Little Drifters: Part 2 of 4

Contents

Cover

Title Page

PART II: Broken

Chapter 7: Gloucester

Chapter 8: Daddy

Chapter 9: North Set

Chapter 10: Despair

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter 7

Gloucester

It was a few weeks later that Bridget came back. We were so thrilled to see her, we jumped all over her, kissing her like mad and hanging round her neck.

‘We missed you!’ we told her over and over again. We thought she was coming back for good – we were so excited, we hardly even noticed the strange look that passed between her and my mother as she set her case down on the floor. We all went to sleep that night, happy that our older sister had returned.

But the next morning she shook us awake and whispered: ‘Come on now, lads. Wake up and get ready. We’ve got to go.’

We all pulled on our clothes, unquestioning, not having a clue what was going on. When we came into the parlour Mammy had the babies all dressed and Bridget was standing next to three cases. Aidan and Liam were there too, looking grim-faced. Next to them was a man we didn’t recognise.

‘This here is Fergal,’ said Bridget. ‘He’s my fella and he’s gonna be helping us.’

Mammy was bustling about, getting all our sandals out and ordering us to put on our coats. She seemed tense, nervous.

Once they’d ushered us all outside I asked: ‘Where are we going?’

It was Bridget who replied: ‘We’re going to England.’

England? I didn’t know where England was. I’d never heard of the place – but in that instant I knew one thing. We were all leaving without Daddy! I started to sob. My heart ached. We couldn’t leave Daddy. Despite everything, I worshipped my daddy and I knew he loved us all to death.

‘But Mammy,’ I tugged at her skirt. ‘We can’t leave Daddy behind. Why isn’t Daddy coming with us?’

‘Hush now,’ she said. ‘Stop your crying.’

I didn’t really have to ask – I knew why we were leaving but I couldn’t bear the thought of Daddy coming home to find all of us gone. But there was nothing I could do. We set off then across the fields to get to the village, not daring to walk along the road. Fergal and Bridget took the cases while Mammy, Liam and Aidan carried the little ones. It was three miles to get to the village but for us this wasn’t a long walk. We tramped along in silence, and once we arrived we sat at the roadside until the bus came along to take us to the main town.

I was too sad and preoccupied to talk. I didn’t know where England was but it sounded a long way away. How would Daddy feel finding an empty house? It was horrible to think how lonely he would be without us all. We all got on board the bus and Mammy ordered us to sit down and quieten while she settled the little ones. The bus started up but since we were going along small, winding country roads, it couldn’t go too fast. Just then, up ahead, I spotted Daddy, strolling down the road in his white shirt with his sleeves rolled up, his hands in his pockets, his lips pursed to whistle. He was on his way home and looked so happy, not a care in the world.

My heart soared to see him and I called out: ‘Look! There’s Daddy!’ and started banging on the window.

But Mammy must have caught sight of him at the very same moment because she screamed at us all: ‘Get down!’

She grabbed my arm and pulled me to the floor of the bus. All the others hid down behind the seats as we passed by my father, clueless that we were all in the bus, escaping from him. Then the bus was past and he was gone. Mammy, who had been laying half on top of me on the floor, pulled herself up and dusted herself down. I was devastated. I sat silently for the rest of the journey, watching all the green fields pass by, imagining Daddy, all alone and sad in our house.

To us country children, arriving in a large town was something incredible. We’d never seen so many people before and the buildings seemed to tower over us, giant structures that rose majestically into the sky. All the crying stopped then as Mammy led us from the bus station to the train station. We all gaped in open-mouth wonder as we caught sight of the huge engines on the tracks. We’d never even seen a train up close before, let alone been on one. All thoughts of Daddy flew out of my head as I admired the enormous, steaming machines in front of us. Mammy found our train and she hustled us all aboard. This was surely the most thrilling thing in the world and now there was no controlling any of us as we ran up and down the carriage, exploring our surroundings.

The train set off and we were still flying around, jumping on the seats and hanging round the door to look out of the window.

‘Would you leave that bloody window alone, Brian!’ Mammy shouted from the table where she and the older ones sat as Brian pulled the window down for the hundredth time. If they had let us we would have run through the whole train, going from one compartment to the next. As it was we contented ourselves with just playing havoc in one carriage. We were almost sad when the journey came to an end, but then the older ones led us towards the port where we had to get on a big boat.

