style="font-size:15px;"> Every minute or so Rene coughs again, but Ella is used to it. Rene always coughs or wheezes, especially in the winter. She has something called asthma, which is like having a cold except it doesn’t really ever go away. She has to take medicine for it every morning – a treacly syrup which is supposed to taste like strawberries, but which Rene says is like licking a penny. Sometimes, when it’s bad, she doesn’t come to school. Ella thinks this is pretty good, but Rene says it’s no fun. When the wind doesn’t blow, all the smoke from the houses and factories curls up on the city like a cat on a rug. That’s when it’s worst. Rene will sit at the edge of the playground with a look of concentration.
‘We should play a game,’ Ella says, though her mind is elsewhere. She needs to keep Rene here for now.
‘Hmm …’ Rene looks around, at the empty park. ‘What sort of game?’
Ella sighs and sits down next to her friend. ‘I Spy?’
‘Aye, okay. I’ll go first.’ She thinks for a long moment. ‘I spy with my little eye, something beginning with … G.’
Ella fixes her gaze on the grey horizon.
* * *
When they finally leave, the light has gone from the sky and the lamps are all lit down Bedlay Street. At regular intervals down the roofs on either side of them, chimney rows smoulder. Rene has gone very quiet with the cold and is breathing quickly. Her arms are hugged around her. Ella is clenching her jaw shut to stop her teeth chattering. They go up the steps to Ella’s front door, into the gas-lit close. The light wavers over the bottle-green tiles covering the walls, which are scrubbed clean every Tuesday. They could go to Rene’s first, where they’re expected, but Eleanor wants Rene there to back up her story if her mum doesn’t believe her.
They climb the stairs to the third floor and knock. There are noises inside, and the door opens to reveal Ella’s mum, framed in golden light. She’s wearing her apron, and her hair is up in curlers and paper.
‘Girls? Isn’t it your day with Lorna?’
Lorna is Rene’s mum. With a sinking feeling, Ella realizes that her plan hasn’t worked – they’ve been gone all this time, and her mum hasn’t even missed them. Neither of them says anything, stunned by the warmth coming through the door and their own failure.
‘Well, you better come in before you let all the heat out. Come on now. I’ll make you some tea.’
Ella and Rene follow dumbly. There are two rooms in Ella’s house, unless you count the passage. The first room on their right is Ella’s bedroom. The second is the main room, where they cook and eat their meals. Her parents sleep in here on the fold-down bed. They step into the main room and Ella feels shivers of heat running up her spine. The fire is built up, and there’s something bubbling in a pan on the hob. The room smells of ironing.
‘What do you want, girls? Has Lorna already given you something to eat?’
She turns and speaks directly to Rene, who seems unable to say anything. Ella wants to say something to salvage her plan but can’t come up with anything before her mum speaks again.
‘Rene? Are you all right, hen? You look pale.’
Ella looks to her friend, whose eyes have gone wide. She thinks it must be because she has been caught in their lie. Rene opens and closes her mouth a few times, like a fish gulping on a riverbank, then takes a step forward.
‘Rene?’
Ella’s mum steps forward at the same moment, just in time to catch Rene. She holds under her arms, but Rene’s head rolls on her shoulders. She’s out cold.
Ella just stands there. What can she do? She doesn’t understand what’s happening. At least her mother seems to understand, scooping Rene’s limp body into her arms and, with a grunt, lifting her.
‘Come on,’ she says, but Ella doesn’t move, blocking her mother’s way. ‘Eleanor, move!’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To your room.’ Her mother pushes past, and Ella sees the scuffed underside of Rene’s shoes pass her face.
‘My room? Why?’
‘Because the fire’s not lit in there and the bed’s made.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘She’s had a funny turn. Probably because it’s too hot, and she’s frozen through.’
Eleanor follows into the hallway, and her mother gives her a backward glance.
‘Where were you, before this?’
Ella looks down and says nothing. Guilt is curdling in her stomach. Her mother pushes the door of the bedroom open with Rene’s feet. The lamps aren’t lit in here; the fire is built for later. Not much heat comes through from the main room and Ella can see her breath steaming. When Rene is laid on the bed, her mother goes back to the main room to fetch a taper for the lamps and some water.
Ella walks to where her friend is laid out on her bed. They’ve played games before where one or the other of them was Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, waiting for the Prince’s kiss, but Rene was never much good at lying still – she’s too much of a fidget, too suspicious that she’s about to be tickled. Now she’s playing the part perfectly. Ella is stretching out her hand to touch Rene’s cheek when her eyelids flicker. Ella pulls her hand back in shock as though burned.
‘Rene?’
Her friend makes a noise which is not words before Ella’s mum bustles in, holding a lit taper.
‘You back with us, hen?’
She looks down at Rene on the bed, her face lit in flickering light like a painting of Florence Nightingale.
‘Mm,’ Rene hums, which is the closest she’s got to speech.
‘Good.’
Ella’s mum gets up on tiptoes to light the lamps, putting the taper to the soot-blackened filaments until the flame rears up and is tamed by a turn of the tap. Though they’ve had electricity in the flat for the last two years, the landlord has never replaced the gaslights, until now. Tomorrow a man is coming to take them out and put brand-new electric lights in. Ella can’t wait. She thinks it will feel like living in the future.
Her mother comes to the bed and again nudges Eleanor to one side.
‘Have a drink of water, hen. You’ll feel better for it.’
Rene nods once, tries to lift her head from the pillow and fails. Eleanor’s mum lifts her head for her and brings the glass to her lips.
‘I wish your dad was home …’ she mutters, seemingly to Ella but clearly not looking for a reply. Then, more certainly –
‘Eleanor, I need you to go and get Lorna. Go and get Mrs Mauchlen.’
‘Mam?’
‘Just do it, Eleanor.’
* * *
