‘That’s better,’ the woman said. ‘Now, let’s go and meet all the other girls, shall we?’
Miss Denning gave them both a kiss on the cheek and said they weren’t to worry about their granny, and she’d be back to see them soon. Her hand lingered on Dulcie’s head, and she murmured something about looking out for May and helping her to write letters to her granny.
May became excited again and she started talking to Sister the moment they were out of the room. She told her she had a new pinafore dress under her coat, seven new pairs of hair ribbons in her suitcase, and that Granny had told her she wasn’t to forget to brush her teeth or they’d all go black.
Dulcie thought it was strange that Sister Teresa didn’t laugh, she’d never met anyone before who didn’t laugh at May, but in fact she didn’t even appear to be listening, just hurried them down a long narrow passage. As they got to a half-glazed door at the end and May asked when they’d be having dinner, she stopped short and looked down at her.
‘You are very full of yourself,’ she said sharply. ‘I don’t like that in children.’
Dulcie often thought May was too full of herself too, but she didn’t like anyone else pointing it out. She opened her mouth to retort that May was only five and a half, and a chatterbox by nature, but she closed it again as she saw the woman’s expression.
It was as if she was sucking a lemon. It chilled Dulcie right to the bone, and it seemed to make sense of why she’d shrunk away from this woman earlier. All at once the hand holding hers felt more like a claw and she was reminded of the old lady in the gingerbread house who invited Hansel and Gretel in, then turned into a witch.
‘She’s just a bit scared,’ Dulcie said in her sister’s defence.
‘No I’m not,’ May said indignantly. ‘I’m not scared of anything.’
Sister Teresa gave her a look that would turn milk sour, let go of their hands, unlocked the door, and nudged them both out into a small yard surrounded by single-storey outhouses. Beyond this they could see children in a fenced-in playground.
‘Off you go.’ Sister Teresa gave them both a further nudge in the back. ‘You stay in the playground until the bell rings for dinner.’ With that she blew a whistle, and the playground grew still and silent. ‘Carol!’ she yelled. ‘New girls. Look after them!’
That was their introduction to the Sacred Heart. They had to walk across the yard alone, go into the playground and be surrounded by around fourteen other girls ranging from five to eleven, all dressed identically in navy-blue gabardine raincoats, grey wool ankle socks and brown lace-up shoes.
Dulcie was heartened by the warmth of their smiles and how they all clamoured at once to find out the sisters’ names, ages and where they had come from. Carol, the one Sister Teresa had ordered to look after them, appeared to be the eldest; she took their hands and told them all the other girls’ names.
Carol was very thin and plain, her brown hair cut off abruptly on a level with her ear lobes, and her front teeth stuck out like a rabbit’s. She admired both Dulcie and May’s blonde hair, and their wool coats, but spoiled the moment for Dulcie by saying she hoped that Sister Teresa wouldn’t cut their hair tonight at bathtime, and that tomorrow they’d be wearing the same uniform as everyone else.
‘I’d better tell you the rules,’ she went on. ‘We have to stay in here.’ She waved one hand at the wire netting surrounding the playground. ‘Go outside into the garden and you’ll get the stick.’
May’s eyes nearly popped out of her head at this and she immediately ran over to the fence and looked longingly at the vast, somewhat overgrown garden beyond it.
‘I mean it,’ Carol said, looking anxiously at Dulcie then across to May. ‘You’d better make sure she understands because the Sisters watch us from upstairs. Helen went out there a week ago to collect some conkers. Show us your hands, Helen!’
A girl of about eight with carroty hair and freckles held out her hands to Dulcie. Her palms still held faint brown weals from a cane. ‘It hurt so bad, and they still ache,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t catch me going out there again.’
Carol then went on to explain more. ‘We get sent out here every Saturday and every day in the school holidays after breakfast, unless it’s raining. You have to go to the toilet before we come out because we aren’t allowed back in except at milk-time. One of the Sisters rings a bell at dinner-time, then we all get in a line. You mustn’t talk then at all. We hang up our coats, go to the toilet and wash our hands, then wait for another bell before we can go down to the dining-room. That’s in the basement. If you speak even once, you have to stand in the corner till everyone else has finished their dinner, then you get yours afterwards. But it will be cold and even more horrible than it was hot.’
