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by Penny Parkes

  The two boys grabbed their backpacks and stormed off, leaving Lucy holding up one finger to speed them on their way. ‘Now that’s better.’ She sighed happily, throwing her arm around Anna’s slight shoulders and giving her a squeeze.

  Anna nodded, mute for a moment, at the overwhelming pleasure she felt, sitting here on a rainy Monday lunchtime, with Lucy Graham’s arm around her.

  ‘Now, before you tell me all about your thoughts on Eliot’s imagery and cadence – and no, Anna-Banana, I do not believe that you haven’t read “The Waste Land” upside down and inside out.’ She grinned conspiratorially. ‘Let’s get down to business – are we talking black Lab or cockapoo?’

  Anna laughed and tugged a copy of Dog Breeds of England out of her school bag. ‘What do you think about collies?’ she asked earnestly. ‘It says here that collies and poodles are the cleverest breeds. You can teach them all sorts.’

  ‘Cleverer than Gus and Kevin anyway.’ Lucy smiled, picking up the book to scan the page, her arm still leaning on Anna’s shoulders. ‘Have you never had a dog before? I think it’s a brand loyalty situation oftentimes.’

  ‘Sort of,’ Anna replied. ‘I lived with a lady who had a golden retriever and a Heinz 57 for a while.’

  ‘A what now?’ Lucy said, her brow furrowing and her eyes crinkling with amusement.

  Anna could barely look away, flustered. ‘Oh, you know, when it’s a real mixture of different breeds and you can’t really tell which. Like the Heinz sauces?’

  ‘You really are a dark horse, you know that, Anna Wilson? Fancy laptop, crappy bag? Great haircut, gnarly, bitten nails, girl. And your brain? Well, you just put me to shame with some of your insights, you know that?’ Lucy lifted her arm away and for a moment Anna felt a chill of loss where the heat of approval had lain.

  So many answers she could have offered. Some frank, some embarrassing. It was still a source of conflicted shame that Social Services had provided her with said laptop as a nod to her academic prowess, and a sop to moving away from King James. Tutors had been offered. Support nothing short of awkward, as apparently it was ‘policy’ for the gifted amongst the ‘looked-after children.’ But that didn’t sit easily with Anna; surely it was the children who struggled, who were slipping through the cracks that would benefit most from a little extra help? She had everything she needed between her own two ears.

  But, still, the laptop was cool. And had probably won her more friends at Hinchworth than anything else she owned or had done.

  ‘You know,’ Lucy said quietly, dropping her voice until her words were just a whisper on Anna’s neck, ‘if there’s anything you want to talk about – school stuff, home stuff – I’m always here.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Anna said, thrown a little by the intimacy. ‘But I’m remarkably boring.’

  ‘Oh, I doubt that,’ said Lucy with feeling. ‘I doubt that very much.’

  * * *

  ‘But what could I have said?’ Anna sighed crossly later that day, sitting at the dining table reading T. S. Eliot for the umpteenth time. Obviously, because she enjoyed it, but also because she’d noticed that Lucy had another essay due next week. And this was something she could do to say thank you for the daily lunchtime respite in the library.

  ‘What did you want to say?’ asked Kara, wiping her hands on a tea-towel bearing the legend ‘I cook therefore I am’.

  Anna shrugged, her new default reaction to everything, which was in danger of giving her a crick in the neck. ‘Well, I’m not sure “My dad’s in prison and my mum fucked off and left me” is a real conversation starter,’ she burst out crossly.

  ‘Anna!’ said Kara, shocked. ‘I can’t dispute the fact, but the language!’

  ‘Sorry,’ Anna muttered, not really meaning it. Swear words lent themselves so well to expressing all the pent-up, pissed-off feelings she carried around like an old, annoying friend you couldn’t shake off.

  ‘You could say that you live with foster parents? You could say that you’ve had a tricky time and you’re enjoying starting over?’ Kara gave a nervous smile as though she might have been overreaching. ‘You could just say nothing?’ She twisted the tea-towel between her fingers as she perched on a chair beside Anna.

