The Winter Children

The winter term is always a subdued one, full of icy fingers and chilled toes, girls huddled around tepid radiators and wrapped in scarves. It is about endurance, more than anything else, hunkering down and putting up with all the discomfort until spring finally arrives to relieve the pressure.

Julia wakes up to the bell and groans, getting herself out of bed, aware that this is the last time she will feel warm all day. Washes are quick in the morning, and she gets dressed rapidly before making her way down through the freezing corridors to the dining room for breakfast, where at least it is a little less icy.

Who thought this place would be a good school? she wonders as she hurries down the stairs with everyone else. It’s too big and cold to be tolerable.

Perhaps if there was a decent heating system, it might help. But then again, the swimming pool and gym at the end of the east wing are still being constructed, so huge gusts of winter air come in all the time to chill the place even more.

Lessons start at nine after assembly and prayers, but she can tolerate those. At least they are inside, where it’s possible to dig fists deep into pullover sleeves and warm up fingers that way. Lunch is hot, and they eat as much as they can, even of the horrible stuff, like rice and gristle stew, or what they call tubey soup, because the lumps of meat in it are full of little white tubes, whatever they might be. But the afternoon, and sometimes even the morning, brings games. The walk to the changing rooms has the air of the condemned about it. The painful stripping of warm clothes and the replacement with kit, far too skimpy for the weather outside, and then the horrible run from the school to the frosty playing field.

‘Come on, girls, let’s warm you up. Run around the perimeter, please!’ Miss Dunleavy bellows, but she looks freezing herself and not at all keen to be outside. They run but Julia feels only marginally warmer afterwards. There are stretches, then they’re divided into teams, and then they start the match. Julia has only a vague idea of what the game consists of, and spends most of the time shivering on the side of the pitch, using her lacrosse stick to strike tiny snowstorms of frost off the crisp blades of grass.

‘What’s up with Alice?’ asks Sophia Buxton, who is her opposite number. Sophia jumps up and down a few times, her cheeks bright red with cold. ‘She’s not herself this term.’

‘She’s not very well,’ Julia replies. ‘I’m not sure what’s wrong with her. She’s been under the weather since we got back. That’s almost two weeks now. She keeps going off to Matron.’

‘They’ll be sending her home at this rate. I heard Matron tell Jennifer Mason that this isn’t a hospital. Jenny’s been ill three times already with flu, she can’t seem to shake it.’

‘I expect Jenny would be better off at home,’ Julia says. ‘At least she’d be warm and get some decent rations. It’s no wonder she can’t get well here.’

‘So, do you think they’ll send Alice home? I’ve not seen her at one games lesson so far this term. They won’t like that.’

Julia and Sophia swap meaningful looks. They both know the almost religious fervour of the school’s approach to games. No one can miss too many lessons without questions being asked.

‘I suppose they might,’ Julia says. She has hoped not, but lately she’s begun to think that it might be for the best. Alice is evidently not herself, and the black mood doesn’t seem to have lifted at all. In lessons, Julia sneaks looks at her, and often sees her big blue eyes swimming in tears, and a look of abject misery on her friend’s face. But when she asks what’s wrong, Alice won’t tell.

Later, as they come back across the field, a little warmer now after the game, Julia sees the small dark figures of the men working over by the gymnasium. The builders went home over Christmas and New Year, but now they are back and hard at work on the construction of the gym. The dugout pool has been left while the shell is constructed round it. Julia strains her eyes to make out Donnie, or even Roy, but she can’t see that far and can only guess which of the little figures is Donnie.

Perhaps someone has a word with her, or perhaps she just feels a little better, but a day or two later, Alice rallies. She dries her tears and even smiles at Julia over breakfast, and teases her about her hair, which means she must be feeling better. Things seem a little more normal, and Julia is happy and relieved. She’s missed Alice, even if life is less risky without her high jinks to cope with.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asks over lunch, when there are just the two of them left at the table. ‘You’ve been awfully ill, haven’t you?’

Alice sighs, an air of melancholy enveloping her again. ‘Yes. I’m all right today. And perhaps I will be tomorrow, but I don’t know when I’ll be completely better.’

‘It’s funny because you actually look a bit healthier in lots of ways,’ Julia says, trying to offer some comfort.

‘Yes. I mean, you’re . . . you’re definitely fatter than you were. Not . . . not horrible fat. I mean, healthy fat.’

