The wind is thin and chilling, cutting through my coat as I stand outside the factory gates. The cigarette in my hands is burnt almost to the filter, and I take one last drag, grinding the dropped butt beneath my frozen toes. I hunch my shoulders, and push my hands into the pockets, the thin cotton offering little resistance to the lazy cut of the cold. I wait for the bell to ring, for the workers to change, shower, and come spilling out into the yard, chatting and planning for the long festive weekend ahead.
I exhale in a cloud of smoke, and even my following breaths frost in a cloud, rising up into the air, snaking away from me. The factory yard is quiet, the calm before the storm, and I am reminded forcefully of the silences I've just left.
There were times, after I left, when I had to be silent. Times when I bit my lip and held down the words forming in my throat. I fisted my hands into balls, and clutched tight at my necklace, the imprint of my old name pressing into my palms. It is my old name, after all. The way I refer to myself in my head has changed, permanently – I'm Kate Andrews now, forever. But I was still living Marion's life, still listening to the things Marion has to hear, and I had to pretend, to lie, and it got harder every day.
When my father preached, or my brothers parroted teachings they cannot understand. When people hurried from my pamphleted and outstretched hands, and when my mother's cough broke our street-corner hymns. These were the times that I had to be silent, when my hands shook with effort, and my breath came short and fast. It's not that I reject God, or Jesus, or the idea of heaven and hell, it's just that religion is no longer to be found in preachers' words and actions. God is in the gaps, in the spaces in between, in the points in time when my hands aren't clenched, when my tongue isn't trapped between my teeth, and when I'm free in my head to wander.
In my head, I went far away from reality, from the cold of the trailer, from my father's belt. I'm singing in bars, and dancing in hallways. You see, Kate knows, where Marion did not, that Billie Holliday is a woman, the differences between the parts of a bomb, one from the other, and that the complexity of life cannot so easily be split into the sinners and the saved.
Then one day, I decided not to be silent. I didn't bite my lip, or hold down the words. Instead they came spilling up and out, tumbling into the shocked emptiness. My father's face was motionless, and even my mother's hacking cough halted for a time. They let me leave, with little argument or encouragement. There were no pleas to stay, or exhortations to go.
So here I am, waiting in the cold and the quiet. I move, stamp my feet, trying to force some feeling back into my toes. I think about lighting up another cigarette, but when I check the packet there's only two left and I decide against it. I cup my hands instead and blow on them, rubbing each finger in turn. Under my breath, I hum Christmas carols, low and tuneful. The yellow clouds gathering in the distance promise more snow, and I hope the bell rings soon.
I am almost surprised when it does, and jump slightly. I turn and wait for the girls to come spilling down the steps, and they soon do. I know my face is red from the stinging wind, and I smooth my hair back behind my ear. The hair springs back across my face almost immediately, tendrils blowing loose and uncontrollable, and I wish I still had the hair pin Betty bought me, but my father pulled it from my hair and threw it away almost as soon as we left the boarding house.
The girls are leaving the factory now, swarming through the gates and towards the streetcar. They're laughing and calling to each other as they head home from their shifts. Small groups of them break off, heading towards me. They slow as they pass, glancing sideways and muttering behind their hands. I've not been the topic of gossip before, and part of me, that old timid part, wants to shrink from their gaze, turn and walk away. But I am Kate Andrews now, that can sing onstage, and befriend blacks and queers, and who ran away from home. I raise my chin in defiance, meet each and every gaze, light another fag, and wait patiently for the one person I've come to see.
"Kate!" A voice sings out across the factory yard, and the clack of running heels give me just enough warning to turn my head before my vision is filled with flying dark hair and a flash of green coat. Gladys barrels into me, arms coming round to grasp me fully, and we stumble backwards together. I feel, rather than hear or see, the gossip of the other girls pause then start up again, their focus only renewed. Gladys is talking non-stop, and I have to laugh, hold her from me by the shoulders, before she stops and asks the question she really wants to know. "You're back! How come you're back?"
Her hands are in the pockets of my coat, pulling me in for another hug, ensuring I cannot run away again. Over her shoulder, in between the milling figures of the other workers, I catch sight of just one person stood still. Our eyes meet, and I watch as her mouth falls open, as though I am living life at double speed, the actions of others slow and compressed. I know it sounds corny, clichéd, something one of Gladys' film characters would say, but all my attention is on her, and the noise and hubbub of the factory drifts into the background. Even Gladys' chatter, now started again, is meaningless noise, like static on a wireless.
The space between is filled with moving bodies, other people's faces, the threads of their lives, but for a moment a gap opens in the throng, and the way between us is clear. I know that people will always ask me whether I believe in God, still, or whether I'm just that rebellious preacher's daughter, bound for Hell. The fact is, that I don't need to believe. That gap is full of the presence of God, full of love and hope and redemption, and I don't need the altar, or preachings, or bread and wine, to understand it.
No, I don't need to believe in God. Just as I don't need to believe in the sky, or in the concrete under my feet, or in Betty. I know they exist, can see and feel their physical proof, and belief is rendered meaningless.
Gladys must feel the space opening at her back, for her chatter dies away, and she pulls back. She looks between us, wringing her white gloved hands together.
"Right then," she says, "I've got to run – Mother's got people coming for dinner and I have to change." She runs off, calling for Carol, and doesn't look back. Betty stands with her hands in her pocket, mirroring my own posture. She takes a few steps towards me, stops, and looks away, picking at the floor with the toe of her boot. The unchanging nature of her, the sameness of her, makes me smile. She's steady, a constant, while all about and within me is change. But of course she's the same – it has been barely three weeks since the attack on Pearl Harbour. Barely three weeks since I left, and forced Kate Andrews back into Marion's life and back into the silences.
