by Anne Berry
She nodded, her round face sliced into a quick smile of passing fondness. And I wanted to sing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ and hug her. But that would have been unwise in my condition and, I was certain, would cause her to recoil and change her mind. She took the letter from me more curious than hesitant. ‘Who’s it going to?’ she wanted to know, flipping it over and then giving a little gasp.
We were into the last minute, and really it might as well have been an hourglass, the trickling sands my lifeblood draining from me. ‘It’s for a friend. Just a friend. Nothing more than that. We want to be pen pals.’ I fidgeted in my jumper and the baby gave a kick, as if my lie about its father had angered the tiny being.
‘German?’ Aeron came back at me in an unflinching slow reptilian blink.
I fingered my neck nervously, and gave a pronounced nod. Then, moistening my lips, I added this targeted reinforcement, ‘He’s a friend. A friend like you and I were.’ I blushed. I could feel the burn on my cheeks and Aeron made a mental note of it as if she were ticking off something in her head.
‘Your parents don’t know.’ She stated this as fact, and not a question.
Again I nodded. ‘But it means nothing. We simply want to write to each other when he gets back to Germany.’ I could hear my mother’s approaching footsteps. ‘Will you do it?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Aeron and I wanted to kiss her.
‘You have to hide the letter.’ I glanced at the door expecting to see my mam coming through it. ‘Quickly,’ I urged.
And Aeron concealed my letter to Thorston, my love letter, in her pocket a second before my mother entered the room.
Chapter 8
Lucilla, 1995
PROMPTED BY MY adoptive mother’s death, the letter and a sense of the ephemeral that medieval paintings of skulls are apt to evoke, I turn to the Church Adoption Society, the organisation who arranged my adoption. But my attempts to contact them at the address I have are thwarted. They are no longer in residence at Bloomsbury Square. They may have disbanded, or changed their name and their location, or they may have merged with another organisation. Disappointed but not dismayed, (after so many years I expected complications) I pursue another lead – the Salvation Army.
‘A library assistant mentioned that they have a family tracing service,’ I report to Henry. We are strolling through the walled rose gardens in the regal golden excesses of an early November afternoon. The estate is closed to the public for the day and this is when I dearly love to roam the grounds, when they are deserted and peaceful, the house and gardens putting on a private show just for us.
‘Fate,’ Henry deduces simply. ‘Clear as a signpost I’d say.’ The roses are over, of course, and the beds mulched with well-rotted horse manure and all tucked up for their nourishing winter slumber. A warm earthy fragrance is detectable, faint in the chill but undeniably wholesome. We both breathe deep, and Merlin, trotting in front of us, pauses to nose the rich brown fleece appreciatively.
That same evening together we write the letter to the Salvation Army, Henry interjecting if he thinks I’ve missed some vital clue. I explain that I was not handed over to the Pritchards until April 1948, the formal adoption taking place later that year. I suggest that it is entirely possible that Bethan, my birth mother, kept me from my birth until then. I tell them that I am eager to get in touch with her, for her to learn that I now have a family of my own.
I have been very lucky. I am happily married to a good man, Henry. We have two children, Gina and Tim – well, they are adults now. We have lived on the Brightmore Hall Estate outside Dorking, where Henry has been head gardener, for over 20 years.
‘They won’t be interested in that bit about me,’ Henry insists, leaning over my shoulder. ‘A mention of the children perhaps, but not me.’ I adore the waft of pipe tobacco that lingers about him, a world apart from the sharp acrid smell of cigarettes.
‘Oh yes they will. After all you’re my real mother’s son-in-law. Have you thought of that?’ I counter. The twinkle mirrored in my husband’s eyes, tells me that secretly he’s gratified to have confirmation he is a member of the cast in my unfolding drama. I end on a polite respectful note, whilst at the same stroke trying to stress how much this means to me.
I understand the work pressures that a large organisation such as yours, the Salvation Army, must be under, especially at this festive time of year. But if there is any chance at all of you being able to assist me I would be so grateful.
