The Throwaway Children

by Diney Costeloe

  ‘Thank you, Miss Hopkins,’ said Miss Vanstone, when the Children’s Officer had finished. ‘My driver will take you home.’ She looked across at the two miserable children. ‘I’ll look after them now.’

  Miss Hopkins turned towards the door, but was unable to leave the children without saying, ‘You’re very naughty girls. I’m sure you’ll be severely punished.’

  Miss Vanstone waited for the door to close behind her before saying, ‘She’s right, you know. It was naughty to run away like that. Everyone’s been so worried about you.’ She looked across at Rita. ‘You shouldn’t have taken your sister out of school, Rita. It wasn’t safe to wander about in the streets like that. Thank goodness the policeman found you.’

  Rita said nothing. Rosie murmured, ‘I want Mummy.’

  ‘Have you nothing to say for yourself, Rita?’

  Rita was certain that nothing she said would make any difference, but she answered. ‘Rosie wet her bed, and they made her stand on her stool with the wet sheet over her head.’

  ‘I see,’ said Miss Vanstone. ‘And what about you? What were you punished for?’

  ‘Rosie was frightened. I just went into her dorm to sleep. We’ve always slept together. We was asleep in bed, that’s all.’ She did not tell this frightening lady about the Hawk and the beating. She wouldn’t believe her any more than the pig-faced woman had.

  ‘I see,’ said Miss Vanstone again. ‘Well, things are different at Laurel House, Rita. We don’t allow that sort of thing.’ She turned her attention back to Rosie. ‘You can stop that moaning, young lady,’ she said. ‘Your mother isn’t here and isn’t going to be. She has sent you here to be looked after, and this is where you’ll stay. We’ll have no more of this nonsense. No more wet beds, no more sleeping with Rita. You’re a big girl now. Laurel House is where you live, and you’d both better get used to it.’ She paused and looked at the two children standing in front of her. ‘Now, go to your dormitories and go to bed. I want to hear no more of you. Tomorrow you’ll start afresh.’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ whimpered Rosie.

  ‘You’ll be even hungrier by breakfast,’ retorted Miss Vanstone. ‘Now off you go, and I don’t want to see either of you in here again.’

  When the door had closed behind them, Miss Vanstone sat back in her chair and considered what had happened. Mrs Hawkins was right, Rita Stevens could make trouble. The problem is, she thought, that they’re really living too close to their mother, and suppose the mother changed her mind too? She rang the bell and sent for Mrs Hawkins.

  ‘You were right about Rita being difficult,’ she agreed, ‘so we’ll have to do something about them both, and quickly, before she causes any more trouble. I think we’ll send them in the group going to Carrabunna.’ She looked up at Mrs Hawkins. ‘It’ll get them out of your hair. I’ll get the documentation sorted out. You can organize their passports. In the meantime, please watch them extremely carefully. We don’t want a repeat performance of this, it gives the home a bad name. I gather the police were involved.’

  ‘Just one policeman,’ Mrs Hawkins assured her. ‘He found them wandering about and took them home.’

  ‘Well,’ said Miss Vanstone, ‘if anyone from the police does come round, please ensure you refer him to me.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, Miss Vanstone.’ The superintendent was relieved. She had no wish to be interviewed by the police about any punishment that she had meted out to Rita. ‘I’ll get on to their passports straight away.’

  13

  Lily Sharples sat on a chair in the hospital dayroom, waiting to go home. The plaster was off her leg, her hair was beginning to cover the puckered scar on her head, and the recurring headaches came less often.

  ‘I can’t wait to get home,’ she told Nurse Marsh. ‘Nothing like being in your own home, is there?’

  ‘No,’ the nurse agreed, ‘but is there anyone there to help you?’

  ‘Not living in, no,’ said Lily, ‘but my daughter’ll come over every day to see I’m all right.’ She gave the nurse a conspiratorial smile. ‘I told the almoner she’d be there, so you don’t have to worry.’

  ‘So, really, you’re going to be on your own,’ Nurse Marsh said sternly.

  ‘Well, some of the time,’ admitted Lily.

  ‘Will you be able to cope? Your plaster is off, but you’re still on crutches.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ asserted Lily. ‘My neighbour’s been in and put my bed down in the front room, so I don’t have to do stairs yet, and when my granddaughters move back in they can be my legs, can’t they?’

  ‘Your granddaughters?’

