‘Yes, you do. And you don’t want to die, not even I do.’
Actually Marjorie was lying. Her first few months at the school she had certainly wanted to die. She had prayed to die. Finally she stopped praying, giving up on God, and wondering whether she might be able to finish her life for herself instead. She tried holding a pillow over her face, holding her breath for what seemed like minutes, before finally attempting to drown herself in the bath, where they were never allowed to draw more than three inches of water – water that was duly measured by the ever smiling Uncle Mikey, who used a six-inch ruler to check the depth while the children sat two to a tub with their arms folded tightly across their little chests in an effort to keep warm.
Marjorie would wait till her companion had finally scrambled out of the bath, as soon as the last ounce of heat had evaporated, before turning herself back to front and lying face down in the shallow water. But as soon as she did, inevitably panic overcame her, and she would grab the side of the slippery bath before climbing out shivering and blue with the cold.
After many such futile attempts she gave up further thoughts of ending her life, and went back to praying for some sort of salvation to arrive.
‘You’re always sick, aren’t you?’ Pet would enquire, bending over the bed in which Marjorie languished in what passed for a sanatorium. ‘You’re for ever sick, though search me as to what’s so wrong with you. It’s not as if you’re running much of a fever.’
‘Told you we shouldn’t have taken this one on, Pet.’ Uncle Mikey smiled, standing upright to light a fresh cigarette. ‘She’s really not worth the keep.’
‘If you were running a fever, dear,’ Pet said, leaning ever closer to Marjorie until the tip of her long, narrow nose was almost touching Marjorie’s face, ‘then I might think about calling Dr Peterson. But since you’re hardly running what I’d call a temperature we’ll keep you as is – in the sanatorium, on sick rations, with the window wide open just in case it’s something nasty.’
‘She looks positively consumptive to me all right,’ Uncle Mikey announced, his red face aglow with the pleasure of the thought. ‘I’d say a frail little thing such as her hasn’t got a lot of time in this world. Wouldn’t you, Pet?’
‘Not for me to say, Uncle Mikey,’ Pet sighed, standing up, inhaling dramatically and smoothing down her long tartan skirt. ‘The good Lord gives, and the good Lord taketh away.’
After which pious thoughts she left Marjorie and retired to her sitting room to drink whisky and do the accounts.
Marjorie stared up at the ceiling, willing it somehow to descend on her and asphyxiate her.
Sometimes when the going was safe, and no one about, Marjorie would watch the world from the sanatorium window, high up on the east side of the house. From here she could just catch sight of the end of the drive and part of the sweep where visiting cars parked. There were not many visitors; sometimes a whole month would go by and the only vehicles that trundled up the drive were the trade vans that passed directly under her window in order to reach the service entrance round the back. Sometimes one of the errand boys on a bicycle would catch sight of her at the window and wave, but normally she was ignored, out of sight to the van drivers, and of little interest to the likely lads with their cycling caps set at jaunty angles and their sleeves rolled up high to reveal firmly muscled upper arms.
Very occasionally there would be a flurry of visitors, and the drive would be full of motor cars, and Marjorie would catch distant glimpses of women in smartly feathered hats and fox stoles and men in double-breasted pinstripe suits. They would leave with at least one excited child attached to them, sometimes two; or even on occasion a party of three or four inmates, jumping up and down on the gravelled driveway, would follow the couple in question. Unable to control their glee, the children would scramble into the backs of the waiting cars to be whisked away for what Marjorie always imagined would be some indescribably delicious treat.
It seemed these visitors were not parents but relatives, and sometimes not even that. A large number of them, although nominal uncles, aunts or cousins, were not actual relatives, but friends or acquaintances of the missing parents, who called out of pure pity for the abandoned children. Once, Marjorie was included in such an invitation from a jolly couple called Sidebottom, pronounced – much to the glee of the children – Siddbothome, only to have the trip cancelled by Pet, because Uncle Mikey had heard her coughing over breakfast and suspected she was ‘going down with something’.