‘Why? It just is!’ Alice laughs harder. ‘I can’t explain. But they don’t think it’s my body anyway. They think it’s my head. I’ve had to see two different head doctors already, men with glasses and clipboards and pencils and a big desk and a sofa I have to lie on.’ She leans forward to Julia, still laughing. ‘Not like Roy’s sofa. Not like that at all. They don’t touch me, they make me to talk to them. But they may as well not waste their time, because I’m not going to say anything. Not a sausage.’ She puts her finger on her lips and says, ‘Shhh.’

‘Girls, quiet please, finish your lunch!’ It’s Mademoiselle, who is in charge of the dining room today.

Alice refuses to say anything more and then lunch is over and they don’t speak of it again.

Julia thinks about the head doctors all afternoon. What does Alice mean? A psychiatrist, she supposes. Perhaps that’s why she’s so depressed – anyone would be if the grown-ups had decided you’ve gone round the bend. But it’s awfully unfair, considering that they’re the ones who’ve made her that way. If her parents had just cared about her a little bit more, she probably wouldn’t be like this.

She wants to tell Alice her conclusion and tell her how sorry she is, and how unfair it is, but there isn’t a chance. They sit far apart in Latin and are in different sets for Maths. Then they are outside for the afternoon lacrosse match, and Alice is attack, while she is defence, so they don’t cross paths for long enough to talk.

It rained the previous night and there was no frost, so the ground is soft and muddy, easily churned up by lacrosse boots and sent splattering up legs and over arms. They are all filthy when they get back from the field.

‘Showers, please, girls!’ yells Dunleavy, and there’s a universal groan. Everyone hates showers. They don’t have them very often because it means the girls are slower getting dressed again, but it’s inevitable today. Julia looks over at Alice and sees a look of horror on her face. Julia feels the same – she detests the humiliation of the shower but there’s nothing for it. They have to do it.

Julia strips off her kit until she is in her gym knickers and vest. This is the most awful moment. She can’t bear revealing herself to the eyes of the others, even though she tries not to look at them and is sure they feel just as she does. She quickly pulls off the vest and then the knickers, picking up her towel and shielding herself with it as she pads along the cold tiles to the showers. They are all on, hot water and steam filling the narrow room, with its rows of heads bent over the one single channel. Nowhere to hide. No privacy. Miss Dunleavy stands at the door, taking towels from girls as they pass. They are supposed to shower using the small white bars of soap in the little cubby holes by each shower head, and then return via Miss Dunleavy for their towel on the way back to the changing room. Julia reaches the games mistress and hands over her towel, then runs for the nearest shower, staring at the floor. The only good thing about the whole process is that the water is hot, hotter than anywhere else. Perhaps it’s closer to the boiler room or something. She faces the wall and stands under the stream of water, letting the mud on her legs and arms melt and flow away. Then she notices that someone is under the shower next to her, and she can’t help glancing over, her gaze still lowered, to see who is there. She sees a naked form facing the wall as she is, with slender legs and a neat behind, a straight strong back and fair hair curled up into a rough bun to keep it from the water. But that is not what draws Julia’s eye. Instead she finds herself following the curve of the belly as it protrudes outwards from just above the pubic mound, sticking out before rounding upwards towards the breasts, like the side of a pear.

Julia’s gaze continues up and she meets the candid and yet deeply sad eyes of Alice, staring back. She makes the same sign she did at lunch, pressing her finger to her lips, mouthing, ‘Shhh.’

Oh no, thinks Julia as she understands what she has seen. Oh no. It can’t be. Can it?

Alice knows she knows, but nothing is said. Julia can’t think what to say, or who to tell, or how to ask for help. No one else has noticed. Not even Dunleavy, as she held out a towel and Alice scampered past, her arms folded across her front until she was able to snatch the towel and hide herself. She tries to imagine going to a teacher, or writing to her mother, or to Alice’s mother, but she can’t think of what she could possibly say, or how it would help matters.

She realises how little she knows about what is happening to Alice. She knows the theory of human reproduction and has looked at the biology textbook line drawings of tubes and ovaries and sperm ducts like everyone else, but she has only the vaguest idea of the practice, or how it all even starts, except that intimacy must take place, whatever that might be. Kissing, she supposes, and touching of some kind. Whatever happened in the caravan when she and Donnie were outside. That must have caused it.

