Beyond the secrets that they could not have known, there were secrets that the two girls could and did share. Both understood the anguish of childhood disease. While Juliet had battled respiratory illnesses, illnesses she seemed to embroider in her mind with a kind of Romantic melancholy, Pauline also battled a debilitating childhood illness. During her trial, Pauline and her family said she had suffered from osteomyelitis, a crippling bone disease and had to undergo painful operations, including one to drain a fetid infection form the bones in her leg. At the age of five she was hospitalized for nine months, and she was left with a jagged scar and prevented from engaging in sports.
Like Juliet, Pauline had wit and imagination. She also had few friends, until Juliet arrived at school.
As the Sydney Sun-Herald reported on August 29, 1954, "the friendship between the two girls began as any normal one. They walked home from school together, shared their homework and visited each other on weekends."
"Each still had a small circle of acquaintances, " the newspaper reported. " their notes and diaries were at first the usual schoolgirl scribbles about movies, books, food, outings and occasionally— though very occasionally—boys."
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| Actresses playing Hulme & Parker embrace |
"Then something seemed to click suddenly into gear as the friendship progressed,' the newspaper continued. "Slowly the two girls seemed to move away from normal family relationships and grew closer together. Other friends dropped out of the picture one after the other. Soon the two became almost as one—living, thinking, even bathing and sleeping together."
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