Читать книгу A British Home Child in Canada 2-Book Bundle - Patricia Skidmore - Страница 11

Adrift

Take them away! Take them away!

Out of the gutter, the ooze and the slime,

Where little vermin paddle and crawl,

Till they grow and ripen into crime ...

Take them away o’er the rolling sea![1]

February 8, 1937

Early the following Monday, the four children watched the platform in dismay, their little faces plastered on the train window. The train chugged out of the Whitley Bay train station, taking them away and leaving their mum and their older sister, Phyllis, standing on the platform. Where were they going? Why did their mum send them away? Had they been bad? It frightened them to watch their mum wipe at the tears running down her cheeks. Marjorie’s own tears were impossible to stop. She watched the two figures grow smaller and smaller until she could not see them anymore.

Would they be going to the same place as Norman and Fred? She would like to see them again. They would help. She hoped that her brothers were together. Some of the kids at school told her that Fred had gone to one jail and Norman to another. Maybe those kids were right. Maybe her brothers were in jail. Maybe they were going to jail too.

Marjorie turned to Joyce and asked if they sent kids to jail. Joyce looked alarmed and said no, she hoped not, her voice betraying her panic. She gave Marjorie a warning look and told her not to be so daft. She assured her sister that they were not going to jail, then and nodded towards the two younger ones. Their eyes had begun to open wide with this new fear.

Marjorie rubbed her cheek, leaving a smudge of tears. She looked to Joyce for answers. “Well, smarty pants, where are we going then?” She challenged, but Joyce didn’t know. They huddled together — clinging in fear and grief.

Audrey wiggled away first, pulling her doll out from under her coat. She held it close to her. Wiping at their tears, the children turned to look out the window again. Kenny pointed to the sheep in the fields. They had been told that Norman was sent to work on a farm. Kenny suggested that maybe they sent Norman to that farm. But no, Joyce knew he was sent much further away. The new sights distracted them, and, for the moment at least, they forgot their plight.

Two elderly women sat across the aisle from the children. Mary,[2] the stouter of the two, was keeping a close eye on the children. Her glasses were perched on the bottom of her nose and she looked over the top of them as her knitting needles automatically clicked out “knit two, purl two.” She put her knitting down and asked the children where their parents were and why were they travelling alone. The four children looked over but turned back to the window without answering.

The entrance to Whitley Bay train station, shown as it looked in 2007, has altered little since 1937. During their visit, Marjorie and Joyce walked from 106 Whitley Road to the station and caught the train to Newcastle upon Tyne, just like they did in February 1937.

Photo by Patricia Skidmore.

Her companion, Dora, a thin, nervous woman, implored her to not talk to the tatty children. But Mary did not listen as she tried to find out their story. “Look at them,” she told Dora, “the oldest cannot be more than nine or ten years old and the youngest bairn is just a wee whip of a thing.” She could not for the life of her understand why they were on the train by themselves. She shook her head in disbelief.

Dora looked up from her knitting and suggested that the children were probably up to no good. She said to Mary, her voice high, “See what happens when you try to save a few bob! If we’d got first-class tickets like I wanted, we would not be sitting in this third-class coach. We will get nits from them for sure. Look at that one scratching at her head! Just ignore them, Mary, please. They probably do not have any tickets. The ticket man will take care of them.” She shook her head, making no effort to keep her voice low or to hide the distaste she felt at being so close to the little group.

Mary would not let it go. She told Dora that the children did have tickets because she saw their mother hand them to the older girl. She tried to illicit some compassion from Dora, so she asked if she saw the fuss the little girl made. The older one had to clutch her and pull her onto the train. Tears were flowing from everyone. But Dora said she hadn’t noticed anything. Mary continued, stating that she simply could not understand it. The girl on the platform looked positively heartbroken. “It was quite a commotion, I tell you, Dora. This world is coming to no good. Imagine sending little children off alone.”

Paying no heed to her friend, Mary stared over at the group determined to find some answers. She asked the children again, a little louder this time, why they looked so sad and why they were travelling alone. However, the children turned away again and said nothing.

They found some safety in looking out the window, and kept their eyes glued to the view and watched their world whiz by. The trip to Newcastle did not take long and soon the buildings were closer and closer together. Audrey was the first to point out the huge church steeple.

Just before the train pulled into the station, Mary and Dora put away their knitting. Dora started to get up, but Mary grabbed her arm, nodded towards the children, and told her that she was going to wait to get off after the children because she wanted to see what they did when they got off the train. She wondered what they would do if there was no one to meet them. She couldn’t bear to think of them stranded in the busy train station. Dora shook her head, and muttered that she could not understand why her friend concerned herself with things that were not her business. These children were not her responsibility, but she knew that once her friend had made up her mind to get involved there was no stopping her, so she sat back down.

