In The Bleak Midwinter

They had had two months of this terrible freeze. Surely, finally, the thaw must come?

KAREN awoke from a dream of a garden full of daffodils to the weight of the blankets and coats she’d piled on the bed the previous evening. Despite this, her nose was cold and she could see the white fog of her breath above the sheet.

Pushing back the covers, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, glad that she’d worn her socks to bed as, even with them on, the linoleum felt cold.

Happy birthday to me, she thought. Thirteen – a teenager at last.

Walking over to the window, Karen attempted to push back the net curtains, but they were frozen to the glass. When she looked up, she saw the beginnings of an icicle on the window frame.

The street outside was still and white, just as it had been the day before and the day before that. In fact, she could hardly remember what it was like before the blizzard swept across the country two months earlier, changing the landscape and their daily lives.

Wrapping her pink towelling dressing-gown around her, she went downstairs. Her mother was in the kitchen, her hair pinned up in curlers, feeding terry nappies into the twin-tub. It was a little warmer here but still Karen shivered.

“Is my uniform dry, Mum?”

Her mother lifted the last of the nappies out of the bucket and put it into the washing machine. Closing the lid, she checked the pipes were securely fitted over the taps.

She looked worried.

“If the pipes freeze again I’ll never get these clean and I’m not sure I can face queuing up at the standpipe like last week.”

“Mum, my uniform?” 

Her mother pointed to the paraffin stove near the back door. Pairs of socks and a grey school pinafore were hanging on a fire guard in front of it.