Liz Nugent - Lying in Wait

One day Miss La Touche had come in to collect an Yves Saint Laurent silk coat that had been for Special Attention Cleaning, and as I handed it to her in its plastic wrapping, I had to say it to her: ‘That’s the most beautiful thing we’ve ever had in here.’ She peered at me over her glasses, and looked me up and down before she responded.

‘What height are you?’

‘What? Uh, five foot seven, I think?’

She peered over the counter to look at my flat shoes.

‘Pity.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Have you ever done any modelling?’

I laughed, pointing to my hair. ‘With this? No way.’

She reached out and took my chin gently in her hand, turning my face up to the light. Her accent was almost English. ‘Your hair is your best asset, dear. Don’t underestimate it. Good bone structure too. You’re too short for catwalk, but product shots are a distinct possibility. You could be the rare Irish girl that goes international. The Italians love redheads.’ She pulled a card out of a wallet. ‘Give me a call if you’re ever interested.’ And then she glided out of the shop, as smoothly as she had entered.

I had only seen a business card once or twice before, but this was a work of art in itself. On a background of very pale pink roses, in a curly script, there was her name in embossed gold:

I kept the card in my purse for a few weeks. I’m not sure why I didn’t tell Dessie, but I think I was afraid he’d accuse me of getting notions about myself. He often gave out about actresses and models in the magazines I was reading: ‘Look at the state of her, half-dressed. I bet her father’s proud.’

It hurt me when he said those things, because it reminded me of Annie and my father, and the girls in the magazines weren’t even doing anything like the guards had said Annie had done.

We didn’t talk about her any more. My family hadn’t heard a single thing from the guards since my encounter with O’Toole nearly five years earlier. I had written to his superiors to complain about his behaviour, but they never wrote back.

Dessie could be fairly judgemental about what I wore and how I dressed, but when he bought me things that were a little more buttoned-up than I would have chosen, I knew it was because he wanted to protect me. I had become a bit well known after the publicity around my sister’s disappearance. I had overheard one of the suppliers referring to me as ‘yer wan, the ginger wan who’s the prossie’s sister’. I had been upset, and Dessie was furious on my behalf. I had to restrain him from giving the fella a thick ear. I couldn’t blame him. He said it made him look bad too.

Ma and Da had separated. Ma blamed Da for driving Annie away, and Da blamed himself and hit the bottle a fair bit. Ma eventually moved back to her sister’s house in Mayo on the other side of the country. She begged my forgiveness for going, but I knew she’d be better off there in the end. Da stayed in the house in Pearse Street, but things were bad for him at work. People were being laid off, and he thought he’d soon be let go.

We never said it, but at Christmas times, and on our birthdays especially, we scoured through every card, looking for a few lines from Annie. Her signature would have been enough. There was never anything. But none of us wanted to say it. ‘Maybe next year?’ Ma would say, though the hope had faded from her eyes. And yet I saw Annie, or thought I did, in pubs, on street corners and in supermarkets, and I would run up behind her, about to scream at her for leaving us, and then I’d see the perfect lips that made her someone else.

It was mean of Dessie to say those things about the girls in the magazines. I thought it would be easy money to get your photo taken, and surely if you didn’t want to wear a bikini in a photograph, they couldn’t force you to.

I rang Miss La Touche two months after she gave me the card. ‘Call me Yvonne,’ she said. I met her in a large attic office in a building on Drury Street. I had dressed carefully in an A-line green dress I’d bought for Christmas in Mirror Mirror. My hair was washed and blow-dried and tied into a straight ponytail. My shoes were high and made of plastic that looked like patent leather.

I’d never been in a room like this before. It was long and vast, but surprisingly warm. Miss La Touche was alone in there. Free-standing mirrors and rails of clothing were everywhere, and piles of shoes all over the floor. Overstuffed filing cabinets ran the length of the wall behind her desk. Another long wall was covered with photographs of beautiful girls with golden hair and long limbs. I immediately felt like a fake. Yvonne was pleased to see me. But I was shocked when she asked me to strip down to my underwear.

‘I… didn’t think…’

‘Don’t worry, dear, you’ll never be a lingerie model, your bust is too small, but I need to get your statistics.’ She laughed, though not unkindly. She was efficient as she proceeded to measure my hips, waist and bust. Then she stood me on a weighing scale.

‘Do you lose and gain weight easily?’

‘I… I don’t know. I never really weigh myself.’

‘You are one of the lucky ones. Still, you should drop about three pounds and try to maintain that weight.’

I wasn’t sure if that meant an extreme diet.

‘Nothing drastic,’ she said, reading my face. ‘Cut out bread and potatoes and you’ll be there in no time.’

She set up a very bright lamp against a white sheet at the back of the loft and took Polaroid photographs of my face from every angle. She took garments from a rail, and shoes from a rack, and sent me to a small booth to change into them. She had me comb my hair out straight, and pile it on top of my head, and tie it into bunches on each side of my face, and all the time I’d hear the click and whirr of the camera as it spat out print after print of me in every pose – hand on hip, arms behind my head, eyes closed, reclining on a sofa, jumping in the air. Afterwards, she gestured me to sit in the chair opposite hers.

‘I think you’re worth investing in. Would you like me to represent you?’

I didn’t know what she meant. Yvonne patiently explained.

‘Darling, you’re a very beautiful girl, with a natural smile. You are like a young Shirley MacLaine. Perfect skin tone and bone structure. I don’t understand why it took you so long to ring me. Any other girl your age would have chased me out of the shop.’

I didn’t know what to say.

She sighed. ‘Why do redheads have such low self-esteem? You must remember that what might have been carrot-orange in your childhood is what we now call a Titian auburn. Do you know how much people pay to have their hair dyed that colour?’

I shook my head, self-consciously running a hand through my hair.

‘My clients will pay to have you model their clothing, hair products and skin products, or it could be groceries and washing machines, who knows? But I intend to pitch you to the high-end magazines. I make twenty per cent of whatever you make, but I get you the jobs. In the meantime, at my own expense, I will send you to classes for deportment, etiquette, make-up and fashion. You need to know how to move and dress like a model. Never wear polyester again, do you hear me?’

I was mortified. My best dress was not good enough.

‘From now on, wear just cotton and wool until you can afford better. It shouldn’t be long!’ She grinned at me. ‘When can you start?’

I was gobsmacked, and flattered of course, but all this information was a lot to take in. ‘I… I’ll have to talk to my husband first.’