The following day, brimming with hope, I mail my letter to: The Salvation Army, Family Tracing Service, 105–109 Judd Street, King’s Cross, London WC1H 9TS. On 16 November, I have my reply, as devastating as Dorothy’s was from the Great Oz.
Thank you for your recent enquiry, in which you ask about the possibility of tracing your birth mother. It is noted that you were placed for adoption as a baby. We fully comprehend your motives in pursuing this. Unfortunately we have to advise you that our programme does not include tracking down birth parents in circumstances such as you have outlined. We are therefore sorry to disappoint you. There are few, if any, responsible agencies in the United Kingdom that carry out investigations of this kind, although there are a small number of private agents who may do so. Their fees, of course, can be quite high, depending on the amount of research that is entailed.
You might also consider the possibility of getting in touch with the Adoption Contact Register. They will explain what facilities are available for adopted people. The address is: Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, The General Register Office, Adoptions Section, Smedly Hydro, Trafalgar Road, Birkdale, Southport PR8 2HH.
We regret being unable to assist you with your request, and enclose an information sheet explaining some of the difficulties that might be involved in your undertaking.
Yours sincerely,
Cedric Lamb
Lieutenant-Colonel
Director – Family Tracing Service
A Christian church and a registered charity – with heart to God and hand to man
It is the afternoon, a Thursday, and a good couple of hours before Henry is due home. Wishing he were with me, bolstering me up, I sink into an armchair utterly deflated. I have a sharp pang under my ribs and am visited by a sudden desire to hug our children close to me, to hold on to them, letting them define me in the tight circle of their small possessive arms. I recall the weight of their heads propped so trustingly against me, and their piping voices clamouring in my ears, chorusing for me to fill myself up with the needs of my precious tinies. That’s what we called them when they were little. The tinies. Our tinies. Mummy, mummy, mummy. But Gina and Tim are no longer tiny. Gina is twenty-eight and Tim is twenty-six and they have long since moved out. And with the loss of their constant demands the malaise of anonymity has returned to torment me.
Now I notice, stapled to the missive and delivering a secondary blow, that there is a standard page of advice to all those foolish enough to embark on a journey to find their origins, to all those determined to prise apart the oyster shell in which their natural parents are cloistered. It is as though I am a child again being scolded for wanting something more, something that is mine and mine alone, some seductive identity that beckons from beyond the claustrophobic confines of the oppressive Finchley house. As if their inability to assist me is not decimating enough, they are trying to put me off the scent, to stop me in my tracks, to derail me. A sudden flare of anger, and I snatch a breath and purse my lips in resolution. I am flesh of their flesh and blood of their blood. There is no gainsaying this. And yet the conundrum I face is that despite this visceral connection they gave me away. I have to presume that they have lived perfectly contented lives minus their child, without speculating about me the way I speculate about them – every day. Every single day, I ponder where they are, what they are doing, if they have families. I want their hearts to have been pierced by the images of me, moving down the catwalk of my life at various ages, modelling a wardrobe of outfits. Their five-year-old
daughter on her first day at school, of her at ten having a piano lesson, a young woman of seventeen wearing a dress she hated to a temperance dance, at twenty-two pushing her babies in a pram, at thirty-two having a fireworks party in the garden, at forty-seven finding out that her father had been a German POW.
The overriding tone of the advice sheet is critical. It reminds me that prior to 1976 a mother who placed her baby for adoption would be promised an absolutely confidential service, that her desire to remain anonymous would be honoured by the Salvation Army at all costs. It continues to explain the embarrassment and distress the adopted person may bring to their natural parents’ current families, the disruption they may cause to their lives. What about my distress? I ruminate bitterly. What about my desires? What about my rights? Basically it aims to put me off, to discourage me. It reads more like a warning not to advance another step, not to trespass where I am prohibited, or more than likely the four horsemen of the apocalypse might come clip-clopping by.
