Trust Me
Lesley Pearse
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published 2001
28
Copyright © Lesley Pearse, 2001
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN-13: 978-0-140-29335-7
To all those children everywhere who suffered the indignity and brutality of orphanages. My heart goes out to you, and I hope that in some small way this story will acknowledge the sadness of your past and help you to put it aside.
Acknowledgements
To Bruce Blyth in Perth, Australia, for your help, knowledge, advice and enthusiasm. Without your passion and commitment I could never have written this book. But then you’ve been helping the survivors of Bindoon for years, an unsung hero, a man of integrity and compassion. After you all men will fall short. My hero and friend.
To Ted and Betty in WA, for allowing me to pick your brains and trawl through your memories and your knowledge of farming. Come to England soon!
To Faye and Geoff in WA, for putting up with a greenhorn jill-a-roo and her many naive questions. I will remember my time on your farm with great affection. If I’ve made mistakes in the farming details, forgive me. I’m just a townie.
Thanks to the Child Migrants Trust in Nottingham, England, for sending me invaluable news clippings and advising me on books for my research. The Child Migrants Trust is devoted to searching out relatives of the children sent to Australia and helps to fund travel expenses for them to meet up. Thanks to Margaret Humphreys, its director, a great many people have been reunited with family back in England. I thoroughly recommend her book Empty Cradles to anyone who wishes to know more about the Child Migration Scheme.
Finally, extra special thanks to Peggie Rush, Mary Eather, John Carvill and Paddy Dorrain. I can hardly find the words to express my admiration for each of you, sharing your blighted childhoods with me so that I could write this book. Things you told me stayed on in my memory long after I’d returned to England. I needed no notes to remember. I have wept for each of you, and for all those other children who lived through those evil times. I hope my tears, and those of the readers, will soothe some of the pain and injustice done to you all.
Part One
1947–1955
Chapter One
May 1947 Hither Green, South London
Edna Groomes and Iris Brown paused in their gossiping as Anne Taylor came tripping along Leahurst Road. Her high heels tapped out a staccato message, Look at me, look at me, and so they stared, hating her for her beauty, blonde hair, trim figure and youth.
Edna and Iris were both only in their early thirties, no more than six years older than Anne, but their crossover pinnies, headscarves knotted like turbans and sagging, overweight bodies made them look much older.
‘She’ll be off to the ‘airdresser’s again,’ Edna said accusingly, shaking her tin of Brasso and bending over to finish polishing the letter-box she’d started before Iris came out of her flat next door. ‘She’s always in there. All she thinks of is ‘ow she looks.’
Iris put her hands on her hips and smirked as Anne came closer. ‘’Ow’s the little ‘uns?’ she asked with some malice. ‘Stuck indoors as usual?’
‘The children are fine, thank you,’ Anne replied without even breaking her step, her nose firmly in the air. ‘And yes, they are indoors. I don’t allow them to play in the street disturbing the neighbours.’
It was the crisp, cultured voice and the snipe at Edna and Iris’s children who were playing a noisy game of cricket further down the street which momentarily stunned the two older women. By the time Iris had managed to open her mouth again, Anne had already disappeared around the corner into Manor Lane.
‘Stuck-up bitch,’ Iris spat out.
Edna laughed. ‘You asked for that one, Iris. If she weren’t so bloody posh she might ‘ave whacked you.’
‘She might be posh but she’s no better than she should be,’ Iris retorted, sitting down on the low wall which gave a mere three feet of front garden to the two-storey flats. ‘She’s bin carrying on with Tosh down at the pub for months now. I’ve two minds to slip Reg the wink.’
‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ Edna said, abandoning her polishing to sit on the wall beside her friend and drawing a packet of Turf out of her pinny pocket. ‘I reckon ‘e’d knock you out.’
The two women lit up their cigarettes, enjoying the warm spring sunshine on their faces. It was the first warm day of the year. Nineteen forty-seven had been the worst winter on record, snow lying on the ground from January right through to early April, and it was only now, the first week in May, that they’d been able to come outside without a coat.
But apart from the sunshine, there was no real evidence of spring in Leahurst Road, for there were no trees, and the tiny front gardens were used to house dustbins and bicycles, not flowers. Even further down the street nearer to Hither Green station where the long terrace of Victorian houses was broken by a bomb-site, the weeds and grass hadn’t yet begun to grow. Across the street was Lee Manor School, but as it was Saturday the gates in the eight-foot fence were closed, shutting out the sight of pots of daffodils on the window-sills.
Edna drew hard on her cigarette before speaking again. ‘You sure she’s carrying on with Tosh at the pub? I can’t see someone like ‘er messing with a creep like ‘im. I wouldn’t touch ‘im with a flaming barge-pole!’
