by Rosie Thomas
‘At the top of page seventeen, then. Mr Curtis will read the part of Dennis for you. When you’re ready, Miss Banner.’
Mattie read.
At first her hands shook so much that the typed speeches jumped in front of her eyes and she faltered over the words. But then, as the lines worked inside her, Mary became more important than Mattie.
Jimmy Proffitt’s Mary was a nineteen-year-old girl. Her husband was a boy even younger than herself, and they had a baby of five months. They lived in one room, and Mattie knew how it would be. The wallpaper would hang down in soaking strips and there would be foul blue-grey patches spreading behind it. Mattie also knew how life would be for Mary and Dennis. They would claw at each other while the baby cried, the way Jimmy Proffitt had made them do. There would be desperation, and the compensation of tenderness and savage laughter that he had also given them. The opening of the play was viciously comic, and then the seams of it split open. One night, after a quarrel with Mary, Dennis took their week’s money and spent it on whisky. Then, outside a bar, he met a man he owed money to. There was a fight, and Dennis killed him.
The stage was split for the rest of the play. On one side Dennis was marched towards life imprisonment. On the other, Mary slowly lost her insignificant battle. In the last scene she gave her baby away to a childless woman. The woman paid her fifty pounds. Mary went home and burned the money, and then she blew out the flame and knelt down in front of the square mouth of the oven.
When Mattie finished her reading there was a brief silence, no more than a second or two. The director looked up from his lists. ‘Thank you. Have you prepared another piece for us? Anything you like.’
‘Umm. One of Rosalind’s speeches. From As You Like It.’ Mattie wasn’t sure why she had chosen it, except in the vague hope that if she did Shakespeare they might mistake her for a proper actress. She was hardly half a dozen lines into the speech before the man held up his hand.
‘Right, right. Not thoroughly at home with the classics, eh?’
Mattie waited, her arms limp at her sides. They were mumbling with their heads together now. Then the grey-haired woman said, ‘Thank you, Miss – ah – Banner. We’ll let you know.’
She made her way, somehow, across the apparent miles of dusty floor to the door. She was only dimly aware, through her misery, of Jimmy Proffitt moving behind her, more mumbled talk. The door was already open when the director called, ‘Could you wait outside, please?’
She wanted to let her head fall forward, to rest her forehead against the cool, hard door.
‘What?’
‘Could you take a seat outside. We’ll try not to keep you waiting for too long.’
She stumbled out into the corridor. There was a row of hard chairs, reminiscent of the Showbox. Mattie sat down at the end of the row. Three other girls were waiting for their turns, and one of them was called in after Mattie. The other two went on talking about RADA. They had elocuted voices like Sheila Firth’s. Mattie sat with her head turned away from them, staring at the wall, resolutely not thinking.
Certainly not hoping.
But she was still here, wasn’t she?
The first girl came out and went straight down the stairs without speaking. The others followed her in their turn. It was cold in the unheated corridor and Mattie was shivering. At last the girl assistant put her head round the door. ‘Mr Brand would like you to read again, Miss Banner.’
Once again Mattie faced the row of chairs. She felt so stiff with cold and fear that she was sure her jaw would crack as soon as she opened it.
‘The last scene this time, if you wouldn’t mind, Miss Banner.’
Jimmy Proffitt was watching her, and so were Brand and the grey-haired woman, and the girl assistant had stopped winding her finger through her back-combing. Curtis’s voice was uninflected as he read Dennis’s corresponding lines.
Mattie was aware of everything, and nothing.
Afterwards, all they said was, ‘We’ll be in touch with you.’
At the door the assistant asked her, ‘Who is your agent, Miss Banner? We don’t seem to have a note of it here …’
‘Mr Francis Willoughby,’ Mattie improvised quickly. Francis would do it for her, of course. For a percentage, if there ever were to be anything for him to take his percentage of.
She felt so shaky that she was almost sick on the bus on the way home.
Four days later they called her back for a second audition. Monty was angry at her request for another afternoon off and even threatened her with the sack, but one of the other girls offered to stand in for her.
