The Throwaway Children (28 page)

The
Pride of Empire
continued her stately progress up the harbour. All round the deck there was a buzz of excited conversation, a babble of languages from the melting pot of migrants aboard, as with a mixture of fear, hope, excitement, expectation and resignation, they gazed at the city, spreading amorphously away on either side of them. Their long voyage was finally coming to an end and they were about to be expelled from the safe haven of the ship into this strange, unknown city at the end of the world. The six-week journey, a curious interlude between their past lives in war-scarred Europe and their uncertain, future lives in Australia, was at an end.

The ship finally docked at Pyrmont. With much noise and shouting she came alongside the wharf and was made fast. When they at last disembarked, streaming down the gangplanks onto the quay and into the customs sheds, the crowd of immigrants fell into untidy lines, their meagre luggage at their feet, the buzz of their conversation muted by anxiety.

The Miss Dauntseys had gathered their charges together the evening before, speaking to each group in turn, giving them instructions on what to do when they disembarked.

‘All your luggage must be packed and ready this evening,’ Miss Dauntsey told the EVER-Care children. ‘We arrive early in the morning, and have to get off the ship straight away. Make sure you leave nothing behind or you’ll lose it.’

‘You’re to wear your best clothes,’ Miss Ellen added. ‘We don’t want Mrs Manton to think we’ve brought her a lot of scruffs.’

‘Sheila, you’re in charge of your group,’ went on Miss Dauntsey. ‘Make sure everyone stays together. I’ll be handing you over to Mrs Manton once all the formalities have been dealt with.’

‘What’s “formalities”?’ murmured Daisy.

‘Showing passports and telling them what you’ve got in your suitcases,’ Miss Ellen explained. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t take long.’

She was wrong. It took ages. Once ashore the children were separated into their original groups. The Laurel House group was the smallest, and as they stood together waiting for someone to come and collect them, they saw the other, larger groups of children shepherded away. Miss Ellen and Miss Dauntsey waited with them, looking anxiously about. Until they had handed over their charges they couldn’t leave the port themselves. Various groups of children were called, and either Miss Dauntsey or Miss Ellen came forward with the necessary papers, escorting each group out to where they were to be collected, passing on their guardianship.

The Laurel House girls shuffled their feet, sat on their cases, moaned and grumbled. Rita looked round the enormous shed at the stream of people who had disembarked from the
Pride
, pushing and shouting and gesticulating. All these people, she thought. All these people coming to live here… because they want to. I don’t want to.

‘How much longer?’ whined Susan Hart.

‘I’m hungry,’ wailed Rosie.

‘So am I!’ said Daisy.

They were all hungry. The excitement of their passage into the shelter of Sydney Harbour had kept the children on deck. None of them had gone below for their breakfast. Six weeks earlier, none of them would have missed the chance of a meal for any reason; but with six weeks of regular and satisfying meals, the fear of hunger had faded.

‘You should have gone to breakfast when you had the chance,’ remarked Miss Ellen, overhearing as she returned from handing over another group. ‘Never mind, Rosie, I expect Mrs Manton has made arrangements to feed you very soon.’

Paul had been part of the previous group, and as they’d stood waiting to be called forward, Rita had asked him where he was going.

‘Place called Molong,’ he replied. ‘Looks all right. It’s a farm.’

They’d said goodbye, and as he turned to rejoin the rest of the Molong group, he said, ‘Keep writing your stories, Reet. They’re quite good.’

‘And you,’ replied Rita, giving him a half wave as he followed the others out of the shed. He didn’t look back.

Rita watched him disappear, sad to see him go. Over the final few weeks, they’d become friends. While the other children continued to race round the ship, playing hide and seek, and deck tennis, running races and inventing new games to amuse themselves, Paul and Rita had spent many hours curled up in the library, reading, writing and sharing their thoughts. Watching him walk away into the new world which was Australia, Rita felt bereft, and fighting the tears that threatened her, she turned back to find Rosie. Rosie was still her responsibility, and it was with a rush of affection that she saw her sister sitting on her suitcase, kicking her heels against its cardboard sides.

‘You all right, Rosie?’

‘Yeah,’ replied Rosie, surprised. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘Me? Course I am.’

