Part Four
The next morning phone calls were made and it was arranged that Darcy would go to the social services office, with her friend’s parents, to explain what was going on. The offices were in a vast, grey, intimidating building. Darcy and her supporters were led along numerous corridors and upstairs. The place seemed to go on forever.
Finally, they arrived in a dreary green interview room, where a serious faced man sat behind a desk.
He listened and took notes, then he went away to call the home. It seemed an age before he came back. He said that Darcy would not be returning to the home. She would be taken to another location.
An hour later, Darcy was in his car on her way to yet another home, which was referred to as ‘The Lodge’. At the age of thirteen, it would be her eighth address. It wasn’t until they had been travelling for some time that she was told that The Lodge was a detention centre. She was to be held there for three months as a runaway risk.
Guarded gates slammed tightly shut
Iron bars and clanging doors
Girls and women stood in rank
Junkies, thieves and common whores
Days spent trying to adhere
Nights of silent tears and fear
Wardens all turn blindest eye
When beaten by the prison’s queen
Exploited as the daily stooge
To cover each illicit scheme
Plots and tricks the cons connive
Trials that one must survive
No way out. No saviour here
The truth comes as a bitter pill
Gather wits and grit the teeth
Grow up fast to fit the bill
Lessons serve to harden heart
Dead-pan face right from the start
At the end of her three month sentence, Darcy had learned a great many things during her stay at the Lodge ...not the merits of doings as one is told, nor the benefits of being sweet natured and sensitive. ...oh no. Thirteen year old Darcy had learned how to stand her ground and fight. She learned to roll and smoke cigarettes, the best way to unpick the hems of her clothes and the seams of her mattress, to hide things in and, above all, Darcy learned to hide her feelings. Such things had no place in the world of the unloved.
The great steel gates thundered closed behind her. Darcy was moving on to address number nine.
