Gull Island

by Grace Thompson

  ‘She never did!’

  ‘Come and see.’ Rosita led him to where Luke’s cottage stood and was surprised to see that the padlock had been replaced. Someone had been there while they were delivering the evening papers. Their few belongings had been thrown outside. Unperturbed, Rosita said, ‘Mam’ll have to smash the lock again, but it won’t take her long.’

  They walked along the beach and Richard showed her Luke’s boat.

  ‘Is he my dad?’ she asked. ‘The man with the beard and funny glasses?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Pity, mind. If he was he wouldn’t slap you around like your old man does.’

  ‘Who is my real dad?’

  ‘I don’t know but I think he’s dead. But I do know who your grandparents are. I heard Barbara and Mam talking about them. Useless they are, the lot of them, so Mam says.’

  When he told her their names she asked him to write them down. The piece of paper he found and the blunt pencil didn’t make the document seem very important, but Rosita put it carefully in her clothes, tucked away in her only possession, a book.

  It was A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. She and her sisters loved their mother to read from it. Rosita’s favourite was ‘The Lamplighter’. Living on a farm, far from any street, the idea of someone coming along each evening to light lamps was a magical thing. She found the page with the aid of the pictures and tucked the piece of paper into the fold.

  Freda, Barbara’s sister, was surprised to see Barbara and Rosita waiting for her when she came out of work on Saturday evening. It was late as the shop stayed open for longer on Saturdays and at first she didn’t recognize them.

  ‘Barbara? Where did you spring from? And is this your little girl? Have you seen Mam?’ She was obviously pleased to see them and Barbara was warmed by her smile of pleasure.

  ‘I haven’t seen Mam but I met Dad and he told us to stay away. I – I wondered if you could talk to them? I need somewhere to leave Rosita for a while, just until I can get a few things sorted.’

  ‘Come and have a cup of tea and a bun and we’ll talk.’

  Barbara knew immediately from the closed-up look on her sister’s face that it was hopeless but she went anyway. It was good to see Freda again, and to gather news of her family would be some small comfort.

  ‘I’ll do what I can, but our dad is very stubborn, as you know,’ Freda said when they were about to part. ‘If Mam says yes, then I’ll come to the beach and find you. If you don’t hear anything, well, Barbara, I promise I’ll have tried.’

  ‘There isn’t anyone else and I have to get back to the farm. I have two other children and a husband who need me. I can’t leave them much longer.’

  Every morning, Barbara left one of the Carey children sitting on a chair near the open door, looking out for Freda. Each day, when she returned with Richard and Mr Carey, there was no news. On Sunday, after the morning papers were dealt with, the day was free. She watched the road almost afraid to turn her head in case she missed that first glimpse of her sister, a promise of help, but the morning passed and no one came. Freda might have tried but she had certainly failed.

  Mr Carey sat in the weak October sunshine chewing the end of his pencil and filling in pages of his books. Mrs Carey and Barbara were washing clothes and spreading them on bushes and on the sea wall to dry. Richard and Rosita were out in the boat, hoping for some fish.

  Barbara was determinedly not looking along the road, so when the woman appeared it was with a lurch of disbelief that she saw someone approaching. Hope was there for a brief moment then dashed. It wasn’t her sister or her mother. It was Bernard’s mother, Mrs Stock.

  ‘Mr Stock and I will take the girl,’ she said without preamble. ‘Your sister told me how she was ill treated. She’ll have a good, respectable home with us.’

  Barbara’s instincts were to refuse but how could she? The Careys were hardly able to care for themselves and were certainly not fit to cope with a lively character like Rosita. And Rosita could not go back to the farm. There were other children waiting for her and wondering why she had abandoned them. She missed Kate and Hattie. Whatever happened, she had to go back to them, just as definitely as Rosita could not. Reluctantly, she walked with a frightened Rosita to the neat, dark little house of Mr and Mrs Stock.

