Summary

In “Debbie and Julie” by Doris Lessing, Julie enters labour pains in Debbie’s flat. She packs her things and prepares to leave to give birth, feeling sorry that Debbie is not there. The woman was supposed to be going to Paris for a week with a man but later called Julie to tell her she was in New York. Julie leaves the flat where a few other people, girls and men, reside.

Julie thinks about how she met Debbie on the railway platform and how the woman took her in and took care of her. Debbie had numerous partners, and all kinds of dubious people passed through her flat, but she always looked after Julie.

Julie goes to an abandoned shed and finds a dog there. She gives birth all alone. She wraps the baby girl and goes to a telephone box and leaves the child there.

She enters a pub nearby to clean up and watches from a window as a couple finds her baby and calls an ambulance. Then she goes home to her parents, still thinking about Debbie. On her street, Julie throws away the stained coat she has been wearing so that her parents do not suspect anything.

When she sees her parents, she realises how old they are and that she should not have been afraid of them. They cry when they see her and claim they are not going to ask her questions. Julie thinks about the cold relationship she has with her parents, and about her mother’s obsession with...