‘Yes – and my two half sisters were there as well.’
‘You have sisters? I don’t know what to make of it – it’s all very strange, Dizzy. Are you going to contact Marie?’
‘If you don’t mind, Mum, then yes.’
‘Poor woman – what a shock for everyone. If that was me, I would be going out of my mind with worry. She surely wants to hear from you. You must write to her – that can’t hurt, can it?’
There was an important letter to write. The question was how to begin such a task.
6th November 2004
Dear Marie,
It’s hard to know where to begin with all this. What a shock for both of us then, to find out about each other, and in such a bizarre way. It’s a lot to cope with for the whole family.
I have always wondered about you and what happened. It all seemed too much to find out the way I did the other evening, when Tommy phoned me from outside the pub. I have asked him to pass on the social worker’s number to you, as surely, she is the best person for the job.
I have always thought such a lot about you, so much so that I put my details on the birth contact register in case you were out there. I wasn’t surprised, though, when we heard nothing back. Two years before, in 1996, when I had no real information to go on, I went with a friend to Ireland to do some research. We were careful not to contact anybody there. We went to churches to look at the records and I thought we had found the correct family. It was when we were looking around a graveyard near Tralee that we found a grave with your name on it. Without the birth date on the grave we could not be sure it was you, but I wrongly assumed that it was. So, until the day before yesterday, on Saturday night, when Tommy rang, I thought that you had died.
I have always felt sorry for the circumstances you found yourself in back in 1968, and have felt that you did the most unselfish thing by putting me up for adoption. I have had a good life, with wonderful family in a secure and loving home. My adoptive parents, Paula and Terry, never made any secret about the adoption; my dad, Terry, was adopted when he was five-years-old, from a Dr Barnardo’s home, so adoption is something our family has always been comfortable with.
They told me all they knew about you: that you were an Irish Catholic girl – you didn’t want to give me up but had no real choice. Until we received the birth file, I didn’t realise that, when we entered this world, even though only twenty minutes apart, we twins were born on different days.
My parents already had their own son, Ellis, ten years my senior. They couldn’t have any more children, so, for them to have the chance of another child has been a wonderful thing. Our nan lived with us and helped a lot in bringing up me and my brother, Ellis. She was an extra mum to us. So you see, I went to a wonderful family.
It must be hard for you to read this, but it’s not my intention to upset you, just to explain that it’s all right and to hope you take some comfort in that. I’m sure you have wondered. I now live in the countryside in Somerset with my partner, Will. We have been together for seventeen years. We have one daughter, but we have had no more children. Paula and Terry, my parents, are divorced now; neither are at all worried about you or Tommy coming along. We are all secure enough to know that it won’t affect the way we feel about each other, it’s a positive thing that you and Tommy are there.
I never expected to find out about either of you. I treasure the photos that I have of Tommy – photos are something I longed for when I was growing up.
It is with an open heart that I send this letter to you; I would love a reply, if you feel able. If it is all too much, just see how you go.
Take care, Marie,
Dizzy
By early afternoon, Merlin and I found ourselves wandering up the narrow lane, the one that runs alongside the wood, just up the little hill behind the house. We were going to post my letter. Merlin padded almost silently beside me. The only sounds were the metal tassels clinking against the buckle of his thick greyhound collar. He stood patiently by my side at the post box as I fretted, turning over the envelope that contained the letter for Marie, pushing it through the slot just in time to catch the afternoon collection by Kevin, our terrified postman. But it was some time before proper correspondence began.
Initially, I was overconfident, certain in the knowledge that I would hear back within a few days, even though I’d said that I understood if she didn’t reply, and even though I was telling myself over and over again that she probably wouldn’t.
Soon though, I was desperate for a letter. Unbeknown to us, it took Tommy ten days to pass the letter on. Ten intervening days during which time hung heavy. Will, Mum and I felt for Marie, not wanting her to go through any more anguish, but we couldn’t understand why I had heard nothing back.
Eventually, I’d had enough. One evening, I prepared to shut myself in the office again, but this time I wouldn’t email Tommy, I was going to ring and ask directly whether he’d passed the letter on. Ready to confront him – ready to engage in yet another epic phone call. The average length of the phone calls to my birth family were as long as most films. So, as I disappeared into the office, for ‘another chat’, armed with yet another cup of tea and a tin full of tiny roll ups, Will informed me that he was preparing to entertain himself from his impressive back catalogue of film classics.
‘What are you watching tonight?’ I asked.
‘Zulu.’
Once on the phone, Tommy was quick to explain. ‘I was just giving you some time, I wasn’t sure it was right for you, so I didn’t post the letter to Marie for a few days. I’m sure this has all been a bit much, chuck.’
‘Thank you,’ I replied. ‘That’s true enough, but it’s our choice now. I’m thirty-six years old and Marie is fifty-four. It’s up to us. I reckon we’re both old enough to handle it, and she must have been waiting for a letter.’
‘I’ve been trying to protect you. I’m aware of how hard it’s been. I’ve started a drama for you all.’
