The Throwaway Children (34 page)

She was hungry, but as far as she could see there was nothing she could eat: all the vegetables stored here needed to be cooked. Despite the shaft of sunlight, the cellar was chilly, and dressed only in her cotton overalls, Rita was soon shivering with cold. She could hardly feel her bare feet, and she sat on the stool rubbing them to try to warm them up. It helped a bit. She stood up again and began to swing her arms as she’d seen tram drivers do in the winter in Belcaster. This did warm her a little, but as soon as she stopped, the chilly air slipped round her again.

Shivering, Rita made a more careful exploration of the cellar and its contents, and found that one of the barrels contained apples, all wrapped in newspaper. She pulled one out and looked at it. It was big and green, tinged with red. She rubbed it on her overalls, took a bite and immediately spat it out again. Cooking apple, she thought, like the ones Gran used to make into apple pie. She threw the apple away in disgust and turned her attention to the jars on the shelf along the wall. They contained preserves of some sort, but when she lifted one down, she found that the lid was so tight that she couldn’t open it. She tried each jar in turn, but it was no good.

As the day wore on, Rita got colder and colder. She was hungry and thirsty, and she couldn’t feel her feet at all. She tried jumping up and down to get warm, but it was tiring and she couldn’t keep it up. She climbed back onto the stool and peered out of the window again. No one was working outside now, no feet passed by, she heard no more voices.

Rita lost track of time, and as darkness began to fall beyond the window, she turned her back on the garden. Among the oddments of furniture was an old table, and underneath it she discovered a piece of carpet, rolled up and secured with string. It was heavy, but she managed to pull it out and stared down at it.

If I can undo that, Rita thought, perhaps I can roll myself up inside to keep warm. With great patience, she managed to ease the string off and the carpet flopped open. It wasn’t as big as she’d thought, little more than a hearth rug, but at least she could spread it on the filthy flagstones of the cellar floor.

She needed to go to the lav, but there was nowhere to go. She tried not to think about it, but as the minutes passed, she became more and more uncomfortable. She couldn’t remember when she’d last been. Not for ages, and there was nowhere to go. She made another tour of the cellar, but there was nothing she could use as a chamber pot. In the end, in sheer desperation, she crept into a corner, pulled down her knickers and crouched against the wall. Another fear grasped her. What would Mrs Garfield do to her when she discovered that Rita had been excused all over the floor? She could smell the sharp tang of the urine. Surely Ma Gar would smell it too, when she came down, and know what Rita had done.

She returned to the carpet, pulling it as far as possible from the damp patch she’d made. At least she hadn’t needed to do number twos, she thought. That would have been even worse. Wee would dry up, number twos would be there in the morning, for all to see.

As night closed on the garden outside, Rita finally drifted off into an uneasy doze. Not really asleep, she could hear a rustling in the rubbish. There was a definite scuffling in the corner where she’d thrown the apple, and something fell over with a crash. Rita sat up with a start. The darkness around her was complete; only the faintest outline of the window showed in the unbroken blackness around her, but she knew now, for certain, that there was something else in the cellar with her. Knew it was a rat.

She grabbed the nearest thing, another apple from the barrel, and hurled it in the direction of the scuffling. There was more scratching and a squeak. Rats!

The rats added another layer to the fear that wrapped her far more closely than the cold air. With her eyes stretched wide, trying to pierce the darkness, she sat on the stool, her feet held clear of the floor, and waited. While there were still scufflings and scratchings, nothing would induce Rita to lie back down on the carpet. S’pose the rats bit her, started to eat her! They were probably big as cats. She’d heard Gran say once that she’d seen some rats on a bombsite that were as big as cats. Rita had been frightened by the idea at the time, but the fear that consumed her now was an entirely different emotion. She sat perched on the stool, her legs drawn up underneath her, her arms wrapped round them, so that no part of her touched the floor.

When the dawn’s early light finally began to filter through the window, Rita was faint with hunger and cold, and her throat was parched and dry. She drifted between sleeping and waking, but every time she nodded off, she began to slip and jerked awake again. At last unable to sit there any longer, she gave in and returned to the carpet. The scuffling had stopped, and the cellar was silent. Had the rats gone? She tried to put them out of her mind. She lay down on her side, and despite the cold and feeling faint from hunger and thirst, she finally fell asleep, only to be troubled by the most terrible dreams.

