Trio

Part One: Birth

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?’

‘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.

They were all so different but here they were, hidden away in St Ann’s; good catholic girls gone bad. She got her nightdress out and changed quickly. There was no heating in the bedroom and it was a cold March night. Two more months, Joan told herself, and it will all be over.

Caroline

Her mother had brought her here. Getting the bus into Manchester and then out again south to the home. There was a place nearer them – St Monica’s – but her mam argued that it was too close.

‘Tongues’ll be tittle-tattling,’ she said. ‘This way no one will set eyes on you. We’ll say you’re visiting Dulcie in Sheffield, helping with the twins.’

Twins. Ran in families. Could she be having twins? Not one baby but two? It was all done and dusted according to her mam. After the first awful shock, when she’d seen Mam’s face go white as fish, her eyes hollow out with dismay.

‘Oh, Caroline,’ she’d said, and the gentle reproach was harder to bear than the harsh words that followed.

All the how could yous and this familys, the respectables and let us downs, the ruin and calamity. And she fancied after that that when her mam looked at her she saw dirt, a soiled creature. A disappointment. Her dad was told and when he came home and found her in the scullery he left the house. After that he ignored her most of the time and if he did have to speak it was with a cold sting in his words. She had lost his love overnight.

Caroline had wept to her mam and begged forgiveness but when talk turned practical and her mam started to organise her stay at St Ann’s, then a small fierce voice had winkled its way out.

‘I want to keep the baby,’ she cried.

‘Caroline, you can’t,’ her mam cried in horror, wheeling round from the lowered wooden creel where she was hanging the washing to dry. She seemed more shocked at this suggestion than she had been at the pregnancy in the first place.

‘Have you any idea…’ Mam broke off, speechless at her daughter’s folly, slapping the wet shirt in her hands on the table in frustration. ‘Where would you live? You couldn’t live here. Oh, no -’ she shook her head fiercely – ‘you can throw your own life away, you can condemn your baby to the most miserable existence, but you’ll not drag us down with you.’

‘I could get a room.’

‘Not with a baby,’ her mother snorted. ‘No one would have you. You’d end up beggin’ on the streets, or worse.’

‘l could work,’ she retorted.

‘And who would care for the baby?’

‘Well…’ She struggled for solutions. Was it so impossible?

She tugged at her nail, thinking desperately, tears soaking her cheeks.

‘Think of the child,’ her mam urged, ‘growing up a bastard.’ The word like a slap. ‘Is that what you want?’

‘Caroline -’ she put down the shirt, moved to put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders – ‘if you care for this baby you’ll want the best for it, a good home, a happy family. A future. You can’t give it that. There are people out there desperate for a little one. Good people. It’s the only way.’

She pulled away then, devastated. She didn’t go to her room but ran out the back and walked up the ridge that ran behind the house. She relished the cold wind that stung her eyes. Digging her nails deep into her palms she strode half-seeing, her nose running so she had to wipe at it every few yards. She went as far as the first outcrop of rocks, Little Craven, and sat in the dip in the weathered stone that the children called the armchair. Facing away from the hamlet and the city in the distance she let her eyes roam across the moors to the peaks beyond. The first snows had reached the tops and she fancied she could smell snow in the air in among the bitter tang of the heather. She sat there until dusk drifted down while the chimneys behind were all smoking and the sheep bleated more loudly. She watched the clouds darken to purple and heard the clatter of the train in the next valley.

She felt blank, empty. A slate wiped clean. Except she wasn’t clean. She was mucky. And no amount of scrubbing or soap or prayer or pleading would put things right.

She didn’t argue again and, when the time was right, before she started to show, her mam brought her to St Ann’s. She had to answer all the questions for the form and she never let on then that there was any other thought in her head but having the child adopted.

Joan

When Joan realised she was pregnant, her first thought was that now Duncan would have to leave his wife. But, of course, he could never divorce her, being Catholic, so he could never marry Joan. They would have to move away, go to London. There was always work in London. They could buy a ring, tell people they were married. Who was to know the difference? Unless they spotted the ‘Miss’ on her Family Allowance book. Would they even give her a book if she was an unmarried mother?

She finished her Blue Riband, put the paper in the tin that she brought her lunch in and leant back against the park bench, letting her eyes roam around the empty pathways. Only a few stolid dog-walkers passed her. The wind gusted and caught at her eyes, a cold wind from the east. There was talk of snow. Not many chose to eat by the boating lake at this time of year. That’s why she’d come here. He’d never do it. There wasn’t even any point in telling him about it. Damn! She swore, it was all so sordid. Snatched hours driving up on the moors with a picnic rug in the back or after work when he’d ask her to stay behind to finish some letters and they’d wait until Betty had tidied up the petty cash and washed the cups and put her hat and coat on and said ‘toodle-oo then’ as she invariably did.

Listening as Betty click-clacked down the steep staircase, waiting for the thud of the front door. Joan’s mouth would go dry and her skin tighten as her fingers rested on the typewriter keys.

Then Duncan would come and stand behind her at her desk. Run his hands across her shoulders, down the front of her blouse, circling her breasts and she would feel weak and wicked and she would do anything then.

There was a steady wind riffling the surface of the boating lake. The boats had gone now. The season over, they were stacked in the boathouse until the spring. Ducks paddled lazily about, oblivious to the cold. Joan sniffed, fished in her coat for her hanky.

He always had to go, so soon. Too soon. Home to his tea, his wife, and I Love Lucy on the television. So their sex was always frantic. They were always half-dressed. It was never enough for her. He didn’t seem to mind but she wanted more time, time to linger, to revel in it, to flaunt herself, tease him, be teased. But no. As soon as Duncan was done he was off, home to Scotch on the rocks and bloody Canasta, and Joan would gather the mail and post it on her way back, her limbs still fluid with desire, her nipples hard, the simple act of walking maintaining her excitement. Still swollen with sex.

‘I’m back,’ she would call to her mother then climb the stairs to her room, where it was her habit to change out of her office clothes. On the nights when he had left her flushed and dizzy she would sit by her dressing table, looking in the mirror, running her hands over her brassiere as he had done, then down between her legs. Stroking herself fast and light she imagined him with her, in her or watching, and closed her eyes, feeling the waves gather inside her then break over her in quick succession.

It was probably a sin, impure deeds, just like seeing Duncan was a sin, but she mentioned neither at her regular confession. Father McRory would have a dickie-fit, she thought. It had never happened with Duncan, her climax, it never would. So many things were out of the question with Duncan.

She stood up abruptly from the park bench. Time to get back to the office. Her fingers were numb at the tips and her back felt chilled. Joan took the path to Wilmslow Road, along past the rose gardens. The bushes had been pruned back hard, only stumpy stalks remained, looking ugly and barren; such a contrast to the rich sea of blooms in summer.

She never fell asleep in his arms, in his bed. Never went out to a cafe or a restaurant with him. She couldn’t give him a Christmas present or hold his hand on the street. His wife had all that. Everything. Except she hadn’t been able to give him a baby. And Joan could – except she wouldn’t, it wasn’t allowed. Like some awful practical joke.

The doctor had confirmed her suspicions and advised her about the Mother and Baby home. ‘It’s not the end of the world,’ he said. ‘There’s no need to do anything silly. A year from now and you’ll be able to put it all behind you.’

She pictured herself on someone’s kitchen table, a wire coat hanger making her bleed. Or buying Penny Royal from a chemist’s on the other side of town. Or was the doctor thinking of her hurting herself, putting her head in the oven or throwing herself into the Mersey? Well, he needn’t worry.

