No Easy Road Read online

  Very occasionally, attempts were made to adopt a child from the home. There was nothing subtle about the process, no preparation, no planning involved. Towards the end of 1959, a lady wearing a tightly fitting tartan skirt and brown jumper suddenly appeared at Rose Hill one Saturday afternoon. She looked very prim and proper. Her face was small and thin. The black horn rimmed glasses balanced on the bridge of her nose were far too big for her face. Nobody told me her name or that she wanted to adopt me.

  One moment, I was in the home, surrounded by familiar faces. A short time later, I sat in her comfortably furnished house. It was somewhere in a well off area of Aberdeen. I was playing in front of a warm fire. The silence was broken only by the sharp crackling sound of burning coal. Flames sputtered and danced in the hearth. Now and again, tiny fragments of coal shot out the fire and bounced against the metal fireguard. The lady watched me, intently. Her husband sat quietly in the corner.

  She suddenly produced a doll and gave it to me. It was the first doll I ever had and I was delighted. I touched the doll's perfect face and explored underneath the green matinee jacket and woollen leggings. The lady seemed pleased by my reaction. A smile crossed her face.

  "What name would you like to call her?", she asked.

  A name popped into my head.

  "Susan", I replied.

  The doll became my baby. I cradled her in my arms and told her off for being naughty.

  "Naughty Susan. You're a bad baby", I said, over and over.

  As I sat on the living room carpet, lost in an imaginary world, the back of my head felt itchy. I scratched it. My hair felt warm from the heat of the fire. The lady stopped smiling. She stared at me, wide eyed, panic written all over her face. Then she moved behind me, slowly, deliberately, and lifted a strand of hair on my head. Her jaw dropped. She let out a shrill shriek.

  "She's crawling!"

  The strand of hair slipped from her fingers. She stumbled backwards, as if unable to comprehend the enormity of what she'd just seen. But they were there, lots of them, small obscene little creatures, growing more grotesque and threatening with every passing second. The lady wiped her fingers on her skirt, then turned around in small tight circles, flapping her arms, not knowing what to do next.

  "You filthy dirty kid!", she hissed.

  She was angry at me and I didn't understand why. I pulled away, trying to smile sweetly. The doll fell from my hand, never to be picked up again. The lady turned on her startled husband and screamed out.

  "Get her coat on. She's going back!"

  He meekly obeyed and grabbed my arm roughly and slipped on my coat. Seconds later, I was out the house and in the car. Within the hour, I was back at the home again and put straight into bed. When I awoke the next morning, my white pillowcase was crawling with head lice. Of course, I didn’t realise what they were. To me, they were just some new playmates, to prod and poke and have fun with. I begged the staff not to take them away. Later on that day, my long wavy hair was cut to within an inch of my scalp.

  Over the years, I've often wondered about the lady and the life I might have had. She was looking for perfection. Instead, she found imperfection, damaged goods. I realised I was simply a doll, just like Susan. The lady never returned to the home.

  I told George all about her. How I loved talking to George. He was the only one who listened to me and he didn't make fun of my short hair either. Whenever I needed him, he was always there for me, without fail. He never scolded me. He was never angry. He was my best friend which made me feel good inside. I loved his smart soldier's uniform covered in lots of medals.

  It was nearly lunch time. I could tell by the strong smell of boiled cabbage wafting through the home. It soaked into the nooks and crannies of every room and corridor. There was no escaping the pungent smell. I also knew it was lunch time by the muffled sounds of pots and pans clattering in the kitchen. The sounds were welcome. I hated the heavy silence when all the children were away at school. The home seemed so empty without them. I longed to go to school but I was still too young.

  I suppose that's why I enjoyed being in George's company, in the committee room, at lunch times. He never looked upon me as a nuisance. He listened as I related in detail all the bad things I was going through. I told him everything, about all the times I was smacked or when someone was unkind to me or even when I was happy. But I didn't feel that way very often. George was old and wise. His eyes always smiled as he looked down at me, patiently listening to all my long tales of woe.

  The committee room was in the private and more comfortable part of the home. It was always unlocked in the middle of the day. That was why I was able to sneak in and talk to George for a little while on my own. I sat down at the large table in the centre of the room waiting for the house mother to appear.

  She arrived moments later. Luckily for me, she always assumed I'd been in the room for no more than a minute or so ahead of her. To be found in there without the house mother's permission meant a telling off at the very least, or much worse if she was in a bad mood. Although I knew the room was out of bounds to all children, I was prepared to take the risk if it meant I could talk to George. She never discovered my secret.

