Rita lay in bed staring up at the ceiling; grubby white-painted boards sloping from a ridge, meeting the grubby white-painted walls pierced by an uncurtained window. This dreary room was her new dorm. Here she’d crept miserably into bed last night, and here she would go to bed tonight and every night stretching away into the future. She shivered under the thin blanket she’d been given, and the metal springs of the bed creaked beneath her. The grey light of a new dawn seeped through the grimy windows, doing nothing to lighten the austerity of the room, but allowing Rita to see the others, asleep in the other beds. Daisy, lying on her back, was snoring lightly; the two other girls, Audrey and Carol, whom they’d met yesterday, were both buried under their bedclothes, not even their heads showing.
When Rita and Daisy had been dismissed by Mrs Manton, Audrey from Oak had taken charge of them.
‘It’s over here,’ said Audrey, when they’d picked up their luggage, and she led them away through a clump of trees to a small cottage squatting in a patch of garden, behind a wooden fence. The word Oak had been scratched onto one of the palings. Audrey led them up to the front door.
‘Mrs Garfield’s our house-mother,’ she warned them. ‘Watch out for her. She’s mean.’
Inside the cottage they found themselves in a small entrance hall from which a short passage led off to the right. Audrey pointed to a door directly ahead of them. ‘That’s the living room. We eat in there, and do our homework and stuff. Kitchen’s here.’ She waved at a door on her right. ‘Bathroom and toilets here. Dorm’s at the end.’
She led them along the narrow corridor to a small room at the end. ‘You two’re in here with me and Carol.’ She pointed to a metal-framed bed in the corner. ‘That’s mine. ‘Yours is under the window.’
Two more beds, identical to Audrey’s, stood, unmade, under the window. Each had a strip of mattress, on top of which was folded a sheet and a grey blanket. There was no pillow and no quilt.
‘Them’s your lockers.’ Audrey indicated two wooden lockers standing against the wall. ‘You can put your stuff in there.’
‘Where’s Carol, then?’ demanded Daisy.
‘Cooking breakfast. You hungry?’
‘Starving,’ admitted Rita. ‘Will it be soon?’
‘’Bout ten minutes,’ said Audrey. ‘Better get your skates on, or you’ll be late, and then old Ma Garfield’ll be at you.’ She looked at the two new girls standing, hesitant, and added, ‘I’ll come back and get you in ten minutes.’
‘This is worse than Laurel House,’ said Daisy, plonking her case on one of the spare beds. ‘Ma Garfield? What a name for a mother! Ma Gar! Ma Gar, that’s what I’ll call her.’
Rita laughed, her first laugh since she’d walked down the gangplank at Pyrmont. ‘Trust you, Dais, giving her a nickname!’
‘Bet it suits her,’ maintained Daisy, opening her case. ‘And the one what fetched us, I call her Spider. Good name, don’t you think?’
‘Yeah, just right,’ agreed Rita. ‘Or Witch. She looks like a witch, don’t she?’
Daisy, who liked to do the nicknames, said, ‘Yeah,’ grudgingly, adding, ‘but I like Spider better.’
Rita put her case on the other bed and went to look through the open window. It was full daylight now, and she could see across a kitchen garden to some ramshackle buildings beyond. Several girls were already out there carrying buckets and she guessed they were feeding chickens.
‘That’ll cheer Rosie up,’ she said.
‘What will?’
‘Chickens. There’s chickens. She loves chickens.’
‘You ready?’ Audrey had reappeared at the door.
‘Nearly,’ said Rita, pulling all her things out of her case and pushing them into her locker. She hadn’t very much, but even so it was difficult to make the locker door close.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Audrey. ‘Most of that stuff gets took.’
‘What d’you mean?’ demanded Daisy, who had just managed to close her own locker.
‘All them clothes you brought, get taken in. Used for everyone.’ She glanced down at the socks and sandals the two girls were wearing. ‘And you only wear shoes for school and church. They’ll get took off you as well.’
Rita remembered the cloakroom, the wire lockers with the shoes inside. She looked down at Audrey’s dirty, angular feet. Did everyone really go about barefoot here, and only put shoes on when they went to school?