‘A boat?’ Brian kept on at my mother. ‘Are we really going on a boat?’

‘Yes, Brian,’ Mammy replied, sighing. ‘We really are.’

‘I can’t believe it!’ he said to her. Then to us: ‘I can’t believe it. Can you believe it, Kathleen? We’re going on a boat!’

Once on board we went completely berserk. We were everywhere, up on deck, down below, all around the whole place. We ran through the corridors, in and out of the toilets, slamming the doors behind us, and even climbed onto the railings to look down at the sea below. But that scared us because it was so high up that we didn’t do it a second time. Mammy didn’t pay us much mind – she just got on looking after the babies. She never did seem to mind what we were doing – we must have been in danger most of the time but Mammy reckoned we must all learn to look after ourselves so we were left free to make our own entertainment.

About half an hour into the crossing, we were stood on deck, spitting into the sea below to see whose spit could go the furthest while the wind whipped our hair and skirts about us. Just then Brian let out a terrible scream.

‘It’s a monster!’ he jabbered. We all turned to look where he was pointing and we saw, coming towards us on the deck, a man who was as black as the night. Brian was right – the man was so black we thought he must be a monster too and we all started screaming.

Now Brian was shaking like a leaf and the monster was coming towards us, a confused smile on his face.

‘Is there a problem?’ he asked us politely.

But none of us could speak, we were all scared witless by the monster. And just then Brian took off. We all followed swiftly behind him but the monster came right after us!

We dived below deck, searching out Mammy and our older siblings.

Brian was the first to speak: ‘Mammy! Mammy! Mammy! There’s a monster on the boat! And he’s chasing us!’

Indeed, just behind us, now panting and looking pure distressed, was the black monster.

‘They just started screaming when they saw me!’ he explained apologetically, clearly rattled by our hysterics. ‘I didn’t do anything to them but they seem very upset.’

He was right – we were all crying by now, clawing at my mother for protection, begging her to save us. But Liam and Aidan just started to laugh.

‘I’m sorry,’ Mammy said to the man. ‘They were brought up in the countryside and they’ve never seen people of different colours before. It’s all new to them.’

The man nodded, looking a little relieved, then he left us.

‘That’s not a monster,’ Aidan laughed at us. ‘He’s just a black man.’

Now Brian was confused: ‘But why is the man so black? I don’t understand it.’

Mammy explained: ‘There are people of all different colours in this world. Some are black, others are yellow or orange. You’re going to be seeing a lot of different coloured peoples once we get to England. Now just you all calm down. Look at the poor man! You scared the living daylights out of him!’

Later, as Mammy handed out egg sandwiches that she’d bought at the ship’s canteen, Tara whispered to me: ‘Kathleen, can you imagine a yellow person?’

‘Or an orange person!’

‘Wouldn’t that be strange! Do you think they have purple or blue people in England?’

I started giggling: ‘I’d like to see a blue person, Tara!’

It was night-time when we arrived in England. We hadn’t slept at all on the long, five-hour crossing, and by now we were all groggy with tiredness. The older ones gently herded us all onto another train and there we laid our heads down on the seats and let the gentle swaying of the carriage rock us all to sleep. We were so tired and sleepy when we got off the train that we walked hand in hand up and down the dark streets, hardly able to stand up, let alone take in our new environment. We were led past row after row of grand, old-looking houses, turning into one street and then the next. God, it felt like it would go on for a lifetime, until eventually we came to a large, three-storey house where Mammy climbed up the three stone steps to the entrance and knocked. A man we’d never seen before opened it. But he must have known Mammy because he started chattering away. The man led us all into a spacious living room on the ground floor where he’d put out a load of blankets and we all just lay down and cuddled up to sleep the rest of the night.

By the time we woke up the next morning Mammy was already in the kitchen, making a mouth-watering breakfast of sausage and eggs. It was the first thing we’d eaten since the sandwiches on the boat and we set about devouring our food, ravenous.

‘You can all go now,’ she said when we finished. ‘But just mind you don’t be playing in the rooms at the top. That’s not for us.’

