Bad Girls Good Women (53 page)

Mattie boiled the kettle and made a pot of tea. She sat down at the table with a pint mug, feeling almost healthy again. If she had been lonely and sorry for herself earlier because there was no one to bring her tea and sympathy, she was relieved to be on her own now. If there had been a man, she reflected, he would have expected her to bring him the tea. And he would have wanted all the sympathy for himself because he would have felt much worse than she did, of course.

Mattie smiled and gulped her tea. She groped for her cigarettes and then remembered, no matches. She was beginning to remember last night, as well. It had started perfectly straightforwardly, in the pub next to the rehearsal room, with two or three of the other actors. It had been a bad day, and they had bought each other rapid rounds of drinks to cheer themselves up. The opening night was still two weeks off, but it seemed impossible that anyone would be able to darn the gaping holes in the production in time.

The play was
Romeo and Juliet
, a dissected version of it to be played in modern dress in a black-painted circular space inside a warehouse near Euston Station. The director described it as Shakespeare for the
West Side Story
generation. Mattie had no particular objection to trying to play Juliet in a black leather jerkin with her hair piled up in an immense beehive on top of her head and finished off with a black ribbon. If that was the director’s vision then she would do her best to interpret it for him. But she was finding it difficult to speak the verse. She had no training, and the rhythms mangled themselves in her mouth, the lines stretching like yawns or telescoping into staccato nonsense. The director was too preoccupied with tinkering with the text and searching for effects to give her the proper pointers, and Mattie was floundering dismally. She knew the director had hated her performance from the beginning, and she suspected that he had only cast her in relentless determination to be avant garde and because he was sourly jealous of Jimmy Proffitt’s huge success. Everything was made much worse by the actor taking the part of Romeo, a RADA-trained pansy with all the affectations of Doris and Ada but none of their wit or resilience.

‘I’m so bloody awful I could die,’ Mattie had groaned to Tybalt and Mercutio in the public bar.

‘Nah, it’s not you,’ Tybalt had comforted her. ‘You’re not much good, but you’re no worse than anyone else. The whole bloody show stinks.’

They had made depressed faces at each other, and there had been nothing for it but to order some more rounds of Guinness.

Later, the gloomy circle had been swelled by the members of a pop group who had turned up to play a booking at a nearby hall and found it cancelled. One of the actors knew one of the guitarists, and more drinks had been bought. The conversation had stopped circling round the miseries of the production, and turned to Chubby Checker. Mattie had cheered up immediately. Sixpences were pressed into the jukebox and she and the lead singer obligingly demonstrated the Twist to the rest of the pub’s customers. After that, someone had suggested a Chinese dinner. They had crammed hilariously amongst the amplifiers in the musicians’ van and driven to Gerrard Street. Mattie didn’t much like Chinese food, but several bottles of only slightly peculiar-tasting wine had appeared with it, and it was after her share of it that everything went hazy in her recollection. They had left the Chinese restaurant intending to go to a party that someone knew about, but on their way through Soho they had stopped off at the Marquee Club to see another group, and Mattie remembered dancing and then falling sideways to sit on somebody’s knee. It was the singer with the group, except she couldn’t remember which group, and he had put his hands up under her jumper to knead her breasts. She had dragged his hands away and more or less stood up again, but she was enjoying the noisy company because it saved her having to think about Juliet, or think about anything at all, so she had stayed to have another drink instead of taking herself home to bed.

After that they were outside again and trying to find the van to go on to the party. There were lots of people, although hardly any of them were the ones she had started the evening with, and it was at that moment that Mattie had noticed they were standing right in front of the Showbox. Monty was looming in the doorway, looking for punters. Someone must have paid, or perhaps Monty had let her in with her friends to fill out a thin night, and they had all flocked in to see the show. The rickety chairs and the tatty curtains and the music were all nightmarishly familiar. Mattie had looked round wildly, searching for the way out, but the singer had his arm round her shoulders, dragging her down, and his other hand was crawling up her thigh like a snake. He had muttered something about a cigarette, and she had given him one of hers, and her box of matches, to keep his hands busy for a few seconds. The girls came on and did their routines, just as they always had done. Staring at their creased, unresisting bodies Mattie felt unbearably sad, for them and for herself. Oily, heavy tears welled up and ran down her face.

