The Quiet Truth: a haunting domestic drama full of suspense

by Sharon Thompson

  It was the sunniest season and it was unbearably hot for an Irish boy. The sweat sat on my pale skin and the guilt dripped off me for stealing another ship-boy’s clobber. I was glad of the small sack full of worn clothes on the high seas and foolishly I thought I’d get new Canadian ones.

  How my heart sank when I saw the place Fran was showing off.

  Two sheds covered in sods of earth were lined with filthy mattresses and heaps of rags. ‘Home Boys’ was the sign on the larger shed’s door and ‘Home Girls’ on the other. He pointed to a foul-smelling drain near the far fence and said, ‘Ditch for your filth.’

  For miles as far as the horizon were crops and pasture. An odd, small head bobbed up between the potato drills and a horse or two could be spied if I strained against the light.

  ‘Nobody calls here. If they do, there’s to be no talking to them. You’re all thieves and criminals and are treated as such.’

  He really thought that of the other children. They were innocents who did nothing to deserve such nonsense. Saying that, Fran was right about me. As he spat and cursed about the demons of children he treated like dogs, I thought he was the worst of brutes. I was right, he was worse than I could have ever imagined.

  I knew it was unfair of Fran to think badly of the children that needed to make this journey to a new life. Many of them were exceptionally well-reared. They were from poor homes and they were almost all biddable, moral souls. Even the boisterous boys kept themselves clean and were trustworthy. There was a need to please and survive in them all. Many of those cherubs were too young and fragile to travel alone. They were supposed to have chaperones. Most of these didn’t do a very good job as there were far too many charges in their care. I had thought that terrible. Youngsters cried themselves to sleep and there was no help to tie the shoes they were given by the charity.

  These vulnerable youngsters were now in places like Daly’s. I was old in comparison to them. When I saw the lines of battered shoes near the shed for the boys, I could tell that there were very small children about.

  I should’ve run at that very moment – but where was I to go?

  ‘I’ll need a good right hand to keep this all in order,’ Fran spat and gestured around the dusty yard. ‘Selma doesn’t like you lot mixing with our own. Don’t come near the house. There’s a few house girls who will take any important information indoors. If you can do what is necessary, I’ll put you in charge of all the brats. Jock tells me that you’ll be a good worker. He knows, of course, that we take in the rats off the streets from England and elsewhere and that we’re in need of help to work them hard. He said you’d be a good pick for this position.’

  The worry in me then was for the younger children I’d befriended on board. It was clear to me that day, standing in Fran Daly’s homestead, that we were all doomed. Those same bright faces I knew from the ship would be in dumps just like Daly’s. I couldn’t bear to think on that then… or now.

  He thumped my arm – like we were comrades. Vomit leapt into my mouth. I held it back and looked around. Hell itself might have been better. Charlie Quinn deserved it all and I knew that my sins had brought me to that place.

  I cried.

  Fran pretended not to notice and marched us across the yard to the fields, muttering instructions about the lay of the day; the rising times, working routines, the places for water, food, the rules, and the work that needed to be completed.

  Did Jock Daly know how things were out in Canada? I doubt he knew it all. Like most people, he saw the migration of children to foreign places as a kindness. Listening to the dreams of most of the other boys on the journey, I knew they weren’t expecting anything like this. I was shocked to the core. I was old enough with hairs on my chest and even I felt sick. How did a small child cope when their fate in the likes of Daly’s sank in?

  I can still see in my mind’s eye the first small home-child I met there. She was a beautiful-looking girl of about eight years old. Her tattered dress was clean, and her blonde hair was tied in thin, white ribbons. She wandered out from around the homestead with a dog on a rope. It was a large, mongrel breed that was capable of biting large steers.

  ‘She’s one of the house girls. Simple Bridget we call her. Pretty little thing,’ Fran said and I couldn’t look at him. The tone was inappropriate for discussing a child. ‘Isn’t she lovely? And she’s quiet, like you are. And one of my favourites. Catch my meaning, boy? She doesn’t make trouble or cause me to lose my temper.’

