I could not convince the girls at my new school about Granny. In the photograph I had of her in the dorm, she stands behind me and my brother George. She’s smiling, her hand on our shoulders, her expression protective and fond, her large bosom comfortable-looking. The other girls told me she looked like a darling.
‘But she’s not,’ I told them. ‘Not all grannies are cuddly!’
‘You’re right there, Cora,’ Rose said. ‘My grandmama’s a terror, always slapping our hands if we ask Cook for anything. But mine looks like a dragon, whereas yours looks like a sweetheart.’
‘I’ve met yours, Rose,’ Estelle agreed. ‘Her Marcel wave is so sharp it could cut you, and her knees are worse.’
There was a lot of giggling at that, and I felt more cheerful than I had since arriving at The Poplars. It was (my mother had told me) an inexpensive girls’ school, but it was full of the daughters of professors and bankers, and very genteel.
One of the banker’s daughters had singled me out for intimidation at the start of term, and had drawn her younger sister into the fun. Bullies do not waste time. But my dorm girls were nice – except