Julia finds the journey undertaken on her own much more terrifying than the excursions she made for Alice’s sake. It is strange and frightening to be setting off alone to sneak out of the dormitory and down through the cold, empty school to where the canvas sheeting is still tacked over the door. It goes against her nature to be so wilfully disobedient, but it is the only thing she can think of to do in this awful situation. There’s less wind now that the walls of the gymnasium and the pool room have gone up, with holes left for windows at the top. She is glad to discover that there is not yet a door for the back of the gym, just a makeshift piece of wood that is easy to push open wide enough to slip through. Then, with the help of her pocket torch, she follows the route she remembers from the last time she did this, when she followed a flighty Alice through the hole in the hedge.

It’s Friday again and the campsite is quiet, as she’d hoped. It’s easy to recognise the caravan at the back of the field with the metal steps where she sat with Donnie. A light is on in the interior, the flimsy curtains drawn. Julia shivers as she picks her way over the dark field towards it. It’s so cold and the sky feels low and heavy. When she reaches the door, she pauses and listens. The sound of tinny music comes from within. Surely that means that Donnie is there. She is excited and scared at the same time, and more than a little shocked at her own audacity in coming out here alone without being asked. After all, she has only met him once, weeks ago. For a moment, she wonders what on earth she is doing here. Then she remembers Alice’s burgeoning belly, taps lightly on the door and waits. There’s no answer and she wonders if her knock could be heard over the noise of the radio, so she knocks again with more force. A moment later, the music stops abruptly and footsteps cross the caravan. The door opens a touch and she sees a face peering out through the gap.

Her insides curl in a somersault that makes her blood rush and her head spin. Now what is she going to say to him? How on earth can he help her? But she is sure that he is the only person she can tell who will understand.

The door opens a little further, and Donnie is there, looking out at her, a little stooped in the doorway, an expression of astonishment on his face.

‘Yes.’ She manages a small smile. ‘I know you weren’t expecting me. I need to talk to you.’

He shrugs. ‘Not my cup of tea. I’d rather stay here and get a bit of peace. Listen to my music.’ His accent is gentle, not as strong as Roy’s, but still there. ‘So . . . what do you want? I’m afraid I don’t have whiskey, if that’s what you’re after.’

Julia stares at him, and bites her lip. An expression crosses his face that she can’t quite read, but she knows he’s guessed something of what she’s come to say.

Inside, she sits on the cushioned bench underneath the window where she sat the last time she was here. The place seems bigger without Roy’s vast size in it. She’s relieved he’s not there.

‘So what’s the trouble?’ Donnie asks, handing her a tin mug of tea he’s brewed up for her. ‘Your girl’s in a bad way, is she?’

Julia takes the tea and nods. ‘I’m afraid so. She’s been very down in the dumps for ages. I thought she must be ill or something, or else in the most frightful bad mood there’s ever been. But then, yesterday, I guessed what it is. And I don’t think she’s going to tell anyone either. But they’re bound to find out sooner or later, I’m just amazed no one’s noticed already. She’s learned to hide it, I suppose, but she can’t do that forever.’

‘Young girls can go the whole way and never show,’ Donnie says wisely. ‘I’ve seen it.’ He shakes his head. ‘Poor lasses. It’s never a good way to be.’ He lights a cigarette and blows out a stream of smoke. ‘It takes two to make the baby, but only one of ’em has to carry it, and that’s the one the world blames.’

Julia looks over at him, not knowing what to say. She is hopelessly shy about these things and when she remembers that she is sitting across from Donnie, the boy she has been dreaming of all winter, she can hardly believe that they are talking about babies. It’s as though she’s been transported to the grown-up world in a blink of an eye, without really knowing enough about it.

Donnie puffs on his cigarette again, his foot tapping as though his music is still playing.

‘So the poor girl is in the club. Why’d you want to talk to me about it? I don’t know what I can do.’

‘I thought . . . I thought perhaps you could tell Roy and he might know what to do.’

Donnie laughs incredulously. ‘He won’t have a clue. He’s got four kids already; last one was born over Christmas but it died. He’s been drinking like a fish ever since he got back here. It’s shaken him up. He’s lost his appetite for having his parties with your friend, anyhow. She’ll get no help from that direction.’ He shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry for your girl and all, but she must have known she was taking a risk. I suppose the school will be shot of her. Her family will have to look after her. She’ll have money if she’s at a place like this. She’ll be all right. It’s worse for the girls who have nothing, and who end up in homes, with their kids taken away from them, and ruined for life.’

