Kathleen Tessaro - Elegance

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2003

Copyright © Kathleen Tessaro 2003

Lines from ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, taken from Collected Poems 1909–1962 by T.S. Eliot, reproduced by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.

Extracts from Elegance by Genevieve Antoine Dariaux, published by Frederick Muller, reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd.

Kathleen Tessaro asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007151424

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2009 ISBN: 9780007330768

Version: 2016–12–12

I’d like to thank my dear friends Maria and Gavin for their inspiration and encouragement, all the girls at the Tuesday Night Wimpole Street Writers Workshop for teaching me how it’s done, Jonny Geller, Lynne Drew, and the entire team at HarperCollins, William Morrow and Curtis Brown for their support and vision. I’d also like to thank the London office of Wellington Management and Stephen McDermott in particular, who saved my manuscript from the ether more than once.

To my friend and mentor, Jill Robinson.

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

What is Elegance?

Chapter 1 - A: Accessories

Chapter 2 - B: Beauty

Chapter 3 - C: Comfort

Chapter 4 - D: Daughters

Chapter 5 - E: Expecting

Chapter 6 - F: Fur

Chapter 7 - G: Girl friends

Chapter 8 - H: Husbands

Chapter 9 - I: Ideal Wardrobe

Chapter 10 - J: Jewellery

Chapter 11 - K: Knitwear

Chapter 12 - L: Lingerie

Chapter 13 - M: Make-up

Chapter 14 - N: Négligées

Chapter 15 - O: Occasions

Chapter 16 - P: Pounds

Chapter 17 - Q: Quality/Quantity

Chapter 18 - R: Restaurants

Chapter 19 - S: Sex

Chapter 20 - T: Tan

Chapter 21 - U: Uniformity

Chapter 22 - V: Veils

Chapter 23 - W: Weekends

Chapter 24 - X: Xmas

Chapter 25 - Y: Yachting

Chapter 26 - Z: Zips

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

It’s a freezing cold night in February and my husband and I are standing outside the National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square.

‘Here we are,’ he says. But neither of us moves.

‘Look,’ he bargains with me, ‘if it’s dreadful, we’ll just leave. We’ll stay for one drink and go. We’ll use a code word: potato. When you want to go, just say the word potato in a sentence and then I’ll know you want to leave. OK?’

‘I could always just tell you I want to leave,’ I point out.

He frowns at me. ‘Louise, I know you don’t want to do this, but you could at least make an effort. She’s my mother, for Christ’s sake and I promised we’d come. It’s not every day that you’re part of a major photographic exhibition. Besides, she really likes you. She’s always saying how the three of us ought to get together.’

The three of us.

I sigh and stare at my feet. I’m dying to say it: potato. Potato, potato, potato.

I know it’s a complete cliché to hate your mother-in-law. And I abhor a cliché. But when your mother-in-law is a former model from the 1950s, who specializes in reducing you to a blithering pulp each time you see her, then there is really only one word that springs to mind. And that word is potato.

He wraps an arm around me. ‘This really isn’t a big deal, Pumpkin.’

I wish he wouldn’t call me pumpkin.

But there are some things you do, if not for love, then at least for a quiet life. Besides, we’d paid for a cab, he’d had a shave, and I was wearing a long grey dress I normally kept in a plastic dry cleaning bag. We’d come too far to turn back now.

I lift my head and force a smile. ‘All right, let’s go.’ We walk past the two vast security guards and step inside.

I strip off my brown woolly overcoat and hand it to the coat check attendant, discreetly passing my hand over my tummy for a spot check. I can feel the gentle protrusion. Too much pasta tonight. Comfort food. Comfort eating. Why tonight, of all nights? I try to suck it in but it requires too much effort. So I give up.

I hold out my hand. He takes it, and together we walk into the cool, white world of the Twentieth Century Galleries. The buzz and hum of the crowd engulfs us as we make our way across the pale marble floor. Young men and women, dressed in crisp white shirts, swing by balancing trays of champagne and in an alcove a jazz trio are plucking out the sophisticated rhythms of ‘Mack the Knife’.

Breathe, I remind myself, just breathe.

And then I see them: the photographs. Rows and rows of stunning black and white portraits and fashion shots, a collection of the famous photographer Horst’s work from the 1930s through to the late sixties, mounted against the stark white walls, smooth and silvery in their finish. The flawless, aloof faces gaze back at me. I long to linger, to lose myself in the world of the pictures.

However, my husband grips my shoulder and propels me forward, waving to his mother, Mona, who’s standing with a group of stylish older women at the bar.

‘Hello!’ he shouts, suddenly animated, coming over all jolly and larger than life. The tired, silent man in the cab is replaced by a dazzling, gregarious, social raconteur.

Mona spots us and waves back, a little half scooping royal wave, the signal for us to join her. Turning our shoulders sideways, we squeeze through the crowd, negotiating drinks and lit cigarettes. As we come into range I pull a face that I hope passes as a smile.

She is wonderfully, fantastically, superhumanly preserved. Her abundant silver-white hair is swept back from her face in an elaborate chignon, making her cheekbones appear even more prominent and her eyes feline. She holds herself perfectly straight, as if she spent her entire childhood nailed to a board, and her black trouser suit betrays the causal elegance of Donna Karan’s tailoring. The women around her are all cut from the same, expensive cloth and I suspect we’re about to join a kind of ageing models’ reunion.

‘Darling!’ She takes her son’s arm and kisses him on both cheeks. ‘I’m so pleased you could make it!’ My husband gives her a little squeeze.