Chapter 6

I didn’t get a big chunk of time for painting in the year that followed. It was a few hours here and there. We were now on normal working hours in the office, and I was spending most weekends with Walter in the apartment. I ended up getting another easel and setting it up, along with a set of brushes and paints. He would sit with his paperwork while I painted. He was taking his responsibilities very seriously. Whenever he was away, talking to suppliers with the buyers, or checking out sites for photo shoots, I would sleep at the house and paint there, so having several pictures on the go at any one time.

This year, I was doing scenic pictures from my photos, with a bit of artistic licence. The open-air ones were almost impressionist, while the ones with buildings were more realistic and took a lot of time. In all of them, I added just two figures, a man and a woman, usually seen from the rear, admiring the view or taking a photo.

I did two that I was going to keep for myself. They were views of Lake Wakatipu at Queenstown. The basis was a photo taken from the hotel room, of the lake with the snow-covered mountains behind it. The original picture was through a window, but I turned them into a view from a terrace with one where Walter is taking a picture of me with the view behind me. The other had our roles reversed, and I was taking a picture of Walter.

Janice was also painting when she could and had built quite a nice collection. I took her into the gallery with them and introduced her. He wanted them all and took her details. A few weeks later, she started getting money into her account, about fifteen hundred a painting, and she was over the moon.

Our February photo shoot for the Spring collection was all in Italy, taking in Rome and Naples. The new range had a lot of sandy-pink and these were highlighted when we spent time at Pompeii. This time, it was just the three of us with the obligatory curl, with the one photographer and lighting guy. We girls had the one make-up artist and a hairdresser, so it was a smaller, but well-oiled professional group. Now that the cat was well and truly out of the bag, Walter and I were in one room, while Janice and Monica shared. We did the shoot in ten days.

We were back in the office in our team area, working on the campaign during March and into April, while Walter was working on the Summer shoot. That was to be all in Monaco, during the Grand Prix week in May, and we would all be staying on a yacht owned by one of Alphonse’s friends. The ‘girl with a curl’ was really going places and the surveys that the Brothers had set up showed that the core purchasers were successful businesswomen, who often did go overseas for work purposes. I had the feeling that it made a change from the usual ‘power suit’.

The shoot in Monaco was amazing. We did a lot of shots against wonderful buildings and in the lobby of the casino. Some days were in and around the Marina, but the best time was at the Grand Prix. We had a range of good casual wear for that, with many cars and race drivers being in the pictures. The tiny remnant of boy in me was thrilled to be on pit lane of the greatest race of all, even if the sound of a car starting up made me jump. Walter was there to hold me. We went into a jeweller in Monaco and bought our wedding bands.

After the Summer collection campaign had been finalised and sent to Marilyn, it was time to work on the weddings. Susan had a lot of the logistics already sorted out. The marquee had been ordered, along with the tables, chairs, food, drink, flowers, celebrant, and band. All that remained was small details – like dresses, order of the services, how we were going to be bridesmaids at one wedding and the bride for another.

We had a meeting at the mansion to work it all out, staying overnight. The house had enough bedrooms for the three of us to have separate rooms on the night before the weddings. Susan was adamant that the bride must not be seen before she walks the aisle. This meant that two of us would have to stay in the house while the first wedding happened, which we fiercely complained about. She agreed, after much talking, and the arrangements were settled.

The weddings would take place on the Sunday. Anthony, as the oldest, would marry Monica first, at eleven in the morning. Tracey and I would be in normal dresses. There would be a buffet lunch, and then Walter and I would tie the knot at two in the afternoon. There would be drinks and nibbles, then Gerald and Tracey would marry at five, followed by a dinner. Each couple would stay in their wedding outfits after their vows, and all would change after the dinner, to be ready to leave, in three limousines, after the speeches and dancing.

Our parents would be housed in a hotel in Windsor and would have cars pick them up and take them back. Walter proved that he had been busy when he brought out a catalogue from a wedding dress maker in Paris. He dropped the bombshell that he had spoken to the Solon Brothers, who had agreed that a range of wedding dresses would be added to the Hokem lines. We would be going to Paris to pick our dresses and be fitted, with the three dresses then going on show in the front windows of the London store. The groom’s suits were to be supplied by a new addition to the bridal range in store, and also be displayed next to the dresses. His work got him a hug and a kiss from the three of us and one from Susan.

