Page 6

BEFORE

September 1963

Sally

Sunshine House Orphanage, Hammersmith, London

Sally felt the car come to a juddering halt. She lay in the back seat of the vehicle, paralysed with fear. Where was she? And why had her mummy told her to get into this car without her? Sally placed her thumb in her mouth and sucked hard, trying to keep tears at bay.

‘Time to see your new home,’ Mrs Burton said in a high-pitched sing-song voice.

‘Is my mummy here?’ Sally asked, sitting up to peek out of the window. They were on a gravel driveway in front of an imposing redbrick house. It was bigger than any house she’d ever seen before.

Mrs Burton turned round and faced her. She tilted her head and sighed. ‘No, poppet. Your mother isn’t here. This is an orphanage, especially for little girls like you who need a new home.’

This confused Sally. ‘But I don’t need a new home. I have one. I’d like to go back there now.’

‘Your mother can’t take care of you right now. So she asked me to bring you here. Come on now. Be a good girl.’

Mrs Burton exited the car and opened the back door, holding her hand out to Sally. Sally inched her way along the car seat, then took the woman’s hand. It felt scratchy and clammy, unlike her mummy’s hand, which was soft and cool. Sally pulled her hand out of Mrs Burton’s grasp and, instead, clung on to the small brown case that her mother had packed for her.

Sally concentrated on the sound of the gravel under her black patent shoes as she walked up the driveway, and tried to block the fear that was racing through her little body. Mrs Burton rapped a large black knocker loudly on a bright yellow door, and the door opened.

‘This is Sister Jones,’ Mrs Burton said. ‘She is one of the staff who will care for you now.’

Sally looked upwards. Sister Jones was tall and much older than her mummy, with wiry grey hair that peeked out from beneath a black veil. She wore a black cardigan, buttoned up, over a crisp white blouse and a long black skirt. Her cheeks were round and red, and she had small dark eyes that peered down at her now, making Sally shiver.

‘Hello, Sally. We’ve been expecting you. Welcome to Sunshine House,’ Sister Jones said. ‘Come on inside. Let’s see if we can find where the girls are.’

‘You sound funny,’ Sally said. She pronounced ‘house’ as ‘hoose’ and ‘about’ as ‘aboot’.

Sister Jones smiled. ‘Aye, I bet I do. I’m from Scotland, Sally. You’ll get used to me soon enough. You, however, have a lovely little accent.’

She walked down a hallway, her black shoes clip-clopping on the black-and-white tiled floor. Mrs Burton gave Sally a little nudge forward, and they both followed the nun into a large room with the highest ceiling Sally had ever seen. A dozen girls were in there, all wearing dark-green gym slips, a square-necked yellow blouse, and black stockings that reached their knees. Some were playing board games, and others were curled up reading books. The girls all turned and stared in her direction. Their hair was cut identically into a short, blunt bob. Sally reached up to touch her long blonde tresses, which her mummy had always told her was her best feature.

‘Elsie Evans,’ Sister Jones called out.

A tall, lanky girl who looked a few years older than Sally uncurled herself from a brown couch, where she was reading a Ladybird book to a group of girls who looked no more than two or three years old. She had bobbed brown hair and blue eyes that sparkled.

‘Yes, Sister,’ she answered in a cockney accent that sounded like Sally’s mother.

Sally inched closer to the girl, feeling an instant camaraderie with her.

‘You are a good girl. Always taking care of the younger ones. Can you bring Sally up to her dormitory. She’s in Four B, same as you,’ Sister Jones said. ‘Then bring her to the dining hall and get her something to eat. I’ll send the housemother to collect her from there.’ She sighed as she touched Sally’s golden hair. ‘Such a shame.’

Sally wasn’t sure what was a shame, but was afraid to ask, so she followed Elsie out of the room.

‘Goodbye, Sally. I hope you’ll be happy here,’ Mrs Burton called out.

‘Here, let me take that,’ Elsie said, reaching down to grab Sally’s case as they began to climb up the dark mahogany staircase. A few moments later, Elsie opened a heavy wooden door to reveal a large, gloomy square room with eight single beds, four on either side. The beds had a grey steel frame and were neatly dressed with a white sheet, single white pillow and grey woollen bedspread. A grey steel locker sat beside each bed.

‘I wondered who was gonna be my new neighbour. Maria turned eighteen last week and left,’ Elsie said, patting the second bed from the door on the right-hand side. ‘This is you. And I’m here, right beside you.’

