They had no choice but to make their way along the lanes, though it would add almost an hour to the journey. The land shone icy blue in the moonlight as if the colour had been chilled out of it. Sometimes the girls saw a light in the distance, but mostly it was just dark and cold. There were ten girls, including the twins, and they moved in a weaving column of ones and twos. A few carried paraffin lamps. Patty Driscoll had a torch. Now and then someone would holler out a song to keep the rhythm going, something like the Christmas number one that year, ‘Return To Sender!’, and the others would pitch in with the chorus. Their breath hung in front of them. They carried their dance shoes in bags and gripped their collars to their throats. Maureen kept to the back in her short red coat. Her fingers stung with the loneliness of the cold and so did her feet, but it was not a sad loneliness. There was something in the air. She could feel it. ‘Ain’t we there yet?’ That was Patty Driscoll.
