Elegance and Innocence: 2-Book Collection
‘Elegance is a fantastic book . . . funny, moving, tongue in cheek’ Cat DeeleyELEGANCELouise Canova is at a crossroads in her life. Browsing in a second-hand bookshop, she stumbles across a faded grey volume. Written by a formidable French fashion expert, Elegance is an encyclopedia of style. Within the book's pages Louise discovers a courage she never thought possible. For true elegance cannot be attained until she is comfortable in her own skin: only then might love flourish.INNOCENCEIt's 1987 and Evie is leaving home for the first time, headed for London to study acting. Along with her fellow students and roommates, Imogene (a born again Laura Ashley poster child and frustrated virgin) and Robbie (native New Yorker, budding bohemian, and very much not a virgin), Evie's determined to make her mark both on stage and off. But then life and love intervene. And everything changes.
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KATHLEEN TESSARO
ELEGANCE and INNOCENCE
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.
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2003, 2005
Copyright © Kathleen Tessaro 2003, 2005
Kathleen Tessaro asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2013 ISBN 9780007548514
Version: 2017-12-08
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KATHLEEN TESSARO
ELEGANCE
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.
Contents
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.
