Chapter 2

After the others had left, I started making calls. If the girls I wanted to talk to weren’t at home, I’d leave a message for them to call before six-thirty today or tomorrow. By the time I put the phone down at a quarter to seven, I had a list of nine girls, who were all happy to be kept informed about a new site with female welders.

I locked up and went up one floor to the agency. There, Tracy welcomed me in and gave me a quick tour around, before sitting me on a chair, with lights on me, and setting her photographer on me. By the time I left, about eight, I had been smiling, scowling, grinning, pouting, looking serene, angry, happy, and upset, and every emotion in between. Halfway through, Tracy had stopped things for a few moments while she altered my make-up to give me a different look. She went to the door with me.

“Jenny, I would often see you and wondered why you dressed as a tomboy, or if you were really a man. It doesn’t matter what you are, in this game. It’s all in the look, and you, my girl, have a look that a lot of our clients want. Don’t worry, you’re not catwalk fodder, but more suited to magazine advertising. You have an amazing face, and a range of emotions that the rest of my girls would kill for. I hope that you keep joining us for lunch, as I think that you have a future, or just a sideline, away from that Union.”

I got home, taking in the fish and chips I had promised Carol, in a call before I left my office. She had fed the girls, and they were in bed. Before we ate, I was instructed to take off my blouse and skirt, and put on my robe, in case I dropped anything on me. We sat at the kitchen table and ate our tea as I gave her a blow-by-blow commentary on my day. She almost fell off her chair when I related my outburst at Cyril and Bernice’s reaction to the new me. She was amazed at my lunch with the agency girls, and even more so when I said why I was late tonight.

“So that’s why you have that evening look! That’s a great look, and if that Tracy thinks you can make extra money as a model, I’m behind you all the way. When she gives you a portfolio, make sure you bring it home. The girls would be beside themselves if their Auntie Jenny shows up in one of their magazines.”

That night, we just cuddled. We had made love more, this week, that we usually did in a month. Friday, I went back into work, in a different outfit, as befitting a businesswoman. I would have to do extra laundry, over the weekend, to make sure I was up to date for next week. I now understood why women have so many clothes, and it was making me confront my own habits.

At the office, I made some calls to keep in touch with our local organisers. Not one of them questioned who I was. It made me wonder if my old voice was so feminine that there wasn’t much difference now. The three guys were all polite, and very careful around me, and Bernice could hardly keep a smile off her face. I didn’t tell her about last night, until we were about to go down for lunch. We were reworking our lipstick in the toilet as I let on that I had been in a photo shoot and that Tracy thought that I may have a future as a face model.

When we got down to the café, all of the agency girls stood to hug me and tell me how good I looked with the shoot. Tracy had a bunch of loose pictures, from last night, and they were discussed, in detail, as we ate. When we left, to go back to work, Tracy gave me a folder with all the best pictures in.

“Have a look at these over the weekend. Let me know, on Monday, what you would be happy with. I can sign you on as a casual, and we can work evenings, if we have to. We’re doing a shoot on the south beach, at Blackpool, tomorrow afternoon. Come along and see just how hard we work.”

I thanked her for her faith in me, then followed Bernice to the lift. She took the folder from me and flicked through it.

“I thought I’d seen everything when you walked into the office, yesterday. Since then, it’s been a total rollercoaster of fun. And now this! These pictures are amazing, you have such a range of looks, it’s no wonder Tracy want’s you signed on, you would be worth a fortune to her. I should be jealous, but you’re not a person one can be jealous of, just someone to admire and be happy to have met.”

This time, I initiated the hug. When the doors opened, we went into the office with smiles on our faces. I had promised Carol that I’d be home about seven-thirty, and she had organised a takeaway Chinese for the whole family. I worked up until six-thirty, taking some more calls from our welders, and the locked up to go home. We had a lovely tea, and I showed the family my portfolio. That night, cuddling wasn’t enough.

Saturday, we were all sitting around in our nighties and robes, when I made my suggestion.

“How would you all like a day at the beach. We can go to Blackpool, ride on some of the roundabouts, have a fairy floss and ice creams. I feel that I want some sun on my face and some sand between my toes.”

When we piled into the Jensen, we were all in summer dresses, with sunglasses, and it was almost too much for Carol, who kept breaking into giggles, setting the girls off in the back seat.

“What’s so funny, my love?”

“It’s just how I feel, darling Jenny. You’re so much more open and spontaneous these days. Every day is like a new ray of sunshine. I expect that you will spring something on us today that I don’t see coming.”

“How about dropping in on an agency photo shoot on the South Beach. I’ve been invited. I’ve no idea who is being photographed, but I expect that it would be swimwear. I can introduce you to Tracy. It will let you gauge, for yourself, what she’s like.”

“You are so devious, my love. The girls will be beside themselves when we get there.”

We got to Blackpool, rode some roundabouts, had our ice-creams, and sat in a beachside café for lunch. After lunch, we went up the tower to the viewing platform. I could see the shoot being set up, so, when we got back down to ground level, we strolled that way. Tracy saw us first and came over to greet us.

“Jenny, so good to see you, and these delightful girls.”

“Tracy, may I introduce my wife, Carol, and our two daughters, Cathy and Kerrie.”

“Welcome, all of you. Come over and meet the gang. We’ve taken a few pictures but seeing you all in your summer dresses has given me an idea.”

It wasn’t long before our daughters found themselves as extras in the photo shoot, next to a couple of girls that they had seen pictures of in teen magazines. Before long, everyone knew everyone else, and both Carol and I were background figures in some shots. I told Carol that I thought that there wasn’t much chance of us being able to be picked out in the final pictures, if indeed any were picked that we were in. Later on, a woman arrived with a box, which contained, so we found out, a number of bikinis.

For an hour, Carol and our girls were pictured in bikinis, while I was given shorts and a halter top to wear, joining the professionals in a number of pictures with us splashing each other. When Tracy called a stop to proceedings, we all had a group hug and then she got me and Carol to sign waivers as temporary models, for both of us and for our daughters. She then told us to keep the outfits we had been wearing, and to get dressed, again, as she was going to host an evening meal in a local restaurant, for the whole crew.

On the drive home, the girls were exhausted and sleeping in the back seat. Carol and I held hands as I drove.

“You certainly pulled that rabbit out of the hat, my love. I haven’t had so much fun in ages. The girls were so excited at actually meeting a couple of models, they didn’t even get worried as they became friends. You have a strange aura, Jen, one that allows people to feel able to accept things, as they happen, with the knowledge that everything will be all right. That’s why you’re such a good person in your job. We have no idea of how this afternoon will pan out, or if any of the pictures will be used, but it doesn’t matter. We all had a great time. Please say that you’ll stay around, after the meeting on Tuesday. I don’t know if I could go back to the old ways after this. I’m having too much fun.”

“It’s odd, that you say that, my love. I spent a lot of time, yesterday, setting up meetings at various sites. I used my usual voice, as far as I know, and I couldn’t make my mind up whether I would front up as Jen or Jenny. Talking to a few of the guys, I don’t think it would matter which one I chose. If I go back to Jen, I’d have to do something about my hair and nails, not even thinking about the new eyebrows and earrings. I’m not sure If I want to bother. Being Jenny has been a breath of fresh air in my – no – our lives. It could be a problem when the girls want us to go to parent-teacher meetings, though.”

“We’ll worry about that when the time comes. What do you have in store for us on Sunday?”

“Your turn for rabbits, darling, I’m in your hands.”

“That’s good. There’s a market in the morning, I would love it if we can all go and wander the stalls, the girls would be certain to find things they like, and we may even get some new things for your side of the wardrobe.”

So, Sunday morning, that’s what we did. The girls in jeans and tops; Carol, and I in dresses. We were called ‘Love’ and ‘Darling’ by the vendors, and we did find some nice things to wear, even me going into cubicles to try things on. One of the stalls had hot dogs and hamburgers, and we all sat on a bench to eat ours with plenty of napkins to catch stray drops. The girls were between us, and my heart melted when Kerrie turned to me, between bites.

“Auntie Jenny. Can you please stay with us. I know that you’re really my Daddy, but you make us so happy, the way you are. I could hardly sleep, last night, from the fun on the beach. Cathy feels the same.”

“All right, poppet. I’ll try to keep up the excitement. I was only supposed to be like this for a week, but I admit that I’m having a lot of fun, as well.”

Carol looked over their heads at me and smiled. We had to get home to do the laundry in the afternoon.

Monday, I was in a meeting with Cyril. It was unlike any other meeting we had before. He was caring, asked my thoughts, and we planned out the next day, together, rather than him calling all the shots. He would take me to the meeting, in his car, so I transferred all of my working gear to his boot. He gave me a folder on the site we were going to see. When I looked through it, everything fell into place.

“Cyril, this site went bust, about a year ago. It became a bastion of a militant union, and with their demands, coupled with the greed of the owners, it failed. It doesn’t have a very good reputation and I can see why they haven’t been able to recruit. We will have to stipulate that we supply all of their workers if we can. Both women and men. Our guys are mirror images of the ones that worked there before. I’m sure that they’ll be some of the old workforce that will want to return once they get going, but we will have to enforce proper attitudes if they do. We have a lever that we can use, in that the current owners look as if it’s a family concern, who jumped in without fully researching the history.”

“You’re right there, Jenny. They’re into a lot of things. The closest they’ve been to this is civil engineering, bridges, and the like. They thought that the contracts that might come up in the North Sea, and across on the Continent, would be good earners. The longer they stay closed, the more money they’re losing. I’ll let you run with it, tomorrow. You and Janet will get on like a house on fire, I expect. One thing in their favour, is that they bought all of the equipment so there’s a load of welding sets that are ready to go.”

Lunch was a lot of talk, once more, about a big sheaf of pictures. Bernice hooted when she saw one where I was being splashed by a couple of bikini models. Tracy gave me two portfolios, one for Carol and me, the other for our girls. She put her hand on my arm before we went back to work.

“Your girls, Jenny, are pure gold. They acted like a couple of kids having fun, and the camera loves them. You have no idea how stilted some of our child models are, pretending to smile. Yours were so natural, my photographers want to work with them again. I think that when this client sees these pictures, she’ll insist that they are part of the on-going campaign. I know that you’ll be away, tomorrow, and I may have some news for you later in the week.”

Bernice looked through the files on the way back to work.

“You know, I’ve been a bit afraid that having children would kill my career. While you’re away, tomorrow, I’ll talk to Tom and Alf about maternity leave and whether I could come back, afterwards. My hubby is starting to talk about teaching a son how to play rugby, but I would be happy teaching a daughter how to be a girl.”

We worked through the afternoon, and I left at the same time as the rest of the team. At home, we had dinner and I pulled out the photo files. There was a lot of laughs. The girls told us that they had told their friends about Saturday but none of them believed it. Tomorrow, they would be able to take the pictures in to show them. I told them not to boast, or rub it in their faces, but just to be cool and matter of fact. Most of the evening they acted like proper ladies, being cool.

After they were tucked into bed, Carol got me naked and went over my body with a safety razor. I didn’t need any work on my face, but Carol did say that I might need to visit the salon for a touch-up in a week or so. She helped me decide what I would wear on Tuesday. I had the idea that I should wear jeans or slacks, but she insisted that I wear a skirt and light top, so that I needed to ask for somewhere I could change before I showed my welding skills. That way, I would be able to inspect what they had that would be suitable for girls, and to suggest changes they should make.

Tuesday morning, Cyril was driving us to the east coast. It was odd, as he kept looking across at me as we spoke. He’d never done that before, whenever I had gone somewhere with him. I decided to hold off bringing it up until we were going back. At the site, we parked next to a line of cars. Obviously, the whole Board was present. This was something that I had done before, but never wearing a skirt and stockings.

A young man came out of the building to greet us.

“Good morning. I’m Alex, and I’m a Board Member. You must be Cyril and Jen.”

“Actually, Alex, I’d rather be called Jennifer or Jenny. My card reads Jen, but that’s a throwback to my younger days.”

“Sorry, Jennifer. I’ll take you in to meet the rest of the family - I mean the Board.”

“Alex, we don’t mind what you want to call yourselves. I know that you can call yourselves either. It doesn’t matter for what you want to do. As far as Company House is concerned, you’re the Board. If you want this site to run smoothly, I suggest that you stick with it being family run. If you treat your workers like family, they’ll respond in kind. I visit a lot of sites, like this, and the ones with the least trouble are the ones where there’s respect going both ways.”

“Wow! That’s telling it like it is. I like you, already, and I think that Mum will see things your way as well. Some of our other members think that we need to live up to ‘our station in the business’. They’re the ones with the swanky cars. Anyway, come on in and meet the motley crew.”

He led us to the Boardroom, where we met seven other people, five of them men, and two women. I could see that the younger woman was a daughter, and the introductions proved me right. I could pick the ones that Alex had alluded to by their snappy suits and their haughty manners. I expect that Janet had only managed to force this meeting because the Board was split three to five. Janet was a very pleasant woman, about fifty, but obviously a regular at a salon, somewhere. Her daughter, Tina, was a chip off her block. I was starting to like this side of the family.

Janet asked Cyril to tell them what we planned, and he deferred to me. I stood and went to the end of the table where I could see them all.

“Let me start our discussion with a little history lesson. You were able to buy this business at a good price because it had been run into the ground by the greed of the previous owners. I have visited it several times, some time ago, and there was a continuous battle going on between management and workers. The management thought that the sun shone out of their backsides, just because they had been fortunate enough to own the company. The three main owners used company money to pay for cars, boats, holidays, and houses. None of these should have been paid for by the company. They sowed the seeds of their own failure.”

I saw frowns on two of the three faces as I looked at them, but Janet had a wry smile.

“The workers knew this. Don’t ask me how, but everyone knows everyone; and barbers, taxi drivers, cleaners and scullery maids all hear things you would rather keep quiet. The workers here were mainly members of a very militant union, and they fought hard for better wages. They never fought for better conditions. When I visited, the changing rooms and toilets would make you want to throw up. How many of you have had a look at the facilities?”

Janet, Alex, and his sister nodded.

“The guys who did the real work were animals, lived in squalor and had no respect for either their employers or the workspace. This company had one of the worst reputations in the country. No self-respecting man, or woman, would consider working here unless it can be shown that things have changed. How much budget do you have to clean and repaint the existing facilities? How much have you set aside to create changing areas for women to use? Our Union can do nothing to help you unless you’re prepared to help yourself. I was brought here to show you that women can do the jobs you want done. If you insist, I’ll suit up and weld something together. I have a Pressure Vessel Certificate, the top-level X-Ray papers and have worked on the Scottish rigs. We have a list of at least a dozen girls with similar qualifications, and some that I’ve spoken to, over the last week, know of girl welders from other unions who would jump to us if we can set up a female-friendly site. I reckon I could send you a hundred guys who would be happy to work for a caring, and respectful, employer. Where you take this is down to you, not any demonstration I can give you.”

Janet was the first to respond.

“Thank you for your frank lesson, Jennifer. There are some, in this room, who think along the lines that the old owners did. I, for one, would be happy to find their replacements.”

At that, one of the three stood.

“I’ve had enough of this lovey-dovey bullshit, Janet. If you want to replace me, then fine. I’ll leave and work where a business is run by businessmen, not den mothers!”

As he left, one of the others followed him. Janet looked at the last one.

“What about you, Horace. Don’t you want to throw a tantrum as well?”

“Actually, Janet, I agree with this young lady. I only sided with the other two because of the family dynamic. I can put more money in, if you want it, and I’ll leave the Roller at home, in future. What we have just been told is correct. I have tried entering those buildings, but the smell has driven me out. The other two considered it beneath them to look at anything here other than their plush offices to be. I’m sure Jennifer has an idea of who we can add to the Board, an employee representative, perhaps.”

“I applaud your insight, sir. If you have both male and female employees, I suggest that one of each would fill the seats nicely. I have been a representative of two or three boards, and none of those companies lost time or money because of it. We have some likely candidates on our books. We can give you a list when you start actively recruiting. If my memory of this site is correct, you can employ a professional cleaning firm to hose out the facility blocks, then get some decorators in. In the meantime, we can send you welders, fitters, and general hands to interview. I expect that, if you get moving with the changes, we could have you up and running inside six to eight weeks, that is assuming that you do have contracts ready to start.”

I could see Janet making her mind up.

“Alex, dear, can you take Cyril and Jennifer and show them where the tea and coffee are, then come back while we discuss out next moves. Thank you, Jennifer, for opening our eyes to where we were going wrong. You’ve shown me that employees should be respected, not just thought of as beasts of burden. We’ll call for you in a little while.”

After Alex had left us with our cups in front of us and a bowl of biscuits ready to plunder, Cyril finally said something.

“You don’t take any prisoners, do you, girl? I was ready, cap in hand, and you just blew all their prejudices into the weeds. How did you know that those two would have to be cleared out?”

“Alex told us, on the way in. On top of that, they had spent more on each suit than I spent last week on the full transformation. If they had remained, this company would have only bounced a bit before failing, once more. With them, anything we proposed would have been wasted, with our own reputation taking a hit. It’s better to be out of it than be linked to a disaster.”

“What do think they’re talking about, now?”

“How much it’s going to cost to make the place somewhere that you would be happy working in. We all know that the actual worksite is messy, but you should have somewhere clean and tidy to shower and change after putting in a shift. It was always important to me, before, and since last week, I have an appreciation of how much more it means to a woman.”

We drank our tea and only had a couple of biscuits and then Alex came back to get us.

“Mother asks that if you have enough time, would you walk the site with us, to point out where we should concentrate on.”

“Certainly, Alex, lead on. We will just have to get our hard hats from the car.”

We had to wait for Alex to raid the stores for hard hats for three of the Board. Cyril remarked that it was imperative that everyone in the company follows safety rules, something that not all of them had considered and something that the two who had left would never consider. We spent a good two hours, going places that they had never seen, even though they owned the site. They saw, for themselves, places where you wouldn’t keep a pig. They saw areas with danger at every step. All the while, Cyril and I were giving the insights from our own experience and saw the daughter with a small tape machine, recording it all. In the end, we had identified the areas that needed cleaning, and those that needed experts in to make safe. The place was as I remembered it, only a lot worse. I could see where things had been stolen before the workers finally left, mainly fire extinguishers and small tools.

“Janet, when you have some tradespeople on board, you’re going to need them to put together a shopping list of what you need to get back to production. You’ll need a good storeman, first, to put together a proper inventory of tooling and consumables, then you’ll need to send some of the weld sets off to be overhauled. A lot of them have been left out in all weathers since the closedown.”

“When we sign the paperwork, Jennifer, would you spend some time with us to get things going. You have shown us a lot we didn’t realise was important, today. Your input would be appreciated.”

Marianne Gregory © 2024

Chapter 3

Cyril told her that it would be our pleasure to be close to the project until we had installed competent workers who could carry on. He even offered to alternate with me, as I had so many other sites around the country that I was needed at. That was a revelation, as he had become office-bound lately. We discussed what the contract between us should look like, and Janet walked us to our car.

“I have to thank you both for coming. I’ll get our lawyers to write up a contract to allow you initial command of recruiting our new workers. We’ll also edit our own charter to include worker representatives. This project was mine to make or break. My husband is the real financial power behind me but insisted that me and my children find out for ourselves if we can make a success of it. Those two that were against spending on facilities are cousins of cousins on his side. He does have a lot of rich relatives. The other one is married to one of his cousins. The five of us that were already amenable to what you proposed are from my side of the family, and from a more working-class stock.”

