The Throwaway Children (24 page)

It was clear Lily couldn’t see this Miss Vanstone any sooner, so she agreed to the time and date and rang off. Disappointed she went back home. Ten days until she could find out any more about the girls. It seemed to stretch an eternity before her.

That afternoon the doorbell rang and she was surprised to see Carrie Maunder’s husband, John, outside on the step.

‘John!’ Immediately she feared the worst. ‘What’s the matter? Is Mavis all right… and Carrie?’

‘Far as I know, Mrs Sharples,’ John said cheerfully, ‘nothing’s happened to no one. Just thought I’d pop in and see you was all right… see if you’d got the kettle on.’

John Maunder had never been to her house, she hardly knew the man, but she opened the door wide and smiled. ‘Of course, John. Come on in.’

He followed her into the kitchen. ‘I’ve got a pot on the go,’ she told him, ‘but it might be a bit stewed. I’ll make a new pot.’

‘No, don’t worry about that, Mrs Sharples,’ said John. ‘I like my tea strong.’ He took a sip. ‘Lovely,’ he said, ‘just the ticket.’ He put the cup down and reached into the pocket of his jacket. ‘We thought you might like these,’ he said, and handed Lily a large envelope.

She took it, saying, ‘What’s this, then, John?’

‘Little present. Thought they might cheer you up.’

Lily opened the envelope and pulled out three photographs. She stared at them for a moment, and then looked up at him with tears in her eyes. ‘Oh, John, what a dear man you are!’ she breathed. In one hand she held a photo of Mavis in her wedding dress, and in the other a picture of Rita and Rosie standing together in their rose-patterned-curtain dresses, beaming at the camera. The third was of Mavis and Jimmy newly married on the steps of the register office. She looked back down at the girls, and the tears slid silently down her cheeks.

‘Now then, Mrs Sharples,’ said John in alarm. ‘No waterworks! I thought you’d like them.’

Lily smiled up at him through her tears and reassured him, ‘John, I just love them. It’s the only snap I got of them girls. I’ll put it in a frame on the mantelpiece. And the one of Mavis is lovely too,’ she added, almost as an afterthought. ‘She did look happy that day, didn’t she?’ She pulled her hankie from her sleeve and mopped her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It was very thoughtful of you.’

‘Carrie said you’d like them,’ said John, clearly relieved that the tears had stopped. ‘Glad you do.’ He downed the rest of his tea and got to his feet. ‘Well, better be off. Only popped in for a mo, just to give you the snaps.’

Lily began to get to her feet, but he put a restraining hand on her arm. ‘Don’t get up, Mrs Sharples, I can find my way out. Ta ta for now.’

As she heard the front door close behind him, Lily looked again at the pictures, and this time she allowed the tears to flow. How long, she wondered as she gazed at the little girls’ beaming faces through the mist of her tears, how long would it be before she saw them again? How long before she could bring them home, here to Hampton Road, where they belonged?

Next morning Lily decided to walk round to Ship Street, once Jimmy had gone to work, and see how Mavis and baby Richard were getting on. Lily loved babies, and longed to have her new grandson in her arms again. When she reached the house she knocked on the door, and as she waited for Mavis to open it, she realized that she could hear Richard crying. She knocked again, and then, trying the door, found it on the latch.

‘Mavis?’ she called as she went into the hall. ‘Mavis? Is everything all right?’ There was no reply, but the crying was coming from upstairs, so Lily grasped the banister and hauled herself up to the landing. The wails came from Richard’s bedroom and when Lily opened the door she found the baby lying in his cot, scarlet-faced from screaming. She scooped him up into her arms and realized at once that he needed a nappy change. His clothes were wet through, and the cot sheet was soaked as well. She held him close and soothed him, rocking him comfortingly against her until his bellows died away to nothing more than a whimper, then she sat on a chair and with swift and practised movements stripped off his wet clothes and sodden nappy. Wrapping him in a cot blanket she carried him out of the room and into Mavis’s bedroom.

Mavis was in bed. She lay absolutely still with her head under the covers. For one dreadful moment Lily thought that she was dead, but, approaching the bed fearfully, she saw the faint rise and fall of the bedclothes and realized Mavis was deeply asleep.

She must be exhausted, Lily thought, if she slept through the racket young Richard’s been making. Seeing she was all right, Lily gave her attention to the baby.

