Free The Unknown Bridesmaid by Margaret Forster Page B

her, seen the crowd surrounding her in the playground on her first day, and her heart had started to beat loudly. She felt taut with apprehension. She could feel herself inside the heads of the other girls. Knew what they would be thinking about her and what they would say. She practised over and over again how to react.
    The day before term started Julia and her mother spent the afternoon at Maureen’s. They had lunch there after Julia had watched Iris bathe little Reggie. Iris was very tired because little Reggie had woken up every hour all night. He seemed to be hungry but had only half emptied the bottle he was given. Theories as to the cause of the baby’s reluctance toaccept all the milk were debated by Iris, Maureen and Julia’s mother. Julia’s mind wandered. She heard the voices of the three talkers but she didn’t take in the words. Asking if she could be excused (her mother had brought her up always to ask if she could be excused from the table), she stood up and took her empty plate to the sink and rinsed it clean, and then she wandered into the garden, kicking the gravel on the path, but carefully, quietly, so that nobody would hear her.
    Little Reggie was in his pram, finally asleep. Iris had said he would probably sleep for hours now, and his regular feeding pattern would be disrupted, but she didn’t care, she wasn’t going to waken him, he needed the rest and so did she. Julia peered into the pram, which as usual during this hot weather was under the pear tree, nicely shaded. She could only see the baby’s head, a still bald head, unless the new darker fuzz on it was counted as hair. He was lying on his back, his eyes, of course, shut but his eyelids occasionally seeming to flicker. Julia thought he must be dreaming, and wondered what a baby would dream about. She thought she’d gently rock the pram, as she had been taught, though there was no need to because little Reggie was asleep and perfectly quiet. The pram wouldn’t rock with the brake on so she released the brake. It now rocked satisfactorily. Julia looked back at the house. Her mother and aunt and cousin weren’t in the dining room any longer. They had either all gone to wash up or they’d retreated to the cooler sitting room at the back of the house. They weren’t watching Julia or the pram anyway.
    Slowly, experimentally, Julia began to push the pram towards the gate. It was a broad wooden gate, painted green. When she reached it, she put the brake back on while she opened the gate. She would take little Reggie for a short walk, just up the road and back. It would only take ten minutes. She liked the idea of being in charge of the pram, of being capable enough to manage to push it without her mother’s supervision. She could be back in the garden beforeher mother or aunt or cousin came to check on the baby. Walking very erect, head held high, she negotiated the way through the open gateway skilfully, turning the pram neatly to face down the road. She didn’t close the gate. No need to, when she was going to be back in a few minutes.
    She was at the end of the first stretch of the road in what seemed like seconds. Once there, she hesitated. There was a kerb, and then another kerb, with a minor road leading to the canal joining the main road. Could she safely manage the kerbs? Yes, of course she could, and she did. On she went until she came to the very end of the road, where she was resolved to turn and go back. Faint pricklings of guilt and anxiety were beginning to trouble her. Any moment she expected to hear her mother or aunt or cousin, or all three of them, shouting down the road at her, wanting to know what on earth she thought she was doing, pushing the big pram on her own, yelling at her to come back at once. But there was no shouting. The road, at two in the afternoon, was eerily silent. Most houses had blinds or curtains drawn against the fierce sun. Nobody was in the gardens, nobody mowing the lawn or clipping a hedge. It