The Girl From Barefoot House

by Maureen Lee

  ‘No, I’ve never seen it before.’ Charlotte opened the compact. ‘It’s not my colour, much too dark.’

  ‘Nor mine.’

  There was silence. Josie couldn’t take her eyes off the compact. She kept telling herself there must be a simple explanation for it, and wished she could think what it was.

  Charlotte said, ‘You look – what is that phrase you sometimes use? – as if you’ve lost a pound and found a sixpence. Is there something wrong, Josie?’

  She would never be friends with Charlotte the way she was with Lily, yet Charlotte was easier to confide in and had already told intimate things about her own unhappy life. Josie nodded at the compact. ‘I found it down the side of the settee, but I know it wasn’t there before I went away.’

  ‘It could be Elsie’s.’ Charlotte’s long, gaunt face went red. The cup and saucer rattled in her hand, and she hurriedly put them on the table.

  ‘What is it, Charlotte?’ Josie said urgently. ‘It’s not Elsie’s, she doesn’t use make-up. Have you remembered whose it is?’

  ‘No, no.’ The woman lowered her head and clutched her knees, as if she were trying to roll her long body into a ball. ‘I didn’t intend to mention this, Josie,’ she said in a small voice, ‘but on Sunday morning the children got me up about half six wanting their Easter eggs. There was a noise outside. When I looked, Jack was taking the car out the garage. There was a woman in the front seat.’

  Josie went over to the window and looked outside, as if half expecting to see the same scene. Her heart was drumming in her throat. ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Old,’ Charlotte whispered. ‘At least forty, very dark, with glossy black hair. She wore tons of make-up.’ She picked the compact up, looked at the contents and put it down again.

  Mattie Garr! Josie had met Mattie twice, and the description fitted perfectly. ‘Perhaps they talked all night,’ she said half-heartedly.

  ‘Perhaps.’ Charlotte nodded eagerly, as if she hoped this was the case. Her face fell slightly. ‘I heard the same noise on Monday morning. I didn’t bother to look, so couldn’t swear if it was Jack. But I remember hearing a woman laugh.’

  ‘She turned up late Saturday night,’ Jack said easily. ‘I’d just got back from Liverpool. We were discussing script changes for the new series. The hours just seemed to fly by. Before we realised where we were, it was morning. I took her home. That’s all there was to it.’

  ‘For two nights in a row?’ Josie tried not to sound too incredulous.

  His face didn’t change. ‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact. It’s easily done when there are important things to talk about.’

  She had inspected the bed in the guest room, hoping to find Mattie had slept there, but the sheets were virginally smooth. Then she’d changed the sheets in their room in case they’d made love there. If they’d made love. ‘Why did Mattie turn up when me and Laura were away? She’s never been before.’

  ‘She came because you were away,’ he said patiently. ‘It gave us a chance to talk without being disturbed.’

  ‘Oh, so me and Laura are in the way?’ Josie could hardly contain her anger. ‘If it was all so innocent, why didn’t you mention it? You said the house was quiet, that you felt lonely.’

  ‘Because it didn’t seem worth mentioning. And the house was quiet most of the time, and I did feel lonely.’

  For three nights, she slept in the spare room. On the fourth she was woken by Jack’s hand gently caressing her beneath the sheets.

  ‘I would never be unfaithful to you, sweetheart,’ he said softly. ‘I should have told you Mattie had been. Incidentally, she’s one of the most unappealing women I’ve ever met.’ His hand curved over her hip and circled her breast. He kissed her neck. ‘Why would I want to sleep with someone else when I’ve got you? Come back to bed, Josie, please.’

  Josie went, because she couldn’t sleep in the spare room for ever, otherwise their marriage would quickly be beyond repair. She wanted to believe him more than anything on earth. The magic might have gone, but she was still as madly in love with Jack Coltrane as she had ever been.

  2

  ‘I used to write that sort of thing,’ Jack said boastfully. ‘I went into television instead.’ He was standing only a few feet away, and Josie could barely hear him above the clamour of other voices and the too-loud music from Maya’s gramophone. ‘Do not forsake me, oh my darling’, Tex Ritter pleaded.

