Another Permanent Job
Even I, although I felt no attraction towards respectability, began to lose some of my enthusiasm for vagabondage. I took a permanent job again in another display outfit. . . It dealt chiefly in counter display units - stands, trays, containers, which manufacturers employ a special man to conjole or, in the last resort, bully the concessionaires into using in their shops.
The monotony of painting display units did not worry me. . . I no longer did it to show that I could . . I merely wanted a sitting-down job that would yield a change of agony from posing. . . The time for having a career was far behind me.
Then my boss offered to take me into the firm as a full-time member of her staff of one. I accepted gladly through for me no job could ever be more than a seaside romance with respectability.
My duties as a permanent employee were different from the freelance work. I made cocoa and washed up the cups; I added up my wages and subtracted my income tax. I typed letters and filed the replies; I answered the telephone and learned how odd my voice sounded to other people. A telephone conversation with an unknown woman . . ended with her saying 'Your voice is very deep. It's almost as low as mine and I'm frequently taken for a man - over the phone, I mean'
Almost immediately I began to be offered appointments with fear over the telephone. These were less sinister than the calls I received at home. Receptionists of other firms, who had originally dialed our number in error, rang a second time from a switchboard on which other people were listening.
After four years of these antics I left. . .It was just as well that I left when I did for, about six months after my departure, the firm collapsed.
While I was still in this display job, I used, after office hours to pose in evening classes, go to the movies or sit in cafes and pubs. During the past ten years, the ban on me had slowly lifted like a mist. Visibility was now so good in the Coach and Horses that a man was asked to leave because he persistently made fun of me. When this happened I knew for sure that Soho had become a reservation for hooligans.
The monotony of painting display units did not worry me. . . I no longer did it to show that I could . . I merely wanted a sitting-down job that would yield a change of agony from posing. . . The time for having a career was far behind me.
Then my boss offered to take me into the firm as a full-time member of her staff of one. I accepted gladly through for me no job could ever be more than a seaside romance with respectability.
My duties as a permanent employee were different from the freelance work. I made cocoa and washed up the cups; I added up my wages and subtracted my income tax. I typed letters and filed the replies; I answered the telephone and learned how odd my voice sounded to other people. A telephone conversation with an unknown woman . . ended with her saying 'Your voice is very deep. It's almost as low as mine and I'm frequently taken for a man - over the phone, I mean'
Almost immediately I began to be offered appointments with fear over the telephone. These were less sinister than the calls I received at home. Receptionists of other firms, who had originally dialed our number in error, rang a second time from a switchboard on which other people were listening.
After four years of these antics I left. . .It was just as well that I left when I did for, about six months after my departure, the firm collapsed.
While I was still in this display job, I used, after office hours to pose in evening classes, go to the movies or sit in cafes and pubs. During the past ten years, the ban on me had slowly lifted like a mist. Visibility was now so good in the Coach and Horses that a man was asked to leave because he persistently made fun of me. When this happened I knew for sure that Soho had become a reservation for hooligans.