The Throwaway Children (31 page)

‘Better do this first,’ Daisy said with unusual caution. ‘Won’t take long, will it? Bowls, spoons and mugs.’ She turned on the tap, and a stream of cold water flowed into the sink. ‘No hot water,’ she said, as she dipped her hands into the sink and began to scrub at the porridge glued to the rims of the bowls. Rita shrugged and picked up a tea towel from the rail in front of the range.

‘S’pose you’re right,’ she said. ‘Ain’t no point in getting on the wrong side of Ma Gar on the first day. Anyway, the others’re probably having to do the same stuff in their houses.’

Daisy was right, the washing up didn’t take very long, despite the cold water and the lack of soap. The potatoes Rita had fetched from the cellar took much longer; the pot they had to fill was huge.

The cellar was a dark hole, stretching the width of the house, lit only by a horizontal slit of a window, level with the garden above. There was no artificial light, and Rita had to wait for her eyes to accustom themselves to the gloom before she could see what was there. An accumulation of junk was stacked up at one end, broken furniture, what looked like a rolled-up carpet, a pile of sacks, a heap of logs and some coal. A shelf ran along one wall on which she could see some jars, but it was impossible to tell in the dim light what they contained. She found the sack of potatoes in a corner. The whole place was chilly and had a musty, dank smell. As she hurriedly filled the pot Rita thought she could hear something scuffling about among the rubbish and shuddered.

‘It’s horrible down there,’ she told Daisy. ‘Full of junk, and stinks something rotten. And,’ she added with another shudder, ‘there’s rats!’

With small kitchen knives, the two girls laboured over the peeling for nearly half an hour before the pot was full.

‘Let’s go an’ explore,’ said Daisy, when they’d finished. ‘We’ll go out of this door so’s Ma Gar don’t see us and find us sommat else to do.’

‘I got to find Rosie,’ Rita said again. ‘She’s in Larch, wherever that is.’

‘We’ll find it,’ said Daisy, ‘come on.’

The two girls slipped out through the back door into the garden. Beyond the fence they followed a well-trodden path between the trees and found themselves outside another cottage. This one had no fence round it, but the word
Pine
was scrawled on a board beside the door.

There was no sign of life, so they moved on in search of Larch. It was the next they came to. Like Oak, it stood in a patch of garden, where rows of potatoes were earthed up, and spring cabbage grew in straight, green lines.

‘Shall we go in?’ said Rita apprehensively. ‘I got to find Rosie.’

‘You go and see,’ said Daisy, glancing round. ‘I’ll keep cave.’

Rita gave her a twisted smile. ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘you do that.’ And leaving Daisy crouched behind a bush, safely out of view, she walked up to the front door. There was no knocker or bell, so she turned the handle and the door swung open. With one backward glance to Daisy, who gave her an encouraging thumbs up from beside the bush, she stepped inside.

The interior was the same as Oak’s. Opposite the front door another door stood ajar, and a passage stretched away to Rita’s right. The house was quiet, no sound from anywhere. Rita wondered if she should call out, but hesitated to break the silence. She peered into the room in front of her. Like Oak it was a living room, furnished in much the same way. No one there. She crept along the passage, peeping into each room as she passed, and finally came to the dorm that matched her own. Rosie’s case was on one of the beds, but there was no sign of Rosie.

She was about to leave the room when a voice said, ‘And what do you think you’re doing?’ Rita spun round and found herself facing a small, fair-haired woman, standing in the doorway. The woman looked her up and down, waiting for a reply.

‘Rosie… I was… just looking for Rosie,’ Rita faltered, ‘my sister.’

‘Visiting other cottages uninvited is strictly forbidden,’ said the woman, though she spoke mildly enough and didn’t sound particularly angry.

‘S-s-sorry,’ stammered Rita. ‘It’s just that I promised her.’

‘Rose has gone with Joan to feed the chooks,’ the woman told her, adding as she saw Rita’s look of incomprehension, ‘the chickens. If you go round the house, you’ll find the path to the hen runs.’

Rita’s face lit up with relief. The chickens. Rosie would love feeding them. ‘Thank you, miss,’ she said.

‘I’m Mrs Watson, Larch house-mother,’ the woman said. ‘And your name is…?’

‘Rita, miss.’

‘Well, Rita,’ said Mrs Watson with a faint smile, ‘I think you’d better scoot out to the chooks as well, before I see you.’

Rita looked uncertain for a moment, but then as the woman disappeared from the doorway, she beat a hasty retreat.

‘She’s feeding the hens,’ Rita told Daisy, and set off round the cottage.

