Since 1952, by Freda Ormerod

An original short story extract set in the twentieth century.

The coach for the Illuminations left the chapel car park at four o’clock, and Ada and Winifred took the seats behind the driver, as they had every September since 1952. Ada had the window. Winifred had the flask, the tartan rug and the bag of mint imperials, and that division of labour had never once been discussed. It had simply happened, the way the tides happen.

‘Did you lock your back door?’ Ada asked, as they turned onto the Preston road.

‘I did. I checked it twice.’ Winifred patted her handbag. ‘You always ask me that.’

‘You always tell me you did.’

They sat in comfortable silence for a while. Outside, the fields went gold and then grey. Winifred unwrapped two mints and passed one across without looking, and Ada took it without looking, and somewhere around Kirkham Winifred began to tell the story about the summer they had worked at the rock factory in Fleetwood and Ada had dropped a whole tray of sticks of rock on the foreman’s foot.

Ada laughed in the right places. It was a good story. Winifred told it well, with the foreman’s face and the noise of the tray, and the women further back leaned forward to listen.

When it was finished Winifred looked out of the window for a mile or two. Then she turned to Ada, bright and interested, and said, ‘Did I ever tell you about the summer we worked at the rock factory?’

Behind them, somebody stopped talking. Ada felt it, a small cold silence spreading down the coach like a draught.

‘No,’ said Ada. ‘Go on.’

So Winifred told it again, the foreman, the tray, the sticks of rock rolling under the machines, and Ada laughed in all the same places, a little louder this time, loud enough to cover the whispering. Then she held out her hand for another mint. Winifred gave her one.

At Bispham the lights began: arches and stars and enormous glowing teapots, a whole tram dressed as a paddle steamer. The coach slowed to a crawl. Winifred craned across her, pressing towards the glass like a child, and Ada stood up and changed seats with her without a word, which she had never done in forty years.

‘Look at that,’ Winifred breathed. ‘Oh, Ada. Have we been before?’

Ada looked at the side of her friend’s face, lit red and green and gold, the same face she had sat beside at the age of six in Miss Hargreaves’s class with a slate between them.

‘Once or twice,’ she said. ‘But never like this.’

She did not ask for the window back. Somewhere near the Tower, Winifred fell asleep against her shoulder, and Ada sat very still under the weight of her, and watched the lights on her own.

What impressions does the writer create of the relationship between Ada and Winifred? How does the writer create these impressions?

You must refer to the language and structure used in the text to support your answer, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.