  ‘How long have I to stay here?’ I asked.

  I’ll never forget the reply. ‘Your sign said fifteen years old. That means three years. You’re mine until you’re eighteen. All of you savages are here until you work off your passage and your keep.’

  ‘I’m that already! I’m almost nineteen! Jock must’ve told you that? He took me for a pint on my birthday,’ I stammered. ‘I was to be a labourer. They mistook me for a child on the boat. I let them think I was younger. I didn’t want lumped in with the men. I’m sorry, I’m not fifteen. Jock will tell ya. I’m a man.’

  ‘Trouble is starting from you already,’ Fran said, standing back and with one swipe of his big arm he thumped me square across my jaw. I didn’t fall over which surprised him. ‘You’ll need to work off the cost of your passage and lodgings. That’ll take at least two years. We’ve other men here on the same ticket. Get comfortable and don’t give us any problems. Ask the others what we do to the troublemakers.’

  16

  Charlie Quinn

  Rhonda’s tapes need changing and she’s sniffing into a tissue. I’ve stopped watching her reactions to my tales. I don’t want to dilute the message that is coming pouring out. If I look at her she tends to grimace or wince and that stops the deeply entrenched flow of the past.

  For now, part of me still wants to seduce Rhonda into liking me. I also need to stop fading my failings into the background as the whole point of this is to atone for my sins.

  ‘I must be truthful. I stole. I was a thief on the ship. I took a box of clothes that weren’t mine. And food that should have been for more needy children. I did it just because I could. I used some of my thefts for good but mainly the crimes were for selfish reasons. Evilness crept into me, just like my father said it would.’

  Rhonda wants to stop and wait until the tapes are ready. She holds her elegant hand out to stop the words and I do as she wishes. When she nods for us to resume, her eyes don’t meet mine. She’s disgusted, I can tell. That saddens me. Who can blame her? I disgust myself.

  I didn’t know that the climate was harsh in Canada. I’d no idea of the cold. I’m sure my stealing meant some poor divil froze to death. I heard many children died from exposure and cruelty all over the country.

  While trapped we all became ingrained with shameful gratitude. From the day we stood on the dockside with those cardboard signs around our necks, we all knew once they came off we would keep quiet about our origins.

  The taking of his extra clothes and coat must have left him very vulnerable. Of that I am certain. Every child I saw needed the materials they came with to survive. I took the very thing he needed to live. Each letter of his name is stitched into the inner collar and I’ve kept that garment to this very day. In a few months’ time, I would also steal his name.

  ‘You don’t know that he died as a homeboy?’ Rhonda adds in and breaks me into the present. ‘You’re crying, Charlie. He might not have been lost to the cold.’

  ‘I know I stole a means for his survival.’

  ‘Didn’t Fran Daly take any other children from the dock that day?’

  ‘No. He had more than enough. Too many as it was. I know many other large homesteads used armies of children as contracted slaves. Jock Daly hadn’t paid my fare there. Or at least that was what Fran said and I’d no means to ask Jock the truth. Jock had merely pledged me as a workman for years. It was normal. Some of the children were never paid. I did hear that some were lucky and fell into good homes and were well cared for and
got schooling. The chances are, though, that Randal was treated worse than a dog.’

  Rhonda makes us tea and a nice egg sandwich. I like boiled eggs, I always have done and I’m delighted as it travels with ease into my stomach. Rhonda has sent Faye to her grandmother’s and I’m grateful for that too.

  ‘Can I go on before little Faye comes home?’ I ask when we’ve eaten the majority of what’s in front of us. ‘The next part is hard to think about, never mind say out loud with a child in the house.’

  Rhonda touches my sleeve and pats it. The touch is sympathetic but firm. ‘I am glad to know that the name is from a coat. I thought it would be much worse. You are very hard on yourself. This is how it was in those days. Tough and bleak. You did what you had to. There’s nothing you could have done to make the world better. Nothing any of us can do. We must try to survive and find happiness.’