Julia blinks at him. She’s never heard of such places or dreamed that things like that can happen. What did Alice do to get herself into this situation? Surely they would take Alice’s baby away from her too. How on earth could she keep it? And would she really have to leave school? All the questions she hasn’t yet considered flood her mind, and they sit in silence for a moment.

At last she glances over at Donnie, and says, ‘Should we tell Roy about it? It’s his baby after all.’

Donnie shakes his head. ‘No. We mustn’t tell him, not unless he really needs to know. Does she want him to be a father to it?’

‘No,’ Julia says, embarrassed. ‘I don’t think so.’ She thinks of Alice’s breezy dismissal of Roy as being just a builder, and doesn’t want to repeat such a thing to Donnie.

‘Well then. It’ll only make him mad. Their little fling is over now.’ He makes a face. ‘I always knew it would end up in no good. Someone was going to suffer. I’m sorry it’s your friend.’

He shrugs. ‘She’ll be smuggled away to have it. The kid will be adopted. She’ll be okay. I told you, she’s got money. It buys the way out of trouble.’ He glances over at her. ‘You’d better tell her mother. That’s the only thing there is to do.’

‘I can’t do that,’ Julia says unhappily. ‘Alice would never forgive me.’

‘Then persuade her to do it herself. Better to do it now than wait for everyone to notice.’ He stubs out his cigarette. ‘Come on. You shouldn’t be here. I’ll walk you back to the school. No point in you getting yourself in trouble as well.’

He stands up and puts out a hand to her. She takes it and he helps her to her feet. They gaze at each other for a long moment, their hands still locked together, warm and smooth, aware suddenly of their physical connection and the feelings it is provoking in them. For an instant, she thinks he will pull her towards him, bend his head and kiss her, and she wants him to with everything in her. But he doesn’t. He releases her hand, looks away awkwardly and says, ‘Let’s go then.’

They walk back across the field, past the dark caravans. Julia wonders what it is like when the place is full of men, the caravans crowded and noisy.

‘How long do you expect to be here?’ she asks. ‘When will the work be finished?’

‘Another three weeks or so,’ Donnie says. ‘Not too long. It’s slow at first, then it speeds up. You’ll see.’

‘You’re welcome. Tell your friend good luck.’ Then he turns on his heel, his hands stuffed in his pockets and trudges away, back towards the caravan field. Julia watches him go, then hurries back inside, to make her silent dash for the dormitory.

The strangest atmosphere exists between her and Alice now. Whenever she looks at her friend, she sees not just Alice but the burgeoning life inside her. A baby. What does it look like, tucked up inside Alice’s body? Is it half finished, like the clay head she was moulding in pottery but never got round to adding the finer details to, or is it perfect but in miniature, simply amplifying by the day? Julia has so little idea of how these things come about, and while it has never seemed important or relevant before, it does now.

One lunchtime, by unspoken consent, they walk around the grounds where they are permitted to go during breaks, and Julia knows she must say something, before the opportunity is lost.

‘You know you mustn’t do games anymore,’ she says as they walk down one of the gravel paths bordered by lavender plants that are stringy and brown in their winter dormancy. Above them the sky is a yellowish grey.

‘Yes, I know,’ Alice says. ‘It is getting tricky. I can’t seem to run as fast as I used to.’

Julia gives her a sideways look. ‘As if that matters. The point is that it can’t be good for the baby if you run around.’

‘Mmm.’ Alice does not seem shocked, either by the casual mention of the baby, whose existence has not yet been acknowledged out loud, or by the thought that activity might not be good for it.

‘But also,’ Julia continues, ‘it’s bound to be noticed. You can’t hide it so well in kit, and then there are the showers . . .’

At least, she reflects, it’s a comfort to know how little we are looked at. Dunleavy didn’t notice. But it can’t go on like that.

She asks in a rush, ‘How have you hidden it so far? Didn’t your mother see it?’

Alice laughs with a touch of bitterness. ‘No. I’ve covered it up in jumpers. If you don’t know what to look for, it’s not very evident, really.’

‘But it will be soon.’ Julia feels desperate. Why won’t Alice think about the reality of her situation? ‘Someone’s bound to find out. And what about when the baby starts to come? Do you know when it’s due?’

