The Throwaway Children (38 page)

She was quickly hustled from the room and made to wait in the principal’s office until Edna came to fetch her.

‘You’re a naughty, ungrateful girl,’ Edna scolded. ‘Daddy and I have given you a lovely home, and you’re telling people you don’t like it here. You’re a lucky girl that we took you away from that place and gave you a proper home.’

Gerald, when he came home that night, did more than scold her. ‘She’s got to learn who’s boss in this house,’ he said to Edna when he heard what had happened. ‘And I’m going to teach her.’

‘Of course, Gerald,’ Edna said. ‘You’re quite right.’ And she waited down in the living room while Gerald went upstairs to find Rosie. Moments later when Rosie’s screams echoed through the house, Edna switched on the radio to drown them out.

From then on, Rosie, now Jean, walked in terror of her new father. She withdrew into her own little world, only emerging to do as she was bid, to appear to the world as the spoilt adopted daughter of two kind and generous parents. Beautifully dressed, she appeared at church, sat quietly through the services, spoke only when spoken to. A dutiful, obedient daughter.

Some weeks later, Edna had gone to a meeting at the church to help plan the annual Harvest Festival supper. Rosie was already in bed, tucked in with a kiss by Edna before she left, but as so often, she lay awake, listening to the sounds that came from downstairs. Sometimes she would hear her father come up the stairs and pause outside her room, apparently listening to hear if she had gone to sleep. This particular evening, she heard his feet on the stairs, and lay as still as she could waiting for him to go back down, but he did not. She heard the door open and kept her eyes screwed up tight, so he would think that she was asleep, but he did not simply close the door again and go away as she had hoped. He came into the room and stood by her bed.

‘Jean,’ he said. ‘I know you’re not asleep. Open your eyes.’

Not daring to disobey, Rosie opened her eyes and in the faded light still coming in through her little window, found him staring down at her.

‘I see,’ he said with a smile. ‘Pretending again. Never mind, you are awake, so you can give your dad a cuddle, can’t you?’ He saw Rosie shrink back in fear and his hand snaked out, pulling the covers off her bed and dumping them on the floor. ‘Now then,’ he said, his voice still jovial, ‘let’s have a look at you.’ He paused for a moment as if listening, then he crossed to the door. ‘Don’t want Mummy walking in to spoil the fun, do we?’ he said, as he turned the key.

Life in Larch was a great improvement on life in Oak and Rita and Daisy soon settled into the familiar routine. On that first morning, after breakfast, which was shared by Mrs Watson sitting at the head of the table, there were the usual chores to be done. Daisy and Rita were set to making more of the ubiquitous egg sandwiches, which had to be wrapped in paper and taken to school as packed dinner. As well as her sandwich, each girl was given an apple. Rita discovered later that girls from other houses were not as lucky. It was a rush to get everything done, and Mrs Watson was soon clapping her hands and chivvying them over to central to put on their socks and shoes for the walk into town.

Carrabunna School was housed in a long low building set round three sides of a square. There were two blocks of classrooms and a hall used for gym, dancing and any school gatherings, an outside toilet block, and in the middle was a sandy playground. As they came into the yard, the English girls saw there were boys as well as girls playing in the dusty space.

‘Didn’t know there was boys too,’ Daisy said with interest. She watched a game of football being played at one end of the yard, and was soon hopping from foot to foot, longing to join in. ‘D’you think I could play?’ she wondered.

Rita, who was familiar with boys’ playground games, laughed. ‘Not a hope. Boys don’t let girls play.’

She and Daisy were standing with the other new girls just inside the gate, watching the other children and wondering what to do and where to go. After a few moments Irene came over.

‘You lot got to come inside with me,’ she said, and she shepherded the new girls into the hall.

Daisy looked round her at the wooden ribs on one wall and the three thick ropes looped up to the ceiling. Through the window she could see the rest of the children out at play before morning school.

‘This place don’t look too bad,’ she muttered to Rita. ‘I’d love to have a go at climbing them ropes.’

‘D’you know how?’ asked Rita in surprise.

‘No, but I will.’

The nine girls sat down on the floor and waited. The teacher who came in was a small woman, dumpy, with grey hair cut short, rather like a man’s. Her face was round, with a short snub nose and a receding chin. She wore round-rimmed glasses, but through these stared a pair of piercing blue eyes, convincing the seated girls that she was not a person to be trifled with.

