Cast the First Stone

by Margaret Thornton

  ‘Yes, Miss Copeland,’ replied the girl deferentially. ‘I’ve cleaned the baths and toilets. I was just going to write a letter home.’

  ‘Well, leave that now. You’ll have plenty of time later. You can show Fiona where to put her belongings.’ The woman turned to Fiona. ‘Come and see me in my room at two o’clock, when lunch is over, and we’ll have a little chat.’ She nodded briefly at the two girls as she left the room.

  ‘Hello, Fiona,’ said the girl called Ginny as the door closed. ‘I expect you’re feeling a bit lost and frightened, aren’t you? But you don’t need to be, honestly. We all felt like that at first, but it’s not all that bad here, and we do manage to have some fun.’

  ‘Hello . . . Ginny, isn’t it?’ said Fiona. She smiled at the girl. ‘Do you know, you are making me feel better already.’ She guessed that the girl might be about the same age as herself. She appeared to be a little further on in her pregnancy. She had ginger hair and freckles and bright blue eyes. It looked as though she might always have been on the plump side, notwithstanding her condition. She laughed easily.

  ‘Yes, I’m Ginny. Virginia, actually, but you might say that my name’s not very appropriate.’ She grinned as she glanced down at her spreading waistline. ‘Virginia Adams, that’s me.’ Fiona was not sure how to answer the girl’s comment, but there was no need because Ginny went on talking.

  ‘Not a bad room, is it? Come on, let’s get your case on to the bed. You’ll be in this one, here.’ Together they hauled the heavy case on to one of the iron-framed beds, resembling a hospital bed.

  Glancing round Fiona noticed two large wardrobes, a little cupboard at the side of each bed, and just one large dressing table with a somewhat speckled mirror by the window. The candlewick bedspreads were green, as were the curtains and the rather worn carpet. In one corner of the room there was a wash basin and a towel rail.

  ‘The view’s not bad,’ said Ginny, pointing to the window. The room was at the front of the house overlooking the garden, and through the skeletal branches of the tall trees one could just make out the distant hills, their tops now covered in snow.

  ‘Where are you from then, Fiona?’ asked Ginny. ‘I’m from South Shields, but I expect you guessed that from my accent.’ Indeed, Fiona had realized from her sing-song way of talking that the girl was what was known as a Geordie.

  ‘My parents live in Leeds,’ replied Fiona, ‘but I’ve been staying with my aunt and uncle near Alnwick. They brought me here, and they’ve said they’ll come and see me.’

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ said Ginny, ‘that is, if you want to see them?’

  ‘Oh yes, I do,’ said Fiona eagerly. ‘They’ve been very good to me, far more understanding than my parents.’

  ‘Yeah, same here,’ said Ginny. ‘My parents are pretty annoyed with me, especially me da. It’s me gran who’s sticking up for me, and she’s the one who comes to see me.’

  ‘Yes, my gran’s the same,’ agreed Fiona, ‘but it’s too far for her to visit. She lives in Leeds as well.’

  ‘I’m just a nuisance, y’see,’ said Ginny. ‘I’m the eldest of five, and me da hit the roof when he found out about this.’ She patted her tummy. ‘I’m supposed to help me mam to look after the kids as well as going out to work. I got a job at Woolie’s when I left school, and my wage has come in very handy. The rest of ’em are still at school, so now they’ve got to manage on what me da earns.’

  ‘And what does your father do?’ asked Fiona.

  ‘Oh, he’s a coal miner, like most of the fellers round our way,’ said Ginny. ‘It’s not bad money, with overtime, but they’ll be waiting for me to get back home and start helping out again.’

  ‘So . . . will you keep the baby?’ asked Fiona tentatively, wondering if it was permissible to ask the question.

  ‘No,’ Ginny replied briefly. ‘It’d just be another mouth to feed, wouldn’t it?’ She shook her head sadly. ‘But . . . well, these things happen, don’t they?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Fiona. She didn’t know yet whether the girls spoke openly to one another about their circumstances, or whether it was a question of the least said the better.

  ‘Anyway, this is where you can put your belongings,’ said Ginny, opening the door of a huge wardrobe. ‘I’ve shoved my stuff up to make room. And the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers will be yours as well. We haven’t got much time though, now.’ She glanced at a clock on a bedside cupboard. ‘Oh crikey! It’s five to one already. We’d best get moving. Do you want to spend a penny or anything?’

