* * *
—
She felt too downcast to tramp around the streets looking for a room to rent and she spent most of the rest of the day in one Lyons or another, as they seemed the most likely places to spot the errant Florence, although in her heart she knew that, like the bluebird brooch, Florence had flown away.
In Piccadilly, trudging between Corner Houses, she passed a car showroom next to the Ritz. Like the hotel itself, it seemed to gleam with lacquered wealth. Freda was just idly wondering how it was possible to get a car behind the plate-glass windows when she gasped at the sight of one of them. It was the same car that Florence had got into on the Strand on the day of Freda’s cursed audition.
The sight of it pulled her inside the showroom and she stood next to the car, staring at it as if hypnotized by it. It was impossible not to reach out a hand to stroke the shining bonnet of the machine and it was only when a snooty salesman hurried up to her and said, “Excuse me, miss, can I help you in some way?” in a very sarcastic manner that she woke from the trance the car had sent her into.
* * *
—
At the appointed hour, she had pitched up at the Amethyst and was told by Betty to go to the Sphinx because they were short of a couple of hostesses. Freda had learnt that Nellie Coker owned five clubs and she wondered if she was going to be endlessly bundled about between them. “Oh, and here, take this,” Nellie said, handing over a parcel wrapped in brown paper. “A new dress, you can’t keep wearing that ridiculous outfit.”
“New?” Freda said, excited by the idea.
“Not new,” Nellie said. “New to you.”
Freda was still excited, thinking it might be one of Betty’s or Shirley’s cast-offs, but it turned out to be an old thing that had been worn to death by one of the hostesses and left behind when she “moved on,” although when and where to was not specified.
“She’ll be feasted on in the Sphinx,” Betty said.
“Like a lamb in a pack of wolves,” Shirley said. （Not a lamb, a girl.）
It turned out that it was Ramsay Coker who was in charge over at the Sphinx. In Freda’s opinion, Ramsay Coker was a first-class twit. His head was always in the clouds. “I’m writing a novel,” he told her, as if that was something to crow about, as if there weren’t enough novels in the world already. He was incapable of organizing a raffle, let alone a nightclub. The Sphinx would run just as well without him. Gerrit the barman and the Glaswegian manager were always scheming together about something or other in their incomprehensible accents. They were robbing the Cokers blind, skimming off the top, but Ramsay seemed oblivious to what was going on right beneath his nose.
Freda earnt only tips for her first night in the Sphinx because apparently she was no longer on probation and would get wages at the end of the week like everyone else, but that was fine as she still had most of the money she had earnt in the Amethyst. Some very odd types came to the Sphinx and kept her on her toes, in more ways than one. In the Ladies’ powder room, she was always finding small cardboard pill boxes that had been abandoned. The traces of white powder in them were exactly the same as the stuff that she had found in Florence’s packet of postcards. Tasted the same, too. “It’s dope,” one of the hostesses told her and then had to explain what dope was. A chill ran though Freda. She couldn’t imagine Florence as a drug fiend. But then nor could she have imagined Florence disappearing into thin air.
Freda employed the same evasive tactics as she had at the Amethyst when it came to closing time and found a place to sleep in one of the storerooms. The Sphinx after hours felt very different from the Amethyst. There were strange creaks and taps and knocks all night long, and she might as well have been walled up in an Egyptian tomb. There was a mummified cat—which was basically a dead cat—that sat on the bar and infected the air with its malevolence. She couldn’t help but think of all the ancient Egyptian mice it must have killed.
* * *
—
And then a miracle. An actual miracle. Not the resurrection of Florence, but something almost as wonderful.
The following day, Freda had been walking along Poland Street, where one of the hostesses at the Sphinx said there was a lodging house with decent rooms to be had. She was counting off the street numbers in her head when she heard a hoarse voice behind her cry, “Freda! Freda!” and she turned to see a woman staring at her in amazement. The woman reached out a hand and touched Freda’s cheek as if making sure that she was real. “Freda, is that really you, pet?” she said. “Of all the people in all the world, fancy running into you here,” and Freda found herself suddenly enveloped in ratty fur and the familiar scents of Habanita and Sarony cigarettes. It seemed Vanda was no longer in Grantham.