Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection

by Rosie Thomas

  He stared at her. ‘The papers. Where d’you think?’

  He was only gone for a few moments. He burst back into the room with a thick sheaf of newsprint in his arms. Mattie hauled herself upright, wrapping the bedclothes carefully around her upper half. But Jimmy didn’t spare her a glance. He threw himself down on the bed beside her and tore feverishly into the first paper. His lips formed the first words as he read them, and then he shouted in triumph. ‘Mr Proffitt, the youngest and angriest of the Angry Young Men, has written a remarkable play. His voice is uncompromising, poetic, and as new as tomorrow.’

  Mattie caught the fever. She snatched up another paper and riffled through it. ‘Here. Listen. A tragedy for our times … powerful, shocking, mordantly funny … umm, umm, Miss Banner is a great discovery.’

  They were like children pulling open their Christmas stockings, exclaiming at each new revelation and then throwing it aside in favour of the next. They snatched the reviews from each other, tearing the paper and smudging their hands and faces with newsprint as the pages mounted up in a litter around them.

  ‘I am not ashamed to say that I wept, and I don’t believe that there were many dry eyes around me. Jesus, who wrote that?’

  ‘A directness that cuts straight to the heart.’

  ‘Hey, here’s one for you. I would travel a long way to see Miss Banner in one of our great tragic roles.’

  ‘How far is a long way? He never came to Sunderland to see me as the debutante in Welcome Home.’

  They were flushed with their success now, shouting and laughing and poring over the best lines again. Mattie was bursting with the elated triumph that had evaded her last night. ‘Miss Banner is a faultless Mary.’

  All the reviewers devoted most of their space to the play itself, and that was how it should be, Mattie thought generously. One More Day was a remarkable piece of work, and she was proud that she had recognised it on her first reading, with John Douglas watching her so anxiously. And her own share of the praise and attention was more than she had hoped for, more than she had even dreamed of. She gathered the scattered newspapers voluptuously to her chest and hugged them.

  There was only one less than favourable review, in the Telegraph. The rims of Jimmy’s nostrils went white as he read it.

  ‘The unpleasantly realistic face of an unpleasant world, and Mr Proffitt dwells on it with evident relish. The fine acting of the newcomer, Miss Banner, is wasted on the self-seeking melodrama of One More Day.’ Jimmy almost spat. ‘What’s he talking about, the ignorant, bloated old bastard?’

  Gently, Mattie took the paper from him and dropped it on the floor. ‘It’s only one,’ she said. ‘Against all the others.’

  They went back to the good reviews, rereading them until they knew them by heart. Then Mattie leaned back luxuriously against the pillows while Jimmy went into his kitchen alcove and made bacon sandwiches with thick slabs of white bread smeared with tomato ketchup, and tea in a big brown pot. He brought them back to bed and they feasted together, speculating about what the director would say, and the backers, and on how many weeks the play would run after such reviews, and what Jimmy’s share of the take would amount to. Francis’s negotiations on Mattie’s behalf hadn’t secured her any more than a fairly modest weekly wage.

  ‘I’ll be rich,’ Jimmy announced.

  At the same moment Mattie realised, with a little jolt, that even if she wasn’t rich, she was a definite success. There would be other parts now. Lots of them, perhaps even television or films. She had watched it happen to other actresses, and now it was her turn. Just as she had dreamed, ever since Blick Road. A slow, dazzled smile spread over her face.

  Jimmy Proffitt saw it and he took her mug of tea out of her hand. ‘And now, don’t you think we should celebrate our mutual triumph?’

  He pulled the blankets away and nuzzled his face against the creamy weight of Mattie’s breast. Her fists had already begun to tighten when he sat up again and reached for a tin box on the chair beside his bed. Inside the tin was a packet of tobacco and a folded paper of grass. ‘Shall we have a smoke first?’

  Mattie nodded. She watched him while he rolled it and then took the first draw when he offered it to her. There was plenty of marijuana around at the Rocket and elsewhere, but Mattie generally preferred the blues and other uppers taken by the Showbox girls to keep themselves going. The grass made her feel thick-headed now, and her limbs felt heavy and tingly. But it was nice, lying dreamily with her cheek against Jimmy’s chest and watching the blue plumes of smoke. She thought that one of the eyes in the collage over the bed winked at her and she laughed a little.

