The Adoption

by Anne Berry

  Now, sitting at the kitchen table, the torn pinafore slung over the back of my chair, I grew aware that my brow was no longer cradled in my hands. Unconsciously, I was drawing the features of her face on the polished veneer with an index finger, Lucilla’s face, the face of my gift baby, of my firstborn, the child I had given away. In London that couple have Lucilla. A girl with my blood in her veins, and the imprint of me and of her father, Thorston, tattooed on her very soul. I wondered … no, wondered was an inadequate description of my obsession. Wondered suggested unsteady vague concepts, flyaway thoughts light as spider’s silk. I did not wonder, I agonised over what my daughter looked like today, because today, 14 January, was her thirteenth birthday. Was her hair long or short? How did she like to wear it? Was she a fan of the new fads in music? What was her favourite colour, her favourite food? Did she have any hobbies? What was her best subject at school? How did she dress? Did she follow fashion? Had the signs of puberty started, the stirrings within that would change her from a girl into a woman? And what of the parents I had presented her to? They seemed so old to me back then. Thirteen more years would be ingrained on their lined cautious faces today.

  Part of me despised her, my throwaway daughter. Lucilla was like a cloud over my vision, a cataract that greyed any life, leaching the light from my days. And, like the shadow of a bird of prey falling on a mouse as it scurries across a field, I wanted to flee it, to escape. But there was no escape. My own life, the hollowness of it, fenced me in. It was as if all the savour was gone from the meal of it, as if hour by hour I was supping on dry oats. I stiffened in my seat and placed my hands solemnly over Lucilla’s imagined face. I still had the snapshots of her as a baby, but they’d worn away to ghosts now. I hid them behind the mirror of my dressing table. The damp had got to them. It’s dreadful damp in Wales. You couldn’t even see her face any more.

  Because of her I could not give myself to my echo baby. I could not love her unconditionally as I knew a mother should. Maternal love should be passionate, and willing to combat destiny if necessary for the sake of a child. But I felt none of it. I realised the gargantuan emotions I ought to feel for Lowrie, because habitually each daybreak I was swamped by the love I had for Lucilla. I had followed the rules but the discipline was wasted pitted against such a force of nature. I might carry her, but then I must not gaze into her eyes. Or I might gaze into her eyes, but then I must not touch her. It was almost a superstition with me in those sorry days that followed her birth. I would swim in those turquoise eyes that reflected my own, my arms straight as rulers at my side. Or I would hold her close, drinking in the sweet tender smell of her, willing myself to be blind. A communion of eyes and flesh would have knitted us together for life. It would have meant that a parting, a severing of that umbilical cord was inconceivable.

  I was lying to Mrs Crunn when I said I couldn’t think of a reason for my daughter’s outbursts. Lowrie was not, as I had initially thought, a dullard. She was introspective, but that was not the same thing at all. She was also intelligent, certainly intelligent enough to comprehend that there was something amiss in her life. One of her parents loved her without reservation, but one of her parents didn’t. This fact had not gone unobserved. Her mother gave no sign of her indifference, no hint that she was not the daughter she had always wanted. Her mam did everything that good mothers do, was attentive to all her needs and wants, sometimes too attentive – as though she was trying to salve a pricking conscience. I would have said that no one else had noticed that I was a mother in deed, but not in thought. But then my own mother assembled herself in my mind’s eye.

  Lowrie stayed with her grandparents increasingly, especially during the long summer holidays. My mam’s love for her granddaughter put my lukewarm fondness to shame. She doted as I could not. And Lowrie returned her love in equal measure, as children often do when they sense genuine affection. When I dropped her off on her last visit during the Christmas holidays, while she went off with her grandfather to feed the horses, I drank a cup of coffee with my mother. We talked for several minutes about the weather, as people do when they are skirting the sinking sands of veracity. We were sitting in the front room where I had sat all those years earlier with Dad and Leslie, squirming under my suitor’s attentions. I thought my mother looked drained these days, the strain showing in the fine fretwork of crows’ feet at the corner of her eyes, on the cracked paintwork of her skin. I asked her if she was having one of those headaches that had been troubling her of late.