He also told us that our honeymoons were also paid for by the Brothers, as long as we took them in New Zealand, with us girls modelling the next Autumn and Winter range. We would be allowed an extra week when the crew had gone home, with each couple picking where they wanted to stay. It would be the first time Tracey would model, and the first shoot that Tony and Gerry had been on.

The other big news that weekend, was that Gerald had been taken on in the finance department, on the same floor as our office, and that Tracey had left her job, to work with him after the honeymoon. I suppose that, as a Solon, she would have to be part of the family. That made me stop and think that I would be family as well, with Tracey and Monica as sisters in law.

We three chose which dresses we liked, with Walter emailing the supplier with our sizes and choices. They weren’t great billowy things, almost classic floor-length evening dresses without trains, and suitable for very elegant occasions. In that, we were thinking about those who may buy them later. I had chosen one in dusky blue, Monica was in white, while Tracey went for ivory. It would make me stand out in the group pictures, something that I never thought I would want, but blue is for a boy, isn’t it?

We were in Paris on the following weekend and had our fittings. Janice and Jemma had scored the spots as bridesmaids for each of us, with them choosing something that fitted in with the three colours. We flew back with our dresses in our bags. Two weeks after that, we had the wedding extravaganza. The marquee was big enough for all the families, friends, work colleagues, and the chosen magazine that would have us glorified in print, for a fee. Clive had been chosen as Best Man for each of the three brothers, to keep things within reason. It took a lot of persuading for Susan to come down from the eight that she wanted in each party.

The wedding day was a hoot! We had used separate bedrooms as instructed, with Monica getting the treatment first, with our make-up artist doing her in a bold look, with the rest of us more muted. We had all been to the salon on Friday to get smoothed and a hairdo, with each of us having a small hanging curl. I know, we were doing it for the media and for future advertising, but it would cement our places with the Brothers. Her wedding to a very smart Anthony was lovely and there was a lot of weeping and smiling.

After the buffet, I was outfitted in my gown and given a stronger make-up look, to join Walter, now resplendent in his wedding suit, in our own wedding. While the drinks and nibbles were happening, Tracey was off to have her own transformation to marry Gerald at five. We all retired to our husband’s bedrooms to change for the dinner, while the guests talked among themselves in the mansion. For me, it did include a celebratory session in bed, before we showered and changed into our going-away outfits. From the look of the others, we hadn’t been alone.

My parents were amazed at the wealth that I had married into, as was Tracey’s and Monica’s. All three couples had been photographed all day, with two of us girls in three different outfits. The marquee had been transformed into a dining room, with the caterers having their own kitchen in a truck. The dinner was a lot of fun, with the speeches kept to a minimum. Frederick gave a single speech which covered all three of his sons, and Clive, as Best Man, gave a short speech and proposed a toast to the bridesmaids, followed by a proposal of marriage to Janice. Alphonse gave a short speech in which he thanked us girls for our contribution to the company and announced that we all would be ambassadors of the Solon Brothers brand. The band set up and some of the tables moved so that we could do our group bridal waltz and then there was general dancing.

At the end of a long day, we were whisked off in three limousines which had already had our bags in, curtesy of the mansion staff. As befitting the status of the family, there were no trailing cans or painted slogans on the cars. All three couples were spending the night in the Dorchester, and our flight to New Zealand was the following evening, with a minibus picking us up at the hotel.

We flew Emirates business class via Dubai, and we had a whole day there before the overnight flight to Melbourne and another flight to Auckland. Janice and the crew would be arriving in two days to start the shoot, so we did some sightseeing first. When we started the shoot, Tracey was quick to pick up the methods and the outfits were lovely, moving on from the flapper look of the previous year and following the pseudo-sixties looks that the Summer collection had introduced.

For the Winter collection, we stayed in Christchurch, now rebuilt from the earthquake. This time we were taken to Mount Cook and the Fox Glacier by helicopter. When I saw the pictures, we could have been in the Himalayas. Janice and the crew flew out of Christchurch to go home, while the other two couples went back to Auckland for a week of touring the North Island. Walter and I went back to Queenstown, where we did all the tourist things and had a wonderful time.

When we got back to London, I moved out of the share house and went to live with Walter in the apartment. Both Tracey and Monica were moving to live with their husbands, both having bought apartments in the city, thanks to their contacts in the real estate business and the same trust account from their grandfather that had allowed Walter to be independent. We all paid enough in for Janice to be able to live in the house until her wedding to Clive, which, she told me, wouldn’t be too long now.

