Sometimes she would start to feel cheerful even with her hands still burning from contact with Miss Kelly’s ruler, and puzzle over this sudden lifting of her spirits then remember there was only a short while left to bedtime. She was like a human alarm clock which had been set to go off when she reached the gate leading to the farm and purr away until she fell asleep lying against her grandmother’s back with her thighs tucked under her grandmother’s rump and her face not minding at all being squashed against the ridge of little knobs at the back of her grandmother’s neck. Her grandmother and her mother would talk for hours after they were all in bed. Sometimes it would seem they had all drowsed off and the mother or the grandmother would say “Hey, listen!” and Lucy would shoot her head up too to hear. Her grandmother would dig her with an elbow and say: “Get back down there and go to sleep!” Lucy was not really part of the talk just close to the edges of it. It was as if the grandmother and the mother were frolicking together in the sea, but Lucy unable to swim had to stand at the edge and be satisfied with the wash from their bodies.
