The Throwaway Children

by Diney Costeloe

Jimmy took the card and then hesitated, looking down at Mavis. ‘For goodness sake, Jimmy,’ Carrie urged him, ‘go and ring!’

  When he’d gone, Carrie turned her attention back to Mavis. ‘Come on now, Mavis love. Let’s get you upstairs onto the bed. Easy does it.’

  Very carefully she eased Mavis up onto her feet and supporting her as best she could, managed to get her to the foot of the stairs. ‘Lean on me,’ she said, ‘and up we go. Come on, Mavis, you’ll be better once you’re lying down. Jimmy’s gone for Sister Hooper, she’ll be here in no time.’

  Slowly they made their way upstairs. The bed, unmade as Jimmy had left it, did not look inviting, but Mavis didn’t care, and she collapsed onto it with a moan.

  ‘Are you having contractions?’ asked Carrie, trying to straighten the bedclothes under her. ‘How often are they coming? We need to get you into your nightie, then once you’re comfy, I’ll make you a nice cup of hot tea. That’ll make you feel better.’ She chatted on as she manoeuvred Mavis into her nightdress, but got no response. As she slipped the nightie over Mavis’s head, Carrie saw some faint bruising on her shoulders. How had Mavis come to bruise herself there? she wondered, but as Mavis was suddenly seized by a contraction, she gave it no more thought, simply held her friend’s hand as the waves of pain flowed over her and then, mercifully, subsided again.

  Jimmy was soon back, saying that Sister Hooper was on her way, but it seemed to Carrie an age before she heard the midwife’s bicycle bell and her cheery voice on the stairs.

  After that things moved very quickly. Sister Hooper examined Mavis and said the baby was a breach. ‘Hospital for you, my girl,’ she said briskly and sent Jimmy back to the phone box to summon an ambulance. As they got Mavis ready, Sister Hooper also noticed the bruises on Mavis’s shoulders, and Carrie saw they were more distinct than they’d looked earlier. The two women exchanged glances, and then went on with what they were doing.

  When the ambulance arrived, a small crowd gathered outside in the street to see Mavis carried down the stairs and driven off. Jimmy had climbed into the ambulance as well, and Carrie was left with Rita and Rosie, standing forlornly on the pavement.

  She looked at them and said, ‘You’d better come back and have your dinner with us. Uncle Jimmy’ll come and find you when he comes back with news about the baby. Won’t it be exciting to have a new baby brother or sister!’

  By the time Jimmy returned from the hospital to say that he had a son, Carrie had given up waiting for him and had again put the girls to bed on the eiderdown in Maggie’s room.

  The next morning she sent them off to school as usual, and assumed Jimmy would make arrangements for them at home-time. Jimmy did not, and the girls, not knowing what to do, walked home to Ship Street and let themselves in. And that was where Jimmy found them, eating cereal and toast when he came home from work.

  ‘I can’t look after them,’ he said to Mavis at visiting time that evening, sounding more reasonable than she’d ever heard him. ‘I got to go to work. I can’t be there to make their tea when they come in from school, can I? I got to earn our living. Can’t afford to lose me job now that we’ve got another mouth to feed, can I?’

  Mavis, still tearful after a difficult birth, agreed that he couldn’t.

  ‘So,’ he went on in the same reasonable voice, ‘I’ve brought them forms you had from the social. The ones you was going to sign before they went to Lily’s place. I think you’d better sign them now, and we can get things settled.’ He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Got to get things settled before you come home with our Richard.’

  ‘But I don’t want them to go into a home,’ pleaded Mavis.

  ‘Course you don’t, but it ain’t going to be forever,’ Jimmy said encouragingly, ‘just till your mum gets out of the hospital and can have them back. I saw the doctor,’ he lied. ‘Once her leg’s out of the plaster she’ll be right as ninepence. Only a month or so.’

  He put the documents that he’d retrieved from the kitchen drawer onto the bedside locker. ‘Look, I’ve filled them in for you, so you don’t have to bother with any of that. All you have to do is sign them at the bottom, right?’

  With a delicacy entirely foreign to him, he reached over and kissed her forehead lightly. ‘I’d better get back to them,’ he said. ‘You get some sleep, love. Just think about what I’ve said, and you’ll see it’s for the best.’ And with these gentle words, he left the ward and headed for the Red Lion, delighted with his strategy. Softly, softly!

