Behind his desk with Abbie in front of him Felix felt more comfortable. This was a familiar situation, despite the fact that this was his wife in the chair. He could feel himself slipping into his routine, falling back on the little phrases and gestures that had become second nature. The words came easily, and Abbie listened, impressed and surprised by his confidence and manner, happy to let him talk.
‘No, it doesn’t look like much, but there will be things in here you’re not expecting. Some things that puzzle or interest you. Excite you even. And things that come as a shock.’
She nodded and he went on.
‘People are given up for adoption for all kinds of reasons, some of them pretty obvious, some of them more… dramatic. Have you given that any thought?’
‘A little,’ said Abbie.
‘And what did you imagine?’
‘Well, on the one hand there was, you know, stigma. Back then. If people weren’t married. And sometimes they just couldn’t afford to keep the baby, if money was tight. And on the other hand…’ She swallowed, and looked at him to check she was taking the conversation in the right direction.
‘Go on.’
‘Well, rape. That would be the worst. Wouldn’t it?’
He wanted to lean across and touch her. But on the day he’d told her the file had arrived, she’d made him promise not to open it until she visited the office. She wanted what she called a ‘proper’ interview. No privileges or courtesies, no special services or loveydovey stuff. She wanted it done by the book, and when he asked why, she’d said, ‘Because I don’t want you to feel like you’re doing me a favour.’ He’d agreed, and he was good at keeping his word. Now he felt sorry for her. But maybe that was something she didn’t want either - his pity.
‘Before we go into things, I just want to tell you that adoption back then wasn’t like it is now. These days everything is done in triplicate. There are procedures that have to be followed and it’s all very formal, very standardized. In the past, it was a bit more… hit and miss, shall we say. Some of this information is going to be very haphazard. In fact the files are usually pulped after so many years. The clerk at the court in Norwich told me he found yours in a cupboard in the cellar, behind the boiler.’
‘Charming.’
‘I’m telling you that you’ve been really lucky, Abbie. There could have been nothing.’
Abbie nodded, as if she’d been told off. Then her eyes settled on the pink ribbon around the folder as Felix plucked at the knot until it began to loosen.
‘And what about your mum and dad?’
‘That’s what I’ve come to find out, isn’t it?’
‘I mean your adoptive parents.’
‘What about them?’
‘Have you told them what you’re doing?’
She shook her head.
‘Why not?’
‘You know why not.’
Felix raised his eyebrows. If he was going to keep to his side of the bargain then she had to as well. A proper interview - that’s what she wanted and that’s what she was going to get. It meant staying in character. Playing the game. He stopped tugging at the knot:
‘All right, all right,’ she said. ‘I see Mum and Dad a couple of times a year. They’re lovely people and I don’t want to hurt them. When I was ten they told me I was adopted - they’ve never mentioned it since and I’ve never asked. They retired to the seaside three years ago and they’re very happy and I’m very happy for them. I know this sounds like a daft thing to say, but it’s none of their business. They’ve done their bit and they did it well. Now it’s up to me. It’s my turn.’
‘You say they only mentioned it the once. Deep down, do you think you want to punish them, for not dealing with it properly?’
This time Abbie lifted her eyebrows. Yes, she wanted this doing by the book, but she hadn’t come here to be analysed. She wanted information and facts. She wanted answers. She wanted Felix to stop teasing the pink ribbon and get on with it. He yanked a little harder, and as the knot sprang open the folder swelled slightly, a small but perceptible expansion, like a drawing of breath. He pulled out a dozen or so loose sheets of paper of various sizes and shapes, and shuffled them in his hand, unfolding a long-by-narrow document and placing it on top of the pile.
‘Well, this is amazing. This shouldn’t be in here really. Have you ever seen this before?’ he said, holding a birth certificate towards her.
Abbie shook her head, staring at the paper with its red background and border and its bold, black calligraphy. ‘No.’
‘This is a real bonus.’
