The Vanished Child

by M J Lee

  It hadn’t taken Harry long to work out which sisters to avoid and which to stay close to. The others in his dormitory had whispered the rules to him on his first night.

  ‘Don’t be late for mass.’

  ‘Don’t be late for the porridge. It’s shite but you have to eat it.’

  ‘Don’t run in the corridors. And especially don’t be caught by Sister Tomasina. That one’s a devil with the strap.’

  ‘Don’t talk when you’re eating.’

  ‘Don’t eat when you’re talking.’

  ‘And definitely don’t cross the Mother Superior,’ said Tommy Larkin.

  ‘Why not?’

  There was a knowing laugh from Larkin’s bed. ‘You don’t want to know.’

  His other introduction to St Mike’s, as it was known, had been brief. The man in the car had dropped him off at the entrance, saying, ‘Go through those doors, a sister will be waiting.’

  ‘A sister? But I don’t have a sister.’

  The man rolled his eyes up into his black hat. ‘A Sister of Mercy.’

  Harry stared at him.

  ‘One of the nuns. They are going to look after you now.’

  ‘I can’t go back to Mr and Mrs Beggs?’

  The man shook his head. ‘Don’t forget your bag.’

  Harry climbed out of the car and stared up at the blue painted door and the black stone of the building towering over him. The rain had given a shiny gloss to the walls. Water was running down the front of the house where a gutter had broken. To Harry, it seemed like the building was crying.

  He climbed the stairs slowly.

  A woman dressed in black with just a hint of white peeping out from beneath a black hood appeared from nowhere. ‘Hurry out of the rain, boy,’ she said. She held a black umbrella over her head to stop her habit getting wet. ‘This way.’

  Harry ran up the steps as fast as he could. She pushed open the blue-painted door a little wider and Harry stepped through.

  ‘Wipe your feet.’

  Harry stood in a high hall with more steps leading upwards in front of him. There was a mirror and hat-stand to the left, the floor was highly polished wood and the whole place stank of boiled cabbage. On the right, a black clock tolled 3 p.m.

  The nun – Sister Tomasina, as he found out later (the one to avoid) – pushed him forward, shaking the drops of water from the closing umbrella over his head. ‘Don’t just stand there, boy. Come in here.’

  She led the way into a small room that was hidden behind the mirror and the hat-stand. She sat behind the desk, picking up a sheet of paper.

  ‘Is your name Harold?’

  Harry nodded. ‘Everybody calls me Harry.’

  ‘We will call you Harold, it is your Christian name. Are those your things?’

  He glanced down at the small green army bag he held in his right hand. He had forgotten it was still there. He nodded again.

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’

  He didn’t recognise her accent. It was sharp, with edges like a rough stone. He shook his head.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘N-n-no, Miss,’ he blurted out.

  ‘It’s Sister to you. Sister Tomasina.’

  He followed her eyes to see the small puddle at his feet where the rain had run off his coat and dripped on to the floor.

  Sister Tomasina sniffed. ‘You’re in number three, come this way. Welcome back.’

  Welcome back? Had he been here before? He didn’t remember living here or visiting with Mr and Mrs Beggs. Perhaps he had come to visit one day.

  He followed the sister out of the door and up the stairs. He reached for her hand, as he had been taught by the Beggs. ‘Always hold my hand climbing the stairs, Harry, you don’t want to fall.’

  The sister knocked it away and glared down at him.

  He concentrated on climbing the stairs so he wouldn’t fall, staring at the bottom of her hem as it glided upwards in front of his eyes. Occasionally the hem would lift to reveal the backs of her heels in her brown sandals: cracked heels with dry and flaking skin, looking like the old leather Mr Beggs used to clean the windows.

  At the top, she glided down a long corridor. Two children were on their knees wiping the floor, dipping their cloths into steaming buckets of water.

  For a moment, the children lifted their eyes to look at the new arrival, before dropping them again as Sister Tomasina strode past.

  She stopped outside one of the rooms. ‘This is your dormitory.’

