‘How was your latest hike?’
‘Fantastic,’ he says. ‘We went over a mountain pass and it was so beautiful up there. I’ll send you some pictures, if you give me your email address.’
‘Oh, sure.’ I fish in my handbag for a pen and scribble my email address on the back of the bill.
He nods, takes the bill and folds it carefully, puts it in his pocket. ‘So, is this it?
‘Is what it?’
‘I don’t know. Switzerland…’ He waves his hand, gesturing vaguely in my direction. ‘This.’
I keep my eyes on him, seeing his awkwardness and enjoying it. ‘I don’t know. Should it be?’ I say finally.
‘Well…’ He looks down, fiddles with a plastic capsule of coffee creamer. ‘I just want you to do what makes you happy, Jess.’
I take a sip of my cappuccino and feel my heart race as I formulate what I want to say. Part of me wants to kiss him, right here and now. I don’t think he’d turn me down. But the rest of me knows I need some time on my own, to digest the last two months, and that it wouldn’t be right to make promises I can’t keep.
‘This has been a bizarre summer for me,’ I say. ‘But I’ve really appreciated having you around to talk to. I really have. You’re the only thing that’s kept me even slightly sane.’ He waggles his head and mock-frowns, clearly disagreeing with my judgement of my sanity. ‘Okay, well, you’ve tried to keep me sane. Anyway,’ I wave my hand. ‘Right now I haven’t got a clue what I’m going to do. I have to go home. I have to see Dad, I have to sign divorce papers. I need to spend some time thinking about what to do next. But I hope we can keep in touch and, you know, if you ever come to London, let me know. I have a sofabed.’
He grins. ‘A sofabed. I’ll bear it in mind.’
I hug him goodbye and resist the urge to look back as I walk away through the station concourse, following families, businesspeople and couples towards the airport check-in lounge.
I walk through the automatic doors and head for departures. But before I join the long queue, filled with people clutching their boarding passes, full of hope and expectation for the journey that awaits, I read my email to Daniel once more and press send.
SEPTEMBER 2016 London, UK
JESS
As soon as I get in the door, I know Patrick was right. It’s not like I have the money to buy him out, anyway. But now, standing at the window looking at the rain pouring down outside, for the first time I feel that I want to sell the flat. I’m moving on.
It feels strange to be back in London. The air smells different, and it’s damper somehow. Not just when it’s raining, like now, but always. My skin has a sweaty sheen, even though it’s not that hot outside. My hair, which fell relatively straight during my summer in Switzerland, is back to drying in waves that I would flatten into submission with straightening irons each morning if I could be bothered – eight weeks with Julia hasn’t exactly rubbed off. It’s the humidity that comes with living on an island, I guess. Funny how I’d never really noticed before.
I open my laptop and click on the internet icon. I navigate to National Rail Enquiries and buy a train ticket to Chichester for the next day. It’s too late to reserve a seat, so I know I’ll spend the ninety-minute journey standing by the toilets, trying to close my nose to the smell of urine as I eat my sandwich, and for that joy I have to pay more than a plane ticket back to Geneva. Still, Dad’s worth it.
I start to shut the lid of my laptop but then stop. I browse to Facebook, hesitate, and then type in the name. There’s only one result – it’s a pretty unusual name after all. I squint. Her profile picture shows her in some sort of fancy dress, wearing a wig and a mask, and when I click into her profile most of it is set to private.
I feel an impatience rise up in me. I’m not going to go back on my promise to Anna. I’m not going to tell her. But I need to see her. I need to complete my closure by seeing the woman who’s the other side of my unique life story, the heads to my tails.
I open another tab, search for ‘Hedi Buchs-Wilson London’. I scroll down the page, not sure what I’m looking for, and one link stands out. I click on it. It goes to a charity website, some sort of foundation helping communities overseas. And there’s her name. Hedi Buchs-Wilson: Communications Manager, Europe. There’s a phone number, an email and a physical address for the office in Covent Garden. I drum my fingers on the table.
I can’t just call her or rock up at her office. I want to see her from afar, not confront her. I change tack and log on to Twitter. If she works in communications then she’s bound to have a Twitter account. I put her name in the search box and push away the niggle of jealousy that she’s working in a field so similar to Mum’s while I was always so rubbish at writing. Still, she is on the dark side of the industry, as Mum used to call PR.
I scroll through the results, discarding a @Hedi_BW in Germany and @HediBuchs83 in Austria. The third profile is hers.
@HediBuchsWil
Communications Manager for @StapenhillFoundation. Swiss girl in London. Don’t call me Heidi. Views my own.
Again, her profile picture doesn’t show her face clearly and I swallow back my frustration. I just want to see her. I read through her latest tweets and suddenly I know what I must do. A colleague leaving. A reference to after-work drinks.
@freddiej are you coming to Henry’s Bar?
I know the place.
I check my watch. 5pm. I shut my laptop, put my phone in my handbag. I go to the toilet, pat some concealer on the dark circles under my eyes, brush my hair, apply a slick of lip gloss, take deep breaths. My stomach is fluttering, but I ignore it and walk out the door.