She paused to laugh after she’d imparted that. ‘Saturday’s dinner is the worst. It’s always macaroni cheese,’ she went on. ‘But make sure you eat it, otherwise you’ll get it cold again tomorrow.’
Dulcie assumed the girl was pulling her leg.
‘I won’t eat the dinner if it’s horrible,’ May said. She’d just returned from the fence to hear the last part of the conversation.
‘Then you’ll just get it again and again until you do.’ Carol looked down at the small indignant face looking up at her. ‘I once had to eat a meat pie with mould on it. I was sick afterwards.’
There was a chorus of similar horror stories from the other girls and all at once Dulcie realized they weren’t pulling her leg. ‘And we can’t speak either?’ she gasped.
Carol shook her head. ‘Not a word, apart from grace, or answering a Sister if she speaks to you, not until we get out here again in the afternoon.’
‘That will be hard for May, she talks all the time,’ Dulcie said, making a brave attempt at humour.
Carol looked down at May and smiled, the way everyone who ever met May did. ‘Save it up till you get out here again,’ she said. ‘If you upset Sister Teresa she’ll pick on you all the time, even if you are only little.’
May blanched, for once stuck for words.
‘I thought there would be more girls than this,’ Dulcie said, looking around at the group, not wanting Carol to tell May any more awful things.
‘Oh, we’re just the Juniors,’ Carol replied. ‘The Seniors are all inside.’ She thumbed towards the house. ‘They do work instead, the laundry, cleaning and stuff. I can’t wait for my eleventh birthday next month so I can join them.’
Dulcie couldn’t understand then why Carol should want to be inside, but half an hour later she began to see why. The sun was shining, but it was biting cold, and there was absolutely nothing to do in the playground. There wasn’t a ball to play with, a skipping-rope or even squares for hop-scotch.
By six that evening Dulcie was very relieved when Carol said it would soon be time for bed. She was weary of forcing a smile, of answering endless questions from the other girls and trying to stop May from speaking when she wasn’t supposed to. She wanted to cry, to find someone, anyone who would put their arms around her and assure her that this was all a bad dream which would soon be over.
She had seen little of the convent, just the dining-room, cloakroom and now the playroom, which was on the first floor. One of the other girls had said that the Sisters slept up here, and that the bathrooms and chapel were on this floor too. Apparently the four girls’ dormitories were all downstairs. Maybe if she’d just been shown around so she got her bearings she wouldn’t feel quite so scared.
She’d somehow managed to eat the disgusting macaroni cheese for dinner, she’d coped with being cold out in the playground all afternoon, she’d got over the disappointment of only bread and margarine for tea. After all that she wasn’t even surprised when the ‘playroom’ they were herded into after tea turned out to be a bare room, furnished with nothing more than two old couches and a single box of useless broken toys. At least it was warm. The Senior girls had only just joined them for they’d had to stay downstairs to wash up the tea things and lay the tables for breakfast. They were cheerful, giggling as they fought for places on the couches, but Dulcie had observed several pairs of sore-looking hands, and she guessed the work they had to do was very hard.
Dulcie wished she could be more like May, she didn’t seem troubled by anything, in fact at dinner-time she’d given the Sisters such beaming smiles that she’d had her head patted. Being with so many admiring older girls was her idea of heaven, and Dulcie had no doubt that before the week was out she’d be almost everyone’s pet.
She watched as May went over to the group of Senior girls. They wore similar grey wool skirts and maroon jumpers to the younger girls, but they looked more individual as some had adult bosoms and their hair was better cared for than the younger ones’. Dulcie had learned this afternoon that all the girls who had their hair cut brutally like Carol’s had not kept it tidy enough for the Sisters’ liking. They would allow long hair only if it was well brushed and plaited. Carol recommended that Dulcie hold on tight to her rubber bands, as Sister Grace, the nun who had let them in today, was the only one who would ever find replacements. Dulcie had no intention of allowing her hair or May’s to be shorn, she just hoped she would have enough time in the mornings to plait both her own and May’s. Carol had said there was always an inspection before the morning service up in the chapel, and quite often Sister Teresa got out her scissors then and there if a child’s hair wasn’t to her liking. It seemed Dulcie had been right to be nervous of that nun, all the girls were really scared of her.