Alice shrugs. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t entirely know when . . . it . . . happened.’

They stop, Julia facing Alice, her hands in the pockets of her coat. ‘So . . .’ she says, her face heating up with the embarrassment of it all. ‘You and Roy. You . . . you did that.’

‘Yes.’ Alice tosses her head defiantly. ‘I let him do it to me. It wasn’t rape, if that’s what you’re thinking. I wanted to do it! At least he loved me, in his own way. I felt special. He said I made him feel like no one else in the world, and he told me I was beautiful and amazing, and his gift from God. He said I was a consolation.’

Julia gazes at her, open-mouthed. She feels helpless in the face of this. On the one hand, she can understand the power of being loved and wanted. In her secret heart, she has thought that if Donnie loved her and asked her, she would do the same with him that Alice has done with Roy. But she can also see the futility of it and the danger. What is the point of a love that can never be, when its consequences are so dreadful? Roy, with his wife and children, and the absolute impossibility of the relationship. ‘But,’ she asks at last, confused, ‘do you love him? Roy?’

Alice sighs dreamily. ‘I love to be loved, and he loved me. And even though – if you want the truth – it was horrible, it was also lovely, because it showed me how much he longed for me.’

‘Even though it only lasted for a short time?’ Julia asks quietly. She is thinking of the way Roy hit Alice and wondering how that can be reconciled with the love she thinks he showed her.

‘Oh no,’ Alice says. ‘It lasted ages and ages. I thought it would never end. You’ll see when it happens to you.’

Julia feels odd to think it might. She can’t imagine it. It must be years off.

They walk on together in silence for a while, Alice still dreamy and disconnected. Julia says, ‘I think you need to tell your mother.’

‘Tell her about the baby. What else are you going to do? If you don’t know how far along you are, you can’t know when it’s coming. You can’t have the baby here at school.’

Alice frowns and says irritably, ‘I do wish you’d stop going on about the blessed baby.’ She begins to stalk away along the path. ‘You’re like a stuck record!’

‘But what are you going to do about it?’ persists Julia, hurrying after her. ‘If you won’t do anything, I’ll have to. I’ll have to write to your mother, or tell Miss Allen, or something.’

Alice halts and whirls around, sending a little flurry of gravel into the air. Her expression is furious, her eyes blazing. ‘Don’t you dare!’ she shouts. ‘Don’t you dare do anything, or tell my mother. I’ll decide what to do, and no one else, and that’s that.’

Snow comes that afternoon, as the winter darkness is falling. They are in a history lesson, Julia sitting by the window when she sees the first swirl of flakes through the diamond panes. The big radiator that her leg is pressed against is giving out a mild heat.

Snow, she thinks. How pretty. If it gets too thick on the ground, there will be no games but they’ll be allowed to go out and amuse themselves in it with snowballs and building snowmen. Such activity now seems so innocent, the pursuit of another time, before she had to nurture Alice’s deep, dark secret.

‘Pay attention, please,’ says the teacher, as the girls begin to notice the whirling snow with a murmur of excitement. ‘I’m afraid that the Civil War is more important than the weather. Now, who can name the first battle of the conflict?’

Julia looks down at the page in her notebook where she has been scribbling. There is nothing about the Civil War there. Instead there is the beginning of a letter.

Dear Mrs ?

She will have to find out Alice’s mother’s new name, as she is sure it isn’t Warburton anymore, now that she has remarried.

I’m afraid I have to tell you some news about Alice.

She

Here she stopped, unable to think of how to continue. It seemed indecent to write it down. Beneath are suggestions for the rest.

She is in an interesting condition . . .

She isn’t well . . .

She has had an accident and is expecting a . . . an event that . . .

Oh dear. None of it is right. She tries to remember what Donnie said and writes that down.

Will Alice’s mother understand that? It seems too obscure. She might think Julia means the stamp-collecting club, or the woodland craft club. Julia glances over at Alice, who is gazing dreamily into the middle distance, tapping a pencil on the desk with light, regular strokes. Is she thinking of the child inside her, imagining its future? Perhaps she is feeling a kick or a movement that is reminding her of its presence. Or, more likely, she is pretending that it doesn’t exist and never will, and forcing herself to forget.

At that moment, as Julia looks over at her friend, Alice starts and goes very still. A look of horror appears on her face and an instant later, she turns and looks at Julia. The expression on her face is one of terror tinged with something else. A word springs into Julia’s mind.