  There must have been at least sixty guests. As well as the residents of Bingham Mews, Maya had invited people from the world of fashion to her New Year’s Eve party – magazine editors, photographers, models, male and female.

  ‘You can hardly compare DiMarco of the Met with Look Back in Anger,’ a bearded man Josie had never seen before replied scathingly. ‘John Osborne’s play was a real breakthrough. There’d never been anything like it before. It started a whole new trend.’

  ‘I wasn’t comparing them, was I?’ Jack sounded truculent, a sign he’d drunk too much. Josie thought tiredly that these days Jack spent more time drunk than sober. He never got completely plastered, though tonight seemed to be an exception – he must have downed at least five large whiskies. The man had apparently irked him. He gestured angrily with his glass, and the liquid spilled on the sleeve of his maroon corduroy jacket. Jack was envious of John Osborne and Arnold Wesker and the other new young playwrights whose work had blown a blast of fresh air through the staid world of British theatre. They were the sort of plays he wrote himself, he groaned.

  ‘I always said you were before your time.’ Josie had tried to comfort him, though she could see little similarity between kitchen-sink drama and Jack’s high-minded, rather tedious work.

  ‘Did you see my play, The Disciples, on TV?’ He glared belligerently at the man.

  ‘Never heard of it.’ The man walked away. Jack, staggering slightly, went over to the bar and poured himself another whisky. Maya, in a bright red curly wig, a gold lamé top and tight matching slacks, linked her arm in his and led him to a group in the corner, where Neville Ward-Pierce’s penetrating voice drowned all those around him. He was bemoaning the fact that America seemed likely to elect the left-wing Senator Jack Kennedy as its next President.

  ‘I think your husband and mine could well come to blows,’ Josie said to Charlotte. They had taken refuge on the uncomfortable white plastic and chrome settee under the window. ‘Jack thinks the sun shines out of Senator Kennedy’s arse.’

  ‘I quite like him myself.’

  ‘So do I.’ Josie’s eyes followed the slightly Oriental figure of Maya. ‘I’d love to try on wigs, see what I looked like with different colour hair.’

  ‘I quite fancy her outfit, not gold lamé. Crêpe would look nice, black. But Maya’s a model. I’d probably look awful.’

  ‘You’d suit that sort of thing,’ Josie said truthfully. It would hide her sharp knees and protruding elbows. ‘Do I look like a tart in this?’ She was wearing a purple Mary Quant mini-dress and showing an awful lot of leg.

  ‘No, you look lovely,’ Charlotte said admiringly. ‘Neville said if I ever bought a mini-dress he’d divorce me. Do you think we should circulate? After all, it’s a party.’

  ‘Nah. You can if you like. I’d sooner stay put.’ Where she could keep an eye on her husband.

  Maya’s lounge, exactly the same shape as every other lounge in Bingham Mews, was sparsely furnished in white and red with a black carpet, already littered with crumbs. Josie looked at the clock. Only an hour before the start of a new decade.

  Charlotte left, and her place on the settee was immediately taken by the bearded man who’d been talking to Jack. ‘Hi, I’m Max Bloch, photographer. Who are you and what do you do?’

  ‘I’m Josie Coltrane, wife and mother of one.’

  ‘Boy or girl?’

  ‘Girl, Laura. She’ll be six in April.’

  ‘Do you work?’

  ‘Is housework counted? If so, I work.’

  He looked at her appraisingly. ‘
Have you ever thought of taking up modelling? You have very good bone structure. I bet you’re very photogenic.’

  Josie hooted. ‘I’m also size fourteen, far too big to be a model. Look at Maya – she’s taller than me and her hips are about six inches smaller.’

  They both turned and regarded the statuesque Maya as she swayed elegantly around the room. ‘She looks like a beanpole in a wig,’ Max said disparagingly. ‘I wasn’t suggesting you become a fashion model – there’s different sorts, you know. I’ll give you my card. That’s what I do, prepare portfolios for models and actors. If you decide to go ahead, get in touch.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re just touting for business.’ Josie smiled. ‘I bet you’ve told every woman here she’d make a good model.’

  He looked hurt. ‘I’ve done no such thing. I’m very proud of what I do. I regard it as an art form. When I’m taking photographs I feel at one with my subjects. I hope it stays that way, otherwise I shall feel as if I’ve sold my soul to the devil.’ He gestured. ‘Like that chap over there.’