  Rosita began to misbehave immediately.

  ‘Is this all there is?’ she asked when she had been shown around.

  ‘Better than you’re used to,’ Mrs Stock replied stiffly.

  ‘Pigsties better than this we’ve got! And where are the fields?’

  ‘There aren’t any fields, child. There’s a yard for you to play in.’

  ‘Where?’ Rosita demanded, ignoring the shushing of her mother.

  ‘Outside the back door, of course.’

  ‘Call that a yard? The dog couldn’t turn round in that little space!’

  Barbara left her with strong misgivings. She didn’t look back as the bus took her further and further away from her daughter. Before she reached the farm to a jubilant welcome from the girls and an anxious, almost formal greeting from Graham, Rosita had run away.

  Three times Mr and Mrs Stock took Rosita back from the Careys, then Barbara came again, collected the wildly furious and frightened child and placed her in a home for waifs and strays.

  ‘Her father died in the war and her mother has gone away,’ Barbara told the kindly matron. ‘To Scotland I believe. I’m her Auntie Babs,’ she explained, adding to the confusion of the unhappy Rosita.

  Rosita glared around her, staring at the other girls who had come to watch her arrival. She wasn’t going to cry, she wasn’t. This was punishment, being locked away in this huge building, but she wouldn’t shed a single tear. She wondered what she had done to be punished in this way. It must have been something very wicked for Mam to pretend she was an auntie.

  Refusing to hold her mother’s hand, Rosita followed the two women as they went from room to room in the enormous building. The matron was dressed in a long, blue and white striped dress, over which she wore a white apron and matching cap. She rustled as she walked and her strong shoes clacked importantly on the bare tiled floors.

  Rosita was too distressed to take in much of what they were shown but the rooms seemed frightening. Sounds echoed hollowly. The floors were cold tiles downstairs and mostly bare scrubbed wooden boards above. The place was larger than any she had ever seen, the walls a chilly white and so high she thought they must have been whitewashed barns like on the farm and been piled one on another to make this strange house.

  Everything was in rows. Rows of bowls for washing, each with its bar of soap and a towel, rows of lavatories, rows of chairs against long scrubbed tables and rows of beds. She saw several girls who, with their matching dresses and coverall aprons and very short hair, looked as strange as the house. They too seemed to always be standing in rows or walking single file, as if unable to break the pattern.

  Then, their tour of inspection was over and she was standing at the doorway and watching her mother leave. She began to scream but the woman dressed in grey who was now in charge of her whispered that if she didn’t stop immediately she would be locked in the punishment room. Rosita poked her tongue out at her but remained silent.

  Stifling her screams with her hand, Rosita stared after the figure of her mother hurrying down the road and she shook inside. What was happening to her? Why was Mam pretending to be an auntie? She only had one auntie and that was Auntie Molly Carey. She’d better get back to her as soon as possible before this huge house, filled with strange people, swallowed her completely.

  Getting up early was no problem for Rosita, who was used to farm life. In fact, she was awake long before the other girls who shared her room and she lay watching the sky through a high window and planning her escape. She wanted to run away immediately – she had wet the bed and didn’t know who to tell.

  At 7.30 they were roused and like the others, Rosita pulled the covers from her bed, rem
ade it and pulled the covers back for airing. She did it quickly, her small arms stretching across the damp sheet and bundling it so no one knew of her shame. Then she followed the other girls to the room with the row of bowls for washing and was late getting to breakfast and everyone stared. Tomorrow, she decided grimly, I’ll use my elbows and make sure I’m first!

  She wasn’t hungry and the meal of bread and milk didn’t appeal, but she ate some anyway and tucked the rest into the pocket on the leg of her knickers. She had to be ready for the opportunity to run, whenever it came.

  She didn’t go to school on that first day. The grey lady said it was to give her a chance to settle. She sat with the younger children, who were taught by those who had left school. On the second day she walked, in crocodile, with the rest. Biggest at the front, smallest behind, all wearing identical clothes, heavy boots making them look like a centipede.