‘But they’re new,’ she stammered. ‘We only just got them.’
Audrey shrugged. ‘You’ll see. Come on, it’s time for breakfast, and if you’re late you won’t get none.’
Mrs Garfield was waiting for them in the living room. She looked at her watch as they came in and glowered at Audrey. ‘You’re late. Where’ve you been?’
‘Mrs Manton said to show the new girls,’ Audrey replied. ‘They’re here.’
‘So I see,’ sniffed Mrs Garfield. She turned her attention to Rita and Daisy, and Audrey slipped thankfully into a place at the table.
‘What’re your names, then?’
‘Please, Mrs Garfield,’ answered Rita, ‘I’m Rita and this is Daisy.’
‘She got no tongue in her head?’ demanded the house-mother. Rita reddened and said nothing.
Daisy looked up at Mrs Garfield and said, ‘I’m Daisy Smart.’
‘Smart, are you? Well, don’t you get smart with me!’ snapped the house-mother. She turned towards the table where six other girls were already standing, waiting behind their chairs. There were two empty spaces.
‘Well…’ Mrs Garfield waved a hand, and Daisy and Rita hurriedly took their places.
Mrs Garfield sat at the head of the table with a pile of tin bowls in front of her. Into these she dished porridge from a large tureen. They ate in silence. Rita and Daisy put their spoons into the glutinous mess in front of them, and despite their hunger – they had had nothing since the egg sandwiches at the station the day before – they found it hard to swallow. All round them was the clatter and scraping of spoons as the other girls shovelled the grey mess hungrily into their mouths. Fixed by a baleful stare from the head of the table, Rita and Daisy struggled to finish their portions, but, remembering Audrey’s warning, they finally managed clean plates.
This was the only communal room in the cottage, and looking at its dirty white walls and grimy windows, the utilitarian furniture and the cold stone hearth, Rita found it dismal in the extreme. Were they really going to spend the rest of their lives here at Laurel Farm in this dreadful cottage, eating this disgusting food? The prospect was too awful.
Are all the cottages like this, Rita wondered, or just Oak?
When everyone had finished the porridge, Audrey came round the table with a large jug of milk, filling the mugs that stood beside each place. The milk was good, and everyone drank thirstily. Then the meal was over. The whole thing had taken less than twenty minutes.
Mrs Garfield stood up. Though she’d sat at table, she had eaten nothing. ‘Get cleared up and ready for school,’ she said to the room at large, adding, almost as an afterthought, ‘New girls don’t go today. You’ll start on Monday. You’re not to leave the house without permission. I’ll see you in here in half an hour when the others have gone.’
‘And when she’s had her breakfast,’ muttered Audrey as the house-mother disappeared through a door beside the fireplace.
‘Don’t she have meals with us?’ asked Daisy.
‘What do you think?’ scoffed Audrey. ‘No, she goes back to her own rooms and has bacon and eggs.’ She waved towards the door through which Mrs Garfield had disappeared. ‘She lives through there… and you don’t want to get called in there, I can tell you!’
Just like the Hawk, Rita thought miserably. There was no escape from people like the Hawk… or Ma Gar, and this time the nickname did not make her smile, it made her shiver.
Another girl approached them and Audrey said, ‘Here’s Carol. Carol, these are Rita and Daisy. They’re in with us. You two better get your beds made,’ she added turning back to them. ‘Ma Garfield’ll be round to check the minute we’ve gone.’
‘Ma Gar!’ said Daisy.
‘Hey, that’s clever,’ cried Carol. ‘Ma Gar!’
‘Yeah, well, don’t let her hear you call her that,’ advised Audrey. ‘Told you, she’s real mean.’
It seemed only moments later that the cottage emptied, and Rita and Daisy were left alone. All the other girls disappeared over to the main building, which Audrey told them was known as ‘central’, to put on their shoes, ready for the walk to school. A strange silence settled over the cottage, and Rita felt they ought to be talking in whispers.