‘Now then, young man,’ she murmured, ‘let’s get you comfy, eh?’ She pulled open a drawer and found a pile of terry nappies. Moments later he lay on her lap, clean and dry, as she pulled on a clean vest and romper. ‘There,’ she said, ‘that’s better, ain’t it? Let’s go down and find you some milk. We’ll leave your mummy to sleep. Looks as if she needs to. Did you have her up all night? Bet you did, you monkey.’

She carried Richard to the top of the stairs and then stopped. It was difficult enough for her to negotiate the stairs on her own, let alone carrying a small baby. Reluctantly she took him back to his cot. ‘Now, you stay there, darling,’ she said, ‘and Gran’ll go and find your bottle.’ Even as she left the room, Richard began to whimper again, and by the time she was in the kitchen he was going strong. When she struggled up the stairs again with the bottle, there was still no sound from Mavis’s room.

Sleeping the sleep of the dead, thought Lily as she gathered Richard up into her arms once again and offered him the teat. As if she had turned off an electric switch, his wails stopped and he latched onto the bottle, clearly very hungry indeed. Lily rocked him gently as he sucked, wondering as she did so when he’d last been fed. She looked at her watch. It was past eleven, no wonder he was hungry, he’d probably had his last feed at about six.

Richard finished his bottle and Lily swung him up onto her shoulder to burp him. Moments later, exhausted from his extended crying and with his stomach once more comfortably full, he was asleep in her arms, his little body relaxed against her, his head nestled under her chin. Lily sat holding him close for a while, before gently returning him to his cot. Mavis was still asleep in the next room and as far as Lily could tell, hadn’t moved an inch since. She stared down at her daughter for a long moment before leaving the room, quietly pulling the door to. Poor kid, she thought, she ain’t having an easy time of it, she needs her sleep.

Lily went back down to the kitchen and looked round. It was a disgrace. Not like Mavis to have it so bad. Lily sighed and rolling up her sleeves, set to work. It was nearly two hours later when she finally sat down with a cup of tea, but glancing round she decided all the hard work had been worth it. The kitchen was clean again. Lily was just looking into the meat-safe outside the back door when she heard footsteps, and turning round found Mavis coming blearily into the room.

‘Mum! What you doing here?’ Mavis looked dreadful. There were dark circles under her eyes, and a fading bruise on her forehead. Her hair, unwashed, hung in lank rats’ tails round her pale cheeks.

Lily, shaken by just how worn out Mavis looked, tried to school her expression. ‘Just clearing up a bit,’ she replied carefully. ‘You was fast asleep and Richard was crying. Didn’t want to wake you, so I changed and fed him. He’s asleep as well now.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Mavis, smothering a yawn. ‘I looked in on him.’ She glanced round the kitchen, suddenly aware that it was not as she’d last seen it. ‘You done the kitchen,’ she said.

‘Well, it needed a bit of a going over,’ her mother said, smiling. ‘Thought you might not have time to do it when you woke up.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’ Mavis flopped down on a chair and rested her head on the table. ‘Still not quite with it yet,’ she admitted.

‘Never mind, love.’

Lily poured them each a cup of tea, then said, ‘I was just looking to see what you’ve got for Jimmy’s tea. See you’ve got a couple of hearts in the safe. S’pose I stuff them for you, and you can pop them into the oven in time for when Jimmy come home. ’Spect he’s hungry when he come off the site, ain’t he?’

Mavis nodded. The tea had revived her a little and she smiled wanly at her mother. ‘Thanks, Mum, that would be lovely of you.’ She gave a shuddering sigh. ‘I don’t seem to be able to cope with Richard like I did with the girls. He cries a lot, which Jimmy hates, and I’m so tired. Jimmy don’t understand, he says how can you be tired when you’ve only been looking after a baby at home? He don’t see that as work.’

‘No, well, he wouldn’t, would he?’ replied Lily. ‘He’s a man!’

Lily prepared the hearts for Jimmy’s tea, but she made sure she was well away before he came home. She dare not come to the house when he was there, but she was determined to visit when he wasn’t. She knew Mavis needed her, and more to the point so did Richard. Lily had been horrified at the state in which she’d found him. She said nothing to Mavis about her search for Rita and Rosie. Mavis would never be able to keep it from Jimmy. She had no intention of saying anything about the girls until she had them safely back in her own home.

For the next few days she popped in regularly to see how Mavis was getting on. On more than one occasion she found her deeply asleep in bed, while Richard was left wet and unfed in his cot. Each time Lily sorted him out, and each time she encouraged Mavis to make the effort to look after him herself. Mavis was tearful, but she did seem grateful for Lily’s support.

