The Throwaway Children

by Diney Costeloe

  ‘Yeah,’ answered Rita shortly, ‘she was hurting my sister.’

  Angela nodded. ‘Yeah, she’s a bully. She often hits the little kids.’

  ‘Frances stopped her,’ Rita said.

  ‘Yeah, well, Frances won’t always be there,’ Angela said. ‘She’s got a job now. You better watch out for Sheila. She’s got it in for you.’

  The walk to school took ten minutes. On the way they were overtaken by a number 37 bus. Rita watched to see where it stopped. The number 37 was the way home, back to Mum and back to Gran, but the bus didn’t stop; it swept round the corner and was lost to sight. Rita looked at the name of the road they were in. Meredith Lane. Me-red-ith. She sounded the name out to herself. Well, at least she knew where to look for the bus, even if she didn’t know where the stop was.

  When they reached the elementary school, the juniors and babies branched off into the playground, while the rest of the crocodile continued to the secondary school. Rita found Rosie in the playground and took her hand.

  ‘We go to school here now, Rosie,’ she said.

  Rosie clung to her. ‘I’m hungry,’ she wailed.

  ‘You didn’t eat no breakfast,’ pointed out Rita. ‘You let that Susan have it. You got to eat your breakfast, Rosie.’

  ‘I don’t like porridge,’ whined Rosie. ‘It was nasty.’

  ‘I didn’t like it, neither,’ Rita said, ‘but we got to eat it, or we’ll be hungry.’

  At that moment Angela came up to them. ‘Miss Harrison wants to see you both,’ she said and pointed towards the school door. Rita looked over to where Miss Harrison was waiting. ‘Come on Rosie,’ she said, and led her across.

  ‘Rita and Rose?’ asked the teacher with a smile. ‘Welcome to St George’s School. I’m Miss Harrison and I’m your new headmistress. Miss Hassinger phoned me and told me all about you. Come on inside and I’ll show you where your classrooms are.’ She reached for Rosie’s hand, but Rosie drew back and hid behind Rita.

  ‘Rosie’s shy, miss,’ Rita explained.

  ‘So she is,’ agreed Miss Harrison cheerfully. ‘Never mind, you just bring her in with you. Come along.’

  The morning passed very quickly. Everything was new and different at St George’s; for a start it was girls only and Capel Street Elementary had been mixed, but when Rita went to find Rosie at playtime, she was happily playing with a girl from her class, and so Rita left her to it.

  At the end of morning school the Laurel House girls were marched back to the home for lunch. It was fish and mashed potato, and though Rita didn’t like fish very much, she was so hungry that she, like everyone else at the table, ate it all. A rather soggy suet pudding followed, and then it was washing up again. Rita couldn’t believe it was still their turn.

  ‘We’ll be late for croc,’ she wailed when Daisy dragged her into the kitchen.

  ‘Better not be!’ warned Daisy. ‘Don’t want no dormitory stools!’

  All the Purples agreed with that, and hurriedly set to work on the dishes.

  ‘No more washing up for a week,’ crowed Daisy as they left the kitchen and rushed out to join the crocodile. ‘Yahoo!’

  ‘Warning, Daisy Smart, for making unseemly noises in the corridor!’ Mrs Hawkins was emerging from the dining room. ‘Another sound like that and you’ll be on punishment.’ She swept on down the passage, leaving Daisy mutinous, if pale-faced, behind her.

  ‘Watch out for the Hawk,’ she muttered to Rita. ‘She comes from nowhere!’ Then she stuck her tongue out at the retreating figure. ‘Don’t mess with the Hawk, Reet.’

  By the end of afternoon school, Rita was beginning to feel at home in her new classroom and she was sorry that it was Friday and there would be no more school until Monday. Miss Davis, her teacher, had given them all some spellings to learn, and said there would be a nine times table test on Monday. Rita had the words carefully written in her new spelling book. She wasn’t worried about the table test; Miss Hassinger had been very strict on learning tables and Rita already knew her nine times. But the thought of no school till Monday made Rita’s heart sink. Just Laurel House. A weekend of being shut up in Laurel House, with no escape… Unless, of course, Mum came to take them home. But as the crocodile wound its way in through the gate, Laurel House closed round her, so that for a moment Rita felt she couldn’t breathe. She looked round for Rosie, but she was much further back in the croc, with the other babies, and she couldn’t see her. The moment they were indoors, Daisy was pulling her into the kitchen.

