by Rosie Thomas
Mattie was looking away, into the candlelight. She said nothing, and it was Julia who asked, ‘What was it like?’
Jessie laughed, her old rich chuckle. ‘It only lasted about two minutes. Tommy Last wasn’t much more than a boy, even though he seemed a man to me. But I knew then that there would be nothing else like it. Nothing like that day, even though the best times came afterwards.’
They were quiet for a moment. Jessie was staring ahead of her, and Julia and Mattie knew that she was seeing the grass shelter and the blue sky, and Tommy Last’s face, darkened by the sun behind his head, bending over her.
‘What happened to him?’ Mattie asked.
Jessie shook her head. ‘What happened to any of them? Like that bunch of marigolds. I can see them now, orange petals in the white paper. But they’re gone, aren’t they?’ Her eyelids drooped and then closed. ‘I had so many good times. So many.’ They thought she had gone to sleep, but after a moment her eyes flicked open again and she pointed at Julia. ‘Make sure you enjoy your own times.’
‘I will,’ Julia said, but Jessie frowned.
‘All your talk about freedom. Then you go and make your own bars for yourself. Shutting yourself in for that boy. He’s almost the first one you’ve seen, so don’t mope for him. Enjoy him and then forget him, or just forget him. Like I did.’ She smiled then, lacing her fingers over her stomach.
Mattie looked sideways at Julia. Her face was hollowed with shadows, and the bones sharp with hunger. Jessie’s right, Mattie thought. Bloody Josh.
But Julia didn’t move. ‘I can’t help it,’ she said sadly.
Mattie reached out for her hand and held it. They sat silently beside Jessie’s chair, listening to her breathing thicken into snores and with the glassed-in faces of her photographs staring down at them. Much later, when the candles had burned out, they lifted her up between them and settled her in her bed.
In Fairmile Road Vernon had locked the doors and closed the windows. He stood in the doorway waiting, but Betty still sat in her armchair.
‘I’ll go on up then,’ Vernon said, fingering the bookmark in his library book.
She listened to his footsteps going up the stairs, and heard the floorboards creak as he passed overhead. Betty was staring at the Christmas tree. It was an artificial one that she brought out every year and decorated with fairy lights in the shape of Chinese lanterns. It stood on the table in front of the window, and Betty knew that if she half-closed her eyes the lights would blur prettily and the tree would look almost real. She remembered Julia kneeling beside it to tear the paper off her doll’s house. They had given it to her the year the War ended, so Julia would have been six then.
It was so quiet.
The kitchen was clean and tidy after their meal, Betty had seen to that. Behind the wire-mesh door of the meat-safe the remains of the turkey sat waiting for her. It was too big, of course. They had made hardly any impression on the splintery white meat. There would be cold for tomorrow, and a pie for the day after. Then rissoles, and soup from the bones.
Meals, Betty thought. To be cooked, and eaten with Vernon’s newspaper folded beside his plate, and cleared up afterwards. She saw herself, suddenly, as a caged rodent pattering a circuit between the cupboards, the table, the sink, and back to the cupboards again. The thought made her flush with quick, uncomfortable anger. She stood up and went to the window behind the Christmas tree, pulling the curtain aside to look out. The rooftops of the other houses, identical to her own, just showed against the sky. Some of the windows stood out as patches of orangey light, but most of them were already dark. Behind the dark windows people were asleep. The last steps of her own circuit for the day remained to be taken. She would pull the plugs from the sockets, as Vernon liked her to do, and turn off the lights. Wash her face in the clean bathroom, and lie down beside her husband in their bed. He wouldn’t reach out to touch her, nor would she reach her hand out and let it rest against his solid, obdurate warmth.
Betty’s face was still burning with her anger.
If she were to walk out of the house, now, in the middle of this quiet darkness, she wouldn’t have to go on making her worthless circular loops through the days. She leaned forward and let her forehead rest against the glass. It was wet with condensation and the coldness soothed her, and then sobered her. Betty had the impression of roads radiating away from her, crossing and recrossing, spreading into a vast unmapped and unknowable territory.
There was nowhere for her to go, of course. She knew that at once. She was Betty Smith, almost fifty, a wife and mother, and that was all. Not even those things any more, in truth.
She put her hand up to her throat, easing the collar of her new blouse. It was pretty, but Julia had bought a very small size, as if her mother had already shrunk in her recollection.
But Julia had got away, Betty thought. She straightened up and let the curtain fall back into place. For the first time since Julia had gone, the weight of Betty’s bitterness and loss shifted a little. Julia had gone because she was young and careless, and because she needed to. Suddenly, oddly, standing there beside the artificial tree that Julia had always complained about, Betty felt the comfort of pride, and relief. Julia’s life would be different, at least. Betty saw the bizarre flat over the square, the fat woman and her half-caste son and even Mattie Banner, in a new perspective.
The unexpectedness of it made her smile.
Betty sniffed sharply and turned away from the Christmas tree. She went carefully around the room unplugging the tree lights and the wireless, and then she turned off the main light and went up the stairs to bed.