On the day before Lily had her appointment with Miss Vanstone, she went round to Ship Street during the morning, ostensibly to see if Mavis wanted anything from the shops. When she got there she found Mavis doing the washing at the kitchen sink. Richard was lying, gurgling, in his pram in the yard outside the back door.

‘He sounds happy enough,’ Lily remarked.

‘Yeah, he’s OK.’ Mavis didn’t turn round, but simply continued doing the washing.

‘You look busy, love,’ said Lily cautiously. ‘Shall I put the kettle on?’

‘Can if you like,’ replied Mavis, still not turning, still pummelling clothes in the soapy water.

Lily picked up the kettle and moved across to the sink to refill it. Mavis edged aside, keeping her face averted. Lily filled the kettle and set it to boil on the stove, then she turned back to her daughter and, with a hand on her shoulder, turned her round.

For a moment she stared in shocked silence at the state of Mavis’s face, then she hissed, ‘The bastard! When did he do this?’

‘Last night,’ whispered Mavis. ‘He come home and Richard was crying, and I was upstairs with him, and the tea wasn’t ready.’

‘But what the hell did he do? Your face is a mess!’

‘You don’t have to tell me that, Mum! I got a mirror, haven’t I? He pushed me down the stairs. Hit my face on the banisters.’

‘Bastard! Bastard!’ Lily almost spat the words.

‘He was sorry after,’ Mavis said. ‘He didn’t mean to push me down the stairs, course he didn’t, just gave me a bit of a shove to hurry me up and I toppled over. My fault really.’

That was too much for Lily. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mavis. Course it weren’t your fault.’

‘He said sorry after. Said he won’t ever do it again.’

‘You could’ve been killed, falling down them stairs,’ said Lily, unable to let the matter go.

‘Leave it, Mum, it was only a tumble.’ Mavis seemed determined to make light of what had happened, but Lily wasn’t going to let Jimmy off so easily.

‘You could’ve been holding the baby!’

‘He wouldn’t have pushed me if I’d been holding Richard,’ said Mavis. ‘He loves that baby.’

Lily bit back the retort that Jimmy loved no one but Jimmy, and said, ‘You must be bruised all over. Have you been to the doctor?’

Mavis gave a bark of laughter. ‘The doctor? Where do I find money for the doctor?’ Then seeing the concern on her mother’s face she said more gently, ‘I’m fine, Mum, really I am. A bit bruised, that’s all. Nothing broken.’

Lily didn’t stay long, she needed to get out of that house. Mavis was up and about, Richard was happy in his pram, and you never knew when Jimmy might walk in, and today, if she met Jimmy, she would be unable to control her anger at what he’d done.

Next afternoon Lily set off to Laurel House. This time she was expected and when the pale-faced maid opened the door, she was shown into a small parlour and told Miss Vanstone was expecting her. Five minutes later Miss Vanstone sailed into the room full of apologies at having kept her waiting. She led Lily to her office and settled her into a chair, before taking up her own place, behind her desk.

‘Now, Mrs Sharples, what can I do for you?’

Lily came straight to the point. ‘I come to find my granddaughters, Rita and Rosie. I know they’re here, ’cos that woman from the Children’s Office brought them.’

‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Sharples, but I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted journey,’ said Miss Vanstone smoothly. ‘We never discuss the children in our care.’

‘But surely I’m entitled to know where they are!’ cried Lily. ‘They’re my grandchildren after all, my flesh and blood.’

‘That I quite understand,’ said Miss Vanstone, ‘but when they were signed into our care, we became their guardians, and they no longer “belonged to you” as it were. However,’ she raised a hand to cut off Lily’s riposte, ‘in your case I will make an exception. You are clearly a loving grandmother and want to be sure that your granddaughters are well and cared for. So, this much I will tell you. We did indeed have Rita and Rose with us for a while. Miss Hopkins was extremely concerned that they should be removed from the vicinity of their new stepfather, who I understand is a violent man. She was rightly concerned for their safety. I am sure you’ve seen evidence of his violence?’ She cocked her head to ask the question and Lily found herself nodding.

‘So, you see,’ she went on, ‘they were brought here for their own protection. These days, however, that is a short-term measure. It is better to place such children in a safe, family environment. With this in mind, Rita and Rose have moved on… to be adopted.’