May just stared open-mouthed at it, her eyes blinking very fast. Young as she was, she knew it was no accident. ‘You smashed her,’ she whispered finally.
Sister Teresa laughed, a cold, evil laugh which echoed round the kitchen.
‘What a terrible mind you have,’ she said. ‘Say that again to anyone and you’ll be right back in the Dark Place.’
On Sunday afternoon Dulcie stood at the playroom window staring bleakly out at the front garden. It had been sunny this morning when they walked to church for Mass, but since dinner the sky had grown darker and darker and it was so cold that one of the Sisters said she thought it might snow.
It was lovely and warm up here in the playroom. Dulcie’s belly felt full from the dinner, behind her all the other girls were talking and laughing, but she was so worried about May she didn’t feel able to join them.
When the bell rang this morning to get up, Dulcie ran straight into the other dormitory to check May was there. She was, but right away Dulcie knew something was badly wrong. Her face was just white and blank, and she was struggling into her clothes faster than Dulcie had ever seen her do before.
‘Go away and get dressed yourself,’ was all she said.
Dulcie did, after a brief warning ‘she’d be in for it’ from another girl. By the time she got into the washroom May was already there, trying to brush her own hair. Dulcie took over, brushed it, plaited it and fastened the ends securely with rubber bands, but as she worked on it, she asked May in whispers what had happened to her.
‘Nothing,’ May said, her face like a blank piece of paper. ‘But she killed Belinda.’
She could see May’s knuckles were skinned, and there was a red welt on the back of her leg just above her knee, but Dulcie couldn’t question her sister further because all the other girls were warning her to get her own hair done before Sister Teresa came in. As it was, she was still cleaning her teeth when the nun entered, and everyone else was already lined up at the door to go to the chapel.
One small girl in May’s dormitory had wet her bed, and Dulcie was so shocked by the way Sister grabbed the wet sheet, draped it over the child’s head and shoulders and ordered her to go and stand in the hall, that any further questioning of May was put aside.
There was no chance to speak in the chapel, or over breakfast, which was porridge and a boiled egg. May had never liked porridge, but she gobbled it down so fast she spilled some of it on her jumper. Immediately afterwards, some of the girls from Dulcie’s dormitory were ordered to go and make all the Junior beds. Carol was told to supervise Dulcie so she’d know how they had to be done.
The beds had to be made just so, the undersheet pulled tightly and tucked in, the top sheet folded back exactly ten inches over the blankets. Not one wrinkle was allowed to spoil the look of the white counterpanes, which had to hang exactly the same width on both sides of the bed.
Later that morning all the girls collected their rosaries and prayer books from their lockers, put on their coats, were handed a navy blue beret each, and then were led by four of the Sisters in a crocodile to church for Mass.
Once again Dulcie got no opportunity to speak to May as they were lined up in twos, the smallest at the front of the line. Janet, who was Dulcie’s partner, told her to cheer up because Sunday was the best day of the week and the Sisters liked them to smile at people on the walk to church.
Dulcie liked Janet, she had pretty dark, curly hair and olive skin and her dark eyes danced with mischief as she whispered information about the school they all went to. ‘It’s good there,’ she said. ‘Hardly any of the teachers are nuns, and they aren’t as strict with us as they are with the other kids. You’ll be in Miss Heywood’s class and she’s lovely.’
If it hadn’t been for May, Dulcie might even have felt happy. The walk was through pleasant roads with posh houses, the other girls all seemed nice, and when they got back from church the dinner was ready. It was almost as good as the dinners Granny made – roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and tasty gravy. Afterwards it was jam roly-poly and custard. She heard too that often on Sunday afternoons they went out to Chinbrook Meadows, but it was considered too cold for that today so they were sent up to the playroom instead.
Dulcie thought this would be the ideal opportunity to talk to her sister, but May just wouldn’t tell her anything. Her little face was still very white and blank. She sat down beside Dulcie with her back against the pipes, but she kept a space between them.
‘What happened? What did Sister do to you?’ Dulcie begged her. ‘Did she cane you?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ May said woodenly. ‘Leave me alone.’
