The Winter Children (33 page)

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

Perhaps he’s hearing it in his head.

‘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.’

‘What do you think will happen to her?’

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.’

They reach the new pool building and he says, ‘I’ll leave you here then.’

‘Goodbye,’ she says. ‘And thank you.’

‘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.’

Alice is startled out of her reverie. ‘What?’

‘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.’

She storms off back towards the school and Julia can only follow.

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.

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

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

She is in the club.

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.

Triumph?

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.

Oh, Alice. It’s all too serious for that. Why can’t you see?

But Julia will have to help her. There is no other way.

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.

‘Alice? Alice?’ she hisses urgently.

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.’

‘Yes, I know, but it’s urgent,’ she says impatiently.

Clara shrugs and heads out. They are alone again.

‘Alice?’ Julia raps on the door.

‘What?’ The voice is muffled and strained.

‘What’s going on? Are you all right?’

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.

Perhaps I imagined it. It must be nothing.

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.

That might be normal, for all I know.