A Winter Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

in my tummy.’ She put her hand on her stomach, demonstrating where the over-active butterflies were. Grimaced.
    Nell asked what Johnny thought of all this.
    ‘He says it’s a fine time to have lots of sex. Now I’m up the spout, I can’t get more up the spout.’
    ‘Well, that’s true, I suppose,’ said Nell. She didn’t think he sounded very sympathetic, but it was interesting to note that being pregnant was indeed an excellent contraceptive.
    ‘We’re going to do the hot bath and gin thing on Saturday night. His folks are going to a charity ball. Won’t be back till late.’
    Nell had heard girls at work talking about the hot bath and gin thing, but wasn’t sure what it entailed: sitting in a bath filled with heated gin?
    ‘What if it doesn’t work?’ said Carol. ‘I could end up in the Bellamy.’
    Nell cupped her hand over her mouth. Ending up in the Bellamy was just about the worst thing that could happen to a girl.
    Bellamy House was set back off the road and the end of a short drive. For years, Nell and Carol had walked past it on their way to school. A large green sign at the gate read M ATERNITY H OME . It was well known that this was where unmarried mothers ended up. That neither Nell nor Carol had the slightest idea what went on in the home didn’t matter; they could imagine. In time their imaginings became real. Women in that home were a disgrace. They had to wear rough smocks and scrub floors. They were fed on bread and water. When their babies were due, they were tied to their beds. The cries of women in labour could be heard for miles around. They hadn’t heard any cries, but assumed that was because they happened at night when most babies seemed to be born.
    They had, on their journey to school, talked about the business of giving birth. Their conversations spurred to great heights of fantasy since they knew nothing about it. They knew how babies got in to their mother’s wombs. But the details of how they actually came out were a mystery. From the information they’d gleaned from the movies, they knew it involved some sweating and screaming. The films they’d seen mostly showed fathers pacing and smoking and looking pale with anxiety. Sometimes the father was drunk. If the birth was in a remote cabin, it involved a plump bossy neighbour boiling gallons of water. Nell and Carol shuddered to think what that water was for. ‘Do they pour it over you? They can’t dunk the baby in it?’ Carol said. Both decided they didn’t want to experience the horrors of the labour ward. They didn’t want babies.
    Nell drifted off, dreaming of life in Bellamy House. She imagined herself there. She’d look like Audrey Hepburn in The Nun’s Story : pale but exquisitely beautiful. Suffering would give her eyes a mysterious wisdom. The itchy smock mightn’t look too bad if it was cut low round the neck. She looked across at Carol who was pulling on her coat, sniffing and trying not to cry.
    ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Carol said. ‘This coffee is making me nauseous. I should have had a Coke. I’ve got a craving for fizzy drinks.’
    They walked along Princes Street gazing into shop windows sighing at things they couldn’t afford – mostly shoes since other things made Carol realise that if the gin and hot bath didn’t work, she wouldn’t be able to get into them. They stopped to stare at some people getting out of a chauffeur-driven car and strolling past the uniformed doorman into the North British Hotel, and dreamed of the plushness awaiting them. ‘Thick carpets, drinks with ice in, a phone by your bed,’ said Carol. ‘One day that’ll be me.’
    They walked down Leith Walk and decided to spend their bus money on chips from the Deep Sea.
    Once they’d paid for their chips, a bag apiece, they headed home, eating in comfortable silence. When they’d finished, they linked arms, and with unspoken mutual consent burst out singing ‘Bye Bye Love’, which was a favourite they’d long