Paid Servant

by E. R. Braithwaite

  However, the ideas so simply stated invited action. I thought about them. They tossed ideas back and forth, sometimes drawing me in with a question but answering it themselves before I could attempt a reply. Very interesting and entertaining, even, but I felt that they would just as engagingly have discussed any other subject, from their safe position outside, uninvolved. But, perhaps not all of them.

  As the party broke up Olga Keriham offered me a lift in her car, and, on the way surprised me with: “When you speak of foster-parents, Ricky, is it always necessary that there be two of them? Could not a person, a man or a woman, apply to foster a child? What I mean is, is your department only interested in two married people?”

  I took a long look at her. Her eyes were large, clear grey, and steady; her face lean, tight-skinned and shiny smooth with a combination of careful make-up and good health. She wore her pale blonde hair in a high plaited chignon which emphasized the small shapely chin and slim neck. About thirty years old, I thought; without effort she’ll keep that figure for a long time.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  “There maybe exceptions,” I replied, “but generally applications are considered from couples, so that the fostered child can enter into a normal family situation.”

  “But supposing a person, a single person, happened to have the financial means and interest to consider fostering a child?”

  “I couldn’t answer that one without checking my authority. I suppose there may be special circumstances.”

  “I’d like to get to know one of those children, a coloured one,” she remarked. It was more like an incomplete thought being tested for sound than a question directed at me.

  “Could do.” I was soon telling her about Roddy and my abortive attempts, so far, to find him a home.

  “Poor woman.”

  “She’s okay,” I said. “Roddy is the one who needs the sympathy.”

  “Perhaps, but why did she go to the trouble of having the child? I don’t suppose that a man could understand about that. Do you suppose they’d let a complete stranger see the boy? Just for a visit?”

  “Like who?”

  “Like me.”

  I assured her that it could be arranged and promised to ring her as soon as I had discussed it with the Matron.

  Two days later Olga and I went to see Roddy. From the wide window of Matron’s office we could see the children playing together on the rough lawn behind the building, singing at the tops of their voices as they held hands in a revolving circle. Roddy was the only coloured child in the group. I offered to take her out and make the introduction, but she demurred, her eyes on Matron in unspoken question. Matron nodded, understanding that something.

  I watched from the window as she reached the group, hesitated awhile as the action slowed, then intervened between Roddy and his neighbour. So accustomed were the children to new faces and situations in their small world, that the game continued with hardly a pause. Later, when they tired of it and broke up into their separate interests, I saw Roddy leading her away on what I was sure would be a tour of the house and grounds.

  Matron and I talked about Olga, and I mentioned her expressed willingness to foster a child. As I had guessed, there was not much chance that the Council would accept an application from a single person, but Matron suggested that Olga might like to become an Official Auntie. That would make it possible for her to visit him, take him out for short periods, and, if no foster-parents appeared for him, she might later be allowed to have him spend the odd day or weekend with her. I felt sure Olga would like that.

  “About the other, any luck?” Matron asked. I knew she was referring to my search for foster-parents.

  “Not yet, but one presses on regardless,” I replied.

  “Time’s slipping by.”

  I didn’t need to be reminded. The thought of his being moved to another Home for older children depressed me, try as I might to keep the plain realities in perspective. This place was Roddy’s little world, in which he was safe and loved; unless foster-parents were found for him, and soon, he’d have to leave it and start again, from scratch, probably with an overworked housemother, and in new and unfamiliar surroundings. So far I had exhausted my first line of contacts and I did not quite know how to proceed from there. I was often invited to address groups of people in and around London and endeavoured, whenever the opportunity presented itself, to mention the plight of the increasing number of children in the care of local councils, hoping to stimulate some interest in fostering or adoption, but so far nothing significant had developed.

  When the break came it was completely unexpected. I was alone in my office one afternoon when the phone rang; the switchboard operator asked me if I would take an emergency call from a local hospital as the duty officer was busy with interviews and no other Welfare Officer was in the building. I accepted the call and spoke with the hospital’s almoner. She told me that a young West Indian woman had that morning been admitted to hospital as an ambulance case—premature delivery. The woman’s other children, twin girls, were in the rooms she occupied, uncared for except for a neighbour’s promise to ‘look in’ on them. I assured her that the matter would be attended to without delay. It sounded very efficient and grand when I said it, but soon after replacing the telephone on its hook I realized that I hadn’t a single clue about what to do in such a situation. I went downstairs to get some help from Miss Martindale, the duty officer, but she was deep in an interview with two women, apparently a mother and daughter. I walked over to the telephonist’s cubicle. As usual, Miss Felden beat me to it.

  “That you, Mr Braithwaite?”

  “Yes, this is me.”

  “You sound bothered. What’s the trouble?”

  “A call just came in from the Almoner at St Saviour’s. A woman has been rushed off to hospital and her two little twin children are to be taken into care, but I don’t know the drill.”

