Bad Girls Good Women (49 page)

It was a very long speech, for Felix. Julia shook her head, staring at him. ‘I … I can’t forget the fire.’

He leaned closer to her. ‘You can. You must. Do that much, for Alexander.’

Her chin jerked up. ‘You think I’m selfish, don’t you? Well. Perhaps I am. But I look at those black walls, and I hear the roar of the flames. I look up at the sky, and I can’t see it for smoke. You weren’t there, Felix. You don’t know what it was like. And I have to accept, every day, that it was my fault. My fault that Flowers is dead, and Sandy’s face is all … is all … melted. That the house Alexander loves is in ruins, and that his burned fingers are too stiff for him to play the trumpet. That’s what I live with, living at Ladyhill. How can I take the happiness, as you call it, being there and knowing all that?’

She pressed her hands over her eyes, but Felix drew them away and held them between his own.

‘Is it your fault that Flowers and Sandy were doing what they were doing? That the house was old and dry, and burned like kindling? Or that Alexander was brave enough to do what he did?’

‘No,’ Julia whispered.

‘No. But it will be your fault if you don’t go back and try to repair what was no one’s fault. I don’t just mean the bricks and mortar.’

He saw that there were faint vertical lines at the corners of Julia’s mouth. He had never seen them before, and they made him feel sad. He remembered the innocent girls he had first seen, trying to be louche at the Rocket.

Suddenly he said, ‘Were you happy at Ladyhill with Alexander before the fire?’

The glance that Julia darted at him was no more than a flicker of her eyes, but Felix intercepted it. Then her eyelids dropped again, and she studied their linked hands. ‘Yes, I was.’

He waited, but there was nothing else.

At length, in a different voice, Julia said, ‘You’re right, of course. We’ll go back, and I’ll try to make it all right. I promise I will.’

‘Good,’ Felix said.

The conversation seemed to be at an end. Julia drew her hands away and stood up. She walked around the room, touching the fading flowers and fingering the books and magazines on the bed table. Then, half turned away from Felix, she said, ‘We had this ideal, Mattie and me. When we ran away from home. We were going to be free. We weren’t going to let anything tie us down, not us.’ The words spilled out so quickly that they tangled together and she shook her head with impatience. ‘No conventions, no stereotypes. We were going to make our own rules. The gospel of freedom, according to Mattie Banner and Julia Smith.’ She laughed, without a note of amusement. ‘Well, Mattie’s free, isn’t she? She’s an actress, just like she always wanted. She’s famous. Even the nurses in this place come to ask for her autograph. And, you see, I’m Alexander’s wife.’ She broke off, and paced across the room. Six steps brought her up against the crib at the side of the bed. Lily was awake; Felix could hear the tiny sounds she made. ‘And now there’s a baby. My baby, Felix. I didn’t see her born, but I’ve got the scar to prove it.’ She laughed again, the same harsh sound. ‘I’d just like to know how it all happened so quickly. So quickly …’

Felix sighed. ‘Don’t you and Mattie talk to each other any more?’

‘What do you mean? Of course we do.’

‘I’m not sure that Mattie wouldn’t gladly change places with you.’

Julia frowned at him, uncomprehending. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Well. We’re not talking about Mattie now. But you made a choice, Julia. And there are worse losses of freedom than you’ve suffered. Alexander loves you. Anyone who looks at him can see he loves you.’

She held up the palms of her hands as if to ward something off, but her face crumpled. ‘I know. That’s why I’m going back to Ladyhill. I told you. I love him, and I’m going to be a good mother to Lily, and we’ll rebuild the house, and I won’t put any more candles on the Christmas tree. Oh, hell. I’m not bloody well going to cry again, either.’

Felix stood behind her, folding his arms around her waist and resting his chin on the top of her head. ‘I’m glad. You’re doing the right thing. And the fire will pass, you know. Julia?’

‘Yes?’

‘If you need me for anything, you know where I am.’

She nodded. Her head was smooth and warm under his chin. ‘Thank you. I’ll remember.’

In her crib, Lily spluttered and began to cry. Julia put her hand to the front of her blouse. ‘It’s time for me to feed her. Not with a bottle, you know. Breasts. Like a real mother. Do you want to stay and watch?’