  The door opened. Harry saw a row of iron beds on either side of a narrow aisle. Each of the beds was neatly made, with a brown blanket folded at the bottom and white sheets turned down to the edge of a white pillow. Above each bed was a single wooden cross, alone and stark against the white wall. At the back of the room, facing the door, was a large picture window, revealing the grey day outside in all its glory.

  ‘This is where you will sleep. Are you a bed-wetter?’

  Harry knew about this. One of the other boys at Mr and Mrs Beggs did it sometimes in his sleep. He shook his head.

  ‘Don’t lie to me, boy. Are you a bed-wetter?’

  He shook his head again, harder this time.

  ‘We don’t like bed-wetters.’ She walked into the room. ‘This is your bed. Number six.’

  Harry looked around him, counting the beds. There were seven on each side. Seven times two equals fourteen. Where were the others?

  As if she could hear his thoughts, Sister Tomasina answered him. ‘The others will be along shortly when they’ve finished their work. They will explain our rules to you.’ She touched the long piece of leather hanging from her belt next to the rosary. ‘We have rules that must be followed. Am I clear?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘Am I clear?’ she repeated.

  ‘Y-y-yes, Sister.’

  She nodded once, satisfied, and left the room.

  Harry stood there at the end of his bed, not knowing what to do. For a moment, a small ball of pain rose from the middle of his chest into his throat. He knew he mustn’t cry.

  Not now. Not here.

  He didn’t know how long he stood there, not daring to move, a small puddle of water forming at his feet. The light through the windows had gone from a dull grey to a dark black before the others returned. Harry was still stood where Sister Tomasina had left him. They all crowded around him, friendly and curious.

  ‘Are you the new boy?’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Where you from?’

  The questions kept coming until one boy took him aside. He was taller and older than the rest and seemed to be in charge.

  ‘Hang your coat in the wardrobe over there and put your bag under the bed. The nuns will issue you with uniform tomorrow, they always do.’

  For the first time, Harry realised they were all wearing the same clothes; a grey shirt, black shorts, a V-necked sleeveless green jumper and no shoes.

  ‘She’s given you this bed?’

  Harry nodded.

  ‘Vince used to sleep here, but he left yesterday. Jack Hopkins is the name.’ He held out his hand like Mr Beggs used to do when people came to visit. Harry shook it tentatively. ‘Come on, it’s time for supper. They won’t let you eat if you’re late.’

  And that was his introduction to St Mike’s. He soon got used to the place and its rules. The rest of the kids were great and the sisters were fine as long as you recognised which ones to avoid.

  Most days, the children worked in the kitchen, cleaning the halls, sweeping the paths, or washing the floors. The thousand and one jobs that needed doing whilst the sisters watched and supervised.

  Occasionally, they had classes when Sister Morris didn’t have one of her headaches. But Harry wasn’t very good at learning his letters, the shapes seemed all wrong to him. His hands smarted from the lash of the sister’s tongue followed by the sharp edge of the metal ruler across his knuckles. But somehow, he didn’t get much better at reading. Arithmetic was different, though. The numbers
made sense to him, and even when he ran out of fingers it was easy to work out the answers.

  He’d even made some friends. Jack, of course, and Denis, Ginger, Ernie, Fred, Georgie – all the rest of the gang in his dormitory. It was all boys there, no girls. The girls were in the dormitories at the end of the hall, guarded fiercely by Sister Grace. They saw them at mealtimes and stole a few words here and there. Jack’s sister was one of them. But they vanished to the laundry every day except Sunday.

  Sunday was Mass day. They were all assembled at 7.45 a.m. at the end of their beds, dressed in their cleanest clothes. They were told to put on their shoes and were then led down the stairs, out through the blue-painted door and around the corner to the church at the end of the road.

  St Michael’s was a vast church, towering above Harry’s head as he sat in the pews. The priest led the congregation at the front, mumbling the words to the Mass. He was an old man who had to be helped by the altar boys as he moved in front of the altar or up the steps to the pulpit. The older boys, Jack included, sometimes went up for communion if they had been to confession. One day, Jack came back to the pew and sat next to Harry. He opened his mouth wide to show the host still sitting white and lonely in the centre of his red tongue and then rolled his eyes so only the whites could be seen. Harry laughed out loud and the whole church turned round to look at him.

