The Girl From Barefoot House (31 page)

Maya swayed over to the gramophone and turned it off, then turned the television on. ‘It’ll be midnight in a
minute,’ she announced. A silent Big Ben appeared on screen, and within a few seconds the great clock began to chime.

Neville Ward-Pierce came and took Charlotte’s hand. Other couples hastily began to seek each other out ready for the first chime of the New Year, a sound that always seemed so significant and full of hope.

Josie and Jack had always greeted the New Year in each other’s arms. Perhaps he hadn’t realised the time. Josie felt a knot in her stomach as she tried to push her way through the packed room towards her husband.

‘Jack,’ she called, but he was too engrossed in the blonde to hear, though the room was strangely silent except for the chimes of Big Ben, which struck midnight before she reached him. There was a deafening cheer, and roars of, ‘Happy New Year.’ ‘The sixties, here we come!’ a man yelled.

‘Happy New Year,’ Josie whispered when the same man grabbed and kissed her. At least someone wanted to, if not her husband.
He
was kissing the blonde, and there was something desperate and pathetic about it, something demeaning, as if he were trying to find his lost youth or his lost dreams in the reluctant embrace of a stranger. The girl’s eyes were open. Help! they pleaded.

Josie ran downstairs and into the snow that was falling in heavy, wet clumps, just as the party began to sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’. She stopped, the key in the door, and looked at the bright upstairs window of Maya’s house. Had Jack noticed she’d gone? A sensation of aloneness which she’d had before, but had thought she’d never have again, enveloped her like a cloak. She shivered. Her feet in the thin strappy sandals were wet, and she’d forgotten her stole.

Elsie and Laura had fallen asleep in front of the
television, which showed the crowds in Trafalgar Square rowdily welcoming I960. She managed to carry Laura up to bed, glad she’d changed her earlier into her nightclothes.

‘Good night, my darling girl.’ She placed a visibly ageing Blue Bunny on the pillow and stroked her daughter’s smooth forehead. The long, dark lashes quivered in response, and Laura uttered a long, breathy sigh of contentment, before turning over. Josie tucked the eiderdown around her shoulders and switched on the fairy light.

‘What’s going to happen to us – to you and me?’ She sank into the white wicker chair in which she sat when she read Laura a story.

It couldn’t go on, not like this, not with Jack drinking so much and them growing further and further apart. She remembered that, earlier, she’d vowed to talk to him, urge him to spend more time writing plays, suggest they return to New York, say that she hadn’t realised the sacrifices he’d made. After tonight it was even more important that she say these things.

She got to her feet with a sigh. ‘Good night, luv,’ she whispered, closing the door.

In the lounge, Elsie Forrest was just waking up. She jumped when Josie entered the room. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

‘Happy New Year.’ Josie kissed the rosy, withered cheek of their babysitter.

‘The same to you, dear.’ She glanced at the television. The revellers in Trafalgar Square had been abandoned for a club in Scotland, where a man in a kilt was singing, ‘On the Bonnie Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond’. ‘I’ve missed everything, haven’t I? Oh, well, never mind. Did you have a nice time at the party?’ she asked cheerily. ‘Where’s Jack?’

‘Still there. I’ll go back meself in a minute. You go to bed, Elsie.’ Elsie was staying the night in the spare room.

‘I wouldn’t say no. I’ll make myself a cup of milk to take up. Would you like something?’

‘A cup of tea would be lovely. Ta, luv.’

As soon as Elsie left, Josie dialled Lily’s number, but there was no reply. She and Neil were probably at the Kavanaghs’, and she preferred not to ring there. It would look as if she had no one to talk to on New Year’s Eve. Lily was thrilled to bits because she was three months pregnant. Even morning sickness gave her an odd sort of pleasure. ‘Twenty-seven is the perfect age to have a baby. We’re going to try for Samantha three months after Troy’s born.’ Everything was so certain with Lily nowadays.

Elsie came in with the tea. ‘Here you are, dear. I’m off to bed. I might be gone in the morning by the time you’re up, so Happy New Year again.’

“Night, Elsie.’

Josie wandered over to the window. The sounds from the party were subdued. The white curtains had been drawn and smudged bodies moved slowly behind the thin, gauzy material. They must be dancing. Maya’s front door opened and a couple came out. The woman put her coat over her head and they ran through the snow to number eleven. Strange, she thought. The Maddisons are usually the last to leave a party.

