Sunday morning and after church Jonesy suggests we go for a walk out the grounds to some fields she knows. I know she is only doing it to try to get me to not think about my mum. I appreciate it but my mind keeps drifting off to thoughts about who my sister is, what she looks like and why she gets to live with Mum. In church I hardly sang anything.
We walk up Faith Avenue towards the Homes entrance and there are three men by the road. They come towards us, so Jonesy and I turn right instead of the way we were going. One of them gestures to me and waves as I try to walk off.
‘No, hen, no, wait.’ He pulls out a notepad and a card of some kind. ‘I’m a reporter with the Glasgow Herald. I just want to talk to you.’
‘To me?’ says Jonesy. ‘Why do you want to talk to me?’
Quick as a swallow he changes direction and is talking to her instead.
‘Well you see it’s very important we find out all the information we can about the murder as it is big news.’
‘It is, isn’t it? We saw the body. Well, me and some other people – no Lesley here, Lesley didnae see the body, but she did come up the woods with me a couple of days after to see where the body was and there was a policeman, but there’s probably clues where she was found, and—’
‘Jonesy, shut it,’ I say, as quietly as I can so she can hear it and he can’t.
‘And what is your name, hen?’ asks one of the other men. They are all listening to Jonesy, which is making her happy, but I don’t like the way they are writing down everything she says.
‘It’s Morag Jones, people call me Jonesy, but Morag Jones is my full name. Don’t have a middle name, posh kids get middle names, I didnae get one, I might give myself one when I’m allowed to do that. How old do you have to be to do that? Sixteen, I would think – I’m twelve now and I live in number five. This is Lesley, she lives in five with me.’
‘And what is “five”?’ he asks.
‘Cottage 5, it’s a girls’ cottage. They all have numbers. Ours is five.’
‘HEY YOU!’ comes a roaring voice behind us. It’s the Superintendent.
‘I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO GET TO—’
‘Yes Mr Gordon, you told us to get off the grounds and that is what we did.’ The reporter sounds scared. It’s good to know that Mr Gordon can scare adults as much as he scares us. ‘We are not on the grounds. We are outside.’
‘Girls, get inside now.’
We walk as fast as we can back through the main gates without it becoming a run. We can hear the Super growling at the journalists behind us, but we daren’t turn back to look.
I realise as we walk back that it’s taken my mind off my mum, but also it made me realise that the murder isn’t just big news at the Homes. It is big news everywhere.
*
Mrs Paterson got word to Eadie Schaffer that she needed to see me. Mrs Paterson’s sometimes good like that. It’s hard for her, it must be even harder for her husband, in a house with nearly thirty girls, all screeching around all the time. I think that’s why he gets angry sometimes and tells everyone to shut up, but it’s to be expected. If Mrs Paterson was in a house with all boys I think it would drive her crazy. She’s said that before to explain when he does get angry. He blows his top and it’s scary as anything. I would say he has favourites and girls he doesn’t like, but that wouldn’t be true. There’s definitely ones he doesn’t like and has got it in for, and the rest of us he just tolerates.
The key with Mr Paterson is to work out what annoys him – that’s where Jonesy goes wrong. She has no sense of what she does that annoys him, and then she gets the belt. If you are too noisy around him, instant belt, but also if you are too meek and mild like Eldrey he doesn’t seem to like that either. He also hates running in the house, but all grown-ups seem to hate that.
On Monday morning Mrs Paterson tells me that when I come back from school I should go and see Miss Schaffer and she will stay late to talk to me. At dinnertime I just read a book on my own to eat up time and distract myself. It’s a good book, called Kidnapped by Robert Stevenson, so I think about the character Davie’s troubles instead of mine.
*
When the bus home drops us off, I walk back towards Cottage 5 before realising that I should be going to the hospital building to see Eadie. She’s with some other kid, so I wait outside her room. If you go to the doctor you wait your turn but you are never in there more than five minutes; with Eadie, a person can be five minutes or they can be an hour, you never know. She never rushes you and she always listens completely until you are done.
This time, I have to wait half an hour and spend the time reading my book. It means my tea will be cold, but if I am her last visitor of the day I don’t have to worry about others waiting for me to leave.
It’s worth it.
The smile she gives me when I come in feels so nice that I nearly start crying straight away but I don’t. She must have had a good chat with Mrs Paterson, because she knows everything that has happened.
She lets me talk and talk about how unfair it is, and what a terrible person my mum is. She doesn’t tell me I mustn’t say that, she just lets me talk and talk. It is gone half seven by the time we are done.
When we are finished I feel so much better. I could have said nothing – just being in the room with Eadie makes me feel better – but getting it all out is a relief.
*
Back at the cottage, a bowl of thick vegetable soup and some bread have been left out for me. Cook has put it aside in the kitchen and covered it with a plate. The bread is hard and the soup is cold, with a skin on it that I use a spoon to scoop off, but it tastes good, and I drink some milk with it.
Jonesy comes down and finds me in the kitchen eating. I tell her that Eadie is so great, that she’s the only adult who’s ever nice to me all the time.
Jonesy says no adult has been nice to her all the time. She says she likes the ones who just don’t belt her too often and that is good enough for her. We agree that kids are nicer than adults and hope that we don’t become horrible people when we get older.
We talk all evening. It’s getting to be summer and it’s lighter for longer. When it’s time to go to bed it’s still light outside. We pretend to sleep for a while, then Jonesy joins me in my bed.