by Rosie Thomas
Julia had stopped shivering. To Jessie and Felix she said almost triumphantly, ‘I told you, didn’t I? You’re my family now. You and Mattie.’
Mattie was at the front door when Betty passed her. She caught a glimpse of her face and automatically put her hand out, but Betty never wavered. Mattie watched her go, away under the plane trees with her brown hat held upright. She seemed to carry the smell of Fairmile Road with her, Air-Wick and polish and ironing.
Betty sat quite still, all the way back on the train to the local station. She crossed the High Street, quite blind, although she nodded to the people who greeted her. Everything inside her was focused on her longing to reach home. Outside the front door she groped for her key, not even noticing that the panels of the door were coated with street dust. But when the door swung open there was none of the relief of sanctuary. She saw Vernon’s mackintosh hanging from its pegs on the hallstand, and his black briefcase on the floor beside it.
Of course, it was past the time for Vernon to be at home. It was strange, she realised now, that she hadn’t thought about him all the way back.
He appeared in the living room doorway, at first only a dark shadow seen out of the corner of her eye, and then she looked full at him. He was wearing his navy-blue office suit, shiny at the cuffs and turn-ups.
‘Betty? Where have you been?’
She always had his tea on the table by half past five, always. Her eyes met his.
‘I went up to Town. To look for Julia.’
His stiff face, frowning, measuring her.
‘And did you find her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
She told him, awkwardly, stumbling over the words while he frowned. ‘She won’t come back to us, Vernon. She says she won’t come home.’ She wanted to go to him and have him put his arms around her, as that black boy had done with Julia, but neither of them moved. That wasn’t part of what happened between them.
Vernon said at last, ‘Well. If she won’t, she won’t.’ He turned back into the sitting room.
Betty’s hand reached out to the pretty, orange-skirted lady who covered the telephone. Her fingers caressed the layers of net skirt, searching for comfort.
‘I’ll put the tea on,’ she whispered.
It was an evening like any of the others, except Julia’s room upstairs was empty. There was not even the expectation of her key in the lock. Vernon listened to the play on the Home Service and Betty sat in the armchair opposite him with her knitting coiled in her lap.
At ten o’clock exactly she asked him, ‘Shall I make the cocoa?’
He nodded, not even looking at her over his reading glasses. She was heating the milk, in the special pan she always used, when he came in behind her. His presence seemed incongruous in the tidy kitchen. Betty looked down into the still, white circle of milk.
‘I told her,’ she said roughly. ‘I told her about the adoption.’
He almost bumped against her, but then he stepped back again.
‘I wish you hadn’t. She’s too young yet.’
‘Vernon, she’s grown up. She’s grown up, in that place.’
‘What did she say? How did she take it?’
The milk rose swiftly, and Betty lifted it off the heat.
‘I think she laughed. She said … she said it set her free.’
She couldn’t understand that. Perhaps Vernon would understand it. But all he said, after a long pause, and so quietly that she could hardly hear him, was ‘Perhaps it’s for the best. In the end.’
Betty carried the cups back into the living room and they drank their cocoa in silence. When her cup was empty she said, ‘I’ll go on up.’
Vernon usually followed her, after locking the doors and winding the clock on the mantelpiece. But tonight he sat for a long time in his armchair in the quiet house, staring ahead of him at the lavender and yellow flowers that ran in garlands down the wallpaper.
Betty lay under the eiderdown upstairs with the tears wet and stinging on her cheeks.
It was Jessie who told Mattie what had happened. Julia listened with her head bent, picking at the fringe of the shawl. At the end she broke in, saying fiercely, ‘I’m sorry about what my … about what she said to you and Felix. That’s the way she is. Anyone who doesn’t live like she does is condemned. She did it to Mattie …’
Jessie said gently, ‘There’s no need to be sorry, my duck. And she is your mother. She raised you all those years, whoever had the birth of you.’
Mattie didn’t say much. She was shocked, but a part of her wasn’t even surprised. She put her arms round Julia’s shoulders and hugged her, and then she grinned lopsidedly at Jessie and Felix.
‘Here we are, the two of us. What do you think?’
