Free Shadow Baby by Margaret Forster

you’re being lazy and saying them lying down.’ Evie remained still. In the Home, they had all knelt in rows at the foot of their beds, repeating their prayers aloud. But where could she kneel here? On the bed? She began to struggle to get out from between the covers but the woman stopped her. ‘Say them in bed,’ she said.
    Evie slept at once. She slept soundly and deeply but was nevertheless awake before the woman came to knock her up as promised. The light coming through the tiny diamond-shaped skylight directly over her head woke her. She stared up at the dark grey sky, slowly becoming paler, and felt excited. There was no Madge shouting, nobody crying or coughing, none of that cloying smell that hung in the morning air of a dormitory where twelve girls slept with the windows tightly shut. She felt alert and fresh and eager. She got dressed and then with great difficulty made her bed and folded her shift and put it under her pillow - a soft pillow, not stuffed with horsehair as in the Home - and then she sat crosslegged on top of the bed and waited. The moment she heard feet coming up the stairs she was at the end of the bed and had opened the door and presented herself before the woman had got anywhere near knocking upon it. ‘Goodness me,’ the woman said, startled, ‘all dressed without so much as a cat’s lick unless you’ve found your way to a sink which I doubt.’ Evie hung her head and stood still. She knew that was always the best way should she be accused of
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    anything. “I’ll show you,’ the woman said, ‘and we’ll say no more about it.’ The sink was on the landing, built into a little alcove. ‘You’re lucky,’ the woman said, ‘running water on every floor in this house. I bet you haven’t had that before, have you, eh?’ Evie shook her head. ‘And we’ve a fixed bath but you won’t be using that, it’s for Ernest.’ Evie followed the woman on down the rest of the stairs, relieved that in spite of the evidence of the day before this person was clearly a talker. Life was always better, easier, if a talker was in charge of you. It was those like Madge, glowering and silent except for her sudden spells of shouting, who were dangerous. Madge could be provoked by a returning silence on the part of any of the girls, whereas those Handlers who had been talkers had only needed to be listened to and they were satisfied.
    Ernest was having his breakfast already in the kitchen, a great plate of bacon and egg and sausage. He didn’t speak to Evie, just went on dipping pieces of fried bread into the yolk of the egg and ramming it into his mouth. She was not invited to sit down and did not presume to do so. ‘Here’s your porridge,’ the woman said, ‘and the milk is on the table.’ Carefully, Evie took the bowl and carried it nervously to the table, to pour some milk on the top, then stood clutching it, not knowing where to go to eat it. The woman indicated with a nod that she was to go through the door behind Ernest. Evie edged past him, eyes on the bowl she was carrying, and found herself in a small scullery where there was a stool in the corner upon which she perched. It was quite a dark hole of a room but this did not trouble her. She liked being on her own to eat, privately, she enjoyed her food more that way. The porridge was as good as the cake had been, smooth and not glutinous as it had been in the Home, and the milk was rich and creamy. As she ate, slowly and neatly, concentrating on the task, she heard Ernest say, ‘Not a scrap like her mother, not a scrap. I’d never have believed she was hers, never.’
    ‘But then you never knew him when he was little,’ the woman said. ‘She might look like him when he was young.’
    ‘Not like her mother, any road.’
    ‘You said.’
    ‘And I’ll say it again, I’d never have believed it.’
    There was a pause and then the woman began talking again. ‘She’s only little, mind, she’s time to