  ‘Why are you looking at me funny?’ Anna scowled.

  ‘Because I’m wondering if I’m brave enough to make a suggestion that might help,’ Kara said honestly. ‘Because you’re not the only one making adjustments.’

  ‘O-kay.’

  ‘Well, I wondered if it would make it easier, when you’re talking to friends, or here at home, well – I wondered if you’d like to call us Mum and Dad?’ Kara said, the words tumbling over each other in a rush to get them out.

  Anna was speechless.

  The look on Kara’s face was enough to tell Anna how important this was, certainly not a moment for mindless reactions or rudeness.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly, going to reach for Kara’s hand but then unable to breach that final few inches. ‘It’s just, I kind of already have a mum, and a dad. I mean, I know I never see them, but they’re the reason you can’t adopt me, right?’ She paused. ‘Ian said something about hurdles? I’m guessing they’re the hurdle?’

  Kara nodded.

  It was one of the things Anna liked so much about them: neither Kara nor Ian ever talked to her as though she was a baby. They shared things – good and bad – and they asked her opinion. Like with the puppy. Anna knew that Kara wanted a little scruffy terrier, but they’d left the choice to her. Which seemed kind of bold, when you reasoned how long a dog might live, against how long Anna might get to stay in one place.

  ‘I could try it,’ Anna suggested. ‘I just don’t know if it might feel weird.’

  Kara nodded, a little choked up by her honesty. ‘No pressure from me, sweetheart. Just thought it might normalise things a little for you.’

  ‘You know,’ Anna said, squirming in her seat, but aware that Kara somehow needed more from her, ‘maybe I don’t have to call you Mum and Dad for you to know how much I like it here, how much I like you.’

  Kara gave a little sob and then pulled Anna into a clumsy hug, the damp tea-towel pressed between them.

  The radio in the kitchen burbled away in the background, some Irish bloke bemoaning that his life was a rollercoaster and he just had to ride it.

  Anna could identify.

  For all the ups and downs of late, she had started to finally buy into the idea that Jackie was right and that she was, in fact, a very lucky girl.

  But, still, a lucky girl in a state of constant uncertainty.

  Until she got some answers, no matter how hurtful, she wondered whether she would ever be able to let go of her mother, or of the hope that one day she might come back and claim her. Or perhaps, even, just know for sure that it was over. Talking to Lucy of late, Anna had begun to see her mother in a whole new light – and the older she became, the more she was certain of one thing: her mother’s actions were entirely selfish. Neither here nor fully gone. No adoption on the table for Anna, yet no contact with her mother either. Never knowing when Jenny Wilson might appear in her life and turn everything upside down.

  A life in limbo, in fact.

  ‘Would you be cross,’ Anna asked quietly from the middle of the hug, ‘if I asked Jackie to arrange a meeting with my mother?’

  Chapter 23

  Swindon, 2001

  It might have been a knee-jerk request, but Anna’s mention of her mother sat heavily upon the household all over the weekend and into the following week. Unacknowledged to the point that Anna began to wonder whether she’d actually spoken aloud, the discomfort and awkwardness persisted, conversations suddenly shallow and superficial.

  She hadn’t meant to hurt Kara. Or Ian.

  But obviously she had, and therein lay the conflict, because Anna really did want to see her mother, to ask her the hard questions, to drill down for the truth. She’d become more and more convinced that the only way forward, for her, was
through. And she was prepared to go through all the pain and uncertainty all over again if it meant she’d get some form of closure.

  The image of Lucy’s carefree confidence was her constant touchstone.

  But there was no way she could even conceive of herself being so together at seventeen without some form of change – overnight it seemed that answers were the only currency that mattered. With Kara and Ian holding the proverbial purse strings though, she was stuck, bound by their generosity in giving her a home, inviting her into their lives. How could she possibly make them understand that she would be more ‘theirs’ if she wasn’t so torn in different directions?

  It was also, she realised, the first time she’d asked for anything since moving in with them and, sure, it was a biggie right off the bat. It was also an honest and genuine request and their reaction confused her.

