Bad Girls Good Women. Rosie Thomas

benefit of everyone in the bar.

      She felt that she had come a long way.

      She had bought and wrapped a Christmas present for John. It was a book about opera, and she was hoping to impress him with her clever choice. But the afternoon ended, the company separated on a wave of boozy comradeship, and John drove her to the station in the Vanguard without producing a present for her. Mattie kept the book hidden.

      He said goodbye absently. Mattie knew that he already belonged to Burford and not to her at all, and she accepted the knowledge uncomplainingly. John kissed her and opened the car door.

      There was one thing, a kind of present.

      ‘When you get back,’ he said, ‘we’ll look at a bit part for you.’

      The black car bucked away and Mattie went smiling to the London train.

       Seven

      Julia was waiting at Euston.

      Before the train pulled in she stood in front of the bookstall staring at the models’ faces on the magazine covers. They were shined up for Christmas with glossy lipstick and bouffant hair, and as she looked at them and heard a Salvation Army band playing carols she felt that everyone was full of excitement and expectation, and that everything was in motion, except herself.

      Josh had gone somewhere for Christmas, only promising ‘See you in the new year.’ Julia turned irritably away from the magazines and paced up and down the station concourse. Sometimes she thought she hated Josh, but even when she hated him she longed for him so intensely that her stomach writhed and she twisted her head to and fro to escape the pain of it.

      Mattie’s train pulled in and she turned in relief to the barrier. The passengers poured out, their faces bobbing as they jostled towards the ticket collector. Julia didn’t recognise Mattie at first and then when she glanced back at her face, and it sharpened, coming into focus, she thought, Mattie’s changed too. She had been looking forward to her company almost desperately, and she felt an instant of resentful disappointment. Then the crowd surged forward and deposited Mattie in front of her. Mattie dropped her suitcase and flung her arms out, and then they were hugging each other, hopping and swaying and laughing. Mattie still smelt the same. Coty perfume and a faint whiff of cigarette smoke.

      ‘You look different,’ Julia accused, and Mattie grinned and fluffed up her fake-fur collar.

      ‘Must be the new coat. Do you like it?’

      ‘I don’t know.’ She grabbed her arm and pulled. ‘Come on, let’s get the bus. Then we can talk.’

      They ran, and when they reached the bus they clambered up to the top deck. They squashed into the front seat and lit cigarettes, exactly as they had done hundreds of times on the way home from school. The familiarity of it, and the pleasure of seeing each other, dissolved Julia’s resentment and the new worldliness that Mattie was rather proud of. At once they were back on the old footing.

      ‘What has happened?’ Julia asked.

      ‘Guess.’ Mattie’s eyes were wickedly sparkling.

      ‘You …’

      ‘Yes, I have.’

      ‘Mattie.’ Julia’s head jerked round to see who was listening. She pressed even closer and then implored, ‘Tell me. Tell me what it was like.’

      Mattie tilted her head against the black fur and pursed her lips, as if she was considering it. At last, judiciously, she said, ‘It was all right.’

      Julia thought of Josh, and the cottage, and the brief, blurred glimpse she had been allowed of something that was momentously strange, and different, and important. And then she exploded, ‘All right?’

      Mattie was half laughing, but she was serious too. ‘Exactly. It wasn’t wonderful. But it wasn’t awful either.’

      Julia took her hand in the black suede glove and held it tightly. ‘Tell me. Tell me about him, for a start.’

      Mattie smiled. ‘He’s nothing like Josh,’ she began.

      Then, while the bus jolted and swayed down Gower Street, Mattie told her. She described room thirteen and the tall brown furniture, and the smell of Air-Wick. She told Julia about the theatre office and Sheila Firth and the burgundy in the restaurant, and about John Douglas’s rubber-tipped stick and the moment of tenderness when he had licked the sea-salt off her face. She also described the warmth and comfort she had felt the next morning, afterwards, when they lay quietly together. She didn’t say anything about how she had felt when she had asked about Jennifer Edge.

      Julia nodded at everything, but she was clearly still waiting. ‘But what did it feel like?’ she ventured, at last, when Mattie didn’t volunteer it.

      Mattie tried for the words. She knew what Julia was expecting. Like fireworks going off. Like a waterfall. Waves breaking. Something like that. What she had really felt was so far from any of those things that she couldn’t even manage to make it up.

      ‘I told you,’ she said softly. ‘It was all right.’

      They stared at each other for a minute, resignation confronting disbelief.

      Julia whispered anxiously, ‘Is he … is he nice to you?’

      Mattie held up the hem of her coat. ‘Sometimes. But do you know what? He’s going to give me a part. That’s what I really want …’

      Julia snorted with laughter and put her arm round Mattie’s shoulder. Mattie laughed too.

      ‘Oh Mat, I’m so happy you’re home.’

      ‘I’m happy to be home.’

      ‘I thought you were different. But you aren’t.’

      ‘Do you know, on the first morning I thought it must be written on my face? I walked past everyone thinking, They all know. They can see.’

      They laughed so much then that all the other passengers stared at them.

      Julia rubbed the condensation off the window with her sleeve and peered out.

      ‘Oxford Street. Hurry up, Felix is making you a wonderful dinner.’

      The flat over the square was warm and welcoming.

      ‘Home,’ Mattie murmured.

      Jessie was immobile in her corner, and her clothes compressed the flesh beneath into swollen ridges. It was an effort for her to reach up and plant one of her resounding kisses on Mattie’s cheek, but the Christmas tree that Julia and Felix had bought and decorated glowed beside her and the soft light made her look rosy.

      ‘Are you all right, Jessie?’

      ‘As right as I’ll ever be. Give us another kiss. What’s your news, then?’

      ‘Lots of news. I’m going to be an actress.’

      ‘That’s what they call it?’

      Felix materialised from his room, like a shadow in his black jersey. He kissed Mattie too, brushing her cheek with his mouth. She looked older, he thought, as if some experience had rubbed off on her. That made him glance at Julia, and for the hundredth time he noticed her gnawing impatience. Julia hadn’t had Mattie’s luck, whatever that was.

      ‘Felix? Get some glasses, there’s a duck. It’s Christmas.’

      Felix went into the kitchen for a bottle of wine and a corkscrew. At least it was easier to live here with Julia when her aviator was away. He isn’t mine, Julia had once snapped viciously when Felix said that. Why do you call him mine?

      He isn’t mine either, Felix might have answered. But he said nothing and Julia had stood up, walking to the door and then twisting back again in the confined space. It