Bad Girls Good Women

Mattie stretched, and grumbled, and let Julia drag her to her feet. They collected their belongings and stuffed them into the suitcases, then made their way on up the alley. Neither of them looked back at the doorway.

Before they reached the corner they heard doors banging, and a metallic rumble, almost like thunder. At once there was a babble of voices, and the sound of shuffling feet. The girls turned the corner and saw what was happening. Huge metal bins had been wheeled out of the hotel kitchens to wait for emptying. A dozen or so old men were clustering around them, picking out the scraps of food.

‘That’s what he meant about breakfast,’ Mattie said.

‘What?’

‘The old tramp, last night. Breakfast is served round the corner.’

‘Not for me, thanks.’

They stood watching the derelicts for a moment, remembering the night’s fears. Warmed and restored by the daylight, Julia felt an ache of pity for the filthy, hungry old men as they scraped up the food relics and stowed them in their tattered pockets. They weren’t dark, terrifying figures waiting for her to join them. They weren’t waiting for anything, except their sad breakfast.

‘Let’s find somewhere to wash,’ Mattie said.

They crossed the road and walked by on the opposite side. Just like the couple in the alley last night, Julia remembered. By crossing the road she had moved from the night world back into the other. Relief and a renewed sense of her own power flowed through her, warmer than the early morning sunlight.

‘I can’t wait to get clean again,’ Julia exulted. ‘Water and soap, how heavenly.’

Mattie eyed her. ‘You’re more like your mother than you think,’ she teased. ‘You can’t bear a bit of muck.’

The public lavatories near Trafalgar Square didn’t open until seven o’clock. They waited beside the green-painted railings, amongst the scavenging pigeons. The attendant who came to unlock the doors stared at them disapprovingly, but the girls were too busy even to notice. They ran cold, clear water out of the polished brass taps while she mopped around their feet. They drank their fill and then washed themselves with Julia’s Pears soap. It smelt oddly of Fairmile Road. Julia tried to dip her head into the basin to wash her hair, but the attendant darted out of her cubbyhole.

‘You can’t do that in ’ere. You’ll ’ave to go to the warm baths in Marshall Street for that.’

The girls made faces when she turned away, and then collapsed into giggles. Their high spirits were almost fully restored.

They made do with washing as much of themselves as they could undress under the attendant’s sour gaze, and picking the least crumpled of Julia’s clothes out of the cases. Then they perched in front of the mirror and defiantly made up their faces, with lots of mascara and eyeliner to hide the shadows left by the night in the doorway. Then they struggled out with their suitcases to the taxi-drivers’ coffee stall. They bought a mug of coffee and a ham roll each, and the simple food tasted better than anything they had ever eaten. The tide of people began to flow to work. Mattie and Julia had just enough money left between them for Mattie’s bus ride to her shoe shop. It was Saturday, and Julia’s accounts office was closed.

‘What will you do?’ Mattie asked, when they had eaten the last crumb of their rolls. They hadn’t nearly satisfied their hunger – Julia felt that she was even more ravenous than she had been before.

‘I don’t know. Sit in the park. Plan what we’re going to eat when you get your money tonight. Every mouthful of it.’

‘Oh, I’m so hungry,’ Mattie wailed.

‘Go on. Get your bus. They’ll sack you if you’re late, and then what’ll we do?’

Neither of them mentioned the problem of where they would sleep. They didn’t want to think about that, not now when the sun was getting brighter and the day seemed full of possibilities.

‘How do I look?’

Julia put her head on one side, studying Mattie carefully before she answered. Mattie struck an obligingly theatrical pose. She wasn’t conventionally pretty, but she had a lively face with wide-set eyes and a pointed chin. Her expression was bold and challenging. Mattie’s best features were her hair, a foaming mass of curls like a Pre-Raphaelite heroine, and her figure. She had been generously developed when Julia had first seen her, at eleven years old. Julia herself was still almost as flat as Betty’s ironing board.

