by Lisa Jewell
She did not speak. Instead she simply nodded her head, just once, and then quickly, before anyone could stop them, before, indeed, she could stop herself, she took Godfrey’s hand and led him through the club, past the enquiring gaze of Gideon and her friends, out onto the pavement and into a hackney carriage.
‘Bloomsbury, please,’ she instructed the driver, breathlessly. ‘And quickly.’
They removed their shoes at the bottom of the stairs of the Bloomsbury town house and ascended the stairs on tiptoes. They heard the murmur of Arlette’s landlady through the door of her upstairs sitting room and paused momentarily before continuing on towards the attic rooms.
Once inside her apartment, Arlette drew the bolt across the door and then stood, for just a moment, flushed with desire, her back against the door, her arms clasped behind her, her chest rising and falling, while Godfrey stood before her, a slight smile on his face.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he said, and then put a hand to her cheek. She fell against his hand, greedily, and brought it to her mouth where she kissed it and tasted it and knew without any doubt that tonight she would lose her virginity.
His hand moved from her face, down her neck and then stopped upon her breastbone. She grasped it and pulled it down, so that his hand cupped her entirely. They stared at each other and then all the things that Arlette had suspected but never known for sure made themselves plain to her. She felt his mouth against hers, soft and urgent, his hands on her, all over her, the smell of him in her nose, the smell of sandalwood and vanilla, the same scent that had faded to nothing on a square of muslin in her bed-stand drawer over the past ten weeks.
And then, as though possessed by a secondary soul, one that had resided within her for twenty-one years without her knowledge, she found herself removing Godfrey’s trousers, then allowing him to remove her own clothes and within a few small, almost unthinking movements, they were upon her bed and he was on top of her, looking into her eyes and saying; ‘Miss De La Mare, have you ever done this before?’
She shook her head.
He looked at her sweetly, pushed some hair from her face and said, ‘Then I shall be gentle.’
And it was all she could do not to say, ‘No! Don’t be gentle!’ But instead she smiled and brought his mouth back down upon hers and allowed him to take her away from her state of purity.
It took all of five minutes. But what came after took all night. For hours, until the sun shone through the small dormer windows, they talked and they held each other. Godfrey told Arlette about his family: his father, the chief of police, his mother, a former beauty queen, his house at the foot of the Pitons, his childhood spent practising music, studying, singing in the choir at his local church. He told her about his experiences of the war and his adventures travelling with the orchestra, the friends he’d made and lost, and his plans for the future.
At around two in the morning, Minu returned. ‘Arlette,’ they heard her whisper into the darkness, ‘are you here?’
Arlette and Godfrey giggled into each other’s necks and Godfrey called out, ‘Indeed she is, Miss McAteer.’
Minu made a strange noise and said, ‘Oh. Oh. Oh. I see. Well, good night then, Arlette, Godfrey. Sleep tight.’
‘Night-night, Minu,’ they replied in unison.
But they did not sleep. They talked more. Arlette told Godfrey about her own childhood, the windswept house on the top of a cliff, her stoic mother, the death of her father, her childhood spent staring out of windows and wondering what it would be like to be an adult. She told him about the Miller family, about poor Leticia and her teacups of gin, about the absent father and the naughty boys, and Lilian torn between wanting to grow her wings and needing to stay grounded for the sake of her little brother. And she told him about her job at Liberty, the eccentric ladies with their impossible requests, and the fact that she was the youngest department manager in the history of the store.
It was nearly the hour to get up for work by the time they finally fell asleep, and when Arlette opened her eyes and saw him there, long lashes resting against his high cheekbones, one long, sinewy arm draped across her stomach, her heart lurched and she instinctively brought her lips down against his forehead, and when he opened his eyes and smiled sleepily at her, then pulled her closer to him and nestled his head into the crook of her shoulder, Arlette thought again of that funny, serious girl, staring dreamily through the leaded windows of the house on the cliff, across the Channel, into a distance that held nothing but secrets and mysteries. She knew that that girl was gone, that she was now where she was meant to be, a modern woman, strong and certain, held safe in the embrace of a man called Godfrey Pickle.
39
1995
‘I’VE BEEN HANGING out with your sister,’ said Betty, stirring sugar into a cappuccino and bringing it to her mouth with both hands.
John tore the top from a packet of sugar and looked at her quizzically. ‘She’s helping you out then?’ he asked. ‘With all this mysterious jazz stuff?’
‘Yeah. She’s been brilliant. She even took some time off work with me yesterday. We went to a gallery, had a picnic.’
‘This is my sister you’re talking about?’
Betty smiled. ‘Yes. I think you two should get together some time. I think you might actually like each other.’
John smiled sardonically. ‘And where have you got to, with your quest?’
She told him about the blue plaque and the engraved tree, the jazz orchestra and the painting of Arlette in the National Portrait Gallery.
John’s expression passed beyond his usual cut-off point of slight interest and towards wonder and surprise. ‘Wow,’ he said, when she’d finished. ‘I mean, wow, that’s extraordinary.’
‘I know,’ said Betty. ‘And now, well, I’ve got this job, I probably won’t have much free time to look into it. I mean, all the libraries, Somerset House, all only open during working hours.’