  Mavis did think about what he’d said. She was exhausted, she couldn’t remember ever being as tired as this, not after Rita, not after Rosie, and she’d had Mum to help her then. There’d be no Mum this time, she’d have to cope on her own. She thought about coming home, with baby Richard. Life after the girls had moved in with Lily had been so much easier, so much more peaceful. She’d missed them, she knew she loved them, they were her kids after all, but she also knew, if she were honest, that life was easier when her daughters lived somewhere else. Jimmy said Mum would be home soon and if she signed these forms, they could be properly looked after in the meantime.

  Mavis reached for the forms and without reading through the several pages they contained, signed her name at the end of them both. Then with the quietness of mind that comes from having, finally, made a difficult decision, she turned over and went to sleep.

  8

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ For a moment Miss Hassinger seemed to have lost her habitual restraint. She stared incredulously at the woman who sat across the desk. ‘You have authority to do what?’

  ‘I am May Hopkins, the local Children’s Officer, and I have written authority,’ she emphasized the word ‘written’, ‘to remove two of the children currently at your school and take them with me to their new place of accommodation.’

  ‘But why are you taking them? Where are you taking them?’ Miss Hassinger looked perplexed. ‘Where is their mother? Where is Mrs Stevens… I mean, Mrs Randall?’

  ‘I understand she is in hospital, having just given birth,’ came the reply. ‘The children’s stepfather is unable to look after them at home and Mrs Randall has requested places for her daughters in the EVER-Care children’s home. I have documents signed by Mrs Randall, asking for her children to be accommodated at EVER-Care, and assigning legal guardianship to the EVER-Care Charitable Trust. It is EVER-Care who are now the legal guardians and Mrs Randall has given up her rights as their parent.’

  ‘She’s what?’ Miss Hassinger was incredulous. ‘Show me,’ she demanded, holding out her hand for the papers. She studied them for several minutes, reading each clause carefully, and finally realizing that Miss Hopkins had, indeed, all the rights she was claiming. She could remove Rita and Rosie Stevens from the school forthwith and take them to live at Laurel House EVER-Care orphanage, and there was nothing she, Miss Hassinger, or anyone else could do about it. She stared blankly at the typed pages for several more moments. What had that stupid girl, Mavis Sharples, or Stevens, or Randall as she was now, what had she done? Signing away her rights to her own children.

  Miss Hassinger had always considered Mavis a good mother. The children had always come to school clean and tidy, with brushed hair and proper shoes. They were well fed, and though pretty little Rosie with her blonde hair and wide blue eyes was the one who attracted notice, Rita had always been the determined one, obstinate her mother had called it, with a strong streak of common sense. Mavis had coped very well since her husband had been killed. It was, Miss Hassinger knew, difficult for a woman on her own, but why had Mavis suddenly given up now? Now, when she had a new husband to help in the task of bringing up her children.

  ‘Isn’t there any way we can delay this?’ she asked Miss Hopkins. ‘It’s all very sudden. I mean, have Rita and Rosie been prepared for this change? Has it been explained to them?’

  ‘I think you may safely leave that to us,’ said Miss Hopkins. ‘From now on they are no longer your responsibility, they have become ours.’ She looked
steadily at the headmistress. ‘If you will be so kind, Miss Hassinger, to have the children fetched now…’

  Miss Hopkins sat back in her chair and waited. Her thoughts drifted back to the day, earlier in the week, when Jimmy Randall had first come to her in her office, and placed the signed papers on her desk.

  ‘We want these kids took into care,’ he’d said and turned to walk out of the room.

  ‘Just one moment, Mr… er…’ Miss Hopkins glanced down at the documents in front of her.

  ‘Randall.’

  ‘Mr Randall. I’m sorry, but what is all this about?’

  ‘We want these kids took into care,’ he repeated. ‘There isn’t room for them in our house, and with the new baby, we can’t look after them. My wife did come to see you previous. You gave her the papers.’ He pointed to the sheaf of papers he’d put on the desk. ‘That’s them. The papers. They’re all signed.’

