Authors: Trisha Merry
By the time they were all in bed asleep, and we’d tiptoed round and snuck little gifts and fillers into everyone’s stockings, we were ready for an early night. Mike and I fell into a
deep sleep, but it wasn’t to last.
Paul burst into our room at one o’clock in the morning.
‘Father Christmas forgot me,’ he wailed. I’d never heard Paul cry quite like this before. He could be wild and troublesome sometimes, out of sheer exuberance, but mostly he was
a ball of lightning with a sunny smile. But it was Christmas Eve and he really thought he had been left out. I took him by the hand, back into his bedroom, which he shared with Ronnie and AJ. I was
sure we had left his stocking stuffed full of goodies, just like all the others, but it was completely flat and empty on the end of his bed.
‘Maybe Father Christmas has put your presents somewhere else,’ I suggested, wiping his tears away. ‘Come with me now and you can choose something for you to keep from the
secret treasure-chest in my bedroom.’
‘OK,’ he whimpered, taking my hand.
In the morning, in all the excitement of everyone up before dawn, laughing and smiling as they emptied their stockings out on their beds, Paul was able to do the same. I’d gone back and
quietly searched their room, without waking a soul, but I didn’t have to look far – I wasn’t surprised to find Paul’s missing gifts stuffed under the end of AJ’s
bed.
No wonder AJ looked so amazed to see Paul enjoying his stocking gifts.
‘Pop your slippers on and keep your feet warm,’ I said to all three boys, but I watched AJ as he knelt down to find his slippers, which I’d kicked under the bed. He stayed down
there just a couple of seconds too long, surveying the empty space, and as he stood up again, his eyes widened and his face turned pale.
‘Happy Christmas, AJ,’ I said with a grin.
He gave me a sideways look, but said nothing. He didn’t need to. I knew what he was thinking. I believe he may have guessed what I was thinking too.
Santa was kind to all the children that Christmas and they all played happily together with their new toys. As we approached New Year, we had two spaces in our house. I wondered who we’d
have next to fill them.
D
aisy and Paul had now been with us two and a half years and they hadn’t seen their father since the day he’d been drunk. I
wasn’t sure they even remembered him anymore. Six-year-old Chrissy and five-year-olds Sheena and Ronnie were all still with us. More recently, gangly six-year-old AJ had arrived and joined in
with their games, especially with Ronnie – I don’t know which of them was clumsier and they always came in muddy, whatever the weather.
Our little bush-baby, Laurel, was a toddler now, at eighteen months old, running around and trying to catch up with the older ones. She was a spunky little thing and rarely without a smile or a
giggle. Her thick hair now completely hid the scar from her head injury the day she’d been found. No mother or relative had ever come forward, despite all the publicity, so the police had
closed the case and she was now officially up for adoption.
It was six months since newborn baby Gail had joined us and despite her swollen head, caused by the hydrocephalus, having to be protected so much, she was a gentle and contented child, who loved
watching the activities going on all around her.
We had a slide and a climbing frame with a net in the garden at Sonnington, and various outdoor toys and games. But what I loved watching best was when they were making things up, making
wonderful fun out of very little. Some logs, some string, some old car and tractor tyres, some of which we hung from the trees; old boxes, cardboard tubes for sword-fights, old sheets and sticks to
make tents with. They had three acres to run around and play in and all the fruit trees to climb, so they weren’t hard work when they were outside.
Come rain or shine, the bigger ones would all be out there whenever they could. And on hot days one of the things they loved best was a good water-fight. They loved spraying each other with a
couple of hoses, while the little ones ran and splashed about, screaming with excitement.
The older ones were very caring with the younger children. Most days somebody came running in to tell me ‘Laurel’s fallen over’, or ‘the baby’s just been
sick’. All the kids competed to rush in and do the telling when there was the slightest incident, which they had exaggerated into a major disaster by the time they got to me.
A few days into the new year we were joined by another eighteen-month-old toddler. Alfie was very shy at first and clung on to the cuddly elephant he had brought with him. He took it everywhere
and could rarely be persuaded to let it go – even at bathtime. We had to pretend to wash ‘Ellie’ too.