She found Rosie and Joan emptying buckets of water into a trough. Rosie glanced up and seeing Rita coming towards her, dumped her bucket and rushed over to her.

‘Oh, Reet,’ she cried, her face one huge smile. ‘Look, they’ve got chickens, just like at Laurel House.’

‘You all right, Rosie?’ Rita asked, but she could see she was.

‘What’s your cottage like?’ Daisy asked Joan, as she came up to join them.

Joan shrugged. ‘All right, I s’pose.’

‘What did you have for breakfast?’ demanded Daisy.

‘Porridge and bread and butter,’ answered Joan.

‘Lucky you!’ moaned Daisy. ‘We only got porridge and it was dis
gust
ing.’

At that moment the man they had seen from the window emerged from one of the sheds. ‘Hallo,’ he said with a smile. ‘Who’ve we got here then? Don’t know you two.’

Rita and Daisy told him their names and he said, ‘I’m Mr Manton, you’ll be helping me in the garden. Everyone has to pull their weight here, you know.’

The new girls were each given another round of egg sandwiches for their midday meal, and as they ate them they exchanged their news. From what Joan told them, it seemed that Mrs Watson was the kindest of the house-mothers. Mrs Yardley in Pine scared the two younger girls.

‘She’s got big teeth,’ Sylvia told them, fear lurking in her eyes.

‘And she shouts,’ added Susan.

‘Mrs Dawes is Ash mother,’ Sheila said, ‘but I ain’t seen her yet. She didn’t come in when we had breakfast.’

‘Our house-mother’s called Mrs Ford,’ Dora told them. ‘She’s the size of a house. Arms on her like a navvy.’

‘Voice and language to match,’ agreed Mary. ‘She roars at everyone. Stood over Ange this morning till she finished her porridge, didn’t she, Ange?’

‘Said if I didn’t eat it she’d hold my nose and force it down my throat,’ agreed Angela. ‘An’ I believed her, an’ all!’

‘The girls here do talk funny,’ remarked Mary. ‘The one what showed us round, Jane, she called us Poms. What’s Poms?’ No one knew exactly, but they all agreed it probably wasn’t complimentary.

‘Their voices are dead odd,’ said Joan.

‘That’s just their Australian accents,’ said Sheila loftily. ‘There was an Australian girl in my class at school back home for a bit, and she talked like that. That’s how they talk over here. But they don’t like us coming, so we stick together, OK? Ain’t going to take no stuff from any of them.’

‘Yeah,’ said Daisy, ‘stick together.’

They all agreed, and felt a little more cheerful, knowing they were in it together.

When the other girls got back from school, the newcomers had to return to their cottages, and were soon swallowed up in the routine of each house. When they got home, the girls changed out of their school uniform and put on overalls. Some went to collect eggs, others were set to weed the vegetable plots, others had to collect the discarded clothes and wash them, ready to wear again on Monday morning.

The potatoes Rita and Daisy had peeled earlier were set to boil, and then added to the thin stew, prepared before breakfast. After the meal, they all trooped over to central for notices and prayers. The full complement of girls gathered in the meeting hall and sat on the floor, where Mrs Manton addressed them all.

‘You’ll all have noticed that we’ve ten new girls come to join us,’ she said. ‘They will quickly learn how we do things here at Laurel Farm. After prayers I wish to speak to Rita and Rose Stevens, Susan Hart and Sylvia Brown.’ She did not say why, but simply went on to outline the jobs for the weekend.

Rita was hardly listening. Why did the Spider want to see them after prayers, and why only her and Rosie and the two little girls? Why didn’t she want the others? Rita was filled with a dark foreboding.

After a Bible reading and some prayers, everyone was dismissed except the four new girls, who sat on the floor, waiting. As she got up to leave with the other girls from Oak, Daisy whispered to Rita, ‘I’ll wait for you outside.’ And Rita, feeling the Spider’s eyes boring into her, could only nod gratefully, while keeping her own eyes lowered.

When the others had gone, Mrs Manton said, ‘Tomorrow we’ve some visitors coming. You’ll wear the clothes and shoes you brought from England, and I want to see clean faces and tidy hair. These people are coming especially to see you and I expect perfect behaviour from you all. You’ll answer politely, but only speak if you’re spoken to.’ She looked round at them and said, ‘Any questions? No? Good.’

‘Please, Mrs Manton,’ ventured Rita, ‘why do they want to see us?’

Clearly Mrs Manton hadn’t expected questions, and she spoke sharply. ‘You’ll find out tomorrow. Go back to your cottages now. Make sure you’re ready after breakfast.’

