The Throwaway Children (37 page)

The relief with which Rita and Daisy greeted the news that they were to stay in Larch Cottage was immense. They were back sharing a dorm with Joan, whom they both liked, and though Rita felt a physical ache when she thought of Rosie, alone in a strange place with strange people, there were times when she was so busy that there was no room for Rosie in her thoughts. Knitty had been retrieved from the windowsill and while the other girls were in the bathroom, had been stowed, still slightly damp, in the mattress.

Mrs Watson had taken the two girls aside and told them that from now on they would be living in Larch. ‘I’ve given you a little leeway today,’ she said, ‘but from now on I expect complete obedience from you, do you understand?’ She fixed them with a stern eye as she waited for their ‘Yes, Mrs Watson’.

‘I hope you do. Tomorrow you’ll be starting school with the others, and I expect to hear that you’re model pupils. Any reports of bad behaviour and you’ll be in more trouble. Understand?’

‘Yes, Mrs Watson.’

‘Good. Now Rita, you can come and collect clothes for both of you, and then you can get dressed and come down for tea. Daisy, run over to Oak and collect anything of yours and Rita’s that’s there. You needn’t worry,’ she smiled as she saw the look of horror on Daisy’s face, ‘you won’t see Mrs Garfield.’ When Daisy didn’t look convinced she said briskly, ‘Come along, Daisy, do as you’re told.’

Unwillingly, Daisy went back into Oak, and found a general hubbub as all the other girls were there doing the same thing.

‘Which cottage are you going to?’ asked Audrey when Daisy came in.

‘Larch.’

‘Lucky you,’ said Carol. ‘We’ve got to go into Pine, with the babies.’

‘Better than here,’ Daisy said.

‘Where’s Rita, then?’ demanded Audrey as she watched Daisy gather up her toothbrush and flannel from her locker, and then collect Rita’s from hers.

‘Back in Larch. She ain’t well.’

‘Bet she was there all the time,’ Audrey said belligerently. ‘Bet she weren’t in the cellar at all.’

‘She was, too,’ retorted Daisy. ‘I let her out, and then Mrs Watson looked after her.’

‘Bit of a sissy, if you ask me,’ Audrey said. ‘She ain’t the only one’s had the cellar treatment. Agnes had it and—’

‘Yeah,’ interrupted Daisy, ‘and look at her now. She’s scared of her own shadow.’ She went to the beds that had been theirs and pulled off the single blankets that covered them. Rolling them carefully together, she tucked them under her arm.

‘Where’re you going with those?’ asked Carol, watching open-mouthed. ‘You can’t take them, they ain’t yours.’

‘Nobody else needs them,’ Daisy pointed out. ‘Nobody ain’t going to be sleeping in here, are they? Take yours to Pine, I would.’

‘That’s stealing,’ announced Audrey righteously. ‘You won’t half get it in the neck when they see you walking off with those.’

‘Yeah,’ echoed Carol, ‘s’posing we tell!’

‘Then,’ replied Daisy as she looked round to check that there was nothing else of use she could take, ‘you’d be just plain stupid.’ As she passed the lavatories she glanced in; one of them had an extremely wet floor. Daisy gave a grin. Reet was a card, and no mistake.

The routine in Larch turned out to be virtually the same as in Oak.

‘Our turn first in the bathroom,’ cried Sandra, as they hurriedly stripped their beds, folding the bedclothes neatly as they’d been taught back in Laurel House. ‘Come on, you lot, get in there before the other dorm do.’

When she’d washed her face and hands, Rita remade her bed, tucking the extra blanket in carefully, hoping it wouldn’t be noticed if there was dormitory inspection. Rita and Daisy had each been given one of the grey checked frocks that all the girls wore to school, and they put them on, leaving the grubby weekend overalls in a basket, ready for someone to launder later on.

‘For Christ’s sake, Edna, shut that child up,’ growled Gerald Waters as he accelerated away from Laurel Farm. The spinning car wheels threw up a cloud of dust as they sped down the dirt track leading to Carrabunna and the main Sydney road beyond.

‘Hush now, Rosie,’ Edna said as she struggled to hold the child squirming in her arms. ‘Be quiet, dear, you don’t want to upset Daddy now, do you?’

But Rosie, crimson-faced and her cheeks wet with tears, didn’t stop, couldn’t stop and went on bawling, ‘I don’t want you! I don’t want you! Go away! I want Reet. Where’s Reet?’

‘Come along now, Rosie,’ Edna tried again. ‘Calm down, there’s a good girl.’

