Thornhill Read online

  And I can go back tomorrow.

  May 9, 1982

  Kathleen had a flask of tea and a bacon sandwich already wrapped up for me when I went down with my tray of puppet pieces this morning. I like Kathleen. She is kind without any fuss.

  The birds were singing and the sun was warm. I felt stronger and happier with each step as I walked across the gravel drive. The sounds of music and the clatter of crockery from the kitchen faded as I walked deeper into the garden, beyond the orchard, behind the toolshed, and under the archway into the enclosed garden. I worked quietly and steadily, gluing strands of embroidery thread to Dickon’s head to make his hair. My fingers were cold from the glue, but I could feel the sun on my back and my neck. I thought it was funny that a squirrel came bounding across the grass toward the statue where I was sitting—just as if I was Dickon and the animals wanted to be near me.

  Out there today I felt the embarrassment of their taunts and tricks ease away from me. Out there I couldn’t imagine anything sillier than being afraid of a bit of banging on a door.

  As I ate my sandwich I thought about how strange the statue I was sitting under is. It is a young child in a long dress—like an angel, but without any wings. She has her hands cupped, held out in front of her, as if she is asking for something, or waiting for something to be put into them. Begging almost. She is odd, but I like her. I might think of something precious I can give her.

  I have been up here in my room since darkness began to fall. I am going to get back to my designs for Dickon’s clothes.

  May 10, 1982

  I rushed out into the garden after school today. I needed to be away from them all.

  I had done my homework. I had! But when I went to take it out of my bag it was gone.

  Mrs. Davies was furious. Clearly any concern she may have almost felt for me a few weeks ago was gone. She asked me to stand up in front of the class and explain where it was. But of course I couldn’t. One, because I was in the classroom and she knows, just like all the other teachers, that I can’t speak out loud in front of the others; and two, because I just don’t know where it is. I remember putting it into my bag this morning. Someone—one of them—must have taken it.

  I could hear some of the others in the class sniggering as I stood there. My cheeks were blazing hot. But I didn’t cry. I won’t ever let them think they have gotten to me. I just stood and thought of Jane Eyre and how she had been humiliated at her school and tried to let Mrs. Davies’s accusations that I was “sloppy” and “not taking responsibility for my own actions” wash over me.

  No one wanted to pair up with me for the experiment in science, so I had to do it with Mr. Braithwaite. At lunchtime I sat alone, but still one of them managed to walk past my table and pour orange juice into my lunch.

  On the way home from school I kept my head down but I could hear comments like, “Where’s your homework, Mary?” and “The mysterious case of the invisible project!” They think they are so funny. But they are not. It isn’t funny at all.

  So I ran out to the garden as soon as I got home and sat there under the begging girl. I listened to the birdsong and the leaves on the trees, the distant traffic. And I waited until I was calm enough to come back in. I had missed dinner. But when I got up to my room there was a foil-wrapped sandwich and a flask outside my door.

  May 15, 1982

  Secret garden? Ha! I can’t even get that right. I can’t believe I thought I had something, somewhere to myself outside this room.

  I didn’t notice them at first. I was so wrapped up in what I was doing. It was only when something bounced nearby that I realized someone was throwing tiny hard apples at me from over the wall of hedge. At first they landed close to me. Then one hit the side of my head and another knocked Dickon’s head. Then they came thick and fast—bouncing and pattering around me like rain.

  Pelted.

  Pathetic.

  The quiet was over. I tried to gather together my tray of stuff, as if I was packing up anyway, but I was trembling and my face was hot. A flying apple stung the back of my hand. Another caught my neck. I loaded the tray and began to walk, ignoring them as I went under the archway and back toward the house. They called out after me.

  “Weirdo!!”

  “Can we play dolls too, Mary?”

  “Mary talks to her dolls! We heard you, Mary!”

  “Freak!”

  I ran. The tray shook. Dickon’s head tumbled and I didn’t stop to pick it up. When I got back to my room, all I had on my tray was spilled varnish, unused clay, and some tiny apples.

  I am so cross that my place has been discovered. I am humiliated, as usual, but mostly I’m sad. Sad that I have left one of my puppets out there. I know it’s silly but it feels like I have abandoned a friend. Poor Dickon! Was I talking to him as I made him? I don’t know. When I am making my puppets I feel like I am somewhere else. Someone else. And having them around the room with me like this makes me feel less alone. I don’t know if that makes me a freak. They called me a freak. I don’t care if I am. But I do care that I have left him out there, abandoned, with no one to care for him.

  I’ll go out early tomorrow and look for him.

  They have taken the garden from me. But not my room. I still have up here. I have my books, my puppets, and my words in this diary. I can speak my mind on these pages in a way I can’t outside this room. And I can protect it all from them. This is my place, and they are locked out of it.

  Right now I am writing this by flashlight in bed.

  It is two a.m.

  And I can hear her footsteps climb the stairs.

  June 3, 1982

  There are only six of us left. She still has a core group of followers. They move around the house like a pack of wolves. It is the five of them and me.

  I thought that she would lose some of her power as her group of supporters dwindled, but the opposite seems to have happened. It is as if her nastiness has become concentrated.

  There aren’t so many practical problems to deal with during the day. The last three days at school have been almost normal. I guess she doesn’t have so many followers to do her bidding and she is too sneaky to be caught.

  But every night she is there on the other side of the door.

  June 4, 1982

  This evening I went down to the kitchen to ask Kathleen for some flour. I couldn’t find her at first, but the smell of cigarette smoke soon led me to the back door.

  Everyone likes hanging out there on warm evenings. They sit on the steps under the brick porch, scraping their names into the brickwork as they puff on cigarettes or whisper about boys. For a hundred years, every Thornhill girl has scratched her name into the brickwork, along with her best friend’s name, hundreds of pairs of names scraped into the red brick. All the other girls I have known at Thornhill are on that porch. Only my name is missing.

