Bad Girls Good Women

by Rosie Thomas

  Betty had flinched, and the glow faded from her face.

  ‘No. Nothing at all. The adoption society was very strict. Except that you were … you know.’

  ‘Illegitimate,’ Julia supplied for her.

  ‘Yes.’

  Julia wondered what other words Betty and Vernon would have whispered between themselves. Betty had used some of them, that day in the square. A dirty little baby. ‘Why do you want to know?’ Betty asked fiercely. ‘I’m your mother.’

  No, you aren’t. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. It doesn’t matter any longer.

  Julia made her voice light. ‘I just wondered.’

  They didn’t talk about it any more. After a few minutes Betty gathered up her hat and her gloves and her square handbag and announced that she would have to rush for her train. They brushed their cheeks together, and Julia murmured again, ‘Thank you for coming.’

  Felix was standing at the window of the Eaton Square apartment, looking out at the afternoon sunshine reflecting off the cars heading westwards towards the King’s Road. The view of the trees in the square gardens made him think of the old flat, and he allowed himself a moment’s enjoyable nostalgia. Jessie’s old room, with its faded photographs and his own precious collection of bric-à-brac. Felix turned away from the window and walked the length of the drawing room. The triple bay windows were hung with a lily of the valley chintz, one of Tressider Designs’ own fabrics, lined with pale gold silk. Gilt-framed French mirrors hung between the windows, and in front of them stood a Regency table with a collection of opalescent Lalique bowls arranged on it. The modern sofas were deep and comfortable, piled up with silk-covered cushions, and in the alcoves on either side of the chimney breast stood a magnificent pair of console tables with porphyry tops. With its deft mixing of periods and styles to recreate the haute English country house look in a town apartment, the room was a showpiece for George Tressider’s sought-after decorative ability. The only tiny flaw, Felix thought, the single thing that was lacking, was a touch of wit and humour. The perfection was unmarred, and so was faintly sterile.

  Then he caught sight of his own reflection in one of the gilt mirrors. He was wearing his front-office clothes. The grey suit, tightly waisted, was well cut, and the collar of his white shirt was starched. By contrast with such formality his face looked very dark, and his high cheekbones and full mouth seemed almost wickedly exotic. It occurred to Felix that he provided the requisite touch of eccentricity himself. He smiled, and went on into the bedroom.

  George was sitting on the bed, talking on the telephone. ‘Yes. Yes. Of course the silk must match exactly. If it proves to be necessary, we’ll start again and re-dye a fresh batch for you.’ He raised his eyebrows at Felix. ‘Mrs Lindsay, it will match. You have my assurance. Yes. Yes. As soon as the contractors have finished.’ Felix could hear the client’s high, yipping voice at the other end of the line. He leaned over and massaged the back of George’s neck. The telephone conversation took its predictable course, and Mrs Lindsay rang off at last, mollified.

  George looked up, then reached out and caught him by the wrist. ‘Don’t loom over me.’ Felix sat down beside him, conscious of the inviting expanse of the Chinese red bedcover. He had slept with George for the first time in this bed, one abandoned afternoon after a particularly stiff lunch with a dowager duchess. They had undressed very slowly, and hung up their clothes, like tidy schoolboys, in the walnut armoire. Then they had explored each other with a greedy intensity that Felix hadn’t experienced since the twilit barn and David Mander.

  And since then, the plain grey walls of the bedroom had witnessed enough exotic interludes. George Tressider had imaginative sexual preferences, and Felix had learned them as quickly as he learned everything else. They had been lovers for more than a year, and they had lived together for the last six months, but there were still frequent occasions when they came together with importunate urgency.

  ‘George?’

  ‘What is it?’ The professional George had replaced the private one. He was busy packing design sketches into the little Vuitton bag that he carried instead of an attaché case. ‘Who wants to look like an invoice clerk?’ he had once asked Felix.

  ‘I thought I’d call in to see Julia again for half an hour before I go to the Boltons. Is that all right?’

  Even though they slept in the same bed, Felix was careful always to remember that George was his employer.

  ‘Of course. Give her my love, won’t you?’