Remembering Audrey’s warning about having things taken away from them, Rita pulled everything out of her locker. The picture of Daddy that had travelled safely all the way from England, she slipped into her journal notebook and then slid both of them under the mattress. She’d have to try to find somewhere better later. There was nothing else that was particularly precious except her rose-patterned dress and she wasn’t sure if it would still fit. Anyway there was nowhere to hide it. Reluctantly she laid it aside. It would have to take its chances. The rest of her new clothes she folded carefully and put back in the locker.
‘Let’s have a proper look about,’ suggested Daisy when they’d made up their beds with the scant bedclothes provided. So they walked back along the passage, opening doors and looking into rooms. The room next to them was also a dorm. It was identical to their own except that this one had five beds. Each bed was neatly made, night clothes tidily folded and laid where a pillow might have been, each locker-top completely clear. The bathroom held two baths and two basins, but it had no door. Anyone could look in. The two lavatories had doors, but no locks.
‘We better go back to the living room,’ said Rita. ‘Your friend Ma Gar’ll be after us.’
‘All right,’ agreed Daisy, and they went back to where they’d eaten their breakfast. They found the table cleared and the chairs upended.
Daisy wandered over to the window. ‘Look, Reet,’ she said, ‘there’s a man in the garden.’
Rita hurried over and peered out through the grubby glass. ‘Who is it, d’you think?’
Daisy shrugged. ‘Dunno. It’s not that Colin, is it? P’raps he’s the gardener.’
‘Ah, there you are.’ Mrs Garfield’s voice cut through the air like a knife. The two girls spun round, each of them wondering how long their house-mother had been standing there. Had she heard their speculation about the man in the garden?
‘Please, Mrs Garfield,’ Daisy asked, ‘who’s the man in the garden?’
The house-mother gave her an icy stare, as if incredulous at such curiosity, but then she said, ‘That’s Mr Manton, the superintendent’s husband. He’s in charge of outdoors. He oversees the work outside, maintaining the garden and looking after the animals.’
Rita was about to ask what sort of animals, but something in Mrs Garfield’s expression made her change her mind.
‘Now then,’ began their house-mother, ‘I’m going to tell you what happens round here, so pay attention. I shan’t tell you twice. Oak Cottage is your home now, and you’ll be expected to look after it properly. You’ll help with the cooking and cleaning, all the usual daily chores. You go to school every day, but when you get back there’ll be the afternoon jobs to be done.’ She looked at them sharply to make sure they were still paying attention. ‘You’ll have homework, and then after tea each day, you go over to central for prayers and notices. At weekends and in the holidays, you’ll be helping outside. All the cottages have vegetable gardens. We have to grow as much of our own produce as we can. That’s what Mr Manton is in charge of. There’s not much money for extras here, so you all have to pull your weight.
‘You can start in the kitchen,’ said Ma Gar briskly. ‘There’s the washing up to finish and then potatoes to peel. Come along,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll have to show you.’ She led them across the passage into the kitchen. A scrubbed wooden table filled much of the room, and shelves, stacked with cooking utensils, lined two of the walls. An old range stood against a third, and under the windows was a deep sink, now filled with unwashed breakfast bowls. There were two more doors leading from the room; one, Mrs Garfield told them, went to the vegetable cellar where they would find the potatoes, the other out into the garden.
‘Wash those breakfast things,’ she said, ‘and then fetch potatoes from the cellar and peel enough to fill that pot.’ She pointed to a saucepan that stood, empty, by the range. ‘You can go outside and look round when you’ve finished, but there’ll be more jobs to do later,’ adding as she stalked out of the room, ‘We’ve no time for idleness here.’
‘We’ve no time for idleness here!’ mimicked Daisy. ‘You all have to pull your weight!’
‘Oh Dais, you are a one!’ giggled Rita, keeping an anxious eye on the door, afraid Ma Gar might come back unexpectedly. Her laughter died away as she looked round the kitchen and saw the chores awaiting them. ‘I got to go and find Rosie,’ she said. ‘I got to see she’s all right.’
