The Proposal

‘My dad says the world changed because of Elvis.’

Georgia gave a wry smile.

‘Typical of you Americans, wanting to take credit for everything. But perhaps you’re right. I think the truth is we were ready for change. Things were moving fast. Modern history certainly sees 1958 as a momentous year.’

‘What do you think?’

Georgia nodded, her eyes taking on a distant look.

‘It was certainly a summer I’ll remember,’ she said quietly.

March 1958

‘Ah, London. I smell it in the air, darling,’ said Estella Hamilton, opening the window of the train carriage and pushing her long copper-coloured hair off her shoulders as if she were a great theatrical diva preparing for her encore.

‘About time too,’ muttered her daughter Georgia, seeing nothing but grey concrete buildings, factories and the backs of thin, tired-looking terraced houses. It had been a long, dull journey from Devon, made even

more tiresome by multiple mysterious stops, and she was desperate for a cigarette. She still had a healthy supply of Gauloises, stockpiled at the Gare du Nord, in her trunk, which was not two minutes away in the luggage compartment. But liberal as her mother was, Georgia did not think she would understand her eighteen-year-old daughter’s need for nerve-calming nicotine. In fact Estella didn’t really seem to understand anything about her eighteen-year-old daughter any more.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, looking over at her daughter with suspicion.

‘I just wish I was going back to Paris,’ said Georgia as a series of images popped into her mind like a technicolour montage designed to torment her. Handsome men writing poetry in streetside cafés, girls in stripy sweaters riding their bikes along the Seine, stern-looking women dressed in fur stoles buying duck and macaroons from the smart stores on the Rue Saint-Honoré, and fashion shoots at the Eiffel Tower. The City of Light was a city of constant beauty and wonder, and Georgia wished more than anything that she was still there.

‘And what would you do in Paris?’ asked Estella, not unkindly.

‘I want to write. You know that.’

‘And how will you earn money until you get something published?’

‘You were in Paris at my age and you managed.’

‘That was different. I went to model.’

‘Maybe I could make some money that way?’ It was not something she had dared voice to her mother before. Although she found the idea of posing in front of a photographer for hours on end quite boring and silly, Georgia had always loved hearing Estella’s stories about her own youthful adventures in France. The daughter of two trapeze artists, Estella had never been under any pressure to conform. Too small – and some would say too interesting-looking – for the fashion world, she had been a successful model for some of the biggest artists of the time, including Rodin and Picasso, watching, observing, until she moved back to England and started painting and sculpting herself.

‘You want to model?’ she said with surprise.

‘Everyone says we look alike.’

Georgia watched her mother’s face and wondered if Estella would take that comment as an insult. Although she had turned forty three weeks earlier, there was no denying that her mother was still beautiful – her hair fell in long russet curls down her slim back, her face a riot of unblemished skin and angles. There were similarities between mother and daughter – the bright, alert green eyes, and the wide mouth with lips the colour of rose petals – but people were being kind when they said that they looked like twins.

‘Darling, you are a beautiful girl, but you don’t have the neck to model.’

‘What’s my neck got to do with being a good model?’

Estella came to sit beside her and stroked her daughter’s dark blond bobbed hair.

‘I know you’re nervous about the Season, but there is no need to be so uptight,’ she said, her voice softening. ‘The next few months are going to be fun. I mean, you said you were dreading going to finishing school, and look how much you enjoyed that.’

‘I enjoyed Paris, not wasting my time flower arranging and learning how to eat an orange with a knife and fork.’

A blast of wind blew in from the open window, making Georgia shiver.

‘Mother, I don’t know what’s got into you. This whole debutante thing is so unlike you. You were a free spirit, a bohemian. I just don’t understand why you are making me do something you would have hated yourself at my age.’

‘Darling, we’ve been through this.’

‘And you haven’t listened to a word I’ve got to say about it.’