A few days after Alfie came, we had a call from Social Services and welcomed four-year-old Gilroy, whose mother was something to behold. She told me she had saved Gilroy from a vicious beating
from his father,
‘He’s a brute; he is always attacking us,’ she explained. ‘Only I couldn’t watch him murder my boy.’ She shot a quick glance at her sturdy son, who glared
back at her.
There doesn’t seem much love lost there, I thought. But at least she had protected Gilroy from serious injury, or worse.
‘I ran down to the chippy and rang for the police,’ she said. ‘Fat lot of good they did. Just cautioned the sod. So I had to call Social Services to take Gilroy into
care.’ She paused. ‘It’s a good job we only had one child.’ She raised her voice. ‘And he’s nothing but a pain.’ I glanced at Gilroy, who looked away,
hiding his anguish.
As soon as his mother had left, Gilroy’s mood switched to anger as he ran out to join the gang, though I don’t think they were too keen on the way he muscled in straight away. I
watched him as he went from one child to another, pushing and bullying his way round the garden, until he came to little Alfie, cowering away from him. Gilroy grabbed his elephant and pushed the
toddler into a muddy puddle. Then he threw poor Alfie’s elephant over the fence. Alfie wailed loudly and the other kids came to his aid. Luckily it had landed on the top of a bush, so our
tallest child, Ronnie, piled up some wooden crates, climbed up and just managed to reach it with his long arms. Gilroy kicked Ronnie’s leg and ran off surprisingly fast. Luckily, good-natured
Ronnie just ignored Gilroy after that, protecting the others as much as he could.
That boy was in a permanent strop from the day he arrived. I could see that his traumatic background and difficult mother would haunt him, and probably us as well, for a long time. Gilroy was
the bull in our china shop and shook everyone up. His main pleasure seemed to be to hurt others. But he did gradually settle in and even relaxed a little as he wormed his way into our affections
with his jokes and his dramatic exaggerations. Indeed, despite his young age, he dominated almost every situation, always on the lookout for ways to make things worse or unduly alarm people.
So when he rushed in to update me on any minor mishap, it was a major scoop and he made the most of it. ‘Ronnie’s fallen over. He’s hit his head and the blood’s pouring
out. His eyes look funny. Do you think he’s dead?’
I rushed out to find a tiny scratch and a bemused child. ‘I only skidded on a wet patch.’
There was never a dull moment at our house, although the neighbours might take a different view of it all.
With our two new arrivals, Alfie and Gilroy, we rearranged the bedrooms. First we took Paul out of Ronnie and AJ’s room and paired him up in a separate room with Gilroy.
Paul and Gilroy were the same age, and if any of our children could cope with Gilroy, it was boisterous Paul, who could always hold his own, though I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Luckily
Paul seemed to take this change in his stride.
Meanwhile, Alfie shared Laurel’s room, being the same age, eighteen months, and both still sleeping in cots. This turned out to be an excellent pairing.
Just when we thought we were straight, we were asked to take in a tiny newborn baby on an emergency placement. We were already full, officially, with ten children, but this was an exception
because of the circumstances. During the birth, the mother had some kind of medical trauma and was now in intensive care. So we took in this little babe, just a few hours old. She didn’t even
have a name yet. We got all the children together in the kitchen to see her for the first time. They all had a ‘gentle’ stroke of her dark hair, as soft as down, and her little fistfuls
of fingers fascinated every one of them, even Gilroy for just a moment.
‘This is our emergency baby,’ I said.
‘What’s her name?’ asked Chrissy.
‘She hasn’t got a name yet.’
‘Mergey baby!’ Alfie blurted out, practising the sound of what he thought I’d said. ‘Mergey baby’.
So that’s what we called her from then on.
Paul was due to start at pre-school that week, so we enrolled Gilroy as well and they went bounding in on their first morning, scattering everything and everybody. They loved it from the start,
but I don’t think the other children and staff loved them. I had quite a frosty reception when I arrived to fetch them at the end of that first morning, and it went downhill from there. They
caused such mayhem that, only two days later, they were both expelled – Paul for a week and Gilroy permanently.