  He received six lashes across the back of his legs later that day. Sister Tomasina shouted at him after every lash of her strap, ‘Jesus Christ died on the cross to save you! Jesus Christ died on the cross to save you, Jesus Christ died on the cross to save you.’

  The backs of his legs were bruised and painful for the next week, changing colour from a livid red to a deep purple and finally ending in a lazy brown.

  He would be more careful next time.

  Jesus Christ had died on the cross to save him.

  Chapter Eight

  November 6, 1951.

  St Michael’s Home, Oldham, England

  The acrid smell of gunpowder was still in the air. A pungent smell that seeped out from the brick walls and infested their hair, clothes and food.

  But Harry didn’t mind, last night had been fun. They all knew about the bonfire. Hadn’t the local kids been building it for the last week on the waste ground between the church and the home? The day before, a guy had been hauled up to the top; the body of a shop mannequin dressed in old clothes with a football as a head, painted white with eyes, nose and mouth in bright vermillion red.

  The nuns pretended to ignore it. ‘Heathens,’ Sister Tomasina whispered under her breath, making the sign of the cross.

  November 5 had passed quickly. The next day, Harry was in the kitchens with Jack. Peeling the spuds, washing the cabbage, and helping the cook, Sister Iris, to roast the bacon for the nuns’ table. Of course, the children wouldn’t be having bacon – that was far too good for them, but if you were lucky, Sister Iris let you nibble on the ends the nuns wouldn’t eat.

  After they had washed their faces and brushed their teeth, Sister Tomasina had sent them to their beds in the dormitory at the usual time of 7.30 p.m., turning the lights out fifteen minutes later, after their prayers. Of course, she had closed the door with her evening goodnight: ‘Dream of God, children, let him fill your head till morning.’

  They all remained in their beds, the sheets and blankets pulled up under their chins to keep out the cold.

  Sister Tomasina came back five minutes later, as she usually did, to check up on them. Ah, she was a clever one she was, but they knew she would return, so nobody had moved. She popped her head round the door, saw that nobody was ‘awake’ and went away.

  Jack waited a minute before whispering, ‘She’s gone.’

  Quietly, they crept out of bed. Jack went to the shutters in front of the windows, which the sisters closed every night to keep out the street lights. He folded back one side.

  The bonfire was already alight. A crowd of children and adults were standing in front of it, watching the flames flicker through the gaps in the wood like dancing orange fingers. A few of the men were drinking out of bottles, their children eating something on sticks.

  ‘Them’s toffee apples, them is,’ said Rocko.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Me mam. She gave me one once. Lovely it was, too. The outside’s toffee. It cracks in your mouth and then you bite into the soft apple inside.’

  Harry’s mouth was watering.

  ‘You had one?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You did not.’

  ‘I did too... Well, me and me brother shared it.’

  The flames were reaching higher now, licking the feet of the guy. Some children had started dancing around the bonfire, forming a long conga line that weaved in and out of the adults, who were standing in groups, watching.

  Snatches of a song drifted with the sparks to the home.

  Won’t it be fun on Bonfire Night?

  Bonfire Night, Bonfire Night.

  Won’t it be fun on Bonfire Night,

  On Bonfire Night in the garden.

  We’ll build a fire and it’ll burn bright,

  On Bonfire Night, on Bonfire Night.

  We’ll build a fire and it’ll burn bright,

  On Bonfire Night in the garden.

  One man was fixing a pink circle to a pole. A match appeared in his hand and he touched it to the edge of the circle, stepping back sharply.

  Nothing happened.

  Then all of a sudden there was a loud whoosh and the pink circle begin to spin, giving off sparks of red and blue and yellow, spinning faster and faster until the colours blurred into one solid mass. The adults and children cheered.

  Harry glanced across at Jack. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  Jack didn’t answer, his eyes shining bright, staring at the colours.

