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married him, had his child and he was gone again. Looking back, it was clear that she had no idea at all how to cope with her life, though thankfully she still had her mother’s support.
    Anyway, over the next couple of years they had quite a struggle to get by. She thought her father visited once or twice, he must have got leave sometimes, but she wasn’t completely sure. Then she gradually became aware that something was up. Her mother wasn’t very well, was beginning to get fat and there were all sorts of whispered conversations. She could see that her mother was dreadfully upset and she stopped going out. Instead her grandmother used to get all the shopping and she came round for long conversations, sometimes arguments. Her face was always cross and she barely spoke to her granddaughter. Eventually, her mother sat her down to tell her a ‘very important secret’. She was told it was terribly, terribly secret and that she must never tell anyone – not even her father! She was going to have a little brother or sister, but no one must ever know. She could not understand how nobody was ever to know, especially her father when he came home again, but she accepted what her mother had said. Her grandmother kept coming round and doing all the jobs that meant going out, but kept just as stony-faced as ever.
    Eventually the day came; her mother kept getting pains and took to her bed. The daughter, even though she was only a couple of years old, could see that there was something wrong and wanted to get help, but her mother said not to worry, grandma would soon be there. Eventually grandma turned up, went in to see the mother, came out again and set about collecting ‘things’ together. She told the little girl to play, to be an especially good girl, and not to go into the bedroom. The grandma stayed much later than usual, in fact right into the night. At bedtime grandma put her to bed on two chairs in the living room. Shedidn’t sleep very well and kept hearing shouts and yells from her mother, sobs, grandma’s hardest voice, and eventually a baby’s cries.
    Her grandma was still there next morning when she woke up. Grandma made some breakfast and told the girl that every thing was alright and that her mother would just need a couple of days’ rest.
    ‘What about my little brother?’ she asked (she said that she ‘just knew’ it would be a little boy), but grandma just said something about not being a time for silly questions and she should eat her breakfast. And that was that. For the next couple of days grandma was there for almost the whole time. The girl went in to see her mother a couple of times but she looked perfectly well enough to a three-year-old. Then her mother got up and grandma went home. The girl kept asking about her baby brother, but only ever got answers to completely different questions.
    The day after her mother got up for the first time she woke her daughter very early and said they were going for a walk. They were going to take her baby brother out – and this was the first and only time the baby was mentioned – but it was all still ‘a great secret’. Her mother said that she would have the special job of looking after her brother, but still she must not tell anybody about it. After a quick breakfast her mother dressed her up very warmly – it was winter – and put her in the pushchair. Her mother then tucked a very tight bundle in beside her, and somehow she realised this was her brother but couldn’t understand why she could not see his face. Her mother then wrapped and tucked her and the bundle into the pushchair with two or three blankets. She had never been so tightly wrapped in and could barely move. With one more warning about ‘the secret’ they went out. It was very early, in fact it was still dark and there weren’t many people about. They, or rather, her mother, walked for miles and after a while it began to get light. It was a cold, drizzly, dreary, morning but her