She gave us both a hug and we left.

“How about lunch before we head back to the office, Jenny?”

“I don’t mind, Cyril, what do you have in mind, nothing too flash, I hope.”

We went to a restaurant, overlooking the river, and had a nice meal, with a glass of wine. The waiter helped me into my seat and Cyril was very attentive as we talked about what happened this morning.

“You do realise, Jenny, that this project is going to take a bit of work but could be something that will lift our Union. It’s could take months, I know, so, if you know of anyone in the country who can take over your current job, I’m happy to let you bring them in. You’re going to spend a lot of time, here, to make it all work.”

“There are a couple of good organisers who are representatives on boards. I’ll get some appointments and see if any would like to work in Head Office. I think that we will need someone in Bernice’s seat for a while. She was going to talk to the others about maternity leave while we’re out. While we’re having a big shake-up, I could talk to some of our members about becoming office organiser. If Bernice comes back, I think that you’ll need a full-time secretary by then.”

He smiled and reached over to touch my arm.

“Jenny, you have been a good worker for the Union. After this all blows over, I want you to think about taking my place. Today has shown me that I’m weighed down by the baggage of my years and the effects of my own experiences. You’ve shown me a new way of things, and it looks good. It’s getting close to my own retirement, just a couple of years, but I had been afraid of thinking about it. Tom and Alf have a few more years in them, so there will still be some old guard in the place.”

At the end of the meal, we made a toast to the future, and he drove us back to the office. I didn’t have to ask why he kept glancing my way. I knew, now, that he fully accepted me as Jenny, no second thoughts, and that he was treating me as he would his wife. It made me more aware of sitting there, in the passenger seat, looking down at my skirt and stockinged legs, with the weight of my breasts supported by a lace bra. I didn’t have to worry about being outed, any longer. This man knew that I wasn’t a woman but treated me as if I had been one all my life. It was a very sobering thought.

That afternoon I went through the member records again, in the light of what I now knew. There was one particular girl. Working at a site a bit further north, who I had met several times. She had good qualifications but was also a very good Organiser. On the off chance, I rang her on her mobile. Luckily, she answered.

“Suzi, it’s Jen from the Union Head Office. Do you have a few moments to talk.”

“Sure thing, Jen, we’re on a break now. You sound a little different, a bit quieter than I remember.”

“Things are changing, Suzi. You’ll know why when I see you. You have been contacted in the last few days about a new site that we are involved in.”

“That place! I’ve heard a lot of bad things about there.”

“That’s all history. I was there, this morning, and had a meeting with the new management. There are no workers on the site, and we are going to be involved in supplying a workforce from our Union. It may not end up as a closed site, but it should be a lot better than it used to be. Now, I’m ringing because they are going to need a top-rate Organiser, who will also be a Board Member, and I thought of you.”

“Wow! That’s out of left field, Jen. Can I think about it? It would mean moving the family further south.”

“Take as long as you like, they won’t be operating for a couple of months. They are offering a relocation package, and I should think that the first ones in will have a lot to do. The whole place has been run down and a lot of the tools are rusty from being left in the open. I will also be looking for a good storeman and a male Organiser. The possibilities there are huge.”

“That’s interesting. My husband is a storeman in a manufacturing engineers. If they’ll take on the two of us, that would be brilliant. Would we be able to come down and talk to the bosses?”

“Let me know when you’re free and I’ll arrange a meeting. We still have to sign the agreement so it’s not yet official.”

We spoke some more and then she had to return to the workplace. I then rang a man I had worked with, in Glasgow. He had taken my place as a Board Representative, and I had a lot of respect for his abilities.

“Albert, it’s Jensen Goodfellow. How are you, today.”

“Fair to middling, Jen. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“We are starting a big project, and I am going to be spending a lot of my time out on a new site, as a consultant. I was wondering if you’d fancy a shift to Head Office to take over my job as the Business Unification Manager. It’s basically the membership officer and means visiting all the sites to keep our guys, and the various managers, happy. It pays well, you get a company car, and the only downside is that you have to come and live in the Midlands.”

“That’s where my wife comes from. She would love to move south again. How much time do I have to decide?”

“Things are moving pretty quickly, but I reckon that we have a month to settle you in. If you’re happy with it, let me know and I’ll get Cyril to send you an official offer. You never know, we may come up and deliver it ourselves.”

“Right. Thank you for thinking of me. I’ll talk to my wife tonight, and let you know. Taking over from you here was great, but working out of Head Office is a huge leap.”

When I put the phone down, Bernice was looking steadily at me.

“Are you resigning, then?”

“No, Bernice. What we did this morning has huge consequences. I have been asked to lead our input with this new project, which will mean me spending a lot of time on the east coast. Over lunch, Cyril asked me to organise someone to take this seat, because there are other avenues, further on, that he wants me to take. Now, did you talk to the others?”

“Yes, I did. There’s no problems with maternity leave if I fall pregnant, and they told me that there would be a place for me when I return. All I have to do, now, is to time my cycles with the nights my hubby isn’t playing darts, and I may score a bullseye. You said that you would be spending time there? You’ll have to remain as Jenny for some months to come, then?”

“That’s correct. By the time this is all finished I may never want to return to my old self.”

“That’s good. You will be popping in, from time to time, I hope.”

“I certainly will. I may be more of a free spirit, for a while, and there will be things that I will need to do with Cyril before we settle back down. On top of that, there may be some sessions for Tracy. She said that she’ll have news on that by the end of the week. How were the girls at lunch?”

“All good, they asked where you were and I told them that you had to be away, as that was a big part of your job. Tracy was being very cagey, though. I think that she has a big meeting in the morning. What’s this Albert like?

“He is a very nice man, with a lot of people skills, which is why I chose him to take over when I was headhunted for this job. You’ll like him, for the few months that you’ll be working with him. When you’re off, we’ll have to find someone as good as you. That’s going to be the hardest task of all!”

That evening, I waited until our girls were in bed, then told Carol about my day.

“All right, Jenny. Let me get this straight. Over the next few months, you will be going off to the coast most days to oversee someone else’s site, as well as recruiting workers for them. There’ll be a new B.U.M in your seat, and then a new secretary taking over from Bernice. Then, sometime after that, you will take over from Cyril as the Leader of the Union and will have Bernice as your secretary when she finishes maternity leave. All of this needs you to remain as Jenny.”

“That’s it, in a nutshell, yes.”

“Will you want to have operations to become a woman, or will you keep your appendage?”

“Keep it, I wouldn’t part with it for the world. We’re both enjoying it too much.”

“How about breast implants or hormones?”

“Maybe for the first, never for the second.”

“What about modelling?”

“That’s still up in the air. We may know more by the end of the week. What would you say if Tracy gets work for our daughters?”

“As long as it doesn’t cut into their schooling, it would be a good experience for them, as well as putting some money in the bank for their tertiary studies.”

We kissed, lipstick to lipstick, and then lost all interest in the late-night television.

On Wednesday, I finalised an itinerary to make a tour of the northern sites, starting Monday. I would be away the whole week. I was going as Jenny, so needed to arrange a shopping trip to add to my wardrobe, seeing that I would be changing every day. In the past, I only took a bag with a weeks’ worth of socks and jocks, and a few shirts, plus a spare pair of trousers, in case I got them wet or too dirty.

Tracy wasn’t at the girls lunch, and the others said that she was very busy. She was there on Thursday and gave me an envelope to open when I was home. On Thursday afternoon, Suzi and then Albert, got back to me to say that they were both very interested. I told them both that I would see them next week and talk through things. I let Cyril know what was happening and told him that I would need Friday off, to collect up needed supplies for my time away, as a woman. He laughed and told me that I deserved it, then gave me the original credit card back, telling me that there was still four hundred Euro on it, and that my bonus would be in my pay at the end of the month.

I was very good and waited until we had finished dinner before opening the envelope. It contained a picture from the first session, with me in the evening make-up and looking coy. It had been overprinted with the name of a lipstick brand and a picture of a lipstick aimed at my lips. The wording said, “Don’t be coy, use our new range and make your evenings zing!”

There was another picture, with the two models on the beach, with Carol and our girls, splashing in the water, all in their bikinis. It simply had the brand logo and the words “Any time at the beach is a fun time in our swimwear!” It was brilliant, nothing else needed to be said. There was a note from Tracy, telling us that these were from a couple of new advertising campaigns. Stapled to the note was a cheque that made me feel quite dizzy, along with a print-out of the amounts for us and the girls. The girls squealed when they looked at the pictures. Carol just gripped my hand as I showed her the cheque.

“It really is real, then. We can bank this when we’re in town, tomorrow, and transfer the two amounts into the girls accounts from ours. Then we go shopping for you.”

She turned to the girls.

“Now, how about you not taking this picture to school and waving it around, tomorrow. Don’t you think that it would be really cool to wait until that picture appears in a magazine? You’ll be targets if you brag, but cool kids if you wait.”

They thought about it, then both grinned. Cathy laughed.

“I want to be cool, Mum. It would be good to have a secret life. It would fill in the times that I’m unhappy with school. We did get some ribbing when we showed the others the file of pictures, and I still don’t think they really believed us.”

“Right, then. We are going shopping tomorrow, and we’ll get a frame for this picture, so we can start a shelf of pictures of our famous modelling daughters. Now, go finish your homework and then you can watch some cartoons for a while.”

On Friday morning, Carol took the girls to school while I made myself presentable for a bit of serious shopping. I was waiting, outside, when she came back. The first place we went was the salon, where I was booked in for a check-up after lunch, and they were shown the pictures, with a promise that we would sign the adverts when they were published.

Then it was on to the bank, where I stood to one side while Carol organised where the cheque money would go. We had a lovely morning in the shops. One thing I insisted on was some packs of cheap tights, saying that it was lovely wearing good stockings, I was going to be going onto sites, where there could be possibilities of sparks. I added a couple of midi skirts, in hard wearing denim, and a couple of pairs of jeans that I could wear with my work boots. Carol pointed out that I could just change the work boots for heeled boots and would be totally good.

We maxed out the Union card and put a bit onto our own by lunch. We put our bags into the car and went to the food court for something to eat. While we were sitting, a couple of middle-aged gents tried to chat us up, a first for me. Carol was able to let them down lightly. I listened intently on the words she was using, as I may have to use them, myself, when I was away.

After lunch, we went back to the salon, where they removed the breast forms and went all over my body to make sure everything was still good. It was suggested that I should come back, in a few weeks, and undergo a new product that they were getting in, something called electrolysis removal of any facial hairs. For now, though, I was in for another waxing on my face. After I was re-assembled, they also declared that I was looking after my studs, and that it was now time to go shopping for decent earrings.

That took some of the afternoon, with us getting me some silver drops and hoops. I wore a pair of drops out of the shop, and the feeling of them touching my neck was odd but empowering. We picked up the girls from school and my new look caused comment. They had been wearing studs since they were six or seven, but now wanted drops like Auntie Jenny’s. They were promised a shopping trip in the morning.

The girls were shaking their heads to make their new drops bang against their necks when we bumped into one of Carol’s friends, with her daughter. Of course, that led to going to a café for some lunch. I decided that I should just tell her who I was, as she knew everything about us and being a non-existent sister-in-law wouldn’t work. She was incredulous but took a good look at me and declared that there were a lot of similarities with the old Jensen, but I was a lot better looking, now. Carol told her that the situation had been forced on me, for work, but that it was a lot of fun while I was Jennifer.

When we parted, she gave us both a hug, woman to woman, and we arranged to get together, the following weekend when I was back in town. That afternoon, we picked up some dress bags so I could just hang some things in the back of the car. I also got a new, and very pink, hold-all for my smalls and cosmetics. Back home, I spent a bit of the weekend learning how to care for my new clothes.

I rang the number that Janet had given me.

“Janet, it’s Jenny from the Union. I believe that you had said that there would be a relocation package for the first new workers. I have a meeting with a girl who would be a good Organiser and Board Member. Can you please tell me what you have in mind, in regard to housing?”

“Yes, Jenny. It’s nice to see that you’re thinking about us on the weekend. Horace, who you met, is a developer, and he bought up four rows of terrace houses in the town. They had been meant to be demolished to make way for a supermarket, but the deal fell through. He has restored one row and is working on the rest. He’ll have another row ready before we need them. They have a row of lockups, two streets away, with enough for each house. He will sell them to the business or rent them to the workers. He has access to finance if they want to settle down and buy.”

“Thank you, Janet. I’ll keep that in mind while I’m away. I’ll be spending a week north, visiting a number of sites. I’ll talk to our Organisers at each place, to get them to ask around our members who may want to come south. I’ll give you a call when I’m back, I might have some people to see you.”

“That’ll be good, Janet. We have a team cleaning the facilities. They needed special suits and breathing apparatus, but the place is looking better. I got in touch with the welding equipment supplier, and he has taken away the worst of the sets to be overhauled. We didn’t realise that the gas supplier had been in and repossessed all of the cylinders and are negotiating with them to supply us when we get going again. Your input, during the week, has made me realise that there’s a lot more to operating again than I first thought. Alex and Tina are newly energised, they have got sets of overalls and are cleaning out the locker rooms, canteens, and storage areas. Your talk has got them fired up. I’m looking forward to working with you as we get closer to re-opening. It’s odd, but when I spoke to my main client, and mentioned that N.U.M.B. will be our main Union, they were happy to sign the contract and we need to be in production in eight weeks. I was given their specifications and have spoken to the metal supplier, putting in an order for tonnage, with the first delivery the week before.”

“Congratulations, Janet. You’re really taking the bull by the horns. I’ll talk to you when I get back.”

When I sat back, I thought about what she had said. The fact that our Union was enough for her to get a contract signed was wonderful. I knew we had a good reputation around the site owners, so I suppose the client may be someone who is also working with other sites we look after. We weren’t the biggest Union around, but we did punch above our weight when it came to keeping production running smoothly.

Saturday night, we explored my new, smooth, skin and it was quite wonderful. Sunday, we did another market, and I loaded the car after lunch. I was heading north, so that I could start my visits early Monday morning. I kissed Carol and the girls, and we had special hugs. I drove away in a mist of love which was new. On the back seat was a new coat that I had bought, in the morning, as well as a wool scarf – just in case I had a cold night or two.

On Sunday evening, I had my evening meal in the hotel. It wasn’t one that I had used before, but one I did have a client card for, as it had been one of a chain I had stayed in when I was working the rigs, and Jen Goodfellow was on their database. It wasn’t as good as the one I usually used, but I didn’t want to go somewhere that they knew the old me. I had two calls on Monday morning, in sites where I would need to wear boots and have my hard hat. Then another in the afternoon, needing the same gear. I had built in a window of opportunity to go back to the hotel and change before seeing Suzi, as we met in her Organisers office, and only went onto the site if there were any problems.

The morning calls were as expected, my calls were with guys who were amazed at my new look, but generally accepting. I told them that I needed to be like this to present us as a female-friendly union to a new customer. I told them to speak to our members and see if there’s any who would come further south. In every case, I had to explain that the site would be nothing like it used to be. I left some cards for them to hand out if anyone was interested.

The afternoon call was the same, and then I went to the hotel to change and pack, checking out. When I got to see Suzi, she had to sit down as I walked in.

“Jen, is this you, now!”

I explained how I was standing there in a skirt and heels and asked her not to let on if she came south. We spoke about how her site was working and she told me that her husband would come south if he was also taken on, as it would be closer to his folks, and further from her mother. I told her about the newly restored terrace houses, with a lockup. She said that they were living in a pokey flat, and even a two-up two-down house would be better. We picked Thursday, the following week, where I would meet them at the site if they both took a day off. She told me that she had a couple of others who would join her, should she say the word. I left some of my cards and told her the likely time that they would be wanted to start.

When I left her, I went further north to another hotel. Tuesday and Wednesday were similar. Most of the Organisers I met were good with me, and those that weren’t were happy when I told them that it would be a guy who would be replacing me before the next visits were needed. I had arranged to meet with Albert at a restaurant, with his wife, instead of going to his site, which I knew would be running like clockwork, so I had some calls to make, in Glasgow, before going to the hotel and made myself ready to go out for a meal.

One of the dresses I had bought, on the Friday, was a simple sheath, the hem just above my knees. I made extra care with the underwear and wore my corset and stockings for the first time this week. I had graduated to two-inch heels and was pretty good with them. I was sitting at the table when they came in. I stood and went to meet them.

“Raylene and Albert, it’s so nice to see you both, again. The table’s over here.”

The waiters fussed around to help us ladies get seated again and we ordered a bottle of red to go with our meal. This restaurant specialised in red meat, and I knew they both liked to eat heartily.

“So, Jen, is it Jenny now?”

“Yes, Albert, at least for a while. We have to blame Cyril for this. He told a new client that we had good female welders, and I was volunteered to give a demonstration. It worked out that I didn’t have to weld, but I’m going to be working, on and off, at the new site as a consultant. I have to recruit a complete workforce, so will not be able to carry on as I was, as Jenny is the gal for the job, or so Cyril thinks.”

Raylene spoke, for the first time.

“You do make a believable woman, Jen, but is your heart in it? What does your family think of this change?”

“Raylene, I feel empowered as a woman. It’s intoxicating, at times. I’ve made lots of calls, so far, this week, and there have only been a few who would rather be working with a guy. They were all sites where we don’t have women welders. Carol and I have entered a new phase in our relationship, and my girls want me to stay this way for ever, a having two mummies are better than one.”

We ordered and made inconsequential talk as we ate. When we got to the cheese and coffee, I asked my question.

“Have you thought about my question, Albert?”

“Yes, we’ve talked about it. Will there be help with finding a place to live, and will the Union help with relocation?”

“They did both for me when I took the job on. There will be a company car and a fuel card. Do you have any desire for a new job, Raylene?”

“Yes, I would. I’d like to take some time to get back with my family, but I used to be a PA and would like to find somewhere which would take me on.”

“How would the two of you feel about working together? Bernice is planning to start a family and would be taking maternity leave. I don’t expect to need her replacement for eight or nine months, but whoever takes over her seat will be permanent. When she comes back, she’ll be my secretary.”

Albert looked at me.

“Your secretary? What else is happening?”

“Cyril is starting to think about retiring. I was told that in a year, or so, I’ll be the Head of the Union. I know that I’ll be a lot more hands-on than he has been lately, so will need Bernice to help me. Of course, Raylene, if Bernice goes back into her old seat, you could always work with me as my PA. If this new site project takes off, I expect that we’ll have more enquiries about running sites. I know that if we run sites as well as Albert has been doing here, we’ll be getting a reputation. I do expect some flak from the other unions, but we’ll have to face that as it come.”

“That does it! We’re with you, Jenny. When I had met you, before, I always thought that you were too soft to be a Union Organiser, but watching my man do things the same way, I see now what you’re really doing. You think like a woman, and always have. You aren’t soft, just caring. It’s taken a while, but it’s been wonderful to see Albert acting the same. If there’s an eventual job in Head Office for both of us, it’s a no-brainer.”

Marianne Gregory © 2024

Chapter 4

After that, Albert and I talked a bit of shop, but I tried to keep Raylene in the discussion, adding bits of information for her to add to whatever knowledge she had about running a Union. When I had paid, we stood and went to fetch our coats. Raylene gave me a hug, and then I did the same for Albert. I was happy that he didn’t recoil or flinch. Our time, tonight, had allowed him to think of me as a woman.