‘I don’t think anything,’ Jessie declared. ‘I know you belong here, that’s all. You can stay as long as you feel like it. Felix?’
He had gone back to his place by the window, looking down on the square. ‘Of course they can stay,’ he answered.
They had given Julia a glass of vodka and orange and she drank it in a gulp, and then looked round at the three of them.
‘What shall we do?’ she demanded.
‘I’ve just told you,’ Jessie said. ‘Stay here with us.’
Julia’s face softened. ‘Thank you for that. But I meant now, tonight.’ There was a pressure on her chest, tightening, like something threatening to burst out of her. And she felt a weird, wild gaiety. When the others stared at her she laughed, a little too loudly.
‘I want to go out somewhere. Have some fun.’
Jessie hesitated, and then she nodded. She reached down beside her chair for her huge, cracked leather handbag and then peered inside it. From one of the powdery recesses she produced a five-pound note and waved it at Felix.
‘She’s right. No point moping here. Take them both out and buy them dinner. Go on with you.’
Felix took charge. ‘Get dressed, both of you. Something decent. We’ll go to Leoni’s.’
‘Good boy,’ Jessie said approvingly.
When they were ready, they tried to persuade Jessie to come with them.
‘We need you,’ Mattie said, ‘if we’re going to have a posh dinner. Julia and me won’t know which knife to use.’
‘Felix will tell you. He’s good at all that.’
Jessie seemed more firmly lodged in her chair than ever. She was afraid of the long flight of stairs outside her door, and the streets beyond them, but she tried not to let them see it.
‘I’d rather stay here in peace, you know. Fill me up, Mat, will you?’
‘But you belong with us.’ Julia knelt down in front of her, and Jessie saw her feverishly bright eyes.
‘I know I do, duck. And here I am. Now go and have your dinner, and don’t make too much bloody noise when you come back.’
On the way to Dean Street, passing through streets that had become familiar, even homely, Julia felt herself spinning, as if her feet might lose contact with the paving stones. The pressure inside her intensified until she had to run, her arms and legs pumping up and down. Mattie and Felix were breathless behind her, and their feet thudded faster and faster, like drumbeats.
Felix reached out and grabbed her wrist and she swung outwards, her full skirt ballooning up around her legs.
‘What are you running away from?’ he demanded.
‘I’m not running away. Towards something.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, Felix. I don’t know. Freedom.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ Mattie shouted, catching Julia’s mood.
‘What will you do with it, all this freedom?’
Julia had a momentary sense of space. Dark, windy emptiness, dropping away all around her. She was perched on a tiny foothold, all alone. She reached out and put her arms around Mattie and they swayed together, laughing at Felix.
‘Gobble it all up,’ Julia said triumphantly.
At first Leoni’s seemed forbidding, with its long,
white-starched tablecloths and faded decor. It was full of people, all seemingly much older and richer than themselves. But when a table was found for them in the centre of the room, the other diners looked up as they sailed past in the wake of the head waiter. The three of them held their heads up. They knew, somehow, that tonight they were worth looking at. A spark had ignited them.
‘I’ll order for you,’ Felix said. He studied the big white menu, and spoke rapid French to the waiter.
‘How do you know French?’ the girls demanded, impressed in spite of themselves.
‘I only know menu French. And please and thank you. I taught myself.’
‘Teach us,’ Julia demanded. ‘I want to learn everything.’
He smiled at her. ‘I know you do.’ Her eagerness pleased him, and at the same time, in a different recess of himself, it frightened him.
When their plates came, Mattie and Julia stared disbelievingly into the bubbling interiors of the big, amber and gold striped shells nestled in their special dishes.
‘They’re snails,’ Mattie whispered.
‘They certainly are,’ Felix agreed. .’And you will eat them. You can’t let me down now. Look, like this.’ He fitted the little silver clamp around one of his shells and winkled the snail out. It dripped hot, buttery sauce. When the snail was gone Felix tipped the juice out of the shell and mopped it up with bread from the piled-up basket.
‘I’m so hungry’,’ Julia said suddenly. ‘I’ve never been so hungry.’