  The response was no cooler than he had expected. Felix had stopped hoping that Julia and George would ever love each other.

  George went to keep his appointment, and Felix washed and dried the plates and glasses that they had used for their Brie and salad lunch. They didn’t often manage to meet at home in the middle of the day, even though they worked in close proximity. When they did, Felix liked to make an occasion of it by setting a pretty table. When the kitchen was tidy he put a bottle of Pouilly Fumé in the fridge for later and then followed George into the sunshine. He was thinking about him as he made his way to Julia’s clinic.

  He hadn’t expected to like George Tressider when Julia had made the first introduction. George had offered him a job and he had accepted it at once, but he had categorised the decorator as a predatory old queen. In the years since his National Service Felix had met enough of those. But in the weeks that followed, Felix discovered that George wasn’t predatory at all. He was professionally successful and financially secure, he lived in a whirl of parties and dearest acquaintances, but in private he was surprisingly vulnerable. And he was lonely. George was still fit and slim, and he was good-looking in a silky, feline way, but he was fifty-two years old. Too many of his lovers in the recent past had wanted what George could buy, rather than George himself. And he was too clearly aware that nothing was going to get any better for him.

  Over and over again, he said to Felix, ‘With your looks and your talents, you could have anyone you wanted. What are you doing with an old faggot like me?’

  ‘I want you,’ Felix answered. It was the truth. Everything about George, including their fidelity to each other, suited Felix better than a succession of the doe-eyed boys who hung around the King’s Road antique shops. And then, there was George Tressider Designs. Felix was learning the business from George. He was learning so much, all the time, that he hummed and vibrated with the energy of it. He didn’t want anything to change, only to go on getting better. In time, he would be able to add the little, extra, indefinable twists and touches to their work that George was a shade too conventional to introduce. And it would make them the best team there was. Felix was certain of that.

  Julia was sitting in the armchair in her room, reading Vogue. ‘Felix, my love. You look very pleased with yourself.’

  He kissed her on the forehead. ‘And you look fully recovered.’

  ‘I am. They’re sending me home tomorrow.’

  ‘To Ladyhill?’

  ‘To Ladyhill.’

  Felix studied her for a moment, then turned aside. There was a bowl of pinks and lavender spikes on the table and he picked out the faded blooms before rearranging the rest.

  ‘I wish we could stay in London,’ Julia said.

  Felix finished the flowers to his satisfaction, and then sat down facing her. ‘You know I love you, don’t you?’

  Julia looked startled, but she answered, ‘Yes, I know you do.’ Very softly, Felix said, ‘Listen to me, then. Go back home with Alexander and Lily. You can’t separate Alexander from Ladyhill, and you shouldn’t try to stand in the way of the restoration …’

  ‘You know it was under-insured,’ Julia broke in. ‘There isn’t the money to restore it the way Bliss wants.’

  ‘I think you can assume that if there is a way, he will find it. And that isn’t as important as that you should go home with him, take Lily home. Be glad you’re all alive, even though poor Flowers died. That Sandy survived, at least. Take the happiness you’ve got. It’s enough
, Julia, isn’t it? Don’t destroy anything else.’

  It was a very long speech, for Felix. Julia shook her head, staring at him. ‘I … I can’t forget the fire.’

  He leaned closer to her. ‘You can. You must. Do that much, for Alexander.’

  Her chin jerked up. ‘You think I’m selfish, don’t you? Well. Perhaps I am. But I look at those black walls, and I hear the roar of the flames. I look up at the sky, and I can’t see it for smoke. You weren’t there, Felix. You don’t know what it was like. And I have to accept, every day, that it was my fault. My fault that Flowers is dead, and Sandy’s face is all … is all … melted. That the house Alexander loves is in ruins, and that his burned fingers are too stiff for him to play the trumpet. That’s what I live with, living at Ladyhill. How can I take the happiness, as you call it, being there and knowing all that?’

  She pressed her hands over her eyes, but Felix drew them away and held them between his own.

  ‘Is it your fault that Flowers and Sandy were doing what they were doing? That the house was old and dry, and burned like kindling? Or that Alexander was brave enough to do what he did?’

  ‘No,’ Julia whispered.

