For example, spring. Norwich springs didn’t last long. The weather was fickle and could change in an instant. A pleasant morning would give way to heavy clouds and rain in the afternoon. The rains were light, but often accompanied by strong winds, making coats and hoods necessary. By evening, the winds would have blown the rain clouds away, and the blue skies would return. The children waited for this, making the most of the sun and the dry air. April and May usually passed with a chill. Throughout the year, the rain fell two weeks out of every month. Living in this land meant living with the rains.
By early summer the days were longer, and by June the skies stayed bright until after our bedtimes. The children fell asleep a little later than usual, spending the extra time lying in bed, talking about their harmless little dreams and desires.
Each room had two bunk beds. The crybaby Georgie lived above my bunk. He always talked about how someday his parents would find him, pick him up, and take him away to live with them where he could eat all the good food he wanted. The lower bunk opposite mine belonged to the dreamer Cathy, who always talked about how God would send her a good man, make her a “lady,” and she’d have lots of children and live happily ever after. Determined Yolanda slept on the top bunk and always talked about getting out of this prison, surviving in the world on her own skills, enjoying a life of freedom filled with nothing but what she wanted.
By mid-July it got properly warm, and the dark gray sky gave way to sunshine and balmy breezes. When the temperatures rose, the boys took their shirts off and spent the afternoons half-naked. Within the orphanage walls, the girls were permitted to bask in the sunlight wearing rather bulky chemises. This was a rare opportunity for extra vitamin D, the lack of which greatly increased the rate of illness, so the sister was reluctantly forced to turn a blind eye. To the children, these skimpier clothes were also a means of protection. Even Sister Abigail realized letting outsiders see Julian’s marks may not be the best idea. This time of year, Julian rarely appeared, and far fewer children went to bed crying.
But it didn’t stay that warm for long. Once September arrived, the temperature dropped, the clouds returned, and so did the rain and chill. October passed, and strong wind warnings frequently came on the radio. There’s a poem in Mother Goose that goes, “The north wind comes with November/See how the leaves do flit/The snow storms come with December/Make sure the fires are lit.” Once autumn was done, we entered the hardest season: winter.
But even then, I looked forward to one thing.
Not my birthday, of course, nor Christmas. Sure, we’d get a scrawny turkey for dinner and a roast of bitter Brussels sprouts, along with a Christmas pudding that wasn’t nearly sweet or nutty enough—different from our usual fare but hardly worth celebrating. The Christmas presents were simple toys and stuffed animals gathered from donations or hand-me-down winter clothes. I never looked forward to New Year’s Eve either. We got to stay up late and watch the fireworks near Big Ben and the live broadcast of Hogmanay in Edinburgh. While we looked forward to that, we weren’t even given pretzels to snack on.
No, it was none of those things.
In winter, I looked forward to the funfair.
A normally deserted area on the fringes of town became an enchanted landscape filled with sparkling lights, games, and stands. Crowds came to visit the day and night before the fair. Tons of massive trailers rolled in from God knows where. Engineers and craftsmen scurried this way and that, and somehow got everything set up in a single day. A small Ferris wheel appeared, making a brilliantly lit circle in the air, and a little double-decker bus honked its horn. Teenage boys boasting about their strength swung a hammer, trying to ring the bell atop a giant pillar. There was a balloon clown so large that kids could climb inside, though it terrified the younger children. The smells of buttered popcorn filled the streets of the town.
For the four days of the fair, the orphanage children were allowed to walk around in groups of five selling “Orphan Biscuits” (instead of Girl Guide Biscuits). Of course, the official name was Arkham Homemade Charity Biscuits, but we kids never called them that. Christmas was a good time to encourage benevolence and charity, so the board of health permitted us to set up a small stall at the fair. The mayor and councilmen would show up and sample a biscuit, buy a few boxes, and get their pictures taken for the paper, so the sister always put vast amounts of work into that booth. She would thoroughly check our clothes and hygiene to make certain we didn’t look too shabby (which might attract attention from kindly grown-ups and child welfare officers). Then we were sent to the fair, where we wandered around selling biscuits until the evening, while another group of children stayed at home and made more biscuits all day long.
The mood and booze got to some people. Spiteful drunks sometimes came after us, and seeing people with their families, lovers, and friends forced us to compare our own circumstances, which could be brutally hard. But if you could get past all that, there was fun to be had.
On the last day of the fair, the city gave us each a single sheet with ten tokens on it, and the orphanage would give us about ten pounds spending money.
Tokens were tickets used for the attractions. Stuff like the trampoline or balloon clown cost a single token; most rides were two, and the main-event attractions like the roller coaster could go as high as four. In other words, you could carelessly burn through your ten tokens very fast. The money, as well, was only enough to buy two or three things at the stands, but this was our sole opportunity to spend as we liked. We had more freedom during the festival than the whole rest of the year.