  ‘Yes, Rita and Rosie. They live with me, you see.’

  ‘Do they now?’ Nurse Marsh was pretty sure Lily hadn’t mentioned granddaughters to the almoner either.

  ‘And my daughter’s had a baby since I come in here,’ Lily said. ‘I haven’t seen him yet. She didn’t want to bring him into the hospital in case of infection.’

  That’s what Anne Baillie had told her when she’d visited and told her she had a grandson. It was Anne who had been her most regular visitor. Carrie had come in once and told her that she had been looking after the girls until Mavis got back from her honeymoon, but she didn’t come again. Anne came often, and it was Fred and their son, Martin, who’d moved her bed downstairs. It was Fred, she knew, who had come to her aid after the accident, and today he was coming in his van to collect her and take her back home.

  ‘You’ve both been very good to me,’ Lily had said, touched at their thoughtfulness.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Anne had chided gently. ‘What else are neighbours for?’

  ‘Well,’ said Nurse Marsh, looking at the determined woman sitting in the chair waiting, ‘don’t you overdo it, Mrs Sharples, or you’ll find yourself back in here.’

  ‘I won’t,’ promised Lily. ‘I’ll take it steady, and get back to normal gradually.’

  Fred arrived then, peering in through the door of the dayroom.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Lily,’ he said. ‘Your carriage awaits.’

  Lily beamed at him. ‘Thank you, Fred. I’m ready.’ She got to her feet a little unsteadily and, grasping firmly hold of her crutches, walked slowly across the room. At the door she turned back and smiled at the nurse. ‘Thank you for everything, nurse. You’ve all been so kind. Please thank all the others, too.’

  ‘You make sure she doesn’t do too much too soon,’ the nurse warned Fred as he picked up Lily’s bag. ‘She’s a lady with a mind of her own.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, nurse,’ he replied, ‘my wife’ll keep an eye on her. She’s only round the corner.’

  Ten minutes later they drew up outside the house in Hampton Road where Anne was waiting.

  ‘Welcome home, Lily,’ cried Anne. ‘I’ve got the kettle on.’

  ‘Thank you, Anne, just what I need.’ Lily struggled into the house and headed straight for the kitchen, its warm familiarity calming her.

  Anne made the tea and all three of them sat round the table drinking it.

  ‘I got some food in for you,’ she said, ‘just to keep you going until Mavis can do a proper shop.’

  ‘Thank you, Anne, you’ve thought of everything.’ Lily took a sip of her tea. ‘Mavis knows I’m coming home today, don’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ Anne said cautiously, ‘I did tell her.’

  ‘Then they’ll be round later,’ Lily said. ‘I can’t wait to see the girls, and of course the new baby. Richard, you told me. Lovely. Named for his granddad.’

  Once they’d seen Lily safely settled into the house, had shown her the front room bedroom, and made sure she had everything she needed to hand, the Baillies left her alone.

  ‘Soon as you can manage them stairs again, Lily,’ Fred said as they stood at the front door, ‘Martin and me’ll move your bed back upstairs for you.’

  They’ve all been so kind, Lily thought as she closed the door behind them. She moved slowly back to the kitchen, remembering to sit in an upright chair a
s they’d told her in the hospital. The house was very quiet and she sat still, relishing the peace after the busyness of the ward. She’d missed Rita and Rosie dreadfully while she’d been in hospital. She’d imagined them getting to know their new little brother, helping Mavis to look after him, with Rita learning to change him and give him a bath. Surely they’ll be round later and, in the meantime, perhaps she’d have a little rest on the bed. Take it steady, the nurse said.

  She was awoken an hour later by the shrill of the front doorbell. Slowly she got to her feet and, grabbing her crutches, went to open the door. It was Mavis.

  ‘Mum,’ she cried, lifting the baby from the pram and holding him out in front of her, almost as if he were a shield, ‘meet your new grandson, meet Richard.’

  Lily looked at the bundle in Mavis’s arms. ‘Oh Mavis, he’s beautiful. Come on in and let me see him properly.’ She turned, awkwardly making her way back to the kitchen, and Mavis followed her.

  Once she was sitting down, Lily took the baby, holding him close, pressing her cheek to the softness of his dark hair. She looked up again at her daughter. ‘He’s beautiful, love,’ she said again, ‘and the image of you when you was a baby.’

  Mavis gave a half laugh. ‘Think so? Jimmy thinks he looks like him.’

