Bad Girls Good Women (77 page)

He would have warned,
Be careful
, but he knew that it was too late for that.

‘No,’ Julia said briskly. ‘We aren’t going to talk about Mattie or Alexander. Not today.’ It seemed too small, for all the hurt of it, compared with what was happening to Felix and George.

So they talked about Tressider Designs instead, and about Garlic & Sapphires and the American art market and the latest decorators’ gossip. They drank two bottles of wine and turned giggly, then serious again when it was time to leave. Julia insisted on paying the bill.

‘I’m an independent woman,’ she said, presenting her credit card with a flourish. ‘I’ve fought hard enough to be. Too hard, do you think, Felix?’

‘Only if you feel that it has cost you too much.’

She didn’t look at him now. She bent her head, folding her purse away. ‘Perhaps it has,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps after all I should have stayed at home and had babies and made jam for the WI.’

‘I don’t think it would have worked,’ Felix said, truthfully. ‘But you look tired, Julia. Why don’t you take a holiday?’

‘I’ve just had one. New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Colorado.’

‘I thought that was work.’

And so it mostly had been, except for seeing Josh. And if she did go on holiday, where should she go, and with whom? ‘It’s an idea,’ she said, dismissing it.

They parted on the pavement outside the restaurant. Felix kissed her, and she held on to him for a moment.

‘You’re a good friend, Felix.’

‘As good as you are.’

She watched him as he walked away. But I’m not good, or much of a friend, she was thinking. She looked at her watch. Half past three. She should have been back at work long ago. Over the next weeks, she thought two or three times about Felix’s suggestion.

Julia’s eye for a witty or original piece of merchandise had never deserted her, and over the years of running her shops she had developed into an efficient administrator as well. The Garlic & Sapphires operation ran smoothly, but for Julia most of the uncertainty and so most of the excitement had gone. She knew what pieces would sell, and she knew how to price them and how to display them. Sitting at her desk she remembered the anxiety, and the thrills, of the very early days, when she had done everything herself, and had snatched bites of sandwich for her lunch in the little cubicle behind the first shop.

She didn’t often, nowadays, experience the charge of excitement that she had felt in New York. It occurred to her that perhaps Felix was right, in a sense. Perhaps she needed not so much a holiday as a change of scene, and the different perspectives that a change would bring.

It was a long time, too, since she had been away for any reason not connected directly with the shops. Lily never wanted to go anywhere on holiday except to Ladyhill, and Julia had taken the opportunity provided by her absences to work harder, for longer hours.

For what?
she thought now, with sudden bitterness.

She would go away, she decided. For a proper holiday, some time soon.

In the end, it was George Tressider who provided the final impetus.

Julia had been to see him in the hospital. She had taken him a huge bunch of extravagant, creamy lilies, and a big, plain white cylindrical vase from the shop to display them in. George was touchingly grateful for the offering. It was the vase, even more than the flowers, that pleased him. Julia arranged the lilies in it and set it on his bedside table.

He lay back, gazing at them. ‘You’ve no idea,’ he said. Even his voice sounded thinner, drained of all the fluting emphases. ‘People bring exquisite flowers, and the nurses take them and dump them in Woolworths’ green cut glass, or a bulbous purple pot. I would rather not have flowers at all, than see them made hideous. You have given me much pleasure, by bringing the right container. It is all a question of balance, and proportion, isn’t it? In the big things, as well as the small ones. It’s the search for the right balance that has made my work so pleasurable.’

The next time she saw him, he was much happier. Felix had taken him home, to the old flat in Eaton Square. It was a relief to see him once more ensconced amongst the Lalique bowls and the Regency furniture, the French marble mantels and the billowing Tressider chintzes. There were flowers everywhere, perfectly arranged, and bowls of pot pourri on the tables contributing to the scented atmosphere. George was sitting in an armchair. He was wearing one of his immaculate, waisted, lavender-grey suits, and a high-collared pale pink shirt, His hair had been cut and brushed back, and he looked almost himself again. Almost well, Julia thought, until his hand held hers. His flesh felt dry and papery, as if it would flake off the bones.