  The old lady dressed in scruffy clothes always joined us for lunch. But she never ate anything, only watched. I loved it when the sun shone through the tall bay windows, warming the highly polished table. The committee room was sparsely furnished with an old black fireplace built into the centre of the wall at the far end. An old fashioned mahogany chest of drawers stood against an adjacent wall. I loved to walk around the large room, smelling the freshness and polish and admiring the many paintings hanging on the walls.

  A bowl of hot soup was placed in front of me. It was the same every day. The house mother stirred the soup and broke a slice of bread into tiny pieces. Then she placed the pieces of bread in the bowl. I watched them swimming around in circles on the surface of the soup.

  "Look at the fishies!", she always said. I was all but invisible after that, neither heard nor seen, even by the staff who popped in from time to time to serve up the rest of the meal.

  Perhaps it was because I was so small, sitting on the high backed chair with my head barely peeking above the table's edge. I was easily missed. I was unimportant. But I didn't mind. All I could think about was the school playground a short distance away from where the sounds of children playing drifted in and out of the room.

  As I turned my head towards the joyful sound, looking out the window and across the garden filled with roses of all different colours, I just longed to be there with them, to escape into their world of happiness. When the school bell rang and the playground emptied and the sounds faded and died away to nothing, our lunch was over, too. The house mother and her friend never saw me give George a little smile as I quietly left the room.

  George White listened but never said a word because he couldn't. He was a painting hanging on the wall. Although he lived and died many years before I was born, somehow I felt connected to him, perhaps because we shared the same surname. So he filled the emptiness I felt at the time. With his silvery grey hair and dressed in his bright red uniform, George brought a little comfort to a lonely child crying out for love in a world which made little sense. A few months later, I was old enough to go to school. I couldn't sneak into the committee room any more. George, like all old soldiers, gradually faded away. But he was never forgotten.

  Many years later, I asked my brother Billy about the old lady. He couldn't remember any old lady ever being at the home at the time. I was really puzzled by this. Then a letter arrived from my sister Mary Anne with an old family photograph inside. I stared at the fading image in disbelief. Standing in the photograph was the old lady from the committee room, my gran, who died before I was born.

  Suddenly it all made sense. Thinking back, I never actually saw her enter the committee room. I assumed she did, simply because she was there. Now I understood why she never talked or ate anything. She couldn't. She w
as a spirit, a ghost, who appeared day after day to watch over me. The house mother never saw her. I was the only one who did.

  * * *

  June and I were the youngest in the home. So we were the first to be sent to bed. We shared the attic room, the little girls' room as it was always called. Usually, four children slept in there. But, with only the two of us sharing, we had plenty of room. I hated going to bed early when the evening sun shone. When I heard the sounds of children laughing and playing in the run down allotments on the other side of the wall, it felt more like a punishment.

  The children lived in the houses surrounding the home. I watched them from my bedroom window dressed in my pyjamas. They played and ran across the field, through weeds where strawberries and all kinds of vegetables once grew. I longed to be down there with them, to feel their happiness and freedom.

  Sometimes, I almost expected to see the old man in the black baggy jacket and bonnet leading his lovely big Clydesdale horse along the narrow path separating the allotment plots from the wall of the home. I waited for him every day, after the rest of the children came home from school. One of the older girls had to stay with me because I was too young to be out there on my own.

  Soon, I heard a faint clippity clop in the distance. It was the sound I was waiting for. Horse and master were slowly making their way through the field at the back of the allotments. Nearer and nearer they came, past a hotchpotch of wooden sheds and corrugated iron shelters used for all sorts of gardening tasks. My excitement grew to bursting point until they finally came into full view.

  "Please, mister, can I have a ride on your horse?", I said, as soon as the old man was within hearing distance. "Go on, mister, let me ride your horse", I pleaded.

  The old man said nothing as he passed me by. I tried once more, summoning up all my powers of persuasion as I followed him, tugging at his jacket sleeve in a final desperate bid to get his attention.

  "Just a wee ride, mister!", I cried out, and turning around with a big sigh, the old man smiled grudgingly, before giving in as we both knew he would. It was a daily ritual.

  "Up you get, lass. Just a wee ride then", he would say. "Hold on tight."

  I grabbed the horse's reigns and proudly sat on its broad back as the old man led us along the path until we reached the main road. The distance was no more than 100 yards. The horse stopped and he helped me down and I made my way back to the home happy and delighted. I loved riding on the horse. Then one day, I waited at the side of the path as usual and they never came. Next day, I did the same, listening hard for the faint clippity clop. I waited every day for a week or more. But I never saw the old man or the horse again.

  The sound of squeaking bed springs snapped me out of my sadness. I turned around. June was bouncing on her bed, laughing and leaping in the air out of pure joy. I couldn't resist joining her. What fun, trying to see who could jump the highest.