‘I can help,’ he said suddenly.
Betty looked at him curiously. ‘How? I mean, you work longer hours than anyone I know.’
He shrugged. ‘I can take time off. An hour here or there. Everything’s walking distance. Let me know what you’re looking for and I’ll find it.’
‘Seriously?’ she asked.
‘Sure. Why not?’
‘Er, because your name is John Brightly and you are an island.’
He laughed and stirred his coffee. ‘What do you mean?’ he said, although it was obvious from his tone of voice that he knew exactly what she meant and just wanted to hear her say it.
‘I mean,’ she said, ‘that you live in a bubble. The Bubble of John. Record stall, club nights, damp flat ...’
‘Don’t forget the records fairs, every weekend.’
‘Record fairs every weekend,’ she continued. ‘You don’t exactly put a lot of yourself out there, do you?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve got friends,’ he said.
‘Right. So you say. And when do you see them, these so-called friends?’
‘I see them,’ he said. ‘Not that much. Most of them don’t live in London. But I see them when I can.’
Betty smiled. ‘You’re not fooling me,’ she said. ‘You’ve got bars up all over the place.’
He laughed and put his hands up in front of him in a gesture of surrender. ‘Yeah, right, OK. I hear you. I am kind of closed off. I always have been. But that doesn’t mean I can’t get close to people. That doesn’t mean I’m not a nice bloke.’
‘Oh, John, I don’t think I was suggesting that you’re not a nice bloke. You’re just not the sort of bloke to get involved in other people’s shit. So thank you. For the offer. I really appreciate it.’
John smiled and nodded.
‘And actually,’ Betty leaned down into her coffee, hiding her face from him, ‘I think you’re a really nice guy.’
He peered at her and said, ‘Say that again, this time so that I can see you.’
She laughed. ‘I like you. OK? I t
hink you’re really nice.’
He smiled again. ‘So you’ve made your mind up then? You’ve decided?’
‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘I have decided. John Brightly is a nice bloke and I like him.’
They both laughed then, and John said, ‘Good. Then it’s mutual.’
She peered at him suspiciously. ‘You like me too?’
‘Yes. I like you. I think you’re nice.’
‘Very nice or quite nice?’
He pretended to mull over the question and then said, ‘Very nice.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘That’s good.’
They smiled at each other and Betty felt the air around them fill with something light and golden.
Then John said, ‘Promise me one thing.’
She nodded.
‘Promise me you won’t fuck Dom Jones.’
‘What?’
‘Seriously. No good will come of it.’
‘But – what on earth makes you think I’m going to sleep with him?’
He cocked an eyebrow at her.
‘No. Seriously, Amy Metz said the same thing. I don’t even fancy him!’
He cocked his eyebrow a little higher.
‘Why do you think I fancy him?’
‘I don’t think you fancy him. I just think you could end up in bed with him.’
‘Because he’s a pop star?’
John shrugged.
‘So you think I’m that shallow?’
‘I don’t think you’re shallow. I just know how these things go.’
Betty narrowed her eyes at him and said, ‘I might have to review my recently expressed opinion of you, John Brightly.’
He held his hands out, palms up. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I totally retract everything I just said. I know you wouldn’t. You’re better than that. You’re different.’
‘That’s better,’ she smiled. ‘Much better. Thank you.’
But even as she said it, Betty suspected that John was just placating her, that deep down inside he did believe that she was capable of sleeping with Dom Jones because he was a pop star. And deep down inside, Betty thought that he was probably right.
The noise of the buzzer cut through a dream that Betty had been having about Arlette and John Brightly and Amy Metz, and she awoke, vaguely with the sense that she was still in Amy’s house, making a ridiculously big strawberry cake for everyone in a ridiculously big pink Aga. She looked at the time. It was midnight. She had been asleep for only an hour, and she cursed the ringer at the bell for robbing her of the benefits of an early night.
‘Yes,’ she muttered into the intercom, feeling fairly certain that it would be just a drunken reveller, mistaking her front door for the front door of a drinking den or that of a young model.
‘Betty, it’s Dom.’
‘Who?’
‘Dom. Jones.’
Betty ran her hands down her hair and grimaced, no longer certain where her dream had ended and reality was beginning, and thinking that maybe this was just an example of the events of the day influencing the things you dream about; that she was imagining this because of the conversation she and John Brightly had had earlier in the café.
‘Betty?’ said the voice again, and Betty did then, literally, pinch her own flesh, before clearing her throat and saying, ‘Yes.’
‘I’m lonely,’ he said.
‘Sorry?’
‘I’m lonely. I just got back from Berlin and I’m not tired and I’m missing my kids and I want to have a drink with someone.’
‘I’ve got no booze,’ she said.
‘Come out with me, Betty. Please. Put on a nice dress and come out with me.’
She took her finger off the button and gazed at the floor for a moment, plucking the last remnants of sleep from her head and considering the proposal. She was starting work the next morning, had to be at Amy’s house at eight o’clock. She had turned down John’s offer to sit with him during another club night because she needed an early night, because she wanted to be fresh for work. And now Dom Jones was standing in the street outside her flat asking her out for a drink.