She crossed Wilmslow Road and walked past the shops to the corner building where the office was. She wouldn’t tell him. Things would go on as normal for the next few weeks and then she’d give her notice. She would think up a reason, a better position or something. She’d go to the Home, have the baby. Give it up.

She went in and up the stairs.

‘Bit parky out there,’ Betty commented as Joan hung her scarf on the rack. ‘You know what you get, sitting in the cold?’

Frozen, thought Joan. She could see Duncan through the open door to his office at the end of the larger room, pretending to read, but she could tell from the set of his back that he was eavesdropping.

‘Piles,’ said Betty.

‘That’s from stones,’ she couldn’t help smiling, ‘not benches.’

Betty grunted and returned to her ledger.

‘Joan,’ he called.

She walked to the doorway.

‘Any chance of staying on a bit today? I’ve a whole heap of these to get done.’

‘Yes,’ she said simply.

Megan

Soulmates they were, her and Brendan. Made for each other. She watched him at the counter, waiting for the girl to get the coffees from the big machine. Even looked alike, same flame-red hair and bright blue eyes. She’d more freckles though. She knew they’d get married. Everyone kept on about how young they were but that was daft. They were both in work, what else was there to wait for? They’d need to save a bit, of course, they’d have to stay at her mammy’s till they got on the housing list.

She’d seen a lovely ring, white gold, quite plain.

He brought back the drinks.

‘You’d make a good waiter,’ she teased.

‘Go on. Dying breed with all the self-service.’

‘They won’t bring it in everywhere,’ she said scornfully. ‘Restaurants and that’ll still have service.’

The grocers on Mount Street had put out fruit and veg and a sign saying pick your own.

‘I don’t fancy that,’ her mammy had pronounced, ‘everyone handling the fruit. Silly notion.’

Mammy was still stuck back in the old country. She didn’t like modern stuff. Megan did.

Even their names practically rhymed – Megan, Brendan.

She poured sugar in her drink and stirred at the froth, watched the gaggle of lads and lasses piling in from the pictures. Waved hello to those she knew.

When she turned back Brendan was pulling a daft face; sucking his spoon so hard that his nose was pinched and white.

‘Give over,’ she laughed.

He crossed his eyes.

‘Eejit. Put ‘Living Doll’ on… and ‘Dream Lover’.’

He waggled his eyebrows at her and licked his lips.

‘Go on.’

He went over to the jukebox and put his money in, pressed the buttons. Megan watched the records move round and the black disc selected and lowered to the turntable. She joined in the song.

‘Fancy a walk?’ Brendan asked.

‘I’d better get back, they’ve left Kitty in charge and they’ll all be swinging from the chandeliers.’

He frowned.

‘I told you,’ she shoved his arm. ‘They’ve gone to see Some Like It Hot.’

‘Ten minutes,’ he bartered.

‘It’s flippin’ freezing out there.’ She knew exactly what Brendan’s ten-minute walk would involve.

‘I’ll keep you warm.’ He did his John Wayne voice, making his eyes go sleepy-looking.

‘I know your sort of warm,’ she said primly.

His eyes flew open and he looked shocked. She snorted, got a load of bubbles up her nose. Wiped at her face. ‘Come on, take me home,’ she drained her cup.

‘Kathleen,’ he joked. ‘What mass are you going to?’ He wouldn’t give up.

She caught her lip between her teeth, teasing him a moment. ‘Early, I think.’

He winked and caught her hand.

She smiled.

The rest of the family went to the eleven o’clock. It gave Brendan and Megan the run of the place for a whole hour, though the last ten minutes were always spent setting the table and getting the veg on so it looked like they’d been making themselves handy.

Very handy.

She smiled again and pulled away. Outside, they linked arms. It was bitterly cold for September. The sudden frosts had caused most of the trees to drop early and the smell of rotting leaves mingled with the smoke from coal fires and the stink of dye factories along the canal.

She pulled her muffler up to cover her nose and pulled him closer.

Caroline

Caroline just couldn’t believe that you could get pregnant on your first time. Her understanding of it was a bit hazy, though she knew something from seeing the animals on the farm where she helped out and from the local wildlife to have a rough idea of the way of the world.

It was when she tried to apply it to her own experience that things got all mixed up. For example, they had to keep Bess, the dog, inside when she was on heat or there’d have been pups. But Caroline’s mam had told her that her own monthlies were a clearing-out, so how did that work?

She turned over in bed. The room was bitter now and although she had heaped extra blankets on and wore her socks her toes were like ice and she knew she wouldn’t sleep until they were warm. She reached down, her head under the covers, to rub at her feet.

If she’d only known, if she’d had an inkling. It had all been so quick. Five minutes. If only she could take that five minutes back.

A barn dance to mark the end of harvest. Jim Colby, chuffed at the amount of hay baled in his barns and the promise of a good fruit crop to follow. A hot summer had blessed them.

Caroline liked Roy, Jim’s middle son. A quiet, hard-working boy with sulky, film-star looks like Montgomery Clift. Roy had no steady girl and despite his looks no bad reputation. He was shy and didn’t mix much.

She’d worked alongside him at the farm for the harvest. Hot, thirsty work, following the tractor or the baler, stacking the bales, chaff and dust in her throat and her eyes and her ears.

Any talking was snatched, desultory. Breath was too precious and there was nothing the flies liked better than an open mouth.

She’d been hoping he’d dance with her at the hoedown and he had, several times, till it seemed they were matched for the evening. They’d done strip-the-willow and maid’s morris, ending up breathless from the pace and the hilarity that erupted when some lummock with two left feet had the set in disarray. She’d worn a new dirndl skirt, red and black, and a white bodice blouse. The skirt flew out when he spun her round, just right for the swings. In-between the demanding dances they gulped down cupfuls of dry cider.

‘I need some fresh air,’ she said after an hour of this, and he followed her out of the barn and round to the little orchard at the back. She sat herself down and lay back on the ground, sighing aloud. ‘I’m jiggered,’ she said, then giggled.

He was quiet. He sat beside her. She opened her eyes and looked through the boughs of the apple tree to the sky with its frosting of stars flung between wisps of cloud. She turned to look at him and he lowered his face to hers. Excitement prickled her skin, mimicking the tickle of grass beneath her bare arms and legs.

His lips were firm and dry and warm. She wondered whether she should move but she was fearful of breaking the embrace. She lay still and felt him shift about, his lips still moving slowly on hers.

He lay alongside her, then she felt one of his arms across her knees, then his fingers stroking along the side of her leg, under the edge of her skirt. It tickled and she squirmed, stifling a giggle, making a tiny mew in her throat. Roy wriggled against her, she felt his hand again, grazing her thigh, the inside, moving up. Her stomach lurched, it felt so good. Like the swing boats at the fair or the waltzers, a tingling, dizzy feeling. But she shouldn’t let him. She twisted away from his kiss.

‘Roy,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t.’

‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said. His voice sounded strange. ‘Please.’

He didn’t wait for an answer. His mouth found hers again, damp now, and his hands moved, he was touching her down there, edging his fingers inside her knickers. What did it feel like to him? Another hand on her breast. She felt giddy, like she was melting. She must stop him. But it didn’t hurt, it was so nice. Oh, golly it was so nice. He eased the tip of a finger inside her and she felt her thighs tighten and everywhere glowing. He moaned. She swallowed hard. He kissed her, moaned again as if he was hurting. He kissed her neck, moved until he was above her, bracing his weight on one arm, breathing fast. He said her name. Kissed her, slid his finger further in and wiggled it about. She could just make out his face in the dark, the whites of his eyes. ‘Please,’ he said again.

