MORNING SERIAL
FLINGING off her costume she had stood in all her fierce nudity, nipples erect and pointed, seeming to outstare any prurient viewer as she towelled her flanks and back. Isolde had looked round, from beneath her more demure tent of towel, at the soughing peace of the bay. It was all hopelessly beautiful and there to go home to.
*** Homesickness turned the block into a place of torment. Issie patrolled as the children settled or resisted settling for sleep. Hullaballoos broke out in dormitories at opposite ends, so that she had to pace in wearied exasperation between the two. At her approach, the inhabitants of the last pocket of resistance whirled into bed in a flurry of spring twanging, which ceased as she snapped on the light.
Isolde surprised a raid on a child’s bed; they had waited until their victim slept before mobbing her. She had shot shrieking into a nightmare of universal rejection, whose logic dictated that people hate and hit you for no other reason than that you exist.
‘Why, why are you doing this to Rachel?’ Issie demanded of the five pyjamaed girls. ‘How would you like it?’
She perched on Rachel’s bed, seeking to meet them on the human level. ‘Why would you want to harm her? She’s alone and far from home.’
Nobody spoke; nobody looked Issie in the eye. All that could be heard was quick breathing from the exertion, and a medley of sniggers.
‘Well, go on, somebody speak. At least say sorry to Rachel.’
‘She stinks,’ said one. ‘Look in her drawer if you don’t believe me. She’s got STs in there and mouldy tights.’
Rachel’s look of dull bale said to Issie, Go away. You can’t help me. You’re making it worse.
‘How can you bear to talk like that?’ Issie lost her temper. ‘It’s vile. You’re vile to talk to her like that. Now leave her alone and go to sleep.’
‘I’ll tell Sir you said I’m vile.’ ‘Do. You just do that, you little s***.’
There was silence. Isolde rose, stunned. Her own brutal tongue confounded her.
> The Element of Water by Stevie Davies is published by Parthian in the Library of Wales series www.parthianbooks.com
CONTINUES MONDAY