exploded behind her eyelids. John leaned over the side of the bed and fumbled in his dressing gown pocket. He unrolled the rubber over himself and balanced over her on all fours.
You can do what you want, Mattie repeated childishly inside her starry head. I don’t mind. You can do what you want.
He pushed her legs so far apart that the tendons strained in her groin. Then he took hold of himself with his fist and guided it into her. He did it quite gently, but Mattie felt the resistance inside her, and the pressure of him jabbing in and down. There was a sharp tear and she yelled out, an aggrieved shout of pain.
John held himself still.
‘Jesus Christ. Is this your first time?’
She nodded blindly. ‘I’m sorry.’
He took her face in his hands and kissed it, rubbing her mouth with his lips.
‘You should have told me, you bloody silly girl. Oh, Mattie.’
His gentleness salved her a little, but he seemed to forget it quite quickly. He began to saw up and down inside her, all the way in and then almost out again. Mattie felt nothing. The soft, melting, warm-watery sensations that her father gave her when they were alone in the house together were all that Mattie knew. And she had buried those feelings so deeply and defensively that it would take more than John Douglas to disinter them.
It seemed to go on for a long time. The weight of him ground against her hip-bones, and her soft membranes felt bruised and assaulted. Mattie concentrated on his thick white shoulders sheeny with sweat, on the creases in his neck, and the tufts of grey hair that sprouted from his ears.
He began to move faster, his breath coming in hoarse gasps. He went rigid and shouted out, ‘Jesus,’ and then gave a long, wailing cry. Mattie was afraid for him, and then she realised that it was all over. She held his head between her hands, supporting him until he stopped thrashing over her.
Milky silence folded over the room and they lay limply in the knotted blankets.
There, Mattie thought. I was right it didn’t matter.
She thought that John had fallen asleep again, but he lifted his head to look at her. ‘I wish you’d told me that you were a virgin.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she whispered.
His face looked different, she noticed. Softer, perhaps.
‘You made me very happy, this morning, Mattie Banner,’ John said.
She smiled then, a quick flickering smile, but she felt warmer inside.
‘Good,’ Mattie said.
They lay comfortably together, listening to the world moving outside. It was nice, Mattie thought, to share a moment like this. Private, just to themselves. John reached for his cigarettes and lit one for each of them, fitting Mattie’s between her fingers for her. She inhaled deeply, knowingly. She felt wiser, almost happy.
‘John?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Mm?’
‘Did you go to bed with Jennifer Edge?’
A laugh rumbled in his chest, under her ear. ‘Yes. Everyone did, it was more or less obligatory. I’m not sure about Doris and Ada.’ Mattie laughed too, but the little glow of warmth faded. She could cope with his Burford wife. But Jennifer Edge, whom she had never seen and cared nothing about, she made a difference. She put Mattie herself into perspective. One in a line. It probably went with the job.
She tried to banter. ‘What? Lenny, too?’
‘Almost certainly.’
It was hard to laugh. Mattie saw the room again. Green and brown, hideous in the livid winter daylight. She butted out her cigarette in the tin ashtray beside the bed.
‘I should be at the theatre now.’
‘Come here for one more minute.’
He put his thick arms around and pulled her closer. The woolly hairs on his chest crinkled against her skin.
‘Jennifer’s nothing like you, you know. You’re a nice girl, Mattie.’ He kissed her thoroughly and when he let her go again Mattie said softly, ‘I used to be a nice girl.’
They both laughed, then. Mattie took the opportunity to slide out of bed. She put her crumpled clothes on and combed her hair in front of the greenish mirror.
‘I’ll see you later, my love, at the theatre,’ John said.
‘Of course.’
Mattie 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