Jane came up to my room today. Of course it would be Jane. Of all the caregivers she is the one who actually seems to care. She has a lovely smile and a nice way about her. Sometimes she pats the back of my hand and at Christmas she gives me a hug. I can actually speak to Jane if I am up here in the safety of my room. I don’t know what it is about Pete and Sharon, but my voice gets stuck and I can’t reply to them, even in a whisper, even up here. But with Jane it is easier. She is the one who would have noticed something was wrong. I heard her soft steps before the gentle tap at the door.
“Hello,” she said. “Can I come in?”
Before I tried to answer she was in already, easing herself onto the bed with a smile as if she was my best buddy. Sometimes I have to remind myself that she is paid to do this. It’s her job. I just sat and waited to hear what she had to say.
“Wow! Look at these new puppets! They’re really fab, Mary! There are quite a few new ones since I was up here last.”
I didn’t say anything.
She picked up Mistress Mary. “Oh! Is this one you? It looks just like you, you clever thing!”
I didn’t say anything.
I hoped she wasn’t going to keep up this cheerful, chattery stuff. It didn’t sound right up here. She chatted a bit about Princess Di expecting a baby and about Thornhill closing and about where the other girls would be going. Then it went a bit quiet and she said: “I just thought I’d pop up ’cause I hadn’t seen you for a while and I wanted to know how you were. How are you?”
I just looked at her wide face and smiley pink-lipsticked mouth. She was fiddling nervously with Mistress Mary. Mary’s head was lolling from side to side as Jane turned her over and over.
“Ahem … Well … I thought I hadn’t seen you and I asked around and thought that maybe you were avoiding coming down because … well … because a certain person is back.”
I went cold. Blink. Look natural, I thought. Say nothing. I blinked again.
“Since she came back I’ve noticed that you aren’t spending time with us. You leave for school really early in the morning. I know you were never keen on being with us in the TV room, but I haven’t even seen you in the dining hall. I’m not even sure you’re eating properly. Are you eating, Mary?”
I stared at her. This was too much. Too close. I didn’t want it talked about. I didn’t want to listen. I tried to block out the words and just focus on Jane’s hands as she tipped Mistress Mary over and over. I tried not to hear, but I couldn’t help it. As she chatted away I heard phrases like, “we have to pity her,” “difficult to be rehomed,” “you must remember what it is like to be sent back here after thinking you have been placed with a family,” “she must feel rejected,” and “you should give her a chance to be friends.”
That’s when I snapped out of it.
Friends?
Friends!
“Would you, Mary? If I have a word with her and ask her to be friends, would you try too?”
Could she be serious? Did she know what she was suggesting?
“I know it is more difficult for you, Mary, with your speaking issues and all, but … if you could?
“I am going to go down now and have a chat with her, Mary, and tomorrow you can come down and have breakfast with the rest of us. It’ll be much better for everyone here at Thornhill if we can all get along. I’ll come and knock for you in the morning so we can go down together. Okay, Mary?”
It sounded like a question but really it was an instruction.
I was aware that I was staring back. Blink. My eyes ached. Remember this so you can write it down later. Blink. My jaw ached. Remember what she is asking of you. Blink. I felt cold.
“Well, I am glad that is all sorted out,” she said.
Jane stood up and walked out, clicking the door shut behind her. I like Jane, but she is really wrong this time.
I hadn’t said a word.
I noticed that she had left Mistress Mary sprawled out on the bed, her arms and legs twisted under themselves. Mary’s head was facedown on the pillow.
February 26, 1982
Maybe I imagined that everyone seemed to go quiet when Jane and I walked into the dining hall this morning. I felt completely stupid walking beside her as she chatted in the slightly overchirpy, overenthusiastic way of hers. Everyone must have known she had made me come down. I felt their eyes following us as we wove through the dining hall tables and up to Kathleen at the kitchen hatch. I kept my eyes down and didn’t look at any of them. I knew my face was burning red, but I felt the usual cold fear all over. She was there in the room. I could feel her eyes on me. Kathleen gave me a smile and a wink as I loaded toast onto my plate with a shaking hand.
Jane began to talk to some of the other girls at another table, so I slid into a chair at an empty table and tried to look as though I was concentrating really hard on spreading the butter on my toast.
I knew who it would be when someone sat in the opposite chair.
“Hey, Mary,” she said. “Great to see you.”
She began to talk. It all sounded a little too loud, as if she wanted the others to hear too. She went on about how it was tough being sent back here and that she’d had to think about how she behaved and that she was turning over a new leaf and she wondered if I would think about forgiving her for everything that had happened and could we be friends now?
Her speech was finished. The dining hall was silent. Everyone was listening, watching, waiting to see what I would do. I realized that the only sound was the rattling of my knife on my plate as my hand trembled. I put it down and hoped no one else had heard it.
Jane bustled over and broke the silence.
“Thank you, girls. It is great to think that we can all get along so well here,” Jane said, and hurried out of the room.
Steadily she drew back the chair and stood up.
“I really mean it this time, Mary,” she said as she followed Jane out of the room.
Table by table groups of girls went out too. I watched them go until I was the only one left in the dining hall. Just me and Kathleen, who had watched the whole performance through the hatch.
She shook her head and made a tutting sound.
“I know I shouldn’t say it, but I wouldn’t trust that one as far as I could throw her,” she grumbled as I passed her plates from the empty tables. “She’s all smiles and eyelashes and they follow her around like she’s a princess, but those sweet smiles don’t wash with me. There’s a reason why she keeps being sent back here. Why no one will keep her … ”
I must have had a look on my face because she hurriedly added, “I know you haven’t been able to settle anywhere yet, Mary—but that’s different. People find the quietness unsettling, that’s all. One day there’ll be someone special who doesn’t expect you to be jabbering on all the time and you’ll have a proper home, better than this creaking old place.”
She ruffled my hair.