  After a test given by the teacher she was given a desk in the new school. She quickly realized that even here she was unable to keep up with the others. At playtime she ran away and tried to get back to Auntie Molly Carey.

  She ran away three times, once being brought back by the local doctor on his horse and trap, once by a friendly policeman and the third time, when she had managed to reach the beach, by Richard.

  ‘Safe there, you’ll be,’ he assured her. ‘Better than with old Prothero for sure. Be patient. Time will pass and when you’re grown up you’ll be as free as a wild goose.’

  ‘A swan,’ she wailed. ‘I don’t want to be a goose, I want to be a wild swan.’

  He was surprised at her vehemence. He couldn’t know that crossing her mind was the rhyme from her only book:

  Cruel children, crying babies

  All grow up as geese and gabies.

  She knew she was cruel and had been a crying baby, and she might grow up to be a goose, or worse, a gaby – which she was told was someone simple – but she didn’t know what to do about it.

  Accepting Richard’s advice to be patient and wait until she was old enough to survive alone, Rosita became subdued and surly. She accepted the thick, heavy clothes and the boots she was given with ill grace, hating being made to look exactly like the others. She forced herself to give in to the rules that everyone followed without protest. Giving the impression of silent acceptance, although seething with fear and fury inside, she ignored the attempts at friendship from those sharing the long bedroom and did what was asked of her sullenly and without joy.

  At school her record continued to be poor and in the home her belligerent attitude meant she had little chance of making friends. She did have one person to whom she could talk. Surprisingly, the lady in grey, whom she now knew to be Matron’s assistant, made allowances for her temper when she could, and tried to help with her written work. In the hours of recreation, when the children were offered a variety of pastimes, she would sit, with chalk and slate, and encourage her to practise writing and reading. Rosita’s aim, the clever lady realized, was to read her favourite book for herself and this was the tool she used.

  A month after her arrival at the home, the children were invited to a Christmas party given by the local organization in a church hall. They were each given a small gift, handed to them by an elderly man in a Father Christmas outfit. Most of the girls got dolls or books. Rosita pretended not to be interested but hoped for a doll. It might be fun to have a pretend friend. Opening her parcel, which seemed to be the right shape, a smile flickered on her lips. On opening the coloured paper and finding a horse and hay cart, Rosita remembered the farm that was her home and all the anger and frustration burst out of her.

  She screamed and kicked those near enough to be a target. Her face was a mask of despair and she pushed away anyone attempting to hold her. She gripped her fists into tight balls and looked for some way of venting her misery. Picking up a vase from a side table, she threw it through the window with a crash that sobered her immediately.

  Sobs came then. Why wasn’t she with her mother and sisters? Why had Mam said she hadn’t got a mother and left her with these strangers? She cried furiously, standing in the middle of a hesitant circle of adults, while the other children kept back against the walls. She threw down the offending toy, gratified to see it broken. Then she poked her tongue out at Father Christmas and ran from the room.

  It was the grey lady who found her, led to the corner of the building by her sobs. She picked her up and without a word of censure carried her back to the bus that was waiting to take them back to the home. She undressed her, bathed her and put her to bed. She encouraged her to talk, listening quietly to the release of the girl’s bewilderment and pain.

  She was allowed to stay in bed the following day and the grey lady came and read to her. One of the girls, called Mary, came too and sat nervously beside her, wanting to talk but afraid of a rebuff. Although they didn’t speak, Rosita was comforted by her being there.

  On Christmas Day there was a parcel from ‘Auntie Babs’, but Rosita refused to open it and it stayed in Matron’s cupboard for the duration of Rosita’s stay.

  She ran away once more, early in the spring of 1923, but she was afraid, having forgotten the direction that would take her to Auntie Molly Carey. If she went the wrong way she might find herself back at the farm, with Graham angry with her and raising the cane. The image made her grip her thighs in remembered agony. She sat in the corner of a field for most of the day then went quietly back.