‘Just this once, Monty,’ Mattie soothed him. ‘I won’t ask again.’
She wouldn’t need to. It was this part or nothing at all. This time there were more faces in the line opposite her. Mattie had no idea whether she read well or badly. They dismissed her just as non-committally, but this time there was only one other girl waiting on the hard chairs. Mattie recognised her. She had had a success in a play at the Lyric.
When Mattie reached home Julia saw her white face and poured two inches of gin into a tumbler for her. ‘They want their money’s worth, don’t they?’ Julia said fiercely. ‘How much longer are they going to take?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mattie said. ‘I just don’t know.’
It was three more days before the telephone rang.
Julia heard Mattie answer it. ‘Hello, Francis. Yes. Yes.’ There was a long silence, and then Mattie’s voice again. ‘What did you say?’
Julia put her hands over her ears.
But seemingly five seconds later Mattie whirled into the room and tore them away. ‘I got the part.’
‘You got the part?’
Their combined shriek rattled Felix’s ornaments on the tables. They flung their arms around each other and hopped and danced until they were gasping for breath.
When they staggered to a standstill Mattie rubbed the tears from her cheeks and panted, ‘I wasn’t even hoping. But I know I can play this part better than any of those RADA girls. I can do it better than anybody. Oh God, I’m frightened.’
Julia shook her and kissed her and held her by the wrists. ‘You won’t be any good if you aren’t frightened. And you will be good. I can feel it. Mattie Banner, the Actress.’
They laughed, looking at each other, slightly awestruck. ‘When do you start?’
‘We go into rehearsal in two weeks’ time.’
‘Monty will miss you.’
‘I don’t think I’ll miss Monty.’
Julia was rummaging in her handbag. ‘Hey, how much money have you got? I’ve got some. Let’s go out and celebrate. A real, proper celebration.’
Mattie’s face shone like a beacon. ‘Just the two of us?’
‘The two of us. No Flowers, or Francis, or anybody else. Just you and me.’
‘You’re on,’ Mattie said.
And so they went out on the town, already half drunk on the exhilaration of Mattie’s success, on their precarious independence and on the invincibility of their friendship.
Mattie telephoned Monty from the first Soho pub. Julia could hear his voice crackling indignantly out of the earpiece as Mattie held it away from her face. She raised her gin and tonic aloft in a silent toast to him.
‘I’m an actress, Monty.’
Julia didn’t hear his response, but it made Mattie snort with ribald laughter. There were more drinks at another pub after that, and then they decided that they must eat dinner at Leoni’s. The head waiter looked suspiciously at them, but Mattie gave him her best smile and some faint recognition must have stirred in him because he found them a table in a discreet corner. Mattie ordered champagne, and they worked their way methodically through the menu. Often, still, they were as appreciatively hungry as children. Julia sat with her back to the room. It wasn’t the time to think of Josh. Tonight was Mattie’s night … It was Mattie’s success … She lifted her champagne glass, spilling a little of the silver froth on to the tablecloth.
They drank, and then Mattie squared herself in her chair. ‘’Nother toast. To Felix, whatever the hell he’s doing, and to Jessie.’
Julia echoed it. Jessie and Felix. Jessie’d be proud of you. And Felix will.’
‘Tha’s good. Got nobody else to be, except you.’ Ted Banner wasn’t fit enough any longer to know what was happening to any of his family, or even to himself. Rozzie and Marilyn and the others were still living on the estate. A long way away. Mattie’s head jerked up. ‘Hey. This’s a celebration. Less have some more toasts. To Francis Willoughby.’
‘May his percentages multiply.’
‘And to John Douglas.’
‘And to Monty, bless his dirty heart.’
‘We’re going to need some more champa—agne.’
They went on through the list of their friends and then acquaintances, drinking lavish toasts to everyone they could think of.
Except for Josh.
Julia kept her back turned to the spectre of him watching her from across the room. But she could still see him, as clearly as she could see Mattie, the waiters covertly peeping at them, the head waiter’s frown. For all her gaiety Julia’s eyes felt hot, and she knew how dangerously close she was to tears. Selfish tears, mustn’t let anyone see. It’s Mattie’s night … can’t spoil it with crying … smile, and drink some more.
