The only real option appeared to be to go along with what the nun said, or at least to seem to. But she wouldn’t fade out completely, just bide her time, and maybe the situation would change. It was Dulcie’s tenth birthday in a few days’ time, she would post a present and a card, dutifully tell her how very busy she was at present, and that she might not be able to write so often for a while. With luck she’d be able to visit them again before the baby was due, and in private, away from any of the Sisters, she’d tell her the truth. Dulcie would understand. They might even be able to come up with some sneaky way of writing and receiving letters that Mother Superior would never find out about.
‘I’m sorry I had to rush out this morning,’ Ian said as he came in for some lunch at half past one. ‘You must have thought I didn’t care.’
‘I was upset, but not by you,’ she smiled, realizing that she mustn’t try bulldozing Ian either. ‘Anyway, I’ve sorted it out in my head now, I’ll go along with what that silly old woman said, at least for the time being.’
The telephone ringing interrupted them. It was another emergency, a horse impaled on barbed wire several miles away. Susan quickly made Ian a sandwich and a flask of coffee to take with him, wrapped a warm scarf round his neck and handed him his bag.
‘Don’t spend the rest of the day brooding on the little Taylors,’ he said as he kissed her goodbye. ‘Just think about the little Bankcroft, and what colour we’re going to paint the nursery.’
Dulcie sensed something different was going to happen, almost as soon as she woke up on New Year’s Day of 1949. She couldn’t imagine what, or why she should feel it, but she just knew. The feeling grew stronger still when she overheard Sister Grace speaking to Sister Teresa after breakfast. ‘Of course it will be a wonderful opportunity,’ she said. ‘But it will be terribly sad for those children who can’t go.’
Was it a pantomime or a circus? She’d heard other children at school talking of such things. But how would the Sisters decide who could go and those who couldn’t?
As usual they were sent out into the playground, even though the temperature was below freezing with a biting wind. By half past ten some of the smaller girls were crying with the cold, so Dulcie organized a hopping game to warm them up.
Dulcie was now the second oldest in her dormitory. Carol, Helen and Janet had all had their eleventh birthdays during the year and moved up to the Seniors. Their places had been taken by Linda, Frances and Lily, from May’s dormitory, and three new five-year-olds had arrived during September to take their places.
Ruth should have been the new leader as she was ten and a half, six months older than Dulcie, but she was a bit simple and a bed-wetter, so Dulcie had found herself in charge. Although not a leader by either choice or nature, she had a natural dignity and an air of calm that was admired by the other girls. During the summer holidays when the school governors had organized a short holiday in Dymchurch in Kent, the teachers there had noticed this quality and made her a team leader in many of the activities and games. By the time they returned to London all the children had grown used to Dulcie in this role and automatically deferred to her judgement in many areas. Dulcie felt she had to live up to their expectations, so she organized games in the playground, and up in the playroom helped the slower girls with their reading and learning their tables.
As her confidence grew, so teachers at school had begun to take more notice of her too, even to the extent of giving her the coveted part of Angel Gabriel in the Nativity play. She grew tougher too – if she fell over she didn’t cry, if anyone called her names she laughed. She could now pull a face behind Sister Teresa’s back without feeling that somehow the woman could see her. She always spoke after lights out when she felt like it. One day she’d even refused to eat her dinner, just to see what would happen, and to her amazement she didn’t get it cold the following day after all, it seemed to have been forgotten. Daily she pushed the boundaries a little further back, a whisper as they went in for dinner, a quick run round the outside of the playground to collect some conkers, it felt good to be a little daring.
May, however, wasn’t faring so well, and maybe it was this which prompted Mother Superior to blame Susan’s influence. The arrival of the new five-year-olds had put May’s nose out of joint, the Senior girls babied them now, not her, her front teeth had fallen out, giving her a less attractive appearance, and she was becoming known as a tell-tale amongst the other children. While the Sisters found little to punish her for, as May went out of her way to suck up to them, she wasn’t keeping up with the rest of her class at school, and didn’t appear to think it necessary to try.