She closed her eyes, heard her own breath sighing. Then the band started up again, a waltz. She felt the pressure between her legs, a sudden change as he took his finger out and there was pushing. She realised with a rush of horror what he was doing. ‘Roy! No.’ Her words sharp, she tried to get out from under him but his weight was too much for her. ‘No.’ She pushed at his face with her hands.

He gave a shudder and yelped, rolled off her.

‘You shouldn’t,’ she yelled, ‘you shouldn’t!’

‘I’m sorry.’ He sounded upset too. ‘I thought you wanted…’ And then, stupidly. ‘I do like you, Caroline.’

She felt sticky and uncomfortable. The giddy mood from cider and whirling about was replaced by a heavy sense of guilt and worry. A burst of clapping rang out from the barn.

‘We better go back in,’ she said in a small voice.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said gruffly. ‘I’m not that sort of girl.’ She didn’t like to think about how nice the stroking had been.

‘I know. I never meant…’ He stuttered to a stop. ‘Oh, God.’

She scrambled to her feet, arranging her dress, brushing bits of grass and fragments of apple bark from her hair.

She didn’t dance again and left before the end of the evening too uncomfortable with the glances from Roy, who sat with his brothers across the other side of the hall.

The cloud was clearing as she walked back, more stars were visible, silver sparkles in an indigo sky. She saw a falling star and wished, wished that it would be all right. Though she couldn’t have explained what she was so worried about, not having any notion then that what Roy had done was go all the way and that you could get caught first time.

Megan

‘I’ll bloody swing for him! I’ll knock his ruddy block off! The weaselly fucking bastard!’

‘Daddy, no!’ Megan cried.

‘Anthony,’ her mammy admonished, hating his lapse into coarse language.

‘What were you thinking of?’ He rounded on his daughter, fists balled with frustration. ‘You silly, little eejit.’

Megan gulped, tried to stop crying. ‘He wants to marry me.’

‘Oh, no,’ Anthony Driscoll announced. ‘Over my dead body.’

‘Mammy, tell him,’ Megan pleaded.

But her mammy blinked. ‘Yer awful young.’

‘You were my age when you had me.’

‘That was different,’ her daddy announced.

‘Why was it? Mammy was pregnant when she married you. I can do my sums, you know. I wasn’t born three months premature, was I?’

He lurched towards her, anger furrowing the muscles in his face, his arm swinging back.

‘Anthony!’ her mammy barked. He had never hit them, none of them. It was something he prided himself on. But this was taking him to the limit.

‘Jesus wept!’ he railed and slammed his hand on the table. ‘You’ll not marry him, I’ll not give my permission.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s a clown. He’s got no prospects, no land. Nothing.’

‘We’re not back home now,’ she retorted. ‘I’m not after a farmer. He’s apprenticed. He’ll learn a trade. He’ll be a printer. We won’t need to wait half our lives for an itty-bitty strip of boggy land that won’t grow any bloody thing.’

‘Megan!’ Mammy snapped.

‘It’s not fair!’ she yelled.

‘When you’re twenty-one you can marry who you like, but until then you live in my house and you marry who I say.’

Six years! He was touched in the head. ‘It’s your grandchild,’ she protested. ‘It’s a bastard and you don’t want it, but I do and it needn’t be like that.’

Her mammy started at the sentiment. Megan knew if it was only her there might be some chance, but her daddy was the stubbornest man in the world.

‘I want it, Daddy.’

‘Oh, now you do.’

‘And Brendan does.’

‘I have no more to say on the matter.’ He clenched his jaw shut.

‘Mammy,’ she appealed for help.

‘You’re not the first, Megan, and you won’t be the last. I tried to raise you good, teach you right from wrong. If Brendan had an ounce of respect… You’ve gone to the bad and it must be put right. We’ll talk to the Catholic Rescue.’

‘I don’t want to!’ Her voice was high and childlike. She began to cry again. Her mother put her hand on Megan’s head. ‘It’s the best way,’ she cajoled.

‘Please, Daddy.’

‘Enough,’ he said shortly and she watched the feeling drain from his eyes and his look turn, the bright pain replaced by a dull grey stare, dead as stones. She couldn’t win. Another day, a different moment, perhaps he’d have said yes, hesitated in his decision long enough to hear her pleas and see the sense of it. But now, once he’d said it, that was it. No matter how wrong he might be, or what harm might result, he would be unmoving. She hated him for it. She would never forgive him, she told herself, never, never, not until they put pennies on her eyes.

Joan

‘I’ve got a new job,’ Joan announced to her family during their evening meal. Her stomach rippled with tension. ‘Down in London. Frances told me about it. And I wrote to apply and they’ve offered me it.’

She held up the letter. She had typed it herself earlier that day. Betty had gone to the post office for stamps and Duncan was out seeing a customer. It was the first chance she’d had. She’d invented an address in London. She’d never been there but had heard of Shepherd's Bush. It was easy enough to come up with 16 Market Street, Shepherd’s Bush. Her fingers flew over the keys, offering herself the position of secretary. She had signed it with a flourish. Arthur Bell Esquire. She found a used envelope with an illegible postmark and inserted the letter.

‘Good grief!’ Her mother froze in the process of dishing up the treacle tart. ‘It’s all a bit sudden, isn’t it? You never said a word.’

Her younger brother Tommy gawped, her father looked stunned. ‘What’s brought all this on?’ he asked her. ‘What sort of position?’ He held his hand out for the letter.

Her mother resumed sharing out the sweet, one eye on Joan.

‘Secretarial, small firm. You know I’ve been wanting to go for ages. Frances says it’s super there. Very lively. There’s a room coming up at her lodgings, so I won’t even need to find a place.’

‘And you’re leaving Harrison’s just like that?’ He frowned at the letter.

‘Daddy, I’ll work my notice and they’ll find someone else easy enough. I don’t want to work in the same office all my life.’

‘Don’t know you’re born,’ he muttered. ‘Pass the Carnation.’

Joan handed him the jug of evaporated milk. He held the letter out to her mother.

‘It’s a bit of a shock, Joan,’ her mother managed. ‘I wish you’d said something.’

‘I was going to but it’s all happened so quickly. This job at Bell’s is vacant now and if I don’t jump at it they’ll take someone else. Manchester is so stuffy,’ she said. ‘I want to see what London's like.’

‘When’s all this going to happen?’ Her father said. ‘How long’s your notice?’

‘A week. I thought I could get the coach next Saturday.’

‘You’ll miss Grandad’s birthday,’ her mother complained.

‘Grandad won’t mind.’

There was a pause. Joan listened to the clock ticking, to her father’s huffs and puffs as he ate.

‘Your mother’s right,’ he said. ‘You could have given the family a bit more consideration, springing it on us like this.’

She sighed. ‘I want you to be pleased for me,’ Joan tried. ‘It’s so exciting.’

‘We are, Joan.’ Her mother smiled. ‘It’s just so fast. But we are. Aren’t we, Ted?’

He raised his eyebrows and nodded, making it clear that any pleasure was tempered by reservations at how Joan had behaved.

‘You’ll need something to manage on until your first wages come through,’ her mother said.

‘I’ve got a bit in my savings.’

‘You’re dipping into your savings for this?’ Her father looked disapproving. Joan felt a wave of irritation which she fought to hide. The last thing she wanted was to lose her temper now. ‘It’s a week in hand,’ she lied. ‘I won’t need much.’

‘Things are dearer in London,’ her mother put in.

