Abandoned Love

by Rosie Houghton

  The flat was sold and they had only two weeks to empty the flat and retain what they could of her belongings. They took the family to London and camped out at the apartment. They had agreed that the items of furniture should be sold at Christies. There was no way they could get these down to France and anyway they didn’t have any room for them at their French house. Rosie had always had the key to her mother’s trunk where she kept all her personal effects, but she had never had the courage to open it. Her entire life was in that trunk.

  Rosie gingerly opened the trunk and noticed it was full of documents and boxes. Three large files of correspondence with lawyers. Boxes with medals from the First and Second World War. Trinkets and rings. There was a letter of commendation from King George V. Copies of all her certificates. Newspaper front pages going from 1914, through to the funeral of George V, all the way through to 911. Stamp collections with penny reds and penny blues, coin collections, photographs from the previous century. The most poignant documents she found however were the documents about her adoption and her father’s death.

  Reading through those documents, Rosie realized the trauma her mother had faced. Her utter despair at trying to have a child and subsequent attempts to adopt a child. She saw a different side to the story. In some ways her mother had been utterly selfish in her quest for her, but who wouldn’t when you knew her suffering? There were documents that she read that were quite disturbing in the aftermath of her father’s death. Yet this was someone who had lost her husband at the tender age of 45. She had kept these documents so that Rosie might one day see her side of the story. When her father died she wrote.

  “It seems that there are various levels of personality, probably some people have more levels or layers than others. And some people move from one level to another more easily than others. Anyway each person carries on the greater part of his life at one particular level, and the levels at which different people operate vary. I suppose there are deep unconscious pulls and balances which decide the level of operation.

  At last we found one another. There were superficial difficulties and problems, but we had a deep affinity, we found real love and peace together. Then we were torn apart, why? Because I used to think that death was a purely physical accident, a matter of chance, that there was no plan about it. I don’t now, why do some die, and others recover? How was it that one heard of a number of cases during the war of men knowing that their number was up? Is it right to try and think about these things, or is it useless, and better to plod along and take what comes without much thought.

  I want him to remain a real part of my life, as he still is at present. I can’t bear the thought of losing my remembrance and awareness of him. It has taken me a long time to accept his death, and though I dared not speak of it to anyone, I kept expecting him to come back, against all reason. Some days I just ache and long for him, so much it drives out all other things. But sometimes I seem to be talking to him, telling him about things that have happened in quite an ordinary way, but if I notice and start thinking about it and doubting it, it goes. I find, in remembering, that holidays come back the clearest, the happy times at Velden, and that lovely day in Salzburg, for instance, come back more clearly than everyday life. I don’t know why. And I wonder what I was like, and why he loved me, because I’ve very little recollection of myself and the times I do remember, I was mostly being horrid. I want to live here for the rest of my life, I don’t know if I’ll be able to, but I hope so. And I hope it will always be a place he can come back to if he wants to, and feel at home and loved still.

  Is it true that we hate those who are like ourselves? It’s a daunting thought. Think of the person you detest the most, and see if you can face the thought that you are like him or her. No? Lets play something else!

  What do people mean when they say they have a vocation, or call to do something. I’ve often wondered. They just have a burning desire to do it, so why not say so? Why has anything like that to be made to sound noble, or moral? I think that’s where a lot of the trouble lies, people wanting to deck themselves out with righteous intentions for doing what they want to do anyway. We very rarely know our own true motives, but it’s fashionable, in certain quarters, to say you want to help people and so forth. What would you do if no one needed helping? Isn’t it best to do what’s nearest, even if its not very onerous or self denying, and take delight in life whenever we can. Soper and people like him, talk as if the Kingdom of God just consists of helping others. That’s a part of it, I daresay, but I’m sure it’s something far grander and gayer than that.”

  In some ways these writings were profoundly disturbing. However in the context of when they were written, you could understand her tortured soul. Her mother was struggling on her own in this world. She was desperate to find comfort in God when God had let her down. Some time later she was to convert to Catholicism. She was deeply worried at the time that such a conversion would prevent her reuniting with her father in heaven.

  Rosie found some old photos of her family which she took with her when she went to see her. She hoped that she would find solace in those photos. Some were of her mother as a little girl playing cricket with her brother. Some were of the bank where she grew up in Boroughbridge in Yorkshire. Others were of her father and her Grandfather. Her father had been gassed in the First World War and subsequently went blind. He looked very like her mother. Rosie thought Marjorie had a happy childhood, although she always said she wished she had had a brother or a sister to play with.

  Clearing out her mother’s flat was one of the hardest things to do as she had hidden everything so that the carers wouldn’t steal anything. She was always mistrusting of people. There was family silver, hidden in the fridge, behind wardrobes and hidden in drawers. There were files and files of correspondence of letters from her lawyers. There were the original letters from Rosie’s real mother at the time of the adoption. Feeling and touching those letters was one of the hardest things Rosie had to do. This was the only connection she had left with her.

  But if truth be told, Rosie will always feel her in St Paul, the place she found her. The next hurdle is finding her father. God knows if he is still alive, but she will do everything in her power to find him, to close this chapter in her life. That story will be another book in the making.