Cast the First Stone (20 page)

It's all very well for you to talk, Fiona thought to herself, looking at the woman whom she guessed to be in her mid fifties. She was manly in appearance, tall and angular and, seemingly, lacking in feminine characteristics. It was pretty certain that she had never given birth . . . But maybe she had regretted that fact, who could tell? Fiona always tried to see both sides of a question, and Miss Copeland, despite her forbidding looks, seemed to be an understanding person.

‘And . . . the baby is to be adopted?' Miss Copeland asked. Fiona nodded. ‘We will make all the arrangements,' she continued. ‘We try to make sure that parting from your baby is as painless as possible for you. We find it is best if this is dealt with as soon as it can be arranged, so that you don't form too much of an attachment to the child. You are young, Fiona, and there is no reason why you should not give birth again at a later date, in a happy and stable relationship.'

‘Thank you, Miss Copeland,' Fiona murmured. It was the first time that the birth of her baby had been referred to so openly, and she experienced a pang of fear and of doubt. How would she feel when her baby was taken away from her?

‘Off you go then, my dear,' said Miss Copeland, bringing the interview to a close. ‘Ginny's a good girl; she'll look after you. But if you have any problems please don't hesitate to tell me or any of the other members of staff. Goodbye for now, Fiona . . . God bless you.'

Fiona soon found that Ginny was a great person to have around. She was sensible and practical, able to look on the bright side of life and ready to have a laugh, though not at the expense of others; unlike Hazel Docherty whose jesting was often thoughtless, even cruel at times, directed at those who were of a more timid disposition.

The fourth occupant of the room was Bridget O'Connor, a small dark-haired girl whose accent and Celtic features betrayed that she was of Irish descent. She was often the butt of Hazel's unkind humour, being referred to as Paddy or Mick or ‘our little friend from the potato fields'.

Bridget's home, now, was in Sunderland. Like Ginny, she was the eldest of a large family. She, too, was seventeen years old, the same age as both Fiona and Ginny, and had five younger siblings. Beyond that, however, she had divulged very little of her circumstances. Her mother sometimes came to visit her, a shabbily dressed, tired looking little woman who was probably not yet forty, but who appeared much older. She resembled Bridget, with the same sad, dark eyes. The father was never to be seen, and when asked, Bridget had replied briefly that he worked on the docks.

Hazel, at twenty, was the eldest of the four room mates. She stated, quite unashamedly, that the father of her baby was married and that there was no chance of him leaving his wife, nor did she want him to do so. ‘We dropped a clanger, that's all,' she shrugged.

Ginny had told Fiona how she had come to be ‘in the family way'. ‘It was the lad next door,' she said. ‘He's a few years older than me, more of a mate, really, than a boyfriend. We went to the pub one night, and I had too much to drink, and so did he. He didn't mean this to happen, but . . . well, it did! Actually, he said he'd marry me, but me mam and me da won't hear of it.' Fiona thought she sounded a little regretful, but Ginny was never downhearted for long.

She confided in her new friend about Dave, and how she had been quickly removed from the scene and not allowed to see him or any of her friends again.

‘Oh, poor you!' said Ginny. ‘And you really loved him? I don't think I love Arthur, but he's a real nice sort of lad and we've always got on very well.'

‘Well, I thought I loved him,' said Fiona, ‘but I know I've just got to try and forget him.'

Bridget, however, did not say how she had become pregnant. Hazel frequently tormented her about it. ‘It was one of them leprechauns, so it was!' she jeered. ‘A little green man who crept into your bedroom at dead of night, didn't he, Bridget?'

‘Leave her alone, can't you?' Fiona snapped one afternoon when the older girl had gone too far, leaving Bridget in tears.

‘Oh, shurrup, you!' retorted Hazel. ‘Don't start telling me what to do! You've only been here five minutes, and you think you're the bee's knees just because you've been to a posh school.' She flounced out leaving the other two girls to comfort Bridget. It was then that she told them her sorry tale.

‘Don't tell anyone else, please,' she begged, her voice scarcely audible through her sobs. ‘It was my dad . . . It's my dad that did it.'

‘Your dad? What do you mean?' asked Fiona, looking puzzled.

