the sisters that they now looked quite bonny.
Marjorie stared at her sisters’ spiky short hair. She reached up to feel her own. Before she could, one of the bullies began to scrub her scalp with horrible smelling black soap. Some of it got into her eyes and it stung. She cried and wiggled trying to get free, but all she got for her effort was another slap and a mouthful of the vile stuff. Then, without warning, cold water rushed down her back. She sucked in her breath and tried to stop from crying out. They scrubbed her skin until it screamed. Audrey sobbed loudly. Marjorie glanced at Joyce. Her miserable face frightened her. Why were they doing this to them? What had they done wrong? Joyce cried out and asked what they had done with their brother. But they told her it was none of her concern. But he was their concern, Marjorie sobbed to herself, he was their brother.
After a thorough scrubbing, the sisters stood shivering while combs ploughed through their hair. A chorus of “ow” echoed off the clammy walls. A slap on the head warned them to shut up. “We have to get all the nits and dickies out — afterall cleanliness is next to godliness. It is bad enough that we have to put up with you lot for a couple of days, but we don’t want to catch the vermin you carried as well.” Marjorie’s comber sneered at her when she tried to get away again and gave an extra hard yank at what was left of her hair.
Quietly, the three sisters put on the clothes they were given. The rough material scratched at their raw skin. They wanted their own clothes back, but the girls laughed and asked if they were daft. “We’ve burnt them,” they mocked, as they pointed to the boiler and said that they were not even good for rags. When Audrey cried for her doll, she was told that she was really a thick one. “Can you not hear properly? We burned that too.” Audrey’s wail brought shrieks of laughter.
The Arnison sisters spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen scrubbing dishes and peeling vegetables. Audrey started to say that she was tired and hungry, but cook stopped her, telling her that if she was hungry, then she better get used to working for her food. “Get your chores done first. You will be fed when it is time,” she told her. Cook softened slightly when Audrey’s tears slipped down her cheeks. But she quickly demanded the tears to be wiped away and assured Audrey that she was telling her this for her own good.
Joyce watched her little sister. Her odd haircut and her funny fitting clothes made her almost unrecognizable. She had always come to Audrey’s rescue; it was second nature to her. She told the cook that Audrey was just little, that she had just turned seven. She offered to finish peeling Audrey’s potatoes for her.
Cook would have none of it. She turned to Joyce, and told her that now she would have extra chores and maybe that will teach her not to coddle her little sister. Audrey needed to learn to fend for herself. She looked squarely at Audrey, then at Joyce, and warned that she will not be helping her little sister if she always did her work for her. “She needs to toughen up or she won’t survive.”
The sisters looked at each other. What was the cook saying? What did she mean? The fear in their eyes came spilling over. It had been growing steadily throughout the day. They had no one to turn to and no one seemed to care how they were feeling. Quietly they went back to their chores, sucking back their tears.
Marjorie fell into her cot that evening, numb and exhausted after the long day but unable to fall asleep. Audrey hiccupped as she sobbed. Joyce tried to comfort her. She was crying for her doll and could not seem to understand that it was gone for good. She kept asking Joyce to go look for it. Marjorie’s own tears were flowing, but like her mum and now Joyce, she too was learning to keep them silent.
Marjorie thrashed about, trying to get comfortable in her unfamiliar bed, searching for a spot on her lumpy mattress not soaked with salty tears. Would she ever see her family or Whitley Bay again? It felt like she had been away for ages, not only since this morning when her mum and Phyllis put them on the train. It was impossible to make sense of everything. Where were they? Who were those strange men last week? They must have made their mum do this. They had seen her upset before, many, many times, but this was very different. Her mum was afraid. She had heard it in her voice.
As Marjorie lay in her cot, she thought about how she had run back upstairs that day, hoping her mum would tell her what those men wanted. All she got from her mum was a sharp retort making it clear that she did not want to talk about it. The sound of her voice stopped Marjorie in her tracks. Phyllis was standing behind her mum and she put up her hand and shook her head, as if to say “Don’t say a word.” Marjorie would have to wait until she got Phyllis or Joyce alone.
Marjorie finally got a chance after they had settled in their bed that night. But her sisters could not tell her very much. Joyce whispered that one of the men shouted at their mum and said that she had no choice but to sign the papers. Phyllis said he passed a letter to their mum. It was supposed to be from their father and he said it gave him permission to take the children. Joyce said that letter really made their mum cry. Phyllis asked to see the letter, but her mum said no. She told Marjorie that their mum just kept shaking her head and saying, “He was our last hope and now even that is gone.”
Phyllis told them that when their mum wouldn’t agree to sign the papers, it made the man really mad, and then he yelled and said she better do as she was told, or they would take away all of us, even the babies. Then he said that she was fortunate that the society wanted her children. He told her that we would be much better off anywhere but here.
What society? And why did it want children? Phyllis didn’t know but she wished that she had closed the door and locked it and not let those horrid men into their flat. They all knew that their mum did the best she could.
Phyllis choked back tears as she admitted that she didn’t know what to make of it all. She hoped they would get a post from their dad or that he would come back and now look what he did. Phyllis whispered, “You should have seen Mum’s face when that nasty man said ‘Look around you, woman! What kind of a place is this to bring up children? You don’t have any furniture, you use old jars to drink out of, and the children are thin and hungry and dressed in rags.’ Then in a mean voice, he said, ‘This is no home, this is a disgrace!’”
The girls knew their mum struggled. But, this was their home. It was their family. They had each other. Their mum loved them. She would give them anything she could. They just did not have very much. They had seen their mum go hungry and give up her own food to the little ones. She always told them that one day their father would come home and then everything would be okay. Marjorie had waited and waited for that day.
Lying in this unfamiliar cot, away from the warmth of the big bed they always shared and miles from home, Marjorie realized that day would never come. She had waited for almost four years and now he had abandoned them again.
Now what? What was going to happen to them? No one told them anything. Not even their mum.
Marjorie tossed and turned, her new bed becoming more and more unfriendly. The events of the past few days reeled around in her head. She could not shut them out. She slammed her head into her mattress, but the picture of her mum, sitting on her old wooden orange box would not go away. Her mum had sat there all night last night. That morning Marjorie wanted to find some answers but she felt she dare not ask. Her mum’s face told her that questions would be futile. They ate their morning porridge without a sound. Afterwards, no one seemed to know what to do. Joyce moved first and picked up the baby, hugging him so close that he squealed to be let down. Kenny and Jean moved away from the table and sat quietly in a corner. Phyllis was doing her best to help.
Their mum finally spoke. Her voice held a sadness that made it unfamiliar. She simply asked Phyllis to help her get them ready. Marjorie’s head screamed, “Ready! Ready for what?” She wanted to know, but the words wouldn’t come out. Joyce found her voice and asked what they were getting ready for. Phyllis whispered to her little sister that she