But what on earth could she take as a victory from this awful situation? Then Julia thinks she might understand. Alice has taken her disobedience to the limit. As scared as she is, she is also exultant because now they will find out just how naughty she has been.

The moment the lesson ends, Alice runs to the lavatories and shuts herself in a cubicle. Julia follows, skittering along the corridor after her, and into the loos. She knocks on the door.

Other girls come in, glancing at Julia standing outside one of the stalls, but they ignore her as they drop their books, use the lavatories, wash their hands and leave. There are only a few minutes between lessons, and there is one more class before the day is over. Julia grabs one of the girls as she is leaving.

‘Clara, tell Miss Brown that I’m taking Alice to Matron, will you? She’s not a bit well. She’s throwing up in there, and when she comes out I’ll take her to the sanatorium.’

‘All right,’ Clara says without interest. ‘But you’d better get a shift on, you know it’s not allowed to miss lessons because of someone else.’

There’s another long pause, then the flush of the lavatory and the door opens. Alice is pale but seems normal. She smiles. ‘I’m fine, of course.’

‘No, you’re not. I saw your face. Something’s up.’ Julia scans her face anxiously. ‘Has it started? Is the baby coming?’

‘No, no. I just had a cramp or something, that’s all. Come on. We’d better get going, or we’ll be in trouble.’ She heads out, leaving Julia to follow behind.

All that afternoon and evening, Julia keeps a watchful eye on Alice but can learn nothing. Alice remains pale and is apparently studious in the last lesson of the day, keeping her face firmly turned down to the desk. Once, Julia thinks she sees Alice stiffen and her knuckles whiten as she holds her pencil in a tight grip, but it passes and there is no other sign of any trouble – no moan or exclamation of pain.

The process of pregnancy is a mystery to her, beyond the knowledge that the woman carries the growing child inside her and then pushes it out down below in a painful and lengthy process. If Alice were having the baby, surely she would be lying on the floor and screaming by now. As that isn’t happening, Julia concludes that nothing is out of order. Perhaps Alice was telling the truth and she really did have a touch of cramps.

Darkness has descended even earlier than usual and outside the windows of the school the snow is falling ever more thickly, quickly blanketing the lawns and hedges, the fountains and stone balustrades. The world outside is a mass of eddying flakes, and inside, the mood is excited but also muted. They will be snowed in, and that could last days and days.

Supper passes and Alice barely eats, but that is not so unusual. She often goes through periods of hardly touching food. Julia feels she should urge her on for the sake of the baby, but that seems an odd thing to do, and besides, how could she, when they’re surrounded by the other girls, not to mention the staff?

When they say goodnight, and curl up in their beds in the dorm, separated only by flimsy low walls, Alice seems even paler and has begun to look genuinely ill.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to go to Matron?’ Julia asks, worried, as she looks over the low partition into Alice’s section. ‘You don’t look at all well. How are the cramps?’

‘I’m fine,’ Alice says, but her eyes are tired and her cheeks look hollow. Nevertheless she smiles. ‘It’s going to be all right. You’ll see. I’ll be all right in the morning.’

Julia curls up in her bed and waits for the cool sheets to grow warm so that she can sleep, listening for any sound from Alice, but there’s none. Before long, she can’t listen anymore as she drifts off into half-consciousness, thinking of the snow and the warmth of Egypt.

She wakes suddenly, and knows at once that something is wrong. Jumping out of bed, shivering in the chill air outside the blankets, she runs lightly to the partition and looks over it. Alice is gone. Her bed is empty.

Oh no! Where is she? Panic races through her as she stares wildly about the dark dormitory, as though hoping to see Alice in the shadows. I have to find her.

As quietly as possible, she opens her drawer and pulls out her weekend clothes: trousers, a blouse and a thick jumper. Then a pair of socks and her coat and hat. It’s so cold in the school, she’ll need all of that to keep warm. Then she picks up her boots, gets her torch from its hiding place in her bedside table and tiptoes out of her cubby hole and into the main dormitory. There is not a sound. She is sure that Alice is not here.

Her instinct takes her the way they have always gone when sneaking out of school: down to the end of the hall and out through the little arched door onto the stone staircase. ‘Alice?’ she whispers and it seems to hiss down the stairs. There is no reply. She bends to put on her boots, her cold fingers stumbling over the laces, and then starts slowly down, switching on her torch so that she can pick out each step as it curves away from her. Where can Alice be? Where has she gone, and why?