Distracted, I am behind with preparations for supper. Scrambled eggs may have to suffice. I get up and make myself a consoling cup of coffee, fresh coffee, a dash of cream, double cream, and a spoonful, heaped, of rich golden honey – pure indulgence! And I give Merlin a biscuit dipped in gravy, which he sets about with the relish of a puppy, gazing up at me adoringly, his single good eye asquint. Perhaps I will live and die in ignorance, and perhaps, as the saying goes, ignorance is bliss. But for me it feels more akin to hell. Better to know and drop down into the bubbling cauldron, than live with question marks.
I put myself in my real mother’s position. As the dusk creeps up to the windows, I put on a CD, a favourite piece of baroque, Scarlatti. I curl up in the armchair and recall the births of both my children in turn. Gina, a slow painful labour, an episiotomy, a forceps delivery, and then my daughter’s cry, watery, as if she had swum up from the depths of the sea. A wave of love that was tidal in its proportions sweeping over me. Tim was a monstrous nine and a half pounds. The placenta had to be manually removed, making me feel remarkably like a cow being delivered by a hardy vet.
‘You really cannot go on having babies of this size,’ the registrar had remonstrated with me in irritation, his green skullcap dotted with sweat – as if I had deliberately conspired to have an enormous baby.
Could I have given either of them up? Could I have handed them over with a few useful tips? She likes to be well swaddled. It makes her feel secure. He’s fond of having his lower back rubbed. It sends him directly to sleep. Try to slow down her feed or she’ll be up for hours with wind. He adores his dummy. Never leave home without it. Could I have disengaged them from my arms and walked away, then picked up the threads of my life and started spinning, as carefree as if they had never been? The truth fell with a resounding clang into my consciousness. For me it would simply have been an impossibility. To cleave us apart would have meant the suspension of my life. No matter where I went or what I did, I would have carried the moment of our parting with me always, ironically like a birthmark. Why did you do it, Bethan? Was there really no other option? Did you want keep me? Or were you raring to be rid of me? And my father, my German father, who was imprisoned in a foreign land, and while death was everywhere set about making a new life with the enemy, what of him?
The rolling wheel of the seasons duly delivers a snip of frost and blue-black afternoons, a stark Christmas fanfare that results in the usual frenetic activity. We dress up in Victorian costume, and serve mince pies with cream or brandy butter and mulled wine in the restaurant. Very popular with the customers. We light candles and sing carols and have a collection for the nearby Wildlife Shelter. On 23 December, as per tradition, Henry dresses up as Santa Claus. We have a lucky dip. Token prizes that each year I’m afraid the children will scoff at. But so far I’ve seen nothing but delight illuminating their small faces. Admittedly only the tinies toddle forwards. Though I have seen older brothers and sisters looking on with something resembling envy clouding their carefully arranged sophisticated countenance.
We sit, Henry in his crimson suit trimmed with fake fur, me, in a red and green elf costume, in a grotto adjacent to the plant stands. We have decorated it with yards of cotton wool and tinsel. You’d be surprised how popular our Santa is. Some of the children want to know why his moustache and beard are an unconventional cinnamon brown. The explanation he volunteers is that he dyed them because he was getting sick of all that white.
‘Where I live in the North Pole there’s snow everywhere, and you can get bored of it, you know,’ he elaborates with a ho-ho. Boredom is something they can all relate to, and they nod in understanding. Sometimes he lets them tug on his beard to prove that it’s real. He’s been a wonderful father to our two children, and he’ll be a wonderful grandfather in time. Would the German have been a marvellous father to me if he’d had the opportunity? The children descend for lunch on Christmas Day. Gina, who did a BA at Huddersfield University in Human Ecology, is employed by Kirklees County Council. She lives in Meltham in West Yorkshire, with her husband, Nathan. She has recently been promoted to Senior Ranger Officer, supervising nature trails on the Pennine Way. And Tim, who attended Merton College for three years on a course making and repairing musical instruments, now one of a small team in a specialist workshop in Haslemere, is considering retraining as a psychiatric nurse. Music and psychiatry – I have not yet discovered their common ground, and Tim has yet to enlighten me.