‘Well, ‘e’s loaded, ain’t ‘e,’ Iris said with a sniff. ‘She thinks she’s too grand to live around ‘ere, ‘spect she thinks he’ll set her up somewhere more to ‘er liking. He won’t, though, he’s as tight as a monkey’s balls.’
Edna laughed. Tosh, the landlord of the Station Hotel, was famous for his meanness. They joked that moths flew out when he opened his wallet. He was also nearly fifty, balding and paunchy, an ex-boxer with a broken nose. It was surprising enough that Anne Taylor, with her stunning looks and hoity-toity manner, should even work for him as a barmaid, but although Edna would like to believe what her friend was saying she thought it extremely unlikely that Anne would stoop to having an affair with him too. ‘Why would she want a man to take her away from ‘ere anyway? Reg ain’t a boozer, and he’s always in work,’ she said.
Iris rolled
her eyes with impatience. ‘Are you blind and deaf?’ she exclaimed. ‘Everyone knows they fight all the time. Mrs Gardener downstairs to them says they are at it hammer and tongs most every night.’
‘Me and Sid fight all the time an’ all,’ Edna retorted. ‘Specially when he stays in the pub and his dinner’s ruined. That don’t mean I go looking for someone else.’
Iris moved closer to her friend. ‘She neglects those kids,’ she said conspiratorially. ‘Back in the winter when the snow was on the ground sometimes they was waiting on the doorstep with their teeth chattering for hours for their mum to get back. If it weren’t for Reg I don’t reckon they’d ever get a decent meal or clean clothes. She spends all the money on clothes and hair-dos, and why would she do that if it weren’t to catch a new man?’
Edna knew it was true about the two little girls waiting on the doorstep in the cold after school, she’d taken them in a few times herself, but she thought Iris was being a bit malicious about the rest so she made no comment. She liked Reg Taylor. He looked like a thug with his big shoulders and hair cut as close as a convict’s, but he’d been the first to come round to offer help when her pipes burst in the winter and Sid was working away. Just the way Reg talked about his little girls showed how much he loved them, and she didn’t believe he would stand for his wife neglecting them.
‘Oh, I know Reg is a good sort,’ Iris said as if she’d read Edna’s thoughts. ‘But she’s a bad ‘un. Fancy ‘er leaving those little kiddies cooped up in that flat all day while she gets ‘er ‘air done. It ain’t never right.’
The Taylor girls didn’t think it was right either. As their mother was walking up the street they were watching her from the window. They saw her pass Mrs Groomes and Mrs Brown, and once she’d gone round the corner, they grabbed the spare key from the mantelpiece and skipped out, knowing she wouldn’t be back for at least two hours. They were making for Manor House Gardens, the pretty park with a lake only ten minutes away. Within an hour they had joined some other children down in the mud on the banks of the River Quaggy, which ran through it, until the park-keeper spotted them.
All six children involved in building a dam across the river jerked up their heads in alarm at the sound of his outraged shout from the bridge some twenty yards away. Dulcie Taylor didn’t stop to see what her companions would do, just grabbed her younger sister May’s hand, hauled her up the river bank and squeezed first May, then herself, through the same bent railing they had entered through.
‘Quick, hide under there,’ Dulcie gasped, shoving May beneath a dense shrub on the other side of the pathway, then, with only the briefest glance around, crawling in too.
Seconds later, the park-keeper in his brown uniform came riding past on his bicycle. Dulcie put her hand over May’s mouth and whispered that she wasn’t to move until he was out of sight. As they could hear him yelling at the others, no more than thirty or forty feet away from their hiding-place, they stayed crouched under the bush, both panting with fright.
Dulcie was eight and a half, May had had her fifth birthday only two days ago, and they were very alike, with blonde hair which they wore in plaits, pale skin and wide blue eyes. Yet May was always referred to by neighbours as ‘the pretty little one’. It wasn’t that Dulcie was plain, though she was rather thin and gawky, with new front teeth which looked a little large for her small face, merely that May endeared herself to people by smiling readily and chatting, and she didn’t look permanently anxious as her older sister did.
Dulcie was an anxious child and it was quite out of character for her to suggest slipping out to the park while their mother was out, or to do anything as reckless as playing in the river. Normally she was a timid and obedient girl, and took responsibility for the safety of her younger sister seriously. But today’s warm sunshine after months of bitter weather had caused latent feelings of resentment towards her mother to boil over. She couldn’t see why she and May should be expected to stay indoors on such a nice day while she, who couldn’t even be bothered to make them something for dinner, went off to the hairdresser’s.
Dulcie wasn’t prone to thinking she was hard done by. She knew that everyone in England had had to endure severe hardships all through the long, bleak winter. Animals had frozen to death in the fields, old people had died of cold sitting in front of an empty grate. Food rations had been cut again, lower even than during the war years, and the heavy snow prevented much of the food from being distributed.