Friday, I checked out and went south, to Liverpool, where I had another four sites to see. When I had finished those calls, I drove home, arriving later in the evening. It didn’t take long to unpack, fill the laundry hamper, remove my make-up, and get into bed with my love. We may have been a little noisier than usual because Cathy gave us an old-fashioned look in the morning.

Saturday, we went shopping, then I worked on my notes in the afternoon. That evening, we had our appointment with Carol’s friend, for tea, at their place. There would be the kids around, so I expected that her husband would fire up his barbeque, something I didn’t like, myself. I was happy eating the produce when the cook was good. The meal was interesting, with her husband giving me his attention. We had often been left to talk, but the conversation didn’t move in the ways it usually did. I wondered if he was just being nice to a stranger, then I then saw him, not long before we took the girls home, and the look in his eyes told me that he actually fancied me.

When we had got home and put the girls to bed, I brewed a hot chocolate and we sat on the settee, sipping our drinks. Carol was being very quiet, so I put my cup down and looked at her.

“What’s the problem, my love?”

“It’s just that I couldn’t work out what was going on, this evening. There was a strange vibe in the air, but I can’t put a finger on it. I had the feeling that there was something going on between the two of them.”

“Ah! I think that she was using us to test her husband. She hadn’t told him who I was.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s a case of something he didn’t do, not once, the whole time we were there. Along with the fact that he couldn’t take his eyes off me.”

“Oh! Do tell. You’ve been a girl two weeks and my friends husband was giving you goo-goo eyes in front of his wife. Hell, he was giving you goo-goo eyes in front of your wife!”

“In the past, he would always remind me that I was working for a union. He would hum ‘You don’t get me, I’m part of the union’, the old Strawbs song. When he found out I was in the office of N.U.M.B. he would quietly sing ‘Hello, hello, hello, is there anybody in there?’ I can’t say I like the man.”

“What’s to like? He is a banker, after all.”

“Exactly! If she had told him that I was Jen, he would have rubbed my nose in it. He was trying to be too nice, the whole time, and she had picked up on it. He never once asked where your husband was, or even what I did for a living. All he could talk about was the deals he was making and the Porsche that he had his eyes on. You two were off discussing whatever you had to talk about, while I kept my eyes on the children and my bum out of reach of his hands.”

“Oh! You poor girl. Now you know what we girls have had to put up with for centuries. He must have thought that by being the only man there, he had to act like a lion with his pride, and you were the new lioness that had wandered in. It all fits, now. She kept looking over at the two of you and her mood was getting blacker by the minute. I wonder if she just told him off after we left. If she told him who you really were, he would be beside himself that he had been so stupid. We’ll know which it was if we get a nasty phone call from him.”

Sunday, we just tidied up around the house and did the laundry, while the girls played in the garden or watched cartoons. Carol and I were at ease with each other in a way we hadn’t been, before. I hadn’t been as helpful, around the house, as I was being now. I think that the home dynamic was as if it were two women. I was finding myself looking at things and wondering what I should do to make them tidier, or cleaner.

My week away, where I lived in total womanhood, had started to make me appreciate the nice things in life. I had been treated well in all of the hotels, looked after whenever I was in the restaurants, smiled at a lot, and responded in kind. All this was before anyone had seen my face in that advert. I wondered what it would be like after that was published.

I didn’t have to wait long to find out. Monday, at the girls lunch, there were copies of a woman’s magazine on the table, with my face covering a whole page. Tracy told me that there would be others, all taken from the single shoot, with different slants on why their lipsticks were the best.

“Don’t be upset when you see some of the others. They have edited the pictures, mainly altering your lip colour and make-up colour to match the lipstick in the advert. It isn’t much, really, and you should be proud of how little they did do. Sometimes, a model has her face reshaped after the shoot, to match the image they want to portray. There will be further cheques as the campaign progresses. The clothing company want your girls to be front and centre in their Autumn wear catalogue. There’ll be several pictures, along the lines of the one I gave you, in teen magazines, starting this week. We’re discussing a time and place for the shoot, but I have insisted on a weekend. It may have to be an overnight stay as there are evening fashions included. Natural candlelight can’t be easily fabricated, and the early morning light can do wonders for a picture. They’re looking at one of the stately homes and there will be a big crew, with around four or five other models. I’ll let you know, well in advance.”

When we got back in the office, Bernice had a copy of the magazine and wanted me to sign the page for her. Now, that was really weird! Not that I didn’t have a couple of copies to take home. Generally, though, my day was spent discussing things with Cyril and the other guys. We needed to be certain about how we would manage the future. I was to spend a week on the new project, but next week I was to do my usual trip around the south of the country, visiting sites and talking to Organisers. I usually did the two trips every quarter, so, by the time the next ones came around, we hoped to have Albert ready to do the tours. I rang Janet to tell her about Suzi coming down on Thursday and she said that she would be around, as well as her kids, who, she said, were now fully committed to making things work.

I had a whole day, talking to the southern Organisers and setting up my appointments, as well as booking the hotels. Wednesday, I took a trip to the new site, on a whim, to see just how far they had gone since I was last there. Alex welcomed me, resplendent in overalls with paint splashes. He showed me the changes that they had made in the reception area, putting a lighter colour on the walls, and replacing the old desks with modern ones. I was impressed. Outside, the old facilities were now bright, clean, and sparkling. There was now a dedicated women’s block, with more cubicles and an extra area for relaxing. There were plenty of mirrors and hanging hooks, I could see Tina’s hand in this.

The working area had been tidied up, with a lot of the dangerous things removed. The welding areas had been moved into the old metal storage area, and that had been shifted to a new, open sided shed with a new overhead crane and space for delivery trucks, all half built. It was a far cry from what was there before.

“Mum took a lot of what you said on board, Jenny. She has called in a workplace safety expert to guide her on a lot of changes. He was amazed that no-one died in this site before it was shut down. I think that your person will be happy to see what she will join, tomorrow.”

“She certainly will, Alex. If this is what your family intends, then I can see a very happy workforce joining you. Do you have office staff ready to go?”

“Yes, we are negotiating with a local agency. With that contract signed, we have had doors opened to us that were firmly shut, before. They know that they’ll never get their money back from the old company, but they’ve seen what we intend and how we want to move forward. Some of them have even visited, recently, and have gone away, smiling. We now have accounts ready to go, with tooling and consumable supplies, the welding and gas supplies, office, and canteen supplies. We’ve even been approached by a cleaning company who had refused to even meet with us, earlier. Word about how we’re going about things has spread.”

“Well done, Alex. I’ll be here, tomorrow, with a couple who could be joining you. She is a qualified welder, an Organiser and already a member of a board. Her hubby is a tooling storeman. I hope we can fill the two places together, then they can help things be ready when we get more coming along.”

I went back to the Head office with a much better expectation about the project. I made sure that I timed my trip home, so that future trips can be closely planned. Tomorrow, I would time the trip there, so that I get there to meet Suzi. In the future, there would be no set times for me to be on site, so I could be a bit easier on myself.

On my way back, on Thursday morning, I stopped at a newsagents and looked at the magazines. I found one with the beach picture and bought a couple of copies. When I went to pay for them, the girl at the till had the lipstick advert open. She asked me if the picture was me, then she asked me to sign the page for her. When I got to the site, Suzi and her husband had arrived and were talking to Janet, in the new reception area. I was welcomed, introduced to her husband, and then we went off on a tour of the site.

The two of them were amazed at how good the place was. Suzi appreciated the undercover welding area and the women’s facilities. Her husband was shown the tooling store, which wasn’t worked on, yet, but he could see what was needed. He was impressed by the new steel storage. He asked some questions about the daily volume of production and the likely numbers of workers. With the contract, it would need both pipe welders and steel fabricators, so it would be a busy place.

The only thing left to swing the deal was the housing. I drove Alex and the two of them to the terrace. Alex had the keys.

“I don’t want to pressure you, Suzi, but the end of terrace is slightly bigger than the others, by a couple of feet.”

He opened the door and ushered us inside. The place had no furniture, but it had a completely equipped, and new, kitchen. Alex said that all the houses had underfloor heating and totally new electrics and plumbing. We looked through the place and I stood, in the front room, with Suzi, while Alex took her husband off to look at the lockup. Suzi was certain that they would be coming south. Janet had quoted them a good wage before I had arrived, and it was easy to see that she had fallen in love with the house.

Back, on the site, Janet and Alex took the two into the office and they came out, after twenty minutes, with big smiles. Suzi told me that they would give two weeks’ notice on Friday and start getting ready to come south. Janet told them that they would be buying a large van for the storeman to use, so they would be able to use it to move. Suzi had taken lots of pictures, and she was sure that she could get a few more of her current workmates happy to join her.

Janet took us all to lunch, at the restaurant that Cyril and I had been to. As we talked, the waitress stopped by our table and asked me if I was the face in the lipstick advert, and I had to admit that I was. This led to some signings, with Suzi leaving the table to go off and buy a couple of the magazines, with me signing them both. One was for her, and the other for her mother. After we had returned to the site, and Suzi had left, Janet asked me about the modelling.

“I went up to the agency after meeting the girls for lunch, and Tracy sat me down and they took all these pictures. I thought it was a bit of fun, but it ended up with a contract. I’ve got some magazines, in the car, with my daughters modelling bikinis. I’ll get a copy to show you”.

“Wow, Jenny. That picture is one that doesn’t need the thousand words. It has it all, an older woman, two teens and two pre-teens, all having what looks like genuine fun. Those kids look really beautiful, they take after their mother, that’s for sure.”

“Yes, Janet, they do. Tracy tells me that we may be doing a weekend shoot for the Autumn catalogue at a country house. The time, on the beach, was totally unexpected. I don’t know what the future holds, but we’re taking it a day at a time.”

I stopped to call Cyril, on the way home, to let him know that we were taking the first steps. I didn’t go back to the office, but went home, to have a relaxing bath, after telling Carol about my day and showing her the magazine. She took it with her when she went to pick up the girls. It was their last day of the term and would be home for a while. When she came home, she had been to the shops and bought some steak for our dinner, seeing that we were now celebrities.

Albert got back to me on Friday, telling me that he would take the job. I put him on hold and went to tell Cyril. When I got back to him, I told him that Cyril had suggested that he, and his wife, fly down to see the office and look at the real estate situation. I told him that I would be going south, all week, but Bernice would be able to give him any information either of them would need. In the late afternoon, Tracy came into the office and asked me to come with her, back to the agency.

Wondering what this was all about, I followed her upstairs. In the agency, she showed me a storyboard for a fashion shoot. It was to be for an up-market eveningwear line, for young women and children.

“Jenny, I have a big problem. The girls that were supposed to be the children have gone down with measles; the shoot is tomorrow afternoon, and the client is determined to make a magazine deadline. There’ll be parts for all of you and the location is a stately manor, just south of the city. Can you help?”

I looked at the storyboard, and could see that it was very well planned, with several changes. There were a few men, pictured in tuxedos and suits, but the dresses were mainly long ones. I rang Carol, at home.

“Carol, love, it’s Jen. Tracy has asked me if we can help out with a shoot, tomorrow. It’s mainly the girls she wants, but there may be a place or two for us. Can we do it if there’s nothing else planned?”

“Sure, we can, Jenny. Does she want us fresh from the salon or do we come as we are?”

“I think that she will have a full crew on board to make us look right. It’s a much more complicated set-up than the beach. We’ll need to make sure the girls have a bath in the morning, but the rest will be done there. We’ll use the Interceptor, so there’ll be room for a change of clothes when we’ve finished.”

As I put the phone down, Tracy smiled.

“You have a Jensen Interceptor? We were talking about a shoot, on Sunday, with some classic sports cars. If you don’t mind, I’ll see if I can do it on Saturday, with a second crew, while you’re busy with your job. There’ll be a small bonus for using your car as well. Now, you can get back to your work while I get tomorrow organised. Thank you for helping out.”

Wondering just what I had agreed to, I went back to work. I had been looking forward to a relaxing weekend, before leaving on Sunday afternoon, but that was now out of the window. I suppose that I should be happy, the extra money would be great, and the girls would be adding to their bank account, as well as their standing at school.

Before I went home, I let Bernice into the planning for succession in the Union but told her to keep it to herself. Once she understood that she could be coming back into her old seat, with Raylene acting as my PA, she smiled and gave me a big hug. I told her that Albert and Raylene could be in the office while I was away and that she could see, for herself, if they would fit in.

At home, Carol gave me a lingering kiss and told me that I was a slavedriver, but that she was happy with it. When we were all sitting at the kitchen table, we discussed the shoot on Saturday, and I told the girls that they were going to get their wish to look like princesses, if the pictures I had seen were anything to go by.

Saturday morning, the girls had been bathed, Carol and I were freshly showered, and we got in the Jensen, all dressed very casually. Down, at the stately home, I drove up the long driveway, arriving at a large, gravelled area, to park next to a line of very nice cars. We got out and the photographer came over.

“Lovely motor. Leave the keys in and we’ll be very careful with it. This is going to be a great job, what with the two Jags, the TVR, the Aston and the three MG’s. It’s supposed to be outfits to go to the car races, horse races, in fact, any kind of race you can think of. Tracy says that you can come out and join in, if she doesn’t need you, so it’s going to be fun day. The lunch will be in the main dining room, the caterers are the best around, so you won’t go hungry. Through that side door, over there, and welcome to the circus!”

We went in through the door, to find a lot of girls, in stages of undress, wandering around with Tracy giving out orders. We were directed to a side room, to meet our dressers and make-up artists. Before long, we were directed to the main room where the actual photography was taking place. It was a sumptuous salon, with the main dining room beyond. All four of us were in long dresses, and the girls were taken to their spot, told what to do, and not to sit down, no matter what happened.

The morning went by in a blur of movement, changing, posing, and waiting. I could see snippets of the storyboard I had seen, but nothing was in any semblance of order. At one point, Carol and I were dressed like women at a racetrack, with fascinators, and were sent outside to add to the crowd while the real models posed with the cars. They had this huge green screen behind the cars, so that they could add a correct background, later.

The lunch was, as promised, a very tasty collection of finger food and soft drink. Then we were into the afternoon session. This included shots in the dining room, with guys dressed for dinner, and the models dressed to kill. It finally came to an end, with Tracy declaring that there were enough pictures in the can for a hundred campaigns. The outside shoot had ended, and all those models were back in their casual clothes to go home. That’s when one of the helpers came around from the side of the building in a minibus.

We didn’t expect any special attention, but Tracy got me and my family, in the last outfits, and had a number of pictures taken before we were sent off the change into what we came with. One of those pictures is now framed and standing proud on our shelf of memories. I often look at it, to gaze on the four of us, looking like princesses at some royal event. As we were about to leave, Tracy thanked us for helping out at a short notice. Other models were leaving, and a couple told us that we were great to save the day, and that they would pose with our girls, anytime.

When we got into the Interceptor, it smelt like perfume. It had been washed and was ready to go. The outside crew, still packing, gave us a wave as we left. Carol suggested that we weren’t dressed for a restaurant but were dressed for the favourite fast-food café of our girls, so it was two boxed meals and two burgers on the way home. We were tired, but happy that we had all had an experience that not many had in their lives. Tracy had given Carol an envelope, before we left, and, when she opened it, we all had proper membership cards for the organisation that looked after models and those working in that business.

I had to laugh. I was now in another Union.

Marianne Gregory © 2024

Chapter 5

We all had an early night that evening. We were all tired from the concentration, effort, and sheer excitement of the day. Sunday was back to normal, tidying around the house, eating, and my packing for another week away.

The southern trip was much more enjoyable than the northern. Instead of big pipe and fabrication sites. This had a much wider range of visits. There were still pipe and fabrication sites, but several boat building sites as well. The northern shipbuilding had taken a real hit when we joined the European Union, but it had bounced back, down south, with smaller sites, sometimes with just a couple of our members. There were actually several where we had the main workforce but weren’t big enough to call closed sites. That’s why this new project was so important to Cyril.

After lunch, I kissed my princesses and left for the West Country. The week passed pleasantly, the visits were fun and the hotels good. Having a lot of small sites to see, I got a lot more into a day than I did in the north. It did take a day longer, and it was Sunday morning when I checked out of a hotel, in Suffolk, to go home. I had been accepted by most of the sites, and the ones that weren’t so happy were told that there’ll be a new face visiting with the next visit. Nobody was outright rude, but I could tell that something was bothering them.

When I was home and in the arms of Carol, I remarked that this would be the last time I would be off on a long trip. It made her happy and it made me realise what changes were happening. The girls were full of their days with their friends, with them now two of the most popular girls around. It had taken the advert in the teen magazine to make their friends realise that they were, really and truly – “cross my heart” – models.

On Monday, I went into the office and Bernice filled me in on the events of last week. Albert and Raylene had come and spent quite a bit of time with them. Bernice said that she would be happy to work with him, as well as teaching Raylene her side of the work. Albert needed to give a month notice, so it would be a while before he took over.

She had a list of fifteen girls and about a dozen guys who wanted to work at the new site. I think it may have been the lure of the housing that attracted most of them. Suzi had sent a list of four girls and two guys from her site and had said that they would be finishing their two-week notice, soon. That would be the first order of events, to get them on site and settled in. Then we can invite the others, a group at a time.

On my own, last week, I had been able to think quietly about the project. One part of the site we hadn’t spent much time in was the machine shop. When you’re working with large pipes, the only way to get perfect weld is to machine the ends. They came from the supplier with good enough ends to butt together, but turning corners took a lot of work. I had seen a big lathe, a big radial drill, and a big horizontal borer, and made a note to look at these more closely when I was there next. I made an appointment to see Janet, on Wednesday, to see what progress had been made in the two weeks since I was last there. I would have to be there often when the project got closer to production.

The girls lunch on Monday was good. I was welcomed back from my ‘holiday’ and shown some of the pictures from the two shoots. The outside ones, now with a background added, were good, with the Jensen in a few, looking very up-market, draped with models. There were a couple with Carol and me in the background, with the backdrop of horses being ridden past. The inside shoot was sumptuous, with everyone looking like something straight out of a royal dinner party. I guess that was the market they were aiming at. I was only part of the crowd in these, but Carol had a couple where she was part of the main group. Tracy gave me the picture of the four of us, and asked me if I could pop upstairs, in the afternoon.

When I went up to her office, she shut the door and sat me down.

“Jenny, Bernice tells me that you’re a sort of organiser’s organiser for the union?”

“That’s right. We call it the Business Unification Manager, which means I have to bum around the country, sorting out problems for our members.”

“What sort of problems?”

“Well, there aren’t that many, these days. A lot of employers look after their good workers, because finding younger ones is damn hard. I had one case, last year, where the finance manager had stopped using good tea in the canteen, because he thought he could save fifty Euro a week. It cost the company fifty grand in lost production until I served the managing director cups of tea, one old and one new. The water in that district made the new tea almost impossible to drink. The guys were back at work before I left the site, and the finance manager was told to check before he made similar changes. Other than that, it’s mainly problems that members of other unions create, like demarcation problems between ordinary boilermakers and our, highly certified, ones.”

“What’s your future like with the union?”

“I will have several weeks working on a new project on the east coast, then, sometime after that, I’ve been told that I’m in the line to become the Leader of the Union.”

“That’s a big step, what do you think of that?”

“Actually, that’s been in my thoughts, while I was driving last week. On the one hand, it’s a very good position, with a lot of responsibility, while, on the other, it does mean a lot of meetings at a higher level, even talking to the government. I’m not sure if I would like it, to tell you the truth. I enjoy working with, and for, our working members, with most management eager to discuss things openly. Political types make my blood boil. There were two, on the Board of this new project, who were only in it for themselves and their ego. Luckily, the managing director thought the same as me and we had them walking out of the project at our first meeting.”

