No Easy Road

by Patsy Whyte

  An hour or so later the test was over and we were told to stop what we were doing. Mrs Brown came round with a clipboard in hand to give us the marks she thought our creations deserved. She stopped beside the first girl making some very positive comments.

  "They look very nice indeed", said an obviously delighted Mrs Brown. "Pretty little jam tarts, well made."

  My classmate's face beamed, proud of being complimented so highly. Mrs Brown picked up one of the tarts from the plate and took a small bite.

  "Mmmm...lovely, good texture, nice flavour!"

  She put the tart down and wrote a mark on the clipboard. Then she moved on to the next girl who looked rather pleased with herself.

  "Very nice", said Mrs Brown, admiring the fairy cakes. "They've risen beautifully."

  Again, she took the smallest of bites and paused.

  "They're delicious!", she said, enthusiastically.

  Mrs Brown continued along the tables giving marks and comments and then it was my turn to be judged. My scones just sat there on the plate for all the world to see, sunken and distinctly green in appearance.

  "Ahem...", was Mrs Brown's initial comment. "They look awful. I don't think I'll be tasting them!"

  Everyone burst out laughing as she quickly moved on to the next girl. I wasn't disappointed. I didn't blame her at all. My efforts were truly abysmal. I tried my best but I wasn't very good at following instructions. There was far too much bicarbonate of soda in the scones. Although I liked baking, I was no baker as the scones lying on the plate made all too clear. They were not fit for human consumption. Not surprisingly, I failed the test.

  I was fortunate, too, having Mrs Brown as my sewing teacher. My sewing was almost as bad as my cooking. Again, even although I enjoyed it very much indeed, I still lacked a lot of the necessary skills. I was extremely good at sewing by hand. Some of the tasks we were given were extremely intricate, but I loved the challenge and found it all so therapeutic.

  One morning, as we took our usual seats, we noticed Mrs Brown had already laid out a pile of dress and skirt patterns on her big table at the front of the class. She asked us to look through them and decide what we wanted to make. After picking out a pattern for a skirt, Mrs Brown strongly suggested I should make it using a roll of grey coloured material. She was very insistent. I didn't understand it. Grey was so dull. There were many rolls of material sitting on the shelves with colours far more exciting.

  After laying the pattern on the cloth and cutting around it, the material was pinned and tacked, ready to be sewn into the finished article. But when Mrs Brown told me to use the electric sewing machine, it all turned into a bit of a disaster. The machine kept jamming and Mrs Brown had to keep constantly fixing it. I was struggling to finish the skirt. In the end, Mrs Brown took over and during the next couple of weeks, finished it off for me.

  By then, all the other girls in the class were finished, too. When Mrs Brown asked us to bring in money to pay for the materials, my heart sank. It was easier getting blood out of a stone than money out of the house mother. But I tried, even although I knew it was a waste of time. I plucked up the courage but the look on her face said it all. She dismissed me out of hand.

  I asked the house mother for the money the following week. Once more, she ignored me completely, packing me off to school without it. This went on for a month, me asking and the matron refusing, until Mrs Brown put her foot down. She sent the house mother a letter demanding the money and that did the trick.

  Just before leaving for school, the house mother handed me a sealed envelope. Inside it was the money for the skirt which she told me to hand to the sewing teacher. I was over the moon. As it turned out, the skirt Mrs Brown made was just right for my school uniform. The colour and style fitted in perfectly and I proudly wore it to school the next day.

  Mrs Brown saw how my old shabby dirndl skirt made me stand out from the other girls in my class and did something about it. Later, with her help, I went on to make a dress and a pair of pyjamas. Each time the house mother gave me a difficult time, Mrs Brown simply wrote another letter and the money materialised.

  At last, I had some modern clothes to wear instead of the old fashioned cast-offs and hand-me-downs from the second hand cupboard. A year later, when I walked out the gates of the home for the very last time, I still had them. The skirt and dress and pair of pyjamas were the only decent clothes I owned.

  Chapter Ten

  I was 13 years of age and couldn't tell the time. No one ever made the effort to teach me or think it was something important for me to learn. When anyone asked me to tell them the time, I said something like the big hand was pointing to 12 and the small hand was pointing to two. Little wonder the other kids at the school looked at me as if I was stupid.

  While in the maths class, one afternoon, we were doing sums related to time and I couldn't answer any of the questions. The teacher asked me in front of the whole class if I could read the time. I felt embarrassed.

  "No", I admitted, my head hanging in shame.

