Free Sin City by Wendy Perriam Page B

stomach is shaking up and down. Carole’s almost choking. I’ve never heard her laugh before, only cry. The two are not that different.
    There’s a boy behind me with a horrid jeering laugh. They laughed like that when I first arrived at Westham, forty years ago. I just stood there in the playground in my St Joseph’s brown school tunic and the brown felt hat with its blue and gold striped ribbon round the brim. I couldn’t see a lot because the hat was too big and came right down on my eyebrows. But I could hear the laughs all round me. There was glass along the walls at Westham Hall, broken glass sticking up from the topmost row of bricks, to stop us climbing out. Those laughs cut like the glass.
    It was worse when they stopped, though, because no one said a word. The silence felt cold and thick like dirty snow. I moved my hat a bit. I could see a circle of feet, white plimsolls and black boots, edging slowly closer. I shut my eyes.
    â€œWhat’s yer name?” someone asked, at last. A boy, I think it was. There were no boys at St Joseph’s.
    â€œN … Norah Too …” I couldn’t get the letters out. They had stuck to my teeth like toffee.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œT … Toomey.”
    They laughed again, then, louder. Someone snatched my hat off, threw it in a tree. It didn’t matter really. No one wore a uniform at Westham, and they always laughed at hats.
    The second film is different. No one laughs at all. There are far more people in it who all look sad and frightened. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I can see it from their eyes. Some of them are shouting, some crying with no sound. It seems sadder with no sound.
    I’m very stiff and cramped. My head is throbbing and there’s a pain all down my back. I’d like to move, stretch my legs, get some light and air, escape from all these people and the smoke. Even in the hospital you can cometimes get away, sit quietly in the library and walk up and down the corridors and think. And you don’t have to watch TV. A lot of patients do, of course, but the set is in another room, so it’s not forced on you, like here.
    I’ve never sat so long before, in just one squashed-in seat and doing nothing. We have far more breaks at Beechgrove and we’re allowed to move our chairs. Today is Boxing Day.
    I don’t like this low ceiling. I feel I’m all closed in and the world outside has flown away, disappeared for ever. You’re not allowed to speak and Carole has forgotten that I’m here. A baby’s crying just in front. It’s been crying all the way.
    I wish the roar would stop, the strange noise in my ears. I wish I could get out. A whole day has passed, at least, and maybe half a night as well. Boxing Day is over. We didn’t have the carol singers, or cold turkey and mince pies. With Beechgrove closing, I may never have a Boxing Day again. You don’t have them in lodgings, or on planes.
    Carole’s watch says half past eight, but she said that wasn’t right. It should be dark by now. It is dark in the plane because the blinds are still drawn down, but they pulled them up for just ten or fifteen minutes before the second film, and it was as light and bright as summer. I got up to go number one, so I could see the clouds again. There was a long queue for the toilets (which were dirtier and smelt), so I only had a moment for the clouds. The sun was shining on the white and they were so clean and pure and beautiful, I could have watched them all my life.
    I tried to ask permission to be excused the second film, so I could stand there a bit longer. But the lady said we were having drinks first, anyway, and would I go back to my seat please, because they couldn’t get the trolley through if everyone got up.
    Carole had a gin. They brought it in a tiny tiny bottle with a plastic tooth-mug full of lumps of ice. I said “Nothing, thank you,” but the