3. We are both on the waiting list for Sunny Rise but we have to wait for places to become available. There are twins there who are in the last stages of the adoption process, so two spaces will be free soon. It may be a month, it may be two, but Jane thinks we will be able to move on by the start of the new school term in September. Obviously (she said) the situation isn’t ideal and she knows I would prefer it if I could be rehomed with someone else, but she has discussed it with the social workers and the council and this is all they can offer us at the moment.
4. Kathleen will be leaving next week.
5. The kitchen and dining hall will be closed off but a microwave and a fridge have been put in the TV room for us to use. We should otherwise stick to our rooms, the TV room, the bathrooms and grounds. Work will not begin until we have moved out, but in the meantime there may be surveyors, builders, and council officials around the place.
6. Those of us who are left must all try and get along.
So this is it. Confirmation of all I had been dreading.
I don’t want to be left here with her.
I don’t want Kathleen to leave.
I don’t want to leave my room.
Are they really going to rehome her and me at Sunny Rise? Together?
Can they not see what they are doing? Are they deliberately cruel or do they just not care? Or does it amount to the same thing?
June 25, 1982
I have written Kathleen a note. It says: Kathleen,
I heard what you said to Jane the other day. Thank you for trying.
Please don’t go.
Don’t leave Thornhill.
Can’t you ask them to let you stay on until we all leave? I hate life here and it will be even worse if you are gone. You are my only friend and I can’t bear to be here without you.
Mary
I have left it in the pocket of her apron, hanging on the back of the kitchen door.
June 28, 1982
When I got home from school today a card was under my door. It had a picture of a fluffy chick on the front. Inside it said: Dear Mary,
Thank you for your note. I am sorry to be leaving you and Thornhill. I have worked here for fifteen years and it will be a big change for me’just as it will be for you too. My husband, Frank, has retired and he has booked us on a cruise to celebrate. So even if I wanted to stay I would still be away for a few weeks. I’ll send you a postcard. When we get back we are moving away to the coast. Maybe when you are older you can come and visit us there?
I will come and say goodbye before I go.
Kathleen x
I am so sad. Everything is slipping away.
July 2, 1982
Kathleen went yesterday. She came to my room to say goodbye. It is the first time she has been in here. She said something like, “Heavens, Mary! Have you got enough of those puppets?” and looked around with her mouth open. “You must have, what, forty? Fifty? Nice how you have them displayed, though. And your room. Nice and orderly, that’s what I like to see.” Then she said, “Looks like I can be useful then.” And she began to empty out the contents of a shopping bag onto my bed.
It was amazing. There was flour and bowls for mixing papier-maché paste. She had packs and packs of white modeling clay. Some blocks of balsa wood and some small carving tools. There was wire. String. Hooks. So many things I could use to make puppets with. I didn’t know what to say. She had brought me a present to say goodbye. None of it looked pretty, but each thing she unpacked was perfect. She had thought about every item.
I began to cry.
I never cry. I promised myself I would never let them see me cry.
But it isn’t their horribleness that made the tears come. It was kindness. Kathleen’s lovely kindness.
And then she was hugging me. A real hug. I wrapped my arms around her and sobbed into her apron. She smelled of cigarettes and laundry detergent and that made me cry more. She was talking to me but I was crying so much I couldn’t hear it all. She called me a funny little chick and told me I had to stand up for myself and that nothing bad lasts forever. She said that she would write to me with her new address. And then she was gone.
And now that I have started crying I can’t stop.
She was up here in the night. She stood outside my door listening to my crying. She didn’t make a sound. But I saw her shadow beneath the door. Quiet and waiting.
July 10, 1982
The doctor came today. I heard him ring the bell and explain to Jane that he had come to see me. Someone had raised concerns about my health and well-being, and he would like to see me alone.
He was very polite. He asked to come in, and wouldn’t sit down until I nodded that it was okay. He had a soft accent, kind eyes, and tufty gray hair. He chatted about the puppets, and he asked who they were. Some he guessed at’Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester with little Giselle and Pilot the dog’some he couldn’t. He asked about the books I liked reading. He spied The Secret Garden and said how he enjoyed reading it to his daughter years ago. I showed him my Mistress Mary puppet. He chuckled when he saw it and said I had captured her just right. He had a slight whistle in his voice. He propped her up carefully on the pillow and balanced her head to watch us in the room.
He was nice.
He asked me if I was well. He said that a friend of mine had dropped by his office and asked him to stop in and check I was okay. He said that to be well everybody had to look after his or her body’to eat well and sleep well. He also said that to be healthy we had to look after our heads too, and that if there was anything worrying me or bothering me I should tell someone. He asked if there was anything I wanted to tell him.
I wanted to speak.
I wanted to blurt out that I was scared of her, that I can’t sleep because I am so scared now that it is just her and me.
I wanted to say how I am afraid to be in Thornhill.
I wanted to tell him that even when they close Thornhill, they are planning to put us in the same home, so it will never, ever stop.
I wanted to tell him that although I am afraid to be here with her, I don’t want to leave. Thornhill is my home.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t say a word.
What would it sound like to someone else? If I were to say, “She isn’t very kind to me and bangs on my door at night.” She doesn’t hit me, or touch me. I don’t have bruises. In fact, for the last few nights she hasn’t even touched the door. She just stands silently outside.
I would sound stupid and childish.
He wouldn’t believe me.
I couldn’t tell.
I can’t tell.
I can’t find the words.
I looked back at that kind old doctor and whispered that I was fine. That I had just got out of the habit of sleeping.
He made a tight smile, but his eyes looked as if he didn’t believe me.