‘Frances will help me out, too. It’ll be fine.’ Joan wiped the sweat from her palms on her slacks and resumed eating. Lies all told. Relief lapping at the edges of her skull. Better than the truth. Why hurt them? They’d be disgusted, ashamed of her. They’d demand to know who the father was. There'd be scene after scene. She couldn’t do that. The tart was sweet and cloying in her mouth, the Carnation milk silky. She was ravenous and nauseous all at once. She wanted more. She’d go for chips later.

‘I’ll see the Tower of London,’ she said to Tommy, feeling a little giddy now it was done, ‘and Buckingham Palace.’

‘They’re changing guards at Buckingham Palace,’ he sang, his eyes dancing, ‘Christopher Robin went down with Alice… Can I come and see it, too?’

‘One day,’ she told him, ‘when you’re bigger. London’s a long way away, hundreds of miles.’

Not a place any of them would visit on spec. No chance of them ever finding out that she wasn’t there.

Megan

The place gave her the heebie-jeebies. It looked like some old house out of a Dracula film with turrets at the corners and ivy all over it. Jesus, there were even gargoyles on the corners of the roof. She half expected Christopher Lee to answer the door, or Peter Cushing.

She’d seen it at its worst when they’d arrived, her mammy clutching her elbow and Megan holding a small, brown, boxy suitcase that had been a wedding gift to her parents. It had her Daddy’s initials on, A.C.D. – Anthony Christopher Driscoll. If everyone had their own, hers would have read M.A.D. – MAD. Megan Agnes Driscoll. Great, that. Hadn’t they thought of that when they picked the names? The kids had ribbed her endlessly at school, ‘Megan’s mad, just like her Dad.’ Could have been worse. Think of being P.I.G. or S.O.W. Whatever she called the baby, she would be very careful about the initials. Brendan’s were B.J.C. – Brendan Joseph Conroy. So her married name would be Megan Agnes Conroy. She wouldn’t be MAD then. One fella in Brendan’s school, the school in Donegal he was at before they came over, he was Terence Gough – T.G. – which everyone used as shorthand for Thank God. Thank God for Terence Gough. Excepting Brendan said he was a poor wee runt of a boy, cack-handed, and he stank, and no one would want to thank anybody for him.

Mammy rang the bell. There was a thick fog that afternoon. It was only four o’clock and already it was pitch black. Megan could taste the soot in the air, the flavour of bad eggs and the feel of chalk on her tongue. There were tall trees round the house, bare most of them in late February. She tried to imagine it in spring with sunshine, in May when the baby would come. And failed. The place seemed built for winter.

The nun who answered the door bore no resemblance to Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee and she was quite cheerful in spite of her surroundings.

‘Come in, come in,’ she chirruped when Mammy said their names. ‘I’m Sister Giuseppe. Matron’s expecting you.’

Megan wondered what on earth possessed her to take Giuseppe for her name? Sounded like the old woodcarver in Pinochio, though his was a bit different, Giuppetty, was it? And she'd a thought that one of the uncles at Granelli’s ice-cream parlour was a Giuseppe. But when you could be a Lucia or a Carmel or something pretty why go for a whiskery old man’s name? Maybe you couldn’t choose for yourself?

Sister Giuseppe showed them where to sit. There were three wooden chairs along the wall in the entrance hall. There was a side table beyond with a holy-water dispenser above it. Our Lady. An old-fashioned one, the paint dull on the plaster. You could get them that glowed in the dark now, crucifixes and all, made of some new plastic stuff.

Megan settled the box case on her knee. The entrance hall had a parquet wood floor with tiles all around the edge in a zigzag pattern. The walls were very plain, green below the dado and cream above. Bit like a hospital. The place was enormous. There was a staircase down the hall, like something from Gone With The Wind, splitting into two on the landing, a huge picture hung up there in a thick gilt frame, a picture of St Joan of Arc, seated on a horse, with temples and hills behind her. The place smelt of beeswax and coal. Megan wondered where all the girls were, the fallen women. She didn’t feel like a fallen woman. She felt very small and scared and she wished they could just go now. Take the box and go back home and have the baby and marry Brendan and make everything right.

‘Mrs Driscoll?’ Another nun. Older this time, with grey curls peeping from the edge of her wimple. Thick glasses and a rough, red complexion. ‘Good afternoon. I’m Matron. Sister Monica.’

‘Yes, Sister. You wrote.’

‘That’s right. You’re up in Collyhurst?’

‘Just beyond.’

‘St Malachy’s?’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘I knew Father Gilmartin from Salford, we were both at St Claire’s for a while.’

Connections established, they followed Sister Monica into a generous-sized room which held a desk and several upright chairs, a filing cabinet and some easy chairs around the fireplace. Above the mantelpiece was a picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour and behind Sister Monica’s desk one of the Sacred Heart. A tea tray with cups for three sat on the desk.

‘You’ll have some tea before your journey back?’ Sister addressed Mammy. Megan felt a rush of heat inside. She wasn’t going back, she had to stay. She could see pink wafers on the tray. Her favorite. Peak Freans.

‘We’ll do that then and have a little chat, and then I can show Megan around the place. Tea is at five thirty, so we’ve plenty of time. When's your bus?’

‘They’re every twenty minutes back to town, so I’ll be fine, thank you, Sister.’

Sister poured tea and Megan got a cup and a biscuit. Sister Monica established Mrs Driscoll’s home town in Eire and the two regaled each other with families they knew, priests and schools and seminaries and churches. Megan let the chat bubble round her. She felt tired and cranky. Oh, Brendan. She missed Brendan. He had been banned from the house and she from seeing him. She had sent him a couple of notes to work, getting her sister Kitty to take them on her way to the factory. She knew he still cared. She saw him at Mass, his family all stuck to him like sticky burrs and no chance to talk.

‘Now, Mrs Driscoll.’ The tone changed and Megan paid attention again. ‘Do you have any questions?’

‘No.’

‘And we think the baby is due in the middle of May?’

‘Think so.’

‘Father Quinlan does the purification ceremony here and then Megan will be able to make a clean start of it all. Yes?’

‘Yes, Sister.’ She didn’t want her mammy to go. She didn’t want to be left here. She felt herself getting hot, like a burn travelling up her back, along the sides of her arms and her neck.

‘The baby will be placed and Megan will need to give her consent for the formal hearing. It’s only a couple of minutes and the parties never meet. You won’t see the parents. Just a formality.’

She felt a flare of resentment. She and Brendan were the parents, the real parents. If they’d been a few years older they could have got married and no one could have stopped them.

‘I’ll be on my way.’ Her mammy rose and Megan took in the shabby green tweed coat, the ill-matched hat, the determined face her mother had put on.

She stood for a hug, suddenly panicky, no air in the place, fevered, her eyes hot. Mammy’s touch was swift, almost brusque, not giving either of them the chance for a show of emotion.

‘Ta-ta, now. Thank you, Sister.’

‘Mammy.’ Megan tried to slow her down, no idea what to say.

The door opened and Sister Giuseppe was there. Like Igor, Megan thought. There’d been no signal. ‘Mammy.’

‘Sister will see you out, Mrs Driscoll.’

Her mother practically ran from the room and the door closed on them.

Megan stood, her throat parched, her heart fluttering in her throat.

‘Sit down, Megan,’ Sister said quietly, but there was no warmth in the voice. ‘Let me check your notes.’

Joan

‘Father’s name?’

Joan shook her head. ‘He doesn’t know.’

‘You couldn’t tell him?’

‘He isn’t free.’

She could sense the disapproval from the other side of the desk like a fret of distaste settling about her. She hadn’t just been careless, she had led a married man astray. Home wrecker, scarlet woman.

‘Can you leave it blank?’ She fought to sound calm and contained. Inside, her heart was whipping about and her nerves singing like piano wires.

The nun blinked and gave a curt nod.