Felix laid it flat in front of her and pointed at the different boxes with the unprotruded tip of a ballpoint pen.
‘Look. Maria.’
‘Who’s that? Was that my name when I was born?’ said Abbie.
‘No, Maria Rosales. That was your mother.’
‘Rosales?’ said Abbie, uncomprehendingly.
‘Sounds Mexican or something. South American, maybe.’
‘Rosales?’ Her hair began to drift in front of her face as she studied the document and she put her hand to her forehead to hold it in place. ‘Was that my… surname?’
‘Sort of. In those days you could only take your father’s surname. But look.’
Abbie’s eyes followed the pen as it travelled to column number 4, entitled, ‘Name, and surname of father’. The box was empty, except for a small, horizontal dash of black ink. In a low, quiet voice, Felix inquired, ‘Am I going too fast? We could take a break here.’
Abbie’s eyes were jumping from one part of the certificate to another. ‘No. I’m OK,’ she said, in a voice even quieter than his.
He carried on, thinking of the positives, taking his pen back to column number 6 and tapping at the name Rosales. ‘It sounds Spanish to me. And look, the address she gave can’t be far from where you were brought up.’
‘Rosales,’ she said to herself. Then again to Felix, as a question, ‘Rosales?’
Felix scanned the next sheet of paper and put it down on the table facing away from him. It was typed but slightly fuzzy, as if it had been photocopied several times, and from his side of the desk Felix was only just able to decipher it. He read it out loud and guided Abbie’s eyes with his pen again along each sentence. ‘“Adoption Act 1950. The infant was born on 9 May…”’
‘The 6th,’ she corrected him.
‘“On 6 May 1964 at home and remained with her mother for three weeks only until being placed with the applicants, Mr and Mrs Lawrence, on a voluntary basis. The infant is not of an age to understand the adoption proceedings… The mother is Spanish and looking for work in this country… gives her consent freely and without pressure… satisfied that the adoption is in the best interest of the child… wants her to have a happy family life… states that as a young, unmarried woman at the beginning of her career she is not in a position to keep the child… is not prepared to reveal the identity of the father…”’
He broke off for a moment to ask again if Abbie was OK.
‘Keep going,’ she said plainly.
‘“The adoptive parents, Mr and Mrs Lawrence, are not able to have children of their own… were actually recommended by the mother herself, which, although unusual, is not seen as inappropriate. The National Adoption Society therefore wishes to support the application.’”
He pushed the paper closer to Abbie, implying that she should pick it up and read it for herself. There were several documents left to look at, but they were nothing more than admin really, court orders and the like. There would be no more bombshells, only aftershock.
Felix felt a kind of relief pass through him, remembering her enunciate the word ‘rape’. This was the gist of it, right here in Abbie’s hands. For a minute or so he watched her eyes travelling along each line of writing, and thought about how those sentences would be sounding now in her head as she read silently to herself. Maybe she heard the voice of the woman who had composed and signed that letter, a Mrs J. Campion, M
oral Welfare Officer for the district. What would her voice be like? Disapproving and starchy, he imagined. A churchgoer, probably. A widow in horn-rimmed glasses and a woollen skirt with no offspring of her own, a dim view of sex before marriage and an active dislike of single mothers. A woman whose vocation it was to place illegitimate children firstly into the care of God and secondly into the charge of decent families, preferably C of E, with good table manners, a saloon car in the drive and a bit of money in the bank. He even pictured Mrs J. Campion sitting in his chair, doing his job, and thought of her in the staff meeting, arguing with Mo, telling her off for wearing jeans in the office. Social workers had changed. Once they were police court missionaries, do-gooders in cardigans, and there was still the odd one around, like Marjorie, who thought that most problems could be solved with common sense and a pot of fresh tea. But now they were people like Mo, with her short hair and Doc Martens. Or people like Roy, with his street talk and his contacts. Or people like Neville, who didn’t give a toss one way or another, or like Bernard, who hadn’t got a due. Or damaged people like Thelma. And people like Felix. He thought for a while about what sort of social worker he was, but nothing definite came to mind. Abbie was still looking at the letter and at the certificate of her birth, but her expression was hard to read. Not just because she was silent and so utterly absorbed, but because she was someone else now. A foreigner. A woman whose mother came from Valencia or Salamanca or Madrid. Did he know anyone from Spain? Anyone from that background? No, he didn’t, except for the woman in front of him. The woman he was married to. His wife.