  ‘No dear,’ she told me, fidgeting with her coffee cup, raising it to her lips and then lowering it again. She took a meditative breath, frowning before she spoke. ‘I worry about you, Bethan.’ I broke her searching gaze and my eyes roved the room. I might as well have been at Carwyn Farm the surroundings were so similar. A cottage suite, tapestry-covered cushions, wine-red curtains, a busy woven rug. My mother set down her cup and reached a hand towards my arm. At her touch I reared back. When I raised my head I saw she was hurt. ‘Are you happy?’

  I gave a sharp yell of laughter and her injured look intensified. The mantel clock ticked the seconds of my life away. ‘Am I happy? What a strange question to ask me, Mam,’ I commented. Then added, a rind of bitterness in my tone, ‘After all these years.’

  ‘It’s not,’ she said, defensively, pulling her myrtle-green cardigan tighter about her. ‘You’re married to a good man,’ she went on, and now it was she who glanced away.

  ‘Yes, Mam, he’s a good man. I s’ppose I should feel obligated to him, indebted to my parents for arranging our marriage.’ I set my own cup of coffee down in its saucer on the table between us. The taste galled.

  ‘We tried to make it right. And you’ve a lovely daughter, don’t forget that,’ she reminded me. She rubbed her hands together and, as if feeling the chill, rose to put another coal on the fire.

  ‘Which one?’ I said under my breath and she spun round.

  ‘Bethan don’t,’ she hissed looking beyond me, as if expecting Lowrie to come running through the open door. She moved swiftly and closed it.

  ‘Why not?’ I said, challenging her.

  She took a step nearer to me. ‘Because we made a pact to keep it secret. Think of the child.’

  ‘A pact? Is that what it was, Mam?’

  Her frown blackened. ‘Does he bring it up? Does Leslie mention it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He doesn’t condemn you for it?’ I gave a small shake of the head. ‘Then why must you condemn yourself?’ she said brusquely, annoyance in her crisp diction.

  ‘I’m not maligning myself,’ I told her slowly, as if talking to a simpleton. ‘I’m remembering.’ I straightened my back, set my head at a proud angle, before twisting the knife with my next words, a suggestion of insolence in my cadence. ‘Lest we forget. Have you forgotten your son? Have you forgotten Brice?’ She winced and I felt glad.

  ‘Of course not. But that’s different. He was ours, born in wedlock, your brother, part … part of our lives. The … the …’ She trailed off unequal to tonguing the truth.

  ‘The baby,’ I volunteered. ‘Though of course she wouldn’t be a baby now, would she, Mam? She’d be nearly thirteen, a teenager.’

  ‘It was never meant to happen.’

  ‘But it did happen,’ I shot back, defiant.

  ‘It’s in the past. We saw to it that she was settled. She’ll be happy with her own family. Why can’t you be?’ She plucked the loose skin at her neck and I thought how fragile she was looking, how worn out. Sixty-two years old and it was as though she was gradually blurring, all definition to her features gone.

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘How do I know?’ she mimicked, wrong-footed.

  ‘How do you know that she’s happy, that Lucilla’s happy?’ I said, rising and glaring at her.

  ‘You must leave this behind you! You have Lowrie now,’ she importuned. ‘Can’t you make the most of her, of the richness she brings to your life? You’re in danger of al
ienating your own daughter. If you don’t make more of an effort you may lose her, too!’ I gulped a breath that was half a sob. My mother sighed and closed her eyes, squeezing her eyelids as if she had a sick headache. When she reopened them, real anguish caused them to sparkle with unshed tears. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. What I’m trying to say is that you’re in danger of missing what you have with your family, here, now, by looking backwards.’

  In the grate the fire caved into its hollow heart with a sputter and flurry of red sparks. I shook my head violently. ‘If it were that simple, Mam, don’t you imagine I’d do it. If I could I would set her down and move on without her. But I can’t. I’ve tried, oh dear God, I’ve tried. What I would give to leave her in the past, to rid my life of her. But my baby is branded on my heart. She is with me every waking moment.’ My pitch throughout this was repressed but urgent. As I gathered up the cups, we heard approaching footsteps. My mother placed a finger to her lips and mouthed, ‘She must never know. Never!’ The door flew open and Lowrie burst in, rushing up to her grandmother and throwing herself into her arms with greedy desperation.