‘Your occupation?’

‘Secretary.’

‘Nearest relatives?’

‘Mr and Mrs Hawes.’

‘Parents?’

She nodded.

‘Any brothers and sisters?’

Joan told her about Tommy.

‘When’s the baby due?’

‘Early June, I think.’

The Nun unfolded a small slip of paper and glanced at it. ‘You’ve seen the doctor,’ she confirmed.

‘Yes.’

Duncan had gone white when he’d opened her letter giving notice. She’d worded it in the usual formal style.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to inform you of my intention to leave my position of Secretary on February 25th, two weeks from today.

Yours faithfully,

Joan Hawes

No reason. No warning.

She had watched him open it from her own desk, her knees clenched together, toes pressing into the floor.

‘Joan?’

Betty looked up too at the unusual urgency in his tone.

‘Yes, Mr Harrison?’

‘Can you come through?’

He nodded for her to shut the door behind her.

‘What’s this?’ He flung the letter down, angry, a muscle by his mouth twitching.

‘I’m going to London.’

‘Why?’ Like it was the moon. ‘Why, Joan?’

She bit her lip, steadying herself. The less she said the better.

‘Reconsider.’

‘Mind’s made up.’

‘I thought, you and me…’

What you and me? ‘You have a wife.’

‘Oh, Joan.’ He looked at her pained, as if to say it wasn't his fault that he was married, as if she was being unfair.

‘I don’t want you to go,’ he said.

She didn't reply, wrapped her arms tighter round herself.

‘You could have told me. Not like this,’ he pushed at the letter with his fingers.

She waited.

‘So this is it? All you have to say?’

‘I’ll work my notice,’ she said. ‘But I won’t be able to stay late.’

He bristled then, his lips crimping together, his colour darkening. Would he spit at her? Curse her? She avoided his eyes. The shrill bell of the phone burst through the silence, making her start, the prickle of sweat everywhere.

‘Go,’ he nodded towards the door, leaning forward to pick up the letter with one hand and the phone with the other.

‘While you’re here,’ the nun was saying, ‘you’ll be expected to help in the running of the Home. Sister Vincent oversees the housekeeping and she’ll let you know what you have to do. Girls work in the laundry and the kitchens and the nursery. The Society has granted you a place here on the understanding that you are truly sorry for what you have done and wish to redeem yourself. You will observe the laws of the Home and God’s laws and act with proper modesty at all times. You understand?’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘You’ll pay an allowance for your keep and for the child, based on a daily rate. If there’s any problem settling the amount you must confide in me immediately. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘People in the parish are very supportive of the work the society does and, of course, they know St Ann’s is a mother and baby home but this is a good area and we do not antagonise our neighbours by parading about in the streets. You’ll be encouraged to remain in the Home unless you are specifically sent on an errand by one of the sisters. There’s a garden at the back and we have a chapel and a small library, so there is really no need to go elsewhere for anything. If you wish to write home, letters can be given to Sister Giuseppe. And any visits here must be arranged in advance.’

Joan wouldn’t be having any visitors.

‘When your time comes you’ll go over to the maternity hospital in Withington. On return here you will help care for the child until a placement is made. The father’s not a darkie is he?’ She glanced at Joan, suspiciously.

‘No.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Because we can’t place them for love nor money. They end up at Barnado’s, most of them, or St Francis’s – they take the boys.

She needed a cigarette even though she’d smoked her tongue to gravel on the way here.

‘You’ve got your bag?’

‘Yes, Sister.’

The nun left the room briefly and returned with another girl, large with child. A big-boned girl, dark hair in a ponytail, a young face. Fifteen or so, Joan guessed.

‘Caroline, show Joan up to the room. She’s in with you and Megan.’

Joan smiled at the girl, who gave a ghost of a smile back, but her brown eyes were dark, sad, and she glanced quickly away.

Megan

It was Brendan’s dad who told Brendan about Megan’s condition.

Mrs Driscoll had heard Megan throwing up three mornings in a row. Megan’s baloney about a funny custard from the cake shop wouldn’t wash.

‘You’re pregnant!’ Maggie Driscoll shrieked.

‘I’m not.’

‘And black is white, I suppose.’

‘Mammy…’

‘Megan, I’ve had nine children.’

Megan slumped into her seat, covered her face. ‘I can’t be,’ she insisted.

‘Is it Brendan?’

Silence.

‘Well, it’s not the immaculate conception, is it? It'll kill your father.’

She fetched her coat, pulled on gloves and a headscarf, knotting it tight under her chin.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Out. You stay here. Mind the others. Bernadette will want feeding in half an hour.’

Megan nodded.

‘And bring that washing in if it turns wet.’ She slammed the back door behind her.

Megan rose. She was cold, her ankles like pipes of cold metal, she put some more coal on the fire. It couldn’t be true. Please God, let it be collywobbles. Or the flu. But she knew her mammy’s diagnosis was right. And now it was spoken, out in the open, a great clonking mistake. She broke the embers of the fire apart, exposing the fierce orange glow, and hefted the brass coal scuttle once and then twice. Shiny lumps and bits blanketed the fire, a wall of tarry smoke rose up the chimney, the fire spat and hissed as it ate the gritty coal dust. It would be some minutes before the heat returned. She busied herself drying the breakfast dishes.

‘Maggie, come in.’

‘Kate.’

The women knew each other from the Union of Catholic Mothers. But those get-togethers were their only social contact. They were not close friends and for one to turn up on the doorstep of the other was an extraordinary occurrence.

Aware of this, Kate Conroy led Maggie Driscoll into the front room, reserved for formal occasions and out-of-bounds for much of the time, even though the house was overcrowded.

Kate had a utility suite. A green covered sofa and two chairs. The only thing you could get after the war. A piano and sideboard were thick with studio photos of the family and their relatives. A picture of Pope John XXlll took pride of place over the mantelpiece. There was no fire in the grate and the room was chilly and unwelcoming. Mrs Driscoll kept her outdoor clothes on.

‘I’ll not beat about the bush, Kate. It's about our Megan and Brendan. She’s expecting.’

‘Oh, Lord!’ Kate’s hands flew to her mouth and her eyes swam. ‘Oh, no!’ she moaned.

‘It’s a terrible thing but they’ve only themselves to blame.’

Kate shook her head again. Closed her eyes. Weary. You worked so hard, unremittingly, feeding them, keeping them clean and safe and clothing them. Day after day and at the end of it this was how they rewarded you.

Maggie Driscoll spoke again. ‘I think we should keep it quiet until it’s clear what they are going to do.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Barely grown.’

‘Too young to know what’s best. I haven’t spoken to Mr Driscoll yet, but I wouldn't want to push them into an early marriage and then it all go bad. St Ann’s may be the best solution.’

‘Aye. But Brendan, we won’t let him shirk his duties if you decide…’

‘Yes, yes, I know.’

There was little else to say and after a pause Maggie Driscoll rose. ‘I’ll be getting back.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said, ‘I’d no idea.’

‘I know.’

Brendan’s father returned from the market where he had a pots and pans stall to find his wife red-eyed and woebegone. She told him the situation. When Brendan got in from the print shop a little later his father knocked him into the middle of next week.

That’s how he heard about the baby.

Joan

She had worked the remainder of her notice out in an icy atmosphere. She made sure that she and Duncan were never alone.

‘What’s wrong with his Lordship?’ Betty had asked her.

‘He thinks I’m letting the firm down,’ she said, ‘handing in my notice.’