Felix grinned. ‘I’d like to draw you, if you’ll let me. But not today. I’ve got to go and measure a house.’ Julia was lifting Lily, cupping the round black head in one hand. ‘I’ll be coming to see you at Ladyhill. You know that Alexander has asked George and me if we’ll help with restoring the interior, when the time comes?’ Julia settled herself in her chair again. She undid her bra and Felix saw the faint blue veins on the distended breast, and the enlarged nipple. Lily’s cries stopped, and there was a faint grunt of satisfaction. In the quiet Julia lifted her head, and her eyes were clear. ‘Good. Come as often as you like. It’s very quiet, down there.’

Felix blew her a kiss, and then she bent her head over the baby again.

Outside the sun was still shining, but Felix didn’t notice it. He was preoccupied with the image of Julia feeding her baby. He had a sudden, awed understanding of the change that had overtaken her, the magnitude of it and the irrevocability. The old Julia, the Julia of Soho and the square, was gone and she wouldn’t come back, however much Julia herself might long for her.

Felix made his way towards the new house in the Boltons, but the cheerfulness of the early afternoon had deserted him.

The red Mini swung between the stone gateposts.

Julia blinked once in the dappled shade of the trees, and then again as they came out into the brightness once more. Alexander stopped the car, leaving it at an angle just as he had done when he first brought Julia to Ladyhill. As if he couldn’t wait to jump out and run into the house.

‘Look at the roses,’ Julia said.

The Albertine on the red-brick wall that enclosed the garden on two sides was a cascade of coppery pink. Pale gold and grey-green spikes of verbascum reared against the backdrop of roses. It was in her autumn walks around the gardens that Julia had learned it was called verbascum. At the far end of the long border a fine copper beech tree was like a full stop. The leaves had lost the greenish sheen of early summer, and were turning through polished copper to the mahogany brown of maturity.

‘The garden is beautiful,’ Julia whispered.

There was a blackbird singing somewhere close at hand. She turned deliberately and looked at the house.

There was scaffolding enclosing the badly damaged wing now, and masking the whole centre front of the house. But it still didn’t hide the smoke-blackened brick, and the charred roof beams soaring above it. She shook her head imperceptibly, telling herself that she couldn’t smell smoke. She mustn’t smell it. And there was silence, except for the birdsong.

As Julia watched, a length of new timber was winched upwards. A workman at the top of the scaffolding unfastened it and hoisted it away. Now that she looked more closely, she saw that two or three of the huge beams had already been replaced. The raw wood gleamed yellow in contrast with the stark black of the others. Alexander had been staring intently, and now he nodded. ‘They’re making good progress. We must get the roof on before another winter comes.’

He bent down and reached into the car. Lily had been asleep in her carrycot on the back seat, but now Alexander lifted her out, swathed in her white shawl. He held her up and her heavy head rolled against his shoulder. ‘Look,’ he whispered. ‘Look, Lily. We’re home.’

They stood for a moment, the three of them, in front of the stricken house.

Then Alexander took Julia’s hand and, still holding the baby, he drew her arm through his. With Alexander setting the pace they walked briskly towards the gaping mouth of the front door.

There were no flames, of course. No terrible face, turning to her. Johnny was gone, but Alexander was fit and well, beside her. Julia made herself breathe evenly, remembering what Felix had said.
The fire will pass
. She looked at Lily, in the crook of Alexander’s arm. Her eyes were wide open.

The hall was as derelict as when they had left it for Markham Square, seemingly more so since the builders had taken possession of the house. There were tarpaulins spread over the floor, a concrete mixer in the corner, piles of tools. Julia could hear whistling, and sawing somewhere overhead. A man in an overall came through from the back of the house. Alexander shook hands with him, introducing him as the site foreman.

The man said, ‘Welcome home, sir. Lady Bliss.’

‘Julia,’ she responded automatically.

Alexander’s expression didn’t change. He was quickly absorbed in conversation with the foreman. Julia listened vaguely to the phrases as they drifted around her. Estimates … weakened structure … new joists. The language was utterly foreign. She took Lily out of Alexander’s arms and held her up, like a shield against her own resentment. She rested her cheek against the baby’s knitted bonnet and thought,
You’re on my side. I know you are. What are floorboards to you? People are what matter, Lily. Remember that
. Julia was surprised by the sudden intensity of her feelings.
This … house. This house is a tomb, for me and Alexander as well as Johnny. Or just for me, now
. She half turned, shivering, wanting to run.