I take a few steps towards her, but then, descending the steps I finally notice the person I've actually come to see. Passing Betty I put my hand on the crook of her arm, squeeze gently, reassuringly. She looks as though she's about to speak, to protest, to finally form her lips around her feelings and I shake my head in warning. Soon, I promise with my eyes, willing her to understand. Soon.
I hover anxiously by the gate, and as Mrs Corbett leaves, I make my move.
"Mrs Corbett," I say, "can I have a word?" She looks at me, then, and stops. Her jaw sets, and her head cants to one side, appraising.
"Miss Andrews. This is a surprise, I must say." I nod, sheepish, and barely dare to raise my eyes to her face. "After you left without a word, I never expected you to show your face here again."
"I'm sorry," I say, "that I went without a word. But my mother was so sick, dying, and I just –". I think back to that day, of how my heart seemed to fly in circles in my mind, how confused I was, how upset and lost. I shake, clearing my head. "I should have given warning, I know, but it all just happened so quickly." She cuts me off, brusquely.
"Yes, Betty McRae told me of your family circumstances. You're lucky to have friends who care like that." I swallow, and nod, a lump forming in my throat. Three weeks are not long enough to box off my emotions, to force them back into the silences, and now, as Kate, I no longer want to.
"Mrs Corbett, what I came to ask was: is there any chance of getting my job back?" She looks at me, really looks at me then, just as she did on finding the locket my mother gave me. I get the feeling that with that look she knows all my secrets. I wonder whether it's a skill that all mothers have, or whether, like my singing or Betty's forthrightness it's a facet of her personality. She sighs, frustratedly, and looks away, eyes ghosting over the scenery. Her hand slips to her stomach, rubbing gently, distractedly, and when her eyes come back to me her hand pulls away, like it's been burnt, or caught in the cookie jar.
"I'll see what I can do," she says. "Give me your papers, and I'll see Mr Atkins now." She holds out her hand expectantly and I freeze.
"You'll not need those now, Marion," my father had said with a contemptuous wave of his hand, emphasizing my name. And so we left them behind, tucked into the top drawer in a room I'm certain is no longer mine.
"Unless you have a problem with your documents again, Kate Andrews?" Mrs Corbett's voice cuts through the memories, and I force a smile and shake my head.
"I just didn't bring them with me today. Thank you, Mrs Corbett, so much. I'll bring them soon." She raises her eyebrows at me, and again I feel as if she knows all of my secrets.
"After the holidays, then, Miss Andrews," she says and with a parting goodbye, she sets off down the street and I, too, turn and begin to walk away, a dejected slump to my shoulders creeping in.
It was foolish to think I could do this again, I suppose. A security pass cost me a set of dangerous photographs, and I shudder to think what a full set of papers will cost me anew. My eyes are unseeing, unfocused and blank, and I have walked past Betty without knowing it. Her voice catches me, turns me round, and I blink the sadness from my gaze as I meet hers.
She's stood, hand out, looking small and afraid, and I notice the beginnings of a shiver work its way from under her coat and up her neck. The wind is picking up now, and despite her tightly wrapped scarf, she is no better dressed for the cold than I am.
"Let's grab a drink," I say, and thread my arm through hers, pulling her close for warmth. She tenses, and holds herself away from me.
"Kate," she begins, voice cracking, even on the shortness of my name. I shush her, and pull her more firmly into me and walk on. Through my sleeves, through my coat, I can feel the soft firmness of her breast against my arm, and fight down the sick wave of longing and self-revulsion that immediately appears. It's alright, I tell myself again, it's alright to hold a friend by her arm, tucked up to one another for protection from winter's nip. It's alright to notice her pressed against you, to feel where you end and she begins. It's even alright to like it.
The bar is warm, smoky, and after getting our drinks I pull her into a booth, away from prying eyes, and tell her the story of my three weeks. I tell her how my father preached, and my brothers parroted teachings they cannot understand. I tell her how my mother's cough broke our street-corner hymns and how, in the end, they never even watched me leave. I hear the sob in my own voice as I relate my leaving, and her hand comes inching across the table, enfolding my fingers in her own, warm and steady. I tangle our hands together, grasping that one of hers in both my own, keeping her still with me.
"I kept your papers," she says, "I kept all the things you left behind." She blushes, and goes to pull away. I do not let her, but hold on ever tighter. "Gladys jimmed the lock on your door, before the super had a chance to clear the room out." I catch her looking at our joined hands, and when her eyes come up to meet mine, questioning, I know she understands. She laughs, awkwardly, a halting exhalation of tension. "Gladys Witham – master criminal!"
"Who knew?" I respond, and we sit there, grinning at each other, hands trapped together, like the only two people in the world, like two people in love. A man clears his throat at the edge of our table and Betty springs away, tucking her hair behind her ear. The man and his girl set their drinks on the table, and waltz out onto the floor. I want to ask her to dance with me, like we used to, but I don't. Instead I knock the rest of my drink back and stand up, gesturing for her to do the same.
She follows, as I leave the bar, tamely, and it makes me smile, secretly, inside. I would never have thought, just those few months ago, back when my name was still Marion on the inside and out, that someone like Betty McRae would be following after me, willingly. Our feet take us back in the direction of the boarding house, the wind biting lazily at our backs. We pass a Christmas choir, singing praise to the Lord, and Betty smiles at me and tosses a silver coin into the bag at their feet.
"Street singers always remind me of you," she says. I pull her around a corner and, checking there's no-one in sight, press my mouth to hers and kiss her.
When we break apart, faces separated by the thinnest of spaces, I cup her cheeks in my hands.
"Merry Christmas, Betty," I whisper. As she pulls me close for another kiss, the choir behind us breaks out into song and somewhere, high overhead, the yellowing bank of clouds begins to give up its snow.