  ‘Which chap?’

  ‘The guy pinning back the ear of the girl in the white dress. I can’t remember his name.’

  Josie glanced across the room to where Jack was talking animatedly to a beautiful blonde in a white mini-dress with legs up to her ears, almost certainly a model.

  ‘Writes some muck for television, but claims to be a great playwright,’ Max Bloch continued disgustedly. ‘He’s sold out. No commitment, I guess. People like him make me want to puke.’

  ‘Perhaps he has a family to support.’ Josie felt the blood rush to her head. ‘It takes a lot of courage to sell out if you’re genuinely committed to what you do. If you’re living in one room with a baby, your wife’s working to support you and you’re putting all your heart and soul into your writing but getting nowhere, then I wouldn’t blame anyone for selling out. Anyroad, DiMarco of the Met isn’t exactly muck. It’s quite highly thought of, not just in this country but all over the world.’ Numerous other countries had bought the rights.

  Max Bloch looked uncomfortable. ‘You know the guy?’

  Josie smiled icily. ‘He’s my husband. His name’s Jack Coltrane, by the way.’

  He left to fetch her a drink, and she wasn’t surprised when he didn’t come back. She turned to look out of the window, still shaken. It was snowing heavily. The light was on in their house, where Elsie was looking after Laura, who’d pleaded to stay up till twelve o’clock. They’d be watching television. She’d go over in a minute to make sure they were all right. No, she’d leave it until after midnight, till I960, then she’d wish them a happy new year and make sure Laura went to bed.

  She’d surprised herself the way she’d spoken to Max Bloch. Why have I never looked at it in that way before? She wondered if Jack ever regretted that they had met. He had given up his apartment, his friends, then the plays that meant so much, for her, and Laura. She had taken for granted the rich, comfortable life that had cost him so much to provide.

  She made up her mind that tomorrow they would have a long talk. She would persuade him to start writing plays again, even if only part time. It might be possible for them to go back to New York, where there was much greater scope for television writers. They had dozens of channels over there.

  The party was getting a bit wild, the laughter too piercing, the voices too loud. Nearly everyone had drunk too much. Charlotte returned and reported a man was throwing up outside. She’d been to the bathroom and had found a couple engaged in what she called ‘hanky-panky’ in the bath, and she’d had to go home to use the lavatory. ‘And there are some very peculiar noises coming from the bedrooms. I hope it isn’t going to turn into one of those sorts of parties.’

  ‘We’ll go home if it does.’ At a recent party in Bingham Mews the host suggested the men throw their car keys in a bowl.

  ‘What for?’ Neville Ward-Pierce demanded suspiciously, concerned for his silver-grey Daimler.

  ‘We pass the bowl around,’ the host explained with a wink. ‘Whichever keys the bloke picks out gets the wife of the owner.’

  ‘No way, old chap,’ Neville said, stiffly indignant. ‘Come, Charlotte,’ he snapped. ‘We’re leaving.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of indulging in such gross behaviour,’ a woman gasped in outrage.

  Jack Coltrane merely laughed. ‘Are you ready, sweetheart? I don’t think this is quite us.’

  Five couples had stayed, and it had given Josie and Charlotte something to talk about for weeks.

  The girl in the white dress looked bored. She kept glancing around, as if hoping someone would rescue her from this drunken man in the maroon jacket. Josie felt sad as she watched the girl wriggle uncomfortably against the wall. She didn’t realise it was the great Jack Coltrane she was talking to, one of the most popular men in New York. There, some people would have given their right arm to be in her position.

  Maya swayed over to the gramophone and turned it off, then turned the television on. ‘It’ll be midnight in a minute,’ she announced. A silent Big Ben appeared on screen, and within a few seconds the great clock began to chime.

  Neville Ward-Pierce came and took Charlotte’s hand. Other couples hastily began to seek each other out ready for the first chime of the New Year, a sound that always seemed so significant and full of hope.

  Josie and Jack had always greeted the New Year in each other’s arms. Perhaps he hadn’t realised the time. Josie felt a knot in her stomach as she tried to push her way through the packed room towards her husband.

