Chapter 4 Pageantry #3
This particular “beauty parade” was to choose the usherettes for the Telekinema.
The Telekinema was to be housed in a grey concrete box of a building next to Waterloo Bridge.
Needless to say, it was still far from completion.
It was destined to show both films and television programmes and had already generated a good deal of excitement amongst the public, especially as there was the prospect of watching the screen through 3D glasses.
In the long wake of the war, people wanted to be entertained, Flynn thought, not instructed in weighty topics like geology and science.
And architecture and archaeology (not to mention the architects and archaeologists themselves) were hardly known for their entertainment value.
Flynn had briefly dated a woman from the Archaeologists’ Office called Stella, who harangued him—shades of Joan from Typography—with the “new picturesque aesthetic” and the Festival’s goal of “integrating Britain’s idea of itself as a rural nation with a landscape that has been dramatically transformed by industry and war. ”
A makeshift runway had been set up in the ballroom of the Savoy and a variety of good-looking girls were making their way slowly along it, their heads held stiffly as if they were in a deportment class.
Badger, like a few others, had a small notebook in which he scribbled notes every time a girl went past. “Drawing up a shortlist,” he explained to Flynn.
He smiled at a girl gliding past. “It’s a tough job,” he chuckled quietly, “but someone has to do it.”
Badger was also in charge of suggesting girls—“Festival Beauties”—for the covers of magazines like The Illustrated London News and Picture Post. “Nice girls,” Badger said.
“Not brash or common. Girl-next-door types.” Flynn wondered what kind of girls lived next door to Badgley Hall in Norfolk.
(“Oh, they’re all Country Life’s ‘Girls in Pearls,’ waiting to marry a baronet.
”) “And did you know that there’s going to be a bikini contest? ”
“A what?”
“There’s this chap, Morley, who’s organizing a beauty pageant, to be called the ‘Festival of Britain Girl Bikini Contest.’ ”
“And that’s just—?”
“Girls parading in bikinis. Exactement. Good, no?”
“Well…”
“They want to change the title to ‘Miss Festival of Britain,’ but that won’t get people flocking to it the way bikinis would.”
“I suppose not. Badger—don’t you think it odd that all these would-be Telekinema hostesses have red hair?”
“That’s the whole point.”
“Why?”
“Norman Hartnell,” Badger said.
“What about him?”
“Oh, that one’s lovely,” Badger exclaimed quietly as a pre-Raphaelite beauty, more animated than most of the others, sashayed in front of them. “Because Hartnell has designed green dresses for them, and he insists that they can only be worn by redheads. You know, for the aesthetical qualities.”
“ ‘Aesthetical’? That’s ridiculous, Badger.”
“I know, it does seem a bit unfair on all the blondes and brunettes, doesn’t it? What do you think about that one? Too carroty?”
The man sitting opposite Flynn (he looked vaguely amphibian) nodded and smiled genially at every girl who passed.
The red thread veins on his nose, drooping eyelids and mottled skin, not to mention a general air of decrepitude, indicated a serious drinker.
He caught Flynn looking at him and gave him a cheery little salute.
“Splendid filly,” he announced (rather loudly) as the pre-Raphaelite beauty pirouetted professionally in front of them.
“Oh, that’s the Major,” Badger said when Flynn enquired. “He’s a regular at these things. He’s on the Committee.”
“He’s not taking notes.”
“I don’t think it’s the paperwork that interests him. Tell me, what’s your opinion on freckles?”
—
They delayed their return to the office as long as possible. Badger was chatting with the Savoy’s doormen, with whom he seemed very familiar.
Flynn hadn’t been paying much attention to this conversation, diverted as he was by the midweek matinée crowd who were queuing to get into the Savoy Theatre.
He read the playbill—To Dorothy, a Son, starring Sheila Sim and Richard Attenborough.
It awakened no desire in him to see it. Flynn hadn’t been a paying member of a theatre audience since before the war.
He had no idea what the last thing he had seen was, but he could remember who he had seen it with.
A girl called Jill who was training to be on the ack-acks.
She’d been from Herefordshire, rather na?ve, and impressed in equal measure by London and by Flynn.
She went off to man the barrage in Portsmouth and he never heard from her again.
His mind had wandered, and when he glanced at Badger he was struck by the odd look on his face.
He was reminded for a moment of his palsied rabbit.
Flynn said, “Shall we get back?” but Badger stayed rooted to the spot.
(Too young for a stroke, surely?) Lot’s wife came to mind.
Even the doorman noticed and, touching Badger lightly on the elbow, said, “Are you all right, Mr. Badgley? You’ve gone as white as a sheet.
” Badger shook himself—more large dog than badger—and seemed to recover.
“No, no, I’m fine, thank you.”
“You looked as though you’d seen a ghost, Badger,” Flynn said.
“You have to be dead to be a ghost, don’t you?”
Flynn hazarded a guess. “You saw someone who you believed was dead?”
“I couldn’t possibly say.”