Sally hoisted herself up onto the bed. The blanket scratched her bare legs. Elsie opened the locker. ‘You can put all your bits and bobs in there. Housemother will go through it all and confiscate anything that isn’t regulatory. If there’s something special that you don’t want to go missing, stick it under your mattress for safekeeping.’

Sally didn’t know what ‘confiscate’ meant. She shivered, her eyes wide and fearful as she looked around the room. She spied a daddy long legs crawling its way up the wall in the far corner and almost cried out. Elsie helped Sally take her items out of the case, and put them into the locker. Then she grabbed Sally’s hand and led her back downstairs again.

The dining hall was another high-ceiling room painted in magnolia. It had three long tables adjacent to each other and wooden benches running on either side. Sally took a seat at the end of one of the tables, and then Elsie disappeared into the kitchen, returning a few moments later with a steaming bowl of soup.

‘You’re lucky – it’s tomato soup today. Vegetable soup is horrible.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ Sally said, looking down into the white bowl. Her mummy usually gave her sandwiches for lunch, with the crusts cut off. She felt an ache move from her heart all the way into her tummy.

‘It gets easier. Promise,’ Elsie said, watching her closely. ‘I’ve been here nearly three years now. I remember how scared I was that first day.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘What age are you? Four?’

‘I’m five,’ Sally said, reeling at the thought that Elsie had been in this awful place for three years.

‘You’re small for five. I’m eight,’ Elsie said, standing tall.

‘Where is your mother?’ Sally asked as she stirred the soup.

A shadow passed over Elsie’s face, and her eyes glistened, but she replied stoically, ‘Dead.’

Sally looked at Elsie in horror. Was her mummy dead too? Is that what happened when you arrived here? She closed her eyes and thought about her mother that morning as she’d brushed her shiny red hair and got dressed. No. Her mummy was alive and well. And she would come and get her from here soon.

Sally reached over and squeezed Elsie’s hand because she felt sad for the older girl, whose mother was dead and could never come get her from this gloomy place.

‘Try to eat a little. By the looks of it in there, dinner is boiled bacon and cabbage today.’ Elsie made a face and pretended to gag.

Sally managed to get half of the soup into her before the door opened with a crash and a thin woman marched in. She was dressed in a white starched uniform, with a grey apron over the front. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun.

‘You must be Sally,’ the woman said. ‘I’m your housemother. You may call me Mother.’

Sally’s eyes widened. She couldn’t call her that. ‘I can’t do that. I have a mummy at my home.’

Housemother laughed out loud as if she’d told the funniest joke. ‘If you are at Sunshine House, you don’t have a mother any more. Come on, let’s be having you. I dread to think what’s lurking in your long hair.’ Her hand grasped Sally’s arm, bony fingers pinching her skin, making her grimace.

Housemother half dragged Sally back upstairs into a bathroom where a claw-footed bath was filled with water.

‘Take those clothes off and get in,’ Housemother said.

‘My mother gave me a bath this morning,’ Sally protested.

Housemother threw her eyes upwards and began peeling Sally’s clothes off. She picked Sally up and threw her into the bath. Then she began ladling water from a plastic bowl over her head. Housemother washed her hair with a foul-smelling disinfectant shampoo, pulling her hair this way and that as she searched for nits. She seemed almost disappointed to find Sally’s hair didn’t have any. After her bath, Housemother scrubbed her dry with a threadbare towel that scratched her skin. Then she dressed Sally in the same uniform Elsie wore. As hot tears trailed Sally’s face, Housemother cut her long blonde hair into a short bob. Her mummy would be so cross.

‘That’s better,’ Housemother declared once she’d finished. ‘Dinner is at five o’clock sharp. You are excused from chores this afternoon as it’s your first day. Off you go.’

Sally walked into the dark hallway and looked up and down, trying to figure out what to do next. She couldn’t face the other girls; she wanted her mummy. But she wouldn’t be coming to rescue her – not today, at least. Sally returned to the dorm and climbed onto her bed, slipping under the scratchy blanket and sheet. Curling herself into a ball, she sobbed into the pillow.

Sally felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Elsie standing by her bed. Elsie climbed in beside Sally and pulled her into her arms.

‘Shush there, treacle. It’s going to be okay. I’ll take care of you. I promise.’

But this kindness only made Sally’s sobs grow.

‘When I was sad, my mum used to sing to me. And then I’d feel better. Would you like me to sing to you?’ Elsie asked.

Sally nodded mutely in between her sobs.

Elsie began to sing the prettiest song Sally had ever heard about sunshine making you happy when skies were grey. And with Elsie’s arms wrapped round her, Sally stopped crying and fell into a fitful sleep.