New Year’s Day dinner was toad-in-the-hole, Dulcie’s favourite, followed by treacle tart which was May’s. Then Sister Teresa announced that there would be no outside play that afternoon, but instead they were to go straight upstairs to the playroom, because someone was coming to speak to them. To Dulcie this was confirmation that the New Year ahead was definitely going to be better than last year.
Even the Senior girls had to join them, the washing up and clearing away left to the Sisters. They were all ordered to sit cross-legged in rows on the floor and warned that they were all to behave, and not to speak unless spoken to.
Sister Grace came in after they’d been waiting only a few minutes, accompanied by two women and a man. All at once the older girls started giggling, for it was extremely rare to see any man at the Sacred Heart.
‘That’s quite enough,’ Sister Grace said, giving them a stern look. ‘Anyone who misbehaves will be sent out to the playground.’
‘Our visitors have come to talk to you today about Australia,’ Sister Grace said, introducing Mr Stigwood, who put a large, thin black case on the table. ‘Now, who can tell me where that is?’
No one put their hand up.
Mr Stigwood opened the case and drew out a map of the world which the two women held up for him. With a pencil he pointed to England. Then he moved the pencil to a much larger country down at the bottom of the map.
‘This is Australia,’ he said. ‘Even if you didn’t know where it was, I’m sure some of you know things Australia is famous for. Would you like to tell me?’
‘Kangaroos,’ one girl called out.
‘Koala bears,’ called another.
‘Aborigines,’ Dulcie said.
‘Well done,’ Mr Stigwood said, but he smiled only at Dulcie as if that was the answer he’d hoped for. ‘The Aborigines are the native people of Australia, as the Red Indians are the natives of America. But there is a great deal more to Australia than just its natives, the kangaroos and Koala bears, and today myself and my two assistants are going to tell you all about it.’
There were a couple of muffled groans from the Seniors as they clearly thought this was going to be a geography lesson.
Dulcie was entranced from the very first picture the ladies held up, which was of a long and beautiful sandy beach. As Mr Stigwood spoke of the warm water, palm trees, sand as soft as talcum powder and the heat of the sun, she was there in her imagination, splashing in the clear blue water.
He went on to show them pictures of sheep farms, only he called them stations. There were more of men cutting down pineapples, sheep-shearing, and chopping something he called sugar cane which towered above the men’s heads. Then there were pictures of strange animals, yachts out at sea, fantastic-looking birds, men playing cricket, beautiful houses, jungles, horses, brilliantly coloured fish, and mountains.
By now all the girls were as immersed in the lovely coloured pictures as Dulcie was, the cold outside forgotten.
‘Who would like to live in Australia?’ Mr Stigwood asked as he put the last picture down.
Every single hand shot up.
‘Well, that’s a blessing,’ he said, and laughed. ‘Because we came here today hoping to find some children who wanted to come out there with us. You see, Australia is a very young country, there aren’t many people there yet and there is so much space to fill.’
He went on then to show pictures of a school. A white-painted long low building with something he called a veranda all along the front of it. A group of girls in striped cotton dresses were sitting on the grass under a tree, they all looked very happy and smiley. Even the nuns who stood behind the group looked jolly. He said the school had its own farm and the girls helped with the animals, and that it was near a beach so they could go swimming.
To Dulcie, it appeared to be a place of freedom, warmth, fun and happiness. She wanted to go there so badly it almost hurt.
‘So who would like to go to a school like this one?’ Mr Stigwood asked.
Again every single hand shot up.
Mr Stigwood went on then to speak about how if they were chosen to go they would travel there on a huge ship and it would take six weeks to get there. He said that it was summer-time now in Australia, and in July it would be winter, but the winters were very mild, not a bit like England. One of the Senior girls asked what work prospects there were for girls at fifteen and Mr Stigwood said that they were better than in England with higher pay and usually shorter hours, and English girls were in very high demand by employers.
Dulcie was beside herself with excitement. When Mr Stigwood appeared to be about to depart with the two women, saying he’d leave them all to think about the wonderful opportunity he was offering them, she shot to her feet.
‘My sister and I definitely want to go,’ she said.
He looked at her and smiled. ‘I’m glad to see such eagerness,’ he said. ‘But the Sisters will talk to you all in a little while about who is eligible to go, and who the life in Australia would be suitable for. What’s your name?’