Rosie didn’t calm down and once they had passed through Carrabunna Gerald suddenly slammed on the brakes and the car screeched to a halt. Without a word he got out, opened the back door and reaching in, dragged the little girl from her new mother’s arms. He pulled her clear of the car and then, shouting ‘Shut up! Shut up! You hear me?’ he shook her, hard and long till her head flopped and the screaming stopped.

‘That’s more like it,’ he snarled. ‘Now you listen to me, young lady. I’ll have no more of that disgraceful noise, understand? Start that row again and you’ll get a hiding.’ Then he thrust Rosie back into the car and slammed the door behind her. Edna gathered the shaking child into her arms and held her tight, crooning softly to her and stroking her hair.

Rosie’s screams had stopped, but heaving sobs still shook her body as she buried her hot, damp face into Edna’s neck.

Exhausted by the events of the morning and lulled by the motion of the car, Rosie finally fell asleep, only waking again when the car stopped outside a roadside café. She opened her eyes, for a moment forgetting where she was, and then she saw the frightening man getting out of the car, and she shrank back against Edna’s shoulder again.

As he opened the back door of the car, Edna said, ‘Look, Gerald, you’ve terrified the poor child!’

‘Well, she needs to learn to do as she’s told,’ he muttered. Then he held out his hand and twisting his mouth into a smile, said, ‘Come along now, Rose. You must be hungry, let’s find something to eat.’

‘Out you get, Rosie,’ encouraged Edna. ‘I expect you’re hungry, and we’re going to have some eggs and bacon and sausages now.’

Once out of the car, Edna took Rosie’s hand and they went into the café. The promised food appeared on the table and Edna helped Rosie cut up her food saying, ‘If you eat all that like a good girl, you can have some ice cream after. Would you like that?’ When Rosie didn’t answer Edna went on, ‘You like ice cream, don’t you?’

Rosie nodded.

‘I thought you did,’ Edna said. ‘Eat up then.’ She turned to Gerald who was just finishing, wiping round his plate with a piece of bread. ‘Will you order up the ice cream, Daddy?’

‘Ice cream for our little girl, coming up,’ he cried, jovial now that Rosie was behaving herself, and he waved to the woman at the counter to bring them each a bowl of ice cream.

Somewhere in the back of her mind Rosie could hear Rita’s voice saying, ‘He’s not my dad,’ but looking across at the frightening face of the man opposite, she said nothing and went on eating her sausages. They were nice, and she did want ice cream.

‘Thank you, Daddy,’ Edna enthused when the dessert came. She beamed at Rosie. ‘Aren’t you a lucky girl to have such a kind daddy?’

They finally reached Fryford, where the Waters lived, in the late afternoon. Their house was in a quiet street, one of a row of villas. There was a window on either side of the front door and another perched above it under a shingled gable. Mr Waters drew into the kerb and switched off the engine.

‘Here we are,’ he said, ‘home at last.’

Edna took Rosie into the house. ‘This is where we live, Rosie,’ she said. ‘This is your home now. Isn’t it nice? Look, we’ve got a yard out the back where you can play. Now come upstairs and I’ll show you your bedroom.’ She led the way up a narrow staircase to the floor above where there were two bedrooms. The one at the front looked out through the gabled window onto the street below, while the one at the back, much smaller, had a little window looking out across the single storey scullery roof below and onto the small square of garden beyond.

‘Here we are,’ Edna said brightly, leading Rosie into the tiny bedroom. ‘This is your room.’ She went to the window and drawing aside the flimsy curtains, threw it open. ‘Isn’t it nice?’

Rosie stood by the door and stared into the room. A wooden bed stood along one wall, a chest of drawers topped with a bowl and jug stood against another, and there was a small chair in the corner. Though the room was hot and stuffy, it was stark and unwelcoming.

‘I wish Reet was here,’ Rosie said, her lip beginning to tremble again as she looked at the cold hard bed where she must sleep alone. ‘I want Reet.’

‘Well, you can’t have her,’ said a sharp voice behind her. Gerald had come upstairs carrying her small suitcase. ‘You must forget her. You live with us now.’

That night Rosie lay in bed in her new bedroom and with her face under the pillow, cried herself to sleep. She was entirely alone, no Rita, no Daisy, not even Knitty to cuddle as exhaustion overtook her and she finally fell asleep.

Next morning she was given breakfast and then the three of them walked to the nearby church. The only thing suitable to wear was the rose-patterned dress, and so Rosie was dressed in that.