‘It’s too late for regret now,’ I said.
‘I’ve no regret for finding your mother, or you. I only regret having treated her so badly. You see, I thought if I managed to get the two of you back together, it would go some way to making it up to Marie.’
Chapter 11
Everyone looks the same
She finally wrote back. Her first letter wasn’t brief. It contained photographs of her family, slipped between the sheets of notepaper. I tried to follow Lyn’s advice to take things at a steadier pace, so this time round it was less frenetic than when I’d first corresponded with Tommy, but it was no less engulfing. What should have been the oldest relationship was the newest one. It felt more important to get it right.
So that late December morning, when the postman arrived bearing an envelope containing Marie’s letter and photos of her and her family – well, that was just the start. I had anticipated that her letter would arrive any day. In fact, since Tommy’s phone call, I’d been awake half of the intervening nights. Merlin and I had been trying to get a hold on our anxieties without much success. This time I found myself worrying I would forget what it was like not knowing! The sepia pictures that fell out of the envelope did not change that feeling.
Not knowing was having unfilled spaces, like a piece of Swiss cheese. I was used to them, the spaces; they represented gaps in my life I had long known were there. They were what I had grown up with. I had spent over thirty years filling in the gaps with images of a whole world of people who acted out their lives in my imagination.
The big brown outer envelope had come via social services, because Marie didn’t know where we lived. Inside, was a note from Lyn.
Dear Dervla,
I hope you are well and are not finding this all too overwhelming. Marie contacted me to thank you for the sensitivity of your letter. Here is her reply and photos.
Contact me when you are ready!
The envelope was standard social services issue, but the smaller envelope inside was a personal choice, creamy yellow in colour. Spidery handwriting in black ink scuttled across it.
Sheffield, December 2004
Dear Dervla,
Thank you for your lovely letter. I’m so glad that you wanted and looked forward to hearing back from me. It’s the same for me. I couldn’t wait to get your first letter. I had a feeling you would write to me. I was even stopping the postman lately, in the mornings, waiting for your letter to come.
I think about you all the time, as I always have. Birthdays and Christmases have in the past been the worst times, especially when you were growing up. I constantly wondered what your face was like when you opened your presents.
I used to look at my other children, and sometimes I could see you when you were born. You were a little scrap of a thing, so tiny and beautiful. When I heard you cry for the first time it was the most wonderful feeling, as I’m sure you know, being a mum yourself.
You looked like Tommy when you were born, but by the photographs I have of you, that Tommy gave me, you resemble me now, very much so.
My life, Dervla, has not been easy, but I am strong now. So many bumps in life does that for you. I’ve never been a bitter person. People that know me say I have a very soft heart, I’m glad about that.
Carla cried when we got your letter. Helena and Patrick are wanting to meet you.
I ought to tell you about my parents, you need to know what happened. Initially, they came over to England from Ireland for a visit, they stayed with my mother’s sister and her husband. Apparently, there was a big falling out and my uncle and aunt kept hold of us children, but threw my parents out on the streets. My mother and father had to go back to Ireland without us. I never went back to Ireland with them. I lived with my aunt after that, she brought me up. My brothers Aedan and Rory were also in England, but we were eventually separated.
My real mother says we were stolen from her and my father. I remember my father coming to our house to visit me. These were the times, he told me later, that he came to try to bring me back. It never happened.
My aunt told me we were left. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know the truth, but my parents stayed married and had the other children. My aunt was capable of all the things my mother told me about and I knew my mother was speaking honestly. She was twenty, and my father was twenty-two when they had me. Telling you these things is not meant to make you feel sad. Just so you can maybe get a picture of the past.
Dervla, would you mind if I sent a present to your daughter? A Christmas present. Please say if you think this is a bad idea. I understand. I expect she still believes in Santa, so she wouldn’t need to know it’s from me. See how you feel. I won’t be offended if you’re not comfortable with it.
I hope to hear from you soon.
All my love,
Marie
xx
I pulled out the photographs, which were worn around the edges. Before me were nephews and nieces who looked so much like my own child. I flicked through them, read their names and the dates written on the back of each photo, trying to piece together who belonged to whom. They were strangers and yet there was something familiar about them. I glanced at the next photograph of a middle-aged woman, who I guessed to be Marie. I held her in my hands, touching her face, letting my fingers rest on her. On the first photograph she looked ordinary. We had the same pale-looking skin, features, hair colour. Marie was tall and slim. I pulled out another photograph. On this one, Marie’s blonde hair was piled up, and make-up immaculately applied. She looked like she bothered with herself.
I suppose I was always going to be disappointed because, although the image on that photograph was for real, it didn’t match my expectation. How could this woman match the imaginary Marie, who had been the fantasy figure of my childhood. Seeing her photo felt like Christmas morning, but after you’ve opened all your presents.