Poor women
, she thought.
Why should men do this to them? Why should we let them?

With boozy, sodden ferocity she had lurched to her feet, swiping at the singer and connecting with him so forcibly that he had almost fallen off his chair. Then she stumbled to the front of Monty’s dim cavern and shouted something. Something like, ‘You won’t enjoy this as much as girls’ tits, but you can bloody well listen.’

Sitting at her table with her mug of tea, Mattie put her hands up to hide her face, remembering what she had done.

She had declaimed Juliet’s death speech.

… I will kiss thy lips.

Haply some poison yet doth hang on them

To make me die with a restorative …

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Mattie murmured. ‘I wish I really was dead.’

Monty had rescued her. He had swept her away, bundled her into a taxi, and she had managed to convey herself from the taxi and into bed.

Mattie lifted her head again, very slowly, and peered round the room. At least there was no one here to witness her shame. Then the corners of her mouth twitched, and she began to laugh. She laughed until she had to gasp for breath, the thought of declaiming Shakespeare in the Showbox was so irresistibly funny. When she had finished laughing she rubbed her eyes and poured herself some more tea.

‘I know one thing for sure,’ she said aloud. ‘I’m never going to touch another drop. Never. Not ever.’

The resolution lasted all the way through what was left of the morning, and until she set off for rehearsal. Then she was just passing the pub opposite the Museum, on her way to the bus stop, when it occurred to her that she had had nothing to eat. She went in and bought herself a cheese sandwich, and one drink to go with it.
There was no harm in just one
, Mattie thought. Afterwards, feeling suitably virtuous, she caught the bus to the rehearsal room.

The afternoon was the usual round of bickering and recrimination, and they managed to work their way through barely two scenes.

Mattie had only just reached the sanctuary of her rooms in Bloomsbury when Julia arrived.

Looking at her, it struck Mattie that Julia looked exactly as she had done on the day they ran away from home. Hungry and defiant, yet also glowing with anticipation.
Ready to be set alight
, Mattie thought bleakly.
What was that like?

For two or three seconds they confronted each other. Then they swooped together, hugging and exclaiming. ‘I miss you, Mat.’

‘I miss you, too.’ Then they held one another at arm’s length.

Julia shrugged, a little awkwardly. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I know this is different from the old days. I wouldn’t have asked you to cover for me, if it wasn’t so important. But it is, you see …’ She broke off and turned away. It was unlike Julia not to finish what she wanted to say.

‘Is it so important?’ Mattie whispered. ‘Is he?’

Julia turned back then and looked full at her. Mattie saw luminous happiness in her eyes.

Very deliberately, Julia answered, ‘Oh, yes. I haven’t seen him for a long time. But I know exactly what he’s like, I know him so well it’s as if he’s just gone out of this room. Because he’s always been with me, even when I’ve tried to pretend I’ve forgotten. I know the shape of his head and the sound of his voice and the smell of his skin, and I love every part of him. It’s not an illusion, Mattie. I know what’s wrong with him, as well as I know everything else.’ Julia lifted her head and spread her hands out. ‘The existence of Josh, for me, makes the light seem brighter. It’s the difference between being alive, shivering and trembling with it, and being a machine. And I’m going to see him tonight. In an hour.’ As if it explained everything she finished, in a soft voice, ‘You know what being in love is like.’

‘No,’ Mattie said flatly. ‘I don’t.’

Julia glanced curiously at her. ‘Not even Jimmy Proffitt?’

‘No, I didn’t love Jimmy Proffitt. I wanted to, tried to. But he wasn’t very lovable. I love you, and Bliss, and Lily, and Felix. Rozzie, and the others. Not men. Men happen to you, that’s all.’ Seeing Julia’s face, she tried to shrug her confession off with some kind of humour. ‘It’s all right, darling, I’m not a lezzy. I’d have had a go at you by now, wouldn’t I? But you must tell me what it’s like, some time. Being in love.’

‘Mattie.’