Eventually Marjorie grew inured to the idea that she would never be fetched, perhaps never be taken out, that her life was, and always would be, Mrs Reid’s School for the Children of Gentlefolk.
Things were not much different for Maisie Appleyard. Her parents’ interest in her had ceased once her brother arrived and Maisie’s father was posted to India, as a consequence of which Maisie was left at Mrs Reid’s by her mother, en route to Southampton docks. Although she cried for days her parents never returned for her, and Uncle Mikey, having given up on trying to beat children into happiness, left her to cry quite alone, which was how Marjorie found her, in the dormitory, although at last stilled by her misery.
‘Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it, we all do. I’ve been here years and years, and I don’t cry any more.’
‘Where are your parents? Have they left you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’ Maisie, red-eyed, stared at Marjorie. ‘Don’t they ever write to you or anything? Mummy says she’s going to write to me from India.’
Marjorie didn’t like to tell Maisie that her own mother had promised to write to her from Australia, but she never heard from her except occasionally, out of the blue, at Christmas.
‘It’s so long since she saw me they’ve forgotten when my birthday is. Or perhaps she lost the address, do you think?’
‘When I have children I shall remember all their birthdays, and I won’t send them to places like this.’
Billy, who had joined them in the dormitory, and was now listening with some interest, sighed.
‘What I’m going to do when I’ve grown up is – I’m going to burn this place down.’
The girls started to laugh, shocked and pleased at the notion.
‘We’ll help you do it …’
‘Then I’m going to give all the children everything they ever wanted, and no one will ever be beaten.’
Although they felt like cheering such a brave sentiment, both Marjorie and Maisie fell silent. A school without beatings sounded unimaginable. Thankfully Uncle Mikey seemed to have lost interest in Billy, and turned instead to a fresh arrival, making him his new whipping boy, mocking him so relentlessly that he finally jumped out of an upper storey window, breaking both his legs. Although the police were called, no charges were brought, but Uncle Mikey was a great deal more silent after that, perhaps not wanting to repeat the episode, or perhaps, for once, somewhat awestruck at the outcome of his cruelty.
One morning mid-week in the summer term of Marjorie’s eighth long year at Mrs Reid’s School for the Children of Gentlefolk, Pet’s pale, long-nosed face peered slowly round her classroom door followed by what seemed to be a long thin index finger that pointed directly at Marjorie before curling backwards to summon the child to her.
‘You’ve a caller, Marjorie,’ she said, the dead expression in her eyes for once strangely alive. ‘So you’d better come along.’
Marjorie stood up but didn’t follow her, unable to believe the unbelievable, imagining that Pet must have returned to playing some sadistic game.
‘Come on, child.’
As she shut the door on the gloomy classroom with its half-broken desks and benches, its smell of disinfectant, and its piles of old books leaning drunkenly against each other on sloping shelves, Pet took hold of Marjorie by her upper arm, pinching it.
‘Hurry along with you – you haven’t got all day.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Whatever happened
to please, I wonder?’
‘It can’t be anyone I know, so who can it be?’
For a moment from the curiously sadistic look in Pet’s eyes Marjorie imagined it might at last be the doctor come to take her to hospital, something with which she had often been threatened when she was growing up.
‘This visitor, she’s your aunt – she wants you to go and live with her. It seems the matter has been settled with your mother, which must be a matter of amazement to everyone. It appears to be cut and dried and there’s an end to it. And good riddance to you, because Uncle Mikey and I will certainly not be sorry to see the back of you. It has to be said that the bits and bobs of money that occasionally dribble in from your mother in Australia wouldn’t keep a rabbit in a hutch. As far as we’re concerned, the sooner you’ve left our hands, the better. So in you go.’
The hand in Marjorie’s back started to push her through the dirty cream-painted study door where visitors were always received. Marjorie resisted, turning instead on her tormentor.
‘What do you mean, my mother?’ she enquired. ‘I thought it was my stepfather who sent the money for the fees?’