  ‘Yes, actually I think I do,’ said Fiona.

  ‘The lav’s along the corridor, and the bathroom’s next door,’ said Ginny. ‘And this towel is yours.’ She handed her a pink towel from off the rail. ‘We have different colours so we don’t get mixed up. Off you go now – the door at the end – and I’ll wait for you.’

  Interested faces looked up as Ginny and Fiona entered the dining room. Most of the girls were already there, awaiting the arrival of the members of staff who would sit at a table at the end of the room.

  ‘This is Fiona,’ said Ginny, going to a table where four young women were seated. ‘Mandy, Judith, Hazel and Bridget.’ She pointed to each girl in turn and Fiona smiled at them.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ They all smiled and nodded in return, with a chorus of ‘hellos’.

  ‘Hazel and Bridget are our room mates,’ Ginny was just starting to explain when the members of staff entered the room. All the girls stood up and bowed their heads as Miss Copeland said grace.

  ‘For what we are about to receive may we be truly thankful and ever mindful of the needs of others.’

  Fiona realized she was quite hungry. It seemed a long time since she had had her breakfast at the farmhouse. The meal consisted of steak and kidney pie with mashed potatoes and – as she had already guessed – cabbage. It was followed by rice pudding; a good nourishing meal, far better than she had expected.

  ‘So how far gone are you?’ asked the girl called Hazel, who was sitting next to her.

  ‘Er . . . I’m due at the end of May,’ replied Fiona, a little taken aback at the blunt remark. ‘And . . . what about you?’

  ‘End of March, two months to go,’ said Hazel. ‘Can’t wait to get rid, I can tell you. I was going to have an abortion. It was all arranged, and then – well – I chickened out. So now I’ve got to go through the whole damned business. I shall keep my legs crossed in future, believe me!’

  Fiona was embarrassed at hearing such revelations from a complete stranger. She wasn’t used to such plain speaking, but she guessed that in such a place as this there would be girls from all sorts of backgrounds and with differing personalities. She realized that this girl, Hazel, fitted into the category that her mother would call ‘common’, and her gran might say ‘was no better than she should be’, whatever such a silly expression might mean. She was a full-bosomed girl with blonde hair that was dark at the roots, growing out to its normal shade, it seemed. She wore a good deal of blue eyeshadow and bright-red lipstick, and was wearing a tight sweater with stripes of pink and black. Fiona had been pleased to learn that the girls were allowed to wear their own clothes and not some sort of uniform resembling prison garb, which might have been the norm not all that long ago. She was determined, though, not to make a hasty judgement about Hazel. The girl might turn out to be quite likeable on further acquaintance.

  ‘Now, you’ve got your tête-à-tête with Connie at two o’clock,’ said Ginny as they cleared away their pots at the end of the meal.

  ‘Connie?’ queried Fiona.

  ‘Connie Copeland,’ said Ginny. ‘We call her Connie behind her back, of course. She’s called Constance. We all get the same pep talk when we arrive. She’s alright though, provided you keep your nose clean. Off you go then. Some of us have to help with the washing up, so I’ll see you in our room afterwards. OK?’

  Fiona was pleasantly surprised to be invited to drink coffee with
Miss Copeland.

  ‘As I said before, I hope you will settle down here, Fiona,’ she began. ‘It is not our business to pass judgement on any of you, or to seek to punish you in any way. I know that may have happened in homes such as this, and not all that long ago either. And, regrettably, sometimes done in the name of religion. This is a home run by Christians who try to live up to that name. We know that you have all been foolish and have made a mistake, and most of you realize that; but we are here to help you and to try to offer you some guidance for the future, if we can . . . Now, is there anything you would like to ask, Fiona?’

  She couldn’t think of anything, so she shook her head and answered, ‘No, thank you, Miss Copeland.’

  The woman went on to enquire about her general health and whether she had suffered any complications so far in her pregnancy. She explained that the doctor would see her in the morning, and she would soon get to know Sister Travers and Nurse Grant who would take care of her at the birth. ‘You are not worried about giving birth, are you?’ she asked.