May had always been a great talker. When she told a story she embellished it for all she was worth. She could turn the most trivial incident into something important. Dulcie was fairly certain that if nothing much had happened other than a quick smack, she would have turned that into a beating, just for effect. So it stood to reason that Sister Teresa had found some way of knocking the very stuffing out of her.
‘Just tell me if it was
the Dark Place,
’ Dulcie whispered. ‘Carol said she might have put you in there.’
At that May got up, so stiffly Dulcie knew she had been beaten and was aching. ‘Don’t ask me,’ was all she said. ‘She killed Belinda and she’ll kill me too.’
‘She can’t kill you, I won’t let her,’ Dulcie retorted.
May just gave her a look, almost one of pity. ‘Daddy killed Mummy,’ she said, then turned away towards the crowd of Seniors who were just coming into the playroom.
During the next few weeks Dulcie tried to convince herself that the Dark Place was just a myth, like the bogeyman the children used to say lived in the coal cellar at Lee Manor School. It had to be a myth, no one seemed to know exactly where it was, and no one admitted to having been in there themselves.
Yet something had drastically changed May. She never spoke out of turn any more, she obeyed the rules, never argued when she was told to do something. She rarely giggled and even out in the playground she never had much to say for herself.
In many ways this had made things easier for Dulcie. She didn’t have to watch May all the time, for she did what she was told by the Sisters without any back-chat. She ate everything that was put in front of her and swallowed the malt and castor oil the Sisters dished up once a week without a murmur. She stood in line for her clean clothes on Saturday nights and never said a word when she saw someone else being given her tartan pinafore dress to wear on Sunday. She didn’t struggle while Dulcie plaited her hair in the mornings and she learned to tie her own shoe-laces.
But it was like having the sister she loved and knew so well replaced with a chilly stranger who just looked like her. The new May didn’t want to be cuddled by Dulcie, she wouldn’t even talk about Granny or the people they’d known in Hither Green. When Mother Superior called both her and May into her sitting-room a couple of days after their arrival and told them they were not, under any circumstances, to tell anyone their father was in prison, Dulcie was quite happy to agree for she didn’t want to tell anyone anyway. But when Mother went on to say she couldn’t allow them to receive or send letters either, Dulcie was horrified. Yet May didn’t seem to care at all. She said she didn’t want letters from him.
What hurt Dulcie most was that May didn’t seem to need her or even like her any more. In the playground she played with the other smallest girls, in the playroom she was a pet of the Senior girls, even on the way to and from school she managed to avoid walking with her sister.
Granny had come to see them on the second Sunday they were there. Dulcie was desperate to tell her about everything, but one of the Sisters sat in the corner of the room for the whole visit, so she didn’t dare. Granny had said she’d come again in four weeks, but she couldn’t make it, her legs were too bad. Susan had been twice, and again a Sister sat in the corner listening, so Dulcie couldn’t tell her anything either.
Dulcie was frantic to tell someone, anyone, how horrible it was here. That her sister was like a stranger, that she had to watch out for Sister Teresa all the time, and they were both terrified of getting on the wrong side of her. She wanted to speak of the children who wet the bed and had to stand in the hall with the wet sheet over their heads, how cold it was in bed at night, the long hours outside in the playground, the awful food, for Sunday dinner was the only good meal. How she hated having absolutely nothing of her own, not even her own vest and knickers. Even the little presents Granny and Susan bought them were snatched and broken as soon as they got back in to the playroom. Surely it wasn’t right that small girls were forced to kneel in the chapel for two or three hours at a stretch just for getting into bed with each other to get warm, or severely caned for helping themselves to a slice of bread while laying up the tables for tea?
But there was no one to tell. The other girls said that if she told the teachers at school, they would just go straight to Mother Superior, and all she’d get for her trouble would be a punishment for telling lies. She had to be careful which girls she spoke about it to, for some of them would repeat what she’d said to the Sisters just to get in their good books. If she hadn’t been going to school every day, Dulcie felt she might just shrivel up and die with misery.
Yet school was good. Some of the children there teased the ones from the convent, but they weren’t really spiteful. She liked Miss Heywood, her teacher, and she could forget about the Sacred Heart while she was doing sums, reading books and writing essays. The only trouble was the hours at school went so fast, and the ones spent at the convent seemed interminable.