‘Your fees?’ Pet sneered. ‘We kept you on here out of the kindness of our hearts. The money sent for you from Australia would hardly cover your tuition, let alone your board and keep. And your mother sent it, not your stepfather. Believe me, I know, because it barely covered your food and laundry.’
Marjorie looked at Pet, realising suddenly why, when she wasn’t sick, she and a few of the other children had been employed to make up and change beds, and help with the washing up in the kitchen.
A sense of complete bewilderment settled over her like a suffocating blanket, as yet again she came to realise how little she knew about her parents. Why hadn’t her mother sent enough money to cover her schooling? She hadn’t even the slightest notion as to why she had been sent to Mrs Reid’s in the first place, other than to hope it had only been a temporary measure and that her mother would return to collect her – please, please, please God – very soon. She had lived in that hope, even though it became ever fainter with each passing long and miserable year, clinging finally to the idea that the reason she still remained at Mrs Reid’s school was due to some terrible mistake, an accident of fate that would be made good by the sudden, joyful and unexpected arrival of her mother and her new husband. She had always imagined that her mother could not have known how terrible the school really was, or she wouldn’t have left her there.
The brief time spent following Pet to her study was perfectly enough for Marjorie to imagine how her aunt might look. She pictured a pleasant-faced woman, with her hair perhaps piled high on her head, and topped off with a little hat. She imagined that she might be wearing a lavendercoloured twin set with a pretty necklace and matching brooch, like the kindly aunt in the book she had just finished reading. Hardly had she succumbed to this warm image when she came face to face with a tall, thin-faced woman wearing a rust-coloured mackintosh tightly belted at the waist in a knot and a dark brown felt hat with a single pheasant feather stuck in the band. On knees well hidden by a thick tweed skirt she clutched a large handbag in one hand while her other hand gripped the top of a black furled umbrella. Marjorie took an instant dislike to her.
‘You Marjorie, are you?’
Marjorie nodded at the middle-aged woman standing in front of her.
‘I’m your Aunt Hester. Your mother’s sister. Hester Hendry.’
‘How do you do?’
‘Quite well, thank you.’
There was a long pause as Marjorie’s aunt stared at the pale-faced, slender girl in front of her, and then smiled, as if having inspected her she had finally passed her.
‘You have quite a look of our family, I will say,’ she said in approving tones.
‘Very nice to meet you, I’m sure,’ Marjorie replied, stepping forward and extending a hand. ‘How do you do?’ she said again.
‘I told you, I’m quite well, as you can see.’ She nodded. ‘How long will she take to pack?’ she asked Pet, who was standing by the window with her back to them, lighting a cigarette. ‘I have a train to catch.’
‘Not long,’ Pet replied without looking round, blowing a plume of smoke directly at the net-curtained window. ‘She doesn’t exactly have very much to take. Your sister’s never shown much interest in her, as you know.’
Marjorie packed her few belongings as slowly as possible, hoping that by doing so she could make time to say goodbye to Billy and Maisie. Finally, hearing the unmistakable sound of Pet’s tread on the stairs outside her dormitory, Marjorie slammed the lid shut on the school suitcase that had been given to her on temporary loan, and rushed to the door to try to escape the clutches of the hated figure she now saw emerging round the corner of the stairwell. She had to go and say goodbye to Billy, and Maisie. She just had to.
‘Taking your time, aren’t you, dear?’ Pet sighed through the cigarette that was clenched between her small, discoloured teeth. ‘And you know your aunt has a train to catch.’
‘I have to go and say goodbye to someone,’ Marjorie said defiantly, thinking now that there was nothing Pet could really do to stop her, until one long and bony hand grabbed her by the back of her collar as she tried to make off in the opposite direction.
‘No you don’t, dear.’ Pet laughed, screwing the material of Marjorie’s collar around in her hand so that her grasp was even tighter. ‘I want you out of here, and I want you out now.’
‘Please.’ Marjorie tried to turn. ‘Please, I must go and say goodbye to Billy. Please.’