  ‘A little apprehensive, maybe,’ Fiona began. Then, ‘Well, yes, I suppose I am rather anxious about it,’ she admitted.

  ‘Try not to be,’ said Miss Copeland. ‘Our nursing staff make it as easy as they can for you. We don’t regard it as your punishment for wrongdoing, which I am afraid used to be the case in some homes. I am sure you will find that there’s nothing to fear.’

  It’s all very well for you to talk, Fiona thought to herself, looking at the woman whom she guessed to be in her mid fifties. She was manly in appearance, tall and angular and, seemingly, lacking in feminine characteristics. It was pretty certain that she had never given birth . . . But maybe she had regretted that fact, who could tell? Fiona always tried to see both sides of a question, and Miss Copeland, despite her forbidding looks, seemed to be an understanding person.

  ‘And . . . the baby is to be adopted?’ Miss Copeland asked. Fiona nodded. ‘We will make all the arrangements,’ she continued. ‘We try to make sure that parting from your baby is as painless as possible for you. We find it is best if this is dealt with as soon as it can be arranged, so that you don’t form too much of an attachment to the child. You are young, Fiona, and there is no reason why you should not give birth again at a later date, in a happy and stable relationship.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Copeland,’ Fiona murmured. It was the first time that the birth of her baby had been referred to so openly, and she experienced a pang of fear and of doubt. How would she feel when her baby was taken away from her?

  ‘Off you go then, my dear,’ said Miss Copeland, bringing the interview to a close. ‘Ginny’s a good girl; she’ll look after you. But if you have any problems please don’t hesitate to tell me or any of the other members of staff. Goodbye for now, Fiona . . . God bless you.’

  Sixteen

  Fiona soon found that Ginny was a great person to have around. She was sensible and practical, able to look on the bright side of life and ready to have a laugh, though not at the expense of others; unlike Hazel Docherty whose jesting was often thoughtless, even cruel at times, directed at those who were of a more timid disposition.

  The fourth occupant of the room was Bridget O’Connor, a small dark-haired girl whose accent and Celtic features betrayed that she was of Irish descent. She was often the butt of Hazel’s unkind humour, being referred to as Paddy or Mick or ‘our little friend from the potato fields’.

  Bridget’s home, now, was in Sunderland. Like Ginny, she was the eldest of a large family. She, too, was seventeen years old, the same age as both Fiona and Ginny, and had five younger siblings. Beyond that, however, she had divulged very little of her circumstances. Her mother sometimes came to visit her, a shabbily dressed, tired looking little woman who was probably not yet forty, but who appeared much older. She resembled Bridget, with the same sad, dark eyes. The father was never to be seen, and when asked, Bridget had replied briefly that he worked on the docks.

  Hazel, at twenty, was the eldest of the four room mates. She stated, quite unashamedly, that the father of her baby was married and that there was no chance of him leaving his wife, nor did she want him to do so. ‘We dropped a clanger, that’s all,’ she shrugged.

  Ginny had told Fiona how she had come to be ‘in the family way’. ‘It was the lad next door,’ she said. ‘He’s a few years older than me, more of a mate, really, than a boyfriend. We went to the pub one night, and I had too much to drink, and so did he. He didn’t mean this to happen, but . . . well, it did! Actually, he said he’d marry me, but me mam and me da won’t hear of it.’ Fiona thought she sounded a little regretful, but Ginny was never downhearted for long.

  She confided in her new friend about Dave, and how she had been quickly removed from the scene and not allowed to see him or any of her friends again.

  ‘Oh, poor you!’ said Ginny. ‘And you really loved him? I don’t think I love Arthur, but he’s a real nice sort of lad and we’ve always got on very well.’

  ‘Well, I thought I loved him,’ said Fiona, ‘but I know I’ve just got to try and forget him.’

  Bridget, however, did not say how she had become pregnant. Hazel frequently tormented her about it. ‘It was one of them leprechauns, so it was!’ she jeered. ‘A little green man who crept into your bedroom at dead of night, didn’t he, Bridget?’

  ‘Leave her alone, can’t you?’ Fiona snapped one afternoon when the older girl had gone too far, leaving Bridget in tears.

