I woke up in the same dark that I fell asleep in. I don’t know how long I’d been away, but I’d been dreaming about walking free of that house. Just walking onto the road outside and away, walking until I reached the big city, and on until I came to the sea. It went on and on forever, the sea, as far as my eyes could reach. The city behind me, the beach under my feet, and the sea stretching away until it reached England and America and France and Africa and all those places that are on the other side of it.

I had that moment when you wake and you think it might have been real, and you wish it was, you wish you could close your eyes and go back to that other place, but you know you can’t and it cuts you awful deep. I lay there still for a while, not knowing if my eyes were open or closed. Then I looked up to where I thought the door was, and I could see no light through the cracks, so I knew it was still the night-time.

Dear knows what notion took me, but I pushed the blankets back and I sat up. The floor was terrible cold and damp under my feet and I shivered. I stood and took a step, making a picture in my head of where the beds were. The Mummies were snoring that soft way they did. That helped me find my way. I worked around their beds, feeling the edges of them with my fingertips. When I came around Mummy Noreen’s bed, I caught my toe on the leg of it, and I put my hand over my mouth to stop me guldering. I stayed still for as long as it took for the pain to dull. Then I felt my way over to Esther’s bed.

I listened for a minute, and I could hear she was awake. I knew by her breathing.

Says she, What is it?

I said nothing. I pulled the blankets back and I got into the bed beside her. She went stiff when I cuddled into her back and pulled the blankets up around us both. I could smell her hair. It still smelled clean. I put my arm around her, and I felt her shoulders bunch up. Then she went loose and I heard her breathe out.

Says she, What do you want?

Says I, You’re my sister now.

What?

They’re my mummies, says I. You’re my sister.

She didn’t say anything, but she put her hand on mine and helt it.

Says I, Tell me a good thing about the outside. A thing you did.

One time, says she, my mummy and daddy took me to the theatre. The Grand Opera House in Belfast. We went to a pantomime.

Says I, A what?