Eventually they were allowed to straggle out of the customs shed to a concrete yard beyond where a formidable-looking woman sat on a bench: Mrs Manton, Superintendent of Laurel Farm, Carrabunna, waiting to collect her new charges.

The woman stood up as they approached. She was tall and thin, her greying hair scraped back into an untidy bun under a small black hat. Her face wrinkled, her mouth downturned with permanent discontent, she peered at the children from small, mistrustful eyes. Dressed in a long black overcoat which almost reached her spindly, black-stockinged ankles, she wore black gloves and carried a capacious, black handbag.

‘She looks like a witch,’ muttered Daisy. ‘Or a spider. She’s going to be worse than the Hawk.’

‘May be OK,’ Rita murmured in reply.

‘Huh!’ Daisy looked her new guardian up and down. ‘Don’t you believe it, Reet.’

The little group came to a halt in front of her, all of them realizing as they saw the expression on her sallow face that their ‘holiday’ had indeed come to an end.

‘Here you are at last,’ said the woman by way of greeting. ‘I was beginning to think you were never coming through.’

‘Mrs Manton? I’m so sorry, but they dealt with the larger groups first,’ explained Miss Ellen. ‘I’m afraid your girls were last.’ She turned to the silent group at her heels and said brightly, ‘Well, girls, here’s Mrs Manton. She’s going to look after you from now.’

No one moved. Rita stared at Miss Ellen, suddenly realizing how important she’d become during the journey. She had shown her charges a kindness which was new to most of them. She and her sister had read to them, played with them, talked to them; something few adults had done before. Of all the children in their small group, only Rita and Rosie remembered being with loving adults, and those memories were fast fading. Looking at Miss Ellen now, Rita wanted to clutch hold of her and beg her not to leave them, but she knew with bleak certainty that there was nothing Miss Ellen could do.

‘Well, I must say goodbye,’ Miss Ellen said awkwardly. She hated the idea of leaving these girls to the mercy of the dry stick of a woman who was about to take them away. They’d been her particular charges during the voyage and she’d become fond of them, especially the little ones. She glanced at Mrs Manton, but that lady’s expression had not relaxed into one of welcome for the children who had come so far.

Rosie, suddenly aware that Miss Ellen was going away, let out a wail of misery. Miss Ellen reached out to her and gathered her into a hug. Moments later she’d hugged each of them, even Sheila, who at nearly fourteen might have rebuffed her, and then with tears burning in her eyes, she turned on her heel, hurrying away to collect her own luggage and join her sister in the immigration queue.

Mrs Manton turned to her charges. ‘Stop that yowling,’ she ordered, glaring at the three youngest, who, at the sight of her expression and at the tone of her voice, gulped down their sobs and dashed the tears from their cheeks.

Satisfied, Mrs Manton gave an abrupt nod, then looking over to the gate, she waved an imperious hand at a young, tow-headed lad wearing dirty overalls. ‘Colin!’ she called. ‘Get over here.’

The boy peeled himself away from the wall and, picking up the handles of a handcart, ambled over to them.

‘Load up the luggage, Colin, and be quick about it, we’ve got a train to catch.’

The lad stepped forward and grasping two of the suitcases, hefted them easily onto his cart. In a matter of moments he had all the cases stacked, and set off with the cart.

‘Form up in twos,’ directed Mrs Manton, turning back to the waiting children, ‘follow me and keep up.’

‘Please, miss,’ ventured Sheila, ‘where’re we going?’

‘To catch a train,’ replied Mrs Manton briskly. ‘Now, you older girls make sure the little ones don’t get lost.’ She waited for a moment as the older girls took hold of the younger ones, and then she turned on her heel and strode off, leaving her charges to follow. Rita held Rosie firmly by the hand, and from habit the rest of the group came together in pairs, forming a loose crocodile as they straggled out into the windswept street. Sydney was a city such as they’d never seen before. The streets were crowded and noisy. People hurried along, heads bent against the wind and the incoming rain. Traffic hooted and roared as cars and buses battled the congestion and the sudden clang and clank of a passing tram made Susan and Sylvia scream and cling on to Sheila and Angela.

‘Come on!’ Sheila yanked on Sylvia’s hand. ‘Don’t be such a baby! It’s only a tram!’ But even she kept a wary eye open after that.