  ‘Come on,’ she urged, ‘or we’ll get blackcurrants!’

  ‘What?’ Rita had no idea what she was talking about, but she hurried anyway. She had quickly discovered that Daisy knew her way around, and if she stuck with her she’d be all right. They were first into the kitchen and Mrs Smith gave them a large basket each and sent them out to pick gooseberries.

  ‘And don’t let me catch you eating any,’ warned Mrs Smith. ‘I want them baskets full, sharp as you like.’

  It took Rita and Daisy over half an hour to fill their baskets, and while they were picking Rita plucked up courage and asked her new friend some questions.

  ‘How long you been here, Dais?’ she asked.

  Daisy paused in her picking for a moment. ‘Here at Laurel House? Forever.’

  ‘My mum’ll come and get me an’ Rosie when she gets home,’ Rita said.

  ‘Sez you!’ retorted Daisy, adding as an afterthought, ‘Home from where?’

  ‘From fetching baby Richard from the hospital.’

  ‘Is that where she is?’ asked Daisy.

  ‘Yes, and when she gets home, she’ll come and get us.’

  ‘No!’ Daisy spoke emphatically. ‘She won’t. They never do.’

  ‘What?’ Rita turned sharply. ‘What you mean, “they never do”?’

  ‘They never come. Mums, or dads.’

  ‘Mine will,’ stated Rita.

  Daisy shrugged and went on picking the gooseberries. ‘Betty ain’t got no mum or dad, but she thought her auntie would come, and she’s still here. Her auntie never come for her, and she helps in the home now. You seen her. Wetty Betty what answers the door and runs round after them all.’

  ‘The maid?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Daisy said. ‘She’s been here forever, an’ now she has to stay an’ work ’ere.’

  ‘Why? Why’s she got to stay?’

  ‘’Cos she ain’t got nowhere else to go. She left school last year, but couldn’t get no proper job, so she has to work here, helping the Dragon an’ that.’

  ‘You got names for all of them,’ remarked Rita, looking across her basket and thinking how brave Daisy was. She’d stuck her tongue out at Mrs Hawkins at lunchtime. You’d have to be brave to do that, Rita thought.

  ‘Yeah, the Hawk, the Dragon, Ole Smithy and Wetty Betty.’

  ‘There was another lady when we come in,’ Rita said, ‘in her office. Who was that?’

  ‘That? Oh,’ Daisy said a little less nonchalantly, ‘that was Miss Vanstone. You belong to her now! Even if your mum does come, she can’t have you.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Rita fearfully. Daisy seemed to know everything. Suppose she was right. ‘Why can’t she?’

  ‘’Cos Miss V’s got the papers.’

  ‘Papers? What papers?’ But Rita remembered Miss Vanstone looking at some papers Miss Hopkins had brought.

  ‘The papers what say that you’ve got to stay here. She’s got papers about all of us.’

  When the baskets were full at last, they took them into the kitchen where Mrs Smith set them to the topping and tailing. By the time the bell went for high tea, their fingers were stained and sore, but they had finished.

  Daisy grabbed Rita’s hand. ‘Come on!’ she hissed as they hurried to line up for tea. ‘We’ve only got laundry drop to do tonight, and then we’re off.’

  ‘What’s laundry drop?’ asked Rita hurrying after her.

  ‘We have to collect the clean clothes from the Dragon and put them out on dorm
itory stools. Saturday tomorrow, ain’t it! Clean clothes day, sweets and no school. Best day of the week.’

  The laundry drop was quite easy. Rita took a pile of clothes to Green Dorm. As she put a set of clothes onto her sister’s stool, she muttered, ‘Hide Knitty properly.’

  Rosie pulled the pillow more firmly over Knitty’s head. ‘Will you come and see me later?’ she asked.

  ‘If I can,’ Rita said, and went on with her clothes drop.

  In the dorm that evening, Rita got ready for bed with the others, but she had already decided that she would creep into bed with Rosie again when everyone else was asleep. She had seen her briefly after tea and Rosie had told her about feeding the chickens.

  ‘Can we have chickens when we go home?’ Rosie had asked. ‘I like feeding chickens.’