  I nod and gulp back the last of the tea in the mug. ‘I didn’t intentionally take his name. It will all become clear soon enough. I was Charlie Quinn on Daly’s farm and at that time people thought that we would all have better lives in Canada.’ I start to cry. ‘Hundreds were sent and nobody knew or gave a damn about the likes of Daly and his ilk.’

  ‘Oh, Charlie. Don’t upset yourself. We can talk about all of this at another time.’

  ‘I need to continue. Everything feels ready. I need this.’ I dab at my eyes and lean into the soft chair and go back to Canada.

  Within hours, maybe even minutes I’d made up my mind to escape Daly’s. I’d left Ireland for something better and this was not it.

  There were four labouring men and the rest were children. They were mostly young boys and the few girls were expected to work as hard as anyone else. My memory is not what it once was and I’ve wanted to forget my time there and my brain has obliged. Father’s wrath was long since gone and Daly’s fury surfaced that same fear all over again.

  I was to bunk with the men in a byre and was told to lord it over the workforce of small hands and feet.

  ‘There aren’t many men here, or older children who are fit for this life?’ I asked the menfolk and they didn’t enlighten me as to why this was the way it was. There was little communication other than shouts and orders. It took me a few days of plotting and scheming to wrangle some information out of one of the older boys. He was known to be one of Daly’s favourites.

  ‘The mines. Those that cause trouble are sent to work there. When we start to cost money and effort, we are sent away. Don’t bother to speak back or try to leave. You’ll get sent to the mines if you try anything.’

  ‘Has anyone escaped?’

  ‘No point. They’ll just take you back here or send you somewhere worse. Everyone can tell who a home-child is. You don’t need a sign around your neck.’

  ‘We’re the oldest. Why aren’t there more boys our age here?’

  ‘Once we get to be full workers, Daly’s supposed to pay for that labour. Up until that he gets paid. It makes sense that he returns the older ones to the receiving homes. They’re bad wee cunts by then anyhow. Younger ones cost him nothing and are only just landed off the boats. They’re easier to tame. I’ve learned to toe the line. He’s promised that I will work out my time here soon. I just need to keep my head down for a little while longer.’

  I couldn’t believe it. I was used to violence and still the badness that seeped out from around Fran Daly shocked me. The memories of there are all mired with the fierce threats and hard labour.

  We weren’t far from the coast and fresh river water. There was such beauty in the landscape and I let none of that register.

  Daly saw that I was strong in body and mind. Jock probably told him that I had little conscience or morals. Perhaps he also wanted a companion, someone to condone or cement his methods – thankfully, I didn’t fall totally for his indoctrination.

  ‘You understand the ways of the world,’ he said. ‘A man with ambition can see why I’m hard on the youngsters. They need the work. We need the workers. You cannot be soft on them. God knows, though, we need better leaders to till the soil and reap good harvests.’

  Daly was a mixture of a heathen and a religious nutcase. He ranted about the persecution of men with passion for the Lord while looking for reasons to hurt others weaker than himself. The experience of my own father made me wary of him. Fran was eerily convincing and the others seemed to fall for his methods.

  If you pleased him, he gave you special treats, like some time off work and sugary snacks. I got these and I found myself wanting more of them. The grown men and all of the children wanted to impress the ugly bastard. He was our master. Having him smile at you made your sorry life easier.

  The daily routine escapes my memory. The harshness of it shows itself on my hands to this day. I was allowed to work a mule and a horse sometimes. This was considered an honour as the animal did the hardest of the work. I hadn’t any knowledge of farming or working animals and I lost my patience a lot. I’m ashamed to say that I lashed that mule brutally on more than one occasion.