Mattie yanked the bottle out of the ice bucket for the last time and peered into the beaded glass. ‘There’s one las’ toast. The most important one of all. Just enough bubbles left. Here, give me your glass.’
They faced each other, mistily now.
‘To you and me,’ Mattie proposed. ‘The two of us, whatever comes.’
‘Whatever,’ Julia answered. She tried to imagine it, but the future was as opaque as it had been from the height of Montebellate, presided over by the old woman and her goat. They drank the last of the champagne. It tasted a little flat, now.
‘I’ll tell you what.’ Mattie leaned forward and cupped her hand over Julia’s, as though reading her thoughts. ‘I’ll be Vivien Leigh and Peggy Ashcroft and Grace Kelly all rolled into one, the biggest star in the firmament, but we’ve heard enough ’bout that for one night. You’ll be a top model – I know – you’ll invent something wonderful,’
‘The zip fastener? Nylon? Sliced bread?’
‘Yeah, something like that. You’ve just got to decide what. You’ll make a million pounds out of it, and then …’
‘Oh, and then I’ll marry a Duke, and I’ll have twelve beautiful children, six of each, and a garden where the cherry trees flower all the year round, and I’ll live happily ever after.’
Their hands gripped one another across the table.
‘Julia, it doesn’t matter what you do,’ Mattie whispered. ‘Because you’re wonderful. You’re the best friend, the best person, and I love you.’
Julia was crying now. She sniffed savagely, feeling the waiters’ eyes on her. ‘I love you too. I know it doesn’t matter. If I wanted to do something worthwhile, the way you do, I’d be doing it, wouldn’t I?’ I would be with Josh, except I can’t be. ‘Mattie, listen. I’m so pleased about your play. I’m more pleased than I could be about anything else in the world. It’s all that matters tonight. Why’m I bloody well crying? Come on.’ She sniffed again, more successfully. ‘Let’s get out of here before they throw us out. Let’s go somewhere different, not the Rocket. Let’s go and dance.’ Mattie held up one finger to the nearest waiter. ‘The bill, please, young man.’
With champagne swiftness their mood changed again and they were giggling as they tried to add the figures up, making a different total each time. They abandoned the struggle and paid what seemed an enormous sum, counting out a scruffy pile of notes and silver. The waiter bore swiftly down and carried it away before they could change their minds. They were escorted to the door with affable bows and almost audible sighs of relief.
‘What a charming place,’ Mattie fluted. ‘We must certainly come again very soon.’
Outside the restaurant the cold night air hit them.
‘Whoops.’ Mattie’s feet wavered and they propped each other up, breathless with laughter. Mattie caught her breath at last and opened her bag with a flourish. There was a little brown bottle tucked inside it, and she turned into an angle of some buildings and shook out the pills. Mattie had laid in her own supply of blues to get her through the auditions, and the last days of Miss Matilda.
‘Go on,’ she ordered Julia. ‘Otherwise you’ll fall asleep, won’t you?’
A second later they had turned back to the street and flagged down a passing taxi.
After that there was a club, an unfamiliar one, and a great deal of music and dozens of new faces. For a little while Julia thought she was having the time of her life. Everyone was warm and attractive, and she wanted to dance for ever. She drank the several drinks that her new circle of best friends bought for her, and danced some more, and then through a gap in the crowd, very hazily, she caught a glimpse of Mattie. Her eyes were closed, her arms were locked around her partner’s neck, and she had gone completely limp. Julia blinked and opened her eyes again, but the view was just the same.
She broke away from her own partner and walked carefully across to the ladies’ room. She ran a basin full of cold water and plunged her face into it, then came up gasping.
A little bit better, but not much.
She rubbed her face on the roller towel and went back to the dance-floor. The man had steered Mattie to a corner and propped her against the wall.
‘Will you help me to get her outside, please?’ Julia said crisply.
The man was only too pleased to delegate responsibility. The crowds parted briefly as they half carried her out and deposited her on the pavement.