Mattie and Julia, for their different reasons, devoted themselves to having a good time in the rest of Mattie’s holiday. They went out every night, to the Rocket or to a party or to jazz clubs, sometimes with Felix but more often just the two of them. In the second week Julia faked a stomach complaint and didn’t go to work at all. They sat in Blue Heaven watching the people go by, or wandered through the Oxford Street shops looking at clothes and wishing they were rich. At Jessie’s suggestion they made an early morning excursion to Brick Lane market. They sifted through the heaps of second-hand clothes and came triumphantly back with ratty fox-furs and stained silk blouses and boxy tweed jackets. They dressed up, painted their faces, and pretended they were Marlene Dietrich, and made Felix take them out. They laughed a lot and drank as much as they could afford to and people turned round in the street to stare after them.
For a few days they were just as they had been before Josh and John Douglas came between them. With Mattie, Julia thought, with Mattie’s laughter and mimicry and boldness to arm her, she could even bear to be without Josh.
But then the time came for the Headline company to reassemble. Julia had treacherously been praying that he would not, but Francis Willoughby had agreed to let Mattie continue with the company. The tour was to restart in Chester, and there was a second enactment of the Euston departure. This time Josh wasn’t there. Julia waved Mattie off on her way to become an actress and went back to her typing.
Julia would have felt less sharply jealous if she could have witnessed Mattie’s return to the theatre. John Douglas was liverish after his holiday and he berated Mattie, along with everyone else, for bloody unprofessionalism.
It was two days before she dared to remind him of his promise, and his response was withering.
But then, slowly, routine re-established itself and the company temper improved. One afternoon, sitting in the chilly stalls, Mattie felt the weight of his arm drop round her shoulder. He pushed the weight of her hair back from her neck and mumbled, ‘I’m sorry to bawl at you, love. This company’s a damned shambles, but it’s not your fault.’
Mattie went to bed with him, because he seemed to expect it of her and because she didn’t know what else to do. He did it very thoroughly but without the tenderness that had touched her at the beginning. It occurred to her that it was just something else that she did for him now, like bringing him w
hisky when he did the money on Friday afternoons.
But he gave her a part.
It was ten lines as a daffy debutante in Welcome Home. The actress who had been doubling it made a fuss, but to Mattie’s relief John Douglas stood firm.
‘Give her a chance, or she’ll go on nagging the balls off everyone.’
She learned the lines, and worked for hours on what she imagined was a cut-glass accent.
In Blackpool, a week later, she went on for the first time.
When she came off she was shaking and the palms of her hands were hot and wet.
Fergus and Alan kissed her and congratulated her, but it was John’s approval she wanted. By a great effort of will she stopped herself from searching him out there and then, but when she saw him leaning against the bar in the pub afterwards, she couldn’t help herself. She pushed through the crowd to him and blurted out, ‘John? Did you see me? Was I all right?’
His grey eyes appraised her. ‘You were just that. All right.’
Mattie flushed. What more had she expected? She nodded, and went back to her place. But she had done it. She had made her professional debut, and she could live without praise if she had to.
Eight
The February rain fell like a thin, cold veil. Julia stepped outside reluctantly with a group of other homeward-bound typists who giggled and turned up their collars and skittered away towards the bus-stop. The gutters were grey, pock-marked lakes and the traffic ploughed through them to send plumes of water over the crowded pavement. The rain immediately pasted Julia’s fringe flat to her forehead and poked intrusively into her face. She had no umbrella and she turned sharply away from the streaming, dun-coloured mess of Oxford Street and began the walk home.
The little streets along her route were already taking on the closed-up, sullen air of winter nights. As she passed the corner greengrocer’s where she sometimes bought vegetables the green wooden shutters rolled down with a clatter. The shopkeeper ducked out to lock them and the rain made dark spots on the shoulder of his overalls. He rushed back into the shop without glancing at Julia. Her shoes were filling with water and she walked faster, trying to dodge the biggest puddles.
The shop on the next corner was still open, and in the steamy neon brightness inside she bought milk and bread and cheese, and felt her spirits lifting. She thought of reaching home and putting on dry clothes, making a pot of tea and taking a cup in to Jessie. Perhaps Felix would be home, and she would lean against the kitchen cupboard to watch him prepare a meal. Julia came out with her bag of shopping and saw that the off-licence opposite was just opening for the evening. It seemed to contradict the soaking, shrinking mood of the night so positively that she marched across and bought a bottle of red wine for Felix. She chose at random from the shelves and paid over her shillings cheerfully. She hurried the length of the last streets and into the square, humming to defy the cold and the rain.
She thought of Josh as she passed under the dripping trees, but all her longings were fixed on being warm and dry and the yearning slipped away again.
On the dingy stairs she met the last office-worker on the way out. She was an anxious-looking middle-aged woman, always the last to go. Julia brushed past her, nodding, and heard her locking doors on her way down.
The black door of the flat loomed on the lauding above her. With a grateful rush she took the last stairs two at a time and reached it, panting, raindrops rolling from her hair and coat and spattering unseen on the dusty floor.