Alexander saw it, and caught her arm. ‘I’ll come and see you later, Mr Minns.’

Behind a hanging tarpaulin there was a well-sealed door, and on the other side was the relatively undamaged wing of the house where Alexander and Julia had set up home. The little room on the ground floor had been Sir Percy’s den, and now it had become their sitting room. They had assembled two old sofas and a pair of armchairs, a bureau and a gate-legged table, and a Turkish carpet that was much too large and had to be folded against the walls. Pictures and books and ornaments salvaged from the further corners of the house were crammed in wherever there was space.

Further along the corridor a kitchen had been created in what was once the gun-room, and above, reached by a back staircase, there were two bedrooms and a sort of bathroom.

‘There isn’t much space,’ Alexander had said when they returned to the house from his stepmother’s cottage.

‘More than we had when I lived with Mattie and Felix and Jessie,’ Julia had said dully.

Alexander had read it as stoical determination, and he had kissed her delightedly. ‘That’s my girl. We’ll be thoroughly comfortable here, the two of us. And the baby, when he comes.’

Julia hoisted Lily on her shoulder and looked around the room. It had been repainted in a fresh clear yellow and the pictures and ornaments had been attractively arranged. There were flowers in bowls, roses and scabious and stocks from the garden, in big, fragrant bunches. It looked much better than it had done before they left, but Julia regarded it without affection.

‘I’m sorry,’ Alexander said.

She looked at him in surprise and his shoulders lifted, awkwardly. He was neither stern nor ironic. The lines in his face had melted and he looked like an apologetic boy. ‘I shouldn’t have kept you standing there while I talked to Minns. I was just excited to see the work, I wanted to hear what they were doing. It seems months since we were here.’ He hesitated, searching her face, and then his shoulders dropped and he walked away to the window. He put his hands flat against the glass, staring out through the small, square panes. ‘I love this house,’ he said. His voice was so low that Julia had to strain to catch the words. ‘I want to see it, to make it come alive again for the three of us.’ He swung around again, coming to her, putting his hands on her shoulders while Julia wrapped her arms protectively around the baby. ‘Do you understand?’ he asked.

‘I will. I’m trying to,’ she answered him.
No
, her own voice insisted.
How could I?

Alexander kissed her. ‘I’ll go and make us a cup of tea. Do you like the new paint?’

‘Very much. It’s bright.’

Alexander went away into the kitchen. She could hear water running and the rattle of the kettle under the tap. Julia settled Lily on her spread-out shawl in a corner of the sofa, then wandered across the room. She touched the furled petals of the roses, and looked out of the window as Alexander had done. The lawns needed mowing, but the borders were at the peak of their midsummer brilliance. Julia’s mouth had lost some of its tautness as she moved on to the walnut bureau. There were neat piles of post arranged on it; a stack for Alexander, a handful of letters addressed to both of them, perhaps a dozen for herself. She flipped through them. Julia saw the thin blue envelope at once, and the US stamp. She didn’t need to look at the handwriting; even though she hadn’t seen it for more than two years it was as recognisable as her own. She held the envelope in dry fingers, hearing the faint, infinitely promising crackle of the paper inside it.

Alexander came back with a teapot and cups on a tray. ‘Anything interesting in the post?’

‘Not really,’ Julia lied, out of a dry throat.

They drank their tea together, and they talked about the house and the progress that Mr Minns was making with the huge task of rebuilding. Now that Julia was out of hospital, restored to real life, Alexander was anxious to draw her into his great project.

‘The assessors have caused very little trouble. Beyond the original facts, and no one can change those. When the insurance company does pay out, the money should cover the structural minimum. The outer fabric, the new roof. I’ve taken out a short-term mortgage on the land, to see us through until it does come. There won’t be anything left for the interior, or for replacing the pictures and furniture. The old man’s fault, and mine, for not revaluing. But when the time comes, we might think about selling a parcel of land, to raise another slice of capital.’

With the blue envelope hidden in her lap, Julia nodded her head. She was trying to listen. ‘What land?’