‘My dear. Here we are again,’ George said. ‘Restored to grace.’

They had tea together, the three of them. Felix brought in a tray, laid with the full works. Georgian silver teapot, sugar bowl and cream jug, although they all took their tea with lemon. Silver tongs, and a little spirit lamp to keep the water hot. Meissen china, white and gold, practically transparent in its thinness, and lawn and lace fragments too delicate to be called napkins.

‘Pretty,’ Julia murmured, accepting a tiny triangle of cucumber sandwich.

George and Felix treated each other with a kind of watchful tenderness. Julia was moved, but she felt like an intruder. She stared at the tiny plate on her lap, while her eyes burned.

George drank his tea, but he ate nothing.

Afterwards Julia helped Felix to carry the precious paraphernalia back into the kitchen. ‘He likes beautiful things,’ Felix said. ‘He has collected all these, over the years. It would be a pity not to use them, now, wouldn’t it?’

‘Of course,’ Julia reassured him.

George wanted to talk. She listened, while he described the early days of Tressider Designs, after the War, when there had been no money and even fewer materials. ‘Make do and mend. The best training of all, having to make something from nothing.’ He looked round his glowing room with clear satisfaction. ‘That, and never missing an opportunity. The only trouble with getting old, you know, is that you regret the opportunities that you did miss.’

He didn’t talk about being ill, only about getting old. Julia didn’t know if he understood that he wouldn’t live very much longer. His eyes settled on Felix. ‘I didn’t miss all that many,’ he said. Felix smiled at him, Julia saw that they were happy, and understood that it wasn’t the amount of time left that was important, only the quality of it. And she saw clearly that the quality of her own time, however much of it remained, was about as precious as the green glass hospital vases. At the same time the opportunities, unrecognised and unreached-for, were slipping past her.

‘I thought I’d take the chance to go away,’ she said suddenly. ‘Now that the business is ticking over. For a long, open-ended holiday.’

‘You lucky girl,’ George said immediately. ‘You must go to Rome, of course. The most fascinating, the most erotic city in the world.’

And so Julia made her plans.

She consulted Lily first. ‘I think you should go, why not?’ Lily said, surprising her. ‘You never have a holiday. Marilyn and I will be okay.’

She told the shop managers, and her assistant. They echoed Lily’s words. Julia’s conviction of her own indispensability began to weaken. It was unnerving, but she also felt her spirits lifting. It was an opportunity, and she would take it. She took a precise, grown-up pleasure in planning the holiday to suit herself alone. She booked a flight, and a room in an elegant, expensive hotel recommended by George. She spent half an afternoon in a bookshop choosing maps and guides, and another day buying clothes that she didn’t need. She enjoyed the tidy, finicky preparations without, she realised afterwards, ever quite believing that she was really going.

Then, one afternoon in the middle of October, she found herself airborne in an Alitalia jet. London and England dropped away behind her. Lily and Marilyn had waved her off; she had told her staff that she wasn’t sure when she would be back, only that it would be well before the Christmas rush started.

Julia unfastened her seatbelt and looked down at the indeterminate meal placed in front of her. Staring at the individual plastic portions she felt an upsurge of loneliness so powerful that she was afraid that it would choke her.

She had no idea where she was going and no idea what she would do when she reached her destination. She didn’t even have any fixed return date to look forward to. It was one of the bleakest, most bewildering moments she had ever known.

In Rome airport, she took control of herself. She told herself that she was a traveller, after all. She was independent and potent and free, just as Josh had seemed to be. She summoned a taxi and rode to her luxurious hotel, unpacked her new clothes and hung them carefully in the empty cupboards. She took a bath in her big, marble-lined bathroom and ate a deliberate dinner in the hotel dining room. The food was good, and the
maître d’hôtel
and the waiters were attentive. Afterwards she went back up to her room and looked at the guidebooks. Tomorrow, she would see the miraculous sights. She undressed calmly and lay down in the big, wide bed.

She slept badly, in fitful snatches shot through with vivid, uncomfortable dreams.

Julia did her best to be a conscientious tourist.