‘Dulcie Taylor, sir,’ she said.
‘Well, I do hope you get selected, Dulcie,’ he said. ‘Good luck.’
For the rest of the afternoon all the girls could talk of nothing else. They sat in tight little groups, hope shining out of all their faces.
There were only two girls who didn’t seem very enthusiastic, Janice and Maureen. But they were both nearly fifteen and due to leave soon anyway. They said they didn’t fancy a country with so few people, they wanted to be near shops, cinemas and dance-halls. ‘I shouldn’t bank on you and May getting picked, Dulcie,’ Janice said. ‘They want orphans, and you’ve got a dad.’
After over a year of no contact with her father there were times when Dulcie almost forgot him. Guilt flooded through her and she looked at the older girl in dismay, not knowing what to say in response.
Janice grinned at her. ‘Look on the bright side, Dulc, if they ship all the other kids off, they might have to close this place down. You might get fostered out somewhere. Anything’s got to be better than here.’
But that wasn’t a bright side, it looked even blacker to Dulcie. The other girls here were her friends now, she didn’t want to be sent somewhere else which might turn out to be even worse. When Susan had written on her birthday and said she wouldn’t be able to write so often now she was having the baby, she had slunk into the lavatories to cry about it. But later, when she’d calmed down, she’d read it again and decided Susan wasn’t saying goodbye at all, just being honest. It was much the same situation with her father too, he couldn’t write because they wouldn’t let him. Yet it really wasn’t fair that she and May were supposed just to sit and wait for people to write or see them! Why couldn’t they go to Australia in the meantime?
At tea-time Mother Superior joined them in the dining-room for the first time in months apart from Christmas Day. After she’d said the grace, she spoke of Australia too.
‘I’m sure most of you feel you would like to go,’ she said. ‘But before you build up your hopes, I must point out that not everyone will be eligible. In the next day or two I shall speak to each of you in turn, and I will submit the names of the girls I think will benefit most from the opportunity.’
The bread and marge seemed to stick in Dulcie’s throat, the tea had a bitter taste. When Janice caught her eye, she seemed to be saying, ‘I told you so,’ and it was all Dulcie could do not to burst into tears.
That evening as she said her prayers, she silently pleaded with the Virgin Mary to intervene on her behalf. She promised she wouldn’t forget her father or Susan, that she would be really good and never ask for anything else for herself again.
On Monday morning it was even colder than the previous day, the sky was like lead, and Sister Grace said she thought it was going to snow. But they still had to go outside. May kept complaining that her inner thighs were sore, and when Dulcie looked at them she saw they were red raw, chapped with the cold. She felt very angry then that the Sisters could be so cruel as to send children outside in such weather – many of them had bad colds and coughs, their gabardine coats were so thin, even gloves, hats or scarves were denied them. That added even more fuel to her desire to go to Australia.
It was almost dinner-time when Dulcie and May were called in to see Mother Superior. Others had been called earlier and returned to the playground within ten minutes – none of them had any idea if they were going to be selected.
The old nun was sitting almost on top of her fire, and she didn’t move when she called the sisters in, just told them to sit down.
‘I believe you told Mr Stigwood you wanted to go to Australia,’ she said, looking at Dulcie over her glasses.
‘I do, Mother,’ Dulcie said, quivering with tension. ‘I want to go really badly.’
‘Even if it means you won’t be able to see Mrs Bankcroft any more, and you’d be leaving your father here?’
‘Daddy won’t be free till I’m at least sixteen, even with remission,’ Dulcie said. ‘And Mrs Bankcroft will be very busy with her own child.’
‘What a sensible child you are,’ Mother Superior said, smiling to reveal wobbly false teeth. She turned to look at May. ‘How about you, May, would you like to go to Australia?’
‘Yes please,’ May whispered. ‘I want to be warm all the time. I’ve got really sore legs from the cold.’
The old lady half smiled. ‘I’d like to be warm all the time too,’ she admitted. ‘But Australia isn’t just warm, it’s very hot. It’s a very long way away too, you couldn’t just hop on a train and come home.’