  But tonight it was Kathleen out on the back steps. She was chatting in the twilight with Jane. Both of them had cigarettes and were swigging from mugs. Kathleen’s cooking sherry was balanced on the step between them.

  They didn’t hear me—was it the noise of the washing machine or the fact that I have become an expert at creeping around? Anyway. I wish they had heard me instead of me hearing them.

  “It isn’t right, Jane. You just have to look at her to know she isn’t sleeping. She barely eats anything. None of them talk to her. She looks more sickly than ever.”

  “I know. But, honestly, it’s her own fault, if you ask me, Kathleen. It’s one thing to have this selective mutism thing—if it really is a thing and she isn’t just choosing not to speak—that makes her odd in the first place, but then she spends all her time on her own making those damn dolls. It is a bit creepy. She doesn’t even try to fit in.”

  “Just because she is a bit different doesn’t mean they should pick on her.”

  “A bit different! Come on, Kathleen, she’s weird. You say they are picking on her, but we don’t have any proof. She doesn’t ever say
anything. She has never made a complaint. How can we help her if she doesn’t help herself ? She just tiptoes about with that tight, pinched, sour face of hers. She never smiles. No wonder no family wants her … If her speech thing isn’t problem enough, she is also the least likable girl we have ever had here …”

  I didn’t wait for Kathleen’s reply. As I left the kitchen, I heard them chuckling and the chink of china as more sherry sloshed into their mugs.

  My chest aches. I liked Jane. I trusted her. I thought she was kind. I thought she understood.

  I suppose I should be grateful to Kathleen for trying.

  When I got back up here, I stood at my window watching the houses opposite, the regular people with regular lives, trying to work out if what Jane had said was true. Is it all my fault? Have I brought it on myself? Am I unlikable? As I turned it all over in my mind, I watched the lights go on. Families washed up and watered their gardens. They tucked their children into bed and drew their curtains. The house lights cast a golden glow of warmth.

  It is tough to be without a family. But to be without a friend too? Is that really my fault? Even the caregiver who is paid to care doesn’t care, it seems.

  I won’t let anything any of them says or does make me cry. Ever. But I am aching inside. Maybe this is what heartache feels like.

  June 16, 1982

  Men with clipboards were here today.

  As there are only four of us left and only a few rooms on the second floor are occupied, the rooms on the third and fourth floors have been boarded up, so there is hardly anyone between me up here and the staff on the first floor. Tomorrow workmen will be boarding up the empty first-floor bedrooms.

  Thornhill is becoming quieter without the chatter of the other girls here but noisier in other ways. It’s echoey. Footsteps along the corridors seem louder. Doors closing can sound startlingly noisy. Even the conversation between the clipboard men sounds like a rumble from the floor below. Kathleen doesn’t have much to do and spends most of her time with a cigarette and a magazine. Jane seems to be spending most of her time in Pete’s room. It’s as if the rules don’t matter now that there are only a few of us left.

  Today my laces were missing from my shoes. I wore them anyway and now have blisters.

  June 23, 1982

  I was halfway down the third-floor stairs when I heard the noise. Kathleen and Jane coming from the back of the house, their voices raised. I have never heard Kathleen cross. I’ve heard Jane’s shrill shouty voice when the other girls goofed around too much—but not Kathleen. I stopped where I was on the stairs and they came to a halt on the first floor somewhere beneath me. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear everything.

  “It’s just not down to me, Kathleen! It isn’t my responsibility. The social workers, the local authority, it’s their call. It’s nothing to do with me!”

  Kathleen sounded really angry.

  “That’s just lame, Jane! I never thought I’d hear that attitude from you. You know these girls. You’ve worked with them for years. Even if you don’t have proof you must still suspect what is going on. How can they possibly rehome them together? What will happen to Mary? Don’t you care?”

  “Kathleen—it’s not my job! They wouldn’t take any notice of me anyway. It’s about money, resources—they aren’t going to care that those two girls don’t get along. The decisions are made way up the line.”

  “But I am not talking about it as your job. I am talking about you saying something as a human being who cares about those girls. You’re her caregiver, for heaven’s sake! Say something. Stand up for her! Make a fuss! Who else can speak on her behalf?”

  “You’re out of line, Kathleen. You’re talking about something you know nothing about!” Jane was really shouting now.

  “It’s not out of line to care about that girl. If Mary goes to Sunny Rise with that little witch you know she will be miserable!”

  “That’s enough, Kathleen! You shouldn’t speak about any of our girls like that no matter what you think they’ve done. I’ve had enough of this conversation.”

  Jane stomped into view, straight across the hall and out of the front door, slamming it behind her.

  “Listen to me!” shouted Kathleen. “Why won’t you listen to me?”

  The noise echoed off the walls. And then it went quiet. Kathleen’s footsteps slowly returned to the back of the house and all was still.

  And then I saw it.

  The door to her room was ajar. I watched it slowly close and heard it click shut.

  She had been listening too.

  June 24, 1982

  Jane came up to my room today. It is almost four months since she was up here last. She started off with all that friendly stuff like before but now that I know it is just a pretense, I kept my back to her and stared out of the window, watching the birds in the top branches of the tree outside.

  I won’t forgive her for saying, for even thinking, those things about me. Ever.

  She said we needed to talk. She asked me if I would sit down with her. I ignored her. There was a long and awkward silence and then she said she had to tell me about the changes here at Thornhill. They were:

  1. Tomorrow Rachael and Hannah will be rehomed.

  2. Then it will just be me and her as residents of Thornhill. Jane and Pete will stay here as our caregivers until we have been rehomed.

  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-mâché 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.