‘I am Miss Headley,’ she announced when she had everyone’s attention, ‘and I am the principal of this school.’

‘What’s a principal?’ asked someone in a whisper.

‘The principal is what you would call a headmistress, back home in England,’ she answered, although the question had clearly not been intended for her ears. ‘Now then, I’m going to call your names and when you answer I will tell you which classroom you’ll be in. Remember the number, and when I dismiss you that is where you’re to go. If there is no one in there, you simply wait for the rest of the class to come in from the yard.’

Rita, Daisy and Joan, all being much the same age, were sent to Room 3. The room looked out on the playground, but the four rows of ten desks faced the blackboard and the teacher’s table, with their backs to the window. They were greeted by their teacher, Miss Carson, who told them where to sit, and moments later a bell rang, heralding the start of morning school. Another thirty children filed into the room and went to their places, boys on one side of the room, girls on the other. Rita found she had Audrey from Oak on one side of her and Carol on the other, and recognized several others from Laurel Farm, including Elizabeth from Pine and Jane from Elm.

Miss Carson introduced the new arrivals to the rest of the class, who looked at them with interest. They’d come all the way from England… they might as well have come from the moon.

Rita had never had much problem with her school work, though she preferred reading and writing to arithmetic. She knew her tables, and so found the multiplication sums they’d been set quite easy. She could see that Daisy was struggling, but there was complete silence in the room, so she couldn’t whisper any help. When the answers were given, Rita found that she’d only got one mistake.

‘This is very good work, Rita.’ Miss Carson had to glance at the name she’d written on the book to remember which new girl it was. ‘Well done. I hope all your work is as good as this.’

Daisy had done the worst and was warned that she’d be tested on all her tables at the beginning of next week. ‘That means I got to learn them all in just a week,’ she complained to Rita, when they were out in the yard for the mid-morning break.

‘Don’t worry,’ Rita said comfortingly, ‘I’ll learn them to you.’

After play it was time for composition, a subject Rita really enjoyed. They were told to write about what they’d done at the weekend. Most of the girls were soon hard at work, but both Daisy and Rita hesitated; Daisy because she found any sort of creative writing difficult, Rita because she couldn’t write about what had happened to her over the past two days.

‘Come along, you two,’ chided Miss Carson, ‘get writing. You haven’t got all day.’

‘Don’t know what to put, miss,’ grumbled Daisy. ‘We only just got here.’

‘Then write about how you came,’ suggested Miss Carson. ‘I don’t really mind what you write about, as long as you write something for me to read.’ That made things easier, and Rita wrote about the ship and the journey out from England. Having recorded most of it in her journal already, the words began to flow and she was still writing when the bell rang for the dinner break, and she had to hand the work in.

The girls were all collected into the hall where tables and benches had been set up, and there they sat, eating their sandwiches. Some of the local children went home for their midday meal, but there were one or two from outlying farms who joined the Laurel Farm girls. One of them was a boy from their class called Patrick, a large freckle-faced boy with flaming red hair that stood up in an untidy tuft on the back of his head. When he’d entered the classroom, Daisy recognized him at once from the earlier football game. Now, she went over and sat down next to him.

‘Hallo,’ she said. ‘I’m Daisy. Can I come and play football with you afterwards?’

Patrick looked at her with undisguised astonishment. ‘Football’s for boys,’ he said at last.

‘I can play,’ Daisy said, although she’d never kicked a football in her life. ‘I’m good at football.’

‘Well, you ain’t playing with us,’ Patrick said decidedly, ‘we don’t play with girls and we don’t play with “homies”.’

‘I ain’t a “homie”,’ Daisy told him hotly, not at all sure what he meant, but knowing it wasn’t complimentary.

‘Course you are,’ he returned. ‘All you lot from Laurel Farm’s “homies”. Wouldn’t be in a home otherwise, would you? Stands to reason!’

‘I ain’t a “homie”,’ repeated Daisy. ‘I just live there for now.’

‘’Spect you’ll live there forever,’ Patrick said. ‘My ma says you wasn’t wanted in England and you ain’t wanted here, neither.’ He turned his back on her and as soon as he’d wolfed down his sandwiches, he ran outside, leaving Daisy sitting by herself.