  ‘Oh, shurrup, you!’ retorted Hazel. ‘Don’t start telling me what to do! You’ve only been here five minutes, and you think you’re the bee’s knees just because you’ve been to a posh school.’ She flounced out leaving the other two girls to comfort Bridget. It was then that she told them her sorry tale.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone else, please,’ she begged, her voice scarcely audible through her sobs. ‘It was my dad . . . It’s my dad that did it.’

  ‘Your dad? What do you mean?’ asked Fiona, looking puzzled.

  Ginny frowned at her, shaking her head. She understood what Bridget was saying, even if Fiona didn’t. ‘Oh, you poor love!’ she said to Bridget, putting her arms around her. ‘I thought it might be something like that.’ Ginny had heard of such instances before, where a father or sometimes a brother was involved. She knew, though, that Fiona was far more naive. Despite the fact that Fiona was cleverer than the other three and had stayed longer at school, she was unused to the darker side of life. ‘Does your mam know about it?’ she asked Bridget gently.

  ‘Yes, it’s been going on for ages,’ said Bridget, sounding a little calmer now. ‘But she can’t do anything about it.’

  ‘But you won’t be going back to live there, will you?’ asked Ginny. ‘Bridget, you can’t!’

  ‘No, I’m going to my grandma’s – that’s my mam’s mother – back in Dublin.’

  ‘But . . . couldn’t your mother leave him, and go as well, to your grandma’s?’ asked Fiona, feeling very bewildered, and horrified, too, at the situation.

  ‘She’d like to, but there’s the rest of the kids, y’see. She can’t afford it, not to take them all. But maybe when I’ve gone it might be better . . . Thanks, you two, for listening. I don’t know what I’d do without you, honest to God! Miss Copeland knows, and she’s been grand, so she has.’

  ‘We’ll look after you,’ said Fiona with a show of confidence. ‘We’ll tell that Hazel where to get off, you see if we don’t.’

  ‘P’raps the least said the better,’ warned Ginny. ‘Hazel’s a nasty piece of work. We don’t want to make an enemy of her. She’d stab you in the back soon as look at you, that one.’

  Fiona nodded. ‘Yes, I can see that.’ In point of fact, she was flabbergasted at Bridget’s revelation. She had never heard of anything like that in her life. The girl’s own father! It was beyond belief. She was realizing there were many things in life of which she was totally unaware.

  ‘I had no idea about anything like that,’ she said to Ginny when they we
re on their own. ‘It’s monstrous, isn’t it? Her own father! And you say that sometimes it might be a brother who’s involved?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, yes,’ replied Ginny. ‘It’s my guess that there may be one or two here that that has happened to. You’ve never heard of it?’

  ‘Er . . . no,’ said Fiona hesitantly. She didn’t want to appear so innocent – stupid, in fact – in front of her more worldly-wise friend. Fiona realized that she had led a comparatively sheltered life, despite being brought up on a housing estate. It was an area where most of the people were law abiding and not given to extremes of behaviour, but not able to afford to buy their own homes. She supposed that Ginny might have been reared in a very different environment. The girl was intelligent and quick thinking, just as much so as Fiona herself was, but circumstances had forced her to leave school at an early age and find employment to help with the family’s finances.

  ‘It’s what is called incest,’ explained Ginny. ‘Sexual relationships with a close family member, like your father or brother. It can happen in large families like Bridget’s. I guess that her mother was pregnant a good deal of the time, and that the father sought his pleasures elsewhere.’

  ‘That’s horrible!’ Fiona shuddered.

  ‘Yes, so it is,’ agreed Ginny. ‘Thank goodness I’ve never experienced anything of the sort. Me da can be handy with his fists at times but he’s quite . . . well . . . normal in most respects. We’ll have to try to look out for Bridget now that we know about it, but Hazel must never find out.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Fiona. She had a good deal to mull over in her mind, but the following day they all had something else to think about.

  It was at the end of the midday meal on Wednesday, February sixth, that Miss Copeland stood to make an announcement. ‘Girls, will you all listen, please. I have some very sad news to tell you. Our beloved king has passed away. He died peacefully in his sleep early this morning.’

  There were gasps of shock and murmurs of ‘Oh dear!’ and ‘How dreadful!’ King George the Sixth was only fifty-six years of age. He had had an operation for lung cancer the previous September.