‘I want—’ A whisper escaped from her and became part of the rhythm. ‘I want I want I want . . .’ as her back banged harder against the rough wall. At first it was angry, hard rocking that jarred the breath in her lungs. ‘I want I want . . .’ A cry she had never been able to use in her life escaped from her ‘Mom!’ And then, ‘Amy . . . Amy . . .’
But Amy was gone to be a servant in Canada. She’d left weeks ago via Liverpool, with a tin trunk, cloth bag and a label on her coat. In the hall they’d sung ‘God Be with You ’til We Meet Again’, and after, Amy had hugged her tight and told her she’d always love her and be her friend.
She rocked more gently, tired, her tiny body aching, sobbing at last, so that tears fell on her cotton pinafore and she had to wipe her nose on it, having no hanky. Mixed in with her rage and grief was the thought of the spread of cold meats and salads, of pudding and cakes laid out upstairs, of all the other girls with their hair ribbons, eating plates of this out of the ordinary food, when every other day it was stew, stew, stew. Dorothy had told her there would be jellies: quivering castles of ruby red, royal purple of crushed blackcurrants, the cool sweet smoothness of it down your throat . . .
She cried herself to exhaustion, the sobs making her ribs hurt even more. Her belly was tight and uncomfortable. Putting her hands down on each side of her to shift her weight, her left hand met something long and soft, and she jerked it away, panting with revulsion, breaking out in a sweat. Her palm was coated in a slimy stickiness. She shifted quickly to the other end of the step, wiping the hand frantically on her pinner. All those things, those shapes, down there, that drip, drip, drip . . . things she couldn’t see, were they getting closer, were they, were they? And the slimy thing next to her, where was it, what was it doing? Panic swelled right up into her throat until she was gasping with it, and she could hold on no longer. The warm rush of urine, so dreadfully wet, soaked through her bloomers, through the skirt of her dress, fast turning cold on her skin and splashing her ankles, nasty-smelling. She whimpered in distress, holding her knees tightly with her arms, not daring to move to the dryer part of the steps because that slimy thing was there waiting for her.
The door seemed the one solid thing of safety and she thrust her fingers in her ears, and pushed her head down on her knees making herself keep her eyes shut.
If I can’t see them they’re not there, she said to herself. Nothing’s there. Just me, that’s all. Nothing can hurt me. Nothing can ever hurt me.
She rocked herself until her arms slid down again and circled her legs, her head lolled sideways against the door and she fell asleep.
The clatter of the bolt being drawn back came so loud after the long, long silence. Mercy jumped, still half asleep, and immediately tensed, cowering away from the door in dread as to what was out there.
‘Mercy?’ Dorothy Finch’s scared face peered in at her. She spoke in a whisper. ‘Oh, you silly, silly girl. What the ’ell did you go and have to bite Mr Hanley for? What’s ’e ever done to you, eh? You’re your own worst enemy, you are. ’Ere—’ She held out a chipped white bowl. ‘Get this down you. I’ll be skinned alive if Miss O’Donnell catches me giving yer it.’
She saw that the little girl’s eyes, screwed up against the light, were fixed on something at the other end of the step. A huge, pale brown slug lay oozing beside the door frame, and Mercy shuddered violently. She was shamefully aware of her wet clothes.
‘Ugh!’ Dorothy flicked the slug down the steps with the toe of her boot. She held out the bowl and Mercy saw two jewelled scoops of red jelly in the bottom.
Dorothy knelt down, her lithe body dressed in a high-collared white blouse tucked into an ankle-length black skirt. Her long brown hair was pinned up becomingly above an almost pretty face. She took in the little girl’s sorrowful expression, her blotchy cheeks.
‘Got anything to say then?’
Mercy swallowed a big gulp of jelly and without looking up said, ‘Ta.’
‘Thank you, you’re meant to say.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re a proper nib, aren’t you? What d’you do it for, Mercy?’
She straightened up suddenly in alarm. Someone was coming.
‘Oh my God!’ Dorothy stepped inside the cellar, pulled the door closed. ‘Ooh – ain’t it dark in ’ere?’ she whispered. ‘Pongs a bit too!’ She squatted down next to Mercy who continued, undeterred, to shovel jelly into her mouth.
The tread came closer and stopped outside the door. Whoever it was let out a hearty belch. Mercy snorted with laughter. Dorothy clamped a hand over the child’s mouth, praying that whoever it was hadn’t heard. There came the sound of metal buckets clanging together and by what seemed a miracle, whoever it was went away again.
