by Anne Berry
‘You can have all of mine, so there.’ Barbara shoves hers towards Lucilla. ‘I’m not feeling well.’
‘Pity.’ Lucilla seizes the bag and rifles inside. ‘You’ve still got your sherbet dip. That’s fantastic.’ Her happiness is complete. She fishes it out and proceeds to dip and suck contemplatively. ‘Do you want some?’ she says, offering round the chewed liquorice stick. A generous helping of sherbet is welded to it with her grey saliva. Rachel accepts with alacrity but Barbara’s oatmeal complexion takes on a greenish tinge.
‘No thanks. I truthfully do feel sick. I might chuck up any moment.’
‘Oh how beastly. You better not do it here. Where shall we go now?’ says Lucilla, sucking with relish. Her eyes rove about the busy street looking for inspiration.
‘Nowhere.’ Barbara pouts. ‘My hands are all sticky and I can’t wash them.’ Her voice breaks with the ghastliness of it.
‘Oh crumbs, don’t go crying again,’ pleads Lucilla. ‘My hands are sticky, too. See.’
‘So are mine,’ says Rachel in solidarity with her cousin. They hold them up to prove it.
‘Oh, that doesn’t make me feel any better.’ Barbara’s face spasms, and her eyes well up.
‘We could go to a park and look out for a pond to wash in.’ To Lucilla the remedy seems logical, but Barbara is aghast.
‘You’re not allowed. Besides,’ she hiccups tragically, ‘the ponds are full of duck poo and diseases. It’s very dangerous. I’m going back to the home.’
‘Do you want us to come with you?’ asks Lucilla, hoping that she doesn’t, that they are about to offload the tedious and temperamental Barbara.
‘No fear!’ Barbara replies adamantly. ‘I have to get back anyway. I’m going shopping with one of the nuns this afternoon.’
Neither of them make a move to impede her exit. In fact they both stand aside and make way.
‘Do you want to come again next week?’ Lucilla calls after her as she weaves her way through the weekend throng. But answer comes there none, only a backwards look generously sprinkled in malice. However, retribution is swift on her return home. Frank has lived up to his reputation and grassed her up. Her father, on a mission for the Ever Ready Company, is not present to moderate her mother’s wrath. Punch drunk from the blows to her head, she sits on her bedroom floor, stroking Scamp. Her left ear is throbbing, and it feels as if someone is spearing her eardrum with a scalding fork. She drops her head, lifts one of Scamp’s silky ear flaps, winces and whispers, ‘But it was worth it, Scamp. Oh boy, was it worth it!’
Unfortunately though, being bounced from the Odeon does not put paid to Barbara’s visits. As spring gives herself to summer and the flower beds of the London parks fill up with geraniums and marigolds, Barbara seems to snuggle ever closer into the Pritchards’ family unit. Lucilla comes home at least twice a week to find Scamp tethered up like a criminal in the stocks, and Barbara and her mother busy with some domestic project that fills her with tedium. She now regularly attends all the temperance meetings with them and everyone loves her. Barbara! Isn’t she a boon, they all say. Such a willing, sociable girl, so tidy and comely. So mild in nature. Lucilla’s parents parade about like farmers showing off a prize heifer. Her father holds his lapels and unzips his stained teeth in sickening smiles. Her mother picks up one of Barbara’s thick plaits. She weighs it in her hand as if such is the fantastic quality of the hair she is considering selling it to a wigmaker.
Before long Barbara is a monitor on the high table, taking notes at the meetings. She starts to win the sewing competitions, and her fine embroidery work is admired by young and old. Frank, earlier in the year immune to her feminine wiles, is now definitely taking note of her. As the esteem in which the Brothers and Sisters of Temperance hold her grows, he deigns to engage her in conversation. Lucilla gauges the depth of his feeling by the access he gives Barbara to his stamp albums and numerous collections. The Saturday they set off train-spotting together she reckons her cousin is truly smitten.