  ‘Don’t think Mum likes chickens,’ Rita said.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Rosie, surprised. ‘We could have eggs. One of the big girls was collecting the eggs.’

  ‘We ain’t got a hen house, Rosie.’ Then to soften her words she gave her a hug. ‘What’s your teacher like?’

  ‘She’s called Miss Coucher,’ Rosie informed her, ‘and she shouts a lot. We did number-work and painting, and she told us a story about a circus. And Milly’s my friend.’

  The day had been so busy, Rita had had little time to think, no time to feel homesick for Mum and Gran, but now, as she collected washing water in her bowl and cleaned her teeth with Rosie’s toothbrush, she felt a sudden rush of homesickness. She hated Laurel House, the chores, the food. She hated the dreary dormitory. She wanted to go home. She wanted to see Gran. But most of all she wanted Mum. She fought back the tears. No one cried at bedtime, and she was determined no one should see her crying. She locked herself in the lavatory and there she stayed until she heard the Dragon. She flushed the toilet, and scurried back to the dorm.

  ‘Hurry up, Rita,’ scolded the Dragon, ‘it’s lights out.’

  ‘Sorry, Matron, I was being excused.’

  ‘You should have thought of that before, young lady,’ said Matron turning off the dormitory light, leaving Rita to find her way to bed in the gathering twilight.

  Rita waited until she was sure everyone else was in bed, and then crept to Green Dorm. She slipped in beside Rosie and curled up together, they both fell asleep.

  Saturday was not a bad day. They put on the clean clothes they had been given. No school uniform today, just the skirt and blouse left on the stool. There were always chores to do. The older girls worked in the laundry, some of them washing clothes in the big sink, others standing over ironing tables.

  Rita and Daisy were given a tin of Gumption and a cloth each and sent to clean the bathrooms. Daisy explained what had to be done and then they chatted companionably as they worked.

  ‘What happens for the rest of the weekend?’ Rita asked as she scrubbed at a line of scum on one of the tubs.

  ‘We got to do the veggies for dinner next,’ Daisy told her. ‘Then, when chores is finished, we have to do our homework. After dinner there’s sweets before we go out to play.’

  ‘Play out?’

  ‘Yeah, if we ain’t on punishment, or nothing. We go outside until teatime. Evening chores is the same. It’s Sundays that’s boring with church an’ that.’

  When the midday meal was over, they each chose two sweets from a huge tin that was passed round the table, and then went out into the garden. There was a hopscotch grid painted on the paved yard. Beyond was the kitchen garden where they’d picked the gooseberries, and the hen run where Rosie’d fed the chickens. A grassy area which Daisy called ‘the Patch’ had a couple of swings and a seesaw, and a dirty-looking sandpit in one corner.

  Most of the girls sat or played on the Patch. Rita saw Rosie happily digging in the sand, making a castle with her bare hands.

  ‘Come on,’ Daisy said as Rita paused to look round. She grabbed Rita’s hand and dragged her across the Patch, through a gate into the orchard beyond. ‘I’ll show you.’

  At the end of the orchard was a clump of bushes by the old stone wall. Daisy pushed her way through these and Rita followed. She found herself in a little clearing, surrounded by bushes on three sides and the wall on the fourth. An old piece of tarpaulin was draped over some of the branches, making a rough shelter beneath.

  ‘This is my camp,’ Daisy said. ‘I come here to get away from that lot.’ She jerked her head towards the house. ‘I keep my stuff here, safe like.’

  ‘What stuff?’ Rita looked round the hidey-hole curiously.

  ‘Private stuff… you know.’ Daisy crept under the tarpaulin roof and pulled out an old biscuit tin. ‘It’s in here,’ she said, opening the tin to show Rita what was inside. There was a pencil and some paper, a green stone with a hole in it, and a piece of string, a stale-looking biscuit and four threepenny bits. She picked up the stone and held it out.

  ‘That’s my lucky stone,’ she said. ‘I found it on the way to school, just lying it was, in the gutter.’

  Rita took the stone in her hand, admiring it, but her eyes were on the threepenny bits. She handed back the stone and said, ‘Where d’you get that money from then, Dais?’

  ‘That’s mine,’ Daisy said fiercely.