Their train entered the enormous station and squealed to a stop. They heard the announcement — Newcastle Central Station. Joyce turned to her siblings and told them that they were to get off here. Joyce’s voice had a new edge to it. Their mum had told them that someone would meet them on the platform beneath the big clock. She said that the clock would be easy to see. Joyce hesitated, then quickly stood up and told everyone to follow her. Marjorie dawdled, as if she did not want to leave the train but followed when Joyce yelled at her to come along. Besides, she did not want to be left alone.

The children stood for a moment and looked around. The busy station overwhelmed them. People were rushing everywhere. Trains roared in and out. For a moment, they were lost in the noise and excitement, then remembered that they had left their mum behind, and all at once panic spread through the little group. The three younger children looked at their big sister. Joyce, remembering her promise to her mum, tried to hide her own fear.

It was this fear in the children’s eyes that affected Mary. As the train stopped, they looked so frightened and unsure of what to do. As Mary got up to follow, she noticed the grubby little doll lying under the seat. She gingerly picked it up on her way out. She stepped onto the platform, and called out to the children, holding up the doll. The littlest girl looked horror-stricken and ran back to grab her treasure.

Marjorie was the first to point out the big clock. Joyce directed the children towards it. As they stood there, Marjorie noticed the two women from the train watching them. They had black coats on. Hadn’t they been told to look for someone dressed in black? For a moment, Marjorie thought that it might be nice to stay with them. They looked like her friend’s grandmother and she liked the idea of having a grandmother.

Marjorie and her sister Joyce stand under one of the clocks in Newcastle Central Station in 2007. Retracing their 1937 journey from Whitley Bay to Newcastle upon Tyne brought back a flood of memories.

Photo by Patricia Skidmore.

Then someone shouted out, “Are you Winifred’s children?” The sound stopped Marjorie in her tracks, her pondering shattered by the shrill voice. Mary had been about to approach the little group, when she heard them being called. She turned to her friend, shaking her head — perhaps these children were orphans after all. Maybe that was not their mother in Whitley Bay. Mary looked back at the children, at their pinched shoulders, saw the fear in their faces, and intuitively thought that something was just not right. She watched them timidly head over to the nun. They reminded her of animals at her old uncle’s farm on their way to the slaughterhouse.

There was little about the woman with the long black robe to reassure the children. Her thin face didn’t smile and the wart on her chin made them think of a witch. Their hearts sank when she told them that she had been sent to pick them up. She told them to call her “Sister” and ordered them to come along, stating that she didn’t have all day. “Hurry up. Follow me and don’t get lost.” Her unfriendly greeting matched her unfriendly face.

The children crowded together and followed her out of the station. When Marjorie looked back, she could see the two women from the train walking away. She wanted to run after them. She should have talked to them on the train. She did not trust this unhappy sister.

The children struggled to keep up with their leader, but the busy sidewalks made it difficult. People pushed past and knocked into them. Lorries and trams raced close by, adding to their distress. Joyce grabbed tightly at Audrey and Kenny’s arms while Marjorie clutched at the back of Joyce’s coat and hung on.

The sister marched ahead unconcerned that the children were having problems keeping up with her. She turned to the little group and snarled a second time for them to hurry up. She called them “little guttersnipes” and told them that this country would be better off when the likes of them were all gone. Then she turned and walked even faster. The look in her eyes sent a cold trickle of fear running down Marjorie’s back. What did she mean? What did they do to make her so angry? She turned to Joyce for answers, but Joyce snapped at her, and told her to hush up and just do as she says and to hurry up. Then she asked Marjorie to help her to remember the streets so that they could find their way back to the train station. “This is Neville Street,” Joyce said under her breath.

Neville Street. Neville Street. Marjorie chanted it to herself. The sound of Joyce’s voice worried her. It sounded just like her mum’s voice last week when those horrid men yelled at her. Something told her that they would not be going back home. Ever. She was becoming more and more frightened. She wanted her mum.

Marjorie’s tight ill-fitting boots cramped her toes and rubbed her heels, setting her old blisters on fire. Every hurried step was agony. She tried to remember the way in her mind. Neville Street, then Mosley. No there was another one too. She could not keep the names straight in her mind. She read the next street sign — Dean Street. Neville Street, Mosley, then Dean Street. Maybe if she remembers some, Joyce will remember the others.