‘Wha’ now?’ Mattie murmured.
‘Bed,’ Julia said. Mercifully another taxi materialised and they hoisted her inside it. Mattie snuffled contentedly and fell asleep in her corner.
When they reached the square the disgruntled cab driver had to help Julia to pull her out. They left her leaning against the railings while Julia paid the fare with the very last of their money; no tip.
‘And a very good night to you too,’ the driver muttered as he chugged off.
‘Mattie,’ Julia said sternly. ‘Walk.’
Inside the dark hallway she saw that there was a letter in the wire basket where the office tenants left their post. She stuffed it unthinkingly into her pocket. ‘Stairs, Mattie. Unless you can climb them you’ll have to sleep here in the hall. Now, let’s get going.’.
It took a long time and Julia was sweating by the first landing, but at last they reached the top. She coaxed Mattie into their bedroom and rolled her into her bed. ‘Mmm—mm.’ Mattie sighed blissfully. Julia took off her high heels and dragged the covers over her. Julia was grinning triumphantly. ‘We made it. Just for a minute, I thought we weren’t going to.’
Mattie was already sound asleep.
Julia went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Tea would be her reward. Her mouth was as dry as sand and the bright light hurt her eyes. While the gas whispered under the kettle she took the crumpled letter out of her pocket.
It was from Felix.
He had written on thin blue paper, crackly and foreign. It made her think of Italy, warmth and the scent of herbs, and the Pensione Flora. Julia stared deliberately hard at Felix’s neat black handwriting. I’m coming home, he had written. Back to London.
She lifted her head then. ‘Mattie?’ she said softly. ‘Guess what? Felix is coming home.’
The kettle’s sibilant whistle sharpened to a blast that pierced the silence. Julia lifted it up, smiling, and made herself some tea.
Eleven
‘It is Julia, isn’t it?’
Julia looked up from her desk. The plump young woman had come to see George, and Julia
knew from his appointments diary that she was Mrs Horton. Mrs Horton was wearing a covetably smart Chanel-style suit in raspberry-pink wool, but as Julia looked at her a different outfit popped into her head. The recollection featured too-tight ski-pants and a pair of fluffy angora ear-muffs. But on closer inspection the pink cheeks and slightly protuberant china-blue eyes were exactly the same. ‘Sophia.’
Sophia crowed with innocent delight. ‘You do remember. Dear old Wengen. I haven’t skied for the last two seasons, can you believe? Such bad planning to be in pod two winters running. You never came back the next year, did you? Nor lovely Josh Flood either. We were all so in love with him. But as soon as you appeared we knew none of us stood a chance, you were so pretty. I hated you for at least a week. What happened to him? You’re not Mrs Flood, are you? Everyone seems to be married these days.’
‘No,’ Julia managed. ‘He went back home. He’s making lots and lots of money out of turning Colorado into a ski-resort.’
‘God, how heavenly. Lucky Josh. What are you doing? You look wonderful, I must say.’
Julia smoothed the lapels of her black barathea jacket. She earned hardly more than a pittance at Tressider’s, and most of it was spent on clothes. The longing for elegant things that Felix had stirred in her was undiminished, although she was hardly any better able to satisfy it. But she had learned to buy one good item rather than half a dozen shoddy ones. Mattie stuck to the old philosophy of cheap and colourful.
‘I’m working here for George,’ Julia murmured. ‘Just for the time being.’ She was wondering with faint irritation why she should have to hint at being on the brink of something much more fascinating just for Sophia’s sake, when the inner door opened and George himself appeared. Sophia whirled round to him.
‘Hello, Mr Tressider. Isn’t it amazing? Julia and I are old friends.’
George raised one eyebrow by a sceptical fraction of an inch, but the implication was lost on Sophia. Julia smothered a grin. ‘Julia, I’ve got to look at some drawings with Mr Tressider, but it won’t take long. Toby’s bought us a sweet little house, but he is rather leaving me to see to everything. Say you’ll have lunch afterwards, and we can have a good old gossip.’