  ‘Well, a bit of both of you,’ Lily said diplomatically. ‘Where’s the girls? I can’t wait to see them. I thought they’d come with you.’

  ‘I’ll make some tea, shall I?’ suggested Mavis, reaching for the kettle.

  Lily, however, was not to be diverted. ‘Where’s Rita and Rosie?’ she asked again. ‘It’s Saturday and they ain’t at school.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Mavis. ‘Look, Mum, let me make the tea and I’ll tell you all about them. Richard needs a feed, d’you want to give him his bottle?’

  Lily smiled. ‘It’s a long time since I did that, not since Rosie was a baby.’ She watched as Mavis made tea and warmed Richard’s bottle, all the while cuddling the warm bundle that was Richard close against her. When the tea had at last been poured, and Richard was sucking hungrily at his milk, Lily said, ‘Well, come on Mavis, tell me about the girls.’

  ‘When you was run over, Mum, and I was on my honeymoon, Carrie took them in and minded them. They didn’t have no address for us, see?’

  ‘Yes, I know all that, she told me.’

  ‘Then when we got home again they come back to Ship Street. You can guess Jimmy weren’t too pleased.’

  Lily said nothing, simply nodded.

  ‘Anyway, then my waters broke and when the midwife come she said the baby was breach and I had to go to the hospital. So Jimmy got an ambulance.’ Mavis sighed and for a moment lapsed into silence.

  ‘And the girls?’

  ‘The girls went back to Carrie’s for the night.’

  ‘They ain’t still there?’ asked Lily, surprised.

  ‘No, course not. But I was in the hospital and Jimmy couldn’t look after them, could he? I mean… well, he had to go to work. We need his pay packet, don’t we?’

  ‘You didn’t let them come home to an empty house after school, did you?’

  ‘No, course not,’ said Mavis, and latching on to this as a reason for what she had done she added, ‘I wanted them looked after proper, didn’t I? Couldn’t ask Carrie to have them every day, could I? And when Jimmy got home from work he was coming to see me in the hospital.’

  ‘So?’ Lily’s voice was dangerously low. ‘So what did you do, Mavis?’

  But she knew. Before Mavis, still blustering, admitted that she’d put the children into the council’s care, Lily knew and she grew cold. ‘You put them in an ’ome, didn’t you?’

  ‘Mum, don’t look like that,’ begged Mavis. ‘What else could I do? I couldn’t expect Carrie to have them that long, Jimmy was working and you was in the hospital…’

  ‘But it’d have only been till you was out of hospital,’ said Lily. ‘How long was you in there? Ten days?’

  ‘Two weeks, Mum, because Richard—’

  ‘Two weeks,’ Lily interrupted her. ‘Two weeks and then you were home to look after them yourself. Couldn’t Carrie have had them just for that two weeks?’

  ‘I couldn’t ask, Mum. She’d already had them for nearly a week. They was sleeping on Maggie’s bedroom floor.’

  ‘They could have gone to her till Jimmy got home and then slept in their own beds.’ Lily sounded desperate. Surely something could have been arranged.

  ‘Mum—’

  ‘So you put them in an ’ome,’ said Lily flatly. ‘Your own kids. You let that Jimmy persuade you.’ She looked up at her daughter with bleak eyes. ‘And when you did come out the hospital? What then? Why didn’t you fetch them home?’

  ‘I couldn’t, Mum, not right away. Richard’s a colicky baby. I weren’t getting any sleep and the house was getting on top of me. Jimmy was out all day and of course he was tired when he come home at night. It’s heavy work labouring on a site. I couldn’t have the girls there too, it was too much.’

  ‘It’d have only been till I got home again,’ Lily cried. ‘Just a few weeks.’

  ‘We didn’t know that, Mum,’ whined Mavis. ‘We didn’t know if you’d be well enough to have them back.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ demanded Lily. ‘I ain’t old, you know.’

  ‘You’d had a bang on the head, you might have been left a bit funny.’

  ‘Gaga, you mean? Spit it out, Mavis. Let’s not mince matters. Well, I might have been, but I ain’t and you didn’t bother to wait and find out. You simply shunted them off into an ’ome. And now they’ve gone, Jimmy ain’t going to have them back, is he?’ Still cuddling the baby, who had now finished his bottle and fallen asleep in her arms, she stared into space. Her beloved Rita and Rosie were in a home somewhere thinking that nobody wanted them. ‘Who took them there?’ she asked. ‘Did Jimmy take them? Did he pretend they could come home again soon?’