“What do you think of our models and photographers?”

“So far, everyone I’ve met has been great. The models are all hard working and dedicated to their craft, while the various crews I’ve seen are also very professional, but down to earth. I expect, that if I’m in the business more, I’ll come across ego-driven prima donnas at most levels. I suppose that most of these would, however, be among the top levels, with everyone knowing what they’re like, but putting up with them because of the money they generate.”

“You’re very astute, you know. There are quite a few like that, but we don’t get to work with those often. They all tend to congregate together, in the big selling magazines. I’m asking you these questions, because I had a long meeting with managers of similar agencies, last week. We get together to talk about the business, over a lunch, every few months. One of the things that came up was the need for someone from the business to co-ordinate the working conditions for our models. With all the girls on our books, we reckon that we have close to two thousand models and crew members. We were wondering if you would like to be a part-time consultant with this. It wouldn’t pay a lot, but we would give you as much work as we could to offset that. The lipstick company, by the way, is negotiating to have you as the face of the brand for a five-year contract.”

“Can you give me a couple of weeks to think it over? I will need to make sure Carol is happy, as I am the main earner in the family.”

“I can tell you, here and now, that your girls will take that role, in the not-so-distant future. The clothing companies love them. Between you and Carol, you have created a pair of photogenic youngsters, who will grow to be beautiful teenagers. I already have three clients who have mentioned ten-year exclusive contracts, to keep them in their adverts as they grow up.”

“I won’t tell them that, until you have something in writing. They’re top dogs among their friends at the moment, but we keep telling them to play it cool, so they don’t get other kids jealous. I’d still want them to try their best, so that they get a good education. I saw that Carol had a few shots in the main group, she’ll be very happy to see those.”

“Yes, she’s good enough to be a foil to the youngsters and adds that link with older buyers. She doesn’t have a future as a face of a campaign, but we’ll give her enough work to be happy. Between you, you will get enough work to leave the union, if you want. I’ll still give you work, even if you reject my proposal. I just ask that you’ll think about it.”

“I’ll certainly think about it, Tracy. It’s an interesting proposition, and I’m going to have to think about how it could even be approached.”

She gave me a folder of the Saturday indoor shoot pictures, and a smaller one with the cars and our minimal additions to the crowd. I was already thinking about the proposition and was in my mind as I drove home. That evening, we all oohed as we looked at the pictures. We chose a few to be framed. Carol said that she would buy a pack of frames for us to use. I might have to put up a couple of extra shelves if this kept up.

After the girls had gone to bed, we sat in front of the TV and I told Carol about the proposal, and the other things I had been told.

“Let me get this straight. You’re likely to get a five-year contract as the lips of the lipstick company, while the girls might get a contract to take them to the end of secondary school. If they’re well enough known, by then, they’ll likely get ongoing work after that. I would still like them to go to university, there’ll be money for that. And now Tracy wants you to be the model’s advocate. How would that work?”

“Actually, I was trying to sort that out, and your use of the word advocate is a good starting point. There would need to be some research, but I would think that most of the models are contractors, handled by their own managers or part of agencies. It’s not as if they have certificates to say what products they’re suited to. Like me, they could have been told what niche the fit into. It’s a much looser grouping than our boilermakers. Then there’s the crew members, a more motley crew you never saw.”

“Have you thought about taking over from Cyril?”

“Yes, that took up a lot of time while I was on the road. I don’t think that I’m the right sort of person for the job. I like to get out and about. Cyril hasn’t had face-to-face time with our members for years. He’s off to London to talk to government departments, meeting with Boards of very large employers, going to dinners and such. I think of a life in that circle, and I cringe. I know he won’t be happy if I turn him down, but it’s just a job situation, not the end of the world. What do you think? You’re a partner in this, after all.”

“I’m just glad that you’ve thought about it, and not just taken that path as a career option. I would hate it to have you coming home in a funk, especially as it would be a period in the girl’s lives when you will need to be there for them. Let’s sit on it, for a while. That project, on the coast may be a blessing in disguise. You’ll be out of that office, with a new person in your seat. When you do resign, it wouldn’t be a big thing, and Cyril will just have to stay on a while longer.”

“The thing is, what do we do about me? I can’t stay as Jenny for ever, without some help. While I’m at the site, or working with the agency, it shouldn’t be a problem for a few years. Are you happy to be married to a cross-dresser? “

“Don’t you worry your beautiful head about that, my darling Jen. The main thing is that we know who we are. If it takes you going out in skirts to make our lives better, then it doesn’t matter to me. You’ve been happier as Jenny than you were as Jen, and good things keep happening to us. We have our family, and it doesn’t matter if we don’t have any more. If you had a full sex change, we would have to spend a bit on sex toys. In the meantime, you and I are having a renewed honeymoon and it’s wonderful. I love you, no matter what you wear. As far as help goes, we need you in the salon, again, to be fitted with the full range of enhancements and another waxing. I’ll give them a call to set it up.”

Tuesday saw me pop into the office, to check things were running smoothly, and picked up our list of interested people for the new site. Then I drove to Hull and the project. On the way, a convoy was going the other way, with huge blades for wind turbines, heading for the Dales. That made me think about that sort of thing. When I got to the site, I sat with Janet and Alex and showed them our list, so far. And then I broached the new thought.

“Janet, on the way I saw a convoy of turbine blades, heading for a wind farm. With you here, on the east coast, with a brand-new site, I wondered if you had spoken to wind farmers about work. You would be ideally placed to supply high-quality towers. The blades come in from overseas, so do the turbines. The bases are made on site, and the towers can be made anywhere. The North Sea has a lot of areas where wind farms are being planned. It could be a good earner.”

“Funny that you mention that. Our client for pipework does dabble in that stuff, but it didn’t come up in discussions. I’ll ask him to give me some specifications so I can give him a quote. We would have to set aside a finishing area where they could be properly painted, and the ends would need to have accurate mounting plates.”

“I had thought that I would take Alex and spend some time seeing what the machine shop needs to bring it online. We could get a specialist in to talk about what’s available for that sort of work. The new storeman should have knowledge of tooling that would be needed, but the two of us can look at the spaces that have been wasted, over the years. I know that there were a few old lathes that they used, back in the fifties, that should go for scrap. Did you have much left in the budget for that sort of thing? It would be easy to spend half a million on new machinery, so we had better make sure that the old equipment is up to the job.”

“Good thinking. Alex, can you go with Jenny, today, to make notes. Jenny, can you get in touch with the experts and get someone in to look at the equipment. It wouldn’t do to be off and running and then have a bottleneck with machining. Lunchtime, Jenny, I’ll meet you in the canteen. We have signed a catering company, who have a small crew improving the kitchen and serving meals for us and the contractors we have on site. You’ll see a lot more around as they get things prepared.”

When Alex and I got to the machine shop, the first thing I did was to look at the metal plates on the machines that gave the suppliers name, as well as looking at the electric motors and pumps that gave the last firms that did maintenance. I rang these and discussed what I wanted with the various managers. By mid-morning, we had been joined by three engineers from the different suppliers, all eager to help. The machinery supplier was contracted to bring in a small crew to clean, oil, and adjust the existing machinery, while the others would be sending the technicians in to overhaul the pumps and motors. We did find a large area with older machinery that had seen better days, but never removed, and the machinery supplier gave me a number to call of someone who would take them away, and even pay us for the privilege.

When we sat down with Janet, Alex was able to give her a list of what we had achieved. Barring rolling up our sleeves and getting stuck in with kerosene sprays and stiff brushes, there wasn’t much we could do. I wasn’t ready to chip any nails for the cause!

For the rest of the week, I was on the coast, working with Alex on various problem areas. On Friday, Janet was very excited when I arrived. She gave me a hug and told me that the wind farm tower question had received a warm welcome from her client, and that they were negotiating a contract to supply them. She said that the spare yardage on the site was being considered for turbine storage, and that she was negotiating to put up a large shed to store and prepare the turbines. It was an opportunity to use the extra space. The site had been set out when a lot of things were done by manual labour, and the new lifting and transporting methods that Janet was putting in made a lot of extra space left over.

Of course, all of this was going well beyond what Cyril had envisioned. I had already met the small team of draftsmen, in the new drawing office, who were busy taking the specification drawings and producing detailed shop floor drawings to go on site. They had a couple of new computers with Computer Assisted Design packages. I had read drawings all my working life, but these C.A.D. programs went over my head.

We were into the realms of a workforce with specialist machining, electrical, painting, assembly, and general metalworking. All of which had their own unions. I spoke to her about that, and she said that we would be the oversight union, to act for the workers on the Board. She had already allowed for an office in the main administration building, and another out on the site, for Suzi. All thoughts of an all-girl force were now in the past, but it would be a site that girls would be happy to work in, and guys would have to respect, or leave. I suggested that we set up a meeting, soon, with the organisers of the other unions, to set out a code of conduct that we could all be happy with. That became my main job for the following week.

I stopped in at the office on the way home, to see what was happening. Bernice was handling things and told me that Raylene would be in the office from Monday, to learn all she could, while looking for somewhere for them to live. I told her that I would be meeting with other unions and wouldn’t be in the office, at all, during the week. She directed me to a note, on my desk, and I read that Tracy wanted to see me if I could. The note was from yesterday, so I told Bernice to have a good weekend and call me if there were any real problems, then went up one flight to the agency.

Tracy wanted me to know that the agency managers were having an impromptu meeting, for lunch, next Wednesday, and I was invited to hear what they were thinking, now that they had started thinking about doing something positive. That was all right, as it gave me the two days before, and the two days after, to organise something with other unions. There were only a couple in our area, and I would have to go down south for the others. She then told me that the next lipstick advert would be in the magazines next week, along with the first from the two shoots we were at. She told me the magazines to look out for, gave me a hug and an envelope with the details of the venue and a cheque, stapled to a printout of who earned what.

I had a quick look at that while I was waiting at a set of lights and was pleased to see that the Jensen had earned itself a couple of hundred Euro. She had been right, as the bulk of the cheque was split between the girls, with a bit more for Carol, and me making the same as the car. This was becoming a good enough income to need a word with our accountant.

That evening, as we settled into our usual places on the settee, Carol asked me how things were going. I told her about my upcoming meetings with the other unions, including the fact that I would be away Wednesday and Thursday evening. The agency lunch was just north of London, and I would stay south for my next union meetings, to come home on Friday.

We had a very quiet weekend, after the hectic ones of previous weeks. We did the market again and it was lovely. We spent time as a family, with me being much more involved than I had been before dressing. It was like something maternal had been switched on, with me sometimes being ahead of Carol with watching the girls.

On Monday I made the final arrangements for the end of the week, and saw a couple of the local union leaders, inviting them to visit the site on the following Monday. When I told Janet about my plans for the end of the week, she told me that her husband would also be in the city, and that she would talk to him about meeting me. On Tuesday, I met with the other local union leaders, also giving the invitation to a site inspection on Monday. I rang Janet with that information, and she told me that her husband would take me to dinner, at his favourite place, on Thursday evening. She said that he was looking forward to meeting me.

When I got home, Carol called the salon to get me in, first thing on Wednesday, and then told me that I had nothing to wear at the restaurant I would be going to. I packed for the two nights away, putting the bag and a couple of garment bags in the car. Wednesday morning, we took separate cars, and I wasn’t long in the salon, mainly a new hairdo. I followed Carol to a new shop, where we quickly chose a new dress, the like of which I had only seen at fashion shoots. A quick stop at a shoe shop, and I gave Carol a hug and kiss, then left to drive south, for my working lunch.

Marianne Gregory © 2024

Chapter 6

As I drove south, I was very mindful of the speed limits, something that I now took very seriously, not wanting to have my licence being checked while I was in a skirt. Being a nice day, I had opted for something casual but well made and we had bought a couple of good skirts, suited to a businesswoman.

I had a good collection of blouses that we had bought to go with the skirt suits that were in the garment bags hanging in the back of the car, alongside the new dress that had cost almost as much as a month’s salary.

For some reason, I had considered it to be a good purchase, as I was sure that I would get reasonable chances to wear it over the coming years, after all I still had the suit that I was married in. I wasn’t sure what I would be walking into at this lunch, but Tracy had assured me that I would enjoy the meeting and wouldn’t be carrying on to my London hotel until later in the afternoon.

I arrived at the restaurant and parked. Making sure I was presentable, I put my mirror back into my bag and went inside. Tracy saw me come in and came forward to meet me, then introduced me to the others. It wasn’t a big crowd, just the two of us and six other women. It was during that lunch that I found out that my family was a feather in Tracy’s cap with me as a total new model, having scored an exclusive contract, not being usual. It seemed that those who had done something similar had gone on to be supermodels.

After lunch we went into a different room, which I could see would be used for functions. We had a table and chairs, a tea and coffee machine, and there were notebooks and pencils with the restaurant logo on them. The meeting was very informative for me. They had a loose meeting of minds to keep the business well respected and viable. It was many years later when they were heavily fined for colluding in price fixing. I was well out of it, by then.

They wanted me to talk to as many of the models as I could, to gauge their wants and desires, and to find out what the agency owners could do to make things better. I offered Carol’s idea that I could be an advocate, rather than an organiser. They thought it would be good to work from that angle, as it wouldn’t worry the models too much. It wasn’t as if they were actually unionists, more associates in a sort of club. I told them that I would give it further thought before I agreed. Before I left, Tracy gave me a file which had the final photos of the lipstick campaign, which would go to the start of Autumn.

I carried on with my trip to London and got settled into the hotel. I wasn’t feeling hungry after my lunch, so watched a bit of television before ordering a light snack from room service. I looked through the photos in bed, and they made me so relaxed, I dozed off with the light on. I did turn it off, in the middle of the night, on my way back from the toilet.

Thursday, I had meetings in the morning and the afternoon, followed by dinner with Janet’s husband, Gerald. The meetings with the other unions went as I expected. Some resistance, which was lessened by the strength of my argument and the offer for a visit on Monday, to inspect the site. All too soon, I was walking out of a union headquarters with just my dinner appointment to go. In my mind, I almost thought of it as a dinner date, but tried to banish such an odd idea. I spent some time window shopping before going back to the hotel to change. Actually, it turned into real shopping as I realised that I could go and look at lingerie without being frowned on. I was actually recognised as the ‘Lipstick Lady’ and got excellent service.

At the hotel, I stripped and showered before getting dressed to dine. I passed over the underwear I had brought with me for the classy and sexy things I had bought today. I had finished dressing and had been careful with my make-up and found myself checking in the big mirror to make sure nothing was amiss. That’s when it hit me that I was doing all the things my Carol does before going out to a big dinner. I was making sure that my stockings were not twisted, my slip wasn’t showing, my lipstick hadn’t attached a bit to my teeth, my eyeliner was actually lining my eye. In fact, I was being all woman as a natural thing, as befitting a model with her picture in the magazines.

I mentally shrugged and picked up my bag, checking that I had all the usual things in it. With a wallet, you carried cards and money, but a bag needs filling. The bigger the bag, the more things you carry. I had no need for tampons and condoms, but there they were. I couldn’t see me needing spare stockings or panties, but there they were. Most of my make-up items were replicated, right there in my bag. My money and cards were in a purse, next to the perfume. Perfume!! I pulled it out, sprayed into the air and walked through it as I had seen Carol do. I made sure there were tissues, snapped the bag shut and left the hotel room.

I could smell the perfume for a while, and then it became just part of the background, along with the clicking of my heels and the feel of the dress against the slip and stockings. In the lift, I checked, once again in the mirror, to make sure my necklace and earrings looked all right, then lifted my hands so I could see the rings I now always wore, and the nails that I now never had a problem with. The doorman called me a cab and that took me across town to the restaurant. He said “Thank you, love, have a nice evening” when I paid him.

I had been living as a woman now for several weeks, but tonight I had given up on the pretence. Tonight, I was meeting another woman’s husband in a posh restaurant. A very wealthy and connected man who I had yet to meet. All of a sudden, I wondered what he would think of me. Would I pass muster? What would I do if he makes a pass? Worse than that, what would I do if he outed me in public?

I walked through the main doors with head held high, the doorman greeting me as ‘Madam’. I was taken to the table and this well-dressed and very handsome man stood, took my hand, and kissed it. The waiter helped me sit and I put my bag on the floor by my seat. Gerald smiled.

“Thank you for coming, Jennifer. My wife has been singing your praises for some weeks, and I appreciate being able to meet you. I’m trying to keep away from her little project, but I rather think it’s no longer that little, thanks to your insight and suggestions.”

“I think that Janet just needed a nudge, Gerald. She is a force to be reckoned with, and both Alex and Tina have very bright futures ahead of them. I’m sorry if I said things that upset members of your family, though.”

“Horace gave me chapter and verse.” He laughed. “I wish I could have been there to see the looks on their faces when you described the things that they were thinking about that scuttled the previous company. It’s hard when you’re born into wealth but was not given a backbone in the assembly process. There are a few down my line like that. I’m financing the site to see if my children can become productive members of society, rather than spongers. Now, enough of my lot, Janet tells me that you’re a model. She showed me your picture in a magazine. I wondered what trickery they had used but now I see that you’re more beautiful in real life.”

“Thank you, kind sir. That was a real surprise to me. My office is one floor below the agency, and I was invited up to have a look around. A couple of hours later, I had been photographed from every angle, was told what emotion I was to portray, and thought it was all a bit of friendly fun. Now I’ve been given the file of pictures they will be using throughout the summer. Those have been edited, slightly, as all the pictures had me with just the one colour lipstick, and they have changed the colours in later adverts.”

The waiter came around for our orders, and I suggested that as Gerald had eaten here before, he should order for me. He also ordered a wine, by name and year. I have to say that it was an enjoyable meal, with talk about his family, his various businesses, and his classic car collection. I mentioned that I had a Jensen and that it had been in a photoshoot with other classics and we spoke about our favourite cars. He asked me what I would get if money was no object and I said that I already had it. We both agreed that supercars weren’t our thing, and that spending several hundred thousand on a vehicle that you couldn’t carry a suitcase in wasn’t very intelligent.

He asked me about my thoughts regarding the site and my future with the Union. I told him why I was here, in London, and that I thought that my future, with the union, now had a use-by date.

“What do you plan to do, then?”

“I’m not sure. There’s the modelling for a few years and I’ve been asked by a group of agencies to be an advocate for their models, to help things run smoothly. It is, after all, what I’ve been doing for the union members for some years.”

“You know, Jenny, you would make a wonderful human resources manager. Say the word and I’ll give you an office and staff in my main company.”

“Let’s not get carried away, Gerald, I doubt that I would know anything about what that company does. I do have working experience with what my union members do for a living, and I’ve read enough about models to be able to know what I’m hearing when they talk.”

When we had eaten our fill and run out of safe things to talk about, he paid the account and flagged down a taxi, which took me back to the hotel. He got out and took my hand as I alighted.

“Thank you for a wonderful evening, Gerald. I really did enjoy our conversation.”

“I have to thank you, beautiful lady, for brightening up my evening. Have a safe trip home, tomorrow. I think that the next time I see you will be at the official opening on the coast.”

He grinned.

“Of course, you could always come and see my cars one day, followed by an inspection of my etchings.”

“Ooh, you’re so wicked, but I like you.”