‘That’s what you say, dear. But I say differently. I say you’re on your way, and what I say still goes.’ Still with a hold on Marjorie’s collar she pushed her down the stairs in front of her. ‘Least it does while you still have one foot in my house,’ she finished triumphantly. ‘Dear.’
Pet let go of Marjorie while they were still on the stairs, pushing her even harder so that she would have fallen down the rest of the flight had she not quickly grabbed the handrail with her left hand. But the violence of the shove made the cheap suitcase bang against the wall, causing it to fly open and spill Marjorie’s few poor belongings on the hall floorboards.
Aunt Hester appeared as if on cue to find Marjorie crawling round on her hands and knees repacking her case.
‘You’ll need to keep an eye on this one, Mrs Hendry.’ Pet smiled. ‘She’s both clumsy and wilful. You’ll really need to keep a weather eye on her, I’m afraid.’
Chapter Four
Marjorie and Aunt Hester both kept an eye on each other, through a long and mostly silent train journey up to London. Marjorie had never been to London, about which she had only the haziest of notions. At first she found the journey exciting, only once having been on a steam train before. For half an hour she watched the countryside rushing past the window of their Ladies Only compartment while Aunt Hester sat reading an old copy of the Church Times, glancing up every now and then to note various landmarks as they passed them. But then the landscape began to change, turning from pastoral dignity to dingy urban, a seemingly unending sequence of the backyards of all but identical terraced houses, bisected only by regular level crossings where motor traffic waited for the London-bound train to pass. So did errand boys on their bicycles, cheerily patient as, elbows propped on handlebars, cigarettes stuck in mouths and caps turned backwards on tousled heads, they waved lazily to the train and its passengers as they passed.
From her seat facing the engine Marjorie watched everything, her heart sinking as she realised that London spelt dirt and grime, crowds and noise. Once she had alighted, she could hardly believe the bustle, smoke and cacophony that greeted her as she stepped on to the platform at Victoria Station. In all her short life she had truly never realised there were this many people in the world, so huge were the crowds surging and hurrying in all directions as trains pulled in at other platforms, dropping people, picking up others. Her newfound aunt strode on ahead of her, umbrella used
both as a walking stick and a sort of lance to cut a swath through the disorderly crowd. Despite the chaos Marjorie hurried quickly behind, ever anxious not to lose her.
From the main station they took something that Aunt Hester called ‘the underground’. Buried in the bowels of the city, its curved walls seeming to propel Marjorie towards its tracks, it seemed a hellish kind of place, filled with dour-faced individuals who sat staring straight ahead of them, like the living dead. As the train swayed and bumped its way in and out of tunnels, Marjorie found herself longing to ask her aunt how far below ground they might actually be. But it seemed her hatchet-faced relative was too immersed in the same old copy of the Church Times to pay any attention to her niece, other than to check now and then that she was still seated beside her.
The train swayed and clattered through the dark, sooty tunnels, stopping without warning between stations, arriving at places with strange names. In the tunnels Marjorie sat upright in the dark staring around her, but since no one she could see seemed to be showing any sign of panic she remained seated, silent and afraid.
At last they arrived at another main station, and after a thankfully brief journey they climbed out of a station taxi to confront a narrow, redbrick terraced house in a row of almost identical narrow, redbrick houses. The street was so lacking in any sign of human life that it seemed to Marjorie that even the sound of Aunt Hester putting her key in the front door lock reverberated in the silence of the late afternoon. Only the sight of a cat moving slowly down the street, hugging the low, red-bricked walls, was witness to any kind of life, while not a leaf on the trimmed trees moved, not daring to disturb the suburban stillness, as if frightened that by doing so they might offend the unseen beings that lived behind the net-curtained windows.
Inside, the house was narrower than suggested by its exterior, with three rooms downstairs, a living room, a dining room and a kitchen, a short staircase with a shaky cream-painted balustrade leading up to two bedrooms and a bathroom, and yet another staircase that led up to two tiny rooms in the attic, one of which it seemed had now been designated as Marjorie’s bedroom.
Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 Page 7
