The Throwaway Children (19 page)

‘Ah, there you are, Lily,’ he said. ‘Your carriage awaits.’

Lily beamed at him. ‘Thank you, Fred. I’m ready.’ She got to her feet a little unsteadily and, grasping firmly hold of her crutches, walked slowly across the room. At the door she turned back and smiled at the nurse. ‘Thank you for everything, nurse. You’ve all been so kind. Please thank all the others, too.’

‘You make sure she doesn’t do too much too soon,’ the nurse warned Fred as he picked up Lily’s bag. ‘She’s a lady with a mind of her own.’

‘Don’t you worry, nurse,’ he replied, ‘my wife’ll keep an eye on her. She’s only round the corner.’

Ten minutes later they drew up outside the house in Hampton Road where Anne was waiting.

‘Welcome home, Lily,’ cried Anne. ‘I’ve got the kettle on.’

‘Thank you, Anne, just what I need.’ Lily struggled into the house and headed straight for the kitchen, its warm familiarity calming her.

Anne made the tea and all three of them sat round the table drinking it.

‘I got some food in for you,’ she said, ‘just to keep you going until Mavis can do a proper shop.’

‘Thank you, Anne, you’ve thought of everything.’ Lily took a sip of her tea. ‘Mavis knows I’m coming home today, don’t she?’

‘Yes,’ Anne said cautiously, ‘I did tell her.’

‘Then they’ll be round later,’ Lily said. ‘I can’t wait to see the girls, and of course the new baby. Richard, you told me. Lovely. Named for his granddad.’

Once they’d seen Lily safely settled into the house, had shown her the front room bedroom, and made sure she had everything she needed to hand, the Baillies left her alone.

‘Soon as you can manage them stairs again, Lily,’ Fred said as they stood at the front door, ‘Martin and me’ll move your bed back upstairs for you.’

They’ve all been so kind, Lily thought as she closed the door behind them. She moved slowly back to the kitchen, remembering to sit in an upright chair as they’d told her in the hospital. The house was very quiet and she sat still, relishing the peace after the busyness of the ward. She’d missed Rita and Rosie dreadfully while she’d been in hospital. She’d imagined them getting to know their new little brother, helping Mavis to look after him, with Rita learning to change him and give him a bath. Surely they’ll be round later and, in the meantime, perhaps she’d have a little rest on the bed. Take it steady, the nurse said.

She was awoken an hour later by the shrill of the front doorbell. Slowly she got to her feet and, grabbing her crutches, went to open the door. It was Mavis.

‘Mum,’ she cried, lifting the baby from the pram and holding him out in front of her, almost as if he were a shield, ‘meet your new grandson, meet Richard.’

Lily looked at the bundle in Mavis’s arms. ‘Oh Mavis, he’s beautiful. Come on in and let me see him properly.’ She turned, awkwardly making her way back to the kitchen, and Mavis followed her.

Once she was sitting down, Lily took the baby, holding him close, pressing her cheek to the softness of his dark hair. She looked up again at her daughter. ‘He’s beautiful, love,’ she said again, ‘and the image of you when you was a baby.’

Mavis gave a half laugh. ‘Think so? Jimmy thinks he looks like him.’

‘Well, a bit of both of you,’ Lily said diplomatically. ‘Where’s the girls? I can’t wait to see them. I thought they’d come with you.’

‘I’ll make some tea, shall I?’ suggested Mavis, reaching for the kettle.

Lily, however, was not to be diverted. ‘Where’s Rita and Rosie?’ she asked again. ‘It’s Saturday and they ain’t at school.’

‘No,’ agreed Mavis. ‘Look, Mum, let me make the tea and I’ll tell you all about them. Richard needs a feed, d’you want to give him his bottle?’

Lily smiled. ‘It’s a long time since I did that, not since Rosie was a baby.’ She watched as Mavis made tea and warmed Richard’s bottle, all the while cuddling the warm bundle that was Richard close against her. When the tea had at last been poured, and Richard was sucking hungrily at his milk, Lily said, ‘Well, come on Mavis, tell me about the girls.’

‘When you was run over, Mum, and I was on my honeymoon, Carrie took them in and minded them. They didn’t have no address for us, see?’

‘Yes, I know all that, she told me.’

‘Then when we got home again they come back to Ship Street. You can guess Jimmy weren’t too pleased.’

Lily said nothing, simply nodded.

‘Anyway, then my waters broke and when the midwife come she said the baby was breach and I had to go to the hospital. So Jimmy got an ambulance.’ Mavis sighed and for a moment lapsed into silence.

‘And the girls?’

‘The girls went back to Carrie’s for the night.’

‘They ain’t still there?’ asked Lily, surprised.