So, saying that, I gave him a kiss on the cheek and then said goodnight, He squeezed my hand, laughed, bade me a good night, and got back into the taxi. He gave me a smile and a wave as it pulled away. I walked into the hotel and up to my room on autopilot. I had a lovely meal, with a lovely man, and had kissed him on the cheek, without stopping to think about it. I sat on the bed and thought about the evening. It had been more like a date than just a meal. If I had been a single woman, I would be sitting here wondering what his etchings would be like.

I stood and took off the dress and shoes, then padded to the bathroom to remove my make-up. I took a good look at myself, in the mirror, seeing only Jennifer looking back. When I did get into bed, I went straight off to sleep and slept like a baby until dawn.

I was showered and dressed early and had a leisurely breakfast in the hotel dining room. I went back to the room and packed, making sure I had what I needed for the day in my handbag, and took my case down to lock it in the car. I then checked out, telling the reception that I would be back later for the car. I wondered at the friendliness of the staff until I saw an opened magazine on their workspace, opened to a picture of me.

I had an early meeting with the last of the unions on my list, and that went so well that I found myself back on the pavement before ten thirty. I didn’t want to rush home, and as I was in the big city, I caught a taxi to Knightsbridge to have a wander in a store that I never thought I would see the inside of. There was a doorman who smiled and welcomed me when I arrived, and I spent some time just wandering and wondering who could afford the prices.

Eventually, I found myself in the cosmetic area, and there I saw the brand of lipsticks I was promoting. As I got closer, I saw some big photos of a very well-known model looking fabulous. Interspersed with them were smaller pictures of me. I was gazing at the scene when one of the attendants came over to me.

“Excuse me, madam, but you look a lot like one of our models.”

“Yes, I’m the one in the small photos, Annette.” I had read her name on her tunic. “I’m Jenny Goodfellow.”

“Would you like to have a make-over, Jenny? It would be nice for our customers seeing an actual ‘face’ in store. Do you have the time?”

“Certainly, Annette, let’s see what improvements you can make.”

She sat me in a chair with a light on my face and removed everything I had carefully applied, just a few hours before. She whispered quietly.

“Jenny, why aren’t you wearing our product? That’s being downright naughty.”

“It’s because I’ve never worn the product, Annette. When all those pictures were taken, I wasn’t wearing the product. The adverts have had the colours edited in. I doubt that I could even afford the basic kit.”

As she cleansed my face, she took a careful note of my actual skin tones and then went off to collect up what she would be using. When she got back, she also had a microphone clipped to her tunic. There was a few ladies at the counter.

“Ladies, this morning we are happy to welcome Jenny Goodfellow to our counter. She is the one in those smaller photos and the face of our summer lipstick campaign. I will now give her a make-over, while telling you what I’m doing and the products I’m using.”

She then got to work on me, and I found out what using a high-end cosmetic range could feel like as it’s applied. Annette kept up a running commentary as she worked, and when I was declared finished, she stepped back and brandished a mirror for me to see the result. I had to gasp. If the night look that Tracy had given me was something, this look was something else. It wasn’t even over the top for daytime, but I looked, and felt, fabulous.

By this time there were about twenty women, all wanting to talk to me and sign their magazines, which one of the other salesgirls was giving away. As I talked to the customers, signed, and talked some more, I noticed Annette going over to a very well-dressed woman, who gave her a little hug. She was wearing a skirt suit, like me, but hers wouldn’t look out of place in a fashion shoot. She waited until the throng had dissipated, and the came up to where I was standing. She put out her hand and we shook.

“Geraldine Harrison. Annette had the sense to give the office a call to say that one of our models was in store, having a public make-over. I have to say that our product suits you.”

“Pleased to meet you, Geraldine. I’m Jenny Goodfellow and I was just wandering around a store I’ve never been in before.”

“I’m sure that you’ll be back here, in the future. How about I buy you lunch.?”

I looked at my watch and was surprised at how the time had flown by.

“I’d like that, thank you. I have to say that I find it odd to be dined, last night, by Gerald Harrison and given lunch by Geraldine Harrison, such a coincidence.”

“So, you’ve met Cousin Gerald, have you. Did he offer to let you see his etchings?”

I laughed.

“After looking at his car collection.”

She broke into a genuine smile.

“This I have to hear, young Jenny.” She called to Annette. “We’ll be at my table if we’re needed.”

I picked up my bag, smiled at Annette, who was serving a customer, and followed Geraldine as she led me to the dining area, where there was a reserved table in a quiet alcove. We were seated by two very attentive waiters and a bottle of wine, with two glasses, was brought to us without any order taken.

“If you dined with Gerald, you would have had this. It’s a favourite in the family.”

We clinked glasses and both took sips. She looked hard at me, and I wondered if she was seeing the real me under the paint.

“Annette did a good job on you. She’s an excellent salesgirl but I believe that there could be a future for her in our advertising arm. I’m sorry, I didn’t properly tell you who I am. You already know that I’m a cousin to Gerald. I married the man whose name is the brand of the cosmetics that you a wearing so elegantly. I tend to run the business as he is somewhat older than me and now spends a lot of time in his sunny Italian villa.”

“Well, I’m just a Union Manager who is working with Janet and her children in a steel working project in Hull. It’s a new site and I’m helping to get it done so that those who start there will be proud to work there. I represent specialist boilermakers, and I’m a qualified pressure vessel welder, myself. We plan to use women in the specialised welding areas.”

“Wow! Not just a beautiful and very interesting face, but a working girl for real. No wonder you were able to talk to all those customers so easily. You wouldn’t see our other face being able to be so pleasant to the riffraff.”

“If they’re the riffraff, the upper classes must be incandescent. They all seemed to be well heeled and ready to spend their money. Look, I’ve worked in Scotland on the rigs, I’ve welded pipes together on a ship in a westerly gale, and I’m now on the pages of a magazine. My life has been turned upside down in the last couple of months, but I’m determined to remain the person I’ve always been.”

“Well said, Jennifer. I’m too used to speaking to top models who have only one thought on their minds. Well, two, if you add sex. Tell me how you’re gracing our advertising.”

I told her about going up to the agency and ended up with the set of pictures they were now using. She listened quietly and we started to eat a very nice salad, which had also been brought to our table, unbidden.

“So, let me get this straight. You are signed on with the agency as a casual model, yet we are already using you based on a portfolio presented to our advertising arm. I must say that when I looked at the pictures, I was certain they had been altered. Now, looking at you, and talking, you’ve shown me that those emotions that the pictures portrayed are the real you. Now, you say that the contract hasn’t been signed. That means that we are paying by the issue.”

“Yes, Tracy gives me a cheque whenever the advert comes out. It’s the same for my girls.”

“Your girls? Have they been in an advert? What’s the magazine?”

I told her and she wrote the name on the back of one of her cards. Then she simply lifted a finger, and a waiter was by her side.

“Carlo, can you send someone down to the newsagency and bring me back a couple of copies of this magazine, please.”

As he left, another waiter brought a tray to clear our table, while another laid out coffee and cake. Either they had paranormal powers, or this was something she always ate. She waited until the magazines were brought up before saying anything else. With the correct page open, she looked at me with a quizzical eye.

“These two little ones are your daughters?”

I nodded and took the bull by the horns.

“And that older woman, is my wife.”

“Is this a lesbian relationship, then?”

“No, Geraldine. I need to be open with you, right now, before this goes any further. Underneath this skirt I have all my male equipment, and I have to tell you that it’s worked much better since we’ve both gone to bed in nighties.”

She looked at the picture, and then back at me, a few times while I waited for the storm. Then she gave out a genuine laugh that made a few of the other diners look at us.

“Jennifer, if I hadn’t seen both of you in those children, I would have thought you were pulling my leg. There has to be an interesting back story to this, but it doesn’t matter. I’m sure you’ve been told that in this game it’s all about the look. You, my girl, not only have the look but also the strength of character not often seen in top models. I don’t care that you’re not what you seem, and that fact stays here, at this table. It wouldn’t worry Gerald and Janet, if they were told, but I’m sure they are in the dark, or else Janet would have been on the phone to me when the first advert hit the newsagents. Thank you for being honest.”

“I just thought you should know, seeing that I’m a face for the brand. I had nothing to do with that procedure. Tracy has seen me, several times over the last couple of years, in a suit or jacket and slacks. She has told me that she often thought that I was a tomboy. I now realise that the whole thing is a bundle of dynamite, being tossed around, and the first person with a lighter will end it all. It’s been good to see my face in the adverts, but it could be bad for the company if it comes out. Although, you never know whether it could be good, if handled correctly.”

“Exactly, and now I know, I have the upper hand by not being surprised. I am going to tell you a secret of my own. That top model that graces our adverts in the upper-class magazines is leaving us. She has been made an offer she can’t refuse by a multi-national based in the States. We were only told last week, and she’s off at the end of her current contract at the beginning of September. What are you doing for the rest of the day?”

I told her that I had completed my business in London, had paid the hotel, and just needed to go back to the hotel to get my car so I could go home. She asked if I could stay another night, and I said I could, if I could let Carol know.

“Right. Write the hotel name on the back of this card, along with the car rego and colour, and I’ll arrange for it to be collected.”

I did so as she started making calls. I rang Carol and told her that something had come up. She wondered if it was Gerald and I had to laugh.

“No, sweetheart, not Gerald but Geraldine, his cousin, and the owner of the lipstick brand. It’s a long story and I’ll tell you when I get home. We’ve just had lunch, and I think that she’s setting up a shoot this afternoon.”

Marianne Gregory © 2024

Chapter 7

I just sat and finished my wine as Geraldine made a number of calls. One was to her photographer to get the studio ready for a single model shoot, this afternoon, and to organise lighting.

One was to her office to find someone to come to Harrods and take over from Annette, while another was to a Bobby, to come to us at our table when he can – but to make it snappy! The penultimate one was to her legal person to pull out the files of Jenny Goodfellow, and to meet her at her house for dinner. The last one to tell someone that there will be a guest for the night and three extra for dinner.

She then did her magic trick and a waiter materialised at her side.

“Alfonse, can you please go down to the cosmetic section and speak to Annette. Please ask her to join us here when she’s able.”

Then she turned to me.

“That’s set things moving. How did you enjoy lunch?”

“It was lovely, the salad was interesting and not something I would normally order but was delicious. I noticed that it was all brought out without you ordering. Is it something that you usually have?”

“Guess?”

I thought a bit and then laughed.

“A test, really?”

“Jenny, you’re the first model who got through the whole thing without missing a beat. Some refuse the wine but want spirits, others want to see the menu because they’re peeved that they hadn’t had a chance to choose. I set it up with a word to the waiter when he seated us. I like it, and others like other things. If they’re reasonable about it, we give them the other things, but I usually find that they order the expensive plates and then leave half of it. I know I shouldn’t do it, but it does bring out the best, or the worst, in people when they just get served something they’ve never seen before.”

We were talking about the quality of the cake when Annette came up to the table.

“Annette, can you go down to the shop and put together a full kit case with what you think works best on Jenny, then add some things that you think may work, but haven’t tried yet. Then do another with the proven items for her to take home and add a travelling kit for her. I’ve organised someone to come here and take over from you, and you will be joining us this afternoon at the studio for a shoot. If it all works out, you could find yourself as her personal cosmetician when she takes over from Miss Gimmee when her contract runs out in September. There will be dinner, at my place, and Bobby will take you home. Are you happy with that?”

“Oh! Yes, perfectly happy. Jenny has an amazing face, I think it will shine, no matter what colours we put on it. Thank you, Geraldine, I’ll do my very best.”

She left us and I then smiled.

“Geraldine, there’s something you should know. Today is the first time I have worn your brand, and it feels just right. Those original pictures had me wearing my cheap stuff.”

“I know, that’s why we have edited the pictures. You’ll have to give away all your old stuff when you get home. I won’t have the face of the brand wearing anything else. When we get you properly signed, I’ll give you a card which you can take to any stockist, and they’ll book it against the company. It will be a pleasure having you on board. I guess that you realise who Miss Gimmee is?”

“Her pictures are big enough, down at the shop. I read the magazine that my picture was in, and there was a bit of gossip in that about her grasping ways. Her ex-husband was quite scathing. I can’t blame him, considering what she took him for when they divorced.”

We were joined by a young man, who was the spitting image of Gerald and Alex. It was obvious what genes were dominant in this family.

“Bobby, please say hello to Jennifer Goodfellow, who will be joining us as our main face in September if this afternoon goes as planned. This card has the hotel where her car is in their garage. Jenny, please give Bobby the keys. Now, Bobby, you’ll be driving us to the studio, and then you go and fetch her car. Get Astrid to drive you. Take her car to the house and wait for us to join you. Annette will be joining us for dinner and then you can take her home.”

I saw his eyes light up at that.

“When you see Astrid, tell her I want her to join us in the studio with her kit and to take us home after the session. Oh! There’ll be a full kit and a travelling kit to take and put in Jenny’s car for her to take home. Now, go and get the Roller and meet us outside the front in exactly thirty minutes, I know the parking inspectors are pretty hot around here.”

He smiled.

“Yes, Mum. See you in thirty. Welcome to the roller coaster, Jenny.”

With that, he was off, like a shot. I looked at Geraldine, seeing her with a wry smile.

“He has the hots for Annette, I think. I wonder if it’s reciprocated.”

“Oh! Yes. Plenty of eligible daughters of the landed gentry around, wanting to take him home so that he can bail out their families and renovate their ramshackle mansions, and he goes and falls for a shop girl. That’s one of the reasons I’m giving her this chance to improve her own status in the business. Being at your side will introduce her to the rigours of upper-class life. It will make her, or break her, but it may also be the making of Bobby. He can’t stand our present face, and she puts him down at every chance she gets. He’s a good lad but needs to focus on his future. He is, by the way, a damn good photographer but the Gimmee refused to let him on her shoots.”

“Are you going to let him work in tandem, today?”

“Not today, but we may get him to join you somewhere in the countryside to do some natural pictures. I have to keep my main photographer happy first. Come on, let’s find Annette and get out to the pavement.”

We went down to the cosmetics area and found Annette putting the finishing touches to a large box of make-up. She picked it up, with her tunic over her arm, while I took the other two. She looked shocked as I started for the doors, following Geraldine. We only had to wait a few minutes when a claret Roller pulled up outside. The doorman rushed to open the back door for Geraldine. Bobby had popped the boot and we put the boxes in. I was ushered into the back seat, while Annette quickly claimed the passenger seat next to Bobby. With the ease that she found her seat belt, I expect that this wasn’t her first time in this car.

We quietly glided out of the city centre and arrived at an industrial building some forty minutes later. Annette claimed her box and shut the boot, while I followed Geraldine to the main entrance. I didn’t look back, but with the time lapse before Annette joined us inside, I expect there had been a rushed kiss or two.

In the studio, we met Pierre the photographer, and Jim the lighting man. There was a seat, over on one side, with a mirror and a workbench. Annette was told to set up there as we would be doing everything in the one room unless it was a toilet break. The photographer had top-of-the-range equipment, both film and digital. There was a stool for me to sit on, and we were into the shoot inside five minutes of arriving.

It was similar to the shoot with Tracy, except we stopped every fifteen minutes or so for Annette to take me to her work area and change my looks. No orders were given, it was up to her to provide the raw material. The only things the photographer said were instruction for me to show some emotions, or to the lighting man to move things around. He took both film and digital.

As we got into a rhythm, Pierre looked very serious, often glancing at Geraldine who was just sitting in an easy chair watching. About an hour and a half into the session, we were joined by a girl who was introduced as Astrid. She had a big case with her, full of hairdressing equipment. She set up next to Annette, and each break now had me with different hairdo’s as well as looks. I expect that the two had sorted out what they were aiming for while I was in front of the lens.

The only breaks were for me to use the toilet and have a drink of water from the dispenser, and we didn’t stop until around six. Geraldine called a halt to the shoot and Pierre looked like he wanted to keep going. I had no idea of how well we had done, until Pierre gave me a big hug and a kiss on both cheeks. Both Annette and Astrid also gave me a hug, and then Geraldine followed suit, whispering that if this was a test, I’d passed it, twice.

As Annette and Astrid were packing, Pierre told Geraldine that he would have a full folio for her on Monday, and then went into another room, coming out with a CD for her. We left the building to get back in the Roller, now with Astrid behind the wheel. Our destination was deep into the stockbroker belt in Surrey. It was a big house, and my work car was parked outside. When we entered, we were met by a maid and she led Annette and me to the dining room, while Geraldine and Astrid went to their own rooms to freshen up.

In the dining room, Bobby met us with a glass of the family favourite wine for me, and something coloured blue for Annette. He asked me how I was bearing up, and I told him that the afternoon had been very full. Annette told him that I was a natural. I looked at them.

“Go on, you two, have a cuddle before your mother comes back. I’ll just have a look at this fantastic picture.”

It wasn’t a big picture, but very powerful. Astrid joined me while I was looking at it.

“That’s a picture that makes you want dry land under your feet.”

“It’s wonderful, Astrid. That’s the South Bank Number Seven. I spent six months on that one in my youth. The plate says, ‘Burns Day Storm - 1990.’ I remember those few days well. The thing swayed from side to side, and we all huddled near the escape shute hoping that it would keep upright, not eating and having to piss into our waterproofs. We were choppered back to the mainland a couple of days later and I never went on a rig again.”

“You, likely to be our new face, were on that thing? What were you doing there?”

“I’m a qualified Marine Boilermaker, and I was on that rig welding split pipes. It’s a job that girls can do as easily as boys, plus, we can get into tighter places. It was my trade. I came ashore after that rig and have no desire to be back on one, ever again. Mind you, it was truly exciting when we went out to them. It was like landing an albatross on a postage stamp. Makes you happy to be alive when you walked away from the chopper.”

I went to my bag and showed her my credentials, all safely showing Jen Goodfellow.

“Jenny, you are simply amazing. All I’ve done is learn to be a hairdresser, as if that’s what I was destined for. I’ve always wanted to fly but was afraid to talk to Mum about that. I might look for somewhere I can try it out, to see if I can actually fly. One of my grandfathers was in the air force, and I have his medals and books.”

“Whatever you do, Astrid, don’t tell your mother that I encouraged you!”

Geraldine came in and told us all to find a seat. With her was an older man, with a beard and a twinkle in his eyes. He was the legal eagle of the office and had my file with the details of my contract as a casual with Tracy. It wasn’t a very thick file, and it was set aside while we ate. The maid was the waitress, and the meal was lamb shanks cooked perfectly with fresh vegetables. The drinks were optional, and I settled for a glass of the family favourite. Over the course of the meal, Geraldine noted that I had dined with Cousin Gerald, the night before, and I had to explain my work with Janet.

After the meal, I gave Annette a hug and told her that I was looking forward to working with her, and then Bobby took her home, no doubt via the long way. Geraldine sat down with the lawyer and me to look at the file. He declared that it would be work of moments to buy it from Tracy.

“She’s a pragmatist. I’m sure that she wouldn’t mind losing Jenny if the offer was made. She could keep her on the books until September, when we’ll be clear to sign Jenny as an exclusive face. How was the shoot, this afternoon?”

Geraldine took us into her office, where she put the disc into her computer and set it to scroll through the digital pictures. After about ten minutes, he told her to stop, then turned to me.

“Jennifer, I have seen enough to want you on our payroll. Geraldine has told me that she wants you on board. We’re prepared to give you a holding deposit, so that you don’t sign anywhere else before we get the signatures on the proper contract. That will allow you to spend the summer as you wish, with work from that agency. I will, however, try to get Tracy to keep you away from headshot adverts, so that our campaign can run its course. I’ll make her an offer she can’t refuse. What do you say, are you in?”