Gina and our son-in-law Nathan are staying over. After the ritually ridiculously huge lunch, rosy-cheeked with sherry, my daughter and I opt for a walk and a blow in the reviving wintry air. Merlin, whose flesh is weak these days, but whose nose is as sharp as a starling’s beak, hobbles along in our wake. It is one of those winter days that cannot be bettered. We have had light snowfall, and a wintery sun, a ghostly opal suspended low in the sky, kisses a sparkle into the Christmas card scene. The air is bracing, sobering my tipsy-turvy spirit. I feel the dead weight of overindulgence evanesce as my digestion squares up to its onerous task. We are strolling past the open-air theatre, a raised plateau backed by a thatch of fir trees, when Gina returns to a theme I thought she had all but forgotten.
‘Did anything come of the Salvation Army?’ she asks, her tone deceptively offhand. I have told her of recent developments. That I know now that my father was a German prisoner of war who stayed behind on the farm he worked on. It has reawakened Gina’s romantic streak.
‘No. They don’t trace missing family members.’ We both halt and wait for Merlin to catch up. He is panting from his lopsided exertions, his shallow powder-puff breaths melting away as they are forcefully expelled. ‘Well, not in my circumstances anyway.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ erupts my tempestuous daughter, quick to champion my cause.
‘Oh, I’m not sure really,’ I admit lamely. I hunker down to pat Merlin’s head and whisper some encouragement for him to keep going. ‘Possibly it’s the slightly scandalous association they’re referring to. I don’t know.’
‘What rot!’ Gina declares forthrightly. ‘So your mother was unmarried – big deal! It’s an everyday occurrence. And your father was German. The war was over …’
‘Just barely,’ I reply, ‘And back then a child out of wedlock, let alone a child fathered by the enemy …’ I remind her gently. ‘Let’s just say it wasn’t considered quite the thing. The letter they sent came with a caution about proceeding.’ I give a dry mirthless laugh. ‘Like a contraindication on a medicine bottle.’
‘Hypocrites,’ Gina mutters under her breath. I stand rubbing my arms. On the move, the cold is refreshing, bracing, but we have been stationary for some minutes. Our extremities are gradually freezing. Neither of us is wearing gloves or a hat, and only Gina has her neck wreathed in a cheerful red and pink wool scarf. My daughter sets a remedial brisk pace, and Merlin and I bring up the rear. The sun is slipping away and with it the festive cheer. ‘Well, damn it, I want to know who my grandparents are!’ Gina’s brow f
urrows into creases not yet set in lines. ‘There may be important genetic history Tim and I should know about. A blueprint for some mysterious ailment? Huntington’s or Crohn’s disease? We could be carriers, and just not be aware of it. Have you considered that? Does our grandmother have glaucoma, or is there a tendency to conceive twins in the family?’
‘Oh, darling, I’m sure there’s nothing,’ I reassure, catching up and patting her on the shoulder. But my daughter shrugs me off, her corn-gold hair loose and flying about her reddened cheeks. I suddenly realise that she is really upset, that this loss of identity that strikes me down as unexpectedly as an epileptic fit is not solely my selfish preserve. I am not the only relative who wants answers. ‘Gina, what is it?’ I call as she strides ahead. ‘Gina!’ To begin with she feigns deafness, then she whirls around and almost running rushes back to me. Merlin has quite given up and has collapsed on the path, legs splayed inelegantly. I fear I shall have to carry him home.
‘It’s just that … just that it’s as though I’ve come into a story in the middle, and I may never know how it started, how I started.’ She is very nearly in tears, her shoulders quaking with her dry sobs.
‘Oh, darling … darling, I didn’t understand that it mattered so much to you,’ I confess, guilty that I have hoarded my misery and perhaps wallowed in it, believing I alone have suffered, I alone have been cheated of a past. I pull her into my arms, and though she puts up superficial resistance, she soon relents.
‘It is far more horrible for you. I know,’ she mumbles into my shoulder. ‘And I didn’t think I was very bothered, not deep down. ‘But now Nathan and I are thinking … well, we are thinking of starting a family.’