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Randall. It isn’t just a question of bringing in signed papers, you know. Each case has to receive careful consideration, and then I have to see if I can find a place for these girls… It’s very short notice—’

  ‘Because it’s an emergency,’ said Jimmy Randall. ‘My wife is in hospital with our new baby and when she comes home with him, well, there won’t be room for them. Anyhow, there’s no one at home to look after the girls now. I’m at work all day, and there’s no one to mind them, to get their tea and that. I don’t get home till late. It’s not right.’

  ‘Is there no family member who can step in and help?’ asked Miss Hopkins. ‘Surely there must be someone.’

  ‘No,’ replied Jimmy firmly. ‘No one.’ He looked at the woman who sat opposite him, behind the desk. She was fat and she was ugly, her hair like a bird’s nest with two sticks stuck through it. She was the sort of woman that Jimmy instinctively disliked. He wanted to say, ‘Look, you fat cow, find these kids somewhere to stay, and sharpish. That’s your job, ain’t it?’ But he needed to keep on the right side of her, so that things could be settled as quickly as possible, certainly before Mavis came home again and could change her mind.

  He drew a deep breath and after a struggle with his natural belligerence, said in his most reasonable voice, ‘It’s best for the girls to move as soon as possible. It’s not right that they are left on their own. Their mother’s signed the forms you gave her. We need to get this sorted as quick as we can, for their sakes.’

  ‘Well, yes, I rather agree with you,’ said Miss Hopkins. ‘It certainly isn’t desirable for them to be left at home on their own. I will make some enquiries. Are you on the telephone? No? Well, perhaps you could call in again tomorrow and I’ll be able to tell you then what we can do for the poor little creatures.’

  This time when the large and rather frightening man in front of her made to leave the room, she simply bade him goodbye, relieved that the interview was over. Despite his reasonable words, there had been an underlying violence in the way he had said them which Miss Hopkins found quite intimidating.

  Carefully she checked the papers he’d left. Yes, all correct. He had brought the girls’ birth certificates as the forms requested, and the mother’s signature was in the right places.

  She picked up the phone, dialled the number for the EVER-Care home at Laurel House and asked for Miss Vanstone.

  ‘I think I have two more children who need a home with you after all, Miss Vanstone,’ she said when the preliminary courtesies were over. ‘You may remember that I had a woman in a few weeks ago wanting to have her children put into an orphanage, and I suggested to you then that they might come to you?’

  ‘Yes, I remember,’ said Miss Vanstone. ‘What about them?’

  ‘Well, their stepfather has just brought in the forms, completed and signed by the mother. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t come to you straight away if you have room for them.’

  ‘I see,’ Miss Vanstone spoke thoughtfully, while in fact her mind was racing. If all the documentation was completed and signed, that made her the children’s legal guardian… and that would mean…

  ‘Both sets of forms, Miss Hopkins?’ she asked. ‘For guardianship and adoption?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ replied Miss Hopkins happily. ‘Once the EVER-Care name and address are inserted, they’ll be yours.’

  ‘What about the Children’s Committee?’

  ‘Oh, my dear Miss Vanstone,’ cooed Miss Hopkins, ‘you can leave the Committee to me. There’ll be no problem with them, I do assure you.’

  Jimmy Randall had returned to the Children’s Office the next day and was shown straight in to see Miss Hopkins.

  ‘I have good news for you, Mr Randall,’ she told him as soon as he was sitting down. ‘I have managed to place your daughters—’

  ‘Stepdaughters,’ corrected Jimmy.

  ‘Your stepdaughters, in an excellent home. EVER-Care. You’ve heard of it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well,’ Miss Hopkins went on, a little disconcerted by his abrupt answer, ‘it is a charitable trust set up by a lady named Miss Emily Vanstone. The children are very well cared for, and taught to look after themselves, to be good—’

  ‘When can they go?’ interrupted Jimmy. Mavis had been told that she could probably come home after the weekend, and he wanted Rita and Rosie gone before she did.

  ‘Once I am certain that it is in the best interests of the children and that their mother isn’t—’

  ‘Their mother’s already signed the forms, hasn’t she?’ snapped Jimmy, trying to keep hold of his temper. What more did this bloody woman want?

  ‘Indeed she has,’ agreed Miss Hopkins, ‘but—’

  ‘So, when can they go? Today? Tomorrow?’