“What else can I say, but yes, thank you. I think that Pierre was happy today, from his attitude. He was very focussed and serious but totally professional when he worked with me.”

I was starting to flake and went out to the car to get my cases, then the maid showed me to a room that made the hotel room look dowdy. I stripped and took a long shower, after cleansing my face with the new products. I put on my nightie and went off to sleep very quickly.

In the morning, I was up and dressed early, and went downstairs to find breakfast was served in the dining room. It was all in heated tureens, and I served myself an eggs and bacon. I had finished and gone back to my room before anyone else was up. I put my cases in the car and then went back inside to read the morning paper until the others came down. I joined them for coffee and then we had hugs before I left their mansion to drive home. Geraldine told me to make sure I told Janet to call her sometime.

On the way I had a lot of thinking to do. Had I made a mistake agreeing so quickly? What would Carol say? What did Geraldine mean when she said that being next to me would give Annette insight into the upper class? Then I thought of something that Tracy had said about the top models working for top magazines. Perhaps I’ll see my face in Vogue one day. That thought made me chuckle.

I had dressed in a new skirt that I had bought, along with a good blouse. It looked ordinary, but underneath was my lush underwear that I now loved to feel next to my skin. I had taken some time on my make-up this morning. Geraldine hadn’t said anything but had nodded when she first saw me. I took it easy, as usual, and arrived home just before lunch.

After greeting Carol and the girls, I unloaded the car. My case and garment bags went up to our room and the cosmetics cases were on the kitchen table and open when I came down.

“How the hell did you get these?” Carol demanded.

I sat them down and took them through my time away, from Wednesday. With stops for drinks and questions, it was almost mid-afternoon when we got to my Harrods experience. Carol tried one of the lipsticks and I told her that it was a gift from my future employer, along with the travelling case. I explained that my time with Tracy would be ending at the end of Summer, and my time as the new face starts then. That would mean that we needed to have the project up and running and I wouldn’t do any more with the other agencies.

I told them that I’d take them all out for dinner, so the girls went off to be bathed and dressed, and Carol went upstairs to get ready. I rang a good family restaurant and made a booking for us. I took the cases up to our room while Carol was in the shower and unloaded a range that replicated the things I took away, putting all the old items in a plastic bag for the girls to play with. I added the things in my bag and replaced it all with new.

The evening meal was totally different from my last two, but was lovely to be there, in a normal place with my family. The girls told me about their week, and Carol filled me on things that had happened in the house. She told me that her friend had called, telling her that she told her husband to leave for a while, with our meal there being the last straw. Carol assured me that I wasn’t to blame, as it was purely that if her husband could get heavy with an old friend in a dress, then he had passed the point of no return. She had told Carol that she hadn’t told him who I really was.

Sunday, I caught up with my laundry, and put away the clean things. Both Saturday and Sunday night, we made up for my time away. Carol had been incredulous when I had undressed, and I promised her that we would go shopping when I was earning good money. We all went for a walk in the park and threw a ball around for a while.

Monday, I wore one of my skirt suits and a new blouse, with my refreshed sexy underwear and a spray of perfume. I had a meeting with Cyril, where I told him that I would be leaving the Union at the end of July. That gave him enough time to source his successor, or just stay in the seat. My replacement as B.U.M. would be in my seat next week. Raylene had found a nice house, and they were in the process of moving their household goods south.

When I had caught up with everything, I drove to Hull and my meeting with the union leaders, or whoever they had sent. The meeting went well, with all of them impressed with the changes made. Janet was amazing and charmed them with her vision for a well-paid and happy workforce. In the end, we all shook hands on a deal which had N.U.M.B. as the link between the workers and management, but with each of the other unions having access, through our representatives on the Board. One of the deciding factors was the history of our good relationships at the other Harrison workplaces, with the civil engineering site being a stand-out.

When they had left, I caught up with Suzi, now on her first day and busy with contacting her old workmates who had indicated they were interested in coming south. I had brought her my records from the office so that she could contact the others. She showed me a few things that I hadn’t seen. One was a well-equipped nurses room, and the other was something I hadn’t been a woman long enough to think of. It was a creche and playroom, with an office for an attendant.

My last visit was back with Janet, when I related my dinner with her husband and my lunch with his cousin. I told her that Geraldine had insisted that she get in touch. She told me that she hadn’t spoken to Geraldine for a good ten years. She also picked up on my new make-up, as she was a customer. I said it was due to me being in the adverts. I had seen a lot more people on site, this time. We were now three weeks to full production and Janet told me that between her and Suzi, with help from Tina, they would be ramping up the workforce with a lot starting next Monday. She said that Tina was doing so well with this, she would likely be the boss of the Human Resources department.

Tuesday, I spent most of the morning in the office, catching up with the news from around the country, and letting Cyril know about our convivial relationships with the other unions. I told Bernice that I was now resigning and that my modelling work would boost my bank account.

The lunch with the girls was interesting. They picked up on my new make-up quickly, and I had to tell a little white lie about being given some freebies at the Harrods store. Tracy was very quiet and whispered for me to come up and see her after lunch. In her office, she told me that she had been contacted and had accepted the offer to give up my contract at the end of August. In the meantime, she said, she would still find work for the girls, while I would get small crowd scenes. I thought that she wasn’t very happy about the situation.

I didn’t tell her about the real reasons for the changes, and that I had decided not to sign the contracts for the girls should one be put on the table. I left the office early and went home to re-sort my side of the wardrobe. I then sat down with a notebook and made a couple of lists, sorting out a guesstimate of what my future might look like. It looked murky at the moment, but it would become clearer as time went on. One thing was certain. I now realised that I was feeling happy about saying goodbye to the union, and at the same time, my own history as a tradesman, with man being the operational part of the word.

For the rest of the week, I took Carol and the girls with me when I went to Hull. I took them on a quick tour, and Carol inspected the sick room, having trained as a nurse before we met. The girls tried out the playroom, and we watched them with Carol making notes. I introduced them to Janet and Carol gave her the notes to follow up on. Then they took the car to go to the Maritime Museum, coming back to pick me up later in the afternoon.

The other days, we went down as a family and dropped me off, while Carol took the girls to other attractions, one day spending the day on the beach at Cleethorpes. Suzi and I worked on making everything ready for the influx of workers next week. The weekend was quiet, and the following week showed me how far we had gone, and how close we were to succeeding.

Monday, I went early, and Suzi and I did a mass induction to make sure the newcomers would work safely, also pushing home the need for hygiene and cleanliness. We already had foremen, who took their groups off to set them to work, first getting used to the site and making sure they knew where everything was. Suzi now had a full team of girl welders, all our members, but the bulk of the other inductees were from various unions. One part of the induction covered the close working ethos we wanted.

There was another group on Tuesday, as well as a big delivery of steel, so everyone had something to do with the working drawings handed out. Our machine shop was now tidy and overhauled and was busy making swarf by Wednesday. By the end of the week, there was enough finished goods to load on a couple of trucks and deliver to the clients for inspection. The approval came back on Monday morning, and we were now in production.

Marianne Gregory © 2024

Chapter 8

The only break, the following Wednesday, was when we had the Mayor come along to cut a ribbon to declare Harrison Industrial Steelworks open for business. I took Carol and the girls in that day all of us dressed to the nines, and we met up with Janet, Gerald, and the rest of the Board, with their families. Geraldine turned up, with Bobby driving her and Astrid. Cyril and the rest of the office were there, along with some of the other union representatives.

The visitors were given a tour while the workers had a long lunch. It was the first time Cyril had seen the place since the first visit and was impressed with what we had achieved. Geraldine asked Janet if we could find time to have a photo shoot, on site, in conjunction with a friend of hers who had a fashion house. That was organised for Saturday week as we were still only working five days, with that being upped to six when we started getting smoother with production and receiving bigger steel deliveries.

Before she left, Geraldine took me aside.

“Can you organise some of those working girls to come in on the shooting day. We will be happy to pay them what they would earn with overtime. I can see my photographers wanting shots with gorgeous gowns in front, then sparks and flame in the background. If you’ll show them around, can I send the photographers up on Monday? They will want to get the ambience of the site and I think that the result will be something to cause a buzz in the industry.”

She then gave me a large envelope.

“This has your cheque as the holding deposit that we talked about. There is another envelope, inside. That has holding deposits for your girls and Carol, all three wanted by the clothing manufacturer. It’s the same company that they had the previous adverts for, and my friend was dithering about taking them on as exclusive models. We had a long talk, and she was among the visitors today, and blown away by you and your family in the flesh. That’s when she gave me the envelope to add to mine. She’s a bit shy, and usually lets her manager do the business side. When you meet her at the shoot, she’ll be right as rain, but crowds upset her.”

“Has Tracy been spoken to?”

“Not yet, so stay clear of her until she contacts you. I would hope that she will be in touch for the four of you being part of the shoot, but it’s not her event, not this time, so if she says nothing, just come along. You’ll find our crews to be very professional. Pierre is chomping at the bit to get pictures of you, and Bobby has been very interested in some of the backdrops here. I think that this shoot will be his first as his own man. Annette will be here to make sure you all look good.”

She gave Carol and the girls hugs and told them that she would see them later. Carol looked at me and asked about the later bit.

“That clothing company that you did the bikini advert for wants us here for a big fashion shoot, Saturday week. I have to set up some of our working girls as extras. Can you hold on for a few minutes, while I talk to Suzi, and then we can head for home. Except for the winding up of my involvement, I think that I’m nearing the end of my time here. I’ll give it another week, with the shoot as the last time. Then I’ll go and see Cyril to say I’m taking some unused leave until my last day, to give them back the car and clear my desk. You’ll have to drive in with me to take me home.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Sweetheart, this envelope contains a holding deposit to keep me from signing with anyone else until my contract with Tracy is finished. It also contains holding deposits for you and the girls from the clothing company, to stop you signing with anyone else at the same time. I think that you are going be asked to be exclusive models for that company. The owner is a friend of Geraldine and has been here today, checking us out. We’ll meet her at the shoot. I think we will be able to afford a real holiday before we’re all modelling, full-time.”

When I had seen Suzi, and organised some of the workers for the shoot, I checked with Janet about being here to show the photographers around on Monday. She thanked me for being one of the driving forces behind the success of the site, and Gerald gave me a hug. I couldn’t help myself and gave him a cheek kiss. Saying cheerio, I rounded up my family and we drove home. On the way, Carol opened the envelopes and squealed.

“This cheque for you is twenty thousand Pounds, just for not doing anything! We need to go to the bank, on the way home, and get it deposited.”

“What about the other envelope?”

She opened the envelope and read out the short letter that it contained. The gist of it was that the company hoped that she, and our girls, would be happy to sign on as exclusive models at the beginning of September. The three cheques were for five thousand Pounds, each. The letter said that banking the cheques would be considered acceptance.

“So, my darling, are you and the girls accepting?”

“What do you think! If this is what we get for waiting, I think that five years will see us wealthy enough to take it easy for life. You and I only have another thirty years to work, and the girls will have enough to fully fund their university. It’s not something we can say no to.”

We stopped at our bank, and she deposited the cheques, so getting attention from the manager, who wanted to know what was going on. Carol told him that the whole family will be employed as models, after September, so there should be more income. He promised to assign an account helper when that started.

I didn’t go anywhere as far as work was concerned for the rest of the week. I just needed to wind down. We booked a hotel room in Blackpool, going there on Thursday and coming back Sunday. We just had fun, ate stuff that everyone agrees isn’t good for you, lazed on the beach, and simply forgot about work of any kind.

Monday, I went to the site and met the minibus of photographers when they arrived. With it a working day, I issued hard hats and gave them a quick induction talk. Then we went out onto the site. They all had cameras and started taking pictures as I showed them around. The welding shop full of good-looking girls was especially attractive and I had to assure them that all the girls would be here on Saturday. One asked how we could make sparks, so Suzi showed them the difference with using an angle grinder on bright steel, against steel that was rusty. The rust burns brighter as it comes off, leaving a trail if you’re using a longer open shutter.

Bobby kept close to me, and I could see him taking quiet pictures that included me. I didn’t say anything. I was asked if we could have models up on different levels in the steel store and said I would see if we could re-arrange it to be safe. In the machine shop, the size of the machinery made them stop and stare. I went to the guy running the big lathe and asked him to squirt a bit of lubricating oil on the cut, which created a big plume of smoke. A couple of the photographers were snapping away and asked me if we could organise that for Saturday. The operator was happy to come in and earn some overtime money, so I told him to talk to Suzi and put himself on the list.

I wasn’t much of a photographer, myself, but I could picture some of the shots in my mind, with smoke and sparks offset with beauty and colourful dresses. I still hadn’t figured out where I would fit in all of this. There was so much that the guys wanted to see, and go back to recheck, that we were nearly two hours on site. I took them into the canteen for a drink and biscuit, and Janet joined us to ask how we got on. Pierre spoke for the group with a heartfelt wonder at the visuals that they could create. It was the most I’d heard from him in the time I’d known him.

As they were getting on the bus, he showed me a few pictures that he had taken. He was using a digital Nikon with a zoom lens, and he had pictures of me, in my hard hat and Hi-Viz, with the lathe smoke behind me, and next to Suzi when she made sparks. Even as quick, unposed pictures, I had to admit that they were very different from your usual fashion picture of beautiful people in magnificent places. He gave me a double cheek kiss and thanked me for being me.

It was time for me to start winding up things. I went back to Suzi to see if she could rearrange some of the old U-Beam in the steel store to make safe levels. She suggested that we find the rustiest length we could and have it on a couple of trestles to make sparks with. I told her about the machinist that would join us on Saturday. She told me that she was looking forward to the day, to be part of a fashion shoot and to see the fantastic gowns before they were advertised. I went and told Janet what we had organised, and she said that she would be talking to Geraldine during the week.

When I left, I went to the office, and had a meeting with the executive, handing them my official resignation letter, and telling them that I would come in on Friday to clear out my things and return the car. They weren’t happy, but I had followed the guidelines, had already recruited my replacement as well as a replacement for Bernice.

Before I left, I spoke to Bernice to tell her of my decision. She gave me a hug and told me that she had loved working with me. We both had tears in our eyes when I closed the door on my career as the B.U.M. to start my career as a face. On the way down in the lift, that thought made me laugh quietly. Both careers could be pictured as smooth cheeks with a gap which made noises. At home, I ran a bath with a smelly bath bomb and laid in it for a while. When I got out, I had washed away the past. Carol stayed quiet, as she guessed what I was doing.

We had a quiet week, taking stock on what we had put in train. The girls were excited at being signed on as professional models before they even went to High School. We had a ‘summer-clean’, tossing a load of stuff that we had kept out of laziness. The girls cleared their wardrobes of things they had grown out of, or didn’t like, so that went into bags for the op-shop.

Friday, Carol followed me into town in our own car. I parked the company car in its assigned spot, and we went up to the Union Office. I had a big bag for any oddments that I wanted to keep. In the office, it was a sad but happy, occasion. I got hugs from everyone, with Bernice getting an extra hug when she told me that she thought she’d missed a period and had her fingers crossed. That’s when Carol told us that she was in the same situation.

Cyril handed me an envelope with my earned salary since last payday, my accrued leave pay and a bonus for the success of the site, especially the way we had integrated other unions. In the end, the only things in my big bag was the envelope and my mug from the kitchen, with a picture of a rig on it. The things on the desk were being used, and I really didn’t want anything that reminded me of that place. It had been my life for some years, but was now consigned to the memory.

In the car, on the way to the bank, Carol told me that she had invited Bernice to the shoot tomorrow, to see what we had got ourselves into, and to give her something different to remember me by. At the bank, she deposited the cheque into our account. When I had looked at it, it was pretty meagre in the light of the last time we were here.

At home, we sat in the kitchen with my old mug in front of me, filled with tea, and talked about the implications of another baby. We had stopped at a chemist to buy pregnancy test kits, and she went off to test, although it was almost too early in the cycle. When she came back, she showed it to me, and we hugged and kissed. The test showed positive.

“It must have been that time when you had just got into dresses, Jen. We went at it like rabbits for a while. You realise that our baby will be ten years younger than her sisters. I might be able to get them to look after her and just laze around sipping drinks. Or, maybe, you can do the woman’s work. I can’t remember you washing bottoms and changing nappies with the other two.”

“That’s because I was working, my love, to keep a roof over our heads. This time, it will be different, that’s certain.”

That night, we made slow, beautiful, love. As I lay next to her, afterwards, I decided that I would keep my original bits, and stay natural until such a time that Jenny could become Jen, once more. That would give me five years of productive modelling, and I would be forty when I retired, perhaps to do something behind the scenes until I hit sixty-five. In the meantime, though, I was determined to give Geraldine value for money.

On Saturday morning, we were all clean, hair washed, and dressed casually when we went to Hull in the Interceptor. There were a lot of cars, and a few minibuses in the carpark, along with a couple of vans and a van with a trailer carrying three golf buggies. I found that things had been planned without any input from me, and that me and my family were to be special models today.

The canteen had been taken over by a catering company. The creche and nurses room had become the changing room, with the corridors lined with racks of clothing. Today, there were only female models, and the women’s toilets, outside, were to be for us to use, the men’s toilets were for the crews. I say crews, because there were four, distinct crews. One in the machine shop, one in the welding shop, one at the steel store and one roving the site to pick random places to set up. Pierre and Bobby were going to wander between sites, and there was another team here today. It was a reporter and photographer from Vogue who were going to write an article for the magazine.

That’s when things fell into place. Geraldine, Janet, Gerald, and Horace were there, with Horace’s wife, Susan. I had met her at the opening, and we had a chat at the time. She was an elegant lady, but stricken with spinal problems, needing a stick to get around. I now found out that she was another Harrison cousin and was the owner of the clothing brand. She and Geraldine had made their separate ways in the business, but this shoot was to be a merging that they hoped would continue. They would advertise separately in future but align their campaigns around similar themes. With, I was told quite firmly, the Goodfellow family as the basis of the future.

We had to tell them our happy news, and Susan was pleased, as she intended to launch an upmarket line for pregnant women, and Carol would be the figurehead of that for some time to come. She could, she said, picture some of the adverts already, with Carol being rubbed by her daughters. It looked like our baby would be born as an instant celebrity!

The other models were from London agencies and were excited at the prospect of being in a special edition of Vogue, timed, I was told, for the September edition to launch the new look and my new career. Geraldine told me that we would be paid for the shoot after the edition went to press and we had signed our contracts.

During the course of the morning, we modelled Autumn wear. Moving around the four crews with each change. It was a huge range of clothes, and it looked as if Susan was throwing everything on the table for this. Annette and Astrid were in charge of teams of girls, set up in one corner of the canteen, making sure we looked our best. Even Suzi and the other workers got a make-over before shooting started. We were shuttled, from crew to crew, in the golf buggies, as heels and an industrial site don’t mix.

Our company nurses, and our safety officer, were on site to make sure we would be as healthy when we finished as we were when we started. Suzi and the girls had new outfits, now with the company logo clearly seen, and the machinist surprised me with his forward thinking. He had set up a piece of thick plate, cut for him by Suzi. It was from old scrap and very rusty. He would be facing it with a carbide tip, running a little quicker than usual to increase the cutting temperature. He had rigged a nozzle which delivered the oil directly on the face next to the swarf, which was coming off blue. He had also made a mix of oil, water and kerosine, which was spectacular as it was burnt in the heat of the cut.