  He told me to go to the back of the class and then never bothered with me after that. Only the bright kids sitting at the front of the class got his full attention. I sat at the back for years and no one ever asked why.

  There was no one at the home to help you with homework, and no educational books or materials either. Nobody ever asked if you had any problems at school. You were never encouraged to learn, or to think you could ever achieve anything in life.

  Every year, my school report card said my head was always in the clouds, or I was a dreamer, or something similar. The report card never contained anything positive. It seemed to confirm the home's view of me. The house mother's reports to the authorities were just as negative. All I was capable of achieving in life was the role of a domestic servant, nothing else.

  The more that people around me gave up on me, the more I gave up on myself. It wasn't until I was 15 that I learned how to read the time. Years later, I discovered I suffered from a form of number dyslexia.

  * * *

  The five beds in the big girls' room were all neatly made up and the room was empty. Everybody was down at breakfast. I was fed up and depressed and wasn't in the mood to join them. So I sat on the steps leading to the small girls' room.

  No one cared and no one would miss me if I died. My thoughts were deep and dark and unhappy. Today was my birthday and I didn't want to live a day longer. There was nothing to look forward to, no cards or birthday wishes to mark this day as anything special. It was the same every year.

  I thought of all the ways I could kill myself, picturing the scene in my head. Tablets sprang to mind, but there was not a single aspirin to be had anywhere in this place. Cutting my wrist was all but impossible. Everything in the home was made of plastic. There was not enough privacy to hang myself either. Too many kids. Someone was bound to save me in the nick of time. The more I thought about it, the more I started to laugh. There was no escape, no way out of here. But seeing the funny side brightened up my mood, so I went down to breakfast.

  It was the weekend and I was determined to give myself some kind of a birthday treat. So I sneaked out of the home with my cousin Anne. We made our way over to the field opposite the home, wading through the tall overgrown grass which came up to our waists. All around us, dandelions grew wild and sticky willows stuck to our clothes and hair and witchycoos twirled and danced on the warm summer breeze.

  There was nobody about as Anne and I shouted and laughed at each other across the abandoned field. We were on the hunt for juicy red plump strawberries, long forgotten about and just waiting to be eaten. They were to be found among the run down disused plots. Men in white tops and trousers were playing bowls on the green a short distance away. They were much more interested in their game to notice Anne and I running about in the field.

  I liked Anne. Her hair was short and raven black. She had pearly white teeth which seemed far too big for her small mouth. Her cheeks were pale and her frame thin a
nd wiry, making her appear undernourished and ill looking. But she was full of grit and fun to be with.

  Her dad came to the home every Sunday to take her out for the afternoon. He was a lovely man, always smartly dressed in a trilby hat and suit. Whenever he saw me, looking out from behind the gates, he stopped to speak to me. Then he walked away up the driveway and came back down again a minute later with Anne and her brother and sister.

  One day, he told me Anne was my cousin. He said he was going to speak to the house mother to see if he could take me out for the afternoon, along with his children. But the house mother refused point blank to give him permission.

  Anne's dad was also a great piper. The house mother loved all kinds of Scottish music and invited him into her sitting room to play for her one New Year's Eve. I enjoyed listening to him as I lay in bed.

  Anne let out an almighty scream as she tripped over one of the corrugated tin roofs lying half-buried and hidden in the long grass. There was a large gash running down her leg with blood pouring from it. I panicked, not knowing what to do. Luckily, Anne's frantic screams alerted the men playing bowls. They rushed over to help.

  One man pulled off his shirt and wrapped it tightly around Anne's leg while another ran off to telephone for an ambulance. As I watched, the shirt gradually changed from white to deep red as it soaked up the blood oozing out from underneath it. By the time the ambulance arrived to take her to hospital, Anne's screams had subsided into sobs. My appetite for strawberries was long gone as I made my way back to the home.

  When the house mother found out, I got into such trouble. I was sent to bed straight after tea for a whole month. Anne returned from hospital with stitches in her leg. She also got the same punishment. But at least we had each other to talk to. It was one birthday I would never forget.

  The house mother loved to show off her new hats. There was an unspoken competition between her and the ladies of the church we went to every Sunday. The house mother liked to be centre stage. I don't think God approved of their false smiles and greetings and the insincere nods of acknowledgement before and after each service.

  Heads turned as soon as she entered the church one Sunday wearing a two piece green tweed suit with a lovely green wide brimmed hat to match. She spent a fortune on it, but it produced the desired result and made the ladies rather envious.

  The long walk to church and the service was part and parcel of the routine at the home and everyone, whether believer or non-believer, had to attend. Agnes hated going because she was an atheist and often argued her point of view at the dining room table at breakfast time.