Betty raised her eyebrows. Whether she believed this explanation was hard to tell. It wasn’t difficult for Duncan to replace Joan. There were plenty of youngsters coming out of secretarial college and several had applied for the post. Duncan selected two for interview and silently passed her a letter for typing and sending. She felt quite immune to the whole business until the girls arrived in the Thursday afternoon. Jenny and Rosemary. Jenny was very pretty and, with a pang, Joan imagined Duncan seducing her. The thought sickened her and she had to go and sit in the toilet until she’d collected herself.

On the Wednesday morning of her final week Duncan came into the office in a foul temper. He roared for Betty to bring him in the salaries file and then sent her out for a new ledger. As soon as she’d gone he came through.

‘Are you expecting?’

‘What?’ She feigned surprise.

‘You heard me. Are you pregnant?’

She stared at him coolly while her insides twisted with tension. She forced the edge of a smile to curl her lip.

‘Why else?’ he said when she didn’t reply. ‘Why suddenly up sticks and go to London? No warning, nothing.’

‘It’s an ambition of mine,’ she said crisply. Not that he’d have known, never asked her about her dreams, her passions.

‘If you were, Joan, I could help. We could help. Catherine and I, we’ve been considering adoption.’

She couldn’t believe it. Rage sluiced through her. How dare he. What did he imagine, a private arrangement? His wife kept in the dark about the exact parentage of the child. ‘Girl at work, darling, got herself in a bit of a mess, nice family, thought we could help, baby’ll need a home…’ She loathed him for this. And how could he imagine that she could live knowing who had her child, where it was, what Daddy was up to when he worked late at the office? She would give up the child. She would know nothing of its future. She wouldn't see it again. End of story.

‘I’m not pregnant, Duncan.’ She funnelled the words through tightly held teeth. ‘I could have been but nothing happened. Just like Catherine. Looks like the problem lies with you.’ She saw the remark meet its target, piercing his self-esteem and rocking all that superior certainty. He pressed his lips together and turned away. She felt cheap and mean but it was his own fault. She blinked several times and resumed typing. Hitting the keys and banging the carriage return far too hard, the stinging in her hands a welcome distraction from the coil of fury breaking around her heart.

Caroline

She bent to pull the sheet from the bed, adding it to the pile in the cart. The effort made her grunt. She was big now, enormous. She felt like a clumsy giant. The skin of her belly was all stretched and you could see the veins like blue threads criss-crossing it. Nearly lunchtime and her feet were already aching. She could feel her bones pressing against the floor, her ankles swollen and hot.

‘What will you do after?’ Megan had been put on to laundry with her. Cook wouldn’t put up with her rushing out to be sick every half-hour. Megan worked quickly. She was like a bird, Caroline thought, small and swift and she had those alert bright-blue eyes.

‘Go home.’

‘Have you finished with school?’

Caroline nodded. She had not been able to complete her final year and get her certificate. She’d be too old now, no one ever went back to school. She liked the idea of farming but the only way to do that was to marry a farmer and even thinking of Roy and the farm made her belly turn over and her mouth dry up. She liked to grow things. She’d helped Grandma on her allotment since she was a tiny child and had absorbed all her tips and sayings and become familiar with the cycle of the year. Last year she’d grown enough vegetables on her own patch to be able to feed the family and give stuff away. There wouldn’t be anything this year. The weeds would be waist high. By the time she went home it would be too late to sow anything. If she went home…

She was making a plan. Not something she could share with anyone. Especially not Megan, who was always up to the minute on the latest rumours. So Caroline kept pretending that she was going to behave just like all the others. Give in, give her baby up.

Between them they dragged the cart to the next beds.

One of the worst things about being in the home was not being able to go out. She couldn’t just go off for a walk, not that her ankles would let her go far, but even trips to the park were discouraged. As if the girls were contagious. She felt cooped-up. She wanted to be up on the ridge or down at Shudder’s Force, where the water cascaded from the limestone cliff into the pool at the bottom; see the drops spraying on to the ferns and reeds that ringed the pool, spy the deadly nightshade. Drink in the smell of wet stone and drown in the roar from the falls.

She wrestled with a pillowcase. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do. Look for a position in Bolton. There’s not much out our way.’

‘Factories pay well, they’re always taking people on.’

Caroline nodded. She might have to do that but the thought of being stuck in a shed all day amid the clamour and commotion and the gangs of girls with their flashy make-up and endless joking made her skin clammy. She was a country girl, not like Megan and Joan, who had lived in the city all their lives; who were used to the bustle and the noise and the hard edge everything had.

‘Will you go back to the same place?’ Caroline asked Megan.

‘If they’ll have me. It’s only five minutes down the road and they’re a great bunch. We all go down the Mecca Ballroom of a Friday.’ Megan stretched her hands out and began to dance, rolling her big stomach from side to side and clicking her fingers.

Caroline laughed. ‘Give over.’

‘Something funny?’ Sister Vincent swept into the room, acid on her tongue.

‘No, Sister.’ They both replied.

‘No. I don't think there’s much to laugh at, is there? Your time would be better spent meditating on your transgression and begging Our Lady to intercede for you.’ Her eyes were steely, her lips pursed with dislike.

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘When you’ve done this, fetch the laundry from the nursery too.’

‘Yes, Sister.’

Caroline listened to the rustle of long skirts and the clap-clap of her shoes as the nun withdrew. Megan pulled a face but neither of them spoke.

Caroline didn’t like going down to the nursery. All the cots and the babies bundled in them. She didn’t like to see that, it made her think of her baby destined for one of those cots, bound for another life, and how she must stop that happening. As she bent to fold the blanket, she felt the baby turn and butt up against her ribs. She stopped and put her hand there.

‘You OK?’

‘Kicked.’

‘Mine’s at it a lot. Reckon I’ve got the next Jimmy Greaves in here. It’s either a footballer or a clog dancer.’

But you’ll never know, Caroline thought. We’ll never know anything of what becomes of them – who they are – if we leave them. And the heavy dread settled on her like a rock.

Joan

There was only one person who knew that Joan had not gone to London; her friend Frances whose rooming house Joan was supposedly living in. Joan wrote to Frances explaining her situation, begging her not to let her down and asking if she would forward letters from Joan to her family.

I couldn’t bear to see them hurt because of my own dreadful mistake. It would be hateful for them to lose their reputation too. Please say you’ll help?

‘Of course I’ll help,’ her friend replied by return of post.

It’s not my place to judge you and you’re right, why should everyone else suffer? What does the man say? Hasn’t he offered to marry you? It was such a shock to hear your news. Perhaps you could come to London after all when it is all over. It is so thrilling Joan, you should see Oxford Street and Carnaby Street and all the new styles. I’ve just treated myself to a new spring coat. Bright pink and utterly gorgeous. I've also been out several times with a boy from work called Harold. We go to the Palais jiving, it reminds me of the Plaza back home – we had some wonderful lunchtimes there, didn’t we? Not sure what I think of Harold yet but he has dishy eyes and he’s very keen. That’s enough about me. I hope you don’t feel too wretched and that time passes quickly.

Your friend always,

Frances.

Joan lay in the dark and thought about Frances. What would she have done without her? She couldn’t sleep. Someone had said it was preparation for when the baby came, so they would be used to broken nights. Joan had heartburn, ghastly and constant, she had to sleep virtually upright. She would hear Caroline snoring softly and Megan coughing.