  Then the spinning slowed down and the wheel shuddered to a halt. The man came forward once more, placing a bottle on the ground and inserting a long stick with a pointed end into the mouth.

  ‘That’s a rocket, that is. It can go to the moon,’ Jack said.

  They all waited as the man touched his match to the stick and stepped back again.

  The rocket flared for a second before shooting up into the sky. All the boys leant forward to follow the rocket’s progress, but they couldn’t see it. For three seconds it vanished from view, and then above their heads in the dark night sky a flower of shimmering sparks exploded, dropping and sparkling till they vanished and the night sky returned.

  The boys cheered loudly, only to be silenced by a loud ‘Shush’ from Jack. ‘Don’t make any noise, Sister Tomasina will hear.’

  For the next hour, the boys watched the bonfire through the windows of the home. Rockets soared, sparklers sparkled, bangers banged, Catherine Wheels spun, little volcanoes spurted flame like Vesuvius and the citizens of the town ate their toffee apples and their parkin and drank their beer.

  All this time the bonfire burnt fiercely, the flames illuminating the figures in a red, orange and yellow glow.

  Jack and Harry. Rocko, with Little Tom. Denis the Menace and Georgie. James and John. Whitey and the Whatmough Brothers and Charlie all slept well.

  Nobody wet the bed that night.

  Chapter Nine

  June 18, 2017

  Buxton Residential Home, Derbyshire, England

  It was time to tell Vera what she had found so far.

  Jayne drove out to Buxton down the A6 with Oasis blaring out from the BMW’s sound system, Liam Gallagher’s Manchester whine a fitting accompaniment to her mood. What was she going to say? Everything depended on the birth certificates arriving from the Government Record Office in Southport, and if the name of the mother was not given as Freda Duckworth then they were stuffed, up the creek without a paddle?

  The first and only job given to her by a relative and she had so far found nothing. She had managed to discover a few grandparents, but that was easy – simply a matter of looking up the census. The im
portant question – did Vera have a long-lost brother – was still unsettled.

  Jayne switched off the engine and Liam Gallagher died too. Time to face the music. Luckily it wasn’t Oasis.

  She quickly said hello to Jenny in reception and found Robert and Vera sitting out in the garden under the shade of the old oak tree.

  ‘Good afternoon, lass, it’s great to see you.’

  She leant forward to kiss her father on the forehead, noticing for the first time the bright liver spots at his hairline. ‘How are you, Dad?’

  He held his hand out horizontally and waved it in the air.

  ‘He had one of his moments this morning.’

  ‘Afternoon, Vera.’ Jayne manoeuvred her way around the table to kiss her step mother on the cheek.

  ‘One minute I was fine, the next I was stood there trying to remember my name. I couldn’t remember my own bloody name.’ Her father slammed his fist down on the table.

  ‘There, there, Robert.’ Vera patted his hand. ‘You’re getting older, these things happen.’

  ‘But not to bloody me, they don’t. Always proud of my memory, I was.’

  ‘Vera’s right, Dad, you shouldn’t get annoyed with yourself, these things happen.’

  ‘Wait till they happen to you, then see how you feel.’

  There was a vehemence in her father’s voice that Jayne hadn’t heard before. Even when she was a teenager and had come home two hours late, he had always been gentle with her, reminding her this was not the correct behaviour.

  Vera patted his arm again, but her voice had changed, the northern accent becoming far more pronounced. ‘Now, Robert, that’s no way to speak to Jayne. She’s only trying to help.’

  Her father appeared sheepish. ‘Sorry, lass, I didn’t mean... It’s just...’

  ‘I know, Dad. Don’t worry, and don’t be too hard on yourself.’

  Vera smiled and sat up straight. ‘Well, Jayne, have you discovered anything for us?’ she said brightly, changing the subject.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s good news and bad news, Vera. First, the good stuff. I've found your paternal grandparents and I should be able to track down your maternal grandparents pretty easily.' Jayne passed the LostCousins worksheet to her. ‘Your great-grandfather, Thomas Henry Duckworth, worked as a coaster in a brewery in Oldham.