She dreamed she was running, she had no idea where, but she knew she had to run. Rosie. She was looking for Rosie. There were rats all over the path in front of her, so many of them there was nowhere to put her bare feet, but even so she had to keep running. In her dream she was freezing cold, but even so Mrs Garfield was shouting at her, telling her to take her clothes off. She was chasing the car that was taking Rosie away, and the road was covered in broken glass. She was calling to Rosie, but Rosie didn’t seem able to hear her, she simply sat in the back of the car clutching a dripping wet Knitty. Rita was screaming at Rosie not to go, and Mrs Manton, looking more like a witch than ever, was waving a stick and threatening to beat her if she didn’t stop screaming.

It was Rita’s own screams that woke her up, and she lay on the carpet for a moment, bathed in a cold sweat, not knowing where she was, or what she was doing. Then it all came back to her, the fear, the cold, the hunger, the thirst, flooding through her and making her shake uncontrollably. The light filtering through the window had become stronger, lighting her prison with chilly, grey light. It was morning, but still nobody came.

Daisy woke early. She was cold. She pulled the thin blanket closer round her, but it added little warmth. She turned over, curling up into a ball, and as she was pulling the blanket up over her head she caught sight of Rita’s bed, empty and unslept-in. It was a moment before she remembered that Rita had disappeared yesterday, Daisy hadn’t seen her since breakfast. When she’d asked Audrey, she’d shrugged and said she was probably in trouble with Mrs Garfield.

‘She’ll be back later,’ Audrey said, ‘you’ll see.’

‘But where is she?’ insisted Daisy.

‘Better not to ask,’ chipped in Carol.

The rest of the day Daisy had been set to work outside. Mr Manton had girls from each cottage clearing out the hen houses, fetching water in buckets to water the vegetable gardens, and one team clearing a new patch of ground to be dug over and planted with beans. It had been hard work and Daisy had little time to think about Rita, but when they all sat down to tea in Oak’s living room, there was still no sign of her.

‘Have you seen my friend, Rita?’ she whispered to the girl next to her.

The girl, whose name was Janet, laid a finger on her lips and whispered back, ‘Tell you after.’

Two girls brought in a dish of macaroni cheese, but there was no sign of Mrs Garfield. Agnes, the senior girl in the cottage, said grace and they started to eat. As the meal progressed the girls relaxed and began to whisper quietly to each other. Gradually the volume of their talk rose, until there was a general buzz of conversation. Suddenly the door at the end of the room burst open and Mrs Garfield appeared, swaying unsteadily on her feet, clutching the door jamb for support.

‘And what is this noise?’ she demanded. The chatter ceased abruptly and she went on, her words slightly slurred. ‘Just because I have a shlight headache and am unable to take thish meal with you, there is no excush for thish dreadful noise. You will keep shilence from now onwards, and if…’ She paused as if she’d lost the thread of what she’d been saying. ‘…and if… and if… and if you don’t, you’ll all be in trouble tomorrow.’ Still holding the door frame for support, she turned unsteadily and left the room.

The girls remained silent for a long moment, and then Janet muttered, ‘Well, she can’t lock us
all
up in the cellar.’

‘Is that what she’s done with Reet?’ asked Daisy, wide-eyed. ‘Locked her in the cellar?’

Janet nodded. ‘She’s done it before as a punishment, but she’ll let her out later.’

‘Shut up, you two,’ hissed Agnes. She was sitting on the other side of Janet, and when they’d started to talk again she looked anxiously at the door.

Janet and Daisy shut up, but Janet nodded towards the door and mouthed the word ‘after’.

The meal was soon over, and Daisy found herself on washing-up duty. Janet came into the kitchen too, and as they did the dishes Janet told Daisy what had happened.

‘I was doing sandwiches with Agnes,’ she said, ‘ready to bring them out to you lot, when Garsley came into the kitchen.’

‘Garsley?’

‘Mrs Garfield. Anyhow, she came into the kitchen with Rita, and she locked her in the cellar.’

‘Locked her in?’ echoed Daisy. ‘How did she… I mean, what did she do?’

‘She opened the cellar door and just shoved her inside,’ replied Janet. ‘Told us if we opened the door or even went near it, we’d be put in there too. She meant it, and Agnes was terrified, ’cos she’d done it to her before and left her there for hours.’

‘Poor Reet.’ Daisy was horrified. ‘What did she do?’

‘She banged on the door for a bit, and then it went quiet.’