We were all looking forward to exploring the house, which seemed enormous to us. In the hallway there was a large staircase with a wooden banister and all the way up the stairs were tons of different rooms, some with beds, but mostly empty. We climbed all over the banisters, hanging off them and sliding down. Later we went outdoors to find a big garden with a shed in it and, behind the garden, a river. Then we went out into the street. The house was on a road with shops at one end and rows of houses down our end.

‘What is this place, Mammy?’ Brian asked as we passed her in the kitchen.

‘It’s a squat,’ she told him. ‘In Gloucester. Now just you kids mind to stay out of trouble.’

We later learned that there was a mother with three little girls living in the squat with us and when they returned they opened up the shed to let us play on their bikes with them. It was exciting being in a big new house but we couldn’t help thinking of Daddy and how lonely he’d be back in our home, all by himself.

At first we just spent our time playing in the street. We were desperate to see the different coloured people Mammy had talked about so we wandered up and down, looking for the yellow and orange people. When we didn’t see any we just amused ourselves on the bikes and by the river behind our house. Aidan got himself a job working in a hospital at the end of the street, Liam was out mostly and Bridget stayed with us, looking after the little ones. At nights we had two rooms to sleep in – the older boys in one and the rest of us in another.

We didn’t see much of the man who had first opened the door to us – from what we could gather from overhearing when the older ones spoke, it sounded like he was married to one of our aunts, but none of us knew which one. There was a pub across the road from us, and from the moment we arrived in Gloucester Mammy spent most of her days and nights in there. From the very beginning she warned us against ever coming into the pub.

‘That’s not a place to play!’ she snapped at us. ‘You’re not even to cross to that side of the road. You understand? Don’t even look at it!’

Mammy didn’t seem the same to us. It was strange. She was never home and she didn’t seem to have time for any of us. There were even some nights she wouldn’t come back to the house – we’d wake up in the morning, just us kids and Bridget watching over us. But after a few days we cottoned on to what was keeping her away so much – there was a man she was with and they were talking and laughing. One time Brian said: ‘I’m going to get a closer look at him!’

But when he went up to the front, Mammy spotted his little blond head peeking through the glass window of the door and she came belting out, giving him an earful!

It was late one night, about two weeks after we first got to Gloucester, that she brought the fella back to the house. Tara and I were playing in the hall, climbing up the walls, seeing if we could get about the whole house without touching the floor. We heard my mother’s tinkly laughter as she pushed open the front door and he followed in behind her. He just seemed a very normal-looking fella, not greatly tall, with dark, curly hair. She barely looked up at us as we stopped messing about to see this man up close. Mammy carried on walking right through to the kitchen but the man stopped there in the hallway.

‘Hello,’ he said to us.

‘Hello,’ we chorused back, curious.

‘I’m Frank. I’m your mother’s friend.’

‘This here is Kathleen and I’m Tara,’ my sister said, bold as anything.

‘Why don’t you come over and give us a kiss hello?’ he said. We didn’t think anything of it – we both went over and gave him a peck on the cheek.

Then: ‘Do you want some money?’

We both nodded eagerly – of course we did!

‘Right, well, I’ll give you some money if you give me another kiss.’

That seemed like a good deal to us so we each stretched up on tiptoe to give him another kiss on the cheek and afterwards he held out a ten pence piece for each of us. We ran away laughing. We had no idea why the stupid man wanted to give us money for kisses but we weren’t going to argue!

Frank stayed with my mother in another room that night, and the next day we didn’t even wait around to see anyone. We went straight out to spend our money on toffees in the shop up the road. Two days later Frank was back in the house and asking us for kisses again.

This time, instead of kissing him on the cheek, he wanted to kiss us both on the mouth. Again, we didn’t think about it and just went right ahead to get our money. But by the third occasion I realised something wasn’t quite right. This time he wanted to keep his lips on mine for longer and he held my shoulders tight and squeezed, not letting me go. Eventually I managed to squirm away from him because I’d had enough. Then it was Tara’s turn.

She stood on the staircase so he didn’t have to bend down to kiss her and he did the same again, holding her little shoulders so she couldn’t get away. He was at it a long time, so long in fact that Mammy came out of the kitchen at that very moment and caught them kissing!

‘Tara!’ Mammy erupted in a fit of pure fury. Frank dropped my sister and Tara quickly jumped down from the stairs and ran away, through the rooms of the house.

