Page 26 of The Mother-in-Law

‘If you dillydally I won’t be able to dillydally with Philip after lights out.’

A slow giggle broke out across the room. It was Matron’s voice, but she was nowhere to be seen. Everyone glanced around. I noticed Pamela’s back was to us.

‘Pamela?’ someone asked. ‘Was that you?’

She bent over, fiddling with the spine of a book, pretending not to hear us.

‘Oh, Philip,stopthat!’ came Matron’s voice again. ‘Oh, go on then. Keep going.’

The giggles became fever-pitched laughter. Pamela’s impersonation was spot on.

‘Just take me into your shed and I’ll . . . I’ll . . .’

‘What are you girls still doing in here?’ a voice came suddenly. Our heads swung toward the doorway where Matron—actual Matron—stood, hands on hips. Her lips were thin and irritated. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to dillydally?’

‘Right away, Matron,’ Pamela said and she was the first one to exit the room.

Our bellies grew. We weren’t told much about what was coming. We guessed when our babies were due by the size of our bellies. In public we talked about our pregnancies insofar as they affected our bodies—‘My bladder is the size of a walnut’, ‘I can hardly walk up this flight of stairs’—but we didn’t talk about the babies. No one told us not to, we just didn’t . . . a natural form of self-protection perhaps. I didn’t develop many friendships, it was hard when you couldn’t talk about who you were and where you came from. Anyway, I’d never been good at small talk.

During the day Pamela didn’t talk to me at all. I tried to teach her things, as Matron had asked. How to use cutlery properly, how to speak nicely. She just stared at me or rolled her eyes. One time, she picked up a fork and threw it across the room. The problem, I realised, was that Pamela was damaged. I wasn’t sure how to teach her not to be damaged.

Pamela’s impersonations became a nightly ritual. She could do almost anyone—Dr Humbert, the obstetrician with the bushy moustache who came by once a week to take our blood pressure; Philip, the gardener; any of the girls. She was the master of finding people’s quirks, the tiniest detail that brought the impersonation to life. Every evening she stood by the bookshelves and we waited. It was my solace, these few minutes of laughter each day. It didn’t occur to me until later that it might be a comfort for her too. A few minutes of being someone else.

One night she impersonated me.

‘Oh, yes, I’m Diana, I know how to use cutlery and talk posh.’

Everyone giggled. Even me. Perhaps it was her tone that made it funny rather than mean-spirited. Or maybe it was because it was the first time she’d acknowledged me at all. A part of me was glad to realise that someone in here knew I existed.

One night, as we gathered in the communal area, we realised Mary wasn’t with us.

‘Where’s Mary?’ someone asked.

‘She went into labour last night,’ Laurel said.

‘What happened?’ someone whispered. We knew that girls went to have their babies, but we were starved of actual details.

‘It was pretty tough. She waited as long as she could before she called Matron. She didn’t want to go to the hospital.’

Mary had been one of the braver girls. She’d been saying for weeks she couldn’t wait to get this baby out, that when it was all over she was going to buy a pair of hip-hugging flares and a bottle of whisky.

‘Why didn’t she want to go?’ someone asked.

Sixteen pairs of eyes stared at Laurel. Finally she shrugged.

‘You go into the hospital one person,’ she said. ‘You leave as another person entirely.’

Later, when Matron came to announce lights out, we were all animated.

‘Did Mary have her baby, Matron?’ Laurel asked.

A strange energy pierced the room. No one had used the word ‘baby’ since I’d come to Orchard House. Matron never used the word. Even Dr Humbert managed to avoid it.

Matron looked guarded. ‘She did,’ she said eventually.

I stole a glance at Pamela. She was standing, as usual, by the bookshelves, but for once she was standing so still I doubted she was even breathing.

‘What did she have?’ Laurel asked. ‘A boy or a girl?’