‘We have to think of the other children, Mrs Merry. They were all frightened and some of them were hurt. All the parents were complaining.’
It was a cold winter that year, and we lived in a large draughty house in Sonnington, with no central heating. So we kept a coal fire going all the time through the winter.
Mike used to back it up with slack at night, before he went to bed. Then when I got up, early in the morning, I used to go down and give it a couple of pokes to get it going again and put the
fireguard back in place when I’d finished, before heating up the bottles for baby Gail and Mergey. When they were ready, I went back upstairs to give them both their first feed of the day.
After I’d winded them, changed them and put them back in their cots to play, I went down and made Mike some breakfast. I saw him off to work before going back up to get myself dressed, before
anyone else needed me.
On this particular day, as I went out onto the landing again, I noticed an acrid smell, as if something was burning. I remember standing there, torn between going to pick up a crying toddler, or
going down to check the fire. But I knew I didn’t have any choice.
The smell was much stronger in the hall, and it was definitely coming from the sitting room, so I turned the door handle and pushed it open, at which point the fire gave a huge
WHOOSH
and
blazed fiercely as it roared up the chimney. I slammed the door shut again and ran back into the hall, where I picked up the phone to dial 999 . . . just as the front door opened. We must have left
it on the latch without realising. There, in the open doorway, stood a tall fireman, all kitted up, complete with his helmet, and sporting a sooty smear down one side of his face. I couldn’t
believe it. This was surreal. Beyond him, I glimpsed three more firemen on the path outside. I felt quite stupid, standing there with the phone in my hand and my mouth wide open.
‘But I haven’t even rung you yet!’ I exclaimed.
‘No need to now,’ he said with a grin. ‘We’re already here. We just finished checking a false fire alarm that went off across the village when we saw the flames shooting
out of your chimney. Boy did it go! So we came straight round.’
He tramped his big boots across the hall and into the sitting room. ‘Ah yes.’ The others all followed him in and they all stood in the room, watching the fire burn.
‘Shouldn’t you be rushing around with hoses and all sorts?’ I asked.
‘There’s nothing we can do at the moment,’ he explained with a reassuring smile. ‘Except watch the fire, keep it safe and make sure it doesn’t blaze
outwards.’
‘OK. So, is there anything you want me to do, or shall I just get on?’
‘Are you the only one in the house?’ asked the man in charge.
‘Oh no, no, no.’
‘Is there anybody in the rooms above?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, the bricks will be getting very hot. You’ll need to go and get whoever it is to come down, just in case.’
So up I went, picked up the first baby, Gail, from her cot and carried her downstairs, then stood like a fool in the hall, wondering what to do with her while I went back for the next one.
‘Can you take her?’ I asked, and passed baby Gail into his arms.
‘Please be careful not to knock her head,’ I said.
He looked rather incongruous, standing there in full fire-fighting gear, cradling a baby. ‘What about your neighbours?’ he suggested. ‘Could they help?’
‘Oh yes.’ So we both went round to knock on their door. Luckily she was already up and about, but somewhat surprised when she saw me standing there with a fireman at half past eight
in the morning.
‘Mrs Clark,’ I began. ‘We’ve got a chimney fire blazing away in our house and I need to get the kids out.’
‘Here you are,’ said the chief fireman with a cheery smile as he plonked Gail into her reticent arms.
‘Could you look after her for a few minutes, and be careful not to knock her head, while I go back for the next one?’ I said.
‘Oh, OK,’ she agreed, holding baby Gail rather awkwardly, while giving the fireman a smile.
Of course, I realised, she and her husband had never had any children . . . but no time to worry about that. We rushed back into my house, where I went up and brought down the next one, Mergey,
and handed her to the fireman, who looked rather bemused to see another, even smaller baby.
Up I went again, and this time came down with toddlers Laurel in one arm and Alfie and his elephant in the other.
Now the fireman looked at me in disbelief, as I turned to go up for the fourth time.
‘How many kids have you got up there?
‘Only seven more.’
His mouth dropped open.
‘I’d better go and get them. I’ll go round and wake them all up and most of them will be able to clamber or walk down the stairs with me this time.’