‘Tomorrow,’ Edna promised her, ‘we’ll go shopping you and I. We’ll get you some decent clothes, not something made out of curtains.’

Church was boring, but Rosie was used to that. Numerous Sundays spent in church since she’d been taken from Ship Street had taught her to sit still and quiet however bored she was, until it was over and they could emerge into the sunshine again. Outside the church she found herself the centre of attention. People came up to the Waters, smiling and nodding.

‘Is this the little girl you’re adopting?’

‘What a generous thing to do, taking a child like this from an orphanage!’

‘What a pretty little girl, such lovely fair hair.’

Edna had spent some time brushing Rosie’s hair and had tied it back off her face with a ribbon. Rosie liked the ribbon, and she liked people saying she was pretty, so she smiled at the lady who was reaching out to touch her curls.

‘What a lovely smile,’ said the lady. ‘Aren’t you a lucky girl to have been chosen by these kind people.’

The minister was standing by the door, and he came over and shook Gerald by the hand. ‘Well done, Mr Waters,’ he said. ‘A truly charitable act.’ He reached down and chucked Rosie under the chin. ‘And what’s your name, little girl?’

‘Rosie,’ she whispered shyly.

‘Well, Rosie, I hope you’re truly grateful for the kindness of your new parents.’

The next few days passed in a whirl. Edna took Rosie on the promised shopping trip, and the little chest of drawers soon held new underclothes, a blouse and skirt, a dress and a cardigan. She was fitted with new shoes, worn over new white socks. Her rose-patterned dress, though still wearable, was pushed to the bottom of a drawer, the last remnant of her previous life.

One evening Gerald came home carrying a small teddy bear which he pushed into her arms, saying gruffly, ‘Thought you might like to have this.’ Rosie hugged it to her, and from then on every night she fell asleep with the bear, named Bear, tucked under her arm, just as Knitty had been.

The Waters insisted that she call them Mummy and Daddy; if she didn’t, they appeared not to have heard her, and she soon learned that her life was easier if she did what she was told. Rosie had never liked being in trouble, and without Rita to protect her she simply accepted what was happening.

‘I always wanted a daughter called Jean,’ Edna told her one day, ‘so Daddy and I have decided that’s what we’ll call you from now on.’

Rosie looked confused. ‘I’m called Rosie.’

‘No, darling, you
were
called Rosie, but now you’re called Jean.’

She was enrolled at her new school as Jean Waters, and so everyone there called her Jean. At first, often, she didn’t realize she was being spoken to, and was scolded for not answering, but in time she got used to being Jean, and the name Rosie, like the rose-patterned dress, was consigned to her past life and almost forgotten.

‘Please will you remember that Jean has been adopted?’ Edna said to the principal on her first morning. ‘Everything here is a bit new to her. I’ll bring her to and from school just until she’s used to it all.’

Rosie liked her new school. She liked her teacher, Miss Hughes. She liked Edna, but she was still afraid of Gerald. He had a way of grabbing her from behind and crushing her against him that she found frightening. She’d struggle to pull free and he’d hold on even more tightly saying, ‘What, not got a cuddle for your dad?’ He laughed as he said it, but she hated the way he held her and nuzzled the back of her neck with his moustache. Mummy laughed too, and said, ‘How Daddy loves his little girl!’

Rosie settled in at school quite quickly. Always eager to please, she did as she was told and behaved herself well in the classroom. The first sign of trouble came, however, a few months after she arrived. The children were asked to tell the class about their families. Each child stood up and spoke for a minute or two, telling of mums and dads, brothers and sisters, family pets. Miss Hughes left Rosie till last, because she was aware that Rosie had only recently been adopted and didn’t have a family to talk about. When it finally came to be Rosie’s turn, she said gently, ‘Now then, Jean, can you tell us about your family, you’ve got a new mummy and daddy, I think, haven’t you? But no brothers or sisters.’

Rosie looked at her as if surprised. ‘I got a sister,’ she said. ‘She’s called Reet.’

‘No, Jean, I don’t think you have,’ said Miss Hughes. ‘You’ve come to live with Mr and Mrs Waters, haven’t you?’

‘They took me away,’ Rosie said with sudden recollection. ‘They pushed me into the car and they left Reet behind.’ She began to look wildly round the classroom and with tears flooding down her cheeks called out, ‘Where’s Reet? I want Reet. I don’t like it here. I want Reet.’

The other children stared at her, round-eyed, and Miss Hughes sent one of them to fetch the principal, unable to stop Jean from crying, from calling for someone called ‘Reet’, from shouting that she didn’t like her new home.