I had imagined her to be young still, almost frozen in time from when she lost her twins. It was a shock that she had aged – and I was suddenly aware of my own mortality – glimpsing into the reflection of my past, I had peeped into the mirror of my future. In another photograph, I saw a mother, a brother and two sisters in 1970s-style clothes, red hair in pigtails and wearing tank tops, a chopper bike thrown against the wall of their family home, but there was something else I couldn’t work out. And then I realised what it was – laid out before me were the pictures of a previous life, one that I could have lived.
Will came in through the front door, but I told him that I couldn’t sit around looking at pictures of strangers all day. I was going to paint the upstairs spare room windowsill. I angrily scraped the chair back and I was off, leaving Marie where she was, discarded on the table.
As I stomped up the first few stairs, I turned to look at him. Will had the photographs in his hands, turning them over, putting one behind the other.
‘Humph, don’t you go saying I look like her,’ I said.
‘No, I wouldn’t dare, love…’
Finding Tommy had been exciting, maybe that had been because he was the first one. It was, perhaps, not such an intimate feeling finding out about your father. Finding your mother was much more of a big deal.
Will, Mum, and I climbed reluctantly back onto yet another emotional fairground ride. The trouble was that even if we weren’t enjoying the experience, we knew it wouldn’t be ending for some time. Nobody could have prepared us for the conflicting feelings we experienced when faced with a myriad of new family members.
What we were embarking upon on wouldn’t just affect Marie and me. Relationships in both our families could be changed. Over the coming months, several families had to rearrange themselves. It wasn’t for the fainthearted.
*
I decided I wasn’t going to try to make sense of it all now; that was clearly going to take a while. I’d wasted so much time with over-thinking – more than most it seemed. Had I worried more about my roots than the ‘average’ adopted person? Of course, the average adopted person doesn’t exist, but I knew that a displaced sense of self, a longing for identity, is common to many of us.
I sanded down the wooden windowsill, stopping eventually to wipe the dust from my eyes and gaze through the bedroom window’s tiny panes. I glanced at the apple tree as a squirrel flung itself down though the top branches, leaping from one to the other. Making the leaves quiver, it weaved its way along the boughs. That squirrel had no worries about parentage. It would be easier to be like him, mindful only of the immediate task, accepting of fate.
I needed to understand that the Marie in the photograph, however lovely, was a stranger to me, not like the mother I’d imagined. She looked like she could be kind – and motherly. The motherly was the startling part. The photographs had shown her cradling her grandchildren, caring for them.
Her daughters had strong-looking features, framed by manes of dark wavy hair. Her son Patrick was photographed wearing a lumber jacket. With shoulder-length, black curly hair falling onto his collar, he looked like everyone’s stereotypical image of an Irishman. I couldn’t be part of her, couldn’t have come from her. They must have found the wrong person. I had imagined her so often, felt connected to her, yet I was left with just an ordinary woman.
Chapter 12
The phone call
More letters arrived.
Dear Dervla,
Thank you for your lovely letter. I understand very much how you must be feeling. I agree with you, that we ought to take things slowly.
Well, Dervla, you wanted to know about the Irish connection. Well, it’s a bit of a story. I was born in Ireland, in Limerick City. My mother and father were from Ireland, all my relations are Irish. But, I was adopted and brought up in Yorkshire.
I had a very unhappy childhood, and suffered mental and verbal abuse. I left home at fifteen
.
I couldn’t wait to get away from them. I met Tommy when I was sixteen. When I was seventeen, and pregnant with you, he took me to Ireland to meet my real parents. It was a traumatic time for me. My parents had stayed married and I had eight sisters and another brother. My father died eighteen months ago. My mother is still alive.
So, as the picture unfolds for you, you might understand better why I couldn’t keep you. When Tommy walked away from me I had no support from any family. Tommy was my family. At the time, in fact, he was everything to me. When I found myself alone and pregnant I made a decision to marry, not for love, but because I wanted to keep you with me but that didn’t work out.
I soon realised that you weren’t going to stand any chance of a decent life. I had suffered so much growing up. I wasn’t going to hand you to my aunt and uncle. I was afraid that they might put you through what they had done to me.
I thought about everything, even though I was very young. I really was in a desperate situation. Dervla, I’m only telling you this so you will know the truth. I’m so happy that you have had a wonderful childhood, it’s all I could have wished for you, and yes, it does help me.
Well, Dervla, about my son Patrick, he is thirty-four and has a daughter. He is a probation officer and lives in the countryside. Carla is thirty-two and she is a civil servant, she works in a social security office. Carla has two children. And Helena! Helena is nearly twenty-nine and manages a restaurant, but she wants to train to be a social worker. She has two children. Helena is an animal lover, like you. She is a very determined person.
About myself, I work as a warden for senior citizens and live on site, I have them knocking on the door regularly. I have always worked in the caring profession. I used to work with autistic children and adults. I have so many siblings, and they are lovely, they are scattered all around England and Ireland. I have a wonderful relationship with my sisters and brother, even though I didn’t grow up with them, so good comes out of all the sadness.
Strays and Relations Page 7