They never really talked about it, Joan thought. Here they were, all in the same boat and plain as the nose on your face, but it was alluded to almost as if it was happening to someone else. They were all stand-ins, she thought. She felt the baby swivel, moved her hand across her stomach and felt a hard lump through her belly. The lump moved, she took her hand away. How could she do this? She didn’t want this child moving inside her, she didn’t want a baby. She was fearful of the labour. Women died, some of them, their life bleeding away. The panic gripped her and the acid reflux rose in her throat. She shuffled further upright, rubbed at her chest with one hand, trying to soothe the burning pain. There was no way back. It was like Hansel and Gretel without the white stones or the kindly white bird. She closed her eyes and made a simple prayer. Please God, let it be all right. Let it be over soon. Don’t let me die. They thought she was so poised, Megan and Caroline, she could see it in their glances and hear it in their questions. They were little more than children themselves, too young for all this, and she… If they only knew, she felt as lost as they did, but because she was older they expected her to be measured and grown-up about it all, like a big sister they could rely on.

She shivered – the covers kept slipping down. Megan had made her a bed-jacket. A ghastly, fluffy blue cape, but she appreciated it now. They must have been designed for women with heartburn. She pulled it from under her pillow and worked it round her shoulders. She sat back. The baby kicked again, unexpectedly. Making her want the toilet. Go to sleep, she thought. Outside, the first steel grey light edged along the top of the curtains. She felt relief. It would be easier now. It was the dark that was the worst time. She hated the dark.

Caroline

The days dragged by in a sort of a dream. They were kept busy with endless, backbreaking chores and fell into bed desperate to rest. Time to talk, write letters, read, knit and brood was strictly limited. Only in their final month were the girls allowed less onerous duties – dusting, mending, sewing.

Caroline began to spend every free moment in the garden. There was a terrace behind the house where the babies were put out in their prams every morning. Beyond that there was a lawn and borders. To the side of the house there was a rose garden and a herb garden with crazy paving and bowers and, at the end of it, in amongst a shrubbery and beside an old elm tree, was Caroline’s favourite spot. Even back in February, when everything else was bare and broken-looking, the holly and rhododendrons were glossy green. And there was a little witch hazel with a sprinkling of small, frilled yellow flowers. They looked like someone had made them from strips of crinkled paper, and their rich, sweet scent was powerful in the cold winter air.

Bluebell bulbs were coming up now beneath the elm and she could see the clusters of flowers ready to turn lilac-blue and fall open. A blackbird had a nest in the tree and serenaded them from the middle of the night through most of the day.

Her mother had visited twice, bringing her a new nightdress large enough for the last weeks and special underwear and a shawl, a proper wool-and-silk shawl, that Caroline had written and asked her to get. They barely referred to the baby and Caroline imagined how different it would have been if she was married and expecting. Then, surely, Mam would have been full of interest and advice, Grandma too. They’d have sat and had coffee and biscuits and swopped stories and Caroline the centre of it all. Instead now there was an awkward tiptoeing around it all.

‘Be brave,’ Mam said the last time she came. ‘I’ll pray for you.’ And Caroline had gone to hug her but Mam had just grabbed at her hand. Caroline was hurt. Her mother couldn’t bear to touch her, the bump between them a huge accusation. Later, though, she recalled her mam’s face. Close to tears. A hug would have set her off perhaps and she was being brave in her own way, wanting to be strong and resolute as an example for Caroline.

Megan

Megan had finished her layette. She’d done the matinee jacket, hat, gloves, rompers and bootees. She had carefully cut and sewn a nightie and embroidered a pattern of yellow ducks along the yoke. She had also knitted a matinee jacket for Joan’s baby, seeing as Joan was sticking to her story of not being a knitter.

‘They've plenty of clothes here,’ Joan had said.

‘It’s nice to give them something new though, isn’t it? Something to remember us by. Unless you don’t want to,’ she added quickly, realising that she might have upset the apple cart. Mouth like the Mersey tunnel. Always putting her big foot in it.

‘No, thank you, it’s lovely,’ Joan took the tiny garment.

‘And they won’t get mixed up because mine’s the pearly buttons and yours the clear.’

Caroline had done her own knitting, so Megan didn’t need to do anything for her. But in the last two weeks Megan’s baby had dropped and was sitting on some nerve and she could barely move without the pain so sharp she fair passed out. So they let her sit and sew and knit for anyone who wanted. One girl was having twins and she did them lovely woollen sailor suits. Very small because they usually weighed less.

She was longing to see Brendan. She’d had a terrible dream one night where she'd gone home and Brendan was there with a new girl. All lovey-dovey. And when she asked him what his game was he laughed at her and in the dream she saw she had no clothes on and everyone was looking and pointing. After that she wanted to write to him but she didn’t dare. Her father had threatened that if there was any communication between them he would have Brendan for improper relations with a minor and that would be the end of his apprenticeship.

Megan cast off the stitches on the mitten she was doing and cut the wool. Outside, it was a blustery day, real April showers and the wind sending the clouds scurrying here and there. The girls were in and out every ten minutes to the clothes lines.

Sister Giuseppe came in then, the most placid of the nuns. Her brow creased. ‘Have you see Caroline?’

‘No, Sister. She might be in the garden.’

‘In this?’

Megan shrugged. Caroline spent more and more time outside. Not doing much but just brooding as far as Megan could tell. As the time went on she was becoming quieter than anything. Thank heaven they had Joan in with them, at least you could hold a conversation with Joan and have a bit of fun. Caroline went around with a face like a wet weekend. Of course, she was a bit low. Bound to be, but it didn’t help anyone to dwell on it so. Megan had said as much to Joan one day but Joan had smiled at her. ‘She’s very young, Megan.’

‘So am I.’

‘But you’ve got something to look forward to.’

‘You mean me and Brendan?’

Joan nodded.

Maybe she was right. Maybe something truly awful had brought Caroline here. She could have been forced or something. She never said anything, never referred to the father, nor did Joan to hers. Megan seemed to be the only person in the whole place who could.

Sister Giuseppe had gone off looking for Caroline, and Megan finished the mitten off. He’d know to wait for her, wouldn’t he? If he had so much as sniffed at another girl while she was here, going through this, she’d kill him. Chop him into bits and chuck the pieces in the canal. She would. So he best be behaving himself. And then one day, they’d show them all, especially her Daddy. They’d have a dirty great wedding and dance till the morning and they could all go jump.

Joan

Joan was assigned to the kitchen at St Ann’s. She had to get up at six to help light the fires and start breakfast. Porridge had been cooking all night in a huge double porridge pot. They used Quaker Oats at home, ready in ten minutes. Why on earth they couldn’t do it here she didn’t know, but everything here was done the old way and the most difficult one too, she reckoned.

The ashes from the fire went into the ashcan and the grates were swept then the new fire built. It was the coldest time of all and Joan could see her breath as she folded paper like crackerjacks for firelighters and then built the pyramid of kindling and coals. The fire in the kitchen didn’t always draw well and Joan had to stretch a sheet of newspaper across to encourage the flames to leap for air. Once the fire had hold she helped the other girls lay the tables and prepare bread and margarine and jam to follow the porridge.

Cook would be busy already sorting out the ingredients for dinner and tea.

At seven thirty the rest of the house was expected to be ready in the dining room and Matron would start the day off with prayers. By nine the pots were washed, dried and put away, the great porridge pan scrubbed clean, the clots of porridge removed from the sink. The surfaces wiped down and clear.

Joan had ten minutes tea break. She went upstairs and got out her stationery.

Dear Mummy, Daddy and Tommy,

London is very big and very noisy. There are pigeons everywhere and starlings just like we have in Piccadilly Gardens but even more of them. The traffic is busy and doesn’t stop even in the middle of the night.

I am settling in fine and Mr Bell is very happy with my speed and accuracy. I have to get the Underground home from work. I haven’t been to Buckingham Palace yet. Has Tommy finished his go-kart? Say happy birthday to Grandad for me. I’m sending him a card, too.