They turned down a steep street. A train chugged noisily on the high arch bridge at the bottom of the hill. The group stopped at Number 35.[3] They did not stay long, thank goodness, because she saw one of those horrid men who came to their house last week. He smiled as if he was happy for everyone. Marjorie shook her head at how mixed up adults were at times. How could he tell them that they should be happy and grateful? Grateful for what? All she wanted was to go back home to her mum.

They soon found themselves being led out of a different part of the building and they could see the steeple of the church they passed on Mosley Street. Or was it the other street? Marjorie felt really turned around now, but she was certain it was the same church. She was trying to keep track, just in case but felt hopelessly lost. The children were taken to the far side of the building, away from the steeple, and led through a doorway into a long, dark hallway. Immediately, someone whisked Kenny away. He reached out and called for Joyce and she tried to run after him, but the woman in black pulled her back. The three sisters watched helplessly as Kenny’s frightened face faded down the hallway and up a flight of stairs. The remainder of little group carried on down the opposite hall and through an archway.

The girls were escorted into a large room. There were several washing tubs along one wall. Large drains ran down the centre of the floor. Laundry, hanging on racks suspended from the low ceiling, dripped silently. Little rivulets made their way to the drains and disappeared. Even though there was a large wood boiler crackling away in one corner, the dampness of the room nipped at their bare legs and sent a chill through the children.

Sister said, “Okay girls, they are all yours. Clean them up.”

Marjorie jumped when a voice shouted out at them to take their clothes off. The children stood still as three big girls walked towards them. For a brief second the sisters hoped for some friendship, as the girls appeared to be about Phyllis’s age, but they soon found out that they were meaner than any schoolyard bullies they had ever encountered.

They slapped the frightened hostages and called them “filthy heathens,” as they removed their clothing, tossing everything towards the boiler. Marjorie reached out for her dress. It was a present from her last birthday. But one of the girls slapped her again. She stood there stunned and shivering in the cold February morning. Audrey whimpered and reached out for her doll. Marjorie started to tell them how important that doll was to Audrey, but she stopped when she saw Joyce. She shook her head and mouthed “No.”

Trembling with the cold and her anger, Marjorie looked to see if there was a way to scoot out and get Audrey’s doll. They couldn’t do this to them. What right had they to take their things? She stepped forward, but one of the girls abruptly stopped her. Slam! A hard metal thing landed on her head, knocking her off balance. Her shorn hair soon fell to the floor. It was the same for Joyce and Audrey. Marjorie wiggled, trying to get away, but the cutter snarled that she better keep still because if she got poked with the scissors, it would be her own darn fault. The girl cutting Joyce’s hair yanked at a clump and told her to watch it or she would cut her ear off. Audrey stood still, too terrified to move.

All three “cleaners” laughed at the sisters as tears streamed down their cheeks. When it was over, their tormenters stood back to admire their handiwork. They praised their good work, and told the sisters that they now looked quite bonny.

Marjorie stared at her sisters’ spiky short hair. She reached up to feel her own. Before she could, one of the bullies began to scrub her scalp with horrible smelling black soap. Some of it got into her eyes and it stung. She cried and wiggled trying to get free, but all she got for her effort was another slap and a mouthful of the vile stuff. Then, without warning, cold water rushed down her back. She sucked in her breath and tried to stop from crying out. They scrubbed her skin until it screamed. Audrey sobbed loudly. Marjorie glanced at Joyce. Her miserable face frightened her. Why were they doing this to them? What had they done wrong? Joyce cried out and asked what they had done with their brother. But they told her it was none of her concern. But he was their concern, Marjorie sobbed to herself, he was their brother.

After a thorough scrubbing, the sisters stood shivering while combs ploughed through their hair. A chorus of “ow” echoed off the clammy walls. A slap on the head warned them to shut up. “We have to get all the nits and dickies out — afterall cleanliness is next to godliness. It is bad enough that we have to put up with you lot for a couple of days, but we don’t want to catch the vermin you carried as well.” Marjorie’s comber sneered at her when she tried to get away again and gave an extra hard yank at what was left of her hair.

Quietly, the three sisters put on the clothes they were given. The rough material scratched at their raw skin. They wanted their own clothes back, but the girls laughed and asked if they were daft. “We’ve burnt them,” they mocked, as they pointed to the boiler and said that they were not even good for rags. When Audrey cried for her doll, she was told that she was really a thick one. “Can you not hear properly? We burned that too.” Audrey’s wail brought shrieks of laughter.