  She and Mary became friends, at least as much of a friend as Rosita was capable of at that time. Slowly the months passed with life getting easier. School was still a trial but in the home Rosita became an avid reader, getting much pleasure from reading aloud to Mary and occasionally to others as well.

  The anger seemed to have left her, only returning for a brief period after each of Barbara’s rare visits. She never referred to Kate and Hattie, frowning and asking who they were when Barbara mentioned them. But she secretly agonized over their abandonment of her. Why did everyone hate her so?

  She often took the scrap of paper out of her book and read the names of her grandparents written by Richard Carey. Her grandparents hated her, for sure. Mam and Graham hated her, Graham hit her and Mam let him, then they locked her away. Kate and Hattie never came to see her, or even sent a message when her mother came, so, she reasoned, they must think I’m dead. Or they hated her too and didn’t want to see her ever again. She dealt with this by refusing to admit that she had sisters and told everyone she was a solitary orphan, her only relation being Auntie Babs, who hated her.

  Chapter Eight

  IN APRIL 1928, Barbara began to worry that something was wrong with her eldest daughter. Five years had passed since she had pretended to be her aunt and placed her in the home. The visits she had initially made had ended after a few months. Matron had advised her to wait a while as it always upset Rosita and unsettled her. A renewal of the visits had always been intended but had never happened.

  Since then she had written every month and the matron had encouraged Rosita to write a short note in reply. Now weeks had passed and no letter had appeared. There couldn’t be anything seriously wrong or Matron would have let her know, but guilt was never far from the surface of her mind and, even with Graham’s obvious disapproval, she had to go and see for herself.

  On Easter Sunday, she set off with a small bag swinging from her shoulders, leaving eight-year-old Kate and seven-year-old Hattie behind. She wore a fashionable long cardigan she had knitted and a long pleated skirt and simple top. On her head was a full-crowned hat with a smallish brim, on which she had sewn wax cherries and a large butterfly made from feathers.

  In the bag were a few clothes. Although it wasn’t her intention to be away more than a day or two, it was wise to be prepared for the unexpected where Rosita was concerned. She hoped she would just go to the home, discover the reason for the lack of letters, spend a day with her then return to the farm.

  She was excited at the break in the monotonous daily routine
. She had been increasingly restless over the past months. She was twenty-seven and feeling that life should hold more than the repetitious grind that she and Graham endured.

  Graham watched her go, a burly, anxious-looking man wearing thick trousers and a Welsh flannel shirt without its stiff Sunday collar, the sleeves rolled up to the middle of his powerful forearms. He leaned on a shepherd’s crook, afraid she would stay away for a long time. Although he stood there until she was out of sight, she didn’t turn and give a final wave, which disappointed him.

  He stayed for a while longer, half hoping she would come back and give that reassuring wave, aware that he was acting like a child. Then he walked up the hill to check on the sheep. There were still a few waiting to give birth. He stopped for a while where his land dropped sharply down to the river below. Some long-ago land-slide had formed what the locals called the cwm.

  The wind blew his hair back from his face, revealing the thin line of pale skin around the hairline that the sun failed to reach. He thought of Barbara sitting on the bus that was taking her away from him. He had never felt secure in his marriage; always afraid that her previous life would one day call her back.

  He wondered if she would come back this time or was this the day it would end? Would he wait for the buses that came and went and be disappointed? He considered vaguely what he would do. He knew that although she hid it well, she had never been completely happy with him, but they worked well together and apart from the loss of Rosita she had seemed content enough. Perhaps it was him being much older than her that made him always afraid of losing her?

  But no. It was more than that. Over the past months she had become more and more distant. Thinking about that daughter of hers for sure. Nothing but trouble that one had caused since the moment of her birth. His frown deepened as he walked on and he hit out angrily at the nettles that barred his way.