After a while she supposed she’d better go back, if only to get Jack home before he passed out. She fetched a coat and left it hanging loosely over her shoulders when she went back into the snow. She rang Maya’s bell, hoping someone would hear above the strains of ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ and let her in. The door was
opened almost immediately by Neville Ward-Pierce, who was ushering out a clearly embarrassed Charlotte.

‘You don’t want to go in
there
, Josie,’ she said quickly. ‘They’ve already started pairing off, and there’s a floor show. I daren’t tell you what they’re up to.’

‘I’ve never seen anything so depraved since I was in Cairo during the war,’ Neville boomed. ‘It’s utterly repulsive.’

‘But Jack’s still there,’ Josie said hesitantly.

‘Jack’s in the kitchen, vomiting his heart up.’ Neville pursed his lips disapprovingly. ‘He’ll come home as soon as he realises what’s going on.’ He slammed the door and took his wife’s arm. ‘That’s the last party
we
go to in Bingham Mews.’

For some reason Josie waited until they’d gone indoors before she rang the bell again, but although she pressed the buzzer for ages and ages no one came.

It was gone six o’clock when Jack came home. Josie, still wide awake, heard him stumble upstairs. He lurched into the room, removed his jacket and trousers and fell on top of the covers, half-dressed. She got up and put on her dressing-gown because she couldn’t stand the thought of lying beside him.

She went down and made tea. The central heating had just switched itself on and the house was still cold. She took the tea into the lounge, but found she couldn’t sit down. Perhaps it was lack of sleep that made her head feel so fuzzy and thick, as if there were a tight band around her forehead preventing her from thinking, for which she was grateful because she didn’t want to think about last night. She drank the tea as she walked to and fro across the room, and found comfort in the scalding liquid coursing down her dry throat. There were dirty
dishes in the kitchen, which she washed and dried, hardly aware of what she was doing, just knowing that she had to do something to keep herself busy, not think. Then she polished the walnut table and the six chairs, two of them carvers, rubbing the satiny wood until it shone as it had never shone before.

Elsie came down when Josie was clearing out the cupboard under the sink. ‘The paper was dirty,’ Josie explained. ‘I thought I’d put a new piece in.’

‘Yes, dear.’ Elsie nodded. Josie could tell by her eyes that the older woman had guessed something was wrong.

‘There’s tea made.’

‘Shall I pour you a cup?’

‘Please.’

They sat on the padded benches and chatted about perfunctory things. What would the sixties bring? Elsie wondered. ‘At least we’re not at war,’ she said thankfully, ‘not like in nineteen-forty. In nineteen-fifty, we were still on rations, and there weren’t enough houses for people to live in. Can you remember the squatters? I reckon we’re all better off these days, and things can only improve.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

She refused Josie’s offer to phone for a taxi. ‘I’d sooner walk, dear. It’s not very far.’ It had stopped snowing, and none had stuck to the ground.

Josie finished cleaning the cupboard. She made more tea and took up a cup to Laura, who was disappointed to learn there was no snow. ‘I was going to play snowballs with Tristram and Petronella.’

‘Happy New Year, luv.’ Josie kissed her forehead. ‘It’s a new decade. Today is the first of January, nineteen-sixty.’

‘I’m getting old,’ Laura said glumly.

Her mother laughed. ‘Is such an old lady in the mood to accompany me to the pictures this afternoon to see
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
?’

‘Will they sing “Whistle While You Work”?’ Laura forgot her age and bounced excitedly on the bed.

‘It’ll be exactly the same as when you saw it before. Mummy saw the same picture when she was a little girl. I went with Auntie Lily and
her
mummy.’

‘Mrs Kavanagh?’

‘That’s right, luv. You can wear your new blue velvet dress.’ It was almost identical to the one Mam had bought in Paddy’s market.

‘Will Daddy come? He liked
Snow White
the first time.’

‘We’ll just have to see. Your dad’s got a bit of a cold coming on. He might prefer to spend the day in bed.’

There was no sign of Jack when they got back from the pictures. Laura raced up to the bedroom to tell him about the film. She came down again, her face crest-fallen. ‘Daddy’s not there.’

‘Wait here, luv. Perhaps he’s in his study.’

