Trio - страница 3

She closed her eyes momentarily, fighting the rising panic. Don’t think. Just open the door.

She put her hand out and grasped the handle. Turned and pushed. Stepped into the room. Saw the woman on the couch rise unsteadily to her feet. Smiling. Moving towards her, mouth working with emotion. Little exclamations popping softly, hello, oh, hello. Arms opening, eyes drinking her in.

The two women embrace.

The younger started to cry, noisy sobs and sucking sounds.

‘Twenty eight years,’ the other said, her voice muffled with emotion. ‘I never thought I’d see you again. Come on.’

She led her daughter to the couch and sat with one arm around her, listening to her weep. She smelled her hair and felt the smooth skin of her fingers and waited for the crying to gentle and cease. There was no hurry after all. Years lost; but now they had all the time in the world. Forever.

And the daughter in her hot, damp sea of tears, felt them emptying out of her, on and on like when they change the lock gates on the canals. Made no effort to control them. Holding the hand, strong and bony like her own, hearing the drumbeat in her ears. Till she is all cried out. Feeling the wheel turn. Finding herself in a new place. Tender and bewildered and brave.

Caroline Joan

Megan

‘It’s not just morning sickness,’ Megan complained, ‘it’s morning, noon and night sickness.’

‘You look like you’re wasting away,’ Joan remarked drily.

‘G’wan.’ Megan was pleased with their new room-mate: older, more sophisticated, shorthand-typist no less. She had more about her than Caroline, who was kind but really shy and desperately unhappy.

‘And you should put your legs up,’ Joan instructed Caroline.

Caroline kicked off her shoes and carefully swung her legs round and on to the bed. There was little definition of the ankles left, the flesh was puffy and mottled red from calf to toe.

‘Does it hurt?’ Joan asked.

Caroline nodded. She looked tired, dark circles under her rich brown eyes. She had a wide face, a sallow complexion and wore her shiny dark-brown hair pulled back and tied in a ponytail.

Megan was brushing her hair. It had grown and she liked it long and bushy, springy red curls like Rita Hayworth. The brush wasn’t much good though, the soft bristles created more static electricity than anything else. Joan wore her black hair in a beehive, but hers was straight to begin with. She back-combed it and used sugar and water to set it. Joan was tall anyway, but with her hair up like that she looked even leggier, like some film star.

‘You should tell Matron,’ Megan said to Caroline.

‘I did.’

‘But it looks worse today.’ Megan told her. ‘They shouldn’t still have you doing the laundry, with feet fit to burst.’

‘Megan!’ Joan’s inky blue eyes narrowed in warning.

Megan shrugged and put her brush down. ‘Suppose it’s better than the kitchen though,’ she added. She foraged in her cupboard and came out with a knitting pattern and a pair of needles stuck into a ball of soft white wool. She rubbed the wool against her cheek. It was so soft. They’d lots of new stuff like this coming in, a million miles away from the scratchy wire that Mammy had used to knit all their stuff.

‘At least you can sit down to peel the vegetables,’ said Caroline. ‘I’m standing all the time in the laundry.’

Megan waved her needle at her. ‘If you’ve morning, noon and night sickness, the odour of cheese pie and liver stew tips the balance. And that’s not all that tips.’

The girls smiled.

‘What are you knitting?’ Joan asked.

‘The layette.’ Megan passed her the pattern. Black and white photographs of babies wearing the various outfits adorned the front cover. ‘White, of course, to suit a boy or girl and I’m doing the longer coat.’

‘I can’t knit,’ said Joan.

‘G’wan,’ said Megan, ‘everyone can knit. You can knit, can’t you, Caroline?’

‘A bit.’

‘It’s easy,’ said Megan. ‘How come your mammy never showed you?’

‘Oh, she did. I was always dropping stitches or getting the wool so tight I couldn’t budge it.’

‘Tell us about being a secretary. Was it hard at secretarial school?’