Trio - страница 4

‘The shorthand’s the worst. And the teachers.’

‘Does it cost a lot?’

When Joan told her, Megan thought she was kidding her for a moment. ‘Flippin’ ’eck,’ she said, ‘you can count me out.’ Then she had a thought. ‘Tell you what, I’ll teach you to knit and you teach me shorthand.’

‘What about the typing?’ Joan laughed. ‘I don’t want to learn knitting anyway.’

‘Suit yourself!’ Megan tossed back her hair, pretended to be offended. She began to knit, the needles clicking in a steady rhythm. ‘I’ll just have to go back to the factory.’

‘But you said you were getting married,’ Caroline said.

‘I am, as soon as I’m old enough. Daddy won’t give his permission. Anyway, Brendan’s got to do his apprenticeship and he’s not meant to get wed till he's done. We wanted to,’ she said to Joan, ‘we wanted to get married and keep the baby.’ Her hands stopped moving. She gripped the needles.

‘That’s not fair,’ said Joan.

Megan could feel Joan’s eyes on her but didn’t want to catch them. There were tears stinging in her head but she would not cry. ‘No,’ she said abruptly. ‘Who said life was fair? They had that wrong. Still -’ she forced practicality back into her voice, carefully wound the wool round the needle – ‘there’s no budging them and I can’t run off to Gretna Green the state I’m in, so it’s the best of a bad job.’ She slid the stitch over, drew the wool around for the next.

‘Lights out in ten minutes,’ a voice called, knuckles rapped on the door.

‘Are you going to see Matron?’ Joan asked Caroline.

‘I’ll see how it is in the morning, it’s usually better after a lie down.’

She was so young, Joan thought, just sixteen. A dark horse. Not like Megan, who chattered day and night. The two girls were the same age but Megan’s bright personality and her bubbly confidence made her seem older than Caroline.

It was Caroline who had first shown her round, leading her upstairs and into the bedroom. ‘That’s yours.’ Caroline had pointed to the bed at the end of the row. There were three in the room and a small cupboard at the side of each. In the furthest corner, in an alcove to the side of the window, there was a wardrobe.

‘How long have you been here?’ Joan had asked her.

‘A month.’

‘What’s it like?’

The girl shrugged. ‘Bit strict. It’s all right if you remember the rules.’

‘Who else shares?’

‘Megan, she’s at the end. She came last week.’

‘There’s not just three of us?’

‘No. There’s four rooms like this and a big dorm downstairs next to the nursery. You go down there after.’

The girl seemed shy, jiggling one leg as she talked, unable to look at Joan for long without glancing away. She was bonny, a big-boned girl with a broad face and large, chocolate-brown eyes that made you think of an animal; something trusting like a dog or calf.

‘I’ll unpack then.’ She was probably not expected to stop and natter.

The girl nodded. ‘Tea's at half past.’ She slipped out of the door.

Joan sat heavily on the edge of her bed and took a deep breath. She would be here until May, maybe June. The room had cream wallpaper with pink roses on, quite nice. At the doorway there was a holy-water holder, the cup of water at the feet of a small statuette of Our Lady. On the wall opposite the beds, a picture of Christ the Redeemer, arms flung wide in welcome.

With a sigh Joan turned and lifted her case on to the bed.

She put her underwear and nightdress in the small drawer in the bedside table and hung her second-best suit and two maternity frocks in the wardrobe. It smelt musty and she wondered how clean the other clothes were, a shabby dress and coat and a pinafore dress. She had a small vanity case with her as well as writing paper, stamps and envelopes, a prayer book and a rosary.

The three of them had been thrown together and in the days that followed she had come to enjoy Megan’s irrepressible spirit and to feel protective towards Caroline, who was so patently unhappy. Now they tended to sit upstairs even though they could have joined the other girls in the sitting room, where there was a fire and the wireless to listen to for an hour in the evening. As long as the Sisters regarded the programmes broadcast as acceptable for their charges.