Free Small Island by Andrea Levy Page A

floor as I tugged at my nightdress to hide my shame. And before I was entirely convinced I was no longer dreaming I found myself running for my life. My captor was before me still squeezing on to my wrist, she turning to look on me only to say, ‘Hurry nah.’ Other girls were running alongside us. The doors they hurtled through slammed behind them like gunshot. The slapping of our bare feet echoed on the stone floor of every long corridor we ran down, before we were funnelled to one single door where I was pushed and jostled through the hole by other girls, whose manner insisted they should get there before me. The room was so bright with sunlight that at first I could not see. But then I observed overhead shower pipes and felt wetness under my feet. My captor released my wrist now and in one deft movement pulled her nightdress over her head and stood before me as naked as Eve. She gestured for me to copy her but became exasperated, sighing and tutting as she watched me untying the buttons and bows that modesty had stitched at the neck of my nightclothes.
    ‘Come, hurry,’ the girl said, slapping my useless hands out of the way and fumbling at my buttons. She began to lift my nightdress but I held it tight, not wanting to be naked in front of so many strangers. She hit at my hands again. So I hit hers and for a second she stopped, startled, before hitting mine so hard I gave up the fight. And I stood, with all the other girls, exposed – clutching my elbows to me, trying to hide my breasts, between my legs, my backside, my unattractive knees. Then the water came on, pouring down on us in a rain of icy water. Every girl screamed. One deafening sound that drowned all others. Mouths open so wide I could see deep into pink throats, as girls with tendons that stood out on their necks like rope yelled with the force of beasts. And as I looked on my captor – naked, shivering, screaming, a glistening waterfall running down her black skin, past nipples that stood as erect as bullets – I detected a gleam of pure abandon on her face. So I closed my eyes, opened my mouth and let my lungs give forth the most savage ferocious cry my body had ever produced. The blessed relief of this noise cleansed like a silent prayer. I screamed until I became aware that the water was no longer flowing, the room was calm and I was gently being shaken by my captor, who was saying softly, ‘You can stop now.’
    It was Celia Langley who pulled me from my bed that first morning. She believed it was the duty of a third-year pupil such as she to teach an untrained new girl (such as I) about the necessity of arriving early for the morning shower. The first out of the shower, dressed and smelling of sweet-scented soap would, on arriving for breakfast in the dining room, get a cup of chocolate that was still hot and drinkable. If you were second, third, or a deliberately dawdling fourth, then the chocolate would not only be cold but have a skin on it so thick it could be stitched into a hat. When Celia Langley took hold of my wrist that first morning – I the new girl in a bed next to hers – she placed me not only in the shower but firmly under her wing.
    Celia came to my bed every evening after assembly, roll-call and prayers. Smelling of jasmine, she sat close beside me in the hour before the electric lights were extinguished. With everything Celia said, even if only telling me the time of day or commenting on the heat, she leaned with her lips close to my ear to whisper as if disclosing a hush-hush truth. These breathy tête-à-têtes were always accompanied by the gentle clatter of her knitting needles as she fashioned socks for men who, like Michael, were travelling to England to fight in the war. In those dusky evenings Celia, being a year older than I, coached me in what to expect from my lectures.
    ‘Geography will be taught by Miss Wilkinson,’ she told me. ‘She will try to tell you of glaciation or something of this nature. But if you