  ‘Ian,’ Anna began tentatively, twisting her spoon in the bowl of homemade rhubarb crumble that had become her favourite dessert. ‘Did Kara mention to you about my mum, about me wanting to see my mum?’

  His face clenched a little, the colour blanching from his lips, his laden spoon frozen in mid-air.

  ‘She did. We talked about it. It’s not a good idea.’

  Three short sentences that made a mockery of the relationship they had begun to build. None of the usual consideration, open conversation or treating her like an individual. Right there, clamped down, as though Anna wasn’t a person at all.

  The gleam of the rhubarb in her bowl took on a fleshy pink resemblance and Anna felt a wave of such intense nausea sweep through her body that it was as though she were on a boat out in choppy seas. Could she – was it possible that she had misjudged these people too?

  ‘But—’ she began, wanting to explain about how she could properly settle if only she knew why she was here, living with Kara and Ian – who wanted her to call them Mum and Dad – in the first place.

  ‘Enough,’ said Ian quietly but with such force that Anna felt winded. ‘You’ll upset Kara. Anna, for God’s sake, don’t you care that you’re upsetting Kara at all?’ He pushed his chair away from the table and walked through to the kitchen where his wife was making a pot of tea to bring through, as was her custom after every meal. He caressed her taut shoulders and whispered something into her ear that made her turn to look up at him adoringly, her tired smile outlined against the darkness of the kitchen window and the world beyond.

  They stood for a moment, joined together and, watching them, Anna felt a little piece of herself let go. She released any hope that she might one day be theirs, for they already had each other. And apparently her feelings would always, always come second to that. How did the proverb go? The children of lovers are orphans? Well, she already felt superfluous in her own parents’ lives; she truly didn’t need that reinforced by these people, however well meaning they were.

  So, technically, she decided, pushing away the now repugnant bowl of pink, she had nothing left to lose.

  She stood up and walked through to the kitchen, twelve years old, only just over four feet tall yet filled with barely concealed fury at the world.

  ‘I want to meet my mother. My real mother,’ she threw in cruelly. ‘So are you going to phone Jackie to organise it, or shall I?’

  * * *

  Anna touched her fingers to the burn on her ear, wincing at the sudden stab of pain. It had seemed so important to look nice for today. Without Kara to help her, the heated tongs had been unwieldy – slippery and so very, very hot. Without Kara, she’d dithered about what to wear, blindsided by the array of clothes in her wardrobe, unsure what went together, tags still swinging.

  Kara and Ian had simply left the house as soon as Jackie arrived, eyes averted, shoulders tense.

  She might only be a child, but did they think she was stupid? Did they think that pushing her out would make her want to come back in? Every day since that horrible evening had been worse than the one before: stilted, polite but utterly cold, as though in asking for what she wanted rather than playing their chameleon game, she had rebutted their offer of acceptance.

  Weren’t they supposed to be the grown-ups? Two months of the cold shoulder surpassed even the shittiest of kids at Hinchworth.

  But still, she supposed, looking at the clock again, her eyes flickering to the tiny notepad where she’d jotted down the questions she wanted to ask – Jackie’s idea – in case she got flummoxed.

  There’d been no secret about how difficult it had been to track down Jenny Wilson in Dublin, or indeed of how reluctant she had been to commit to this day. Months in the making. In the waiting. Jackie had carefully, considerately, told her this, ‘because she was old enough to understand that happily ever afters were only for fairy tales’.

  Ya think? Anna had wanted to reply, but she didn’t; instead she’d merely repeated her requests for answers and a sense of whether there was anything left from the first seven years of her life.

  ‘She’s late,’ Jackie said, patting Anna’s hand with her own; padded and clammy, it hardly felt real. Shalimar stung the back of Anna’s nostrils. ‘And it’s still okay if you’ve changed your mind?’

  Anna shook her head. Sitting like this, looking out of the window across the street, smart clothes unforgiving and stiff, she reminded herself that on the other side of this conversation was the rest of her life.