  ‘That’s better,’ Jimmy said. He put the smouldering butt out in a tin ashtray and pulled Mattie over to lie on top of him.

  ‘Go on,’ he murmured. ‘It’s not going to bite you, is it?’

  After a while, quite a long while, through the usual stabbing and bumping, Mattie began to feel a different sensation. Jimmy had twisted her over on to her back, and her knees were drawn up on either side of his narrow hips. He moved in and out of her with long, slow, rhythmical thrusts. Mattie realised that she was lifting her own hips to meet his. The odd sensation, still dim and unlocalised, was a throb of pleasure. It had nothing to do with what Ted had once done. It belonged to here and now, and Mattie twisted her head on the pillow, trying to reach inside herself for it. It escaped her, tantalisingly, like a point of warmth blown to and fro in a windy space. But it was there, somewhere. It was even intensifying. Mattie was half afraid to focus on it, in case it vanished.

  Jimmy plunged on. His eyes were screwed shut and his face was red. His mouth opened suddenly, a dark, wet square, and he shouted something over her head. Mattie watched him, gripped by an instant of acute anger that the peak of pleasure should be his, and not hers. And then, a moment later, when he flopped down beside her, anger dissolved into tenderness. She was incredulously happy, too. This time she hadn’t longed for it to end. This time she had begun, a little, to understand what it was all about.

  The knot that had tied itself inside her began unsatisfactorily to unravel and the small, local, ordinary sensations of hands and feet, arms and legs, came back to her. It was Jimmy who had shown her the difference. Gratitude washed over her. She leaned over him and brushed the hair back from his forehead. He was panting and he opened his eyes and looked at her, full in the face. He didn’t often do that, she realised now. His eyes were an unusual greeny-yellow colour.

  ‘Okay,’ he murmured, and Mattie didn’t know whether he meant her or himself.

  They lay with their arms around each other for a little while longer. Mattie would have liked a cigarette or perhaps some more grass, but Jimmy jerked himself upright and then swung out of bed, out of her reach. He pulled a shirt over his shoulders and began buttoning it.

  ‘Time to get moving,’ he said briefly.

  ‘Where …’

  ‘People to see. Duties of celebrity to discharge.’ He grinned at her, ‘You should have, too.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She couldn’t think of anything she had to do but be at the theatre by 6 p.m., but she slid out of bed too, keeping the shelter of the covers around her for as long as possible. Jimmy was already dressed. He went into the kitchen alcove and she heard him splashing water and whistling. Mattie looked out of the window into the street. There was a sandwich bar opposite, with office workers taking early lunches already filing into it. She felt supremely privileged. She had no office to go to. She had a part, a wonderful part, and a packed theatre. She wanted to put her arms around Jimmy and thank him, but when he came back he was shaved and combed, and he was already shrugging himself into his jacket.

  ‘D’you mind if I push off?’

  ‘No. No, of course not.’

  ‘Just pull the door shut. It’ll lock itself. See you tonight.’

  ‘Yes. Jimmy, thank you …’ But he was already gone. Mattie stood in the middle of the room, thinking about the way his narrow eyes lifted, the way he had
said I’ll take care of you, the other things he had done. His crumpled jeans were still lying on the floor where he had left them last night, and she picked them up and smoothed them neatly on a chair. Then she made the bed and picked up their breakfast mugs and carried them through into the kitchenette. As she did the washing-up she was thinking, is this what it’s like? Is this what Julia felt, about her aviator? She wondered if her own face glowed in the same way, as if it was illuminated from deep inside. She even tried the words out on her tongue, I love you, Jimmy, and didn’t stop to laugh at herself.

  When the room was restored to its original neatness she dressed herself and pulled the door shut behind her, listening for the click of the lock. Then she walked down to Oxford Street, to catch a bus home. She felt different, walking through the crowds, but she didn’t know if it was because of her success or because of falling in love.