Afraid of losing Mrs Manton in the lunchtime crowds, they scurried along behind her, dodging through the pedestrians thronging the pavement. A clock was striking two when they finally reached the railway station. There was no sign of Colin and the handcart.

Rita looked round nervously. ‘Where’s our cases?’ she asked Daisy.

‘How do I know?’ shrugged Daisy. ‘That boy’s got ’em.’

Mrs Manton led them into the station, pausing for the girls to gather round her.

‘Our train is in an hour,’ she told them. ‘You’ll have to wait here.’ She waved them over to some wooden benches that ran along a wall. ‘Sit there and keep quiet while I buy the tickets.’ As they sat down, she opened her bag and handed Sheila a brown paper bag. ‘You can share these out,’ she said, ‘and make sure no one moves before I come back.’

Sheila opened the bag and found it contained some rather soggy-looking egg sandwiches. There was just one each. It was quite a while before Mrs Manton returned with the tickets and by the time they’d all drunk from a drinking fountain and been to the lavatory, it was time for them to board the train. As they clambered into the second class carriage, Colin appeared and climbed in as well. There was no sign of their suitcases.

‘Where’s our stuff?’ asked Rita, an edge of panic in her voice.

‘Yeah, where’s my case?’ Daisy demanded.

‘In the van, of course,’ replied Colin, and immediately lay down on one of the bench seats, flipped his grubby cap over his eyes and went to sleep.

They were all tired, and it wasn’t very long after the train drew out of the station that most of the girls followed his example. The carriage was unheated, and Rita and Rosie huddled together, trying to keep warm. Rosie was soon asleep, her back curved against Rita’s, her hand under her cheek. Rita lay against her, listening to the rhythm of the wheels. ‘No way back! No way back! No way back!’

There was no way back for them now. They would live in another home until they were old enough to leave school and earn their own living, and then… what then? There would still be no way back. For the first time for weeks Rita allowed herself to think about home. On the ship she’d managed to keep such thoughts at bay. She’d been surrounded by new and exciting things, new places, new people, but now, on a cold train, rattling through the countryside, Rita was faced with the reality of her future life. She thought of Mum at home in Ship Street with baby Richard. Uncle Jimmy she tried to blot out of her mind. She tried to picture Gran in Hampton Road, but poor Gran had been knocked down by a car. Was she still in the hospital? If you’ve been run over, Rita thought, you must take ages to get better, specially if you’re old, like Gran.

She thought about Laurel House and the Hawk, and shuddered. Surely the spidery woman who had picked them up today couldn’t be as bad as the Hawk, could she?

Rosie was muttering in her sleep, and Rita pulled her closer, wrapping her arms round her to help keep them both warm, and at last, with the rhythm of the train unchanged and unchanging, she fell into an uneasy doze.

Carrabunna station was small, little more than a platform and a station house at the edge of the town. The grey light of a chilly dawn was stealing into the sky when the train began to slow and, with a squeal of brakes, stop beside the platform. Mrs Manton, who had been sitting elsewhere, hustled them off the train into the early morning chill, shouting at them to stand still while she counted them. Bleary-eyed with sleep, and shivering with cold, they stood waiting. Colin was busy at the guard’s van, pulling out his handcart, still loaded with the suitcases. No one else left the train, and the moment they were all safely on the platform, the guard blew his whistle and the train chugged away into the darkness.

Colin set off up the narrow road pushing the handcart, their suitcases jumping together as the cart bumped its way along the rough road. As they followed in his wake, the grey light grew stronger, but they were able to make out a little of the countryside.

It was very cold, the wind biting, cutting through the thin coats which they had all been given as part of their new wardrobe. Dressed in their best clothes, as Miss Ellen had told them, they were all wearing the short white socks and sandals they’d been given, and the wind beat mercilessly at their bare legs as they trudged along the road into Carrabunna.

The town was silent and it seemed to the girls, trailing along the early morning street, that the whole place was deserted. No one saw the weary little procession as it passed and they saw no one. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked; it was the only welcome they received.

A painted sign, hung beside a wide, wooden farm gate, read:
Laurel Farm EVER-Care Children’s Home
.
Mrs Manton led the straggling line of tired children through the gate of their new home and across a cobbled yard to a long, low building. She opened a door at one end, and a welcomingly warm light flooded into the yard.