  I don't know how I managed to miss the mattress. But I did, and crashed to the floor in a heap. I was winded slightly but unhurt. I looked at June and she looked at me and we burst into a fit of giggles. June carried on jumping while I climbed on top of the pink chest of drawers next to the window. I wanted get a better view out over the fields.

  The last rays of sunshine were streaming into the bedroom. Outside, I could still hear the sounds of several lone voices coming from somewhere within the gathering gloom. As I sat balanced on my knees on the dresser, trying to find a more comfortable position, I accidentally brushed a small porcelain trinket pot. It fell to the floor with a crash and shattered into tiny pieces.

  I gasped out in horror and glanced over to June who was standing stock still on her bed. She stared back at me with mouth wide open. There was only silence. The enormity of the situation was slowly dawning on us both. We were in trouble. Feverishly, we picked up the fragments now lying scattered on the wooden floorboards and placed them gently on my bed.

  "What are we going to do now?", said June, in a nervous faltering voice which almost bordered on blind panic.

  "I don’t know, I don’t know", I said.

  I hardly noticed I was automatically trying to fit the tiny pieces back together again. Perhaps I was desperately hoping they would all magically stick themselves together. But I knew in my heart they wouldn't. We were fast running out of ideas and terrified of what was going to happen to us if the house mother found out. We thought of hiding the pieces under our beds but decided that would be no good. The pieces were sure to be discovered when the staff came in to make the beds in the morning.

  "What about the drawers?", I suggested.

  But we quickly discarded that idea, too, after June reminded me clean clothes were always put in the drawers once a week. So the pieces were bound to be discovered sooner or later. We would have to think of something fast. Time was running out. Then it struck me. Why not throw the pieces over the wall and into the field? It was overgrown. No one would find them there. June grinned and I smiled back at her. It was a great idea.

  I clambered up onto the pink chest of drawers again and tugged and pulled at the top half of the wooden window frame. At first, it refused to budge an inch. I tugged all the harder. My face turned bright red and the muscles in my arms ached with the strain. Finally, it slid down just far enough for me to get a clear shot over the wall and into the field. We both let out a huge sigh of relief.

  I jumped down and gathered all the broken pieces together. It was much tougher to climb back up this time using just the one hand. But when you're desperate, all things are possible. I manoeuvred as near to the open window as I dared and pulled my arm right back. I wanted to put as much force into the throw as I could. We both held our breath for a second. June crossed her fingers tightly. Then I launched the pieces out into the half darkness for all I was worth.

  Almost immediately, we heard the tinkling sounds of the porcelain fragments bouncing off the stone step underneath the window. I looked down and a head popped out from far below me. My heart sank as I recognised the face glaring up at me. It was the house mother. Now she knew. The evidence was there for her to see. I scrambled off the dressing table and flew into bed. June was already underneath the covers, doing the only sensible thing you can do under such dire circumstances, pretending to be asleep, denying to the world she had anything to do with it.

  So that left only me to face the music. I listened in terror as each passing moment brought the house mother's angry footsteps closer and closer. I followed them across the sitting room floor then onwards and upwards as she climbed the stairs until she was within inches of the bedroom door. My grip tightened instinctively on my pyjama bottoms. I cringed and shrank further into the bed covers hoping she wouldn't find me. But it was no use. I knew only too well what was coming. The door flew open and she howled out in rage.

  She grabbed me. I tried to wriggle out of her grasp. But her grip was far too strong. The bed covers flew off. Down come my pyjama bottoms. I felt a sharp stinging pain and tears filled my eyes. She screamed at me but I didn't hear the words as more sharp stabs of pain followed.

  "I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again!", I cried out.

  But the pain continued and June still pretended to be fast asleep. The house mother yelled at me again but she wasn't smacking me any more.

  "You get down to the big boys' room. You'll sleep in there tonight!", she ordered.

  Still sobbing, I pulled up my pyjama bottoms and slowly made my way along the corridor and down the long staircase, hanging on to the wooden banister for support. Never having been inside the big boys' room before, I didn't know what to expect. I timidly turned the bedroom door handle and went in.

  Apprehension instantly turned to delight on seeing my brother Billy. He was standing beside his bed getting changed. There were other boys in the room, too, all older than him. But I hardly noticed them. The only person I saw was my brother Billy. Nothing else mattered, not even the house mother's angry words or the pain of the last few minutes or the fact I was in t
he big boys' room as a punishment.

  The single bed in the corner of the room caught my attention. It was covered by a woven bedspread. The bed was empty.

  "Is that my bed Billy?", I asked.