Biddy was outraged and went home via the presbytery where she complained bitterly to Father Monahon. He had known nothing about the collapse of Kevin, but assured Biddy there must be some misunderstanding and that he would go himself to the hospital to find out what was what.
The hospital staff had been given no instructions about the priest and so he was allowed to see Kevin. Even he was shocked to see how thin and wan the child looked. His eyes seemed huge in the gaunt, pinched face and they grew ever bigger and wider as he looked at the priest he had always been a little nervous of.
‘Well now, Kevin,’ the priest said heartily. ‘What’s all this?’
‘Dunno, Father.’
‘Collapsing at school I was told.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘Did you feel unwell?’
Kevin could have said he had never felt right since the day he had learned that his parents had died, but he didn’t know how to put that into words and he was too weary to try, so he shrugged and said, ‘Not specially.’
‘Had everyone worried, you know,’ the priest said, as if it had been Kevin’s own fault.
He didn’t know what to say to that other than, ‘Yes, Father.’
‘Your grandmother in particular is very worried.’
He saw the shudder pass through Kevin’s body and it irritated him. He went on, ‘She came along to see you and they wouldn’t let her in – some notion or other that it might disturb you. Well, I am going to see about that this minute, for I have never heard such nonsense.’
Kevin’s eyes grew wider than ever. ‘No! No!’ he yelled.
‘Kevin, don’t be so silly,’ the priest snapped. ‘And really, this is not a matter for you to decide. You are just a small boy and not equipped to make judgements. That is for your elders and betters, and whatever strange aversion you have to your grandmother, you will have to overcome it, for I’m sure when I speak with the doctor he will see how ridiculous the whole thing is.’
Kevin was sure he would too. Few adults seemed to care about the things that bothered children. There was a sudden roaring in his head at the dread of seeing his grandmother in the room, and he opened his mouth and began to scream.
The priest leaped up from the side of the bed crying, ‘Stop this, Kevin! Stop this nonsense!’
The next minute he was almost knocked on his back as the doctor pushed past him, and when he saw the child in the grip of terror, he knew that whatever the priest had said or done had brought this on, and so while he prepared a syringe for the child, he said through gritted teeth, to the nurses that had followed him into the room, ‘Get him out of here.’
‘I assure you, I did or said nothing,’ the priest said as he was led away. ‘One minute I was talking to the child and the next he was yelling his head off.’
He was yelling no longer, for the sedative had done its work and Kevin had lapsed again into a drug-induced stupor. The doctor knew that from that point on, the priest would be another on the banned list of visitors.
Almost a week after Kevin’s admittance to hospital, Molly was given the day off from school because it was the Silver Jubilee of King George V. She visited Kevin in the hospital, which was festooned in red, white and blue, and in festival mode.
‘They say we’re having a party and that,’ Kevin told his sister. ‘And a concert.’
‘You going?’
‘Nah. Don’t think so,’ Kevin said. ‘I don’t feel like it.’
Molly understood, for there had been things planned in Erdington too. She had met Hilda on the road a few days earlier and she had advised her to go and enjoy herself. ‘Your mom and dad wouldn’t want you like this,’ she’d said assuredly. ‘You mustn’t feel bad about having a bit of fun now and then.’
‘I know that, Hilda,’ Molly had answered. ‘And maybe in time I will be able to do this, but just now I am too full of sadness to think of anything else. I really am poor company for anyone these days and I am best on my own learning to cope with everything. Anyway, if I had been breaking my neck to go, do you think for one moment my grandmother would let me? She has a poor view on anything that might spell enjoyment for me. God, I have to fight tooth and nail to visit Kevin.’
‘What does your grandfather say of all this carry-on?’
‘Very little,’ Molly said. ‘There’s no point because it would do no good and anyway, if he does say anything she is worse to me afterwards.’
‘I feel that sorry for you, bab.’
‘Hilda, I feel sorry for myself and that doesn’t help either,’ Molly said candidly. ‘And I am afraid that the Jubilee celebrations will have to go on without me.’
One Thursday afternoon over a week later, Molly returned home from school to find a social worker in the house, filling in forms with her grandmother. The visitor looked up and smiled as Molly entered the room.
‘Aren’t you the lucky girl then, going to live far from this dusty city?’ she said.
Molly didn’t feel the slightest bit lucky and she had to know whether there was any sort of viable alternative, even if Biddy punished her afterwards. Just lately she had begun to think an orphanage in Birmingham would be preferable to going anywhere with her horrid grandmother. At least then she might be able to see her granddad and Kevin sometimes.
‘But, you see, I like Birmingham,’ she said, ‘Couldn’t I stay in an orphanage here?’
The social worker laughed a little before saying, ‘Well, you are a funny one and no mistake. Most children wouldn’t choose an orphanage if they had any choice in the matter, but you wouldn’t be offered a place anyway.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because our orphanages are already bursting at the seams,’ the social worker said. ‘They are for children who have no one. They have either been abandoned by their parents or the parents are dead and there is no one else to care for them, while you on the other hand—’
‘Have a home waiting for you,’ Biddy said, cutting in. She continued with a malevolent sneer, ‘Get used to it, Molly. I’m stuck with you and your brother and you are stuck with me.’
Molly knew she was right and at first she told herself that she was the lucky one, because in a year she could be working and then she could save and get away from the woman, come back to Birmingham if she liked. But then, how could she leave Kevin totally unprotected? She knew that she could not do that. When they escaped her clutches they had to do it together. She sighed as she realised she was looking at years and years of putting up with verbal and physical abuse, scorn and ridicule.
However, when her grandfather came home from a meeting he had had with Kevin’s doctor at the hospital, he had more news, which he told them over tea that evening. It had been decided that when Kevin was well enough to leave the hospital, he would be delivered into his grandfather’s care and left there. The medical staff had said, in their opinion he needed people he knew and loved around him, and taking him from the familiar would be detrimental to his health. Not even the Catholic Church had the power to overturn that ruling and Stan was hard-pressed not to show his blessed relief at the decision, though he felt heartsore that nothing similar could be done to save Molly from Biddy’s clutches.
At first Molly did feel slightly resentful and was saddened that she would be leaving her little brother behind, but then she decided it was better for both of them. She knew he would be all right with their grandfather. Meanwhile she only had to look out for herself