Life in the office had a different vibe, as we were all now part of the family. The four of us were travelling around the country visiting stores and hosting small fashion events. While at home, I put together another couple of dozen paintings to take to the gallery. We had missed the AGM, having been away, but Tracey was keeping up with the financial situation and kept me informed with the share price fluctuations. At the end of August, I was surprised when my broker emailed me to tell me that I had received a dividend on my shares, the first that Solon had paid out since before the pandemic. It was only 15p, but my seventy-odd thousand shares brought me a very nice return. I had enough in my account to add to it and buy a few more shares.

After the marriage, we had traded the Galaxy and Walter’s sports car on a Lexus that we could both drive, seeing that the apartment only had the two parking spots. When we were getting closer to the end of the year, Walter and I took it down to Plymouth to stay with my parents for a while. I had sent them enough money to put a bigger bed in my old room, but the decorations remained somewhat girly.

Walter help Dad with the flowers and told me, later, that he loved to be among the gorgeous blooms in the greenhouses. Mum and I went off to the shops some days, but on others, I helped Dad out as well. It all led to a conversation about their future. Dad wanted to sell the business and downsize to a cottage and a small garden, so we told them that we would put the family real estate people onto it and get them a range of places to look at.

One of the very interesting results of the marriages was that Arthur and Alphonce were taking a lot of time with the three brothers. Neither of them had sired sons, just daughters, and there had been a distinct possibility that the family line would die out. All three of the brothers were given non-voting board positions and also had executive responsibilities on top of their normal work. It would be a good ten years before Tony, Walter, and Gerald became ‘The Solon Brothers’ but it was firming to be a distinct possibility. As the oldest son, Tony would inherit the family mansion, and both Walter and Gerald started to look for somewhere grander than the apartments, not in a rush, but keeping an eye out for a good deal.

By the time we all gathered at the mansion for Christmas, all two dozen of my paintings had sold, and had averaged nearly three thousand each, adding around seventy thousand to my bank balance. I spent fifty thousand buying Solon shares at around two pounds fifty each, bringing my holding to just over a hundred thousand shares.

Walter and I started getting invitations to swanky events, some from business contacts, and some from my modelling fame. We often saw the other two couples at these events. We did all get together for the wedding of Janice and Clive. Theirs was more traditional, in a church with a reception at a hotel. She had the advantage of being able to have another two models as bridesmaids, with me being the Maid of Honour. The three brothers stood with Clive with Tony as Best Man.

They went off to Italy for their honeymoon, without a camera crew following them around. Clive worked in his family hotel business now, having left the real estate company. His family owned fifteen hotels and was doing very well. Janice gave up modelling and her job at the Brothers to start a family. She did whisper to me on the morning of the wedding that it had already started. I went and helped her clean out our old home in Tottenham, it had been good for us, but we had all moved on. Both Tracey and Jemma told her that she could have their share of the bond money when it was finalised.

During the year, other departments in the store were getting out of the ruts that Covid had imposed. The menswear was getting in more youthful styles, the kitchenware department started regular cooking demonstrations using the modern electrical appliances, all seeing what the addition of the new Hokem range was doing for customer numbers. This was all improving the store popularity, bottom line and market value. Gerald told me that all of the small stores that had been rebranded were doing a lot better than they had been.

One of the other things that I hadn’t foreseen was that Walter started using my second easel as his own. He put a big pin-board on it and pinned up sheets of paper. He did have a background of graphic arts, but he had not drawn a thing since I knew him. The odd thing was that what he drew were dresses, with some being very stylish.

“This is what I used to do when I was younger. It got me into trouble with my father. It’s why I loved that early painting of yours and love the later one I got for my birthday.”

“You know, you’re very good. Why don’t you put some into a folder and talk to the suppliers to see if they can turn the drawings into dresses.”

He smiled at the thought and started designing dresses, obviously something that he had wanted to do in his teens but had suppressed it to please the family. When we flew to our preferred supplier in Italy, they suggested that we set up a design studio and make some money when the range became popular.

They made some examples from his designs, and I started wearing them. I was getting good comments when I was seen out and about. We discussed the implications and then registered Soxie Clothing with the two of us as the directors. Then we both started designing, with him teaching me the finer points of dressmaking, something that I hadn’t been taught, and something that his girlfriend at uni had taught him. I would draw a dress; he would refine it into a marketable and makeable product. Then we took the finished articles to the manufacturer. They would put the Soxie label on it and then it was offered to Solon Brothers as a new range, without us being disclosed as the designers.