I had close-ups in all the different places, as well as being part of the general ensemble. Pierre and Bobby followed me, discussing what they wanted me to do. The rest of the models took it all in their stride, and quickly made Carol and our girls comfortable in their roles. Two of them had been the ones at the beach, so it made it a lot easier for my family to fit in. At one point, I saw Bernice and her husband among the watchers, so went over to give her a hug, and told her to come to the canteen later as I was sure she could be fitted in for a quick make-over and hair style.

At times, I was standing on the platform of U-beams that had been set up in the steel store, stood in front of the welders with showers of sparks and the screaming of the angle grinders, and by the lathe, with multi-coloured smoke coming off the cut. Then I spent some time out on site, with shots where there was scrap, or machinery, and a green screen behind me. This happened to all of us during the morning. We stopped for lunch, and Bernice came to sit with us, introducing her husband to Carol.

The Harrison clan joined us, and we had a general discussion on how things were going. Susan was happy at what she had seen so far, and assured Carol that she and the girls would be instant hits. She then asked us if we had thought about what staff we would need, when we’re all busy models. I had to say that I hadn’t even thought that far ahead. Geraldine told us that Miss Gimmee had fifteen – secretaries, maids, drivers, security, cooks, and two hairdressers with three cosmeticians.

I laughed at that.

“I’m sure I could get by with a lot less. I’ll have Annette with me, and I’m sure that with her around, Bobby will want to drive, as well as taking his own portfolio of pictures if you can spare him. If needs be, I may want a PA. Bernice was going to be my PA at the Union. What do you say at joining this roller coaster, Bernice?”

She looked shocked, and looked at her husband, who smiled and nodded.

“Yes, please, Jen. We can slot Raylene into my seat next week and I can work out my notice getting her up to speed. Today has been a real eye-opener. The logistics and the planning is fabulous and will be a real challenge. I have to ask, though, will you be off doing different things from Carol and your girls?”

Geraldine looked at Susan and they both smiled. Susan reached over to take Bernice’s hand.

“Bernice, you have homed into the centre of our cunning plan in seconds. We will be signing the Goodfellows as a family unit, as joint models for the two companies. That will actually save us both a bit of money. Jenny and her daughters will be in the cosmetic adverts, as Geraldine has plans for a teenage range, a bit cheaper, and these angels will be front and centre in that campaign. I plan to utilise both Jenny and Carol in my own adverts, with Carol leading the maternity range campaign, and the girls leading the children’s wear range. If you’ve seen the bikini advert, you know what stars they all are. I’m told that Jenny was to be a head model only, but what I’ve seen today has shown me that she can strut her stuff as good as the other models, so have no qualms in using her for my evening range, which you’ll see this afternoon.”

As we finished our lunch, and the crews went back out to set up for the glamour shots, Gerald and Janet came over to me. Gerald gave me a hug.

“Thank you, Jenny. In one fell swoop, you put this business on the right track and we’re happy that you gave us the benefit of your experience, as well as providing us with so many good people. Suzi has a long career with us if she wants. I say ‘us’ because my wife wants this site to be part of our companies, and I’m happy to bring them in. Not only that, but I also have to thank you for being the catalyst that has brought three sides of our family back together. We had all gone our separate ways, but the last few weeks has shown us that we’ve all strived for success, if by different routes. I have a fabric manufacturing business which will be working with Susan in the future, and I’m sure that there will be other opportunities. I did say that you would make a good HR manager, but that also makes you a good board member, down the track, when modelling gets too hard.”

“Thank you for that, Gerald. Maybe, one day, I’ll be able to see your car collection, but the etchings are out of bounds.”

We had a chuckle at that and then I had to get back to work.

Marianne Gregory © 2024

Chapter 9

The afternoon was just wonderful. It was all elegance and flair, juxtaposed with industrial backgrounds. It was during this time that the Vogue reporter cornered me to ask some questions. When she asked what I drove, I told her about the Jensen, so she made sure that I was taken out to it, in my next outfit, for her photographer to take some pictures.

At one point, I was watching some of the London models, up on the steel store, with my two girls, and I noticed how much fun the girls were having, and it was rubbing off on the models. The photographer was snapping away and changing cameras thirteen to the dozen. Bernice was beside me, and she whispered.

“Your girls can spread joy, and it will show in the finished product. I see now that the bikini shot was real and unposed. That’s why they’re going to be so successful.”

“You’re right, it’s something that creeps up on you, the fact that your children are going to outdo you.”

“No-one will out do you, Jen. You’re the same as them, you know, it’s just that you’ve lived with it so long that you can’t see it. I’m going to love working with you, and with Carol and the girls. I can’t see us all living where we are for much longer. They’ll want us down near the big smoke once you’re in Vogue. Here I am, haven’t put my resignation in yet and I’m talking about moving south. I’ll have to talk it over with Ben.”

“What does Ben do for a living?”

“He’s an accountant but is on extended leave because of a slow-down in business.”

“Really? I can’t see accountancies being caught in a down-turn. They’re usually up to their eyeballs in administrations.”

“Gosh! You catch on quick. He was actually given the sack for speaking up about dodgy practices and I’ve been telling lies about it ever since. They blacklisted him and carried on their way. I have expected someone to come and see him about it, but the owner of the business is on the council. Getting out will be good for him.”

“How about him working with us? We’ll need a money man once we get past September. I’ve never seen so much in my life, before.”

“Let’s see how things pan out, he may be able to move on once I’ve left the Union and am home with him. I’ve sometimes wondered just what he’s been doing during the day. Some days I get home and he’s still sitting where I left him with a faraway look.”

I gave her a hug and then was called to take my place in the group.

The afternoon was hard work at times for all of the models. We had to try to look suave and elegant, while the grinders battered our ears. The girls on the grinders had earplugs but they would have shown with us. Finally, Susan and Geraldine called for a stop, so that the workers could go home. The Vogue crew took the opportunity to line up all of the girls, with the machinist in the middle, to take several pictures with and without their hard hats. The reporter took all of their names, and then Janet handed each one an envelope, which looked to me like cash. The girls went off to the changing room to get out of the work clothes, while us models went off to the admin block to get out of the last fabulous gowns we had been wearing.

The photographers had packed up quickly and the crews left in their cars. The Vogue pair thanked us all for a wonderful opportunity. Before I left, with my family, Geraldine invited us to come and stay at her mansion for a few days, to arrive on Wednesday. She told us that it would be a working holiday but wouldn’t expand on that. Annette gave us a wave as she left in one of the buses with the models.

We got into the car, and I drove us home, our girls dozing off before we had gone very far. Carol sat quietly, then started talking.

“I never thought that standing around in good dresses could be so exhausting. We did it, though, and it will be good to see the finished product. Did Geraldine show you the results of that shoot you did in London?”

“Not yet. I’m not pushing things. It will all come clear in September. It may come clearer when we see them next week. Bernice brought up the topic of relocating south. What do think about that?”

“I wouldn’t mind. There’s nothing to keep us where we are except the girls at school. If we move quickly, we may be able to get them into a new school by the beginning of the next term. At least, within a few weeks of the start.”

We were all feeling a bit flat on Sunday and Monday. Tuesday, we went to test drive another car, but didn’t go any further. Wednesday, we packed for a few days and took the Interceptor to Surrey. It was a nice day, and the car ate up the miles. At the mansion, we were welcomed in and shown our rooms. We put our things away and then went help the girls. We had a nice lunch in the dining room, joined by Geraldine’s legal eagle, now introduced as Charles Alexander.

That afternoon he laid it on the line with what he thought we should be doing before September. The move south was high on the agenda, as was the need for us to register a company. It all seemed so easy, the way he explained it. If we had a company, with the two of us as executive directors, and the girls as non-executive directors, the two fashion houses could sign a contract with the company to supply models, Geraldine told us that we were likely to attract new blood to a company that had four Vogue models running it, rather than a businesswoman.

He also explained that, as a business, we could properly employ staff, following the proper laws. It would also give us protection from litigation and enable us to get insured. We could get tax breaks on any property we leased, whether it was an office space, or our own housing. Even cars could be leased by a company, which would allow us to change them every couple of years. He offered to take us through the process and thought that we could have it up and running before September, so making our signing much smoother.

It all looked good to us, so we asked him to get it moving. I could see it as an asset, which could be sold later on as a going concern. He asked us for a name and Carol insisted on ‘Goodfellow’s’. That led me to ask how we were going to pay for this.

Geraldine laughed.

“Miss Gimmee was costing me two million a year. Susan and I will pay the agency three million a year, with each of you and the extra models, earning standard modelling rates for shoots, and bonus payment for advertisements in magazines, with a sliding scale from popular weeklies to top level glossies. When an advert is in overseas magazines, you get a bonus for each magazine – every issue. It won’t be hundreds of thousands but will be in the tens of thousands. We will save money, up front, but you’ll be well off, especially when you factor in the business write-offs. The first three million will be paid on signing, so you’ll be well able to pay, especially if you lease rather than buy. It will be up to you how you use that money.”

I looked at Carol, who was sitting there with her mouth open, and then we both smiled and hugged. We were home safe, the girls had a solid future, and we suddenly needed to look for a house to live in. When I mentioned that, Geraldine said that Horace and Susan would be at dinner, tonight, and real estate was his speciality.

“Besides, you’re now in the realms where you have people to do the hard work.”

Later, that afternoon, we went into the nearest town for a walk, thinking about what we wanted for our next home. Five bedrooms was a definite, as was a large garage. Multiple bathrooms, a good number of reception rooms and a good kitchen went on the list, with a dining room as an extra thought, having never had a dedicated dining room, before. Then we thought about those who were joining us, and an annex was added to the list. The girls looked in shops and wanted to try things on, so we indulged them, returning to the car with bags.

That evening, we had a lovely dinner without Charles, but with Susan and Horace. Horace was full of praise for the site, and how we took it from a wreck to a good working concern, inside a time constraint. He wasn’t happy with the two that had left, but he thought that it was their loss. He mentioned that they hadn’t spoken to him since, and he was actually sleeping better because of that. He had finished the second row of terrace houses and into the third, with every house occupied as it became available.

We took the girls to their room and got them settled, then went back down to talk about our next home. Horace brought up things we hadn’t thought of. Such as distance to the closest schools, security, garden care, housekeeping, and catering. We had been thinking about it just being us with us looking after ourselves. He, and Geraldine, described likely situations where we would have no hope of coping, so we bowed to logic and agreed that Horace would find us something that suited what he knew we would need.

After that, we were shown some photos. Firstly, from my solo shoot, and then early raw results from Saturday. I was interested in the differences between my shoot with Tracy and this solo. The make-up was stunning, and my facial expressions had more life, and the quality of the pictures was much crisper. There was a mix, with different make-up and then different hair styles. Carol looked at them and smiled.

The Saturday set was quite varied. All that we were shown had one or more of the family in. There was a set that I knew Pierre had taken, and the drama was obvious. There was a half a dozen that I suspected were Bobby’s. I pointed to them and commented that it looked as if these had been taken by a lover. Geraldine nodded.

“He was smitten by you, as soon as he met you, and it shows in all his pictures. It will let us use him to get the intimate look, while Pierre can do drama like no other. It does give us options, depending on the message we want to get across. He loves Annette and will marry her as soon as he plucks up the courage to ask her, but he worships you as the first true modelling goddess he’s met.”

The smoke and sparks were dramatic enough, but the ones Pierre had taken seemed to have an extra impact. The different crews didn’t do a bad job, but there was something in the work of these two that made things hit you smack between the eyes. Our girls shone in every shot they were in, looking like kids having fun and loving the attention. Carol stood out as the matriarch in many pictures, the focus around which the other models circled. It was uncanny, I had to admit that the younger models had more sex, more beauty, and more life, but Carol dominated her pictures.

Susan smiled as we went through the pile.

“I’d never thought I’d say this, but it was a pleasure being there and getting involved. These are just the tip of the iceberg, and it’s going to be difficult to pick the ones I’ll use for the launch of the campaign. I’m certain that Geraldine will alternate between Pierre and Bobby with her adverts, and there’s some with just you, Jen, that I want to use for the more expensive gowns, seeing that you’ll be a hit as soon as the magazine is on the newsagents shelves. Vogue has got back to me and they’re more than happy with what their crew took back. They expect the article to be a couple of pages, which will boost our own content amazingly.”

It had been a big day for us, so we made our excuses and went off to bed. The problem was that we couldn’t sleep, so just cuddled, and whispered to each other until Carol’s breathing settled and I followed suit not long after.

Thursday was easier going, with Horace, at breakfast, saying that he’ll get straight onto our housing problem. He had, he said, a few ideas about that but wouldn’t say any more until he had checked them out. He then brought up another thing that needed to be thought about, an agency office. Geraldine said that there was spare space on her floor, in the city, which we could sub-let. It had its own entry and reception, and connecting doors that could be kept shut. She had, she said, been using it for a hairdressing product line that she had sold once it had taken off.

In my head, the staff numbers were ticking up. With the number of people, we would need, that three million wouldn’t go as far as we first thought. I hoped Ben would join us, as we needed someone to make it all work within a budget.

That afternoon, we went with Geraldine, into the city. The Roller had the pull-down seats, and we were quite comfortable, the girls excited at their first visit to London. We looked at the office space and tried to work out how we’d use it. Geraldine asked one of her people to make a drawing of the floor plan, with measurements, for us to work with, later.

The four of us then went for a walk, firstly taking a taxi to Harrods for Carol to see the things I had seen. Then we went to the lingerie store where I got my sexy things, and we bought several bags worth of things for Carol and the girls. Carol and I got matching nighties, in our different sizes, to wear on special occasions, like tonight.

As we spent the day, we talked, and brought the girls into the huge changes that were coming our way. At first, they were upset at the prospect of leaving their friends, but Cathy pointed out that they already had new, older friends with the other models. I assured them that we would find them a school which they could want to go to, even if it was a private school which cost money to send them to. As we discussed a new house to live in, where they had bigger, and separate, rooms, they warmed to the idea.

We got back, in time for Geraldine to finish her business, and take us all back to her place. Horace joined us for dinner, and showed us brochures for several houses, all within ten miles of where we now were. I was staggered at how large, opulent, and expensive these were, as a purchase, but the lease figures made them doable. He explained how the costs would help our tax bottom line if they were leased by the company and we paid a much lesser amount to the company to live there. We chose three that we wanted to see, so he told us he would organise it, for next morning, and would pick us up after breakfast.

The next day we looked at the houses, and over the weekend we looked at more. All seemed too big, but one stood out as useable. The others had hot tubs, gyms, saunas, golf courses, tennis courts and pools. The one we liked was six bedrooms in the main house, all ensuite. It had a six-car garage and a separate annex with two distinct areas. It sat on four acres and the grounds were beautiful. It did have a tennis court, but the surface was artificial so shouldn’t need much maintenance. I liked the office, with all the needed communication access. Carol loved the kitchen with a huge amount of counter space and a massive double oven. The girls loved a room, adjacent to two of the bedrooms, that had been set up as a child’s play and study room. It was able to be leased, furnished, and there was a good school within fifteen minutes’ drive. The best part was that the gardening firm had kept the grounds pristine and would continue to do so for us.

We stayed with Geraldine for another week, exploring the area, signing on with a medical clinic, finding the private school, which the girls liked, which took both primary and secondary pupils. We were assured that they would meet a lot of friends from their new social strata, and I hoped that this didn’t include gangs of ‘mean girls’ from affluent families.

Before we left, we had signed the house lease as directors of the new company that had been set up, and I paid with a cheque from our account, as we hadn’t set up banking in the company name yet. We went home for a couple of weeks to sort out what we would take with us in the move. The house was furnished, but we did have some things that would look all right. There was a large store shed, next to one that housed a ride-on mower, so we could store our leftovers there.

We caught up with Bernice and Ben, and discussed what we were planning. One day, I took the two of them to the house, along with a pile of things in the back. I showed them the annex, which could be big enough for both of them, and explained how they would be employed by our agency, with likely further work looking after other models. Ben became more animated, as I gave him more detail, and started asking questions which I couldn’t answer. They helped me unload the things I had brought and explored the house.

On the way home, we had a good talk about what life would be like after the signing, in September. That’s when I told them that the agency would be paid three million a year and that we had to make everything work inside that budget, including the house, wages, and any cars, as well as an office in the city, with a receptionist. Ben agreed that it was a good number, but that it would take a bit of thought to make sure we had a surplus to fund any unusual expenses. I told him that the family would be earning modelling fees over the top of the payment, so wouldn’t be a drain on the funds.

Towards the end of August, we were asked to attend a meeting at Geraldine’s office, but to leave the children at home. The day before that, Bernice and I popped into the Union Office, to say our goodbyes and to tell them our new contact details. We then saw the agency girls for lunch. Tracy wasn’t there, and they told us that she had been a real bitch lately. I hadn’t had any work from her since the contract had been bought out. She would kick herself when she found out that she could have had use of my services, cheap, when my face appears in the better magazines. Bernice had made up business cards for Goodfellows, which she handed around.

As Bernice and Ben had become regular visitors to the house as we started planning the future, we would leave the girls with Ben, while taking Bernice with us as our PA. She understood that the two of them would get back paid from the company once the signing took place. We hadn’t been told what the meeting was for, and it was a real surprise when we arrived.

The editor from Vogue was there with proofs of the September issue. She gave me a big hug and told me that she was pleased to see me in person, as her photographers had waxed lyrical after the shoot. Between them, Geraldine and Susan had put in four full page adverts – a very healthy income for the magazine. Three were from the site shoot, with one of me, taken by Bobby, cropped to highlight the make-up, but still with grinding sparks showing behind me. The other one of me was from the ones Pierre took, with me in an elegant hairstyle and evening make-up, with no background detail, just the company logo and some writing.

Jennifer’s both had pictures with Carol, the girls and other models. The kicker for us was a two-page article on the shoot, with a lot of pictures showing the crews and the set-ups and talking about the audacity of the concept. This included pictures of Janet, Gerald, and their children, with a note that Gerald was a cousin of both Geraldine and Susan. I was glad to see a picture of all the workers, with the machinist in the middle, all looking stunning in their make-up. In the article, they were all named.

Then there was a two-page article about me, with the main picture having been taken when I showed the photographers around on the Monday. It had me, in my Hi-Vis and hard hat (with Jenny in red letters on the front), standing next to the machinist and wreathed in oily smoke with a big smile on my face. I have to say that I still looked good. The heading was “Is this girl the next big thing?” The writing was thankfully reasonably brief and to the point, and there were a few smaller pictures from the shoot with one showing me next to the Interceptor, posing as the photographer had asked for.

Both Geraldine and Susan thanked me for setting up the shoot, and the magazine editor thought that it had been audacious but would make a few sit up and take notice. She was officially informed that Carol, our girls, and me would be the main models for both businesses, from the first of September, and that bit would be announced as an exclusive in the editorial when that issue hit the newsagents. We showed Bernice the office space we would be using, and she thought that it would be good if Ben worked out of it, while she had the home office as our PA.

When we were leaving, and down in the foyer, the previous model came in with a girl and two guys by her side. She strode to the lift we had just left and pressed the button while inserting her card in the slot. It didn’t work, so I indicated to the others that we should just sit as if we were waiting for a taxi. She strode to the reception and told her, loudly, that the pass card wasn’t working, so there must be something wrong with the lift. The girl suggested that the lift was working perfectly, and it must be her card at fault. She then asked who it was she wanted to see, and was told that Geraldine was expecting her, so to hurry up.