  ‘No. But it will be your fault if you don’t go back and try to repair what was no one’s fault. I don’t just mean the bricks and mortar.’

  He saw that there were faint vertical lines at the corners of Julia’s mouth. He had never seen them before, and they made him feel sad. He remembered the innocent girls he had first seen, trying to be louche at the Rocket.

  Suddenly he said, ‘Were you happy at Ladyhill with Alexander before the fire?’

  The glance that Julia darted at him was no more than a flicker of her eyes, but Felix intercepted it. Then her eyelids dropped again, and she studied their linked hands. ‘Yes, I was.’

  He waited, but there was nothing else.

  At length, in a different voice, Julia said, ‘You’re right, of course. We’ll go back, and I’ll try to make it all right. I promise I will.’

  ‘Good,’ Felix said.

  The conversation seemed to be at an end. Julia drew her hands away and stood up. She walked around the room, touching the fading flowers and fingering the books and magazines on the bed table. Then, half turned away from Felix, she said, ‘We had this ideal, Mattie and me. When we ran away from home. We were going to be free. We weren’t going to let anything tie us down, not us.’ The words spilled out so quickly that they tangled together and she shook her head with impatience. ‘No conventions, no stereotypes. We were going to make our own rules. The gospel of freedom, according to Mattie Banner and Julia Smith.’ She laughed, without a note of amusement. ‘Well, Mattie’s free, isn’t she? She’s an actress, just like she always wanted. She’s famous. Even the nurses in this place come to ask for her autograph. And, you see, I’m Alexander’s wife.’ She broke off, and paced across the room. Six steps brought her up against the crib at the side of the bed. Lily was awake; Felix could hear the tiny sounds she made. ‘And now there’s a baby. My baby, Felix. I didn’t see her born, but I’ve got the scar to prove it.’ She laughed again, the same harsh sound. ‘I’d just like to know how it all happened so quickly. So quickly …’

  Felix sighed. ‘Don’t you and Mattie talk to each other any more?’

  ‘What do you mean? Of course we do.’

  ‘I’m not sure that Mattie wouldn’t gladly change places with you.’

  Julia frowned at him, uncomprehending. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Well. We’re not talking about Mattie now. But you made a choice, Julia. And there are worse losses of freedom than you’ve suffered. Alexander loves you. Anyone who looks at him can see he loves you.’

  She held up the palms of her hands as if to ward something off, but her face crumpled. ‘I know. That’s why I’m going back to Ladyhill. I told you. I love him, and I’m going to be a good mother to Lily, and we’ll rebuild the house, and I won’t put any more candles on the Christmas tree. Oh, hell. I’m not bloody well going to cry again, either.’

  Felix stood behind her, folding his arms around her waist and resting his chin on the top of her head. ‘I’m glad. You’re doing the right thing. And the fire will pass, you know. Julia?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you need me for anything, you know where I am.’

  She nodded. Her head was smooth and warm under his chin. ‘Thank you. I’ll remember.’

  In her crib, Lily spluttered and began to cry. Julia put her hand to the front of her blouse. ‘It’s time for me to feed her. Not with a bottle, you know. Breasts. Like a real mother. Do you want to stay and watch?’

  Felix grinned. ‘I’d like to draw you, if you’ll let me. But not today. I’ve got to go and measure a house.’ Julia was lifting Lily, cupping the round black head in one hand. ‘I’ll be coming to see you at Ladyhill. You know that Alexander has asked George and me if we’ll help with restoring the interior, when the time comes?’ Julia settled herself in her chair again. She undid her bra and Felix saw the faint blue veins on the distended breast, and the enlarged nipple. Lily’s cries stopped, and there was a faint grunt of satisfaction. In the quiet Julia lifted her head, and her eyes were clear. ‘Good. Come as often as you like. It’s very quiet, down there.’

  Felix blew her a kiss, and then she bent her head over the baby again.

  Outside the sun was still shining, but Felix didn’t notice it. He was preoccupied with the image of Julia feeding her baby. He had a sudden, awed understanding of the change that had overtaken her, the magnitude of it and the irrevocability. The old Julia, the Julia of Soho and the square, was gone and she wouldn’t come back, however much Julia herself might long for her.