The Arnison sisters spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen scrubbing dishes and peeling vegetables. Audrey started to say that she was tired and hungry, but cook stopped her, telling her that if she was hungry, then she better get used to working for her food. “Get your chores done first. You will be fed when it is time,” she told her. Cook softened slightly when Audrey’s tears slipped down her cheeks. But she quickly demanded the tears to be wiped away and assured Audrey that she was telling her this for her own good.

Joyce watched her little sister. Her odd haircut and her funny fitting clothes made her almost unrecognizable. She had always come to Audrey’s rescue; it was second nature to her. She told the cook that Audrey was just little, that she had just turned seven. She offered to finish peeling Audrey’s potatoes for her.

Cook would have none of it. She turned to Joyce, and told her that now she would have extra chores and maybe that will teach her not to coddle her little sister. Audrey needed to learn to fend for herself. She looked squarely at Audrey, then at Joyce, and warned that she will not be helping her little sister if she always did her work for her. “She needs to toughen up or she won’t survive.”

The sisters looked at each other. What was the cook saying? What did she mean? The fear in their eyes came spilling over. It had been growing steadily throughout the day. They had no one to turn to and no one seemed to care how they were feeling. Quietly they went back to their chores, sucking back their tears.

Marjorie fell into her cot that evening, numb and exhausted after the long day but unable to fall asleep. Audrey hiccupped as she sobbed. Joyce tried to comfort her. She was crying for her doll and could not seem to understand that it was gone for good. She kept asking Joyce to go look for it. Marjorie’s own tears were flowing, but like her mum and now Joyce, she too was learning to keep them silent.

Marjorie thrashed about, trying to get comfortable in her unfamiliar bed, searching for a spot on her lumpy mattress not soaked with salty tears. Would she ever see her family or Whitley Bay again? It felt like she had been away for ages, not only since this morning when her mum and Phyllis put them on the train. It was impossible to make sense of everything. Where were they? Who were those strange men last week? They must have made their mum do this. They had seen her upset before, many, many times, but this was very different. Her mum was afraid. She had heard it in her voice.

As Marjorie lay in her cot, she thought about how she had run back upstairs that day, hoping her mum would tell her what those men wanted. All she got from her mum was a sharp retort making it clear that she did not want to talk about it. The sound of her voice stopped Marjorie in her tracks. Phyllis was standing behind her mum and she put up her hand and shook her head, as if to say “Don’t say a word.” Marjorie would have to wait until she got Phyllis or Joyce alone.

Marjorie finally got a chance after they had settled in their bed that night. But her sisters could not tell her very much. Joyce whispered that one of the men shouted at their mum and said that she had no choice but to sign the papers. Phyllis said he passed a letter to their mum. It was supposed to be from their father and he said it gave him permission to take the children. Joyce said that letter really made their mum cry. Phyllis asked to see the letter, but her mum said no. She told Marjorie that their mum just kept shaking her head and saying, “He was our last hope and now even that is gone.”

Phyllis told them that when their mum wouldn’t agree to sign the papers, it made the man really mad, and then he yelled and said she better do as she was told, or they would take away all of us, even the babies. Then he said that she was fortunate that the society wanted her children. He told her that we would be much better off anywhere but here.

What society? And why did it want children? Phyllis didn’t know but she wished that she had closed the door and locked it and not let those horrid men into their flat. They all knew that their mum did the best she could.

Phyllis choked back tears as she admitted that she didn’t know what to make of it all. She hoped they would get a post from their dad or that he would come back and now look what he did. Phyllis whispered, “You should have seen Mum’s face when that nasty man said ‘Look around you, woman! What kind of a place is this to bring up children? You don’t have any furniture, you use old jars to drink out of, and the children are thin and hungry and dressed in rags.’ Then in a mean voice, he said, ‘This is no home, this is a disgrace!’”

The girls knew their mum struggled. But, this was their home. It was their family. They had each other. Their mum loved them. She would give them anything she could. They just did not have very much. They had seen their mum go hungry and give up her own food to the little ones. She always told them that one day their father would come home and then everything would be okay. Marjorie had waited and waited for that day.

Lying in this unfamiliar cot, away from the warmth of the big bed they always shared and miles from home, Marjorie realized that day would never come. She had waited for almost four years and now he had abandoned them again.

Now what? What was going to happen to them? No one told them anything. Not even their mum.

Marjorie tossed and turned, her new bed becoming more and more unfriendly. The events of the past few days reeled around in her head. She could not shut them out. She slammed her head into her mattress, but the picture of her mum, sitting on her old wooden orange box would not go away. Her mum had sat there all night last night. That morning Marjorie wanted to find some answers but she felt she dare not ask. Her mum’s face told her that questions would be futile. They ate their morning porridge without a sound. Afterwards, no one seemed to know what to do. Joyce moved first and picked up the baby, hugging him so close that he squealed to be let down. Kenny and Jean moved away from the table and sat quietly in a corner. Phyllis was doing her best to help.