Abbie put the papers down on the table. Normally at this point Felix would have asked if there were any questions, anything that wasn’t clear. And he was just formulating a speech about the way ahead, the possible pitfalls of tracing birth parents and so on, when the door banged open and Neville walked in. He was carrying a huge stack of folders that hid his face.
‘If they don’t fix that fucking lift this week there’s going to be a fucking lawsuit. Five floors and me with a dodgy spine. I’ll get the bloody union on it, I swear.’
‘Er, I’ve got someone with me,’ said Felix.
He pointed at Abbie, who was very cool, and simply raised her hand and smiled. ‘Hi.’
‘Oh, sorry, Abbie. Didn’t know you were here.’
Felix began to scoop the documents together into a pile. ‘We, er, we were just booking a holiday, filling the forms in and all that.’
‘So where are you going that needs a birth certificate. Albania?’ He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, then began rummaging in his pockets for a hankie.
‘On a cruise,’ said Felix. ‘Aren’t we, Abbie?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes. And it goes to lots of different countries, and they have to get all the passports and bureaucracy sorted out in advance, you see.’
He looked at Neville’s expression to see if his story made sense, but Neville wasn’t really listening.
‘Pass me one of those tissues you keep for the weepies, will you? I’m in a right lather.’
Abbie stood up. ‘Well, got to get back to work. Nice to see you, Neville.’
‘Yeah, nice to see you too. Where does it go, then?’
‘What?’
‘This cruise? They must be paying him more than they pay me. Where does it sail to?’
‘Oh, Felix will tell you. He’s got all the details. Where does it go to, Felix?’
‘Erm, Argentina,’ said Felix, as he put the last of the paperwork back in the folder and threw it into the drawer.
‘Argentina? How long does that take?’
‘Oh, not long. It’s a very fast boat. I’m just going to see Abbie out. Catch you later.’
But by the time he got to the end of the corridor and the top of the stairwell, Abbie was halfway down the fire escape, and even though he called to her she didn’t stop or even look up. From the window he saw her disappear into the underpass, then reappear on the far side, walking quickly with her head down, towards the precinct and the shops, and even though he called her six or seven times that afternoon and left messages on her mobile she didn’t phone back.
He drove home at about half-four, not knowing what he might find. When he walked into the kitchen Abbie was stood at the ironing board, pressing a crease along the leg of a pair of black trousers. Steam rose from the fabric as the iron glided from the waistband to the turn-up at the far end.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just needed to do something. I’ve even mopped the floor.’
Felix looked down at the shining lino under his feet. ‘You should come and see me more often. The house will be spotless.’
Abbie gave a quick smile, then stood the iron on its end. A big burst of steam hissed into the air and evaporated.
‘I’ve brought you a present,’ he said, opening his briefcase. She watched as he pulled out the length of pink ribbon, the one from the folder, and held it towards her. ‘For your hair. To stop it falling over your lovely face.’
And with the ironing board still between them, he reached behind her, gathered her long black hair into a thick ponytail, looped the ribbon around it and tied it in a bow. When he tried to stand back to see how it looked she wouldn’t let go, and pressed her race into his shirt. She was crying now. Her shoulders and head shook with the tears that bubbled up from deep in her body. He held her, and against his chest he sensed the warmth of her mouth as it opened and closed, and imagined he felt the words ‘thank you’ spoken into his ribs, even though he heard nothing but sobbing.
