Free White Boots & Miniskirts by Jacky Hyams Page B

Lolly, now a mum of two and still living in east London, knew nothing of it.
    And then that letter arrived. At last. What it told me was this: I’d cleared the medical and been given the visa. Inside was the paperwork to authorise my application to work in New York. Angela’s application too was being processed, though her medical had been booked for a couple of weeks after mine. Soon she too trotted off toGrosvenor Square. This was it. Soon we’d be sipping cocktails in a skyscraper, typing letters and making eyes in the elevator at the handsome execs with the sexy Yank drawl – in short, the envy of our flatmates left behind in the big, tacky flat on the Finchley Road. Yet destiny had other ideas. One afternoon at work, I got a call from Angela. She was sobbing her heart out.
    ‘They won’t accept me because the x-ray shows I’ve got TB,’ she told me. ‘I can’t go. I’m going home tomorrow: my mother’s coming down to collect me.’ Instead of flying to Don Draper’s arms and a life of highballs, Angela was destined to return up north, take her medication and recover in the comfort of her big family home. It wasn’t a very severe case of TB; indeed she was lucky to discover it because she insisted she had no symptoms. But the US authorities were no longer interested in her application. Our plan was wrecked. Unless, of course, I was prepared to go it alone. Yes or no?
    I never regarded myself as a shoulda/woulda/coulda type person. So many of us go through life saying, ‘If that had happened, if I’d done that, well, maybe…’ Yet there was never a single occasion, even when things were quite bleak later on, when I looked back and questioned the decision I’d made not to fly solo and be a secretary in Manhattan.
    I toyed with the idea, a fairly bold move for the times, even for someone like me. But while I acted daring, I secretly remained as unsure of myself as most youngwomen were then. I had told no one. I tried hard to envisage myself, without any familiar faces, in a strange place a long way away from London, and it wasn’t long before I had to admit to myself that I just wasn’t up for it. It was all too daunting. And, anyway, I didn’t feel bad about not going. After all, it hadn’t been my idea. Perhaps if I’d been totally disillusioned with London life, it might have propelled me forward. Yet I still doubt it.
    New York – and the USA itself – fascinated Brits back in the ’60s because it seemed to be a Technicolor world we largely knew nothing of, filled with huge fridges, air con, big cars, cocktails and full-on consumer luxury. OK, we were on the way to consumerism then, ever since the mini-explosion of advertising for clothes, cars and gadgets, Sunday supplement style, had started to exert its influence on us. American culture was worshipped and exalted way beyond ours by many in the UK, yet I didn’t see a need to acknowledge or experience this by gracing the place with my presence.
    A true Londoner since childhood, when I’d first climbed all those stairs up to the Monument in the City and stared down at London from above, I’d known that despite the grime, the dirt, the shabby, lingering after-effect of war, here was one of the world’s greatest cities. My city, with all its history, its buildings, its pageantry, its traditions. And now, thanks to our chums across the pond and the defining moment of the Time article of 1966 – a superlative PR exercise the effect of which lingered fordecades – I’d fully absorbed all the London hype. The real action was here, on London’s streets, in the tiny clubs and boutiques that were popping up all over the place. And in bed with Jeff.
    I knew a girl who did head for Manhattan in the ’60s to type and find a better life. She too came from London’s East End, was an only child like me and hankered for a brighter perspective. And she got it. She’s still there, married to a genial local, living happily in the ’burbs, sunning