Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection: Strangers, Bad Girls Good Women, A Woman of Our Times, All My Sins Remembered
He was warning her off again. ‘I was a jerk to bring you here. It’s not your fault, it’s all mine. You’re so nice, Julia. Don’t get things all wrong, like I do.’
He turned abruptly and went into his own room, closing the door on her.
Julia lay down on her bed. She was crying, hot tears of hurt, and frustration, and love.
But she did know that she wanted Josh Flood, her aviator, more than she had ever wanted anything and more than she could imagine ever wanting anything else in the world. She promised herself that she would get him, somehow.
John Douglas was on the telephone again.
Mattie listened to his wonderful voice. She was doodling on her notepad with her free hand, a proscenium arch and curtains, a single spot shining on the empty boards …
‘Tell him what I said, won’t you?’ John Douglas finished.
‘As soon as he comes in,’ Mattie promised.
‘Good girl. Be seeing you.’
If only, Mattie thought wistfully. Did he look like he sounded? She went back to her one-fingered typing, frowning at the keyboard in search of elusive characters.
Francis appeared a few minutes later. He looked cheerful, and he was smoking a cigar so big that it threatened to overbalance him.
‘It’s a cruel world, my love,’ he told her. ‘A big cruel world, and you have to go with it or go under.’
Mattie deduced that he had satisfactorily done somebody down. His instincts were predatory and self-seeking, but Mattie didn’t condemn him for that. She was beginning to like Francis, and through him to see a picture of the theatre that wasn’t all glitter. She was glad of it.
She ripped a completed letter to a theatre manager in Durham out of her machine and pushed it across for Francis’s signature. ‘What have you done? Stabbed your grandmother in an alley for two per cent of the takings?’ She had discovered that Francis loved to be teased about his ruthlessness.
‘That’s enough cheek from you. Look at your bloody spelling. Is this supposed to be “commencing”? Any phone messages?’
‘My spelling’s as good as yours. Just different.’ They smiled appreciatively at each other. ‘Just one message. From John Douglas. He says that Jennifer Edge has left the company. He also said, as far as I can remember, that she’s gone off with the fucking Italian chef from some poncy caff, and you’d better send him up someone else who isn’t going to fall on her back every time some fucking dago unbuttons his equipment and waves it at her. And you’d better do it right off, or he’s wrapping the whole fucking show and sod ’em. And sod you.’
Francis sat down behind his desk and rubbed his hand over his face. ‘Language, language.’
‘I quote,’ Mattie said crisply, and rolled a fresh sheet of paper into her typewriter.
‘That fat bitch,’ Francis sighed. ‘I should have known better than to send Douglas off with a middle-aged nympho for a stage manager. Once she’d had him and everything else in the company in trousers, she’d be bound to be looking elsewhere. Gone off, you said.’
‘Gone off, left the company. Took the half a week’s wages owing to her out of the night’s takings and went without a forwarding address. That’s loosely what Mr Douglas said, if you prefer it that way.’
‘Oh, Christ,’ sighed Francis. He took his cigar out of his mouth and stared gloomily at the shiny, wet end of it. ‘Let’s think. No use hoping that they could do without anyone. The company’s stripped to the bone as it is, and Douglas wouldn’t stand for it. Who can I send up there halfway through a tour?’
Mattie knew. She saw her chance, shining at her like a beacon through the banks of cigar smoke. ‘I’ll go.’
Francis snorted. ‘You? What do you know about stage management? Edge knew what she was doing, if she could get herself off the horizontal for long enough. We’ll have to advertise.’
Mattie jumped up and went round to his chair. She perched on his desk, gripping the splintered wood with her fingers to contain her eagerness. ‘I can do it. I’ve got experience. It’s only amateur, but I know what to do. Let me, Francis.’
He was silent for a second, and her heart jumped in her chest. She pressed on recklessly. ‘I could go straight away. Tomorrow, if you like. You won’t get anyone else that quickly.’ When he still said nothing she begged him. ‘Please, Francis. Send me.’
Francis looked down at her knees. They were smooth and nylon shiny. He put his hand over one of them and squeezed it. For once Mattie didn’t pull away. He was remembering the first time he saw her, singing with old Jessie. She can’t sing, he had thought, but she’s got plenty of other talents.
A rare generous impulse took hold of Francis. He liked her, and she deserved her chance. She was also the worst typist he had ever known. ‘You can go as a fill-in. Just until I find a proper replacement.’
Mattie put her arms around him and kissed the top of his head. Francis leaned back, resting against her breasts, glowing with the pleasure of being rewarded, for once, for having done the right thing. ‘You’re not going for good,’ he reminded her hastily. ‘Just for half a six-month tour. I need you here.’
‘Not for good, of course,’ Mattie agreed. Just for as long as it takes.
Three days later, Julia and Felix were seeing her off from Euston Station. There had been a surprise addition to the send-off party – at the last minute Josh had turned up too.
Mattie leaned out of the carriage window. Sprouts of wet, stale steam separated her from Julia and Felix, and now that the time had come she didn’t want to leave them. In the last weeks in the square they had become a family. But Felix had heaved her one suitcase into the rack over her seat, and her single ticket was stowed in her purse.
‘Goodbye,’ she called. ‘I’ll write, lots and lots.’ As if she was going to Australia. It felt like it, suddenly. She wanted to whisper to Julia, ‘Be as happy with him as you like. Just don’t make him be your happiness.’ There was no chance of saying anything of the kind now, even if she could have found words precise enough to express her uneasiness. Julia was smiling, waving, with Josh’s arm round her shoulder.
Mattie wanted to whisper to Felix, too, but she had even less idea of what she might have said. There was just something in his face, behind his smile. Perhaps bewilderment. Josh’s other arm rested on Felix’s shoulder, drawing the three of them together, into a little circle of light. Josh’s vitality and charm had that effect, Mattie thought.
They might have been a picture, the three of them on the platform. Called something like Au Revoir, or We’ll Meet Again. That was another effect of Josh’s. He didn’t seem to belong, quite, to reality.
The guard’s whistle blew. Steam was thickened with smoke, and the train jolted forwards. She was going, anyway. She would miss them, but she wouldn’t miss her chance.
‘Goodbye! Good luck!’
‘Be a good girl, Mattie!’
She leaned out as far as she could, and blew kisses. ‘Not if I can help it!’ Julia and Felix stood waving, linked by Josh, until the guard’s van of Mattie’s train swayed out of sight.
‘I wish she hadn’t gone,’ Julia said, but she could only make herself aware of Josh. When he was with her everything else faded into insignificance, even the bleakness that she suffered when he wasn’t.
Since the flying weekend he had come to see her two or three times, appearing as if he had just thought of the idea five minutes earlier. His seeming casualness hurt Julia, but she accepted it because