  “That’s simple,” she laughed, and told me what to do. First I had to see Mrs Bereton in the Administration Section; she would shop around all the Children’s Residential Nurseries for vacancies. The vacancies might be any place—London, Kent, Essex. It was a pity I hadn’t a car.

  “One thing more,” Miss Felden said. “You have to get the children to a clinic and have them examined and passed fit before the Home will accept them, so I think you should let Mrs Bereton know the woman’s address and she’ll tell you which is the nearest clinic in that area.”

  I thanked her and went along the corridor to Mrs Bereton’s office; tall, blonde and efficient, she consulted a list of children’s Residential Nurseries, made some telephone calls, and finally said: “Not bad, not good. The only place I could find two vacancies is at Brighton, nothing nearer.”

  “It will have to do,” I said.

  “How will you get them there?”

  “By train, I expect.”

  “Good. I’ve told them to expect you.”

  Once again I sought Miss Felden’s help. She telephoned Victoria Station for information on trains to Brighton. There was a fast train soon after four o’clock. It was now nearly two o’clock, which gave me about two hours to collect the children, have them examined and make the train.

  Outside the office I called a taxi and gave the children’s address; it proved to be in a narrow sidestreet near Kennington Park Road, Newington. An old, ramshackle house in a dismal terrace. The street door was open, so I asked the taxi to wait and walked into a gloomy, untidy corridor. I knocked on the nearest door but nobody answered. From the floor above I heard sounds and went up the stairs, listened to locate them and knocked on the door behind which I heard movement.

  A Negro woman opened it just wide enough to let me see part of her face, hardly discernible against the room’s gloomy interior.

  “Who is it?”

  “I’m from the Welfare Office,” I told her. “A woman from th
is building was taken to hospital this morning, and I’m here to collect her two children.”

  She opened the door a little wider, the better to examine me, it seemed.

  “They’re in the room downstairs,” she said. “I told her I’d keep an eye on them, but I’ve been very busy.”

  “Which room?”

  “The first door at the bottom of the stairs.” The door was closing before I turned and hurried down.

  The room was small, overcrowded with the double bed, plain table, straight-backed chair and children’s cot. At least it seemed overcrowded, perhaps because of the general disorder. The large bed was covered with a mess of rumpled blankets and sheets, soiled towels and a heterogeny of articles of clothing. On the table were dirty dishes and cooking utensils. The narrow cot near the bed seemed cluttered up with hastily discarded garments, and I nearly missed the children. They were lying together, nearly hidden by the tumbled coverlets, absolutely quiet, the four bright eyes observing me in the gloom with an expression which seemed to be a mixture of fear and resignation, terrible to see in their tiny faces.

  I switched on the light and leaned over the cot, about which hung the heavy aroma of urine. I removed the coverlet. The twins were lying close together, their nappies saturated from the urine which remained in a shallow pool on the waterproof rubberized covering stretched over the cot’s thin mattress. They could have been no more than a year old, and lay so quiet beneath my intrusive gaze that I guessed they must have long ago exhausted themselves of tears. I cannot remember another instance of such utter human helplessness. It was now soon after two o’clock, these children had lain there unattended all morning, dirty, hungry and very frightened. That damned woman upstairs had not bothered even to change their wet nappies. I couldn’t take them like that to the clinic. I rushed back up the stairs and hammered on her door.

  “Who is it?” Her reply sounded hollow behind the door.

  “The Welfare Officer.”

  Again she opened the door only wide enough to see me.

  “The children downstairs need to be washed and changed before I can take them away. Will you help me with them?”

  “I can’t come down. I’ve got my own children to attend to.” Even as she spoke the door was being closed, and she quickly turned the key in the lock as if afraid that I would grab her and drag her forcibly out.

  I remembered the taxi-driver was still waiting outside and rushed out to let him know I’d be delayed for some little time. Suddenly it occurred to me that he might help, so I said:

  “I’ve run into a bit of bother inside. I’ve come to take a couple of tiny children away to a children’s home, and they’re inside wet and dirty. Somehow I’ve got to clean them up.”

  He tilted his cap away from his forehead.

  “What about their mother? Can’t she fix them up?”

  “They took her off to hospital early this morning.”

  “Who’s in there with them?”

  “Nobody.”

  Without another word he left his taxi and went indoors with me. When he saw the two little black faces regarding him from wide eyes, he exclaimed:

  “Poor little buggers. Cor! don’t they pong!”

  Quickly he set about examining the room. Under the mattress of the double bed we found dry nappies sandwiched between newspapers, and in an old suitcase under the bed were several changes of baby clothes, clean and neatly pressed. He also pulled a large enamelled basin from under the bed. I had been standing rather helplessly by while he assumed command with the familiarity of having done that sort of thing many times before.

  “Come on, mate, give us a hand,” he called to me.

  “What can I do?”

  “Get us some hot water, for a start.”

  I now noticed there was a small gas ring in one corner. I lit it. I found a kettle and filled it from a water tap at the end of the passage and set it on the ring, then filled the enamelled basin half-full from the tap.