She visited the Capitol, the Forum and the Palatine Hill. She toured the Colosseum and St Peter’s and the Vatican museums. In between she ate meals and drank cups of cappuccino that she didn’t want. She could see that Rome was fascinating, but she didn’t feel herself drawn into it. It was a duty that she fulfilled mechanically, ticking off the objectives in her books. She recognised that it was erotic, too. Men looked at her, in the streets and restaurants, but she brushed off the glances and the lingering stares like darts that threatened to pierce the slow, thick cloak of her isolation.

After four days, she realised that she couldn’t bear it any longer.

In the street one morning she saw a long-distance bus crowded with Italian families. The destination board at the front announced
NAPOLI.
At once she thought of the days she had spent there with Josh. The teeming, pungent streets had fascinated her. The memory of them now offered a welcome contrast with the cosmopolitan elegance of Rome.

I’ll go to Naples
, Julia thought.
Why not?

She went back to her hotel, packed her belongings, and checked out.

In Naples the summer’s heat still hung in the air and radiated from the crumbling walls, but the sky was veiled with a thin layer of cloud. From her visit with Josh, Julia remembered the watery brilliance of spring sunshine, and this humid greyness depressed her spirits that had risen as she left Rome.

She chose a hotel near the Piazza dei Martiri, as different as it was possible to be from the dosshouse she had stayed in with Josh. In spite of herself, she smiled at the memory of how Josh had hated the Neapolitan dirt and the inhabitants’ eagerness for tourists’ money.

In her new room, not much different from the one in Rome, Julia half unpacked and then, after considerable difficulty, put a telephone call through to Lily in London. Lily was full of news of school, and of her best friend’s latest exploits. Julia listened, smiling. The small details were comforting, the sound of Lily’s voice even more so. ‘Are you missing me?’ she asked, half hopefully.

‘A bit. But I’m okay. Alexander’s in London. He took me to
Swan Lake
, it was fab.’

‘And is Mattie there?’

‘Mattie? No. She’s working somewhere, isn’t she? Why?’

‘I just wondered.’ Hastily, Julia said, Just think, I’m in Naples.’

‘Are you having a nice time?’

‘Yes, very nice. Quite nice. Thinking of you, and our house, and London.’

‘Do you know what? Katie’s mum has bought her a new stereo. It’s so fantastic. Can I have one for my birthday? My record player’s so ancient.’

Julia laughed. Lily was all right. She was almost certain that Lily always would be all right. ‘We’ll talk about it when I get home. It’s a long time until your birthday.’

After talking to Lily, Julia went out and equipped herself with another set of maps and guides. She sat down at a café table in the centre of a square to study them. The tables were like an island, cut off by a high tide of bellowing traffic. All around her there was the noise of it, and the talk of the drinkers at the surrounding tables rose and fell with the waves, singsong Italian and the confusing dialect of Naples. Julia drank her coffee and read her guidebook. She was relieved to find that she felt more comfortable here, amidst the cheerful confusion.

In the next days she ignored the recommendations of the green Michelin. The one excursion she did make was to Pompeii. She quartered the ruins, looking up at the broken pillars and cracked lintels, stopping to gaze at the huddled shapes that had once been people, overtaken by the flow of lava. Skeletal dogs, themselves barely alive, wandered between the lava-shapes of their ancestors that had been trapped in the same way as the people. Julia looked at the messages and graffiti carved in the excavated stone, frowning in her efforts to unravel the Latin. The suddenness of these deaths under Vesuvius seemed no less moving, no less immediate than those of her own times. Her perception of time and humanity became momentarily elastic, embracing these anonymous remains together with Flowers, and Jessie, and George. The recognition of individual insignificance, certainly her own, was oddly soothing. She walked amongst the lava-shapes as if they were friends, and then made her way calmly back into the din of Naples.

The inhibiting pressure of loneliness eased, after that. She found that she could exchange small talk with the other guests in the hotel lobby, even join a pleasant trio of Americans for lunch in the dining room. She met a languages student at a café table, a dark-faced boy with a faint look of Felix, and the excellence of his English made it a pleasure for her to sit and talk to him in the warm twilight. When at last she stood up to leave he took her hand and kissed it.