MORNING SERIAL
‘AND, Fraulein, I think it would be nice if Rachel had a long soak in the bath. It will relax her.’
‘It is not this group’s bathing night,’ came the objection.
‘It is if I say it is, Fraulein.’ ‘But we are only allowed so much hot water and regulations state that each girl receives a full bath only once a week, and this, with a strip-wash every day, cleaning under the arms with a flannel, should be sufficient to keep each individual clean. Sadly young Rachel is shy to strip to the waist and hence misses her regular washes that are so essential to our hygiene and I have noticed too, if I may put this point to you now, Miss Dahl, that she does not take her clothes off to get into her weekly bath, with the result ...’
‘That’s because you can’t lock the doors, miss, and people look over the top of the wall and laugh at me ...’ the child blurted.
‘We are not concerned with cleanliness,’ Issie, red-faced and sickened, told the matron, ‘but with kindness. Fraulein, I have asked that Rachel be given the opportunity of a hot soak. I don’t see a problem about this.’
Matron drew herself up to her full height and raised her head. Issie saw where the cosmetic mask ended beneath her chin, exposing pouchy wrinkled skin.
‘As you wish. Rachel Goldman, Miss Dahl wants that you take a bath to make you nice and clean.’
A mean titter passed round the girls: a collusion with the Matron, in which they and she agreed to stigmatise the outsider as unclean.
‘That is not what I said, Matron, and not what I meant. Rachel, I thought you might find a nice hot bath would make you feel better. Also a cup of tea, Matron, sweet, please, with two teaspoons of sugar. Don’t let me hold you up in your duties.’
Issie stalked off, wishing she had never embarked on the subject of baths with that ghoul.
Had the woman never been de-Nazified? How did creatures like that get into the system? She knew there were decent matrons, for Miss Koch was a gentle young woman who mothered the boys and made their lives as homely as she could.
> The Element of Water by Stevie Davies is published by Parthian in the Library of Wales series www.parthianbooks.com
CONTINUES TOMORROW