IKEA
As he makes the turn off the main road on to the trading estate, he still feels confident about what lies ahead. He can cope. But the moment the soles of his feet make contact with the metalled surface of the car park, a stiffness enters his body. It is a physical reluctance, beginning in his ankles. So in the main entrance he sits down on a pile of glossy catalogues and loosens the laces of his shoes. It’s Saturday. The weekend. Children are playing in the ball pool, having a great time. It looks like a happy place, but even here by the front door three or four husbands have lost the will to go on. And they have to be husbands. Only the enforcement of a marriage vow could lead a man here against his will. They are standing with their hands in their pockets, without purpose or hope. They have declined to enter, or more likely they have been sent back. Beneath their flesh their spines are sinking under the weight of their shoulders and the heaviness of their thoughts, like the flagpoles of defeated armies sinking into mud. They are not even waiting, because waiting is an ambition. A cause. Waiting has an outcome. These husbands simply exist. Just. They will have to be collected or removed, or remain in the entrance of the store until they fossilize or die.
The settees are first. Arrows on the floor suggest the direction of travel. Short cuts are futile. A gap between two bookcases appears to offer a direct route to bedroom furniture, but via office equipment, futons and armchairs finally doubles back to settees. Better to keep to the channel, stay with the slowly flowing stream of humankind, stepping aside once in a while to avoid the flailing arms and thrashing head of some shipwrecked sailor swimming against the tide.
After settees come beds. The cruelty could only be strategic. Here are yielding mattresses. Malleable springs. Plump, inviting pillows leavened with goosedown and candy floss. Duvets stuffed with fluffy white clouds and children’s dreams. It is torture. The stiffness in the ankles has now risen through the shins and calves and is causing an arthritic discomfort in both knees. Only a deep, undisturbed sleep could help. Hibernation. Coma. Persistent vegetative state. Extinction of the species. No more than a hundred yards into the labyrinth and already his courage has deserted him. So much for inner strength. So much for focus and mission statements and self-control He has toothache in his testicles. Breathing is difficult. In a zombified stupor he trudges on, and maybe he passes out, because his next conscious moment is an hour later, w
hen he comes to with the smell of food in his nostrils and a knife and fork in his hands.
In the cafeteria, initially at least, there is an atmosphere of reprieve and respite. This is base camp. The husbands here are survivors. They have made it this far and are rewarded with cigarettes, meatballs, the relaxation of the prostate gland. They hunch over tables, their hands clamped around hot drinks. Their only task is to guard the trolley or trolleys piled with three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles sometimes referred to as shelves or desks. But their minds wander. Their thoughts turn to the trees and shrubs on the other side of the shatter-proof glass. To the fields on the far side of the motorway. Their eyes fall to their plates, to the confluence of thick brown gravy and jellied loganberry juice. Then a contemplative, philosophical mood descends. What are we but shit and blood? Lost souls a long way from home? What are we but pack mules and power tools? Travellers with many obstacles to overcome, many zones to be entered and passed through? Zones tike Lighting or Fabrics. Or Kitchens, that hazardous interchange where a casual inquiry about a wine rack can lead to a formal interview with uniformed staff, where a wrong turn between breakfast bar and butcher’s block results in accidental deportation to the starting grid in the main entrance. Zones like the Warehouse, that matrix of scaffolding and shadowy culs-de-sac. Zones like the Market Place, where unwanted material goods conceal themselves in shopping baskets tike asylum seekers stowed away in the wheel hubs of intercontinental jets. It is with a deflated heart that the man drains the last of his refilled coffee and rejoins his shopping. His wife is a spectre disappearing into the distance. After three steps he has no feeling in his legs. Rheumatic pain assaults his knuckles as he grips the trolley. Like tree sickness, the inflammation in the root bole of his pelvis rises through his backbone and out along the boughs of his ribs. Neuralgia sets in, in both cheeks. The hospice of the cafe is already a distant memory. Cataracts are forming by the second, so the sunshine and fresh air through the doors beyond the checkouts are now just a dim and diminishing light.
The White Stuff Page 8