  Julia had been in to work, but George had sent her out to pick up some urgently needed wallpaper samples from the manufacturers’ offices in the West End, and she had decided that she would reward herself for the boring chore with a quiet lunch at home in the square. She didn’t quite admit to herself that she was worried because Mattie hadn’t come home all night, and no one had answered the telephone in the flat this morning. Perhaps she would be in by now, Julia thought, as she tramped up the stairs.

  The flat was empty when she let herself in, but by the time she had made herself a sandwich in the kitchen Mattie had arrived. Julia glanced quickly at her. She was relieved to see that Mattie looked cheerful, only tired, with dark patches under her eyes.

  ‘And where’s the star been, all night?’ she asked lightly. ‘Have you seen the papers? George is so impressed, I must be worth at least another thirty bob a week to him just for knowing you.’

  ‘Yes, amazing, the reviews …’

  Mattie looked so uncertain that Julia went and put her arms around her. She had been feeling an uncomfortable sensation that wasn’t jealousy, of course it wasn’t possible to be jealous of Mattie’s success, but still an awkward irritableness every time she thought of the papers, and the three times that the telephone had rung just while she was making her sandwich, each time someone Julia didn’t know, urgently wanting to speak to Mattie. She hugged her tightly now.

  ‘Where have you been, Mat? Are you all right?’

  ‘I went home with Jimmy Proffitt.’

  Julia was startled. ‘With him?’ She hadn’t much liked the brief glimpse she had caught of the playwright. ‘And what was that like?’

  ‘It was nice,’ Mattie said. ‘He’s really nice. I think. As well as brilliant, of course,’ she added loyally. ‘In fact, this could well be It.’

  ‘Oh, Mattie.’

  They looked at each other and then they laughed, rubbing their cheeks together. She was still Mattie, after all, Julia thought with relief. Why ever should she have thought otherwise, just because of a few lines in the newspapers? Abruptly, ashamed of her earlier feelings, she said, ‘I didn’t get a chance to tell you properly last night. I was so proud of you, up there. You were better than I’d ever imagined you were going to be. Shows how much I know.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Mattie said, her face glowing.

  ‘C’mon. Have my sandwich. I’ll make another. There’s coffee in the pot.’

  ‘I’d rather have a gin.’

  Sitting in front of the gas fire in Jessie’s room, it was like ordinary life again. Plain and reassuring. Mattie was eager to reconfirm it, convincing herself that the play and the reviews were just delicious icing on top of the solidly familiar cake, and it wouldn’t matter if there wasn’t to be a second helping of icing.

  ‘Tell me some news of real life. What have you been doing?’

  ‘Since yesterday afternoon? Not much. Being intimidated by Bliss’s mother, mostly. Lucky I’m not a hopeful daughter-in-law, isn’t it? Oh yes, one thing. George says he wants Felix to go in and see him. He thinks he just may have an opening.’

  ‘No prizes for guessing which one,’ Mattie said coarsely.

  It was so much one of the old jokes that they fell against each other, hooting with laughter. Julia gasped, ‘Mattie, darling Mattie. You won’t get any different, will you, just because you’re famous?’

  ‘Nothing’s going to get any different,’ Mattie said firmly. ‘Just better, that’s all.’

  The telephone began to ring again. Julia sighed.

  ‘Go on, you’d better answer it. It’s sure to be for you.’

  Mattie stood up, brushing the sandwich crumbs from her mouth as if the caller could see her. She crossed the room to the telephone, in the corner where Jessie’s bed had once been, and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Come on, darling. This way. Keeping in step with the poodle, please.’

  It was the beginning of March, and the few gleams of thin sunshine filtering through the clouds failed to melt the air at all. Julia shivered, stared hard at the rash of yellow crocuses poking out of the grass, and tried to convince herself that she was both warm and perfectly relaxed.

  ‘Ve—ery haughty. Good. Nice. This way, love, can’t you?’ She was walking her adorable giant poodle beside the Serpentine in Hyde Park. It was a lovely warm day. She looked marvellous in her new outfit, designed by Yves St Laurent for the august house of Dior. She loved the suit in raspberry and black checked tweed, cinched in at the waist with a four-inch-wide patent-leather belt, ballooning out into a skirt that was then pulled into a tight band ending two inches above her knees.

