Page 56 of Darling Girls

The next night, she burst in at 2 am.

‘What’s going on in here?’ she demanded, fumbling for the light switch.

Jessica and Alicia sat up in alarm. Norah buried her face under a pillow.

Jessica didn’t know what to say. What wasgoing on? Up until that moment, they’d been fast asleep. Luckily, Miss Fairchild didn’t require an answer. The purpose of her visit was to shout about how ungrateful they were until the baby woke. Then she disappeared, leaving them to deal with it.

‘I’m so tired I think I might die,’ Alicia said the next day at breakfast. ‘Can you die from being tired?’

‘You can,’ Norah said. ‘I read it in a book.’

‘We can’t go on like this,’ Jessica agreed. Her eyes were closed, even as she ate.

Suzy was due to be collected by Scott at 9 am. The girls dared to hope that, without a baby to wake, Miss Fairchild wouldn’t barge into their room that night.

But just after midnight, they heard her footsteps thundering up the stairs.

‘Block the door!’ Norah cried.

Jessica assumed she was joking, but Norah leaped out of bed and began heaving the freestanding wardrobe towards the door.

‘Are you mad?’ Jessica said. ‘We can’t do that!’

But Norah looked so resolute, so determined, that first Alicia and then Jessica climbed out of bed to help her. One in, all in.

They got the wardrobe in position mere seconds before Miss Fairchild turned the doorhandle.

Jessica held her breath.

The handle twisted back and forth uselessly. Finally, their foster mother pounded on the door.

‘Girls! Open up right now!’ The handle twisted again, and this time the door opened a crack.

The sisters looked at each other.

‘Push against it,’ Norah instructed, and so the girls pressed their backs against the wardrobe until the door slammed shut again.Dear God, what were they doing?Miss Fairchild was easily provoked, even when they did nothing to aggravate her. They were going to pay dearly for this.

‘Open the door this second or heaven help you!’ she screeched as the three of them continued to press their weight against the wardrobe. Jessica started to worry that she might get an axe and break down the door.

The stand-off seemed to go on forever. Miss Fairchild banged and screamed and cursed until she was hoarse. She flung words at them Jessica had never heard her use before – terrible words that sounded frightening coming from her mouth.

When she didn’t let up, Norah shouted in exasperation, ‘Go away, you psycho bitch!’

To everyone’s surprise, the banging stopped. After all the commotion, the silence was even more worrying. Jessica could hear her heartbeat thudding in her ears.

Finally they heard her footsteps recede.

Half an hour later, when it seemed safe to assume that she wasn’t coming back, they stepped away from the door and lay on Norah’s bed, leaving the wardrobe blocking the door.

‘This can’t continue,’ Alicia said into the darkness.

‘Maybe it won’t,’ Jessica replied. ‘Maybe after tonight, she’ll get rid of us.’

‘She won’t,’ Alicia said with a mirthless laugh. ‘She needs us to look after the babies.’

The moonlight streamed in through the dormer window and Jessica noticed that Norah’s expression was sombre.

‘What if shedoesget rid of us?’ Norah said. ‘What if we’re split up?’