But would it really be so bad to go to Matron, or Miss Allen or any of the other women here in the school? They’re not monsters. When they saw Alice in trouble, in desperation, surely they would help her. But Alice lives by her own rules and her own idea of what the world should be. Whatever she sees in her future, Julia can guess that it is not being the naughty schoolgirl who surrenders herself in pregnant disgrace to the tongue-clicking disapproval of the spinsters in authority. She will want something grander and more dramatic than that.

Julia is on the ground floor now, and she tiptoes along, following the wavering beam of her torch, looking for signs of her friend, hoping that she has got onto her trail before she has gone too far. But there is no trace of her all the way past the changing rooms and out through the canvas sheeting into the pool room. Julia crosses it quickly, noticing that the wooden door at the end is already pushed ajar, and draws in a sharp breath as she looks at the world beyond. The snow has stopped and the sky is clear, shining with a huge silver moon that sets the snow glittering with millions of tiny twinkles. Across the fresh virgin snow that has fallen over the dirty building site, hiding its mud and filth and mess, there is a set of deep footprints leading towards the boundary between the school and the field where the caravans are.

Julia can’t help gasping in horror. So she was right, the baby is coming. Why has Alice decided to set off like this? What can she hope to achieve? She hurries on, scrunching through the fresh snowfall, her breath coming in puffs of icy smoke, feeling afraid of what she will find at the end of this fantastical journey. She hardly needs her torch now, as the moonlight reflects on the snow’s surface and lights up the way as if showing her the route to Alice.

The caravans are silent and dark as usual, each with its own heavy counterpane of snow under which it seems to snuggle. Like bugs in a rug, she thinks, and presses on towards the one at the back that belongs to Roy and Donnie.

As she rounds the corner of the van, she sees her: Alice, huddled in the snow, half crouching, half lying, her face twisted and her teeth bared. She is wrapped in a fur coat, one that Julia remembers her bringing back from home after Christmas, laughing about how she took it from her mother’s wardrobe without asking, and the fur is sprinkled with clumps of snow as though she has been rolling in it, like a winter bear taking a bath.

‘Alice!’ She dashes forward as fast as she can through the snow, drops her torch and kneels down beside her friend, touching her gently on the arm as if half afraid to cause her more pain.

Alice is grunting and panting, her skin whiter than ever, her hair wet with sweat, her lips pale. She opens her eyes and sees Julia, a look of relief passing over her face, but cannot speak while the strange stifled moan is in her throat. Julia holds her, wishing desperately that she can remove the pain somehow, but she has no idea what to do. Fright races through her. This is serious. This is birth. What can she do?

Some of the tension leaves Alice and she relaxes a little into Julia’s arms. ‘You found me,’ she whispers with a smile.

‘What are you doing, you idiot?’ Her fear makes her sound petulant, but she knows Alice understands. ‘Why did you come out here?’

‘I wanted to . . . I wanted to have the baby on my own. So that . . . So that I can give it to Roy.’

‘It’s my . . . gift. My . . . consolation.’ Her eyes close and her face twists into a rictus again. A great groan comes up from within her, and she clenches her fist with the pressure of keeping it inside. Her mouth is tightly shut. Only a high, quiet sound comes out on the night air. Julia guesses that Alice is doing all she can not to wake the occupants of the caravans.

‘You can’t stay here,’ she says, as soon as she sees that the pain has passed. ‘It’s freezing. You can’t have a baby out here in the snow. Come on.’

‘I can’t move,’ Alice says, her tone almost cheerful. ‘I can’t walk any further.’

Panic flares in Alice’s eyes. ‘Don’t leave me!’ She grips Julia’s hand with a tight, cold grip. ‘I thought I could do this alone. But I can’t.’

‘I won’t leave you – not for more than a minute. But we have to get some help.’ Julia scrambles up in the snow and heads for Donnie’s caravan. Instead of knocking at the door, she goes round to the back to the window. There’s no time for tentativeness now – she raps as hard as she dares. A few seconds later, the curtain is pushed aside and she sees Donnie’s face, bleary with sleep, looking out at her.