The buyers liked what they saw, and we tried to stay cool when the next year’s shoots were proposed. The Spring and Summer collections would have about half of the items as the new Soxie outfits. That accelerated our need for a house of our own, as the apartment was getting cramped. We found one in Essex, only just outside the city, which we put a deposit on. I was able to put in my half share and we moved there in November. It wasn’t a mansion, but wasn’t a cottage, either. Oak House was Georgian, with four bedrooms and high ceilings. What clinched the deal was that it had a big outbuilding that the previous owner had used as a sculpture studio. After we had moved in, we sold the apartment which almost paid off the mortgage.

We had Christmas at the mansion, as usual, and it was a happy time. Both Tracey and Monica announced that they were pregnant, and that the ultrasounds looked like boys. Gerry and Tony were getting deeper into the running of the stores, and Tony had been given a place on the board when a previous director retired.

For New Year, we had a housewarming party at Oak House. It wasn’t big enough for everyone to have a separate bedroom, so we set up camp beds in the studio, with screens for privacy. It did have heating, a toilet and kitchenette so the ones who were out there were happy enough. We hadn’t set it up as our design studio, yet, and the easels and drawing boards were packed away in a corner with covers on.

We had the Spring and Summer shoots in late January and into February. I had three professional models with me, and the curl had disappeared. This time, we found the sun in Africa with many pictures having wild animals from the safari parks. We left the organising of the advertising to Moira and her team, as both Janice and Monica had left to enjoy their impending motherhood.

After the shoot, Walter and I took time off to set up our design studio, with desks, computers, the easels and new drafting boards. We added a couple of big printers and employed a local seamstress to make samples from the paper designs that we could produce. This allowed us to see what the real thing would wear like before sending them to the manufacturer. Later in the year, we became godparents to little Harry, Janice and Clive’s firstborn.

Around Easter, we moved my parents to a small cottage with a garden and all the amenities nearby. With Oak House and my share portfolio as collateral, we got a second mortgage to buy the flower farm, getting a young couple who had not long graduated from an agricultural college to live in the house as managers, without a single delivery to the flower market being missed, Walter and I doing the work in the interim.

Over the year, I alternated with dress drawings and painting, still using the scenic pictures I had on the laptop as the basis. I was still out visiting the stores, often with Walter, as our ‘ambassadorial responsibilities’ now outweighed our office work. Walter was given a full seat on the board in July, and we had received enough outfits from our suppliers to have a photo shoot in England that summer, for the following year collections. Following on with that, it was decided that the Autumn and Winter collections would also be shot at home, making the Autumn one a very tight deadline.

Towards the end of the year, I had another thirty pictures for the gallery. We were getting a regular income from every dress that bore the Soxie label. It wasn’t huge, individually, but with every Solon store carrying the label, as well as the manufacturer selling to stores across Europe, we were doing well. The pictures didn’t sell quickly, but they did sell, with my account growing by three thousand with each sale.

Also, in the second half of the year, Tracey had a son, with Jemma and her husband as godparents. Monica had baby Allen and wanted us to be godparents. Before Christmas, I resigned from the Solon business to be a wife and a busy dress inventor. Walter was now just on the board and working in our own business.

The Christmas at the mansion was as good as ever, with Susan quizzing me about how I filled my days. I told her that I was concentrating on painting and redecorating Oak House, as well as looking at the flower business every now and then. The secrecy around the Soxie Designs was smashed in the next year, as there had been pressure on our manufacturer to have a place in the summer fashion shows.

Walter and I went up-market with designs over the first three months, and we were present at the first fashion show when our haute-couture range went on the catwalk. We couldn’t stay secret as the Solon buyers were there as well. It led us to being open with the family and having a meeting at the mansion. We hadn’t really realised what we had created. We had a successful flower business, and now a fashion design studio that was selling outfits into most of the European Union.

Freddy was amazed that Walter had done all of it after thinking that he wasn’t manly enough in his younger days. I often wondered what he would have done if he had embraced his other self. No doubt he may have been ejected from the family.

As I now sit in my lounge at Oak House, I look at the paintings on the wall, most of them I had painted myself. Again, I look at the picture of the five of us in Southampton, in the park, in our jogging outfits. That was the moment my life started to change, the day that I spoke of my secret wish. It all goes to show, that your wishes can come true, and you can be successful, even if the journey takes you down a gentler path. I should know, having taken that route myself.

Marianne Gregory © 2024