Broken City

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Deeta—I thought I told you to go to bed?” my mother’s voice is faintly irritated and she pushes me towards the twin room. “You’ll be shattered tomorrow as it is, now go to sleep,”

I feel her kiss my cheek and am then bundled into my room, feeling the door shut on me. Jan is sitting in the middle of her bed brushing her hair, I hear her reach fifty and then change hands.

“It feels odd doesn’t it?”

Although I hear her question it takes a moment to sink in.

“Yes, I suppose it does.”

I move to sit on my bed and start to pull my jumper over my head; I’ve changed into my pyjamas before she speaks again.

“I feel as if something should happen—as if there should be something more,” she puts her comb down on to the bedside table and hugs her knees.

“I know what you mean; after all that’s happened, to go to sleep seems like an anticlimax,” I climb into bed and turn to lay on my front propped up by my pillow.

“I think it’s been good for us in a way,” Jan leans back and gazes at the ceiling. “You and Tommy have gotten over your little tiff—,”

“We didn’t have a little tiff, Janny!”

“Clare has finally gotten spliced—”

“I assume you mean married?”

“And last but by no means least, we have more victims to fill the hunk pool, which I think you’ll agree was sadly deficient—I predict interesting consequences.”

“You’re a bad girl Jan, leave the poor boys alone—didn’t Mummy ever tell you not to flirt?”

“I don’t flirt—I socialize with intent!”

“Which is of course totally different?” I ask.

“Entirely,” answers Jan with a laugh.

In the silence that ensues I turn on to my back and stare at the ceiling.

~~~~~~~~

I don’t know at what point we fell asleep last night but neither of us stir until Mummy comes into wake us. Yesterdays work, last night’s stressful trek and our preparations on our arrival had tired us out more than we had known, but now it is back to the mundane; there is breakfast to be made and I didn’t even look at the kitchens last night, it is quite possible that they will need a good clean before we attempt to use them.

Dragging ourselves out of bed to the prospect of dressing in a freezing cold room is almost too difficult to contemplate, but somehow we manage it and negotiate our way down the hall to the grand staircase. The cold light of day is not so kind as the warm glow of lamps had been and this morning I can see the shabbiness that had been hidden last night.

“Does anyone even know where the kitchen is?” asks Jan as she pulls her hair into a ponytail.

“It’s off the corridor through that door,” answers our Mother leading the way across the hall.

The kitchen is huge, sunken down two steps with a very high ceiling, metal cupboards line two walls, a range fills the other, a metal surface with three sinks across the last and there is a very large metal topped island in the middle of the room.

“Hello Gloria, how do things look?”

Mrs. Clark’s smile is relieved as she bids us hello.

“It’s clean, which is the main thing, and Tom and Ralph went over to the depot and managed to get rations for the whole tribe, but they said tomorrow we’ll have to queue like everyone else.”