoman. I hiked back to the office, my valise heavy on my arm, and found Sir John Gillam with his secretary, both stuffing envelopes as they sang a music hall round.

  “Miss Shiel,” he said, with the greatest cheer. “How did you fare?”

  My full bag spoke for itself.

  “Never you mind,” he said. “You’ll go out again after a thrashing rainstorm when every car all but demands a wash. They’ll be begging for polish. In the meantime, perhaps you could give us a hand? I don’t believe I mentioned our mail-order operation, but every Thursday I send out hundreds of adverts. If you could seal the envelopes and affix the stamps?”

  This, I could do. For two hours, the three of us made short work of a mountain of letters, setting aside those intended for foreign destinations. I felt snug in the small, steam-heated office. When I found an envelope destined for Paris, I exclaimed, “Channel! Isn’t that a famous perfume?” I’d tried the scent on my wrists when I worked in the department store. It smelled like a life I couldn’t imagine.

  Sir John Gillam smiled. “Indeed, Miss Shiel. It’s a fine French brand, but it’s called ‘Chanel.’ Repeat after me, please. Cha-nel .”

  “ Sha-nell,” I echoed. For the second time that day, I felt my face burn. But that was when my true education began.

  Over the next few weeks, I had better luck with selling and began to earn modest commissions. More important, I learned from Sir John Gillam that a “debutante” was not a deb-bunt-ee, but a young woman—albeit not one born in a hovel and raised in an orphanage—to be presented to society in a ritual as old as Buckingham Palace. I listened hard, and was proud when I put together what it meant to ride to hounds. Unashamed about my ignorance and ravenous for information, I absorbed each drop of intelligence as if it were strawberry compote and I, a slice of angel cake. As my questions grew bolder, my employer became increasingly forthcoming, tactfully recommending that I might exchange my picture hat—not that it wasn’t flattering, mind you—in favor of a tidy felt cloche. Never did he make me feel unlettered or unfashionable. If anything, he offered the impression that my gaffes were charming. This, I later realized, was as much the mark of breeding as the filigree of gallant speech and deportment.

  Then, a few Thursdays later, he asked me to dine.

  I thought of the men who ogled me in Piccadilly, as well as my penny-novel tales of girls who lost their virtue and not incidentally, their jobs, when they accepted such invitations. I admired John—what he’d asked me to call him. But this was a risk I couldn’t take. I agreed to join him for tea only when he invited me to see him off for a trip on the boat train setting sail in Dover for Brussels, where he had business. This was an opportunity too star-dusted to decline.

  I’d traveled on a train once, to Brighton, third class, squeezed between a family with yapping twins and a wheezing pensioner. But this short trip to Dover was first class. The dining car glowed with resplendent oak paneling and seats upholstered in a shade of velvet John called “claret.” I munched on biscuits—six, at least—with cup after cup of milky tea served in translucent china. When I returned to London I floated past a telegraph agency and on impulse, wired John a message of thanks, signing it “Love, Lily.” I felt daring. I could do with more of this opulence.

  I also frankly adored John, the first grown man who I felt truly wished me well and saw in Lily Shiel what I later identified as potential. The day John returned, he invited me to dinner at a restaurant with an electric candle under an ivory parchment shade. The moment my sole arrived, I inhaled it down to its bones. As time passed, and we continued to dine together at least once a week, I learned to wait patiently for my food and to savor each bite, rather than worry that my plate would be snatched away. I studied how to hold my utensils without mashing my hands into fists, and discovered that a knife existed strictly for fish, as well as how to season my food—at the orphanage, condiments were as nonexistent as handkerchiefs. The latter contributed to my constant sniffling, causing John to say, more than once, “Do blow your nose, please.” Though I couldn’t work out why, he taught me to rise when an older woman entered the room but to remain seated when a man approached the table and that—inexplicably—“what?” was the proper response if I needed a phrase repeated, not the shrill of “pardon.” He also hinted that my satin coat was more fitting for the opera—the opera! —than sales calls and insisted that I visit his tailor, at his expense, to have him run up a herringbone wool topper.

  I became increasingly entranced with this gentleman leading the charge to transform Lily Shiel of Stepney Green into a lady. In the language of the East End, Sir John Graham Gillam knew brass from onions. He was forty-two and I imagined had the maturity and knowledge to navigate any social or business situation with the agility of a mountain goat.

  One evening a few months later, when he needed to change into regimental dress for a concert he invited me to attend, I did not decline when asked if I would accompany him to his flat. A uniformed doorman tipped his hat and wished us a good evening as he operated the building’s lift. John’s flat was small and smelled of leather. Would I like a drink? he offered.

  “Fizzy water, if you have it.” Liquor was not for me. “And I’d do with a biscuit, please, as long as they got no rise-ins.”

  John’s initial bafflement turned to amusement and he clucked, “The word is raisins, Lily. But your accent, what are we going to do about it?”

  In England, your dialect is a straitjacket that locks you forever in the class of your birth. I might have been able to learn to blow my nose and sell a box of ceramic banks shaped like pigs’ snouts, but my speech—Yiddish-inflected Cockney only
slightly mitigated by my years in the orphanage—was seemingly an impenetrable thicket of wrongs. At the time I did not notice that my h’s disappeared or that I’d say Gimme me keys, will ya? —spoken in a rush as far from Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter as Cambridge is from Cornwall.

  John poured me a soda, himself a Scotch, and toasted me. “To dearest Lily. May she learn to speak the King’s English.” With that, he walked into the other room, shutting the door behind him. He did not beckon me to follow him nor did I feel that was what he expected.

  At least ten minutes passed as I nibbled biscuits and sipped my water. When John reappeared, I stared wide-eyed at a toy soldier come to life. He wore full military dress, with a red stripe shooting down the side of his sharply creased pants, his chest spangled by medals and ribbons, shoulders dripping with braid. At the hip, a sword pointed toward boots so spit-shined I was sure they could reflect my face, agog. Absurdly handsome, John walked in my direction, leaned over my chair, and kissed me, deeply, his lips soft and full on my own.

  I’d been kissed before, but never with tenderness. I could have happily returned a dozen kisses, but he said, “We need to go now, Lily dear. Chop chop.”

  I hated to leave John’s well-appointed cocoon, and whimpered, “Oh. Could I stay a little longer? Skip the concert?”

  John gave me a look I could not read, though he chuckled, “You are an odd duck,” and shook his head with good-natured exasperation. “But have it your way.” He closed the door behind him and I waited for his footsteps to disappear.

  The room echoed with a heavenly calm. I flipped through a magazine, something smart from America called Vanity Fair, fingered a row of pipes, and examined John’s photographs, taking in a boy in a sailor suit next to a bigger girl with brown ringlets and a silky bow. In the bedroom, from the top of a highboy, I reached for a shoehorn, a tortoiseshell comb, and two brushes, presumably one for hair and another for clothing. I dabbed aftershave lotion on my wrists. It smelled sharply green. No match for Chanel No. 5. A framed landscape painted in muddy shades hung next to a window covered with austere linen curtains. I did not dare recline in the bed, which had only one pillow, rather flat. I opened a door to a closet lined with suits of pinstripes, flannel, and herringbone.