Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection: Strangers, Bad Girls Good Women, A Woman of Our Times, All My Sins Remembered
walked down through the Air-Wick-pungent hotel and out through the front door. Nobody shouted an accusation after her. The sea was puckered and steel-grey, but she didn’t stop to look at it. She turned into the town towards the theatre. Women with shopping bags passed her, and errand boys on bicycles.
They must all be able to see, Mattie thought. I know they can tell what I’ve been doing. She held her head up. It doesn’t matter. It’s happened, that’s all. She felt very lonely, and she longed to tell Julia. Not in a letter. Not after the weeks of silence that she had allowed to slip by.
She would have to wait until Christmas. Two weeks, until the company disbanded for the Christmas break.
Everyone in the company knew at once. Vera took her aside when she reached the theatre.
‘Where were you last night? I was so worried.’
‘Were you? I went out to dinner with John,’ Mattie said deliberately. ‘Someone else stood him up.’
Vera’s eyes and mouth made three amazed circles. She scuttled away as soon as she could to spread the news.
It turned out to be a short-lived sensation. Everyone was used to the permutations of company lovers, and when the brief flurry of interest died down Mattie discovered the effects were that the actors treated her more circumspectly and Sheila Firth adopted her as a kind of ally. Only Fergus and Alan didn’t share their jokes quite as generously, and Lenny didn’t expect her to be a friend now that she had John Douglas.
At the next Treasury call Vera handed her a separate envelope with her wages. It contained exactly seven guineas in notes and silver and Mattie was puzzled until she remembered that it was the price of a coat in the middle display window of the High Street department store. John Douglas must have seen it too. Mattie went to look at it again before the Saturday matinée. It was green tweed with big flaps and pockets and when she tried it on she looked like a farmer. She chose a black cloth coat instead. It had a big black fake-fur collar that framed her face, and a wide black patent belt. It was cheaper than the green tweed, and she spent the rest of the money on a pair of black suede gloves.
Mattie put on her new finery and went into the theatre office to see John. He frowned at her through the smoke of his cigarette and muttered, ‘You look like a bloody tart. But that’s your business, I suppose. Is it warm enough?’
‘It’s lovely and warm. Thank you.’
‘Vera’ll take ten bob a week out of your wages until it’s paid for.’
Mattie couldn’t help laughing.
The two weeks went by and there were carol singers outside the shops and strings of coloured light bulbs hung bravely from the street lights. Mattie had warned herself not to expect anything from John Douglas, but she was softened by his brusque affection. Sometimes he put his arm round her, almost abesent-mindedly, or touched her hair, as if he liked the feel of her for herself and not just for sex. He took her to bed in his salesman’s hotels too, of course, and she submitted to it because it mattered to him.
The best thing was the way that he talked to her, about books and opera as well as the theatre. Mattie listened thirstily.
The last week ended and she did the get-out with a mixture of relief and regret. The scenery and props were going into store until the tour started up again. There was an impromptu Christmas party for the whole company in the corner pub beyond the theatre. Mattie played darts and drank Guinness, and laughed at John’s stories which he performed for the 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.
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