Young as she was, she appreciated that her family were lucky to have a decent place to live, for many people were still struggling to repair bomb-damaged houses or living in temporary accommodation. Dulcie had grown used to having to wear a coat and hat in class during the winter – her teacher had explained that coal for the boilers was difficult to get hold of – she didn’t even mind that she and May often had to get into bed as soon as they got home for the same reason. She had put up with chapped thighs, feet and hands and conditioned herself to ignore the rumblings of hunger in her stomach, but what she couldn’t accept or understand was her mother’s apparent total lack of regard for her family.
Anne kept on buying new clothes for herself instead of food. She sat around all day painting her nails and reading magazines instead of cleaning up. It was perfectly understandable to Dulcie that Dad got mad when he came in from work and found there was no dinner, or when he had to wash and iron their school clothes because Mum hadn’t done them. Like him, Dulcie had come to the conclusion that Mum didn’t care about him or her children, and night after night when she had to bury her head under the pillow so she wouldn’t hear the bitter rows, she almost wished Mum would make good her constant threats to leave – at least then they’d get some peace.
Just that morning in Lewisham, Anne had bought another new dress for herself. Dulcie had pointed out that both her own and May’s shoes were pinching their feet, but she’d snapped at them and said they must put up with them for another few weeks. On the way home Dulcie had asked if she’d take them to the park in the afternoon because someone at school had said there were baby ducks on the lake. But Mum had just clouted her round the ear, said she was always asking for something, and anyway she was going to the hairdresser’s.
Dulcie knew it was pointless asking if they could go alone. Dad didn’t allow it, and he wouldn’t let them play in the street either. She understood why. Dad had been a street urchin himself and he always said he wanted something better for his girls. Besides, he was fair, he was never too tired to take them to the park or up to Blackheath when he was home. Even if he’d planned to do something else, if it was a nice day he’d drop it for them.
That was why Dulcie decided to defy her mother. It was a protest against her selfishness, coupled with a desire for adventure and freedom.
She wished she hadn’t now. Her shoes were wet through and covered in mud, and May was in an even worse mess with mud all over her skirt and cardigan. If the park-keeper caught them, goodness only knew what he’d do to them, and Mum would go mad when they got home.
At last Dulcie saw the park-keeper moving away. He was pushing his bike with one hand and holding one of the boys by the ear with the other. Once she was satisfied that he was too far away to see them, the girls crawled out of the bush and Dulcie said they must go home.
‘But I don’t want to go,’ May said petulantly. ‘We haven’t even seen the ducks yet. Mum won’t be back for ages.’
Dulcie sighed deeply, hoping May wasn’t going to have one of her tantrums as she often did when she didn’t get her way. She was reluctant to go herself, she’d wanted to see the ducks too, but she had no idea what the time was, and it was imperative they got their clothes and shoes cleaned up before Mum came in.
‘We can’t stay now, Parky will get us,’ Dulcie said, taking her sister by the hand and almost dragging her towards the gates.
‘What would he do to us?’ May asked. She looked intrigued rather than frightened.
Dulcie had no real idea. As she’d never
been to the park before without an adult watching over them, all she knew about Parky was hearsay from other children. They said he clouted children, whipped them with a stick for picking flowers, one girl at school claimed he’d taken her into his shed and forced her to hold his willy. Dulcie didn’t really believe that story, but the way he’d shouted at them earlier and the way he’d dragged Stephen off suggested he could be very nasty.
‘He’d lock us up in his shed, then he’d get Dad,’ she guessed.
Just the mention of her dad made them both really frightened. He wasn’t a cruel man, he never, ever belted them like some kids’ dads did, but he would be very angry that they’d slipped out without permission.
Dulcie was an observant and thoughtful child, and when they visited Granny in Deptford, she could see why her dad wanted something better for her and May than he’d had. Deptford was a slum area, with nasty old tenements and dirty streets, and many of the dilapidated little terraced houses like Granny’s housed several families. Dad had once told her that most of the boys he’d played with as a child had become thieves and rogues, and the reason he’d always worked so hard when he was young was so he could get away from there. Dulcie supposed that he’d married Mum for much the same reason, because she was beautiful and she had a posh voice.
Yet that didn’t always make sense. Mum was always saying cruel things about how rough and uneducated Dad’s family were. Dad usually struck back by saying hers were mean-minded snobs and they hadn’t equipped her for real life. Dulcie often wondered what on earth had made them get married in the first place if they disliked each other’s families so much.
As they turned into Leahurst Road, to Dulcie’s horror she saw that their dad’s bicycle was in the front garden. Either it was much later than she thought, or Dad had knocked off work early. He was a builder, at present working on a site in the Eltham Road, and normally he didn’t get home before six on a Saturday. But now they would be in serious trouble. Mum would probably only have given them a clout, she wouldn’t have told Dad what they’d done because he would have been mad with her for leaving them on their own. What on earth were they going to do?