Rita went over and sat down beside her. ‘Told you,’ she said.

‘Can’t even pretend we don’t come from Laurel Farm, can we,’ Daisy said bitterly, ‘not when we’re all dressed like this.’ She held out the skirt of her dress, looking down at its dull grey checks in disgust.

‘Never mind, Dais, Miss Carson said it’s PT this afternoon,’ Rita reminded her. ‘You’re good at that. Let’s go and play tag in the yard, now. Come on!’

Rita was right, the first lesson that afternoon was PT, the only lesson for which Daisy showed any enthusiasm. Miss Carson led them out into the yard where she had placed bean-bags to mark a makeshift race track. Two children, Daniel and Frances, were appointed team captains and told to pick up teams. At first Daniel simply chose boys, and Frances, girls, but there were more girls than boys in the class, so in the end Daniel had to select a girl. He looked across at the four girls left, the three new girls and Carol. Patrick, already chosen, nudged him and pointed out Daisy. He shrugged; it clearly didn’t matter to him which girl, they were all equally useless at running. He pointed a finger at Daisy.

‘Her,’ he said, and Daisy went across and stood with the boys’ team. Rita was chosen by Frances, Joan went to Daniel, and Carol, flushed with mortification at being chosen last, to Frances.

‘We’ll have a relay first,’ Miss Carson told them. ‘When I blow my whistle it’s twice round the circuit,’ she indicated the bean-bags, ‘and then touch the next one to go.’

The children lined up ready, and when the whistle went the first pair raced off round the makeshift track, encouraged by shrieks from their teammates. As the race progressed it was clear that it was going to be a close finish, the girls’ team in the lead. Then it was Daisy’s turn, the last to go for Daniel’s team. She was off like a hare, her feet pounding the yard as she chased after Carol, lumbering along half a lap ahead of her.

‘Go on, Daisy!’ screamed Joan, the only one in her team who knew her name. Immediately the boys joined in, and soon the whole team was bellowing, ‘Go on Daisy!’ as she overtook the stumbling Carol and hurtled over the finishing line, several yards ahead. Daniel’s team cheered, delighted with their victory. Daisy, flushed with success, grinned round at her team-mates, but none of the boys spoke to her.

Joan went over and clapped her on the back. ‘Well done, Dais. You won.’

Carol, red-faced and hot, glowered at her as she finally crossed the finishing line.

‘Why do we always get Carol?’ one of the other girls was heard to ask. Miss Carson looked across to see who had spoken, but couldn’t tell.

‘Remind me next time that Carol will be a team captain,’ was all she said, and Carol gave her grumbling team a look of triumph. Next time she’d be doing the choosing.

There were several more races before they went back inside for the last lesson of the afternoon, and Daisy ran flat out in all of them, never flagging, so that Daniel’s team won every one. The boys all cheered for her as she was running, but once the race was over they ignored her.

‘You was great!’ Rita enthused as they went back inside. ‘You was faster than anyone else, even them boys.’

‘Yeah,’ said Daisy glumly, ‘but they still don’t want me.’

At the end of the afternoon, all the Laurel Farm girls lined up together for the walk home. Miss Carson had set them some spellings to learn for homework, but Daisy was more worried about the tables she had to master before the next Monday.

‘Which ones
do
you know?’ asked Rita as they waited for some of the older girls to appear.

Daisy looked uncertain. ‘Twice times?’ she offered.

‘Say it then.’

‘What, now?’

‘Yes, now,’ insisted Rita. ‘Come on, I can’t help you if you don’t try.’

Daisy shrugged and began to chant, ‘Twice one is two, twice two is four…’ She got to the end without a mistake, and Rita punched her cheerfully on the arm.

‘Well, that’s one you don’t have to learn,’ she said. ‘Now the three times.’ Daisy managed to get through it, and all the way home they chanted the fours, in time with their marching feet.

‘If we do that each way, every day, you’ll soon learn them,’ Rita told her as they came in through the gate.

Tea was the main meal of the day, and Mrs Watson was in the kitchen to supervise the preparation. She made sure that the vegetables brought in from the garden were properly washed and peeled, and though the mince for the cottage pie was extremely fatty, it was the best she could get, and properly cooked. After tea she set them all to do their homework, and when Rita had learned her spellings, Mrs Watson tested her.