Then one autumn day during a visit from Barbara, a day like any other Lucilla assumes, Scamp escapes. He is shut in the front room, reprieved from being tied up in the garden for once. Her mother and Barbara are washing up diligently, talking about scouring saucepans until you can see your face in them – though why you should want to Lucilla has no idea. She is pleased to have successfully absconded from what she deems a tiresome, repetitive task. Campfires, paper plates and cups, that’s the way to go, she decides. Sitting at the kitchen table, her mind moves around an imaginary farmyard. The pencil in her hand slides smoothly, swiftly, as though it has been oiled. She is drawing farm animals, pigs with their slobbery snouts and a cockerel spruced up in splendid plumage. She wants to get out her paints and bring the rooster to life with reds and browns and ochre shades. But she knows it is too late in the evening for her mother to permit it.
Then comes the piercing scream, the kind of scream, identifies Lucilla, which you might give if you were being stabbed to death. Wishful thinking, she decides, as she springs to her feet and runs into the kitchen. Jail-dog, Scamp, has snuck out of the front room. He made a pad for it while her father, in an abstraction of facts and figures, wandered into the hall to fetch his briefcase. On the scent of the new-person-in-his-territory, nostrils aquiver, he heads for the kitchen. Once there, discerning its source, he hurls himself at Barbara. Jumping up as he knows he mustn’t, he cycles his front paws frantically in an attempt to conquer this challenging summit. Sniffing her panic sends his highly sensitive olfactory receptors into mayhem.
Arriving on the scene, Lucilla stares agog. There is a lunatic in their kitchen, one shriek following another as they ascend scale after scale, a choir’s worth of panic-stricken arpeggios. Barbara’s arms whip-crack about, striking anything within reach, including Lucilla’s astounded mother, who recoils as her face is slapped. Barbara’s pigtails thrash. Her limbs grow rigid then jerk violently and her mouth froths obscenely, as if, Lucilla hazards wishfully, she has swallowed poison. Her mother tries to grab the rabid girl, to contain her, only to be hit afresh, this time a clenched fist gonging against her breastbone. Lucilla rushes forwards and scoops up the bouncing dog.
‘He’s just a dog being friendly,’ she lulls the crazed Barbara. ‘Scamp only wants to say hello to you.’ Her tone is all innocence as she offers the mass of paddling fur. But the devil bat, waiting in the wings of her life, has chosen this instant to claim her soul. ‘You can pet him if you want,’ she coaxes, thrusting the canine weapon into Barbara’s gibbering face. The screaming becomes a stifled squawk and the arms slish-slash the air, doing petrified semaphore. ‘Take it away! Take it away! Oh, oh, take it away!’ Her father blunders in like a policeman from the Keystone Kops – without a truncheon but just as useless. And then the blood leaks out of Barbara’s face as if she has just been juiced, her legs go from under her and she passes out, her body hitting the floor with a resounding bang.
Scamp, streaking about like a greyhound hare racing, is caught and fettered anew. Barbara is brought round with smelling salts, and smacks to the face, liberally supplied, Lucilla notes with a twinkle, by her mother. A cup of heavily sugared tea is drunk in a deafening silence. And then without more ado, and to be fair there has been plenty of ado already, her father takes her back to the home. As the bruises appear on her mother’s face, like photo-sensitive paper washed in developing fluid, so Barbara, the imminent addition to the Pritchard household, is repatriated into St Teresa’s Children’s Home for good and all.
Chapter 20
Bethan, 1961
THE WOMAN STANDING on the doorstep was irate, florid of face, breathing at a furious pace, brandishing the torn pinafore in her hand like a sabre. ‘Well? Well? What do you have to say about this, Mrs Sterry? That’s what your daughter Lowrie got up to at school today. If you don’t believe me, you call her down and ask her. Tell her, Rhiannon, tell Mrs Sterry what occurred.’
On cue, the girl with the freckled face and short pigtail
s stepped forwards. She delivered her speech in a singsong voice, as though she had been going over it all the way to the farm. ‘I was standing in the lunch queue and suddenly Lowrie Sterry shoved me over. She said I pushed in, but I never. As I fell, I heard a rip. When I went to the toilet, I saw what she’d done to my uniform.’ Performance completed, she took a deep breath and fell back. Her mother emphatically nodded her approval, the tight auburn curls springing against her wrinkled brow.
‘What did I say? There you have it, Mrs Sterry. My Rhiannon doesn’t tell lies. If she says that your Lowrie did it, it’s true. What I want to know is what you’re going to do about it. It was new this term, her pinafore was. And it cost a bob or two. I can’t mend a big tear like this.’ She folded her arms across her indignantly heaving bosom, her pretty headscarf fluttering in the autumnal breeze. Then she delivered her coup de grace. ‘I want reparation.’