  ‘Didn’t say it wasn’t,’ said Rita. ‘Just wondered where you got it, that’s all.’

  That evening, hidden in the bathroom where none of the others could see, Rita showed Daisy the picture of Daddy.

  ‘He looks nice,’ Daisy remarked. ‘You’re lucky. I ain’t got no pictures of me mum.’

  ‘Or your dad?’ ventured Rita.

  ‘Don’t know who he is, do I?’ snapped Daisy. ‘Come on. Get that hid again. The Dragon’ll be here for lights out in a minute.’

  ‘Sunday’s always the worst day,’ Daisy informed Rita as they lined up after breakfast, ready to go to church. They were paired together in the crocodile that marched all the children from Laurel House to the Crosshills Methodist Church.

  ‘Why?’ Rita wasn’t really listening. She was wondering if Mum was home yet, and if she was, when she would come to find them.

  ‘’Cos we have to go to church, which is boring, and we ain’t allowed to do nothing but our chores.’

  The day proved quite as dreary as Daisy had described. When they reached the church, the Laurel House girls were all seated in pews at the back. The Hawk, the Dragon and Ole Smithy each sat at the end of a pew containing the younger girls. The working girls, including Betty Grover, sat behind. The rest of the church was filled with the ordinary parishioners.

  Rita stared round the church. She’d only been into a church a few times. Mum didn’t believe in church; she said that if God was really there He wouldn’t have let Daddy die in the war, and Rita had given God no further thought. At school they had scripture, she knew the Lord’s Prayer, and could recite the everyday prayers in school assembly, but they meant nothing to her. Now, as she waited for the service to begin, Rita looked round with interest. The church was not large, its walls red brick, pierced by arched windows, through the plain glass of which the sun was streaming. There was no other decoration.

  There was a buzz of conversation from the rest of the congregation as they waited for the minister to appear. Sitting near the front Rita saw the pig-faced woman. She was nodding and smiling to the people around her. She ignored the rows of girls at the back, and she wasn’t the only one. None of the people, dressed in their Sunday bests, who filled the other pews, paid any attention to the girls from Laurel House.

  Just before the service started one last woman arrived. Expensively dressed, wearing a stylish hat, she walked up the aisle and took her place in the front pew. Rita recognized her as the other lady from Laurel House, Miss Vanstone, the one Daisy said owned the place. She saw the pig-face raise her hand in a sort of wave, trying to catch Miss Vanstone’s eye, but Miss Vanstone looked neither right nor left as she moved into the front row. The moment she had taken her place, as if it were a signal that the proceedings could begin
, the minister glided out from behind a curtain, and the service began.

  It was as boring as Daisy had promised and Rita’s thoughts were soon far away, drifting back to Mum and Gran and baby Richard, and she felt a lump in her throat as she pictured them at home in Ship Street. She was startled back to her surroundings by a sharp nudge in the ribs from Daisy when they all had to stand to sing another hymn while the collection was taken. On arrival at the church, each girl had been given a threepenny bit to put in the collection bag when it came round.

  ‘I reckon they take the threepences out at the end of the service and give them to us again next time,’ Daisy muttered as they were handed theirs.

  Rita remembered the threepenny bits Daisy had in her tin. Had she kept them instead of putting them into the bag? Had Daisy really dared do that? She glanced sideways at her new friend, but Daisy was staring straight ahead of her. As the bag came along the row, everyone, including Daisy, dropped her coin into it before passing it on to the next girl.

  Daisy had been right. Sunday was a dead bore and as she slipped into bed in Purple Dorm that evening, Rita found herself looking forward to school the next day. She’d done her homework, practised her nine times and learned her spellings. She had no fears about school, and school would be away from Laurel House.

  11

  In the days that followed, Rita gradually settled into the strict routine at Laurel House. She was not happy, she still missed Mum and Gran desperately, but somehow she was not unhappy either. The rigid routine gave a framework to her days, which was oddly comforting. She quickly learned to keep her head down and conform to what was expected. Punishments were given for the most minor infringement of the rules, and there was nearly always someone sitting on one of the punishment chairs. Daisy and she had become firm friends, and this brought them to the attention of the staff, who frowned upon ‘particular friendships’, and when the chores rota was posted in the playroom, they found they were no longer paired to peel potatoes, or to scrub the bathrooms.