‘You look,’ Julia said carefully, ‘as if … you’ve just spent a night in a doorway.’

‘And so do you, so there.’ They laughed at each other, and then Mattie ran, scrambling for the bus as it swayed towards them.

Julia felt deflated when she had gone. She picked up the cases yet again, and began to walk, aimlessly, looking into the windows of shops and offices as she passed by.

It was going to be a hot day. She felt the sun on the back of her neck, and the handles of the suitcases biting into yesterday’s tender patches. She slowed down and then jumped, startled by the sound of a horn hooting at the kerb beside her. She turned her head and saw a delivery van and a boy leaning out.

‘Where you going?’

Julia hesitated, then put the cases down. Why not the truth?

‘Nowhere much.’

‘Didn’t look like it. Come on, get in. I’ve got to make a delivery, then I’ll buy you a coffee.’

Julia smiled suddenly. It was easy to be friendly in the sunshine, with the people and traffic streaming around her. Her spirits lifted higher.

‘Okay.’ She perched in the passenger seat. They spun round Trafalgar Square where the fountains sparkled in the bright light. The boy whistled as they wove in and out of buses and taxis, and then they turned into a network of smaller streets. Julia saw little restaurants with waiters sweeping the steps ready for the day, and grocers’ shops with goods spilling out on the pavement, darker doorways, and a jumble of little shops selling everything from violins to surgical appliances. Julia had been here before, with Mattie. There were two cellar jazz-clubs in the next street, the goals of their Saturday night pilgrimages from home.

‘I know where we are. This is Soho.’

‘Right.’ The boy glanced at her, then jerked his head at her suitcases. ‘What are you doing, arriving or leaving?’

‘Oh, I’m arriving,’ Julia said firmly.

The van skidded to a stop in front of a window hung with dusty red plush curtains. Between the glass and the red folds there were pictures of girls, most of them, as far as Julia could see, adorned with feathers and nothing else. A sign at the top read GIRLS. NON-STOP GIRLS. GIRLS. A string of coloured light bulbs, unlit, added to the faintly depressing effect. The driver had jumped out, and he was heaving crates of drinks out of the back of the van. As soon as the stack was completed he began ferrying the crates in through the curtain-draped doorway. He winked at Julia. ‘Lots of ginger beer,’ he told her. ‘The girls drink it and charge the mugs for whisky.’

A swarthy man in a leather jacket came out and counted the crates in. The last one disappeared and Julia’s new friend tucked away a roll of pound notes.

‘Blue Heaven suit you?’ he enquired.

Anywhere with food and drink would have suited Julia at that moment, but she knew Blue Heaven because she had squeezed in there with Mattie, late at night. It looked the same as all the other coffee bars, with plastic-topped tables and spindly chairs, a long chrome-banded bar and a jungle of plants absorbing the light, but because of the crowds that packed into it, it seemed the model for the rest.

‘Suits me fine,’ Julia said. She left her suitcases in the van and crossed the road with him. It was still early, and Blue Heaven was almost empty. Julia chose a table, and sat down. The Gaggia machine hissed sharply and steam drifted between the rubber plants. The coffee came, creamy froth in a shallow glass cup, and a doughnut for Julia. She tried not to eye the glossy, sugary ball too greedily.

‘Go on,’ he ordered her. Julia didn’t need to be asked twice. Sugar stuck to her chin, and jam oozed deliciously.

‘You’re only a kid,’ he laughed, watching her.

‘I’m sixteen.’

‘Exactly.’

He stood up and leaned over the juke box, putting a coin in and stabbing the buttons without reading the tides. The record was Johnny Ray, ‘Such A Night’. Julia sighed happily, and licked her fingers.

‘I love Johnny Ray. Do you?’

‘Nope. It’s girls’ music. I put it on for you.’

‘What do you like, then?’

‘Jazz, of course.’

‘Trad?’