Their mum finally spoke. Her voice held a sadness that made it unfamiliar. She simply asked Phyllis to help her get them ready. Marjorie’s head screamed, “Ready! Ready for what?” She wanted to know, but the words wouldn’t come out. Joyce found her voice and asked what they were getting ready for. Phyllis whispered to her little sister that she had no idea. She said they were getting ready to go on a trip.

Marjorie shouted out, “Where? Who? We never go on trips.” When no answered her, she let out a loud wail. Her mum interrupted her wailings and told her to run outside and ask someone on the street for the time.

“Go! Now!” she demanded when Marjorie stayed put. Marjorie wanted an explanation, but the unfamiliar tone in her mum’s voice made her head towards the stairs. She leapt down taking two at a time, swung open the door, and ran onto the sidewalk. Whitley Road was strangely quiet, but she noticed a man entering a building a few doors down. She ran up to him and asked him for the time. She watched as he slowly reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a watch. He told her it was almost eight o’clock and suggested that she should be running along to school. Thinking he might be a truant officer, she quickly turned and ran back without a thank you.

Marjorie pushed open the door and yelled up that it was about eight o’clock. Winifred gasped, and hurried everyone.

“We will miss the train,” she told them. “Now let’s go. Get your coats on. Out the door!” She turned to her four-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Jean, and told her to stay put and mind her little brother, Lawrence. “Do not go outside. Do you understand me?” she yelled back as she hurried the children down the stairs without waiting for an answer.

Jean had never been left in charge before. Proudly, she took Lawrence’s hand, but a loud wail followed them before the door slammed shut. Jean yelled again asking them to come back, but Winifred was too intent on her other four children to even notice her cries.

Winifred leaned on Phyllis as she rushed the group along Whitley Road. The four children followed closely behind. Joyce held Audrey and Kenny’s hands. Marjorie lagged a little behind. She wanted to run off and go to school. She would be late. Her teacher probably wondered where she was. She could not remember ever wanting to go to school so badly before. The punishment for arriving late today and the strap for not going to school all last week would be worth it. A cross teacher would be easier to bear than walking any further into this unknown. But she followed when her mum turned up Station Road. The Whitley Bay train station was just ahead.

The train station — that was where it all started this morning, even though it was all set in motion last week. Everyone was so upset after the visit from those awful men. Nothing had been the same from that day on. At first, Marjorie thought it was odd that their mum did not make them go to school. She said that she wanted to spend more time with them. She told them that school could wait. Instead, they spent the afternoons down on the beach. Their mum seemed sad and distant, but the children busied themselves with exploring and running after seagulls and watching waves crash on the shore and they were able to forget the sadness for a while. That had been Winifred’s hope.

No one had said a word on the walk to the station. It was pointless to demand answers. Nothing made any sense to Marjorie. She did not run off though, she had just followed along and walked past Clarence Crescent, Algernon Place, and all the familiar alleys, and walked right up to the train station and now here she was — lying in a cot in some strange and scary building.

Marjorie could not settle her mind. She looked over at Joyce and watched her get up and gently put Audrey back into her own cot. Audrey had finally fallen asleep. Marjorie called over in a choked whisper as Joyce climbed back into her bed. The look Joyce returned stopped her in mid-sentence. Joyce told her to hush, since she was afraid of waking up Audrey and of getting caught talking. Strict warnings had been given as to not make any noise after the lights were out.

Tossing with exhaustion, Marjorie wondered what would happen tomorrow. These people terrified her. They had not seen Kenny since they arrived. Where was he? Was he okay? She made up her mind that she would run away. She had no idea where she would go, but she would find Kenny and the four of them would run back and try to find the train station. She was certain she could remember the way. Neville Street, Neville Street played in her head. They should not ask for directions. It might seem suspicious. Maybe they would find the nice old woman at the train station. Maybe she would help them get back to Whitley Bay. This thought eased Marjorie’s mind enough that she was finally able to drift off into a fitful sleep. In the middle of the night she yelled out for her mum.

Joyce rubbed her back as she told her it would be okay. “Wake up,” she whispered, and assured her sister that she was just having a bad dream. Joyce climbed back into her cot and choked back a sob as she lay in the darkness, wishing it were just a nightmare and that they would all wake up in their own little flat. “Oh, Mum, I need you.”