Mercy and Dorothy exploded with giggles.
‘You don’t care, do yer!’ Dorothy pushed the door open and ruffled Mercy’s hair. ‘You just don’t give a monkey’s you don’t. Look, I’ve got to get out of here. Give us your bowl. You’re going to have to stay put in ’ere though, Mercy, ’til Miss O’Donnell comes to get you out. And when she does you’d better start behaving yourself or she’s going to have you down on your hands and knees scrubbing floors the rest of your days!’
Before she shut the door again she looked down at Mercy with solemn eyes. Suddenly she swooped forward and kissed her cheek. ‘Not long now, eh? Just hold on.’
The door closed again. It was bedtime when Miss O’Donnell came. What she wanted was Mercy penitent, broken. But when Mercy looked up at her the look of brazen defiance was burning there, fuelled by a bowl of red jelly and the knowledge that there was one single person at Hanley’s who cared about her.
At least I’ve got Dorothy, she said to herself as she lay in bed in the dormitory that night. She stroked the spot on her cheek where Dorothy kissed her. Dorothy’s got time for me.
November 1911
‘Mercy?’ Miss Eagle’s voice was shrill with disbelief. ‘Mercy Hanley?’
‘Do we have any other girl called Mercy in our care?’ Miss Rowney asked dryly. She was at the desk in her sitting room-cum-office, her thin hair pulled into a tight knot which made her already large-boned face look even heavier. Miss O’Donnell and Miss Eagle stood before her on a rug so threadbare that patches of the wooden floor could be seen through it. However much they felt obliged to fête Mr Hanley for his generosity, money was nevertheless tight in this establishment.
The sky outside was so thick with cloud that the room was almost dark and there was no fire in the grate, although it was viciously cold.
‘But—’ Miss Eagle tried to find a way of protesting this madness without sounding thoroughly impertinent. ‘Mercy’s, well – she’s . . .’
‘A damn nuisance, so she is,’ Miss O’Donnell butted in with no hesitation, hands on her staunch hips. ‘She’s a flaming little wildcat and now’s our chance to get shot of her.’
‘We thought boarding out might be the way to settle her down,’ Miss Rowney said, attempting to sound a little more professional. ‘I mean, heaven knows we’re hardly beseiged with requests for foster children. It ought to be a good chance for her. The lady asked for a girl of Mercy’s age – well, perhaps what she meant was a little older, but no matter, Mercy’s nearly twelve. And she seemed firm enough of character. She has a respectable address in, let’s see—’ She picked up a sheet of paper and held it at arm’s length, squinting through pince-nez. ‘Handsworth. Husband employed in a whip factory, I understand. No children. We’ll have the place inspected of course . . .’
‘We should’ve packed her off to Canada with the last lot.’ Miss O’Donnell strode over to the window and stood looking at the murk outside. It was beginning to rain. ‘Heaven knows, I shouldn’t mind going to Canada. See a bit of grass and some trees for a change instead of this filth-ridden hole with its strikes and its wife murderers.’
Last year’s execution of a Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen who’d deposited his slaughtered wife’s body under the floorboards was still playing on Miss O’Donnell’s mind as a sign of England’s depravity. Even the lavish Coronation of King George V had not persuaded her she was any better off living in the heart of the Empire.
Miss Rowney ignored her. ‘We can get this settled as quickly as possible. As for the inspection – I’ll have to do it myself. We’re not Dr Barnardo’s after all – doctors for this and inspectors for that.’ She tutted. ‘We’re short enough this week, with Dorothy Finch taking bad.’ Suddenly she waved her hand at the other two women. ‘All right, all right, you can go. I’ll sort it out.’
The children stood with faces pressed against the railing of St Philip’s playground.
‘Look!’ a little boy shrieked with excitement. ‘It’s coming – it’s getting closer!’
In the road outside a horse clopped slowly past along the cobbles, pulling a dray loaded with barrels. But behind, gaining on the stately pace of the cart, was the object of their excitement.
‘’Ark at it go!’ the boy shouted.
‘Look at them wheels!’
‘Ain’t it beautiful? Oi – give us a ride, mate!’
The Austin motor car bowled past, bodywork gleaming even in the dull light. The wheels were like small cartwheels coated in rubber, and the the two behatted men sat high above the road. They kept their faces turned to the front, not heeding the children’s cheers and claps as they leant on the railings straining to get the last views of the automobile before it turned the corner.
