217 Babel Street | The Penthouse
The bob didn’t suit all girls. Plain or plump girls looked even worse with their mops hanging above their big chins, like hearty gym mistresses. Lulu ran a finger over her own small, sharp chin. The truth was, though, that beautiful women were neither happy nor lucky in love. They never were. A beautiful woman simply had to be much cleverer than the plain sort. And she was, of course, for she had dear Heston to help her.
What had she been thinking about? She’d forgotten. The pampas and the marigolds - was that it? The starlings? No.
Ah, the film. Right in front of her, Pandora’s Box was nearing the end again. It amused Lulu to ask herself which ending she would prefer if she were Lulu-in-the-film: to be killed by Jack the Ripper or converted by the Salvation Army. One wouldn’t wish for the former, naturally, but how frightful to be stuck with those dreary uniforms and trombones for the rest of one’s life! Lulu sometimes fancied quite a different ending: neither the dagger nor the prayer book for her femme fatale but carrying on and always, somehow, daring. Blood and fire indeed.
After all, if moral endings were required, why wasn’t Jack the Ripper dressed up in a navy uniform, playing miserably on the tuba for all eternity?
So, so unfair. Lulu reached for her cane and hobbled into the drawing room. She took her silver watering can and gave the aspidistra a light sprinkling of Malvern.