Ginny frowned at her, shaking her head. She understood what Bridget was saying, even if Fiona didn't. ‘Oh, you poor love!' she said to Bridget, putting her arms around her. ‘I thought it might be something like that.' Ginny had heard of such instances before, where a father or sometimes a brother was involved. She knew, though, that Fiona was far more naive. Despite the fact that Fiona was cleverer than the other three and had stayed longer at school, she was unused to the darker side of life. ‘Does your mam know about it?' she asked Bridget gently.

‘Yes, it's been going on for ages,' said Bridget, sounding a little calmer now. ‘But she can't do anything about it.'

‘But you won't be going back to live there, will you?' asked Ginny. ‘Bridget, you can't!'

‘No, I'm going to my grandma's – that's my mam's mother – back in Dublin.'

‘But . . . couldn't your mother leave him, and go as well, to your grandma's?' asked Fiona, feeling very bewildered, and horrified, too, at the situation.

‘She'd like to, but there's the rest of the kids, y'see. She can't afford it, not to take them all. But maybe when I've gone it might be better . . . Thanks, you two, for listening. I don't know what I'd do without you, honest to God! Miss Copeland knows, and she's been grand, so she has.'

‘We'll look after you,' said Fiona with a show of confidence. ‘We'll tell that Hazel where to get off, you see if we don't.'

‘P'raps the least said the better,' warned Ginny. ‘Hazel's a nasty piece of work. We don't want to make an enemy of her. She'd stab you in the back soon as look at you, that one.'

Fiona nodded. ‘Yes, I can see that.' In point of fact, she was flabbergasted at Bridget's revelation. She had never heard of anything like that in her life. The girl's own father! It was beyond belief. She was realizing there were many things in life of which she was totally unaware.

‘I had no idea about anything like that,' she said to Ginny when they were on their own. ‘It's monstrous, isn't it? Her own father! And you say that sometimes it might be a brother who's involved?'

‘I'm afraid so, yes,' replied Ginny. ‘It's my guess that there may be one or two here that that has happened to. You've never heard of it?'

‘Er . . . no,' said Fiona hesitantly. She didn't want to appear so innocent – stupid, in fact – in front of her more worldly-wise friend. Fiona realized that she had led a comparatively sheltered life, despite being brought up on a housing estate. It was an area where most of the people were law abiding and not given to extremes of behaviour, but not able to afford to buy their own homes. She supposed that Ginny might have been reared in a very different environment. The girl was intelligent and quick thinking, just as much so as Fiona herself was, but circumstances had forced her to leave school at an early age and find employment to help with the family's finances.

‘It's what is called incest,' explained Ginny. ‘Sexual relationships with a close family member, like your father or brother. It can happen in large families like Bridget's. I guess that her mother was pregnant a good deal of the time, and that the father sought his pleasures elsewhere.'

‘That's horrible!' Fiona shuddered.

‘Yes, so it is,' agreed Ginny. ‘Thank goodness I've never experienced anything of the sort. Me da can be handy with his fists at times but he's quite . . . well . . . normal in most respects. We'll have to try to look out for Bridget now that we know about it, but Hazel must never find out.'

‘No, of course not,' said Fiona. She had a good deal to mull over in her mind, but the following day they all had something else to think about.

It was at the end of the midday meal on Wednesday, February sixth, that Miss Copeland stood to make an announcement. ‘Girls, will you all listen, please. I have some very sad news to tell you. Our beloved king has passed away. He died peacefully in his sleep early this morning.'

There were gasps of shock and murmurs of ‘Oh dear!' and ‘How dreadful!' King George the Sixth was only fifty-six years of age. He had had an operation for lung cancer the previous September.

The girls, on the whole, were subdued for the rest of the day.

‘So Princess Elizabeth'll be the queen now,' said Fiona as she and her room mates did the washing up; it was their turn for the whole of the week. ‘How strange it'll seem. She's in Africa, isn't she, with her husband? They'll have to come back, won't they?'

‘We'll have to sing “God save the Queen” now instead of “God save the King”,' said Bridget. ‘That'll sound funny, won't it?'