‘Better do this first,’ Daisy said with unusual caution. ‘Won’t take long, will it? Bowls, spoons and mugs.’ She turned on the tap, and a stream of cold water flowed into the sink. ‘No hot water,’ she said, as she dipped her hands into the sink and began to scrub at the porridge glued to the rims of the bowls. Rita shrugged and picked up a tea towel from the rail in front of the range.
‘S’pose you’re right,’ she said. ‘Ain’t no point in getting on the wrong side of Ma Gar on the first day. Anyway, the others’re probably having to do the same stuff in their houses.’
Daisy was right, the washing up didn’t take very long, despite the cold water and the lack of soap. The potatoes Rita had fetched from the cellar took much longer; the pot they had to fill was huge.
The cellar was a dark hole, stretching the width of the house, lit only by a horizontal slit of a window, level with the garden above. There was no artificial light, and Rita had to wait for her eyes to accustom themselves to the gloom before she could see what was there. An accumulation of junk was stacked up at one end, broken furniture, what looked like a rolled-up carpet, a pile of sacks, a heap of logs and some coal. A shelf ran along one wall on which she could see some jars, but it was impossible to tell in the dim light what they contained. She found the sack of potatoes in a corner. The whole place was chilly and had a musty, dank smell. As she hurriedly filled the pot Rita thought she could hear something scuffling about among the rubbish and shuddered.
‘It’s horrible down there,’ she told Daisy. ‘Full of junk, and stinks something rotten. And,’ she added with another shudder, ‘there’s rats!’
With small kitchen knives, the two girls laboured over the peeling for nearly half an hour before the pot was full.
‘Let’s go an’ explore,’ said Daisy, when they’d finished. ‘We’ll go out of this door so’s Ma Gar don’t see us and find us sommat else to do.’
‘I got to find Rosie,’ Rita said again. ‘She’s in Larch, wherever that is.’
‘We’ll find it,’ said Daisy, ‘come on.’
The two girls slipped out through the back door into the garden. Beyond the fence they followed a well-trodden path between the trees and found themselves outside another cottage. This one had no fence round it, but the word Pine was scrawled on a board beside the door.
There was no sign of life, so they moved on in search of Larch. It was the next they came to. Like Oak, it stood in a patch of garden, where rows of potatoes were earthed up, and spring cabbage grew in straight, green lines.
‘Shall we go in?’ said Rita apprehensively. ‘I got to find Rosie.’
‘You go and see,’ said Daisy, glancing round. ‘I’ll keep cave.’
Rita gave her a twisted smile. ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘you do that.’ And leaving Daisy crouched behind a bush, safely out of view, she walked up to the front door. There was no knocker or bell, so she turned the handle and the door swung open. With one backward glance to Daisy, who gave her an encouraging thumbs up from beside the bush, she stepped inside.
The interior was the same as Oak’s. Opposite the front door another door stood ajar, and a passage stretched away to Rita’s right. The house was quiet, no sound from anywhere. Rita wondered if she should call out, but hesitated to break the silence. She peered into the room in front of her. Like Oak it was a living room, furnished in much the same way. No one there. She crept along the passage, peeping into each room as she passed, and finally came to the dorm that matched her own. Rosie’s case was on one of the beds, but there was no sign of Rosie.
She was about to leave the room when a voice said, ‘And what do you think you’re doing?’ Rita spun round and found herself facing a small, fair-haired woman, standing in the doorway. The woman looked her up and down, waiting for a reply.
‘Rosie… I was… just looking for Rosie,’ Rita faltered, ‘my sister.’
‘Visiting other cottages uninvited is strictly forbidden,’ said the woman, though she spoke mildly enough and didn’t sound particularly angry.
‘S-s-sorry,’ stammered Rita. ‘It’s just that I promised her.’
‘Rose has gone with Joan to feed the chooks,’ the woman told her, adding as she saw Rita’s look of incomprehension, ‘the chickens. If you go round the house, you’ll find the path to the hen runs.’
Rita’s face lit up with relief. The chickens. Rosie would love feeding them. ‘Thank you, miss,’ she said.
‘I’m Mrs Watson, Larch house-mother,’ the woman said. ‘And your name is…?’
‘Rita, miss.’