‘Hello, my darlings,’ Susan exclaimed, jumping up from her seat in the small visitors’ sitting-room as Dulcie and May were brought in by Sister Grace. She held out her arms to them and they both ran headlong into them.
It was the first Sunday in April and Susan’s third visit. She was excited, not only at seeing them, but because she’d just got a new job at a school in Eltham and would be starting there after the Easter holidays. She’d also met someone rather special a couple of weeks ago, and she was hoping it was going to grow into a romance.
‘Do you think I could take them out for a walk?’ Susan asked the Sister, who was just standing there smiling. ‘It’s such a nice spring day and I’m sure you are taking all the others out this afternoon.’
Sister Grace frowned. ‘Mother Superior doesn’t like the girls leaving the grounds,’ she said. ‘We had an occasion once where a child didn’t come back and the police had to be called to find her.’
‘Surely you know I’m not going to run off with them?’ Susan said with laughter in her voice. ‘I’ve often wanted to, but as a teacher I couldn’t do anything so irresponsible.’
‘I’m sure you wouldn’t, Miss Sims,’ Sister said. ‘But you know how it is. We have to have the same rule for everyone.’
‘Well, may we go out in the garden then?’ Susan asked. ‘It really is too nice to stay indoors.’
It was agreed they could go into the front garden, so Susan led them out to the bench there. ‘Doesn’t it look a picture?’ she exclaimed. ‘Just look at those daffodils!’
She was impressed for it had looked so bleak on her last visit. The lawn was a deep lush green, and hundreds of daffodils had come up through it in one section. The trees around the garden were all just coming into leaf, and a large almond tree was in full blossom.
‘Did you know we aren’t allowed to go into the garden at the back?’ Dulcie said suddenly. ‘We have to stay in the old tennis court bit, and if we go out we get caned.’
Susan was surprised at this but said maybe that was just a winter-time rule so the children didn’t bring mud indoors.
‘No, it’s all the year round,’ Dulcie insisted. ‘It’s just another one of their mean rules because they want us to be unhappy. When it was really cold at half-term in February we still had to stay out there all day. It was horrible because there’s nothing to play with. Not even a ball.’
Susan thought that Dulcie was just playing for sympathy. ‘That does sound a bit grim,’ she said lightly. ‘But the weather’s getting nicer now, feel how warm it is today.’
Dulcie went into a sulk, and May climbed on to Susan’s lap, cuddled into her and began talking about her teacher in a baby’s lisping voice.
‘Did you know we aren’t allowed to have letters from Daddy?’ Dulcie said, cutting across what her sister was saying. ‘And I can’t write to him either.’
Susan was shocked by this news, but even more by Dulcie’s belligerent tone. There was a challenging look in her eye and a tightness to her mouth that had never been there before. She also felt uncomfortable with May playing at being a baby, it was a bit sickening and quite out of character. Why were they being so strange?
‘Did Mother Superior give you a reason?’ she asked, her mind switching to Reg and imagining how upsetting it would be for him to get no letters.
‘Not a sensible reason,’ Dulcie said. ‘Just that it wasn’t nice for little girls to be having anything to do with a prison.’
Susan could well understand why Mother Superior felt that a prison visit might be harmful, but she could see absolutely nothing wrong with them receiving letters from their father. She thought she would have a word with Miss Denning about it and told Dulcie so.
‘I don’t want to get letters from him,’ May said suddenly, sitting bolt upright on Susan’s lap and dropping the baby’s lisp. ‘It’s his fault we were sent here, and he isn’t my father.’
‘Of course he’s your father,’ Susan said. ‘He couldn’t help being put in prison either, he didn’t do what they said he did.’
May shot off her lap and turned to face Susan, glowering at her. ‘He isn’t my father, I heard Mummy say so. Then he threw her down the stairs. He killed Mummy just like Sister killed Belinda.’
‘May!’ Susan exclaimed, reaching out for the child. ‘This isn’t like you!’
But May stepped away from her, big tears welling up in her eyes. ‘I don’t like you. You made that lady take us away from Granny.’