‘I never sing it anyway,' retorted Hazel. ‘Why should we? They're only folk like us, our precious royal family, except that they've got a bit more brass.'

‘Don't be so awful!' said Fiona with an angry look at the girl. ‘The poor man's dead, isn't he?' She had been determined not to get upset by her, but Hazel was so lacking in respect that Fiona couldn't help retaliating.

‘Oh, get down off yer bloody high horse!' retorted Hazel. ‘It don't make any difference to me that the king's popped his clogs.'

‘I think he's been ill for a long time,' said Ginny, ignoring the older girl's remark. ‘Of course, he did smoke a lot, didn't he? It must have affected his lungs.'

‘Well, it won't stop me from having a fag when I want one,' said Hazel. She flung down her pot towel. ‘That's where I'm going now. So long, you lot.' She flounced out of the kitchen. The girls were not supposed to smoke, but Hazel, and probably some of the others, did so secretly, in the bedrooms near to an open window.

‘Good riddance!' said Fiona. ‘She's insufferable, isn't she?'

‘Yes, but perhaps it's better not to rise to her bait,' said Ginny. ‘That's what she wants you to do. Shall we go for a walk when we've finished this lot?'

Burnside House was on the fringe of the coal mining area, and slag heaps and winding gear all around formed part of the landscape. But there were stretches of green pasture land as well, and pleasant farms and villages. The three of them wandered along the country lanes to the pretty village of Bywell. All that remained now of the former iron-working centre were a few houses, a market cross and two large churches. Dusk came early and there was a decided chill in the air as they made their way back. Spring still seemed a long way off.

There was a sombre feeling throughout the country. The BBC was broadcasting nothing but serious music until the king was finally laid to rest. And then, gradually, things returned to normal.

The days and the weeks passed, brightened by visits of family members and excursions for the young women to the market town of Morpeth, the cathedral city of Durham, and in March, when the cold weather had given way to sunshine, for a short time at least, to the seaside resort of Whitley Bay.

Hazel was due to give birth at the end of March, Ginny at the end of April, and Fiona and Bridget both in May. Hazel's baby – a boy – was born a week early and there were no tears shed at her departure. She had not been popular with the other girls or with the members of staff.

Fiona was delighted to see her aunt and uncle again on a Sunday afternoon early in April. She couldn't help noticing that Ginny had a visitor too, a young man whom she had not seen before, deep in conversation with her friend. Visitors were entertained in the lounge, which was large enough to afford them all the privacy they needed. Fiona had guessed before Ginny told her that this might be Arthur. He was a well-built young man with rugged features and, she noticed from time to time, a broad smile and a hearty laugh.

Ginny broke the news later that afternoon. ‘Guess what? Arthur's asked me again if I'll marry him. And I've said yes! So I can keep the baby. Isn't that wonderful?'

‘Oh . . . I'm so pleased for you, Ginny,' said Fiona, hugging her friend. She could not help, however, the sinking feeling in her stomach as she thought about her own plight, but she had to try to be happy for Ginny. ‘If that's what you want?' she queried. ‘What about your parents? They were dead against it, weren't they?'

‘My gran's been talking to them,' Ginny replied, ‘trying to persuade them to let me keep it. The twins'll be leaving school soon and starting work, so there'll be some more money coming in.' That was Ginny's fourteen-year-old twin brother and sister. ‘And Arthur went to see me mam and me da as well. He can be very persuasive,' she smiled. ‘And they said yes, he could marry me, if I agreed.'

‘And then he had to persuade you?' said Fiona.

‘Oh, I didn't need much convincing. He's steady and reliable, and he's got a good job, not down the mine, thank goodness; he works at the docks. And a mate of his knows of some rooms we can rent. I do like him such a lot. I told you we were real good pals.' Ginny was quite cock-a-hoop with excitement.

‘Well, that's a good start,' said Fiona. ‘I hope it all works out for you, Ginny.' And so she did, sincerely, but it also increased the sadness she was feeling. There could be no happy ending such as this for her.

Ginny's baby was born at the end of April as expected; a boy weighing eight pounds, with bright ginger hair inherited from his mother. He really was a bonny baby and Fiona could feel only happiness for her friend when she saw her nursing him, her freckled face alight with joy.