Cheerio,

Joan

She folded the paper and slipped it into a matching envelope, took a stamp from her purse and licked it. She wrote the card to her grandfather, stamped and addressed it and put both envelopes into a larger one with a quick note to Frances.

Thanks so much for this. Just pop them straight in the post. Feel very cut off from everything here. No television and the radio is usually limited to Sing Something Simple and the like so we never hear the Goons or even Two Way Family Favourites. I have a go on the old piano now and then but they don’t approve of anything too modern. I’m keeping well. I am going to come to London! Might there be any rooms near you? Your coat sounds lovely. Where did you buy it?

Time to go back down. And begin making dinner.

Caroline

‘Yes, Sister?’ Caroline turned from the sheet she was sewing end-to-middle.

‘Sister Monica wants to see you.’

‘Yes, Sister.’

Caroline had not been inside the Matron’s office since her admission. Anxiety rippled through her and she felt her heart falter. Had she done something wrong? She made her way as quickly as she could to the office and knocked on the door.

‘Come in.’

Sister Monica sat at her desk and motioned for Caroline to sit opposite her.

‘There’s been a telegram, Caroline. I’m afraid your grandmother has passed on.’

Caroline stared at her uncomprehendingly. Shaking her head even as she tried to decipher the words. ‘Grandma?’

‘Yes.’

Her throat felt dry, she sucked at her cheeks, trying to find saliva. Her vision blurred and she blinked her brown eyes fiercely. Grandma. Beating rugs with a huge, cane beater, her hair covered in a twist of coloured scarves; Grandma making lace, her face screwed up like an old apple, her mouth a row of pins, reciting dialect poems and singing all the songs she knew. A fierce, funny woman, incredibly tall. Who called Caroline ‘Mouse’ on account of her quiet nature and made enough noise for the two of them when they were together.

‘We’ll ask Father Quinlan to include her in prayers.’

‘The funeral…’ Caroline began.

‘You have to stay here,’ Sister Monica said firmly. ‘You can’t go.’

Caroline stared at her in amazement. Not go? ‘But, Sister…’

‘It would not be appropriate, Caroline. It would be a dishonour.’

She was dirty.

‘Whose is it?’ Mam had said. Cheeks drained of colour, eyes boring into her.

‘Mam, I…’

‘Who?’

‘Roy Colby.’

‘Good God. And how long has this been going on?’

‘Nothing’s going on.’

‘Something must have.’

‘It was just one time. It was an accident.’

‘Oh, yes. An accident. He accidentally got you in this mess. Have you no decency, no pride?’

‘Mam, I’m sorry,’ she bawled, unhinged by the look on Mam’s face.

‘Do you want to marry him?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll not ask you again.’

‘No. I don’t want to marry anyone.’

‘Right. The Colby’s need never know. Nor anyone else.’

And so her mother had sorted it all out and told everyone that Caroline was helping with the twins in Sheffield. Now what would she tell them? When there was no Caroline at Grandma’s funeral? Another lie?

She bit on to the flesh of her cheek and sniffed hard.

‘It’s sad news but remember she is with Our Heavenly Father now. She’s at peace. Our blessed Lord has called her to him and has rewarded her.’

She would call the baby after Grandma if it was a girl, a way of remembering her. And she would tell him, or her, all about Grandma.

Joan

Joan dreaded the labour. How could something so large get out of her body without killing her? There was no one she could ask about it. The other girls were just like her, their ideas a mishmash of fact and fantasy. Matron never spoke about it, even though she would sit in on the medical checks when the doctor came.

She put the duster down and sat on the chair. The library. Fat lot to read in here. Religious texts ad nauseam and uplifting novels that were on the approved list from the Vatican. No romances and certainly nothing stronger. Out there in the real world they were selling Lady Chatterley’s Lover and you had naked people leaping around in the theatre. Four letter words and all. Elvis swivelling his hips in no uncertain way. Things were changing. The world was changing. But not here. Here it was ancient. She let her hand rest on her stomach, on the ledge at the top of her bump. The baby moved a lot now but when she tried to imagine it, to think of seeing it, of what sex it was, she failed completely. Maybe it would die, perhaps it was a sign. She didn’t even have a name. She knew she should think of something, but whatever she chose would be changed anyway. It felt hypocritical to pick a family name; her mother was Elizabeth, her father Edward after his father, grandmothers Irene and Patricia, her other grandfather John. But the child would never know them and they would never know of its existence. She wished it were all over and done with.

She hated the way her body had changed. She was like an elephant. Her belly button stuck out now, her breasts had ballooned, the discs around her nipples had gone a startling dark colour. Even her hair felt different, thicker and greasier. The endless heartburn kept her from sleep. She’d been invaded by this creature and she wanted rid. A stabbing pain forced her to her feet. She was running to the toilet every five minutes, too. After she’d been to empty her bladder she went to her room. Caroline was there, curled on her bed, crying.

‘What’s wrong?’ Joan sat beside her.

‘Everything,’ she wailed. ‘My Grandma’s died and they won’t even… I can’t go…’

‘Oh, Caroline. I am sorry.’ She let her hand rest on the other girl’s shoulder. On top of everything else, thought Joan. I’m three years older and I feel so lost she must be… She let her cry, listening to the gruff sobs, and when the sounds tailed off Joan fetched her a fresh hanky.

‘I’ve got one somewhere,’ Caroline said, her voice thick.

‘Don’t be silly, use this.’

‘I’ll make sure you get it back.’

‘Beware the laundry thief,’ Joan joked gently. Small items inevitably went missing with the sheer amount of laundry each day and were not always recovered. Caroline gave a small smile, wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Her face was shiny from crying, her nose and lips red and puffy.

‘Tell me about your Grandma,’ said Joan. ‘Unless you’d rather not.’

‘It’s OK,’ said Caroline. ‘She was a bit odd really. Eccentric. Always bursting into song and quoting from poems and plays and things. She read the library wall-to-wall and she would make up stories -’ Caroline’s eyes filled again – ‘adventures; and there was always a little girl…’ Her voice squeaked to a halt. She sniffed hard. ‘She’d been to lots of places. All over the world. She was an entertainer on the cruise liners, until she met Grandpa. She settled down with him.’

‘She sounds fabulous,’ said Joan.

‘I feel so rotten, not going.’

‘You haven't got a choice,’ Joan said gently.

The bell for lunch rang through the hallways.

‘Are you coming down?’

‘I don’t want any.’

‘I’ll bring you a cup of tea.’

‘I’m not allowed, am I?’

‘Oh, bother that,’ Joan said. Though when she did bring the tea upstairs she made sure that none of the sisters saw her.

Megan

‘Aaah!’ Megan gasped and clutched the table top, her ginger curls falling over her face. ‘Oh, god that hurts.’

‘Megan?’ Sister Giuseppe came over and placed a palm on Megan’s stomach, her lips moving as she counted. ‘Here, sit down.’ She moved the chair and Megan lowered herself on to it gingerly. ‘Aah,’ she gasped again.

‘I think it’s time. Is your bag ready?’

Megan nodded. She was scared.

‘I’ll get it, Sister,’ Joan called from the doorway.

Megan was taken by taxi to the maternity hospital. She was still in labour eighteen hours later when the girls at St Ann’s were having breakfast.

Joan was reaching for toast when her waters broke, drenching her clothes and soaking her shoes. The liquid pooled on the linoleum of the dining-room floor.

It was unheard of for three of the girls at St Ann’s to give birth on the same day but, when Caroline was brought in at four o’clock that afternoon, she was already fully dilated.

By midnight three babies were born. Three baby girls.