  The children were also beaten. I stood by and watched the other men help Daly. I worry that I beat them too and chose to forget it. I try to be honest with myself in the dark corners of my soul. I don’t know if I took up a rod to whack a child. I think I’d remember such cruelty. I’m still not certain why the men hurt those youngsters. It might have been for sport or to relieve frustration; like I did on the mule.

  I can still smell the sweat off Daly and hear the cries and also the silence after a lashing. I didn’t partake in that brutality. I really don’t think I did. I do know that Charlie Quinn shrugged it off and thanked God it wasn’t his problem.

  I also protected myself by refusing to make friends. Shutting myself off from the others was one way of not hurting myself or them. Randal Hamilton had been kind to me until I punched his nose in and stole the contents of his travelling trunk. I was afraid that I’d snap into the divil Daly and Father saw in me. Or worse still, that I’d be a victim myself if I let anyone close enough.

  I was right to detach myself, because that little blonde girl I saw on my first day got too close to Charlie Quinn.

  17

  Charlie Quinn

  Selma Daly, Fran’s wife, never ventured far from the house. She tended the vegetable gardens to the back and sides with the home-girls. I only heard her hollering and screeching or saw her hobbling out to open the gate.

  I watched their own children go off in the truck with their father. They didn’t acknowledge or look at any of us. There were three of them. I paid as little heed to their faces as they did to mine.

  I knew from travelling to the homestead that it was many miles from a main road and even more miles to find other people. I’d explored the farmland as much as possible and there wasn’t another house within my sight line. The prairie beyond the cropland held their cattle and the talk was that it went on for a hundred and sixty acres.

  At that time, my Irish brain couldn’t comprehend these distances. I couldn’t walk or run away in the heat we’d been having for the weeks I’d been there. I noticed, too, the times the family came and went. The gate was opened like clockwork in the morning and evening by one of the men or Selma. It rarely budged during the day. Deliveries were few and far between and if people arrived they stood and shouted to be let in.

  To this day I wonder if the Dalys mistreated their own children. Possibly they did. At least the three of them escaped for a few hours every day. Although, it might be worse to smell a freedom and then have to return to the stench of imprisonment.

  While watching them come and go, I figured that civilisation couldn’t be as far away as I once thought and I made up my mind that once I got out that gate, I’d never return.

  Daly was known to the authorities. Someone in a police uniform called quite regularly. I never saw his vehicle. Fran would become agitated and more aggressive before and after this man called. I hoped that he was a dutiful person who’d save us all from hell. Of course, for my t
ime at least, the uniformed man never made any difference to the children who came in that gate.

  Harvest time was tough work. Some of the children were not fit for the tasks they were given and I did double the work some days to cover their mistakes or inabilities. It was one of the loneliest times in my life and I prayed for change and escape – no matter what the price. I was taken at my word. Fate or God spat on my prayers.

  Selma came out to meet me one evening when I was dragging the mule and the cart in from the field. Seeing her up close was shocking. She had a large scar that slashed the length of her face from a crumpled forehead right through her eye, nose, lips and cheek.

  ‘I’m looking for Bridget,’ she said and spat spittle at my feet. Fran and she spat a lot. ‘Simple Bridget. You seen her?’

  I knew very few of the others’ names, as I didn’t want to have them giving me more nightmares. Unfortunately, I knew little Bridget.

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  She didn’t like my tone. I could tell by the turn-up of that mutilated nose. ‘Little blonde Bridget. She walks around with the big dog. Simple, stupid Bridget.’

  Everything in me curled up as I hoped Selma wouldn’t find Bridget until she calmed down.

  ‘I haven’t seen her.’

  I wanted to scream that I didn’t know where Bridget was because if I did know I’d tell her. If it meant saving my own skin, I would sing like a lark about anyone’s whereabouts.

  Selma eyed me suspiciously. ‘Jock’s butcher boy?’ she asked.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Fran about?’

  ‘Out in the far pasture,’ I lied. I wasn’t sure where Fran was, I just felt that I had to know something or she’d knock me about for sure.