by Rosie Thomas
‘The Big City welcomes us.’ But she was looking at Julia with faint anxiety. Julia smiled determinedly back.
‘Not only does it welcome us,’ she announced, ‘it belongs to us.’
To make their claim on it, they rode to Oxford Circus on the underground. When they emerged, Oxford Street stretched invitingly on either side of them.
In the beginning, it had been a huge adventure, and they had felt delighted with themselves. They started by looking for work, and they both found jobs at once. Mattie camouflaged her bruises with Pan-Stik make-up and was taken on as a junior assistant in a shoe shop. Julia had learned to type as part of her commercial course at school, and she presented herself for an interview as a typist in the accounts department of a big store. The supervisor set her a spelling and comprehension test that seemed ridiculously simple.
‘That’s very good,’ the woman told her, looking surprised. ‘I’m sure you would be useful here. When would you like to start?’
‘Tomorrow,’ Julia said promptly.
The words accounts department made her think of her father. She had often looked at him and wondered how he could go off every day, year after year, to the same dull, meaningless job. It’s only for a little while, for me, she told herself. Everything is going to happen, soon. After the interview Julia walked out into the street, and she saw the sunshine reflecting off the shop windows like a greeting. I can work, she was thinking. I can keep myself. I don’t have to ask for anything.
It was a moment of intense pleasure.
Julia could feel her freedom, like expensive scent or floating chiffon, drifting around her as she walked. It was as though she had already travelled a long, long way from home.
When she met Mattie later, they were both almost dancing with triumph. ‘How much?’ Mattie demanded.
‘Eight pounds a week.’
‘And I get seven pounds, ten shillings. Thirty bob more than the last place. We’ll be rich.’
It was more money than either of them had ever had before, and they told each other incredulously that they would have that much to spend every week. They bought some sandwiches and a bottle of cider to celebrate, and picnicked in Trafalgar Square. When they had drunk the cider they sat and beamed vaguely at the tourists photographing the fountains.
‘The next thing is somewhere to live,’ Mattie said.
‘A flat,’ Julia agreed, tipping the bottle to make sure it was empty. ‘Simple, but elegant. Mattie Banner and Julia Smith, at home.’
The difficulties began after that.
They found jobs, but the days until they could expect to be paid stretched awkwardly ahead of them. The landlords of all the flats they went to see demanded rent in advance, and deposits, and the girls couldn’t muster even a fraction of the money. The ones who didn’t ask for money eyed the two of them suspiciously, and asked how old they were. Mattie always answered defiantly, ‘Twenty,’ but even so the rooms turned out to be let already.
They stayed in the cheapest hotel they could find, and scoured the To Let columns of the Evening Standard every morning as soon as the paper came on the streets, but by the third day they still hadn’t found anywhere that they could afford. The first euphoria began to evaporate. Friday morning came, and as they were leaving the grubby hotel on their way to work, the manager waylaid them. He announced that it was time for them settle their bill to date, handing the folded slip of paper over to them. It came to much more than had reckoned for, and even by pooling all their resources they were only just able to meet it. They were left with a few shillings between them. Julia smiled brightly at the manager to hide her concern.
‘And how much longer are you planning to stay with us?’ the man asked.
‘Oh. Two, perhaps three more nights. Just until we’ve found ourselves a nice flat.’
‘I see.’ The manager examined his nails, and then he said, ‘I’m afraid that I shall have to ask you for a deposit on your room. The weekend is our busy time, you see. We do have to be quite sure …’ He broke off, the picture of regret.
‘How much?’
‘Five pounds. That will cover both of you, of course.’
‘Oh, of course.’
There was a pause. At last Mattie said desperately, ‘We’ll let you know this evening.’
‘No later than this evening, then.’
As they scurried away to the tube station Mattie burst out furiously, ‘He knows we haven’t got it. The miserable bugger.’
‘You can’t blame him.’ Julia was practical. ‘We’ll have to ask them at work to pay us for these two days.’