‘Eh – who’s that shovin’? Pack it in!’
There came a jostling and a very forceful pushing from the back of the tangle of children, and one of the smallest girls, all sharp elbows and knees, forced her way to the front, supple as a fish.
‘Who d’you think you are, Mercy?’ One of the boys pulled her arm, trying to force her back. ‘Barging in – we all want to see.’
The boy found the girl’s strange, catlike eyes turned on him and a second later received a kick on the shin so hard it brought tears to his eyes and he doubled up to rub his leg. ‘Oi, ’er kicked me, ’er did!’
‘’Ere—’ The boy drummed up a group of his pals as the others started to move away. ‘That Mercy didn ’alf give me one.’
‘She’s a vicious little cow!’
‘Come on – let’s get ’er.’
She saw them coming, circling her. No one stood up for her. The other children watched apprehensively.
Mercy stood quite still, arms crossed tight over her chest. Her hair was longer now and the bright plaits reached halfway down her back. She was neat-looking as ever, frock straight and clean and hanging below her knees, feet together in her little boots, eyes flaring defiance.
‘Come on then, Mercy,’ one of the boys goaded as they danced round her. They started to run at her, mocking, then retreating back. ‘Gunna shout at us? Gunna scream? Go on – let’s see yer, Mercy-Nursie!’
The taunting children circled, faces moving in and out of her view. ‘Mercy-Nursie!’ they chanted, ‘Mercy-Nursie, the Hanley bastard!’ Their voices meaner and meaner when they met no satisfying response, no tantrum or any sort of reaction, however much they goaded her about carrying the name of the orphan’s patron.
Mercy looked up beyond them towards the red-brick school building. The freezing buffeted her raw cheeks. She felt she was watching everything from the other end of a long, long tube, like looking down through a chimney, the children’s faces turned up towards her from several storeys below. She felt nothing for them. She had learned to retreat somewhere deep into herself that no one could touch; nothing they said or did could hurt her. What she could feel, most immediately, was the itch of her rough wrapover vest round the tops of her arms, how her left boot was pinching her burning chilblains, the rough ache of her sore throat. But the other children she let flit around her, distant as summer swallows.
One of the boys shoved Mercy’s shoulder hard and she reeled backwards, tumbled on to the hard ground, skinning her elbow.
‘Look, she’s gunna blart now!’ one of them cried triumphantly as tears of pain sprang into Mercy’s eyes. ‘Come on, let’s see yer. ’Er’s like a statue – can’t move ’er bleedin’ face!’
I’m not crying for ’em, Mercy vowed. I’m never doing anything they want – never.
She lay on the ground and curled into a ball on her side, face hidden in her hands. If she couldn’t see them they weren’t there. She’d killed them. They didn’t exist.
The handbell to summon them all inside began ringing, growing louder as one of the teachers, Mr Paget, came out, his arm beating the bell up and down in the icy wind.
‘What’s all this?’ He strode across to the ring of children. ‘Get inside the rest of you. Go on – hurry up.’ The children fled, giggling with relief at avoiding trouble.
‘On your feet, child.’ As he bent down Mr Paget saw a dark, creeping line of blood along the girl’s wrist. With impatience he pulled her hands from her face and saw her nose was bleeding, huge, plum-coloured drops falling on her school dress. Though she had tears in her eyes she stared up at him with that blank yet insolent look of hers which seldom failed to aggravate.
‘What’ve you done?’ Mr Paget fished round irritably in his jacket pocket to find his handkerchief for Mercy to hold against her nose. ‘Someone hit you?’
Mercy just looked at him.
‘Well did they?’
‘No.’
‘No, Mr Paget.’ He stared at her, tight-lipped. Who could fathom this child?
‘We’ve all had enough of this, Mercy. You cause nothing but trouble. I’m sending you back across the road and I don’t want to see you in school for the rest of this week.’
This was Wednesday. A terrible crime, the worst, being sent home from school. It ‘besmirched’ the good name of the Hanley Homes if they got into any trouble outside.
Mr Paget added grimly, ‘We’ll let Matron deal with you as she sees fit.’
Miss O’Donnell’s footsteps were coming closer.
‘Come here, child!’ She loomed into view along the corridor, hair wrapped in a starched white cap.
Not the cellar! Mercy’s heart seemed about to leap out of her chest. She felt as if she’d fall down if she moved, but she turned and forced herself to walk towards the huge woman who was bearing down on her.