1960
In the lushness of spring, Julia sometimes wonders if the events of that winter’s night were all a dream. There is certainly a dreamlike quality to the way Alice simply vanished. The night the baby was born was the last time she saw her. They went back to the school, Donnie carrying Alice in his arms to the door, and when they made it back to the dorm, they crept into their beds, Julia wondering if they could ever really conceal the fact that Alice had given birth, then she slept soundly for the remaining few hours of the night. When she woke, Alice’s bed was empty and Miss Allen said she had been taken ill and was in the san. It had snowed too hard for any cars to get through to them immediately but a few days later, she heard that Alice’s mother and stepfather had come and taken her away.
She has not told anyone of the events of the night, but she is haunted by the memory of the birth and the dead baby. She becomes introverted and quiet, concentrating on her work and staying away from the other girls in case they ever ask her what she knows about Alice. All she wants is to get to the end of the year, and back to her parents in Cairo, where she intends to beg to be taken away from Renniston forever.
Before then, though, there are the holidays to get through, and when everyone else leaves the school, she is sent to stay in a cottage on the grounds with a retired schoolmistress who looks after girls not sent home. Julia is the only one this holiday, and she finds, to her surprise, that she treasures the peace and respite of the cottage. Miss Pelham is almost deaf and requires very little of her. There are regular mealtimes and bed is strictly at eight thirty, but the rest of the time is her own.
She spends long hours wandering through the woods at the side of the school, or lying next to hedgerows reading and thinking, but she stays well away from the east side of the school. The builders are still there. The pool is finished now and the gym in its last stages of construction. They will soon be gone, and then she can finally forget what happened.
But there is a reason why she wants them to stay.
She is lying on the soft green grass and staring up at the sky, watching clouds move slowly overhead, their titanic billows shifting and changing as the wind urges them on. Birds dart across her vision, riding the air currents, swooping and diving. Are they swallows or swifts? Or neither?
‘Hello.’ The soft lilting voice comes gently into her consciousness, and a body lies down nearby.
She turns to him, her sight adjusting from the bright expanse above to the face close to hers. ‘Hello, Donnie.’ She smiles. ‘You came.’
She wondered if he would get away today. So far he’s managed most days, now that the work is winding down and a lot of the men have already returned to Ireland. But he’s been able to wangle another week or two, clearing up.
He takes her face in his hands, gazing at her gently. ‘I didn’t want to miss you. You’re all I live for. You know that.’
She closes her eyes as his lips meet hers. It’s the most wonderful feeling in the world: his soft, tender kiss, her mouth opening to his, the hot feelings that start in her depths and then engulf her whole body. From the first moment he kissed her, she knew she was lost. It isn’t like Alice and Roy, though. It isn’t dirty and wrong. It’s beautiful and feels like the most natural, the most right thing in the world.
He stumbled on her by mistake right at the start of the holidays, when she was lying on her stomach in her favourite place, lost in a book, and he was out looking for rabbits. At first it was awkward and uncomfortable. When they looked into each other’s eyes, they saw the memory of that night, the dead child and the box Donnie made for him. But it also brought them together. They could only speak about it with each other.
‘So what happened to your girl?’ Donnie asked. ‘Is she all right? I haven’t seen her since.’
‘Nor have I. They took her away.’ Julia bit her lip. ‘I don’t know how to reach her and no one will tell me anything.’
‘Poor wee lass. I hope she gets better.’
Without ever agreeing it, they began to meet at the same time every day, talking idly about anything that crossed their minds. It took a while before she dared to ask about the baby and what had happened to him.
‘He’s safe enough,’ Donnie said. ‘I made sure of that. I didn’t want him dug up by foxes or anything, so I put him somewhere very safe where he’ll never be disturbed. Better if you don’t know where.’
Julia’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Donnie. It was so sad. So terrible.’ She choked on a sob.
‘Hey! There, there, it is sad. Children are easily lost. But don’t cry, Julia.’ He put his hand out to her face.
She gazed up at him. He had never called her Julia before. When their eyes met, clear and half afraid, she knew that he was going to kiss her and she started to shake. He was trembling too, but he moved towards her until, with small advances and retreats, his lips touched hers for that first, amazing time.
‘Donnie,’ she sighs as they lie together in the warm grass now, insects buzzing above them. ‘Oh, Donnie.’ His hands caress her, moving under her clothes, his kisses driving her wild for him. Every day, they get a little more adventurous, a little braver in the sating of their mutual need.
If Miss Pelham knew what her charge got up to in the warm meadow with the thin Irish boy, she would have twenty screaming blue fits. But no one knows. It is their secret, this trembling exploration and lush enjoyment of one another.
‘Julia,’ he whispers in her ear, as her fingers touch him lightly, making him draw in a sharp breath. ‘Oh, Julia.’