Copying Felix, she extracted a snail. She opened her mouth and it slid down her throat. She blinked, and realised that it was delicious.
They devoured their snails, and emptied the bread basket. The waiters were fatherly, bringing more bread and beaming their approval, all except one who was young and hovered around Mattie’s chair.
After the escargots – ‘Escargots,’ repeated Julia – came tournedos Rossini. The thick wedges of steak with pâté and toasted bread were rich and utterly satisfying. Wine was brought in a wicker cradle, the neck of the bottle wrapped in a white napkin. Felix tasted the drop that the wine waiter poured into his glass and nodded.
‘This is Beaune,’ he told them.
The pudding was a puff of choux pastry oozing with dark chocolate. Mattie loved all sweet things and she chased the last fragments of hers around her plate, groaning with pleasure.
‘Oh, how I love food and wine.’ Looking across the table at Felix and Julia, she was suddenly struck by their likeness. Julia’s skin was white and Felix’s was milky coffee, but their faces had the same high cheekbones and strong mouths. And their expressions were the same. Appraising. Touched with arrogance, but ready to dissolve into laughter as well. ‘And I love you two,’ she whispered.
They both heard it. You too. Julia’s hand was lying loosely on the white cloth. Felix had raised his own hand, intending to cover her fingers, draw them towards him. Now, he thought. It has to be now.
But he felt the waiter behind him, leaning forwards to murmur in this hear, ‘Excusez-moi, monsieur.’
They heard ice clinking, and a frosty silver bucket materialised beside their table. In the bucket was a bottle of champagne.
Through the droplets misting the clear glass they could see the wine. Pink champagne.
‘I didn’t order …’ Felix murmured, unusually disconcerted. ‘No, monsieur. The gentleman over there ordered it. He asked me to present his compliments.’
They turned their heads, in unison.
‘Who’s that?’ Julia breathed.
Joshua Flood and Harry Gilbert always met for a drink or dinner whenever Josh passed through London. Harry was an ex-RAF pilot, ten years older than Josh. The two men had met when Harry and his air charter company pilots were flying eighteen hours a day, lifting supplies to Berlin, and Josh was a skinny American teenager who was hanging around the airfield looking for work, any work, that had anything to do with flying. Harry had given him a job loading and unloading crates, and Josh stuck to it. Harry Gilbert gave the boy his first flying lesson, and they went out and got drunk together on the day Josh got his pilot’s licence. It was an unlikely relationship, between the upper-class Englishman and the much younger American who, by his own admission, ‘came from Nowhere, Colorado, but was going plenty of places’, but it had persisted. They enjoyed one another’s company, and they were drawn together by their mutual enthusiasm for aircraft, skiing and women.
They had amused themselves over dinner at Leoni’s that evening by speculating on the threesome at the centre table. It was Mattie who had first drawn their attention.
‘Look at that hair.’
‘And the superstructure.’
‘Harry, you’re a dirty old man.’
‘Age has nothing to do with it, my boy.’
‘Anyway, the blonde’s mine. You can have the dark one.’
‘I fancy it’s an academic question. They’re having far too good a time on their own.’
‘With that panty-waist?’ Joshua’s blond eyebrows shot up into his tanned forehead.
Harry laughed. ‘Appearances can be deceptive.’
‘Not that appearance.’ Josh signalled to the waiter. ‘But there’s only one way to find out. Let’s send ’em a drink.’
The bubbles fizzed and burst on Julia’s tongue. The champagne seemed to send currents of elation through her veins. She gripped the edge of the white cloth, to anchor herself in her chair.
I’m still here, she thought. I’m still myself. That’s good. That’s all that matters. She knew that she was hurt, somewhere, but the pain, if there was going to be any, hadn’t bitten into her yet. There was only the strange, tight, bursting feeling, buried inside her. ‘We can’t just drink their champagne,’ she said aloud. ‘We’ll have to invite them to join us.’
A moment later Joshua Flood leaned between Mattie and Julia.
‘I thought you were never going to ask.’
He had green eyes, and his hair was bleached by the wind or the sun. He positioned his chair between Julia and Mattie, and his good-humoured, appraising glance slid from one to the other.