Julia unlocked the door and pushed it open.
It was dark and quiet inside. Jessie didn’t usually sleep in the early evening. Julia wasn’t afraid of disturbing her.
She called out, ‘I’m home. Hello, I’m home.’
Jessie’s room was in darkness, and the street light from the square seeped into a dull, orange glow on the cracked ceiling. As she turned in the doorway Julia heard water running. Jessie was in the bathroom. A line of light showed under the door. Julia went into the kitchen and unpacked her shopping, then crossed to her own room and stripped off her wet clothes. She turned on the electric fire and warmed her feet, then leaned forward to rub her hair dry. It steamed as she combed her fingers through it, and the brittle heat from the red bar made her cheeks smart. When she was warm all through Julia pulled on slacks and a jumper, and stuck her feet into her slippers.
The flat was still quiet except for the sound of running water.
She had almost reached the kitchen when it struck her that it had been running for a long time.
If Jessie was taking a bath, it would be full by now. Julia turned back and put her hand out to the bathroom door. She felt the grainy wood of the panels under her fingertips. The bathwater was running, but it had a peculiar double resonance. It took Julia a second to realise that it was splashing, too. Spilling over the side of something.
‘Jessie?’
The water noise seemed to have grown louder. It drowned her voice.
‘Jessie, are you all right?’
Julia thumped on the door. There was no answer, except the water.
‘Jessie.’
Julia went on shouting, but her shoulder was already against the door. Inside her head she could see the other side of it. The door was white-painted, Felix must have done that. There was a little chrome-plated bolt screwed to it. Only four tiny screws holding it in place. Nothing substantial. The door creaked under her weight, protesting, but the lock didn’t give. Why had Jessie locked it, alone in the flat? Julia rattled the knob, turning it to and fro. Then she looked down. She saw the dark finger run out beneath the door, then spread into a fist-shape. The water was reaching out to her. The sight of it gave her terrified strength. She leaned away from the door and then flung all her weight against it. There was a shudder as the screws were torn out of the wooden frame and the door collapsed inwards. Julia fell into the bathroom where the water was running from the taps, spilling over the side of the bath and washing over the floor.
Jessie was in the bath. Julia saw mountainous, veined flesh and floating sparse grey hair. Her face was grey and purple, and it was under the moving skin of water. The noise of the water was deafening, like a terrible waterfall, thundering in the wet white space.
Julia had stumbled backwards, a single step. Her eyes had clenched themselves shut and her knuckles were crammed against her teeth, stifling a scream. It was no more than a second before she opened her eyes again and Jessie was still lying there, under the water, her hair moving tranquilly around her head like seaweed fronds.
Julia began to move at last through the waves of shock. She stooped to the taps and turned them off. Water still slopped over the side of the bath, soaking her legs. She plunged her arms into the bath, locking her hands behind Jessie’s shoulders, straining to lift her up. Julia grunted and her feet slid on the slippery floor. She could hear herself whispering, ‘Come on, Jessie. Sit up, Jessie. Sit up, please, won’t you?’
The huge weight shifted a little with her efforts and the bath plug on its chain was wrenched out of the plughole. The water gurgled and drained quickly away, and Jessie was left supported in Julia’s arms. Julia heaved at her, imagining that she would lift her out of the bath and lay her on the floor so that she could tend to her. But Jessie’s wet skin only sucked against hers, and the weight of her didn’t move again.
Gasping and sobbing with fear and panic and exertion, Julia let her fall backwards again against the slope of the bath. Jessie’s face turned upwards with tendrils of hair stuck to her cheeks. Her mouth hung open a little, like a yawn.
Without looking into the eyes Julia understood that she was dead.
She knelt down helplessly in the wet and groped for Jessie’s hand. Her skin already felt cold, and Julia’s tears that ran down her face and on to Jessie’s seemed hot enough to burn.
‘Oh, Jessie. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
She knelt there, holding the cold hand and crying.
After what seemed like a long time, Julia replaced Jess
ie’s hand by her side and stood up stiffly.
‘I’ll have to go for some help,’ she whispered.
She turned then, and ran. The movement thawed her and made her heart thump in her chest and she cursed her own slowness, even though she was dully certain that Jessie was dead and nothing or no one could help her however fast she ran.
The floors of offices were silent, and their telephones were securely locked behind unyielding doors. Julia ran out into the rain again, her sodden clothes flapping as she ran. There were people in the square but she ran past them unseeing. She reached the scarlet rectangle of the telephone kiosk on the corner, and listened to the quiet burr of the dialling tone.
When she had given the details and she knew that the ambulance was coming, she let her head fall sideways and rest against the streaming glass. There was a pain in her chest and her breath was ragged and her legs felt as if they would dissolve beneath her.
So much running and shouting and struggling, and yet Jessie was dead. As the first dim understanding of finality touched her, Julia thought of Felix. She didn’t want him to come in and find his mother lying like that in the bath, in all her huge and painful vulnerability. Julia was running again, back across the square and up the dark, gaping flights of empty stairs. There was no one there, still, except Jessie.