The receptionist looked over to me as she phoned Geraldine, with a faint smile on her face. When she had spoken to Geraldine, she told the model that there wasn’t an appointment for her, and to ring to make one. The model started screaming.

“Look, girly, I’m here to renegotiate my contract. You make that damn lift work for me, now, or I’ll have your job!”

The girl spoke into her phone, again, nodded, and then said the magic words.

“Miss Harrison is in an important conference at the moment with Vogue, and her campaign for the next issue. She said that if you want to talk to her, you know who her lawyers are.”

The model screamed some words that I had last heard in a gale near Scotland and stormed out, her retinue watching her leave. The guys finally caught on and rushed after her, leaving the girl standing with a face that looked about to erupt into a fountain of tears.

I stood and went over to her.

“How on earth did you end up working with a bitch like that?”

“I’ve been her hairdresser for a couple of very hard months. Anyone can see that she’s reached the end of the line here. She promised to take me to the U.S.A., but I don’t think that’s happening. I think that I can consider my employment terminated.”

“Did you do her hair for the last Vogue advert?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Right, come with me.”

I motioned to the others to follow, then led them into the lift and up to Geraldine’s floor. There, I went into the reception and asked the girl if I could have a quick word. She spoke into her phone and Geraldine came out.

“Hello, Judy. Were you with Miss Gimmee? I heard her screaming, I think everyone in the building could hear. What’s up, Jenny?”

“Geraldine, Judy tells me that she did the hair for the last advert that you had. I would like to add her to my staff, along with Annette, if I can. I’ll take over her wages once we sign, but can you cover for me until then, I believe that she’s just had a big shock.”

Geraldine smiled and nodded and then turned to Judy, who seemed to be in shock of having the client talking to her.

“Judy, today is your lucky day. Jenny is our new face of the product, and your previous employer is no longer welcome here. Thanks, Jenny, I hope you never get as strident as you’ve just seen. Let’s make a date for the signing. Judy, follow me, there’s a couple of others here who you must meet. Jenny includes all her people in what’s going on.”

Marianne Gregory © 2024

Sorry about the delay. I haven’t been able to get to the site for several days, with the message URL Not found.
Chapter 10

We arranged a date for the signing on a day the banks would be open. Then we left again, while Geraldine took a very confused Judy by the hand to lead her into the inner sanctum, to meet, I expect two women that she had never spoken to before.

By the time of the signing, we had all moved south, Bernice terminating their rent and me putting the house on the market. The girls had started at the new school and were loving the place. Ben and Bernice had settled into the annex, with Ben now commuting into London to set up the office. Judy had joined us, living in the other section of the annex. It took her some time before she was comfortable with us, a bit like a cat getting used to strangers.

Annette had also joined us, using one of the bedrooms and becoming part of an extended family. It was strange, having our own cosmetician and hairdresser at our beck and call. I think Annette liked being with us as the fifteen-minute trip meant that Bobby was an almost constant visitor. We knew that there would be a lot to do once we were off and running, so were happy at the chance for a quieter time.

On the day of the signing, we had two hire cars drive us into the city. The signing didn’t take long, and Charles took us down to the bank where the account had been set up. The manager fawned over us as our fee was deposited. We opened accounts in the same bank, one each for me, Carol, and each of the girls. Ben opened one for them, and Charles was given our account details to pay our modelling fees into. It was all very sophisticated and genteel, but I was a quivering mass of jelly on the inside. This was it, the point at which we became somebody different, and in the public gaze.

The thing was that I wasn’t comfortably N.U.M.B. anymore, and I hadn’t felt so alive as I felt when we left the bank, to get into the cars to go to our future.

It was day one of Goodfellows, and it brought reality back into our lives. We now had the means to equip the office properly, leaving the back rooms for when we had actual clients and models. Our contract with Geraldine didn’t say we had to be exclusive, just that we would supply models, as required.

Ben and Bernice did the city office, while I worked on the home office, getting the best equipment for our needs. With the two shoots we had done, I wasn’t expecting to be called to model any time soon, so was surprised when Geraldine called me to tell me to come to town with Ben the next day, and to make sure I dressed well. Carol was taking the girls to school, so it didn’t matter that I got up early, showered, dressed, and made up to join Ben in his drive to the train station.

The trip to the city was odd, as it was the first time I had been in a train for years. Most of the carriage was men, but the few girls that were there gave me a smile. Most of the men gazed at my chest or legs. It allowed me to examine them in a way I could never have done before. I could see different types. Working on rigs, or on sites, nearly all the men were big, often with beer bellies, and generally unshaven. Here, the city types came in all sizes and shapes, but the percentage of clean-shaven ones outnumbered those with neat beards.

From the station, we took the tube. I knew that millions of people went to work like this, but it had never been my way. I suppose that looking out of a chopper to see a postage stamp platform on the edge of a rig above huge waves wouldn’t appeal to these guys either. We went into our office and said hello to the receptionist, sent by an agency, and I looked at the framed pictures on the wall. Some were from a magazine that hadn’t hit the shops yet.

Then it struck me. Today was the day of the September issue. Today was ‘The Day’ that we were catapulted into open view. Of course! Geraldine would have set something up to celebrate, with me as the face of the product, I had to be here. All of a sudden, I had the need to pee, so made a beeline for the toilets. I sat there, my life-force draining away, and wondered just what I had got myself into.

Someone else came in and I heard Susans’ voice call.

“Are you in here, Jenny?”

“Yes, Susan, I’m sitting here as my courage is leaving me. I’ll only be a minute.”

“I know what you’re feeling. I was the same this morning. This a huge thing for me. I was always happy to be the ghost in the wings, just reaching out to shift things to my way of thinking. Today is just a celebration for the office staff next door, and then I am going to my own office to celebrate with them. That will be a shock to many there, as I believe that many consider me a myth.”

I dried and made sure I was tucked as I pulled my panties up. I was wearing stockings today, as I had come to believe that they were an essential part of dressing well. At the mirror, I washed my hands and looked at my reflection and my courage returned.

“What did you do to get your courage back?” I asked.

“I’ve always found that a stiff drink and a couple of painkillers do the trick. I realised today, that I’ve let my body and my pain rule my life. Today is the day we all come out fighting. Geraldine had boxes of magazines delivered yesterday, but she’s waiting for you to open the first box, seeing that you’re the star.”

She hooked her arm in mine, as a physical crutch for her and a mental one for me. As we left my office, she commented that the sparse look may become the new normal. I told her that it won’t look like this in six months.

“I hear that you were in the foyer when Miss Hissyfit went ballistic?”

“Yes, it was interesting to see. She said that she had come to renegotiate her contract. I thought she had been offered more in America.”

“She hadn’t thought it through. When she arrived in New York, they put her back on a plane to London. Even though half the country is snorting coke, and the other half high on meth, they don’t like someone coming along with an undeclared record, and insisting that they’re famous. It’s a lesson that too few young ones seem to consider - that your sins, like tattoos, will be with you until you die. Mind you, employing Judy out of it was a real plus for everyone. I had admired her work in the short time she has been in the business.”

“Yes, with her and Annette around, we have no excuse for being untidy. I’ve been thinking of getting a high roof van and fitting it out as a mobile beauty salon. That way, we could take it to outside shoots and be self-sufficient.”

“If you do that, I’ll use them on all my open-air shoots. Work out an all-up cost, per day, and we can talk about it.”

We went into Geraldine’s office and were welcomed into the throng of people standing around with drinks in their hands. It was quite a crowd. Janet, Gerald, and their children were there, along with all of the girls from the site. Suzi saw me and came to give me a hug.

“Oh! Jenny, I couldn’t believe it when Janet told us to dress nicely and be prepared to come to London. We left the site in a bus at around six, but this is truly wonderful. I’ve been told that we have a picture in Vogue, we’re all amazed. “

“Exactly, Suzi,” Geraldine said, from behind me. “And now we have the guest of honour, I shall call this party to order.”

She called for everyone to gather round and led me to a table where two boxes sat, untouched. She then raised a glass and called out.

“This is our first toast of the day, and it’s reserved for the one person who has been the catalyst within all of the events that has brought us here. To Jenny Goodfellow!”

I must have gone all shades of beetroot, as Geraldine smiled and handed me a box cutter to open the two boxes. I carefully split the tops of the boxes, making sure I didn’t slice the top magazine, then sliced at the edges, so that I could open the first box. Inside was the latest issue of Vogue. Staring me in the face was me on the front cover, from the Pierre shoot. All of a sudden, I felt dizzy, and needed to sit down.

Suzi was beside me and had some smelling salts, and then put a glass of water in my hand. When I could get my breath, all I could say was that I never expected this. It wasn’t something that was spoken about when we saw the proofs. Everyone grabbed copies to have a look, and the room went silent for seconds as the import of our column inches hit home. Then the party went into overdrive. I asked Geraldine’s receptionist if she could pop next door and bring Ben and our office girl back to be part of the celebration.

Except for the cover, I had already seen the rest, so I sat with my water and just watched the others. Janet and Gerald were soaking up the atmosphere, and wondering how this may impact their business. As I sat, two of the working girls came up to me and asked how they could become models, so I dug out a couple of our business cards and told them to ring so that I could set up a test shoot.

When I saw Ben come in, I gave him time to look at the magazine, and then asked him to look into hiring a photographer and lighting man, pointing out Pierre.

“He’ll be able to tell you where to go, as he took the cover shot.”

An hour later, the room had nearly cleared, Ben had gone back to our office with Bobby, who would be able to tell him what we needed now that he was to be our house photographer with Geraldine’s blessing. I had hardly moved from my seat, as everyone had come to pay their respects. At times it felt like I was on a throne, and these were my subjects. I realised how this could go to your head, and why Miss Gimmee had been seduced by it all.

I roused myself, stood and then went to speak to those still around. I gave Pierre a kiss on the cheek and thanked him. He was surprised and told me that he was just the one to capture that moment in time, and that having a cover under his belt will be all the thanks he needed. I understood that, as there are only a dozen chances a year to make it.

Before he left, Gerald asked me if I would consider putting my car into a classic car show, so I told him to send me the details and I would see if Bernice would let me. Then I was hugged by him, his family, and the girls from the site, and it was just Susan, Horace, Geraldine, and me. Geraldine gave me a hug.

“Now the work really begins when we build on what has happened. I need to think about my products, and I want to introduce a lower cost teen and pre-teen line. It’ll be a busy time as we get towards Christmas.”

Susan asked me if I would go to her office, so I joined her and Horace in the back of his Roller as we were driven to her office, attached to her factory / warehouse. When we got out of the car, she grabbed my arm and we walked into her office, to an audible gasp from the gathered crowd. They were all sitting around, with the magazines already open, so seeing the cover walk in with their boss must have been a bit of a shock.

This time, I was ready for the ones who wanted to talk to me, get selfies, or just listen to various conversations. I tried to be warm and inclusive, walking up to the shy ones and asking them what they did. In the end, I was being accepted as one of them. I pointed out, that as I had modelled their product, I was one of them and that they would see more of me, in the future.

A few asked me about our girls, so I told them that I had heard that a pre-teen range was being considered, to match a similar push with the cosmetics. All of the models from the shoot were there, and one asked me what agency I was with. I pulled out a business card and told her that we had opened our own agency. Before long, every model had taken a card and had promised to send a portfolio. I was starting to see what I had been told - that a Vogue model, especially a cover, running the agency, would be like pulling out a model magnet.

Around lunchtime, we were back in the Roller and heading to a restaurant, for another surprise. When we walked in, Carol came over to hug me, followed by Bernice, Annette, and Judy. We had a big table, and it was already littered with the magazine. It was an expensive place, but I could see the other customers taking in the fact that the cover of Vogue had just entered the room. Although I had got used to being stared at by the others in the industry, being stared at by total strangers was a little freaky.

We had a lovely meal, with much laughter and a little drinking. When I went to the ladies’, several other women decided that their bladders need emptying, so I had some discussions with the upper crust, while reworking my lipstick. When I didn’t tell them to leave me alone, it was like an invitation to be friends. I ended up having lovely conversations with well-heeled folks at other tables, making sure that Carol was beside me and pointing her out in the magazine.

We had to tell everyone that we had to pick up the children from school, and I thanked Hector for the surprise and the lunch. Carol had one of our Jaguars, and we went off to get to the school in time to pick up the girls. Bernice and the other two were asked to stay behind and Susan gave me a smile as she told them that I had launched an idea this morning that we had to move quickly on. They had the other Jaguar to get home in, later.

At the school, one of the teachers was waiting at the car park, saw us, and then asked if we could see the Headmistress. That became a discussion about speaking at the end of term assembly and giving out the awards. It was followed by asking me to judge at a fashion show next year. I gave her the business card and told her to set it all up with Bernice. Then she asked me if my hairdresser and beautician could find the time to run courses for the girls in the High School. I told her that if the courses ran after hours, they would be able to do them in their own time. During school days, however, they would need to be co-ordinated with our workload, so would need Bernice involved.

Our girls were in the center of a large group when we saw them, and we were mobbed. Obviously, some of the girls had been given a copy of the magazine at one of the breaks, seeing that a couple of their schoolfriends were in several pictures. Our girls were very savvy, calling me Aunt Jenny, but it was mayhem for a while before we could get into the car so that Carol could drive us home.

It had been a very tiring day, and we all had long showers before dressing casually for dinner. Being in a house mainly full of normal women, we had not employed a cook or a cleaner. It was a big place, but we cleaned a section a day, and shared the cooking. Carol had been into the town, in the morning, and had bought some steaks, but none of us felt that hungry after the big lunch. We only needed to make sure our girls were filled before bed.

Bobby joined us and we all sat in the big lounge that evening and made lists. Ben had a list of things we would need to do to turn one of the rooms in the office into a studio with an adjoining room into a make-up and hairdressing area. We had enough space for clothes storage, and I said I would ask Susan if she had some old stock that she could sell to us.

We discussed the idea of the van, and Ben said he would organise one, if the two girls would tell him what they wanted in it. He had been given a pricing list that Susan had been paying the agencies for her models, so we worked up pricing of our own, a little less, but not too much. Based on that, we added the day rate for the van and both operators.

By the end of September, we had the studio up and running, with Bobby working hard. We had employed a lighting man who also acted as a general hand, and was the driver of the new van, nicely kitted out like a travelling salon with two chairs. The agency receptionist was now full-time. We had signed both girls from the site, and all the models from the shoot. We were getting one or two portfolios a day, and our receptionist had become adept at fielding phone calls.

On the income side, Carol, the girls, and I had received our payments for the shoot, and our daughters had done the initial shoot for the teen line. We could do Geraldine’s work in house, on a weekend, with Bobby proving that he could make even our girls look a few years older. Geraldine had got it wrong. He didn’t worship me; he worshipped any model who would work with him calling the shots. We had sent our models to three shoots for new clients we had signed up with. We worked hard to show that the cover wasn’t a one-off fluke.

The car show that Gerald had wanted me to attend turned out to be a fun weekend, with most of our models draped over a lot of valuable cars and earning money. I was by my Interceptor most of the time, and there must have been thousands of pictures taken of me, or with me. When I looked around the show, I saw a couple of other cars that I liked, with one for sale. It was another Jensen, an FF four-wheel drive, a couple of years later than mine. The asking price was exorbitant, but we did a deal with me swapping my Interceptor, plus a little bit.

Just before Christmas, Bobby popped the question, and a wedding was planned for the New Year. Our Christmas was wonderful. We got a tree brought in and set up and could afford to get a catering company. We invited Geraldine and Astrid. Bobby was almost a resident. Judy had brought her boyfriend, so it was an even dozen that sat down for Christmas lunch. All of our other friends were doing other things. We exchanged gifts, and Geraldine had brought one for the house, considering that this was the closest we had got to having a housewarming. It was the picture of the Burns Day Storm, and I replaced one of the pictures in the dining room with it.

The wedding was right out of a fairytale. What would you expect from the fashion industry. The couple had a short honeymoon and then swapped with Judy, taking over one side of the annex, with her coming into the house. Over the course of that year, we built our agency to the point where it was self-sufficient and the three million wouldn’t be urgent but welcome all the same. We continued to work for Geraldine and Susan, me moving forward with the cosmetics campaign. Carol and the girls did shoots for Susan, but the girls did more than any of us, with their children’s wear and the teen cosmetics.

Six months after we had moved south, we went back north to tidy up our old finances. Our old bank account had received the income from the sale of the house, and we closed all of our accounts, getting it transferred into our London accounts. While there, we stayed in a good hotel, dressed down, and tried to stay off the radar. There was nothing there for us now.

Seven months after we moved south, Carol had another girl. The full campaign with her modelling maternity clothes was given an award. A couple of weeks after that Bernice had a baby boy. It was a wonderful time, made better when Annette had twins, one of each, in the Autumn. We could, by then, afford to build a creche with an apartment on a hard stand behind the house, and employ a qualified nurse to take care of the four babies while we were working.

Our eldest daughter moved to the High School after summer, and both of them were doing very well. They were still popular, and me giving regular talks and fashion tips at various assemblies helped. We had come to an agreement with the school, and Annette and Judy were running evening courses in salon work. A lot of the students would never need to get a job, but from the strata they were born into, knowing how to look after yourself as if you had a professional was a definite plus.

Two years after the signing, we did a fashion shoot for Geraldine and Susan at the school, utilising a lot of the older girls. We paid the school to let us do it, and every girl got a small make-up kit and a dress to keep, as well as standard model rate for the day. It allowed the two companies to cement their teen range in a genuine setting. Carol and I only helped out on the day.

Five years after the signing, I refused to extend my contract, as did Carol. We were both forty, and well past the normal age for modelling. Our youngest was about to start school. We did agree to be available for special events, if needed, but the face of the product was now one of our own models.

Our two girls were well on their way to be internationally known models, as well as excellent students. We were happy to extend their contracts. By now, Carol and I were spending a lot of time with the agency, which was still working out of the office next to Geraldine, but with the studios and working areas now in an industrial building halfway between the house and the city. We had relented, and now had an agency doing the house cleaning, and another doing our catering with a cook coming in. The only meal we now produced, ourselves, was breakfast.

We had pictures on the covers of most of the fashion magazines, often taken by Bobby, and the office wall now had a line of fashion industry awards. We still stayed true to ourselves, not being ostentatious or outrageous. Eight years from the signing, we were awarded a Business Industry award, a year after Geraldine and Susan got one.

We had made it, and we had made it big. At that award night, our table was a glittering group. Most around the table were models, and some were Vogue covers, our Cathy having made it a month prior. Two years after that, she graduated with a degree in Psychology, followed a year later by Kerrie, with hers being in Civil Engineering of all the weirdest things. Our youngest, Juliet, was following in the family tradition and was very bright as well as sporty. She had been added to our agency books and was getting some work in junior sports outfits campaigns. She was the only one of the family not exclusive to Geraldine and Susan.

I never reverted to being just Jen. Everyone close to us knew that I had been male the whole time, and it was as Jensen that my name was on Juliet’s birth certificate. I had become so totally addicted to looking like a woman, and being treated like one, that I wouldn’t give it up. I had never taken hormones, nor had I had enhancements done. After the first year, I was using the best forms that money could buy, and I had a beautician at home who could make them appear totally real.

There was only one thing that I was sorry for. It was that I would never get the experience that a woman gets from having her breasts fondled. I knew that Carol enjoyed it, but mine, no matter how much they cost, or how good they looked, were totally numb.

Marianne Gregory © 2024