‘Oh, Mrs Jenkins, won’t you come in and have a cup of tea,’ I appeased, opening the front door wider. ‘It’s so cold and I’ve just baked some scones. And I’ve a pot of home-made jam and a bit of newly churned butter.’
‘No, I’m afraid I can’t stay,’ Mrs Jenkins said, ferreting in her cardigan sleeve for her hanky and blowing her nose contemptuously. ‘The animals, I’ve an allergy you know.’ Her daughter, who was teasing Red with a stick, obviously had not inherited her mother’s susceptibility.
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs Jenkins. Another time maybe,’ I offered, my heart pattering in anxiety.
‘Your daughter has a temper on her, Mrs Sterry. It’s not my affair, I know. And generally speaking I do not believe in interfering with the methods mothers use to discipline their children.’ Red yelped as Rhiannon poked him. Distracted for a moment, Mrs Jenkins told her daughter to get into the car, a blue Ford Popular parked by the barn. ‘You’ll get all muddy larking about with that dog, never mind the fleas.’ Rhiannon, shoulders slumped in disappointment at having her sport interrupted, slouched back to the car. Her mother watched her progress for a second then resumed, picking up where she left off. ‘You really ought to make her behave. It’s not right letting a child get away with such rages.’ I sighed and gave a weak smile. I felt defeated, and I hadn’t yet summoned Lowrie to hear her version of events. ‘I shall be buying a new pinafore for Rhiannon, and sending you the bill.’
‘That’s perfectly fine,’ I acquiesced without protest. ‘I’ll be glad to pay for any damage Lowrie’s caused. And I really am very, very sorry.’
‘Sorry! Sorry! I should think so too,’ Mrs Jenkins said, casting the offending garment on the tiled porch. ‘Though it’s not much good you saying you’re sorry. It’s Lowrie who should be apologising. And I’m not the only one who has complained about her recently. That girl needs a lesson in manners. So she does.’ Rhiannon honked the car horn. I smiled amenably and opened my hands, still floury from baking, in a gesture of reconcilement. ‘If you don’t take a firm line with her now you’ll be storing up problems for the future. You take heed.’ She re-knotted her headscarf and stared down at the crumpled navy pinafore. ‘My bill will be in the post and I expect prompt settlement if you don’t mind. Good day to you, Mrs Sterry.’ I offered her a hand, which she glanced at in disdain, before stalking off to climb into her car and drive away in high dudgeon.
I stood for a lengthy moment, mentally girding up my loins for yet another wearying confrontation with Lowrie. Red padded over and snuffled the ruined garment with interest. I wiped my hands on my apron, and then with resignation I stooped and picked it up. I closed the door on Red. Stepping into the vestibule, I spied Lowrie crouching at the top of the stairs peering down at me through the banisters. ‘Lowrie, were you listening to that exchange?’ I asked. She shrugged, peering at me with her inscrutable brown eyes. ‘You heard what Mrs Jenkins said?’ Another shrug, this time more exaggerated. Her hair, dark, thick and unruly, fell across her face curtaining her sullen expression. She made no move to tuck it behind her ears. I crossed to the bottom of the stairs and held up the pinafore, sliding my hand into the slash as if I was pushing it into a wound. ‘Did you do this?’ I enquired trying to keep the accusatory note from my inflexion. A sulky silence. ‘Lowrie, did you do this?’ I repeated, losing the struggle to keep my tone level.
‘So what if I did?’ came the pouty reply. ‘She deserved it. She stepped in front of me. Silly bitch!’
‘Lowrie! You hush that tongue of yours or I’ll tell your father.’
‘Don’t care if you do.’
‘Did it mean that much?’ I said, my spirit for this confrontation already flagging.
She tossed her head, released the banisters and pivoted on the step she was perched on so that she faced me. ‘I told her to join the back of queue but she ignored me. Well, I wasn’t having that and so I pushed her. I didn’t plan to rip her stupid dress. It was an accident.’ The rounds of her cheeks had darkened to a strawberry blush, and her expression was openly hostile.
‘It was wrong. It was wrong to push her. Next time you see Rhiannon I want you to say sorry.’