Outside Daisy was waiting for them in the gathering twilight. The five girls walked back through the dusk, Rosie clinging tightly to Rita’s hand, Sylvia and Susan clutching Daisy’s.

‘What did she want?’ Daisy asked. ‘Why did you have to stay?’

‘She told us some visitors is coming tomorrow and we’ve got to meet them,’ said Rita. ‘She said they was coming specially to see us. Didn’t say why. She said we had to dress up and look smart.’

Daisy thought for a moment and then said, ‘Perhaps they have to check up on children just come from England.’

‘Yeah, I thought that,’ agreed Rita, ‘but why just us four? Why not all of us what come together?’

‘Don’t know,’ shrugged Daisy.

‘I don’t want to go in there,’ Susan whispered to Daisy when they reached Pine Cottage. ‘The lady in there is scary!’

‘You got to,’ Daisy told her firmly, detaching her hand and casting her adrift. ‘Look, Sylvia’ll be with you, and we’ll see you in the morning, all right?’ When neither of the little girls moved, she grabbed their hands again, marched up to the front door of the cottage and opened it. ‘See you in the morning,’ she said again and pushing them inside, she pulled the door closed behind them.

Rosie gripped Rita’s hand even tighter as they came to Larch. ‘I don’t like it here,’ she whimpered.

‘Nor do I,’ admitted Rita, ‘but there ain’t nothing we can do about it. I’ll see you in the morning, after breakfast, OK? You’ll be all right. Joan’s in there too. You like Joan.’

‘But she’s not in my dorm,’ cried Rosie. ‘There’s only girls I don’t know.’

Rita sighed. ‘Come on, Rosie. You got to go in.’ She opened the cottage door. ‘You got to be a big girl now. I’ll see you in the morning, promise you.’

‘What’s going on here?’ demanded a voice from inside. The door was pulled wider and Mrs Watson appeared. She looked at the two girls hesitating on the doorstep and said, ‘Ah, you’re back, Rosie. Good. Come along in, now. It’s time for bed.’ She reached down and took Rosie firmly by the hand. ‘Goodnight, Rita.’

Rosie was pulled into the house, and Rita was left standing outside.

‘I wish she was with me,’ Rita said to Daisy as they walked back to Oak. ‘She’s only little.’

‘She’s got to learn to stand on her own two feet,’ Daisy said. ‘You can’t look after her forever, you know.’

‘Yeah,’ Rita sighed, ‘but even so, they could have put us together, just at first.’

Why were they to meet these strange people tomorrow? Rita wondered as she lay in the chilly dorm. Who were they and what did they want? A fearful thought had assailed her, but it was so dreadful that she didn’t mention it, even to Daisy. She felt that somehow, just saying it aloud might make it come true. But the idea wouldn’t leave her. Suppose they were going to be sent somewhere else. Suppose they were going to be split up. Surely she and Rosie would be kept together – they were sisters. Perhaps that was why she, alone of the older girls, had been included. But Rita felt sick with worry. The Spider had already split them up, perhaps she was going to do it again.

With her thoughts in such a turmoil, it had been ages before Rita had finally fallen asleep. It was the cold that had woken her again and for a moment she didn’t know where she was, and then it all came flooding back to her. Yesterday had been a miserable day, surely today things could only get better.

The next morning Audrey, Carol and Daisy dressed in their weekend overalls. When Daisy had returned from the meeting room the previous evening, she’d found that all her clothes had disappeared and all that was left in her locker was one pair of knickers and her nightie.

‘Hey!’ she cried. ‘Where’s my things, my clothes?’

‘Told you,’ Audrey said. ‘Told you they’d take them.’ She pointed to a pair of overalls lying on the bed. ‘That’s what you wear now, like the rest of us.’

‘They haven’t taken mine,’ Rita said, peering into her locker. ‘They’re all still here.’

Audrey had shrugged. ‘You got to dress up for the visitors tomorrow,’ she said. ‘They’ll take them after that.’

Rita lifted out her rose-patterned dress, but when she tried it on, it was too tight and too short. The good food on the ship had done its work, and she had grown, not only an inch taller, but she had also filled out.

‘You’re too fat, Reet,’ Daisy remarked as she watched her friend struggling with the dress.

‘No, I ain’t,’ snapped Rita, pulling the dress back over her head. ‘I’ve grown, that’s all.’ With a sigh she put the frock away and put on the white blouse and tartan pinafore which she’d been given as Sunday best before she left England.