Jack was still in his dressing-gown, elbows on the desk, staring at the typewriter which had no paper in. He raised his head when Josie went in. His eyes were swollen and puffy, half-closed, he was badly in need of a shave and his chin was bluish. He looked utterly wretched. She felt a pang of longing for the man he used to be.

‘Didn’t you hear us come in?’ she asked sharply from the door. ‘Your daughter would like to see you, even if I wouldn’t.’

‘I didn’t do anything last night, you know.’ His voice was as wretched as his appearance. ‘I fell asleep on the
settee. I kept waking up and dozing off again. There were things going on, I thought I must be dreaming.’

‘If Neville Ward-Pierce was right, you must have had some dead peculiar dreams. I think pornographic is the word.’

‘I knew you wouldn’t believe me.’ He rested his head on his fists.

Josie closed the door in case Laura could hear. ‘I’ve only got your word for what went on after midnight, Jack,’ she said tightly, ‘just like that episode with Mattie Garr three years ago. But I’ve got the evidence of me own eyes for what went on before. You were as drunk as blazes, and too attached to that blonde to wish me a happy new year. You still haven’t.’ Her voice broke. ‘It really hurt, Jack.’

He raised his head again and said mockingly, ‘Happy New Year, sweetheart.’

‘Is there any need to say it like that?’

‘What other way is there to say it in this house?’

‘And is that your fault or mine?’

Jack stretched his legs under the desk and put his hands behind his head. He grinned. ‘Mine, I suppose.’

She itched to slap the grin off his face, though she knew it was merely bravado. Her eyes swept the room, looking for something to attack instead of him, and they lighted on his plays, neatly stacked on the top shelf of the bookcase. She went over and swept them to the floor, then turned on him. Her face felt ugly with anger.

‘You know, you need your head examined. There’s thousands of writers who’d give their eye teeth to be in your shoes, but you? Oh, you’ve written a few lousy plays, and you’re so bloody childish that you’ve decided to ruin your life, as well as mine and Laura’s, just because
no one wants them. Grow up, Jack, count your blessings. You’re a very lucky man.’

He grinned more widely. ‘So, you think my plays are lousy?’

‘If you must know, yes.’ Josie folded her arms and glared at him. ‘They’re hectoring and lecturing, not the least bit entertaining.’

‘Oh, well, now that the esteemed critic Josephine Coltrane has given my work the thumbs down, I might as well burn it.’

‘It wouldn’t be a bad idea, except we don’t have a fire.’

They stared at each other challengingly across the small room. Then Jack swivelled the chair around until he was looking at the door. ‘Have you never wanted to
do
something? Something magnificent that would set people talking, change things.’

‘No.’

‘Have you never wanted
anything
, Josie?’

‘Yes.’ She wished there was another chair so she could sit down. ‘I wanted a family, a mum and dad, sisters and brothers. I wanted to
belong
. I always felt terribly alone, rootless. But I met you, we got married, we had Laura and the feeling went. Last night it came back again.’

His lips curved in a wistful smile. ‘I’d always hoped I’d change things with my plays. They gave me a sense of purpose, a reason for being alive. They were part of me, almost like Laura.’

‘Have plays ever changed things? Did Shakespeare?’

He smiled again. ‘You’re very down to earth all of a sudden. Are you intent on destroying all my dreams today?’

Josie gestured impatiently. ‘I think it’s time you
stopped dreaming, came down to earth and counted your blessings.’

‘You’ve already said that.’

‘Well, I’ve said it again.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Things can’t go on like this, Jack. You’re hardly ever sober, we hardly ever talk. If you don’t stop behaving like some silly …’ She paused, searching for words. ‘Like some silly prima donna, then I shall leave you.’

The chair swivelled round, and his eyes were like black holes in his puffy face. ‘And take Laura?’

‘I’m not likely to leave her with a drunk, am I?’ His eyes both frightened and repelled her. She recalled having planned to say quite different things today. It wasn’t too late to say them, suggest they go back to New York. She took a hesitant, placatory step towards him, but her foot caught on one of the cardboard folders she’d swept off the shelf, and she was shocked by the scorn and disgust she felt as she stared down at the scattered plays. Stupid things, she thought. Fancy mucking up everyone’s lives on account of
them
. It’s time he grew up and lived in the real world.

Laura burst into the room. ‘Why are you so long? Laurel and Hardy are on television.’ She threw herself on Jack’s knee. ‘Happy New Year, Daddy.’