She looked away from me with undisguised scorn. She was wearing a brown corduroy skirt that she pulled over her knees, humping them against the fabric. ‘I shan’t,’ was all she said.
‘I’m going to have to pay for a new pinafore to replace the one you ruined,’ I told her. A sudden wave of exhaustion made me want to abandon this futile attempt at instilling some remorse into my daughter. Clearly she felt no regret for what she had done, no guilt. She would undoubtedly do it again if Rhiannon, or anyone else, antagonised her. ‘School uniform is awfully pricey,’ I disclosed, tears filling my eyes. Lowrie climbed to her feet and deliberately snubbed me, showing me her back. ‘I haven’t finished, damn you!’ I hollered, striking a pathetic chord though I say so myself.
‘I’ve got homework,’ came her unlikely excuse, mumbled over her shoulder through her mass of hair.
‘You can blinking well use your pocket money to pay half of it.’ Her pained sigh was audible. ‘And I don’t care how many months it takes,’ I added with a touch more conviction. But my daughter was already stomping off in the direction of her bedroom. A moment later and her door slammed. I trailed disconsolately into the scullery room, sank into a chair and, elbows propped on the table, rested my throbbing forehead in the palms of my hands. My ears were singing, the precursor to a full blown earache. To think once I had fretted that Lowrie, a self-contained infant, would not venture out of her shell. It seemed she had been biding her time, storing up her resentments.
Her father could see no fault in his daughter. And indeed in his company you might be forgiven for assuming that here was a loving devoted child, who would, as she matured into a woman, prioritise her filial duties. But it was me who was burned by Lowrie’s fireworks, me who was called to school because our daughter had bitten another child, and, the teacher told me, shaken, had actually drawn blood. It was me who picked up the pieces of the Wedgwood vase, a rare treasure my mother had given me on my wedding day. Something blue, see. My daughter had thrown it in a temper. I had concealed the breakage from Leslie, hiding the pieces under old newspapers in the rubbish bin. And it was me who played the part of a martyr, clearing up the mess she left her room in after one of her turns. I was called when she had an argument in an art class and hurled a pot of black paint over a friend’s painting. I collected her from parties only to be told she was having a tantrum because she hadn’t won a prize.
Most distressing of all, her teacher, Miss Duggan, had asked to see me on three occasions in the spring and summer terms. She wanted to discuss Lowrie bullying a new girl who had recently joined the class. She reported to me that my daughter’s loutish displays had progressed through name-calling, to pinching, graduating to tripping the child up and sending her flying down a flight of stairs. ‘Lowrie was lucky she didn’t seriously injure her,’ she told me when I arrived to pick the reprobate up from school, clearly shocked by the incident. For this abhorrent act she was justly punished.
Miss Duggan made her learn by heart several passages from the Bible, as well as filling a notebook with the line, ‘I must be kinder to my classmates and help my friends.’
‘Is there something wrong at home?’ Mrs Crunn, the headmistress, a wiry astute woman, had put the question solicitously, even tactfully. But I had seen the sharpness in her green eyes. ‘Something that might be causing Lowrie distress?’ I blinked rapidly and made an effort to look confused, as if I was hurriedly sifting through a file of benign family memories. We stood uncomfortably surveying my daughter wandering the playground kicking at stones. School was finished for the day, but I had been kept behind, an increasingly frequent occurrence, to discuss my Lowrie’s latest offence. This time there had been no living casualties. The victim was school property. She had stabbed the nib of her pen into her desk, carved her name into it, leaving the wooden surface permanently scarred. ‘Has something upset her? The death of a pet maybe?’ she jogged me, eyebrows raised quizzically.
‘No,’ I replied, eyes avoiding hers. But then, seeing the opportunity for a reprieve I added, ‘But living on a farm, I suppose she might have seen something that bothered her.’
‘It’s just the child seems so angry. There’s such a lot of pent-up emotion there. And although I’ve tried, she refuses to open up.’
‘I’ll talk to her,’ I promised.
‘See that you do that, Mrs Sterry,’ Mrs Crunn advised sternly. ‘It would be a shame if she started secondary school with such a bad attitude. And I have to tell you they may not be as patient or as tolerant as we have been.’ I nodded knowing she was speaking the plain truth. Then I went to claim my mutant child, feeling as bleak as the day was.