‘It still won’t be enough.’
‘It’ll be better than nothing, won’t it?’
Mattie grinned at her suddenly. Her bruises were fading, and it no longer hurt her to smile. ‘Don’t worry. Something’ll turn up.’
They parted at Oxford Circus and went their separate ways.
Julia waited until her supervisor came back from her dinner-break, and then mumbled her request.
‘Oh no, dear, I don’t think we can do that. You have to work a full week first. Your money will come next Friday, with the three extra days, which will be nice, won’t it? Otherwise it makes it too complicated for the payroll people, you know. Is there some trouble, dear?’
Julia hesitated, but she was too proud to confide in this wispy, middle-aged stranger.
‘Oh no, I just wanted to buy something, that’s all.’
‘Well. I’m sure your parents will be glad to help it it’s something important. Ask your mother tonight.’
Julia had told them at the interview that she still lived at home. It had seemed that kind of job.
She went back to the typewriter, which she was already beginning to hate, and started to thump at the keys.
‘What did they say?’ Mattie asked when they met.
‘Nothing until next Friday.’
‘Oh shit. Mine’ll pay me tomorrow afternoon, though.’
A whole night and a day to get through until then.
They collected their luggage from the hotel. ‘We’ve found the perfect flat,’ Julia told the manager who came out of his lair to see them off. ‘Absolutely huge, and terribly cheap.’
The truth couldn’t have been more different. They had divided their remaining change between them that morning, and they agreed that they would allow themselves one cup of coffee and a sandwich for lunch. When they found themselves outside the hotel with their luggage they were at a loss, and achingly hungry. They took a bus, the first one that came along because the manager was standing in the doorway watching them, and rode as far as a fourpenny fare would take them. When they reached the Embankment, they had just three shillings left.
They sat on their bench for a long time, just watching the river. The sky faded from blue to pearl grey, with a green glow that deepened to rose pink behind the chimneys of Battersea Power Station. It would have been beautiful if they had had the heart to look at it.
At last, the sky and water were completely dark.
‘We could go home,’ Julia whispered.
Mattie turned her head to look at her. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘We can’t go back. I can’t.’ She drew her knees up and rested her chin on them, looking out over the river again. Julia wished that she had never said it, even if it was only to test Mattie’s resolve.
‘Something will turn up.’ Julia tried to be comforting, but their rallying cry had no effect this time.
After another long silence Mattie said, ‘We’ll have to find somewhere to sleep outside.’
‘What about that park we walked through last night?’
They had eaten fish and chips sitting on the grass in Hyde Park. The idea of lying in the soft grass under the shelter of rustling trees seemed almost inviting.
‘How far is it?’
‘Quite a long way.’
They turned away from the black river and the necklace of lights lacing its banks and started to walk. After a few hundred yards they realis
ed that the suitcases were impossibly heavy.
‘All this junk,’ Mattie grumbled. ‘We don’t need it. We should throw it away, and then we’d really be free.’
‘You could throw it away if it was yours,’ Julia pointed out. They went on in silence, irritable with one another, and then stopped again. A huge building blazed in front of them, its tiers of windows opulently draped. Julia peered at the big silvery letters on the sweep of canopy that faced the river.
‘It’s the Savoy Hotel,’ she whispered.
‘Oh, that’s perfect. Let’s take a suite.’
For no particular reason they turned their backs on the river and walked up a tiny, steep side alley. There was big, recessed doorway in the wall of the hotel, with heavy padlocked bars holding the doors shut. A ventilator grille was set high up and warm air that smelt of cooking pulsed out of it.
‘I’m not going any further,’ Mattie said. ‘We can lie down here.’
The alley was lit by one old-fashioned street lamp, and it was completely deserted. Mattie sank down on the step and drew her legs up. She curled up sideways and closed her eyes.
To Julia, she looked suddenly as if she was dead, a body abandoned in a huddle of clothes.
‘Mattie! Don’t do that.’