  ‘I have arranged with the home that they will be brought there tomorrow, if that’s convenient to you.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ repeated Jimmy, his eyes glinting.

  ‘They’ll need their belongings packed into one case,’ went on Miss Hopkins. ‘Then if you’ll bring them here after school tomorrow—’

  ‘I can’t bring them,’ said Jimmy firmly. ‘I’ll be at work tomorrow afternoon. I can’t just walk out in the middle of the day. You’ll have to fetch ’em. Get ’em from school and take ’em to this EVER-Care place. I’ll drop off the case here in the morning.’ When Miss Hopkins did not answer immediately he added harshly, ‘You got them papers, all signed. My wife’s already passed them kids over to you.’

  So here she was, sitting in the headmistress’s office waiting to collect her new charges and take them to Laurel House. She could see that the head was upset, but so what? The Stevens girls would be leaving with her, and she would have done her duty. She would put them safely into Laurel House and they’d be safe, away from that horrible man who was now their stepfather and their ineffectual mother. Miss Hopkins felt the warm glow of righteousness as she waited for them to appear.

  There came a knock on the door and the school secretary came in.

  ‘Rita and Rosie Stevens, Miss Hassinger,’ she said, as if Miss Hassinger had never seen the children before, and pushed them forward with a gentle hand.

  The two children stood, silent, in the middle of the room. Rosie looked at Miss Hassinger with anxious eyes, while Rita stared balefully at Miss Hopkins. She had no idea who she was or why she was there, but there was something about her which made Rita mistrust her.

  She’s got piggy eyes, Rita thought as she looked at her. Her face is all fat, and her eyes are piggy eyes.

  ‘Come here, Rita, Rose,’ said Miss Hassinger softly, and surprisingly held out her hand to them. Both girls edged forward, Rita taking Rosie’s hand as they did so.

  ‘This lady is called Miss Hopkins,’ began the headmistress. Rita flashed another look at the woman sitting in the chair. ‘She’s—’

  ‘I’m the Children’s Officer,’ interrupted Miss Hopkins, ‘and I’ve come to take you to your new home.’

  ‘I don’t want a new home,’ Rita said fiercely, looking from one to the other. ‘We’ve go
t a home, Rosie and me.’

  You’re a courageous little thing, thought Miss Hassinger as she watched the child face up to the Children’s Officer. And ready to look out for your sister as well.

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t live there any more,’ said Miss Hopkins. ‘Your mother is in hospital and can’t look after you.’

  ‘We’ve got a new baby brother,’ Rosie said conversationally. ‘He’s called Richard.’

  ‘We won’t go with you,’ Rita said. ‘We ain’t got to. Mum’s coming home.’

  ‘Come along, now,’ said Miss Hopkins, ignoring Rita’s outburst and getting to her feet. ‘We’ve got to collect your luggage and then we’re being fetched in a car.’

  ‘Never been in a car,’ remarked Rosie.

  ‘Well, you won’t go in one now if we don’t get a move on,’ replied Miss Hopkins briskly. ‘Now come along, both of you.’

  She held out a hand to each girl. Rosie took one, trustingly enough, but Rita thrust her own hands behind her back and turning her gaze on Miss Hassinger, said, ‘I want to go home. I don’t want to go with her.’

  ‘I’m afraid you must, Rita,’ said Miss Hassinger gently. ‘She has come to take you somewhere to be looked after…’ She hesitated and then added softly, ‘until your Mum can have you home again.’ Then she took Rita by the hand led her to the door. ‘Come along, Rita, there’s a good girl. You’ve got to look after Rosie, you know. That’s what Mum would want you to do.’

  ‘Now then, Rita, Rose,’ she said when they reached the street, ‘be good girls and do what Miss Hopkins tells you.’ She turned to the Children’s Officer and said, ‘Good afternoon, Miss Hopkins. I hope you are satisfied with this day’s work.’ Then she turned and walked, ramrod straight, back into her school.

  9

  Rita stared at Laurel House. It was grey and grim and she hated it before she’d even passed through its heavy front door. Why were they here? It must be a mistake. They lived in Ship Street with Mum. But she knew there was no mistake. Uncle Jimmy didn’t want them and somehow he had got this piggy-eyed woman to take them away.