The Drying Rooms - Chapter Six

Down the cold stone stairs

Big Ted

That washing line. At the top of the terraced banks. Below the boys’ dormitories.

A colour memory flashes in: a row of girls lying on a long strip of bright green mowed grass. Enforced resting on that terrace below the boys’ dormitories. The one with the washing line. Did the boys’ matron - Kind Matron - use the same washing line? She senses there was a vulnerable boy, a teased boy, whose name was also on a rubber sheet hanging out to dry. But who knows? And will she ever know, and if he existed, what is he doing now? She sees an old man with a gentle smile. He’s gardening in the rain, lighting a roll-up with trembling fingers.

There’s my rubber sheet - can you see it, dear one? That ox-blood-red rubber sheet. It was one of the first things we saw when we first arrived - remember? When we left the real world on the road and walked up the drive. There it is, hanging heavy on the line. It’s always there. It’s been there for sixty years. With my name on it writ large. In indelible black ink.

She has a memory on a loop – full of fear. There’s that phrase again. A cliché. Full of fear.

Maudie lay jammed up against the cold wall, avoiding the damp patch in the middle of the sheet. A sliver of moonlight cut across the floor of the dorm. The others were fast asleep.  She wanted to sleep too. She was so tired! But she had to go through with the ritual; she had to get rid of the smell and the tell-tale stain. Carefully, slowly, she got out of bed and eased the bottom sheet off the mattress.

Come. Please. I need you now. I can’t do this on my own anymore.

Hold my hand.

Hold my hand as I creep past Cruel Matron’s door in the night.

Don’t let go. You might slip. 

So many times

so many fearful times

she tiptoed past Cruel matron’s ajar door

softly softly

one bare footstep at a time

heart in throat

soft as air

on those hostile floorboards

tiptoe stop tiptoe stop

under the faint buzz of the corridor striplight

past the glint of Cruel Matron’s strategically placed mirror

a malevolent forewarning system

the surge of terror on passing

the danger point

the comparative relief

of the stairs

cold stone touching bare feet

down and round the corner

out of sight

in the dark silent night

clutching her white urine-soaked cotton sheet

So here we are, little one. The washrooms. Look. Do you see the narrow, high windows? The damp name-taped little towels hanging on the row of hooks? Do you see the sodden duckboard running the length of the line of little basins? The large stone arch opening on to the shower room? Four showers on the left, and two baths against the wall on the right. 

Can you see the two naked girls wearing shower caps sharing a cold bath end to end?

She can feel the biting cold of the water. The light pressure of Cruel Matron’s hand resting on her head. 

Can you see the row of small white basins? The little manky wooden nailbrushes?

With those nailbrushes, we brushed our nails before bed for evening inspection. Or was it morning inspection? Morning? Evening? Morning? Evening?  The windows in that bathroom were high and didn’t show the sky. That’s why. That’s why she can’t remember!

There we are. A line of naked little girls, shivering and grinning like skulls, hands stretched out in front, palms down – while Cruel Matron moves down the line during teeth and nail inspection. 

And in the empty echoes of the night, she stood again at those basins, using a wooden nailbrush to scrub around the ring of urine.

First, the creeping down.

And then, worse, the creeping back up. Back up those stairs.

Back to the dorm. Barely breathing on the cold stone - years of smooth-flaked layers of paint, the colour of stale blood, under her small cold feet.  

Then back at last in the comparative safety of her own little world, her allocated bed. Back to Big Ted. Big Ted who travelled with her across time zones, across her split self. Big Ted who knew her better than anyone.

The best bed was a corner bed. Hugging Big Ted tight in a corner bed, her nose in his fur. A little haven where she could turn her face to the wall and wipe snot on it in the dark.  Or cry, gnawed up with homesickness, biting the pillow so as not to be heard.

But maybe slightly wanting to be heard, for sometimes there was comfort in being held in the arms of another child. A child brave enough to cross the floor after lights out.

Yes, sometimes we tried to mother each other in those dorms. Those dorms full of secrets. The burden of others’ secrets. The burden of her own secret. Hold me now, little one. Hold me.

Nothing adds up.

It was a secret -  surely. No one knew. It was her hidden Achilles heel.

But it was not a secret!  She realises now. She washed her sheets in front of the other girls. So they knew! She had a named rubber sheet. So everyone knew! The boys knew. That was the biggest shame. Or maybe they didn’t notice. Because if they did - who would fall in love with a girl who wet her bed? And boy did she care about the boys! She married some of them. Down by the vegetable patch.

Come with me into my secret down the cold stone stairs again and again into those recurring cold washrooms tiptoe stop tiptoe stop  again and again in the dead of night with breath-holding treads of fear on creaking floorboards one after another one after another softly softly stand with me barefoot on the damp duckboard scrub scrub scrubbing round the tidal mark of piss give me the warmth of you by my side  again and again hold my hand again and again as we creep back up the cold stone stairs tiptoe with me past her door back into the sleeping dorm help me put the sheet back on the bed again and again hold my hand please lie with me …

Oh, you’ve gone!

She now wonders now about this sclerotic loop

She trusts it happened. More than once … more than twice  … 

But did it really happen time and time again? Fuck knows.

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