‘No, course not. But I was in the hospital and Jimmy couldn’t look after them, could he? I mean… well, he had to go to work. We need his pay packet, don’t we?’

‘You didn’t let them come home to an empty house after school, did you?’

‘No, course not,’ said Mavis, and latching on to this as a reason for what she had done she added, ‘I wanted them looked after proper, didn’t I? Couldn’t ask Carrie to have them every day, could I? And when Jimmy got home from work he was coming to see me in the hospital.’

‘So?’ Lily’s voice was dangerously low. ‘So what did you do, Mavis?’

But she knew. Before Mavis, still blustering, admitted that she’d put the children into the council’s care, Lily knew and she grew cold. ‘You put them in an ’ome, didn’t you?’

‘Mum, don’t look like that,’ begged Mavis. ‘What else could I do? I couldn’t expect Carrie to have them that long, Jimmy was working and you was in the hospital…’

‘But it’d have only been till you was out of hospital,’ said Lily. ‘How long was you in there? Ten days?’

‘Two weeks, Mum, because Richard—’

‘Two weeks,’ Lily interrupted her. ‘Two weeks and then you were home to look after them yourself. Couldn’t Carrie have had them just for that two weeks?’

‘I couldn’t ask, Mum. She’d already had them for nearly a week. They was sleeping on Maggie’s bedroom floor.’

‘They could have gone to her till Jimmy got home and then slept in their own beds.’ Lily sounded desperate. Surely something could have been arranged.

‘Mum—’

‘So you put them in an ’ome,’ said Lily flatly. ‘Your own kids. You let that Jimmy persuade you.’ She looked up at her daughter with bleak eyes. ‘And when you did come out the hospital? What then? Why didn’t you fetch them home?’

‘I couldn’t, Mum, not right away. Richard’s a colicky baby. I weren’t getting any sleep and the house was getting on top of me. Jimmy was out all day and of course he was tired when he come home at night. It’s heavy work labouring on a site. I couldn’t have the girls there too, it was too much.’

‘It’d have only been till I got home again,’ Lily cried. ‘Just a few weeks.’

‘We didn’t know that, Mum,’ whined Mavis. ‘We didn’t know if you’d be well enough to have them back.

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ demanded Lily. ‘I ain’t old, you know.’

‘You’d had a bang on the head, you might have been left a bit funny.’

‘Gaga, you mean? Spit it out, Mavis. Let’s not mince matters. Well, I might have been, but I ain’t and you didn’t bother to wait and find out. You simply shunted them off into an ’ome. And now they’ve gone, Jimmy ain’t going to have them back, is he?’ Still cuddling the baby, who had now finished his bottle and fallen asleep in her arms, she stared into space. Her beloved Rita and Rosie were in a home somewhere thinking that nobody wanted them. ‘Who took them there?’ she asked. ‘Did Jimmy take them? Did he pretend they could come home again soon?’

Mavis couldn’t meet her mother’s eyes. She shook her head. ‘The woman from the council took them,’ she whispered. ‘She went round the school and took ’em from there.’

‘And that Miss Hassinger let her?’ Lily was outraged. ‘Surely she could’ve stopped her.’

‘The woman, Miss Hopkins, had all the papers,’ Mavis said. ‘Miss Hassinger couldn’t have done nothing.’

‘And you’d signed these papers? You’d signed away your own kids? Your own flesh and blood? Oh, Mavis, how could you?’

‘I had to,’ sobbed Mavis, the tears which had been filling her eyes now flooding down her cheeks. ‘I had to, Mum, what else could I do? At least they’re looked after properly there, and that Miss Hopkins said it wasn’t true when Rita said she’d been beaten—’

‘Rita said she’d been beaten?’ broke in Lily. ‘You’ve been to see her then?’

‘No,’ admitted Mavis, realizing she’d let slip too much. ‘No, she brought Rosie home… to see Richard.’

‘Brought Rosie home?’ echoed Lily incredulously. ‘They let her bring Rosie home, by herself?’

‘No. They’d run away. Rita took Rosie out from school and a copper brought them home.’

‘A copper did?’ Lily stared at her for a long minute. ‘Come on, Mavis, spit it out. Tell me what happened. Rita said she’d been beaten?’

‘That’s Reet just making up her stories again,’ sniffed Mavis, dabbing her tears. ‘That Miss Hopkins said they don’t beat the girls there.’

Don’t they? wondered Lily to herself. I think I know who I’d rather believe. But she simply said, ‘So, they come home…’

‘And that Miss Hopkins come round in a car and picked them up again. That’s all.’

‘And you let her? You let her take them?’