‘Thank you for the champagne,’ Julia said.
He bowed, mock-formally. ‘It was my pleasure.’ When he held out his hand, it was to Julia first.
‘I’m Joshua Flood. Josh. And this is my buddy, Harry Gilbert.’
‘We’d better have another bottle,’ Harry smiled.
Even Felix liked them. They were breezy, and funny, and attractive, especially Josh. He saw Julia looking at Josh, watching the way he put his glass to his mouth, the way he flicked his Zippo lighter to his cigarette. He was glad that his hand hadn’t reached her fingers. Not tonight.
Julia had drawn Josh closer, almost cutting him out of the circle. It wasn’t deliberate, but she couldn’t stop looking at him. Joshua caught Harry’s eye and grinned, shrugging faintly. The blonde one was sexier, but he didn’t mind. Harry didn’t mind either. With his developed, English nose for who was what he had spotted at once that these girls and their friend weren’t his own kind. They were very pretty, and they were lively and interesting, but it was only an evening’s diversion, no more than that. He glanced at Josh again. Josh had no time for the English class system, and Harry could see already that the dark girl promised more than an evening’s diversion for Joshua. Good luck to him, Harry thought cheerfully, and he refilled Mattie’s glass with pink Louis Roederer.
Later, when Mattie and Julia retired to the cloakroom to repair their make-up, Julia asked breathlessly, ‘Isn’t he beautiful?’
‘He’s that all right,’ Mattie answered. ‘Nice, too.’
‘Mattie?’
‘Mmm?’ she was painting her lips with pink lipstick, but their eyes met in the mirror.
‘Mattie … do you want him? I saw him looking at you first.’ Julia was cold with fear of her answer, but she had to ask.
Mattie smiled. ‘You go ahead. I like his friend.’ His friend was older and somehow safer, Mattie added silently. Joshua Flo
od was someone special, but Mattie wouldn’t stand in Julia’s way tonight.
Julia, are you all right?’ she asked abruptly.
Julia stood still for a moment.
‘I meant about your mum. About what’s happened.’
A dirty little baby who wasn’t wanted, Julia heard again. But I am wanted. Josh wants me, I can see it in his face. She laughed, a little shakily. ‘Yes, I’m all right.’ Mattie hugged her, and then smoothed her dress.
‘Come on, then. Let’s get back to your aviator.’
When they reached the table the second bottle of champagne was empty, and Felix was standing up ready to leave.
‘I’m sure I’m leaving you in good hands,’ he said lightly.
The girls kissed him, one on each cheek. ‘Thank you for a wonderful dinner,’ they told him. ‘You and Jessie.’
Felix’s black eyes flickered, not quite to Julia’s face. Then he lifted his hand, almost into a salute, and turned away.
After that there was a taxi, and a nightclub, a proper one with tables in alcoves and girls in evening dresses to serve drinks. Mattie and Julia tried to look as if they came to such places every night, and Harry and Josh played along with the fantasy.
A crooner came out on to the little stage close to their table and addressed his songs to Mattie. She snorted with laughter, and told Harry, ‘I can do better than that. Julia, shall I get up there and give them “Ma, He’s Making Eyes at Me?” ’
‘Oh no, please,’ Julia murmured faintly.
‘You stay right here with me,’ Harry ordered. His arm was around Mattie’s shoulders and his hand rested on her breast. Mattie, fuelled by champagne, was at her best, teasing and flirtatious and quick-tongued. She knew that she was safe, here in this nightclub surrounded by people. She had also guessed, accurately enough, that Harry Gilbert would have a steady girl, perhaps even a wife, who rode horses somewhere in the country. And so he wasn’t likely to be a long-term threat either. She could sit back and enjoy sparring good-naturedly with him.
Josh was different. Even when he was sitting at their table telling Julia about flying he was moving, restless, confined by the nightclub’s smoky ceilings. His hands moved, making shapes in the air, and he leaned closer so that she saw his white, even teeth and the play of the muscles around his mouth. He had long eyelashes, bleached gold at the tips like his hair. She wanted to touch the backs of his hands, where the taut sinews showed.