  My companion had let down one side of the cot and was stripping away the napkin from one infant, murmuring to it meanwhile.

  “Cor, talk about sweet violets! Hey, mate,” to me, “spread some of that newspaper on the floor to catch this stuff. We’ll have to dump it.”

  When both infants had been stripped he dropped the filthy garments on to the newspapers and I rolled them into a tight bundle and put it into the garbage bin outside the back door. By now the kettle was boiling and I poured the hot water into the basin. He stuck a little finger in to test the temperature, then put both the children into it. I found him a piece of soap and stood aside in admiration of his gentleness and efficiency. As each child was bathed, I dried it on one of the clean napkins, then laid it on the bed for his attention. He was very expert in folding the squares into triangles and fitting them on to the tiny bodies with safety pins; in a short while the children were clean and warmly dressed.

  “Who’s going to clean this lot up?” he asked, nodding his head towards the unmade bed, the cot and the room in general. When I told him I hadn’t a minute to spare, he placed the children in my arms, tossed all the stuff off the bed and soon had it neatly remade; he took the mattress from the cot and draped it over the side, to air, as he explained, emptied the basin and replaced it, together with the suitcase, under the bed. In a few minutes the room was orderly; he switched off the lights and we went out to the taxi.

  On the short drive to the clinic near Kennington Park Road I sat with the children cradled in my arms, but my thoughts were on the driver, this short, compact, red-necked man who had, in the past few moments, exhibited such kindliness and humanity that I was filled with wonder at it. More touching than his knowledgeable care of the children was his concern for the unknown woman, that she should not return to a dirty, disordered room. He had said it wouldn’t take a minute, when there was every justification for leaving it as it was.

  When we arrived at the clinic, he helped me indoors with the infants who had, as yet, uttered not the least sound. I explained my business and need for haste to the Matron in charge, and the children were immediately examined, declared free from infection, and issued with a certificate to be handed over to the residential nursery.

  I believe that my friend the taxi driver broke a few traffic regulations on our way to Victoria Station. Arrived there, he helped me by taking care of the children while I purchased my ticket. When I paid him I expressed my thanks but he waved that aside with the remark:

  “I’ve kids of my own, mate. In this world, you never know when you’ll need a helping hand.”

  I suppose I must have presented a curious sight as I rushed for my train with an infant clutched tightly under each arm. Once aboard, I laid them down side by side on the wide seat of a compartment and sat beside them. Just then I realized that the poor things had not been fed all day, but there was nothing I could now do about it; as soon as we arrived at the nursery I’d tell the person in charge about it.

  Just before the train started a young woman took the seat opposite us. Probably about thirty years old, with a pleasant open face and short brown hair prematurely grey-streaked. She looked at the children, then at me, and favoured us with a friendly smile.

  “Twins?” she asked.

  “Yes.” They were identical except for a narrow silver bracelet which one wore on a dimpled wrist; I suppose the mother’s attempt at identification.

  “Boy and girl?”

  “No, both girls.”

  “Your wife not with you?”

  I guessed she thought they were mine.

  “Their mother is in hospital. I have no idea where their father is. I’m taking them to a nursery at Brighton.”

  She fixed me with her large grey eyes as if trying to sort out the meaning of my remark.

  “I’m a Welfare Officer,” I explained.

  From this we fell into some discussion of ch
ildren in residential homes, and I spoke of the difficulties experienced in trying to find foster-parents, especially for the coloured children. As I spoke I observed how her face mirrored an interesting interplay of surprise and disbelief. I suppose I even laid it on a bit thick, stressing that a black skin was considered their greatest disability.

  “What nonsense,” she exclaimed. She sounded rather like my mother when in disagreement with something or other. I thought, how easy it is to say ‘nonsense’ about circumstances in which she would perhaps never be involved; I’d met the type before. They’d severely censure others for action which they themselves would never undertake, cavorting comfortably behind a façade of self-­righteous indignation. I immediately had the crazy idea to put it to her.

  “Would you be prepared to foster a black child?” I asked.

  “Why, of course.” Her reply was immediate, without the slightest hesitation, and, it seemed to me, without the least thought. After all, what chance was there that her expressed liberality would be put to the test? Oh Hell, let’s stop kidding ourselves. I suddenly decided that there was nothing to be gained by pursuing the conversation, and turned my attention to the darkening pastoral scenes which flitted by.

  “Don’t you believe me?” Somehow it sounded more like an accusation than a question. “If we could afford it I’d take one tomorrow, and I’m sure my husband would have no objections at all.”

  Well, there it was. The ‘if we could afford it’ sealed the matter firmly and finally. These people always left themselves a neat escape clause, just in case. Okay, I thought, let’s forget it and talk about something else.

  “Any children of your own?” I asked.

  “Two. Girls. Six and eight. Both at school. My husband’s taking care of them tonight while I run up to Brighton to visit his mother. She’s been ailing somewhat and we take turns to visit when we can.”