  Mavis couldn’t meet her mother’s eyes. She shook her head. ‘The woman from the council took them,’ she whispered. ‘She went round the school and took ’em from there.’

  ‘And that Miss Hassinger let her?’ Lily was outraged. ‘Surely she could’ve stopped her.’

  ‘The woman, Miss Hopkins, had all the papers,’ Mavis said. ‘Miss Hassinger couldn’t have done nothing.’

  ‘And you’d signed these papers? You’d signed away your own kids? Your own flesh and blood? Oh, Mavis, how could you?’

  ‘I had to,’ sobbed Mavis, the tears which had been filling her eyes now flooding down her cheeks. ‘I had to, Mum, what else could I do? At least they’re looked after properly there, and that Miss Hopkins said it wasn’t true when Rita said she’d been beaten—’

  ‘Rita said she’d been beaten?’ broke in Lily. ‘You’ve been to see her then?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Mavis, realizing she’d let slip too much. ‘No, she brought Rosie home… to see Richard.’

  ‘Brought Rosie home?’ echoed Lily incredulously. ‘They let her bring Rosie home, by herself?’

  ‘No. They’d run away. Rita took Rosie out from school and a copper brought them home.’

  ‘A copper did?’ Lily stared at her for a long minute. ‘Come on, Mavis, spit it out. Tell me what happened. Rita said she’d been beaten?’

  ‘That’s Reet just making up her stories again,’ sniffed Mavis, dabbing her tears. ‘That Miss Hopkins said they don’t beat the girls there.’

  Don’t they? wondered Lily to herself. I think I know who I’d rather believe. But she simply said, ‘So, they come home…’

  ‘And that Miss Hopkins come round in a car and picked them up again. That’s all.’

  ‘And you let her? You let her take them?’

  ‘I couldn’t stop her, Mum,’ whined Mavis, the tears continuing to flow. ‘How could I stop her? She had the papers, she had the right—’

  ‘Only ’cos you’d signed the bleedin’ papers,’ snapped her mother. ‘I don’t know what you’re crying for, Mavis, it’s y
our fault, and no one else’s.’ Lily held the baby out to his mother and continued, ‘Well, all I can say is I hope you look after this one better than you’ve done with the girls. Now, where are they?’

  Mavis took the proffered baby and hugged him close. ‘I don’t know,’ she muttered.

  ‘Don’t know!’ Lily’s voice was almost a shriek. ‘What d’you mean you don’t know?’

  ‘Miss Hopkins didn’t say.’

  ‘But it must have been on the papers or something.’

  Mavis did know, but before coming today, Jimmy had given her a sound talking to.

  ‘Now don’t you go telling that interfering mother of yours where them girls have gone or she’ll be round the ’ome sticking her oar in where it ain’t wanted and causing us more grief.’ He grabbed Mavis by the shoulders and shook her hard. ‘You understand, Mav? If you tell that old cow where them girls are, I won’t be answerable for the consequences, right?’

  ‘I won’t tell,’ promised Mavis, and now, even with her mother’s eyes boring into her, she didn’t.

  ‘She didn’t say,’ she said, ‘and I was in a right state, wasn’t I? I didn’t ask.’

  ‘And what sort of state was the children in, I wonder,’ said Lily bitterly, but she didn’t expect an answer, and she didn’t get one. She looked up at Mavis who was now cradling Richard just as she had once cradled Rita and then Rosie.

  ‘I think you’d better go home,’ she said. ‘I can’t bear the sight of you just now.’

  ‘But Mum, I—’

  ‘Go home, Mavis. Go back to Jimmy. You deserve him.’

  ‘Mum, that’s not fair—’ began Mavis, but Lily cut her off.

  ‘Fair? What d’you mean fair?’

  ‘Jimmy’s Richard’s dad…’

  ‘Indeed he is,’ said Lily wearily. ‘I just pray there isn’t an ounce of that man in him, precious babe.’ She raised her eyes to her daughter once more. ‘Go home, Mavis, and look after Richard, he’s going to need you.’ She turned away and stared steadfastly out of the window until Mavis had finally left. It was then, and only then, that Lily gave way to her emotions and allowed her pent-up tears to course down her cheeks, the sobs racking her body until she could cry no more.