Bad Girls Good Women. Rosie Thomas

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      Contents

      Title Page

       Copyright

      One

      Two

      Three

      Four

      Five

      Six

      Seven

      Eight

      Nine

      Ten

      Eleven

      Twelve

      Thirteen

      Fourteen

      Fifteen

       Sixteen

       Seventeen

       Eighteen

       Nineteen

       Twenty

       Twenty-one

       Twenty-two

       Twenty-three

       Twenty-four

       Twenty-five

       Twenty-six

      Twenty-seven

       Keep Reading

       About the Author

       Also by Rosie Thomas

       About the Publisher

      The music, very loud music, filled the corners of the old house.

      In the big room where the musicians in their corner were lapped by a sea of dancers, it was as solid as a wall. Overhead, where Julia stood in the shadows at the top of the stairs, it penetrated the thick stone walls and the oak-boarded floors as an insistent bass beat. She stood for a minute to listen to it.

      Beneath her was the blaze of lights and the noise of people, laughter and shouting all knitted together by the throb of the music.

      Julia swayed dreamily, moving her hips inside the silky tube of her dress. She was smiling, because she loved parties and her own parties were always the best of all. She loved this particular moment, when the party was off and running on its own, and she could step back to admire it, her creation.

      Somewhere behind her, in the dimness of the gallery, a door opened. A thin finger of light reached past her. Julia didn’t look round, but she heard a man’s voice and then a woman’s low laugh before the door closed again. The man walked quickly along the gallery and stopped beside her at the head of the stairs. Turning to look now, Julia saw that it was her old friend Johnny Flowers. He had arrived hours ago in one of the packed cars that had raced each other from London to Julia’s party.

      She smiled, and saw the whiteness of his teeth as he smiled back at her.

      ‘Good time, Johnny?’ she whispered.

      He leaned forward to kiss the corner of her mouth and his hand rested lightly on her waist.

      ‘Mmm. The very best time. The party to end all parties, this one.’

      Julia murmured, ‘Good. But it’s early yet.’

      Johnny’s hand slid over her hip as he passed her, and fleetingly she remembered other times. Other places, a long way from this big house beached in its dark gardens.

      She tilted her head backwards at the closed bedroom door.

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Sssh.’ The white smile came again as he put his finger to his lips. ‘You haven’t seen me.’

      ‘I haven’t seen you.’

      Julia watched him run downstairs and disappear into the brightness. A swirl of laughing people poured out into the hallway and the colours of the girls’ dresses blurred exotically against the wood panelling.

      Someone called out, ‘Ju—lia!’ and the faces turned to look up at her. She stood on the top stair for a moment longer, surveying the scene, smiling with satisfaction. Then, with the tips of her fingers just touching the smooth, curving warmth of the banister rail, she floated down to join them.

      In the doorway, someone shouted, ‘Be Bop A Lula!’

      Out of sight, in the room where the dancers surged past the huge Christmas tree, the lead guitarist mopped the sweat out of his eyes and obligingly struck the first chord.