I take the train from Peckham Rye to London Bridge, change for Charing Cross, and walk to the bar. Should I be doing this? Nervous energy propels me forward. My mission has come so far, I have to finish the task I set myself two years ago. I can’t not, now.
Henry’s Bar is heaving with people and straight away I realise how ridiculous this is. How do I find her when I don’t even know what she looks like? I take off my jacket and head to the bar, waiting my turn to order a virgin mojito – I want a clear head for this.
It’s 6pm, the start of happy hour. I’m surrounded by office workers letting off steam on a Thursday night and I feel conspicuous in my solitude. Who goes to a place like this by themselves unless they want to get picked up?
I walk around the large, low-lit space, pretending I’m searching for someone, but I don’t see her. Then again, I don’t know what I’m looking for. I head back to the bar, sit on an empty swivel stool at the end near the entrance and sip my drink. I take out my phone and check Hedi’s Twitter feed again.
No more updates.
I wonder if they’ve changed their minds, if they’re going somewhere else. But then I realise that if it’s a planned event they’ll likely have reserved a space.
‘Excuse me,’ I shout to the barman. He nods back. ‘Is there a table reserved for…’ I check the webpage, ‘Stapenhill Foundation?’
He moves over to the reservations book behind the counter and looks at it while shaking a cocktail. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘6.45pm, at the back. It’s marked on the table.’
‘Thanks.’ I slip off the stool, pick up my near-empty glass and walk towards the back of the room.
They arrive on time and fill the table with their coats, bags and laughter, clearly on a post-work high.
‘Get the drinks in, Danny!’ one woman says to a bloke with a ginger beard. He rolls his eyes.
‘Gotta make sure he gets his round in, stingy bastard,’ says another with a laugh.
I’m only about five metres away, sitting at an empty table, but they don’t give me a second glance. I scrutinise their faces, but I don’t know, I don’t know. I need them to say their names, as they did for ginger-bearded Danny, and I wonder how close I can get without it being obvious I’m eavesdropping. But something tells me she’s not here. I just can’t see it. I can’t imagine any of the women around the
table being her.
‘Sorry I’m late, I had to go to the bank.’
My stomach turns over as I hear her singsong accent.
‘Danny’s getting a round in. Put your order in while you can, he’s not likely to offer twice!’
‘He didn’t offer once.’ A peal of laughter.
My eyes follow the new arrival to the bar and back again. She takes a seat. Smiles.
‘Christ, what a day,’ says an older woman with voluminous hair.
‘Forget about it. It’s nearly the weekend.’
‘Oh, I love this song!’ A blonde woman in a pink blouse stands up and starts dancing on the spot, singing along.
‘Bloody hell, it’s only seven o’clock.’
‘Wait ’til you hear her at midnight – her singing doesn’t get better.’
‘It can’t be much worse.’
‘Oi!’
The table erupts into laughter and then bearded Danny is back with the drinks on a tray and a round of applause goes up at the sight of him.
I see Hedi – because it must be her – take a glass of white wine from the tray and then she’s saying cheers, and I see her trying to look her colleagues in the eyes as she does so, though most of them seem oblivious to her attempts. I know it’s her. Not because of her distinctive accent, not because of her Swiss method of toasting, but because of the colour of her hair, the shape of her nose, the slight air about her that reminds me of someone else. Of Mum.
‘Are you using the rest of this table?’
I shake my head at the man in the lilac shirt and he gestures to his friends and soon the other end of my table is full and they’re talking loudly and I can’t hear what Hedi’s group is saying anymore.
I go to stand up but my legs feel weak. My stomach is churning and I’m fighting to stop tears filling my eyes because the resemblance is so clear it takes my breath away. A piece of Mum, right in front of me, still walking this earth.
I walk past their table towards the bar and as I do so, Hedi looks up and for the briefest of moments our eyes meet. It’s over within a second and she turns away to say something to the blonde who can’t sing. But in that moment I see our lives running in parallel. I see her in Mum’s arms at the hospital right after her birth. I see her lying in the incubator next to mine, our lives about to be so profoundly altered. I see her with Anna, being pushed along the lakefront in Lutry in a buggy. I see Anna and Daniel telling a twelve-year-old Hedi they don’t love each other anymore. I see Mum, a letter in her lap, wondering what her nineteen-year-old biological daughter looks like, what she’s doing, how she is. I see all this and I see Hedi now, a successful young professional with fun colleagues and a life she’s made for herself in London, and I know I’m glad for her.
I don’t feel jealous. I don’t want to smash her life apart. And I don’t wish I had her life. I only feel sad for her that she didn’t know the mother I did, the mother I still love so much, who surely loved us both, just as Anna does.
I think of Mum, Dad and me sitting around at the dinner table in Greenwich. I remember the laughter we shared, the way she hugged me, the way they teased each other, the way the three of us just worked. Perhaps I should have had Hedi’s life. Or perhaps I was always meant to have the life I’ve had. Or maybe that’s irrelevant. Maybe life is simply what you make of the hand you’re dealt.