The sharp note of fear in her voice brought Mattie struggling upright again.
‘What’s the matter? It’s all right. Look, there’s room for us both. Come in here behind me and I’ll shield you.’
Julia looked up and down the alley. The city waiting beyond its dark mouth seemed threatening now. Reluctantly she stepped past Mattie and hauled the suitcases into the grimy space. She opened one and took out some of the least essential clothes, bunching them up to make pillows and a scrap of a bed. She lay down with the suitcases wedged behind her for safety, and Mattie squeezed herself in too. Julia tucked her knees into the crook of Mattie’s and hunched up to her warm back. Mattie’s mass of curls, still surprisingly scented with her Coty perfume, fell over her face.
‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ Julia whispered.
‘You helped me to get away,’ Mattie said simply. And then, ‘We’ll be all right, you know.’
‘I know we will,’ Julia answered.
They lay quietly, hoping to sleep. After a while a smartly dressed couple came up the alley. The yellow light from the street lamp glittered briefly on the woman’s necklace. They glanced at the figures in the doorway as they passed, and looked quickly away again, separating themselves.
‘I’ve done that,’ Mattie whispered, when they had gone.
‘Me too.’
It seemed such a small step, now, from that world, padded with food and insulated with little tokens of security, to this doorway.
I’m so hungry.’
‘We must save the money for breakfast.’
The smell of food wafting from the ventilator made them feel ravenous, and sick at the same time. There were other smells lingering in the doorway too. Mattie and Julia clung together, and after a while they drifted into an uncomfortable sleep.
Mattie had no idea how long she had been dozing for. She woke up, confused and aching, with the panicky certainty that someone was watching them. She lifted her head from the nest of clothes and a gasp of terror shook her. A man was leaning over her. His face was covered with grey whiskers and his matted grey hair hung down to his shoulders. He was grinning, his lips drawn back to reveal black stumps of teeth. It was his breath that frightened Mattie most. It smelt rawly of drink and she recoiled, trying to escape from the memories that that close, fetid smell stirred in her. She felt Julia go stiff behind her, and her fingers digging into her arms.
‘Two lassies,’ the apparition mumbled and then cackled with laugher. ‘Two lassies, is it? Ma’ pitch, ye know, this is. Mine.’ He thrust his face closer and they tried to edge backwards.
‘Please go away,’ Julia whispered. ‘We’re not doing any harm. We’ve nowhere else.’
‘Ah can see that.’ He cackled more raucously still. ‘Well, seein’ it’s you ye can be ma guests. Just fer tonight. ’Tis the Savoy, ye know. Act nice. They serve breakfast, just round the corner, first thing.’ He picked up a filthy sack and shuffled away down the hill, still hooting with laughter.
Mattie was shuddering with fright and shock. Julia put her arm over her shoulders. ‘He was only an old tramp. We’ve pinched his place, that’s all. Come on, we’ll change places so that I’m in the front. You can hide behind me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Mattie mumbled.
They scrambled stiffly to their knees and lay down again. Mattie stopped shaking at last, and she let her eyes close. It wasn’t the tramp who she saw at once against her eyelids. It was only his smell that had frightened her, and repelled her so deeply that all her flesh screamed and crawled in case he touched her.
He had made her think of her father, and of what she had really run away from.
She had been to see East of Eden, just as she had told Vernon and Betty Smith. She came blindly out of the Odeon in the High Street with the image of James Dean more real than the windows of Woolworths across the street, more flesh and blood than the two boys from the technical college lounging in front of them. For a few minutes more, while the spell lasted, the hated suburban shopping street and the teds whistling at her were nothing to do with Mattie.
For two whole hours she had escaped from home and her younger brothers and sisters, from work, and from everything that surrounded her. It was her fourth visit. Julia had come with her three times, but even Julia had balked at a fourth visit. So Mattie had gone on her own, and afterwards she drifted to the bus stop, lost inside her own head with Cal Trask.