‘Well, Rita,’ said Mrs Watson with a faint smile, ‘I think you’d better scoot out to the chooks as well, before I see you.’
Rita looked uncertain for a moment, but then as the woman disappeared from the doorway, she beat a hasty retreat.
‘She’s feeding the hens,’ Rita told Daisy, and set off round the cottage.
She found Rosie and Joan emptying buckets of water into a trough. Rosie glanced up and seeing Rita coming towards her, dumped her bucket and rushed over to her.
‘Oh, Reet,’ she cried, her face one huge smile. ‘Look, they’ve got chickens, just like at Laurel House.’
‘You all right, Rosie?’ Rita asked, but she could see she was.
‘What’s your cottage like?’ Daisy asked Joan, as she came up to join them.
Joan shrugged. ‘All right, I s’pose.’
‘What did you have for breakfast?’ demanded Daisy.
‘Porridge and bread and butter,’ answered Joan.
‘Lucky you!’ moaned Daisy. ‘We only got porridge and it was disgusting.’
At that moment the man they had seen from the window emerged from one of the sheds. ‘Hallo,’ he said with a smile. ‘Who’ve we got here then? Don’t know you two.’
Rita and Daisy told him their names and he said, ‘I’m Mr Manton, you’ll be helping me in the garden. Everyone has to pull their weight here, you know.’
The new girls were each given another round of egg sandwiches for their midday meal, and as they ate them they exchanged their news. From what Joan told them, it seemed that Mrs Watson was the kindest of the house-mothers. Mrs Yardley in Pine scared the two younger girls.
‘She’s got big teeth,’ Sylvia told them, fear lurking in her eyes.
‘And she shouts,’ added Susan.
‘Mrs Dawes is Ash mother,’ Sheila said, ‘but I ain’t seen her yet. She didn’t come in when we had breakfast.’
‘Our house-mother’s called Mrs Ford,’ Dora told them. ‘She’s the size of a house. Arms on her like a navvy.’
‘Voice and language to match,’ agreed Mary. ‘She roars at everyone. Stood over Ange this morning till she finished her porridge, didn’t she, Ange?’
‘Said if I didn’t eat it she’d hold my nose and force it down my throat,’ agreed Angela. ‘An’ I believed her, an’ all!’
‘The girls here do talk funny,’ remarked Mary. ‘The one what showed us round, Jane, she called us Poms. What’s Poms?’ No one knew exactly, but they all agreed it probably wasn’t complimentary.
‘Their voices are dead odd,’ said Joan.
‘That’s just their Australian accents,’ said Sheila loftily. ‘There was an Australian girl in my class at school back home for a bit, and she talked like that. That’s how they talk over here. But they don’t like us coming, so we stick together, OK? Ain’t going to take no stuff from any of them.’
‘Yeah,’ said Daisy, ‘stick together.’
They all agreed, and felt a little more cheerful, knowing they were in it together.
When the other girls got back from school, the newcomers had to return to their cottages, and were soon swallowed up in the routine of each house. When they got home, the girls changed out of their school uniform and put on overalls. Some went to collect eggs, others were set to weed the vegetable plots, others had to collect the discarded clothes and wash them, ready to wear again on Monday morning.
The potatoes Rita and Daisy had peeled earlier were set to boil, and then added to the thin stew, prepared before breakfast. After the meal, they all trooped over to central for notices and prayers. The full complement of girls gathered in the meeting hall and sat on the floor, where Mrs Manton addressed them all.
‘You’ll all have noticed that we’ve ten new girls come to join us,’ she said. ‘They will quickly learn how we do things here at Laurel Farm. After prayers I wish to speak to Rita and Rose Stevens, Susan Hart and Sylvia Brown.’ She did not say why, but simply went on to outline the jobs for the weekend.
Rita was hardly listening. Why did the Spider want to see them after prayers, and why only her and Rosie and the two little girls? Why didn’t she want the others? Rita was filled with a dark foreboding.