But Mattie saw her glance flicker to the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Not now, you haven’t got time. Do you want a drink, before you go?’

Julia had already picked up her little suitcase, was on the way to the bathroom to change. ‘No, thanks. Don’t think I could force anything down.’

Mattie unscrewed the half-bottle of whisky that she had firmly put away this morning. Then, half listening to Julia in the bathroom, she slammed the bottle down again and went to look out of the window. The bookseller’s awning had been rolled up again, the closed sign hung idly inside the glass door. The view of the street was soothing because of its monotony. Mattie watched some pigeons pecking around a dustbin that had been put out for the morning’s collection.

Julia came out of the bathroom within five minutes. She had changed into a simple polka-dot summer dress.

Her face looked clean and malleable, ready to take the fresh impressions. She put her fingers up to her cheeks, explaining, ‘I tried some make-up on but it looked as if I was trying too hard, so I took it off again.’

‘You don’t need it tonight,’ Mattie said truthfully.

‘Well, then.’ Julia was standing by the door, not wanting to seem to rush away and leave Mattie alone.

‘Go on,’ Mattie said. ‘Have a good time. Will you be coming back tonight?’

Julia looked almost frightened. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything, except that I’ve got to go to him now, and I’ll do whatever he asks me.’

What must it be like? Mattie wondered again. ‘If Bliss rings I’ll make up some reason why you’re not here.’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

The door was already open when Mattie asked her, ‘What about Bliss?’

Julia’s eyes were wide and blank. For some reason Mattie remembered the fire. ‘I don’t know,’ Julia murmured. ‘I told you, didn’t I? I just don’t know.’ She turned, the door clicked, and she was gone.

Mattie sat down at the table.
You do know
, she thought.
This will hurt him, you must know that much
. She was afraid, then, that this evening had come between herself and Julia. The suspicion made her feel lonely and cold. Julia was her friend, after all, and Bliss and the aviator and Jimmy Proffitt and the rest were just men who had happened to them. Even Bliss. Abruptly, Mattie reached for the whisky bottle and poured herself a deep measure.

Josh had been waiting for almost an hour. He had known that he was ridiculously early, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself from sitting down in the most conspicuous place, watching the big doors every time they revolved. At exactly seven o’clock, he saw Julia.

She stepped into the cool, lofty space, glancing quickly upwards and then around her, faintly impressed in spite of herself, reminding Josh of years ago when they had arrived in Wengen and Julia had stared upwards at the Eiger and the Jungfrau. He didn’t know quite why he had chosen the Palm Court at the Ritz for their meeting. Perhaps to acknowledge that they weren’t kids, and they didn’t need to improvise any more. Josh had changed from a ski-bum into a ski-entrepreneur, and Julia, he reminded himself, Julia was Lady Bliss, a wife and a mother, and what else? The idea seemed laughable when he first saw her, all the way across the room. She looked seventeen, exactly the same as when he had first known her. It was impossible to imagine that she had a child of her own.

Then she saw him, and came quickly towards him. There were waiters, and women in cocktail dresses, all obstacles in their way. Josh had stood up when he saw her and the spindly table rocked in front of him. He held out his hands as she reached him at last.

They didn’t speak. They stood looking at each other, their hands clasped. The hum of conversation and the clink of glasses, even the splash of the absurd fountain and the clamour of the rococo gilt decor, faded into silence for Josh and Julia. Josh leaned forward very slowly and kissed the vulnerable point of her jaw. It was at once more intimate than any brash kiss on the lips could have been.

She had changed, Josh saw that now.

It was as if the years had intervened to define her face. The bones had set under the thin skin, to form more noticeable smooth plateaux and shadowed hollows. Josh recognised that the shadows were real, not transitory. She looked older, more graceful, self-possessed, and beautiful rather than wilfully pretty.

‘I’m glad to see you,’ Josh said at last.

Julia sat down rather quickly, not letting go of his hands.

‘I don’t think I really believed, until I saw you at this table, that you were going to be here. I sat in the taxi on the way, looking at the trees in the park, thinking,
If he’s not there I’ll order a bottle of champagne. I’ll sit and drink it and remember every single day we ever spent together
.’