  Felix made his way towards the new house in the Boltons, but the cheerfulness of the early afternoon had deserted him.

  The red Mini swung between the stone gateposts.

  Julia blinked once in the dappled shade of the trees, and then again as they came out into the brightness once more. Alexander stopped the car, leaving it at an angle just as he had done when he first brought Julia to Ladyhill. As if he couldn’t wait to jump out and run into the house.

  ‘Look at the roses,’ Julia said.

  The Albertine on the red-brick wall that enclosed the garden on two sides was a cascade of coppery pink. Pale gold and grey-green spikes of verbascum reared against the backdrop of roses. It was in her autumn walks around the gardens that Julia had learned it was called verbascum. At the far end of the long border a fine copper beech tree was like a full stop. The leaves had lost the greenish sheen of early summer, and were turning through polished copper to the mahogany brown of maturity.

  ‘The garden is beautiful,’ Julia whispered.

  There was a blackbird singing somewhere close at hand. She turned deliberately and looked at the house.

  There was scaffolding enclosing the badly damaged wing now, and masking the whole centre front of the house. But it still didn’t hide the smoke-blackened brick, and the charred roof beams soaring above it. She shook her head imperceptibly, telling herself that she couldn’t smell smoke. She mustn’t smell it. And there was silence, except for the birdsong.

  As Julia watched, a length of new timber was winched upwards. A workman at the top of the scaffolding unfastened it and hoisted it away. Now that she looked more closely, she saw that two or three of the huge beams had already been replaced. The raw wood gleamed yellow in contrast with the stark black of the others. Alexander had been staring intently, and now he nodded. ‘They’re making good progress. We must get the roof on before another winter comes.’

  He bent down and reached into the car. Lily had been asleep in her carrycot on the back seat, but now Alexander lifted her out, swathed in her white shawl. He held her up and her heavy head rolled against his shoulder. ‘Look,’ he whispered. ‘Look, Lily. We’re home.’

  They stood for a moment, the three of them, in front of the stricken house.

  Then Alexander took Julia’s hand and, st
ill holding the baby, he drew her arm through his. With Alexander setting the pace they walked briskly towards the gaping mouth of the front door.

  There were no flames, of course. No terrible face, turning to her. Johnny was gone, but Alexander was fit and well, beside her. Julia made herself breathe evenly, remembering what Felix had said. The fire will pass. She looked at Lily, in the crook of Alexander’s arm. Her eyes were wide open.

  The hall was as derelict as when they had left it for Markham Square, seemingly more so since the builders had taken possession of the house. There were tarpaulins spread over the floor, a concrete mixer in the corner, piles of tools. Julia could hear whistling, and sawing somewhere overhead. A man in an overall came through from the back of the house. Alexander shook hands with him, introducing him as the site foreman.

  The man said, ‘Welcome home, sir. Lady Bliss.’

  ‘Julia,’ she responded automatically.

  Alexander’s expression didn’t change. He was quickly absorbed in conversation with the foreman. Julia listened vaguely to the phrases as they drifted around her. Estimates … weakened structure … new joists. The language was utterly foreign. She took Lily out of Alexander’s arms and held her up, like a shield against her own resentment. She rested her cheek against the baby’s knitted bonnet and thought, You’re on my side. I know you are. What are floorboards to you? People are what matter, Lily. Remember that. Julia was surprised by the sudden intensity of her feelings. This … house. This house is a tomb, for me and Alexander as well as Johnny. Or just for me, now. She half turned, shivering, wanting to run.

  Alexander saw it, and caught her arm. ‘I’ll come and see you later, Mr Minns.’

  Behind a hanging tarpaulin there was a well-sealed door, and on the other side was the relatively undamaged wing of the house where Alexander and Julia had set up home. The little room on the ground floor had been Sir Percy’s den, and now it had become their sitting room. They had assembled two old sofas and a pair of armchairs, a bureau and a gate-legged table, and a Turkish carpet that was much too large and had to be folded against the walls. Pictures and books and ornaments salvaged from the further corners of the house were crammed in wherever there was space.