Bad Girls Good Women

Felix carried the wicker tray of dirty dishes back into the kitchen, and washed up. He put each plate and bowl back in its proper place, and dried the old-fashioned wooden drainer. When everything was satisfactorily tidy he went into his bedroom and put on a dark blue sweater.

He looked at Jessie once more, and then he went out and closed the door softly behind him.

The threat of thunder had lifted, and the sky was clear. The lines of chimneys and rooftops were sharply defined against it. Felix walked for a long time, watching the darkness as it gathered softly in narrow alleyways and in the corners buttressed by high buildings. He enjoyed listening to the hum of the city changing as night came and the lights flickered and steadied.

He had been idling, not thinking, when he passed the Rocket Club. He loitered for a moment, incuriously, reading the notice on the door. Then he heard the music, drifting up to him through the cellar grating at his feet. He hesitated, and then he thought that there was nothing to hurry home for. Jessie would certainly be still asleep, and the little flat would be quiet and dark. He could go in for an hour, to drink a Coke and listen to the music. Felix went to the door and handed over his entry money.

‘Just one?’ the doorman asked, without interest.

Felix had to duck his head under the low ceilings as he went down the stairs into the cellar. He bought a drink, and found a place at a table against the wall.

He noticed the two girls almost at once.

Felix was impressed by the club itself, too. He liked the blurred distinctions of night-time in these places, and he quite often visited the other clubs in the nearby street. He had a loose network of acquaintances based on them, and that suited him because it didn’t trespass on the rest of his privacy. There was a sprinkling of faces here that he knew, and more that he didn’t. It was a pleasing mixture of beats and bohemians, ordinary kids and blacks and Soho characters packing the steaming space. He hadn’t intended to stay but the atmosphere, and the two girls, made him linger. The two of them were dancing with intent, almost fierce enjoyment. It was, Felix thought, as if they were afraid to stop.

The crowd grew thicker and wilder as the night wore on. Felix danced with a girl he knew a little. He bought her a drink, and talked to a group of her friends. All the girls liked Felix, as well as admiring his looks, but they were used to his evasiveness. He glimpsed the girl with the hair laughing, through the press of people, and then he lost sight of them both. The dancers were leaping and shouting now, and the walls of the cellar itself seemed to run with sweat.

In the end it was the exhausted musicians who gave up. They played a last, storming number and then began to pack up their instruments. The crowd booed and protested, but they knew that there was going to be no more that night. They started to flow reluctantly up the stairs, and Felix went with them.

Outside it was already light, a still, pale summer morning. The air was cool and sweet after the smoky cellar. He walked a little way, and then stopped to watch the pearly light lying along the street.

Something made him look back.

The two girls were standing outside the club doorway. There were two suitcases at their feet. All the wild enjoyment had drifted away with the music. They looked tired, and dejected, and very young.

Without knowing why he did it, Felix turned and walked back to them.

‘What’s wrong?’

The dark one lifted her head. ‘We’ve got nowhere to sleep. We thought we’d just stay up all night. But the night didn’t last quite long enough for it to be day again.’

She gestured, wearily, at the sleeping city. The first car of the morning, or the last car of the night, purred past them. The crowd from the club was disappearing, and they began to feel as they were the only people left between sleeping and waking. Mattie looked up too. She noticed that he was tall and slim, with black hair that curled close to his head. He looked foreign and handsome, and exotic, but she was too tired to work out whether that was threatening or not.

‘Do you know anywhere we can stay?’ she asked. ‘Just for tonight? What’s left of it.’ They were both watching him.

Felix thought of home, and of Jessie who would now be prowling heavily, wakefully, in her room.

All his instincts warned him to offer nothing, but the memory of how they had looked inside the Rocket Club made him fight back his instincts. He sighed. ‘There’s a spare room where I live. It isn’t much.’

‘After last night, anywhere with a roof will be a palace,’ the dark one said.

‘Which way?’ the other one demanded. Felix pointed, and they began walking. He noticed that they were both almost falling over with exhaustion. He held his hands out for one of the suitcases, then the other.

‘Hey, what have you got in here?’

The dark one shrugged her shoulders. They were thin and bony, he saw, like a young boy’s.

‘Everything,’ she said.

They came into the square as the light changed from grey to gold. Felix looked up at Jessie’s window. The curtains were open.

‘I live with my mother,’ he said baldly.

The one who called herself Mattie smiled. ‘Mothers tend not to like us very much.’

‘Mine’s different.’

But it was Mattie’s expectations that were proved right. Felix unlocked the door at the top of the stairs and they crowded together into the awkward hall. There was hardly room for the three of them and the two suitcases. There was a slow creaking noise, and Jessie appeared from her room. Her bulk seemed to block out the light. Mattie was at the back, and she saw only an old woman, very fat, who breathed with difficulty. But Julia was closer and she saw that Felix’s mother had quick, sharp eyes that were at odds with her size. Her expression was closed, and hostile. Felix’s heart sank. He had seen Jessie confront unwelcome customers with that face.

‘Who’s this?’

He told her.

‘They can’t stay here. This isn’t a rooming house.’

Jessie was suspicious, and defensive, and she didn’t like strangers any more. The little lair perched at the top of the offices was all she had, and she didn’t want it to be invaded. Felix understood, and he wished that he hadn’t dragged these waifs back here with him.

‘It’s just for one night,’ he soothed her. ‘There’s not much of it left, anyway.’

Jessie peered at the two girls. They were hardly more than children, and she thought that she recognised the type. And then the one with the terrible ratty tangle of curling fair hair said softly. ‘Please.’

Jessie was angry, but she knew that she had lost. She couldn’t deny that appeal. It was characteristic that she accepted her defeat and moved swiftly on.

‘You’ll be out of here by twelve o’clock sharp. There’ll be no noise, no waste of hot water, and no funny business of any sort.’

Mattie grinned at her. Their relief was like a light being turned on.

‘We’re the quietest sleepers in London. And we’re too tired to wash or think of anything funny, I promise.’

Jessie turned her massive back and shuffled away to her chair.

The room that Felix showed them into had one single mattress and a sleeping bag. He brought them some pillows and blankets, and they murmured their thanks and burrowed into them, fully clothed.

They were asleep, like small animals, even before he had draped a blanket over the dormer window.

‘Well, where do you live?’ Jessie demanded.

The girls had slept for six hours, and they only woke up at midday because Felix rapped on their door. They tried to slip into the bathroom, but Jessie was too quick for them.

‘Don’t sneak around,’ she shouted from her room. ‘Come in here and let me have a look at you. Then you can be off and leave us in peace.’

They stood in front of her, like schoolgirls facing the headmistress. Glancing round the room, Julia saw that it was full of photographs. There were dozens of laughing faces and raised glasses, and most of the groups showed a younger version of Felix’s mother beaming somewhere in the middle. It was hard to reconcile that conviviality with this huge, formidable woman.

‘You must live somewhere,’ Jessie was insisting. ‘Why d’you have to turn up at my place in the middle of the night? Although that boy’s just as much to blame for bringing you.’

They looked round for him, but Felix was prudently keeping out of the way. They could hear him rattling plates in the kitchen. The homely noise reminded them that they were hungry.

‘Well?’ Jessie demanded.