  She was 14 years of age with a mind of her own. This greatly annoyed the house mother who thought it her Christian duty to convert her. The house mother's anger grew in frustration and her face turned redder by the second but Agnes, ever the independent thinker, never backed down. She was too smart and stuck to her guns and always won the argument in the end. I admired her for that.

  We all sat in the two rows of pews at the back of the church, pretending to listen to the minister's fire and brimstone sermon. The house mother sat in the middle of us. The sermon dragged on and on, like it always did, week after week. It was supposed to inspire the congregation. But I never understood any of what the minister was saying and my mind quickly switched off.

  I found my gaze moving from the hymn book in my hand and lowering to the floor and the smart looking stylish brogues the house mother was wearing. I could almost smell the newness of the leather as I tried to count the number of eyelets through which the brown laces passed. She must have noticed me looking at her shoes, admiring them, but she never said anything at the time or passed any comment.

  Back at the home after church one day, she said quite out of the blue, "You like these shoes?"

  Puzzled, I replied, "Yes, I really like them."

  "Well, I'm getting another pair of shoes and you can have them when I've finished with them."

  I could hardly believe it and barely contained the happiness I felt inside me. But it seemed to take forever until house mother passed me the brown brogue shoes a few weeks later. I now held them in my hands.

  Quickly loosening the laces at the front, I slipped my feet into them and they fitted perfectly, my first pair of grown up shoes. What a day that was. What a feeling. No more old fashioned badly fitting second hand cast-offs.

  I felt I was walking on air. These shoes told the world I was now grown up, never mind they didn't match my three quarter length grey school socks. I didn't care as I enjoyed listening the next day to the sound of the heels echoing as I walked up and down the school corridor. I wanted the whole world to hear them. When I returned to the home, I put my everyday slippers on and placed the brogues carefully in one of the metal baskets underneath a bench in the cloakroom. They were now ready for school again in the morning.

  But my feelings of exhilaration were short lived. After breakfast, I hurried into the cloakroom to get ready for school. My face dropped and my heart sank and I stared in disbelief at my new shoes. They were now on Maggie's feet. Maggie beamed from one end of her face to the other. The house mother stood watching me.

  "I've decided to give the shoes to Maggie", she announced.

  The house mother couldn't disguise the hint of a smirk spreading over her face as she smiled back at me. It was a wicked smile. But there was nothing I could do or say. I knew better than to challenge her decision. Doing so might lead to a slap on the face and being sent to bed for a week or maybe longer. I held back the rising anger and the tears welling up inside me. Maggie walked out the door with her head held high, wearing my beautiful shoes.

  For months afterwards, whenever I saw Maggie wearing the shoes to school, I was reminded of the hurt I felt that morning. Maggie didn't take care of the shoes. Eventually, she wore them out and they were discarded.

  I never understood why the house mother gave me the shoes one day, only to take them away the next. She knew how much they meant to me, how I admired them every time she wore them to church on a Sunday. The incident was just one of the many humiliations I suffered over the years. Every one of them hurt me deeply and only added to the hatred and resentment I felt.

  * * *

  The sky was cloudy and overcast with rain threatening. It wasn't the best of days to go to the beach. But the staff at the home wanted us away and out from under their feet. So we had to go whether we liked it or not. This was quite usual during the school summer holidays. It was also a cheap way to keep us amused. All it cost was a few dried up jam sandwiches and some diluted juice. Providing sandwiches and juice also meant they didn't have to cook us an evening meal when we returned.

  I couldn't see my brown swimming costume anywhere, even although I rummaged through the chest of drawers by the window a dozen times.

  "Bloody thing!"

  Anne rarely swore, which was why I turned around. She was all in a fluster, trying to stretch her bikini top over boobs grown a size bigger since the last time she wore it. But, try as she might, it wouldn't stretch far enough.

  "Stupid bloody thing. I can't wear that!", she cried out, throwing it angrily onto her neatly made bed.

  I never answered her or made any comment. Instead, I carried on hunting for my swimming costume. Anne was muttering under her breath all the while. At last I found it, and with swimming costume in hand, made my way to the door.

  "Patsy", said Anne, rather sheepishly.

  I knew what was coming.

  "You're about the same height as me", she continued. "Why don't we do a swap?"

  "No way!", I said, emphatically.

  My figure was developing nicely but my boobs were not yet as big as Anne's. Although I looked good, I was shy and very self-conscious and wearing a bikini would be like bearing my soul. I wasn't ready for that, or so I thought.