Bad Girls Good Women (2 page)

After her dance with the sideburns man someone else had claimed her, and then one of Mattie’s retinue of men. She drank some more whisky and then some champagne, and reached the elusive stage of being drunk when everything seemed warm, and simple, and deliciously funny. The crowd began to thin out a little as the staider guests left. Alexander stood at the foot of the sweep of stairs, saying goodbye. When he looked back at the dancers he realised that the stayers were going to stay all night. The music was coming from the radiogram now, and the group had put down their guitars to join the dancers. One of them took off his shirt to dance bare-chested, with the sweat shining on his shoulder blades. Mattie reached our reflective to touch the muscles in his back with her fingertips, and Julia laughed. At that moment everyone was her friend, but she loved Mattie for all the years that had just slipped out of her reach with the strokes of Big Ben. It was just New Year’s Eve that was troubling her. She didn’t want to celebrate the death of a year, let alone a decade.

She looked for Bliss, wanting to put her arms around him, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. She turned instead, smiling back at the laugher around her, ready to plunge into the party once more.

She never knew how the next thing happened. The crush was much less than it had been at midnight, and she couldn’t remember afterwards who had been at that side of the room. Someone must have stumbled, or swung an arm too wildly and reached out to steady themselves. Julia saw her Christmas tree shiver as if it was alive, and then it titled, slowly at first, and then it fell in an arc of fire. The candle flames licked through the dark branches, and the branches crackled fragrantly as the scarlet tongues devoured them.

For an instant, still in the grip of euphoria, Julia thought how beautiful it was. The blazing tree hit the floor, with its glass balls splintering around it. The dancers scattered backwards and a girl screamed. The record was still playing but it seemed that there was a long moment’s silence. And then the heavy velvet curtains caught fire. A sheet of flame sprang upwards from the floor, blindingly bright in the dim room. A second later the dusty velvet drapes and braided tassels were blazing like the demolished tree.

There was another scream, but this one was caught and stifled by a belching pall of smoke. The horrified stillness in the room broke into a panicky scramble of bodies. Julia was carried towards the door, almost falling and then clawing her way upright again. The smoke billowed out, as acrid as her sudden terror, and she choked on it. There was a babble of shouts and screams now and a man’s voice rising over them commanding, ‘Don’t push. Don’t panic.’

The joyous crackle of leaping flames was louder than anything else, drowning out the music and the shouting.

The first dancers to escape stumbled out into the hallway.

Julia saw that the man with the sideburns had wrapped himself in one of the rolled-back rugs. Under is protection he was trying to tear down the flaming curtains. They fell in a shower of vicious sparks, and the heavy wooden cornice pole crashed with them. It was already alight and before Julia’s eyes the whole of the panelled wall beside the dark gape of the window flowered into bright tendrils of flame.

She heard herself scream too. ‘Bliss!’ The roar of the fire grew deafening as it took hold. ‘Bliss. Where are you?’

She couldn’t see him anywhere. The room was thick with smoke now, and she coughed and gasped as it filled her lungs. The door seemed so far away. She was sure that she would never reach it and fear spread through her as fast as the fire itself. A hand grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward. Her tight dress hobbled her and she almost fell again, but the surge of people pushed her forward. Half carried and half dragged there, she lurched through the doorway into the hall. Cold, fresh air bit into her lungs and she gulped at it, her eyes steaming. She rubbed the palms of her hands into her eyes and turned to look where she had come from.

The last of the dancers tumbled out after her, retching, and blinded by the smoke. A great black cloud of it licked after them. Julia could see nothing beyond it, but she could hear the fire as it leapt upwards and onwards. Water. She must get water to quench it. She imagined ducking through the smoke to pour water where the Christmas tree had collapsed into flame, and half turned to run for the kitchens.

The heavy main door banged open and she smelt the frosty purity of the night air rushing past her as the fire sucked it inwards. Julia felt it like a living thing now. It gave a great roar of satisfaction as the air fed it. Through the smoke she glimpsed its red heart, and sparks that cascaded downwards in a mocking torrent. No one could get into that room now.

Telephone. She must telephone for help instead.

‘Get everyone outside,’ someone shouted. ‘Then for Christ’s sake shut the doors.’ Julia’s guests began to stream out into the darkness. She saw Mattie, her fact blackened with smoke.

‘Come on,’ Mattie yelled at her. ‘Get out.’

‘I’ve got to ring for help.

Julia tried to push past her, to Bliss’s little office on the right of the stairs, and the nearest telephone.

‘No,’ Mattie screamed. ‘Julia!’

Then at last she saw Bliss. He ran towards her from the stone archway that led through to the back of the house. His face was the colour of ice.

Julia stumbled towards him. ‘The fire brigade,’ she shouted helplessly.

‘They’re coming.’

Alexander was methodically throwing open every door to check that the room beyond was empty. He slammed the doors shut again and the roar of the fire devoured the sound. Another obliterating blanket of smoke rolled around them and he caught at her arm.

‘Is everyone out of there?’

She nodded, and at once he was pulling her over the stone flags to the big door. She tripped in her tight dress and the thin fabric ripped, freeing her to run. The arched portico framed the night beyond, then it was overhead, and then with Alexander’s arm supporting her they escaped into the darkness. The cold hit them and Julia saw ahead of her the dark, glossy’ ovals of the clipped yews reflecting an ugly red glow. The crowd of people milled at the foot of the shallow flight of steps, their faces turned upwards to the house. Julia and Alexander looked the same way, and understood how quickly and how terribly the fire had taken hold.

The windows of what had been the drawing room, where only a few minutes ago they had been dancing in the flow of candlelight, were now blind eyes from which the smoke coiled in the thick ropes. The flames had reached the first floor, and came darting lasciviously from the windows. The crash of breaking glass and falling timber was just audible through the voice of the fire itself.

‘Is everyone out?’ Bliss shouted hoarsely. ‘Is anyone missing?’

The panic had subsided. The guests were numb with shock, and silent in awe of the fire’s horrible vitality. They muttered to one another, and shook their heads. It seemed that everyone was accounted for.

Julia stood motionless, watching. Bliss’s fingers were like iron hooks digging into the flesh of her arm. Looking upwards at the windows in the gable end of the near wing, she thought of the magnificent beams that supported the roof of the Long Gallery, and the floor of broad oak boards that separated the gallery from the burning bedrooms beneath.

She shivered violently in the city air. And then she remembered.

The words stuck in her throat at first. Bliss looked at her, then gripped her other arm and pulled her closer.

‘What is it?’

‘Flowers. Flowers was upstairs, with a girl.’

They whirled apart and went blundering through the silent huddles of people. ‘Has anyone seen Flowers?’

No one had seen him. There were only white, shocked faces, and none of them was Johnny Flowers.

Julia remembered, with a beat of horror, what he had said in the shadows at the top of the stairs.
The party to end all parties
. She dared not look up at the lurid windows.

Fear crystallised into certainty within her. She finished her desperate circuit and collided with Bliss again.

‘Not 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.
 

One

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.