  A life like Lucy Graham’s maybe? With an offer of a place at Oxford and a shining confidence that lit up the dull greyness of Hinchworth. Even if Lucy had inexplicably decided that Gus was the kind of person she wanted to kiss. Urgh.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Anna, continuing to stare down the empty street, heart racing at the occasional passing of a neighbour’s car. When finally another bus pulled up across the road she held her breath, increasingly panicked that she wouldn’t recognise her own mother when she saw her.

  She needn’t have worried.

  The bus pulled away leaving only two teenage boys on the pavement, lobbing chocolate wrappers at each other and laughing as they tussled. Carefree.

  Or so it seemed.

  Anna was getting good at looking past the smoke and mirrors. She might have failed with Dave, ignoring her gut, and yes, Kara and Ian had disappointed in such a fundamental way that for a while there she’d felt untethered from herself and her own instincts, but she would learn. She would get better. For what else was there?

  ‘Are you okay, poppet?’ Jackie said, the extra warmth in her voice a well-worn sign that things were not going well.

  ‘She’s just late, right?’ Anna said, doubting herself all over again.

  The clock didn’t lie though. Half an hour, maybe, could be nothing. An hour might have warranted a text to Jackie. But after two hours and four buses?

  ‘She’s not coming, is she?’ Anna asked, looking up at Jackie for answers, never before feeling so small or as vulnerable as she did in that moment. She just wanted a conversation – she wasn’t interested in guilt or blame or even the promise of a future. She just wanted to know.

  Angry tears leaked from between her lashes, carrying with them dark streaks of Maybelline.

  ‘Oh, poppet. We all knew it was a gamble. She’s just not – well, she’s not the most reliable, your mum, is she, darling? Kind of why you’re here.’ Her words were soft, well meaning, but they left Anna cold. Didn’t anybody understand that she wasn’t asking for much?

  She just wanted to know.

  And this wasn’t the kind of thing she could look up in the library.

  ‘I don’t want to stay here,’ Anna said, her jaw pulsing with unspoken emotions. ‘Kara and Ian. They don’t want me. They want somebody who likes pink, and who agrees with them about everything and who doesn’t have an independent thought in their head!’ she burst out.

  Jackie nodded, considering her words. ‘I think you’ve just described a lot of parents.’ She attempted a smile to show she was joking around, that everything would be okay.

  ‘No,’ Anna insisted. ‘I don’t want t
o stay here. And you can’t make me.’

  For a moment she thought of Lucy in the library tomorrow, waiting for her, an essay in her hand, that easy smile of welcome, and she hesitated. But it wasn’t enough reason to stay – even though common sense told her that she was incredibly privileged here, her heart yearned for something more.

  A family where she could belong, just as she was.

  No contortions, no selling of her soul required.

  And maybe, just maybe, somewhere where she was wanted and valued, just as she was.

  She thought about going into school especially, just to say goodbye, to hear Lucy’s heartfelt promise to keep in touch.

  Three little words that could mean so much, yet often translate to so little.

  ‘Of course,’ Anna could almost hear herself reply, already all too familiar with the concept of an empty promise. Really, what was the point?

  She shook her head. ‘I’ll get my things,’ she said to a shocked Jackie, who was clearly scrambling to adapt to this sudden change of affairs.

  ‘Wait, Anna, this is madness,’ Jackie said, catching her hand. ‘Sit down, love. Let’s talk this through.’

  Anna sat, obedience apparently still her default setting.

  ‘Jackie. Nobody is ever going to adopt me, right? My parents are still alive. They don’t actually want me, but they don’t want anyone else to have me either, yes? They won’t let go of their – what did you call it?’

  ‘Legal paternity,’ Jackie said resignedly, as though she could now see where Anna was heading with this. This bright, precocious twelve-year-old who seemed to see far beyond the little that Social Services had chosen to share.

  ‘So people like Kara and Ian – they want a little girl to adopt, yes? Somebody to call them Mum and Dad and be one of their family? For keeps.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Jackie, ‘but they—’

  ‘—settled for me?’ Anna supplied matter-of-factly. ‘And Dave? At the last place? He didn’t want to be my dad, did he?’