  Chapter 21

  Lucilla, 1999

  THE FOURTEENTH OF February. Valentine’s day. There is snow, lots of it, and it is bitterly cold. Rudolph-red-nose weather. Normally, I adore the snow, the stark uncompromising air of winter. But this winter I’m grieving. Merlin has passed away. They let me bury him in the grounds. It’s a peaceful spot in the woods. I’ve covered his grave with rocks so I’m hopeful no fox will dig him up. He was sixteen, a veteran in dog years. I miss him like a raging toothache. Damn and blast! Why can’t dogs have the lifespan of humans? Why can’t they trundle beside you all your days? They’ve got a small pet cemetery at the rear of the house. A clutch of lollipop tombstones with the dearest inscriptions on them, enclosed with wrought-iron railings. There is a dinky gate that creaks loudly when you push it open, like a sound effect in a horror film. And there are tall conifers leaning over it protectively, perfuming the air with the resinous scent of their sap.

  While he was still sprightly enough to inspect the grounds, I asked Merlin if he fancied being buried there. Of course he didn’t give a direct answer. But he rolled his milky eye at me and there was such an expression of disdain on his face, snub nose held high, that I believe I interpreted it aright as aloofness. He was no common sort, my Merlin, my canine Anubis. Lie with other hounds of uncertain pedigrees for eternity? Not likely. He wanted a graveyard all to himself. And so I accommodated him. I think he’s pleased with the site. Rabbits and squirrels galore, perfumed peace to keep his spectral nose twitching – an ideal resting place.

  It was God-awful at the end. There is a footbridge on the estate and he was nosing around the stone balustrade. It had been raining, and he slipped and fell a good six feet onto the path below. Unbelievably, he didn’t break anything. But in the weeks afterwards his rear end seemed gradually to become atrophied, until he was dragging it behind him like a withered limb. He was basket-bound in his final days. His breathing became laboured and he stopped eating. He would lap water out of my hand though. I liked the sensation of his tiny tongue rasping against my palm. I took him to the vet. Henry came. He held my hand in his and I held Merlin’s paw. I had the strangest feeling of déjà vu recalling Scamp’s death all those decades ago. We brought him home bundled up in my pearly-grey satin quilt. I shall miss Merlin when I lie on our bed and probe for his silky fur with my toes.

  Enough of woe. The joyous tidings are that I have gained a puppy. Well, she is four months old, an English Springer spaniel, as flexible as a rubber band and as bouncy as a super ball. Her coat, liver and white, is like floss, and she has winsome brown eyes that plead a permanent state of malnutrition. How did I come to acquire this limpid-eyed, piston-legged addition to our family? I expect you have a shrewd idea and you would be correct. When Henry initially and with his trademark diffidence mooted the possibility of buying another dog, I dispensed it with a vehement diatribe.

  ‘How can you have the insensitivity to assume that Merlin, my dear, dear Merlin, can be so easily replaced? Why you’re no better than my adoptive mother who decided when I did not work out, that her and my adoptive father should shop around again, and come back with a ready-made faultless Barbara!’ I screeched, wife to a whole ocean of fish. This last taunt was unforgivable and the instant the words had left my mouth, I wanted more than anything to take them back. But it was too late. The hurt in Henry’s blue eyes was palpable. We were in the kitchen, me stirring a cheese sauce in a desultory fashion guaranteed to produce a lumpy inedible affair. Slowly, I shuffled about to make my abject apology, but Henry had disappeared.

  ‘Going for shower. Digging the beds today ready for the summer planting. Bit grubby, my love,’ I heard him call back to me, and then the thump of his footsteps receding on the stairs.

  For minutes I stared miserably and repentantly at the scrubbed but stubborn spatter pattern on the magnolia emulsion, the backdrop chronicling far more appetising meals. When the distinct acrid odour permeated my nostrils, I glanced down to see that the sauce now resembled something my mother might have proudly dished up. As soon as it was sufficiently cool, I began scraping it into the bin. At this disheartening, guilt-ridden moment, Henry chose to re-enter the kitchen. He was beaming as if nothing untoward had happened, attired in fresh clothes that smelled angelically of fabric conditioner, his shaggy hair, beard and moustache still dripping from the shower. He shook himself as though he was a playful dog bounding out of the River Mole after a refreshing dip. No more was said that night as we ate our rolls and tinned minestrone, judiciously refraining from comment on the sudden change of menu.