From her position leaning back on the hot pipes Dulcie couldn’t hear what May was saying to the Senior girls but within just a few seconds she was sitting in the lap of a big girl with curly auburn hair. Dulcie felt a pang of jealousy, she couldn’t remember ever being babied the way May was, except of course by Granny. She supposed now she was nine she never would be again. But it made her feel sad.
It was less than half an hour later that May threw the biggest tantrum of her life, and any jealousy Dulcie might have harboured vanished in the need to protect her.
When the bell rang for bath-time the Junior girls lined up in size, the smallest ones at the front. May was third, Dulcie eleventh, and Sister Grace who came in to collect them led the crocodile along the upstairs passage towards Sister Teresa who was standing in front of an open cupboard. As Dulcie looked over the heads of the smaller girls she saw the first being handed a pile of clothes, then she trotted off towards the bathroom for her bath.
Like earlier in the day there could be no talking, so when it was May’s turn to collect her clothes, and she spoke, everyone’s head jerked up in shock.
‘Those aren’t my clothes,’ May said in a loud clear voice. ‘My nightie is white with little pink flowers, Granny made it.’
‘You wear what I give you,’ Sister Teresa replied.
‘But I want my things, they are in my suitcase,’ May retorted belligerently. ‘My dolly’s in there too and I want her before I go to bed.’
Dulcie shuddered at her sister’s impudence. It would be rude to make a demand like that to anyone, but to say it to Sister Teresa, who’d they’d both been told was dangerous to cross, was downright foolhardy.
‘Any toys in your suitcase will be shared by all the children tomorrow,’ Sister Teresa barked back at her. ‘And another word from you tonight and you’ll be punished.’
Dulcie didn’t think she minded too much sharing her books and games with the other girls, but she knew May would never accept anyone touching Belinda, her baby doll. It wasn’t just a toy to her, it was her whole world. She’d been given it when she was three, and she loved it passionately – it had a complete wardrobe, including nappies made by Granny. She took it to bed every night and Dulcie doubted she’d ever go to sleep without it.
Sensing that the worst thing May could do was make a scene about it now, she willed her to stay silent, but her sister had never been one to let anything go without a fight.
‘I want my dolly now. I’m not sharing her with anyone,’ she screamed out at the top of her lungs. She began to stamp her feet in rage, hurled the pile of clothes she’d been given at Sister Teresa and continued to scream that she wanted to have her doll.
A buzz went along the line of girls, everyone craning their necks to see what was going on. Even the playroom door opened and half a dozen Senior girls popped their heads out.
Sister Grace came running out of the bathroom, fluttering her hands as if she didn’t know what to do, and still May continued her tantrum. Her face was bright red with the exertion. ‘I won’t stay here unless you get me my dolly and my own nightie,’ she yelled at the top of her lungs, then to Dulcie’s horror she began to dart backwards and forwards, pummelling Sister Teresa in the stomach with her little fists.
‘May! Stop that at once!’ Sister Grace called out, trying to catch hold of the child. ‘Such behaviour just will not do.’
It was Sister Teresa who caught May, grabbing her shoulders, and she shook her violently. ‘Stop it, you wretch,’ she yelled, her coal-black eyes glinting dangerously and her yellow skin becoming flushed.
Dulcie darted forward, her only intention to stop May before she did anything worse. But by the time she got to her, the Sister was shaking her so hard her head was lolling from side to side like a rag doll’s. Fearing for May’s safety, she caught hold of the woman’s habit from behind and yanked at it.
‘Leave her alone,’ she screamed out. ‘You’re hurting her.’
The nun slapped May hard on the side of her head, sending her sprawling to the floor. With her hands now free she reached round for Dulcie too and hit her with such force that she knocked her back up the passage. As the floor was polished, Dulcie’s feet went from under her and she skidded some five or six feet on her back.
Suddenly there were Sisters everywhere, swarming like black beetles between the children, all shouting at once. Dulcie found herself hauled to her feet by two of them, and as she glanced round she saw Sister Teresa snatch May up under her arm and disappear down the stairs with her.
Before Dulcie could catch her breath she was thrust into a room and the door locked behind her. She was just about to scream out and hammer on the door when she saw she was in the chapel, and that immediately brought her to her senses. Even in her anger and fear for her sister she didn’t feel able to make a scene in a holy place, so instead she genuflected in front of the altar and slumped down on one of the pews.