‘What were you doing, you dirty little girl!’ Mammy shouted, going after her. By now Frank had walked silently into the kitchen.

Tara’s terrified shrieks could be heard all around the house as Mammy chased her and finally caught up with her. I came upon them in time to hear my mother demanding: ‘What were you doing?’

She was holding Tara roughly by the back of her dress.

‘I wasn’t doing anything, Mammy,’ she pleaded. ‘He kissed me. He give me money for it.’

She held out her trembling hand and uncurled her fingers to reveal the ten pence piece she’d just earned.

‘He give me the money too, Mammy!’ I said and I showed her my coin.

Mammy was still angry but now a wave of uncertainty passed over her face. She blinked twice.

‘Well, that’s enough!’ she admonished. ‘You better not be taking any more money off him. Leave the poor man alone.’

We scurried away to our room then, confused and upset. We didn’t know what was happening at all. It wasn’t our fault he wanted to give us money for kisses. We’d never come across anything like it before in our lives.

One morning a week later Mammy’s sister arrived at the house – we’d never even met her before but Mammy said it was her sister, our Aunt Elizabeth, and we should get dressed because we were going home to see our father. We were so excited we all got dressed in a hurry – this was brilliant news! Mammy made us all some bread and tea and as we were eating Brian asked her when Aidan and Liam would be here.

‘Oh, it’s not all of us,’ she said casually. ‘It’s just the four of you.’

My hand froze in mid-air and I looked straight at Tara. In that split second we both understood – we were being sent back to Daddy for good. We were being punished for the kisses and now we were going to be separated from our siblings and our mammy.

I bolted from the table and ran upstairs where I hid under the bed, hoping nobody would find me there. But I heard Mammy’s heavy footfall as she climbed up the stairs slowly and walked into the room. I lay under the bed, breathing hard, looking at her stockinged feet and the buckles on her worn brown shoes.

‘Come out from under the bed!’ her voice boomed from somewhere over my head. I didn’t respond.

‘I said COME OUT!’ she shouted now. ‘I swear, if you miss your train I’ll kill you!’

But still I refused to budge. Then I saw her legs bend and her bottom lower to the floor. At the same time her arm shot out, making a grab for me. She yanked me out from under the bed, even though I tried clinging onto the leg, and I cried out: ‘I don’t want to go, Mammy! Don’t send us away!’

‘Don’t be stupid, Kathleen!’ she chided, roughing me all the way down the stairs again. ‘It’s only a little holiday. You’ll all be coming back again.’

But I knew it wasn’t a holiday – we all did. Mammy just wanted us gone. We could see that. Now Brian was crying but she wasn’t putting up with any of it. We’d never seen Mammy like this before. She was impatient, aggressive, like she couldn’t wait to get shot of us.

Mammy dragged us outside and Brian kept crying and kicking at her. It was awful.

‘Please, Mammy!’ he begged. ‘I won’t be naughty any more. Just let me stay. Please!’

She marched us down the road towards the train station and after a while we stopped crying and fighting with her. It wasn’t making any difference. We hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye to Bridget, Aidan, Liam or the little ones. Once on the train, Mammy didn’t even kiss us goodbye. She just looked at us all sternly and ordered: ‘Now you all be good for your aunt. She doesn’t need you causing trouble for her.’

We got on board and Aunt Elizabeth followed on behind us – we had no bags at all, just the clothes we stood up in. Now it was sinking in what was really happening Tara started to sob. I put my arm around her and tried my best to console her: ‘Don’t be sad, Tara. Just think how happy Daddy will be when he sees us.’

But she couldn’t be comforted.

Eventually Aunt Elizabeth snapped at her: ‘Stop your bawling, Tara! I don’t need to be listening to you lot crying all the way back to Ireland.’

It was a sad journey home. None of us jumped about or ran around the train; we hardly even went on deck during the boat crossing and all the way back we were teary, silent and miserable. But we didn’t go straight back to Daddy’s. Aunt Elizabeth took us first to her home. Though Mammy’s family had been travellers when they were all growing up, most of them had now settled into houses. When we got there it was late at night and there was an old man with a wiry brown beard standing in the kitchen. He must have been our uncle, but he didn’t greet us. He didn’t even look at us. He just pointed his finger towards the staircase and said: ‘Straight upstairs.’

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