He rubs his eyes, squinting at her, and then seems to grasp that this is an emergency. He mouths back, ‘Two minutes,’ and disappears from view. Julia goes back to the door and waits, her arms wrapped around herself, hopping on the spot against the cold. She can only think of Alice, worried for her in the snow alone, and she hears the low muffled wail of another rush of pain.

The door opens and Donnie stands there, dressed but without a coat. ‘Hell’s fire,’ he says, shuddering. ‘It’s freezing out here. What are you doing here?’

‘It’s Alice. She’s over there. She’s having the baby.’ Julia points to the strange huddled shape in the snow that’s rocking gently. ‘We have to get her inside.’

‘What?’ A look of horror crosses Donnie’s face. ‘The baby’s coming? She can’t have it here!’

‘She can’t have it in the snow,’ Julia says firmly. ‘We’re coming in. You have to help me, she can’t walk.’

Donnie gapes at her, and then sees that she is not to be denied. The seriousness of the situation will not allow it. ‘Holy Mary,’ he says, looking suddenly like a young boy. ‘All right. Come on then.’

They go over to Alice, and find her in a strange state, almost as though she is asleep, although the whiteness of her face makes her look more like a corpse. Julia is panicked until she groans as Donnie struggles to get an arm underneath to lift her.

‘You take her other side,’ he directs, panting a little. ‘We can both do it if we lift together.’

Somehow they manage to hoist Alice up, supporting her with their arms beneath hers. Her head lolls a little and she is a near dead weight, so they half carry, half drag her across the snow to the caravan, and then up the steps and through the open door. Once inside, Donnie lowers Alice gently to the floor and looks over her at Julia.

‘You’re going to have to do it,’ he says. ‘You’re a woman. You know about these things.’

‘What about Roy? Where is he? His wife has had children, he’ll know what to do.’

Donnie looks grim. ‘First off, he’s lying in his bed through that door and he’s flat-out drunk. He’s had near on a bottle of whiskey tonight; he wouldn’t wake if it was the Second Coming itself. And second, if he was awake, he’d be useless. No man sees the birth of his children, it’s not right. We need a woman, and you’re it.’

Alice starts to moan again. The force of her pain silences them both: they can only witness it, watching the animal nature of it, and the startling way her body won’t be deviated or stopped. It has a job to do, and nothing will prevent it now that it has begun.

Donnie and Julia look at each other. ‘You’d better get her things off,’ he says. ‘The baby is coming.’

It’s the beauty of it that strikes her the most. She’s always imagined that childbirth must be ugly, but it isn’t at all. In the light of the lantern, Alice’s belly is velvety smooth, huge and ripe. She lies on the old blanket that Donnie puts down for her, and, clutching at Julia’s hand, she allows herself to surrender to the mysterious forces possessing her. She never screams, but moans and wails with her mouth closed as pain grips her in ever closer pulses, and yet, she somehow relaxes too, as though she knows that she can deliver the baby, now she is sheltered and cared for. Donnie walks around the tiny space of the caravan, most of it taken up with the two girls, occasionally looking but mostly trying not to, as though he wants to preserve Alice’s modesty, even though she is lying naked on the floor, her belly rising and clenching with the force of the contractions.

Julia doesn’t know how long they are there. It could be one hour or four. Time seems to concertina, shrunk by the patterns of Alice’s labour, the wracks of pain that come and go, closer and closer together, until she is squeezing her eyes shut, her mouth wide, her hands painfully tight on Julia’s, pushing down and down.

Julia looks at the junction of Alice’s thighs, where everything is red and stretched and unrecognisable as any part of anatomy she has ever seen. It is so alien that it doesn’t strike her as obscene or disgusting; it simply is what it is, and in the middle of the work it can and must do. Then she sees it. The curve of a skull coming down through the dark red orifice and out into the world. It halts its progress as Alice gathers her strength for the next onslaught and then, as she pushes, the little head presses further out.

‘It’s almost here! Oh, well done, Alice, well done! Another push, another push!’ Julia has washed her hands and now she reaches down, ready to take hold of the child when it emerges. Donnie hovers nearby, tension all over his face, expectation in his eyes.

Alice allows a cry to escape as she pushes down again, and suddenly it happens more quickly than Julia can anticipate. With a sudden slither and a gush of water and blood, the body slides out of Alice’s and into Julia’s waiting hands. It is tiny and perfect, a thick purplish cord connected to its small round belly and then wrapped around its neck, where its face is perfectly still and blue.

Chapter Twenty-Seven