I step out of the door into the September evening chill, my ears ringing from the music. I take out my phone and write a message.
Dad, I’m coming down tomorrow, can’t wait to see you x
I stand there for a minute, laughter and music floating out of the bar, then I turn and walk away.
Author’s Note
When I moved to Switzerland in 2013 I didn’t really know what to expect, beyond the clichés. Over the years since then I’ve discovered a country that is as quirky as it is beautiful, with a fascinating history, diverse culture and a unique political system. Just like anywhere, there are great things about it and some not so great things. I decided to write about two contentious aspects of Swiss history – women’s rights and child placements – firstly because they interested me, and secondly because I felt they were important issues that perhaps weren’t so well known outside the country. While the historical context in this novel is, to the best of my knowledge, accurate, the characters and plot are entirely fictitious. Evelyne’s Mouvement des Femmes Lausannoises is my creation, though it reflects the aims of real women’s liberation groups in Switzerland at the time. The character of Anna is also invented, but her childhood is informed by the documented experiences of the many thousands of children who, until as late as 1981, were subjected to compulsory welfare measures by a government attempting to control people it considered to be living morally unacceptable lives. However, I do not intend to reflect any particular individual experience. There were women who preferred not to have the vote, just as there were many who fought hard for further rights; there were children who had positive experiences of being placed away from their families, just as there were those who suffered far more hardship than my character Anna did. I have also fictionalised certain events, and occasionally changed the name of a place or building for narrative purposes.
Acknowledgements
Researching the historical context of this story was a fascinating task. Particularly helpful regarding the women’s liberation movement in French-speaking Switzerland was Julie de Dardel’s book Révolution sexuelle et Mouvement de libération des femmes à Genève (1970–1977) and the documentary Debout! by Carole Roussopoulos. My research into the history of child placements in Switzerland was informed by an exhibition in Le Locle in 2017 and the book Enfants placés, enfances perdues by Marco Leuenberger and Loretta Seglias. Thank you to Loretta for meeting with me and answering the many extra questions I had. For the book’s UK narrative, Liz Hodgkinson’s Ladies of the Street: The Women who Transformed Journalism helped me understand the experience of women in Fleet Street before, during and after the 1970s. Thanks also to Shirley Conran for allowing me to use quotes from her era-defining book Superwoman.
When I first started writing this novel it felt a complete pipe dream for it to be published. This wouldn’t have happened without my brilliant agent Hayley Steed, who plucked my submission out of her inbox and was so passionate about the story right from the beginning. Thank you so much to Hayley for making this happen, and to the whole team at Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency for their support. Huge thanks to my editor, Bec Farrell, whose advice has been so insightful, and everyone at Simon & Schuster UK for their enthusiasm and hard work. Thanks also to Julia Weber, whose magical tips on cover letters made all the difference.
I am so grateful to my first readers and wonderful friends Emma Hartwell and Mari ‘rhymes with Barry’ Campbell, for their support, encouragement and reassurance, especially Emma for managing to remain enthusiastic after reading three different drafts. Thank you to Michaela Dignard and Sylvia Koller for understanding where I’m coming from, to Pat Hartwell, Michèle Laird, Rachel Bender, Heather Radmore, Sarah Radmore Seiler, Anne Delaney and Diccon Bewes for their thoughtful feedback at different points in the process, and to everyone else who has encouraged me along the way, particularly Clare Nicholls, without whom I wouldn’t be living in Switzerland today, and Claire Doble, for all those lonely writer catch-ups.
Thank you to Matt Radmore for always encouraging me to do what I want and believing in my ability to do it, even when I’m not sure of it myself. And, of course, for persuading me to move to Switzerland – I’m very glad I did. To my dad, Graham, for inspiring me to write fiction and demonstrating how to engineer the work-life balance that makes it possible – you are the best example to follow. To my sister, Steph, who can always be relied upon to tell me the absolute honest truth about my writing (and everything else, come to think of it), and to my niece Melina, for putting a smile on all our faces. Lastly, thank you to my mum, Joan, for being my fiercest champion. I was so lucky to have you and I miss you every d
ay.
About the Author
Caroline Bishop began her journalism career at a small arts magazine in London, after a brief spell in educational publishing. She soon moved to work for a leading London theatre website, for which she reviewed shows and interviewed major acting and directing stars. Caroline turned freelance in 2012 and a year later moved to Switzerland, where her writing veered towards travel. She has contributed to publications including the Guardian, the Independent, the Telegraph and BBC Travel, writing mainly about Switzerland, and co-wrote the 2019 edition of the DK Eyewitness Guide to Switzerland. For two years Caroline was editor of TheLocal.ch, an English-language Swiss news site, and it was during this time that she became fascinated with aspects of Swiss history and culture, particularly the evolution of women’s rights. The Other Daughter is her debut novel.
www.simonandschuster.co.uk
www.simonandschuster.com.au
www.simonandschuster.co.in
www.SimonandSchuster.co.uk/Authors/Caroline-Bishop
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