here.’
Alexander turned his face to the house. Julia saw the reflected light of the fire in his eyes.
‘They must still be inside.’
He was already running towards the steps. Two or three other men left the shelter of the crowd and ran with him.
‘No.’ Her scream tore Julia’s throat.
‘No. Don’t go back in there.’
Without stopping to think she began to run too, gathering up the ruined tail of her dress. She had only gone half a dozen steps when more people caught up with her and pulled at her arms, dragging her backwards. She struggled to break free, swearing blindly at them. They held her too tightly, and she was reduced to impotent kicking and writhing.
Her last glimpse of Bliss was as he ran back under the portico, one arm held crooked against his face in a vain attempt to shield it from the fire’s fierce heat.
‘Stop him,’ she whispered to the people holding her. ‘Don’t let him go in there.’
But he had already gone.
The men who had dashed forward with Bliss seemed to be driven back by the smoke, but Alexander was engulfed by it.
Nobody moved or spoke. The fire possessed the whole house now and the malevolent smoke hung over it, obliterating the starry winter sky.
Julia stepped away from the restraining hands and then stood motionless. No one could do anything. Impotent anger swept over her.
‘Where is the fire brigade? Why don’t they come? He’s going to die in there.’ She screamed again at the smoky mouth of the door, ‘Bliss!’
An arm came round her, and she saw that it was Mattie beside her. He friend’s eyes reflected the demonic red glow, as Bliss’s had done. Looking wildly around, Julia saw that all their faces were lit by it. The black shadows thrown by the firelight in the hollows of their cheeks and eyesockets made all of them look like skulls. She felt an instant of wild, almost exultant terror.
The fire would come for all of them. Bliss was already gone, and it was Mattie and Julia standing to face it together, as they had always done.
A bubble of hysterical laughter broke out of Julia’s mouth.
Mattie held her harder, shaking her, hurting her shoulders. ‘Hold on. They’re coming now. You’ve got to hold on.’
Julia heard it then. Only just audible through the roar of the flames were the bells of the fire engines as they raced towards Ladyhill.
The mad laughter died in her throat and Julia gave a long shuddering sigh.
She stood waiting, one hand holding on to Mattie. The fingers of her other hand just rested on the concave space between her hip-bones.
Julia Bliss was twelve weeks’ pregnant. For some reason that she didn’t even understand herself, she hadn’t told her husband about the baby yet.
Summer, 1955
‘It’s cold,’ Julia said.
She looked at the scuffed suitcase at her feet, but it hardly seemed worth opening it and rummaging amongst the grubby contents for warmer clothes. She shivered, and hunched her shoulders.
Mattie didn’t even answer.
They sat side by side on the bench, silently, and the pigeons that had gathered in the hope of sandwich crumbs waddled away again. Over the stone balustrade in front of them the girls could just see the flat, murky river. A barge nosed slowly upstream and they watched it slide past them. A sluggish wash fanned out in its wake.
‘We could go home,’ Julia whispered.
Even to suggest it punctured her pride, but she wanted to be sure that Mattie’s resolve was still as firm as her own. Even though their defiance had brought them here, to this.
The rumble of the evening traffic along the Embankment seemed to grow louder to fill the silence between them. It was the first time either of them had mentioned going home, but they knew that they had both been thinking about it. It was three nights since they had run away. Four nights since Mattie had appeared at Julia’s parents’ front door, back in Fairmile Road, with her face bruised and puffy and her home-made blouse torn off her shoulder.
Julia’s father had stared past Mattie at the police car waiting in the road. Then his eyes had flicked to and fro, checking to see if any of the neighbours might be witnessing the spectacle. He had opened the door by another inch, as Julia watched from the top of the stairs.
‘Don’t you know that it’s one o’clock in the morning?’ he had asked his daughter’s best friend.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mattie said.
‘I suppose you’d better come in.’
Mattie stepped into the hallway. Mr Smith looked almost unrecognisable without his stiff collar, and his wife’s curlers sat on her head like thin sausages. Only the house looked the same. Little slippery rugs on the slippery floor, flowery papered walls and spiky plants in pots, and a framed Coronation picture of the Queen. And then Julia was the same, looking anxiously down at her, with her hair very dark against her pink dressing gown. Mattie was so relieved to see her, and the concern in Julia’s face touched her so directly, that she was almost crying again.
Mattie hitched the torn pieces of her blouse together and faced Julia’s parents squarely. They had always hated her, of course. They thought she led Julia astray, although that wasn’t the truth. It didn’t matter, she told herself. If they threw her out into the street again, at least the policeman had gone.
‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Betty Smith asked. Julia came down the stairs, pushing past her parents, putting an arm around Mattie’s shoulders. Mattie felt her comforting warmth. She would keep the story simple, she decided. Tomorrow, later today, whatever the time was, she would tell Julia what had really happened.
‘I’m afraid that there was an argument at home. My father … my father thought that I was out too late. I’d been to see East of Eden, that’s all. Julia didn’t want to come again.’
‘Julia was at home, doing her homework,’ Mr Smith said. ‘As she should have been every other night this week, instead of running around goodness knows where.’ With you, he might as well have added.
Julia is sixteen years old, Mattie thought savagely. What does bloody homework matter? And I’m seventeen. I’m not going to cry. Not after everything that’s happened. Not just because of these people, with their little, shut-in faces.
‘There was an argument,’ she went on. ‘I came out for a walk. To keep out of the way, you see? And a policeman saw me. He thought I was up to no good.’ She tried to laugh, but it drained away into their stony silence. Clearly Mr and Mrs Smith thought she was up to no good as well. ‘He offered to take me to friends, or relatives. I thought of here. I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind helping me. Just for one night.’
I’m not here because of you. I came to Julia. And what gives you the right to judge me?
‘You’d better stay, then,’ Vernon Smith said brusquely. He left it unclear whether it was for Mattie’s own sake, or in case of another visit from the police. Betty began to flutter about dust and boxes in the spare bedroom.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mattie said. She realised that she was exhausted. To go to sleep, that was all that mattered. ‘Anywhere will do.’
Julia was shocked by Mattie’s appearance. It wasn’t just the bruises, and the oozing cut at the corner of her mouth. More disturbingly, Mattie’s verve and defiance seemed to have drained out of her, leaving her as shapeless as a burst balloon. Julia had