‘No, I mean what did she do, that she was put in the cellar?’

Janet shrugged. ‘Dunno. Something to do with her sister, I think.’

‘Rosie? What about her?’

‘Dunno,’ said Janet again, ‘but Edna over in Larch said that the sister ain’t there no more. She was in the parade, weren’t she, so perhaps she was took.’

‘Rosie was? Poor Reet! Wonder what she did… or said.’

Janet glanced at the cellar door which was still bolted. ‘I don’t know, but she’s still in there, ain’t she? I mean the door’s still bolted. Old Garsley’ll be back to let her out soon. I’m off before she does.’

Daisy hesitated, looking at the bolted door. Rita was locked in. Should I just open the door a fraction? she wondered. Call to her, see if she’s all right?

Janet seemed to read her thoughts. She grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards the door, saying, ‘Don’t you dare, Daisy. Come on, she’ll be let out in a while, you’ll see. It’ll be the worst for the both of you if Garsley knew you’d opened that door, honest.’ She tugged on her arm again. ‘Come on.’

Daisy still hesitated, and Janet let go of her. ‘Suit yourself,’ she said, ‘but I’m not stopping here.’ With one final, backwards glance at the bolted cellar, Daisy followed her from the kitchen.

‘Daisy wanted to let Rita out of the cellar,’ Janet announced. This was greeted by exclamations of horror from the assembled group.

‘I didn’t,’ protested Daisy, ‘I just wanted to call down to her, see she was OK.’

‘She’ll be all right,’ said Audrey. ‘She’ll be out and in bed by the time we get back from prayers, you’ll see.’ But she wasn’t.

‘She still ain’t here,’ Daisy said to Audrey when they got back to the dorm.

Audrey shrugged. ‘Nothing we can do about it.’

‘We could let her out,’ Daisy said.

‘Not me,’ stated Audrey firmly and got into bed.

‘Not me,’ echoed Carol. ‘And you won’t, neither, if you know what’s good for you.’

Daisy lay awake for what felt like hours, thinking about Rita and wondering what had happened to Rosie. She was fond of the little girl too, had she really gone? At last, exhausted by the hard day, she, too, had fallen asleep. Now, as cold dawn lit the sky and she could see that Rita’s bed hadn’t been slept in, Daisy knew she must do something.

Surely Reet isn’t still in the cellar, she thought. Ma Gar must’ve let her out. Surely she hasn’t been left there all night. Daisy was horrified at the thought. Had she had anything to eat or drink? No one had dared to open the door, so unless Ma Gar had given her food, she’d had nothing since her breakfast porridge yesterday.

Daisy sat up. There was enough light now to see the other two still fast asleep. Neither girl stirred as Daisy slid out of bed and crept to the door. She eased it open, but the latch clicked, loudly. She froze, but silence still enclosed the house. No one had heard. The cottage was quiet apart from Carol snoring and a snuffling noise coming from the other dorm.

Softly Daisy edged her way out of the room, and along to the kitchen. She paused at the door listening hard before she opened it and crossed swiftly to the cellar door. It was still bolted. Daisy hesitated.

If I open the door, she thought, we’ll both be for it. But if I don’t… and s’pose something’s happened to Reet?

Reet’d come and find me, she thought. Reet’s brave. Her hand rested on the bolt. ‘I can be as brave as you, Reet,’ she said, and summoning all her courage, she slid the bolt across and opened the door.

The cellar was in darkness. Daisy looked down the steps, but could see nothing. ‘Reet,’ she called softly, ‘Reet? Are you there?’

There was no reply. She ain’t there after all, thought Daisy, relief flooding through her. Ma Gar must’ve let her out last night after all. P’raps she weren’t ever in there and that Janet was telling lies.

‘Reet,’ she called again, going down two steps this time, trying to see into the cellar without going right down. ‘Reet, are you there?’ She was about to turn back to the kitchen when she heard a sound, a faint whimpering, like an animal in pain.

‘Reet?’ Daisy crept down another two steps, and peered into the gloom.

‘Dais?’ The voice was little more than a croak, but it was Rita’s.

Daisy scurried down the last few stairs, saying, ‘Reet? Reet, are you all right?’ In the faint light from the window she saw what looked like a heap of… something… on the floor. She was kneeling beside her in an instant, taking her hand. ‘Reet,’ she said, ‘Reet, it’s all right. I’ve come to get you out. Crikey! You ain’t half cold.’