Dom Jones.
‘Will you take me to the Groucho?’ she said.
‘You wanna go to the Groucho?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘I’ll take you to the Groucho, then.’
‘Good, but just a quick one, OK? I’m starting work for Amy tomorrow.’
‘You got the job!’
‘Yeah. On a trial basis.’
‘Well, then, get down here fast as you can. I can feel champagne in the air.’
Walking into the Groucho with Dom was an experience that Betty would never forget. Faces opened up like lotus blossoms at the mere sight of him, doors were held open, drinks were brought without being ordered. It was as though the club were a dark room and Dom was a light bulb. Betty wrapped her cardigan tight around herself and tried to pretend she didn’t exist. It was clearly ridiculous that she was walking in here with Dom Jones, and everyone who looked at her would know it too.
People whose faces she vaguely recognised put out hands to Dom as he passed, which he clutched at and patted and then said things like, ‘Yeah, man, good to see you. Hanging in there, mate. Hanging in there.’ A man played a piano by the staircase, and another man behind the bar shook together a Martini in a silver shaker.
Dom walked Betty across the room and they sat together on a leather sofa. Betty felt dazed and bewildered, all the lines between dreams and reality entirely blurred. Champagne arrived and was poured, and she and Dom toasted each other and people swivelled their heads surreptitiously in their direction and then whispered to each other excitedly.
Betty smoothed down her bed hair and scraped a blob of something off the hem of her black Lycra dress and remembered a night that felt like months ago, but was in reality only a few weeks, when she had walked in here hoping for a job, and been charmingly ejected back onto the pavement without even a sniff at the interior. And now here she was, warm in the heart of the place, sharing a sofa with Dom Jones.
‘So,’ said Dom, turning to face her, his elbow on the back of the sofa. ‘Welcome to the family then, I guess.’
‘It’s just a trial run,’ Betty stressed.
‘Yeah, but think about it. Unless something goes drastically wrong, why would Amy get rid of you, have to start looking all over again?’
Betty shrugged. ‘We’ll see,’ she said.
‘It’s good,’ he said. ‘It’s brilliant. I couldn’t be happier. Seriously.’
Betty smiled and drank some champagne and hoped that it might take her away from this sense of being a joke. The scruffy young nanny, dragged from her bed by a drunk pop star and plied with champagne in a celebrity hangout.
‘You know, I fucking hate living on my own,’ Dom said, suddenly and unprompted.
Betty looked at him with concern.
‘It fucking stinks. It’s OK during the day, but at night ...’ He ran his hands down his face and sighed and suddenly looked tired and ten years older. ‘I used to love getting back when I lived in Primrose Hill, even if it was really late, even if everyone was asleep. You know, I liked having to tiptoe about the place, seeing the kids’ things here and there, you know, their little shoes, then going into their rooms, watching them sleep, all that shit.’ He sighed again and smiled sadly at Betty.
‘Is there any chance that you and Amy, might, you know ...?’
He shook his head and laughed. ‘No,’ he said categorically. ‘No. That ship has sailed. She hates my fucking guts. And yeah, you know, got no one to blame but myself. And, you know, my little fella.’
He glanced down at his jeans and Betty’s eyes followed his until she too was staring at his jeans. ‘Oh,’ she said, pulling her gaze away hurriedly. ‘I see.’
‘Yeah. I think I’ve got a problem, you know. Maybe I need therapy. Or maybe I need a chemical castration.’ He laughed hoarsely and Betty smiled nervously, wondering why Dom was being so open with her, why he was t
elling her so much. And then something occurred to her. Firstly, Dom was very drunk. But secondly, and more pertinently, she’d signed the privacy agreement that afternoon. At Amy’s house. He must have known. And now he was using Betty for free talk therapy, because he knew that she could never tell anyone.
The thought emboldened her and she said, ‘But surely if it meant that you got to live with your kids again, if it meant that you could get your old life back, surely you’d do anything?’
Dom downed his glass of champagne, poured himself another and topped up Betty’s. ‘Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you. You’d think it would be easy. But that’s what I’m saying. I think I’ve got an addiction. And it’s like, you know, if you’re an alcoholic and someone offers you a drink, you’ll say yeah, but most people with a sex addiction don’t get offered sex all the time, but when you’re in my position, well, you know ...’
Betty nodded.
‘It’s hard to say no. It’s impossible. It shouldn’t be. But it is. Even if the girl’s, like, ugly. You know.’ He shook his head from side to side and then downed his fresh glass of champagne in three thirsty gulps. ‘Everywhere I go, I swear, they’re there, they want me to sign their tits, they want me to touch them just so that they can go home and tell their mates that I touched them. It’s like I’m a talisman, you know, like they’ll get something from me. And it’s all just utter bullshit, because of course I’ve got fuck all to give. I’m just a bloke, with a dick. Who can sing. And write amazing songs. But I’ve got nothing to give. Nothing real. Unless it’s a baby.’ He laughed out loud, a sudden burst that made Betty jump slightly in her seat. ‘Yeah. I’m pretty good at giving women babies.’