‘I couldn’t stop her, Mum,’ whined Mavis, the tears continuing to flow. ‘How could I stop her? She had the papers, she had the right—’

‘Only ’cos you’d signed the bleedin’ papers,’ snapped her mother. ‘I don’t know what you’re crying for, Mavis, it’s your fault, and no one else’s.’ Lily held the baby out to his mother and continued, ‘Well, all I can say is I hope you look after this one better than you’ve done with the girls. Now, where are they?’

Mavis took the proffered baby and hugged him close. ‘I don’t know,’ she muttered.

‘Don’t know!’ Lily’s voice was almost a shriek. ‘What d’you mean you don’t know?’

‘Miss Hopkins didn’t say.’

‘But it must have been on the papers or something.’

Mavis did know, but before coming today, Jimmy had given her a sound talking to.

‘Now don’t you go telling that interfering mother of yours where them girls have gone or she’ll be round the ’ome sticking her oar in where it ain’t wanted and causing us more grief.’ He grabbed Mavis by the shoulders and shook her hard. ‘You understand, Mav? If you tell that old cow where them girls are, I won’t be answerable for the consequences, right?’

‘I won’t tell,’ promised Mavis, and now, even with her mother’s eyes boring into her, she didn’t.

‘She didn’t say,’ she said, ‘and I was in a right state, wasn’t I? I didn’t ask.’

‘And what sort of state was the children in, I wonder,’ said Lily bitterly, but she didn’t expect an answer, and she didn’t get one. She looked up at Mavis who was now cradling Richard just as she had once cradled Rita and then Rosie.

‘I think you’d better go home,’ she said. ‘I can’t bear the sight of you just now.’

‘But Mum, I—’

‘Go home, Mavis. Go back to Jimmy. You deserve him.’

‘Mum, that’s not fair—’ began Mavis, but Lily cut her off.

‘Fair? What d’you mean fair?’

‘Jimmy’s Richard’s dad…’

‘Indeed he is,’ said Lily wearily. ‘I just pray there isn’t an ounce of that man in him, precious babe.’ She raised her eyes to her daughter once more. ‘Go home, Mavis, and look after Richard, he’s going to need you.’ She turned away and stared steadfastly out of the window until Mavis had finally left. It was then, and only then, that Lily gave way to her emotions and allowed her pent-up tears to course down her cheeks, the sobs racking her body until she could cry no more.

She was completely drained, and as she sat in her kitchen, utterly exhausted, she allowed herself to wonder if she could indeed cope alone. There’d be no Mavis to help now.

‘Pull yourself together, woman,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘You’ve no alternative. Get yourself going. You’re going to find those girls, wherever they are, and bring them home, where they belong.’

It was a struggle. For the next few days Lily shuffled her way from her bed in the front room to her chair in the kitchen. Balancing on her crutches she made tea and toast, and opened tins from her meagre store. She leaned against the sink and washed the dishes and she listened to the wireless for company. She was delighted to be in her own home again. However, by the time the next weekend was approaching, she knew she was going to have to get out of the house and get some groceries in.

On Saturday morning she got dressed, a performance in itself, and, opening the front door, she stepped out into the street. She was far better at manoeuvring herself on her crutches by now and she made slow but steady progress along the pavement to the Baillies’ shop.

Fred heard the bell ring announcing a customer and, looking up, saw Lily at the door. He hurried round from behind the counter and immediately set a chair for her.

‘Lily,’ he cried. ‘Surely you shouldn’t be struggling out and about on your crutches like this? Where’s Mavis? She hasn’t left you to do your own shopping, has she?’

Grateful for the seat and catching her breath after the effort of walking the few hundred yards from her house, Lily smiled at him. ‘Thanks, Fred, I need to rest my pins.’

‘Should you be out on them crutches so soon?’ asked Anne, appearing from the back.

‘I wanted to thank you again for all you’ve done for me,’ replied Lily. ‘And I just popped in for a couple of things to keep me going over the weekend, just till Mavis can come round and do me a proper list.’

‘I expect she’s busy with the baby,’ Anne said and Lily agreed that she was.

‘Well, you just tell me what you need,’ Fred said, ‘and I’ll get Martin to deliver it.’ Lily sat on the chair and Fred packed all the things she asked for into a cardboard box, ready for his son to deliver later. Since it was all going to be brought home for her, Lily stocked up her cupboard, handing over her coupons to Fred.

‘You let me know when you want anything else,’ he told her as she hobbled out of the shop. ‘Anne’ll pop in after the weekend and see what you need.’

By the time Lily closed her front door behind her and shuffled to her chair, she was exhausted, but triumphant. She’d done it! She’d gone out of the house by herself and got to the corner shop. Next time she’d go a little further, and by the end of next week, when she was off her crutches, she would be ready to walk to the bus, and she could begin the search for her granddaughters.