After a Bible reading and some prayers, everyone was dismissed except the four new girls, who sat on the floor, waiting. As she got up to leave with the other girls from Oak, Daisy whispered to Rita, ‘I’ll wait for you outside.’ And Rita, feeling the Spider’s eyes boring into her, could only nod gratefully, while keeping her own eyes lowered.
When the others had gone, Mrs Manton said, ‘Tomorrow we’ve some visitors coming. You’ll wear the clothes and shoes you brought from England, and I want to see clean faces and tidy hair. These people are coming especially to see you and I expect perfect behaviour from you all. You’ll answer politely, but only speak if you’re spoken to.’ She looked round at them and said, ‘Any questions? No? Good.’
‘Please, Mrs Manton,’ ventured Rita, ‘why do they want to see us?’
Clearly Mrs Manton hadn’t expected questions, and she spoke sharply. ‘You’ll find out tomorrow. Go back to your cottages now. Make sure you’re ready after breakfast.’
Outside Daisy was waiting for them in the gathering twilight. The five girls walked back through the dusk, Rosie clinging tightly to Rita’s hand, Sylvia and Susan clutching Daisy’s.
‘What did she want?’ Daisy asked. ‘Why did you have to stay?’
‘She told us some visitors is coming tomorrow and we’ve got to meet them,’ said Rita. ‘She said they was coming specially to see us. Didn’t say why. She said we had to dress up and look smart.’
Daisy thought for a moment and then said, ‘Perhaps they have to check up on children just come from England.’
‘Yeah, I thought that,’ agreed Rita, ‘but why just us four? Why not all of us what come together?’
‘Don’t know,’ shrugged Daisy.
‘I don’t want to go in there,’ Susan whispered to Daisy when they reached Pine Cottage. ‘The lady in there is scary!’
‘You got to,’ Daisy told her firmly, detaching her hand and casting her adrift. ‘Look, Sylvia’ll be with you, and we’ll see you in the morning, all right?’ When neither of the little girls moved, she grabbed their hands again, marched up to the front door of the cottage and opened it. ‘See you in the morning,’ she said again and pushing them inside, she pulled the door closed behind them.
Rosie gripped Rita’s hand even tighter as they came to Larch. ‘I don’t like it here,’ she whimpered.
‘Nor do I,’ admitted Rita, ‘but there ain’t nothing we can do about it. I’ll see you in the morning, after breakfast, OK? You’ll be all right. Joan’s in there too. You like Joan.’
‘But she’s not in my dorm,’ cried Rosie. ‘There’s only girls I don’t know.’
Rita sighed. ‘Come on, Rosie. You got to go in.’ She opened the cottage door. ‘You got to be a big girl now. I’ll see you in the morning, promise you.’
‘What’s going on here?’ demanded a voice from inside. The door was pulled wider and Mrs Watson appeared. She looked at the two girls hesitating on the doorstep and said, ‘Ah, you’re back, Rosie. Good. Come along in, now. It’s time for bed.’ She reached down and took Rosie firmly by the hand. ‘Goodnight, Rita.’
Rosie was pulled into the house, and Rita was left standing outside.
‘I wish she was with me,’ Rita said to Daisy as they walked back to Oak. ‘She’s only little.’
‘She’s got to learn to stand on her own two feet,’ Daisy said. ‘You can’t look after her forever, you know.’
‘Yeah,’ Rita sighed, ‘but even so, they could have put us together, just at first.’
Why were they to meet these strange people tomorrow? Rita wondered as she lay in the chilly dorm. Who were they and what did they want? A fearful thought had assailed her, but it was so dreadful that she didn’t mention it, even to Daisy. She felt that somehow, just saying it aloud might make it come true. But the idea wouldn’t leave her. Suppose they were going to be sent somewhere else. Suppose they were going to be split up. Surely she and Rosie would be kept together – they were sisters. Perhaps that was why she, alone of the older girls, had been included. But Rita felt sick with worry. The Spider had already split them up, perhaps she was going to do it again.
With her thoughts in such a turmoil, it had been ages before Rita had finally fallen asleep. It was the cold that had woken her again and for a moment she didn’t know where she was, and then it all came flooding back to her. Yesterday had been a miserable day, surely today things could only get better.