  There was a matching tweed hat, divinely shaped like a lampshade. The photographer hopping in front of her was no more important than a fly or a gnat.

  If only any of it was true, Julia thought miserably. She thought the clothes made her look grotesque, and the huge earrings they had put on her pinched her earlobes. Her feet were frozen and the big dog, hideously clipped into balls of black fluff, pulled viciously on its jewelled lead. The photographer was a greyhaired exquisite whose impatience was beginning to wear through his charm, and his assistant and the fashion editor from the magazine looked despairing. Julia had so much make-up on that she didn’t know how much of her expression showed through it, but however she looked it clearly wasn’t haughty enough. Not nearly as haughty as the dog.

  ‘Good, keep going, and again, so grand,’ trilled the photographer.

  It was Julia’s second week as a professional model, and her third assignment. Her photographer friend, surprisingly true to his promise, had shot a portfolio of pictures and they had taken them to a model agency. To Julia’s amazement, the agency had agreed to take her on to their books.

  ‘You’re a great-looking girl, with a thoroughbred face. You’ve got the height, and you’re slim enough,’ they had told her. ‘You’re very raw, of course, but time will solve that. Do you want to give it a try?’

  It was February, a particularly cold and wet one. Mattie was absorbed in One More Day, and any free time she had was devoted to Jimmy Proffitt. Suddenly, overnight, they were the golden couple. Every magazine that didn’t have Jimmy’s face on the cover seemed to have Mattie’s.

  Felix had joined George Tressider Designs. George had taken him straight behind the door into the design offices, and Julia was left outside in her old place.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she told the model agency. ‘Of course I do.’

  She handed her notice in to George and waited for her own success to overtake her. It had only taken ten days, ten days divided between sitting in the flat and wishing the agency would ring her and actual assignments where she spent every second wishing she was back in the flat again, for her to realise that success was elusive.

  She had been fine in front of the first photographer. He was a friend, and it was all only a joke. She had strutted and posed with real enjoyment, thinking, As soon as I’ve done this he’ll stop pestering me. But once it became real work, Julia felt quite different. She was awkward with critical faces peering at her, however much she told herself that she didn’t care, and the camera
lens seemed to freeze her with its cold fish-eye.

  ‘Good face,’ she heard one of the photographers murmur, ‘but she’s as stiff as a board.’

  Julia seesawed between needing to laugh and wanting to cry. These clothes made her laugh, with their high-flown haute couture absurdity. She supposed that she was lucky even to be allowed to touch them, but the sort of clothes that Julia wanted to wear came from a new little shop called Bazaar in the King’s Road. Sadly, Bazaar didn’t employ models, nor did its dresses get featured in the glossy magazines. It was failing that made Julia want to cry. She had always hated failure, and she knew that it was facing her now.

  ‘Where are you going?’ the photographer shouted in exasperation.

  Julia wasn’t going anywhere, it was the dog. It had glimpsed an Irish setter in the distance and it shot forward, yanking Julia behind it. And then it stopped dead, unable to contain its malice any longer, with its knotty legs spread wide and its pompom tail quivering. Julia crashed into it, swayed, and lost her footing. She fell heavily, slithered down the wet concrete incline on her bottom, and ended up with her legs in the Serpentine. The dog barked joyously and bounded away, the glittering lead snaking behind it. Murky, freezing wavelets lapped around Julia’s calves and soaked the hemline of the hobble skirt. She could imagine the faces behind her, but she sat where she was because she couldn’t make herself turn round and see them in reality.

  It seemed a very long time before an arm seized her on either side and hoisted her upright. Her sheer nylons were torn to shreds and water ran out of her patent shoes. ‘Oh, dear,’ the magazine girl murmured. ‘Have you got anything there?’ she asked her photographer.

  ‘Might have. Just one or two,’ was the gloomy response. ‘We’ll have to manage somehow with what we’ve got. That’ll be all for today, Julia.’

  They were all dabbing tenderly at the suit as if it was far more important than she was. Of course, it is more important, Julia thought furiously.