  ‘Jack,’ she called, but he was too engrossed in the blonde to hear, though the room was strangely silent except for the chimes of Big Ben, which struck midnight before she reached him. There was a deafening cheer, and roars of, ‘Happy New Year.’ ‘The sixties, here we come!’ a man yelled.

  ‘Happy New Year,’ Josie whispered when the same man grabbed and kissed her. At least someone wanted to, if not her husband. He was kissing the blonde, and there was something desperate and pathetic about it, something demeaning, as if he were trying to find his lost youth or his lost dreams in the reluctant embrace of a stranger. The girl’s eyes were open. Help! they pleaded.

  Josie ran downstairs and into the snow that was falling in heavy, wet clumps, just as the party began to sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’. She stopped, the key in the door, and looked at the bright upstairs window of Maya’s house. Had Jack noticed she’d gone? A sensation of aloneness which she’d had before, but had thought she’d never have again, enveloped her like a cloak. She shivered. Her feet in the thin strappy sandals were wet, and she’d forgotten her stole.

  Elsie and Laura had fallen asleep in front of the television, which showed the crowds in Trafalgar Square rowdily welcoming I960. She managed to carry Laura up to bed, glad she’d changed her earlier into her nightclothes.

  ‘Good night, my darling girl.’ She placed a visibly ageing Blue Bunny on the pillow and stroked her daughter’s smooth forehead. The long, dark lashes quivered in response, and Laura uttered a long, breathy sigh of contentment, before turning over. Josie tucked the eiderdown around her shoulders and switched on the fairy light.

  ‘What’s going to happen to us – to you and me?’ She sank into the white wicker chair in which she sat when she read Laura a story.

  It couldn’t go on, not like this, not with Jack drinking so much and them growing further and further apart. She remembered that, earlier, she’d vowed to talk to him, urge him to spend more time writing plays, suggest they return to New York, say that she hadn’t realised the sacrifices he’d made. After tonight it was even more important that she say these things.

  She got to her feet with a sigh. ‘Good night, luv,’ she whispered, closing the door.

  In the lounge, Elsie Forrest was just waking up. She jumped when Josie entered the room. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

  ‘Happy New Year.’ Josie kissed the rosy, withered cheek of their babysitter.

  ‘The same to you, dear.’ She glanced
at the television. The revellers in Trafalgar Square had been abandoned for a club in Scotland, where a man in a kilt was singing, ‘On the Bonnie Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond’. ‘I’ve missed everything, haven’t I? Oh, well, never mind. Did you have a nice time at the party?’ she asked cheerily. ‘Where’s Jack?’

  ‘Still there. I’ll go back meself in a minute. You go to bed, Elsie.’ Elsie was staying the night in the spare room.

  ‘I wouldn’t say no. I’ll make myself a cup of milk to take up. Would you like something?’

  ‘A cup of tea would be lovely. Ta, luv.’

  As soon as Elsie left, Josie dialled Lily’s number, but there was no reply. She and Neil were probably at the Kavanaghs’, and she preferred not to ring there. It would look as if she had no one to talk to on New Year’s Eve. Lily was thrilled to bits because she was three months pregnant. Even morning sickness gave her an odd sort of pleasure. ‘Twenty-seven is the perfect age to have a baby. We’re going to try for Samantha three months after Troy’s born.’ Everything was so certain with Lily nowadays.

  Elsie came in with the tea. ‘Here you are, dear. I’m off to bed. I might be gone in the morning by the time you’re up, so Happy New Year again.’

  “Night, Elsie.’

  Josie wandered over to the window. The sounds from the party were subdued. The white curtains had been drawn and smudged bodies moved slowly behind the thin, gauzy material. They must be dancing. Maya’s front door opened and a couple came out. The woman put her coat over her head and they ran through the snow to number eleven. Strange, she thought. The Maddisons are usually the last to leave a party.

  After a while she supposed she’d better go back, if only to get Jack home before he passed out. She fetched a coat and left it hanging loosely over her shoulders when she went back into the snow. She rang Maya’s bell, hoping someone would hear above the strains of ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ and let her in. The door was opened almost immediately by Neville Ward-Pierce, who was ushering out a clearly embarrassed Charlotte.