  However, come the weekend, Henry announced that he was taking me on a magical mystery tour in honour of a group whose music we did and do still idolise – the Beatles. We took a train to Guildford, and then we took a bus to Bramley, and then we walked a leafy lane and from thence trod a winding drive to a farm. I was intrigued. Henry marched purposefully up to the front door and rang the bell, as if this was the most ordinary thing to do when you arrive at house you have not visited before. In due course, it was opened by a tall woman of advanced years, with an authoritative hook nose, kind but firm grey eyes, a scarf tied at her chin, and wearing Wellington boots.

  ‘Ah, Mr Ryan, Mrs Ryan, punctual I am pleased to see,’ she said, shaking both our hands in a steel grip. ‘Mrs Gregory,’ she introduced herself, jabbing a none too clean thumb into her chest. She appeared unbothered by our arrival on her farm. ‘Follow me,’ she ordered in a military tone, striding past us in her jeans and sweater. She led the way in the bright spring sunshine to a barn, shoving wide the door and beckoning us through with a wave of her arm. Inside were some stalls currently empty of occupants, in the process of being mucked out by a young farm lad. She greeted him with a swift businesslike nod. ‘The Ryans,’ she said by way of explanation. He too nodded, his tufted light-brown hair shedding a straw or two as he did so. The half-door to the fifth stall was closed. We drew level and one by one peered over it. And there on a bed of fresh dry hay, reclining in maternal majesty, was a beautiful English Springer spaniel, while all about her tumbled six hyperactive puppies.

  ‘Hello, Suzie,’ Mrs Gregory said, her brisk manner replaced with one of unashamed adulation. We all three slipped inside the stall. While she embraced Suzie with an affection clearly reserved for those lacking human DNA, she directed us to select one, with the adjunct that the two biggest bitches were spoken for, but we could have our pick of the three dogs and the smallest bitch. Under attack by squirming licking puppies from every quarter, whose eyes beseeched and whose yelps entreated take me, take me, take me, it was the tiniest who demanded my immediate focus. This scrap, batted out of the way by its stronger healthier siblings, kept rolling and skidding into the sides of the stall, then rebounding like a furry ball.

  I extricated myself from the tangle, and crossed to where the smallest puppy was readying herself for anoth
er assault. I bent and picked her up. She snuggled into my arms with a sigh of relief. ‘I want her,’ I declared, my steady voice belying the wobble of my heart and the clench of my stomach.

  Mrs Gregory gave me a considered sidelong look. ‘She is the runt,’ she told me with candour. ‘One of the bigger dogs might be a more sensible choice.’

  ‘I know she’s the runt,’ I replied. ‘And it’s her I want,’ I added obdurately.

  ‘Jolly good,’ retorted Mrs Gregory with practical acceptance. When the transaction was over, the papers exchanged, and we were just setting off with our new puppy on board, Mrs Gregory called out. ‘Mrs Ryan!’

  I spun round giggling as our puppy explored her carrier, with scrabbling legs and a wet inquisitive nose. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’ve got a good bitch there,’ Mrs Gregory imparted frankly. ‘What she lacks in size, she’ll make up for in other ways.’

  So there we are. I tried to express my thanks on the bus ride home. But Henry brushed it off. I tried to apologise. But Henry stopped me with a kiss. ‘You’re a bit fresh, aren’t you? Spots and leopards. Some men never change,’ I said, and Henry gave me a confident smile that would have sat well on the lips of Casanova. And I still find that dashing scar on his cheek très très erotic!

  We have called her Lola. Today she flushed out a pheasant and went berserk. It flew squawking away, a mass of indignant feathers. I shall have to watch that or the gamekeeper will reprimand me severely, and insist I keep her on a short lead. There is a bitter east wind blowing and the temperature is minus ten degrees. A seasonal helping of fog too, so the grounds looked all dank and eerie. The pussy willow is out and it is so soft and dainty. I don’t know why but it makes me want to smile. It’s like a feather tickling the nose. The moment I set eyes on it my mood lifts, a helium balloon bobbing skywards. This morning I made six jars of marmalade, so I think I can feel justly virtuous. I even decorated the labels I stuck on with drawings of oranges and orange blossom. And I cut out gingham hats with my pinking shears.