The enchantment lasted until she reached home. She walked through the estate, where every avenue and turning was the same as the last and the next, and reached her own front gate. It creaked open, brushing over the docks and nettles sprouting across the path. She stopped for a second outside her own front door. The house was quiet. It must have thundered while she was in the cinema, Mattie thought. It had been a dusty, muggy day but the air was cool and clear now.
She put her key in the lock and opened the front door.
Ted Banner was standing in the dim hallway.
‘Where the bloody hell have you have been, you dirty little madam?’
Mattie smelt sweat and whisky and the indefinable, sour scent of her father’s hopeless anger. She knew what was coming. Her stomach heaved with fright, but she made herself say, calmly and clearly so that he couldn’t possibly misunderstand her, ‘I’ve been to the Odeon to see a picture. It was James Dean in East of Eden. It finished at a quarter to ten and I came straight home.’ As conciliatory as she could be, with as much detail as possible, so that he might believe her. But he didn’t. He came at her, and she glimpsed the patch of sweat darkening his vest as he lifted his fist.
‘Bloody little liar.’
He swiped viciously at her. Mattie flung up her arm to protect her face, but the blow still jarred and she stumbled backwards.
‘Been out with some feller, haven’t you? Taking your knickers off for anyone who asks you in the back of his car, like your sister. All the same, all of you.’
‘I haven’t. I told you, I’ve been to the pictures.’
‘Again?’
Some evenings, Mattie didn’t have the protection of the truth. But it made no difference anyway. Her father hit her again, hard, a double blow with the flat and then the back of his hand. Her teeth sliced into the corner of her lip, and she tasted blood, salty in her mouth. A little part of her, cold and detached and disgusted, heard the rest of herself whimpering with fear. He knocked her sideways and she fell against the rickety coatstand that stood behind the door. It collapsed with her, in a humiliating tangle of clothes and limbs.
‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Please, Dad.’
I hate you. The words drummed in her head. I hate you.
A door creaked open at the top of the stairs, and Mattie looked up to see he
r sister Marilyn, nine years old, looking down at them. The girl’s eyes were wide with anxiety, but there was no surprise in them.
‘It’s all right, Marilyn,’ Mattie said. She pulled herself upright, pressing the palm of her hand against her throbbing lip. ‘Go back to bed now. Don’t wake Sam up.’
The child melted away again.
Ted was breathing heavily through his mouth. His cheeks were blotched and treaded with broken veins, and his big moustache was beaded with sweat and spittle.
Suddenly his shoulders sagged. He rolled his head to and fro, as if he was trying to break free of something.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last.
Mattie tried to slip past him up the stairs. ‘It’s all right,’ she murmured, pressing herself against the wall so that even her clothes need not brush against him. But his hand caught her wrist.
‘Come in the kitchen,’ he begged her, in a new, wheedling voice. ‘I’ll make us both a nice cup of tea.’
‘All right,’ Mattie said. It was easier to acquiesce than to risk stirring up his anger again.
She watched her father warily as he lit the gas and put the kettle on. She was ready for him when he came at her again. She flinched, and slid out of his reach behind the table.
He held out his big, meaty hands.
‘Mat, don’t run away from me. Don’t, I can’t bear it.’
There was a bottle of whisky on the table and he took a swig from it, wiping his moustache with his fingers. He had gone from anger to self-pitying drunkenness. Mattie knew what that meant too, and it made her even more afraid.
‘Come here.’
Her skin crawled, but she knew that she couldn’t refuse him. She sidled out from the table’s protection.
‘Right here, I said.’
Her father’s hand touched her arm and then her shoulders. It weighed heavily, and the hairy skin of his forearm was hot and prickly against the nape of her neck. With his other hand he turned her face to his. He was very close, and she bit the insides of her cheeks to keep her fear and disgust hidden inside her. Ted’s hand slipped downwards, and his fingers touched her breast. He hesitated for a second, his expression suddenly dreamy, almost tender. Then his hand closed on her, squeezing and twisting, and she cried out in pain.