The Adoption

by Anne Berry

  My husband, Leslie, has been dead for fourteen years. When he had a stroke, I tended to him. I felt guilty. He deserved more from me. And my daughter also deserved more from her mother. I betrayed them both. The government is marvellous these days. Assistance with all sorts of hardship. My doctor put me on to the carer’s allowance. I saved every penny of it. I have my pension and my needs are few. When I last looked, I had savings in the region of nine thousand pounds. I am enclosing a cheque for the said amount made payable to you, Lucilla Ryan. Please cash it, spend it, put it by for your own children, as you will. All I ask is that you receive it in the spirit in which it is given, as full and final payment of my debt to you.

  If having read this you begin to despise me, to see what a monster I truly am, I’m glad of it. It will make my resolution to sever any ties between us more bearable for you.

  Do not ever contact me again.

  Bethan Sterry

  I do not make a scene. Nor do I reread the letter. Once is sufficient. I am struck dumb in the heat of the garden. I evade showing the letter to Henry, but I do divulge its general contents. Sharing my devastation, for once the wisdom of Latin proverbs and homilies fail him completely. Transmitted it would seem with spooky telepathy, my very brutal and absolute rebuff is shortly common knowledge in the Ryan ranks. Gina is initially irate, reacting much as she did before. But the scalding temperature of her ire cools overnight, and then freezes into an icy inactive resentment, a mindset that I worry will fester if I do not take some sort of a stand, lead by example. Though the problem is that I do not have the strength. I have been knocked out cold in the last round. Tim becomes a weekend guest, touchingly ringing me daily throughout the week to assess my condition. He advises over and over that I must let it go, let her go, let my mother go. And he implies that I must be thorough, surgically remove her from my mind, my body and my heart. So concerned is he about my despair that he unselfishly suggests cancelling his imminent trip to Australia. But I insist that postponement is not an option, realising in spite of my wretchedness how invaluable the experience will be for him.

  It took, we are told in the Bible, six days for God to create the world. Well, it takes me less time than that to descend into lunacy. It is November before I come out of hibernation, emerging on a dripping wet Saturday morning. The beech trees, the sweet chestnuts and the oaks have finally disrobed. They throw up their bare arms and flaunt their gnarled trunks as I go by, like scandalous striptease dancers. The mole traps have been set, making me want to weep. After all, they do not do much damage, the squinting moles. It is all about aesthetics really, wanting perfect lawns, perfect children. I spot a young hedgehog burrowing into a heap of wet leaves. I consider bringing it home, fixing it a saucer of cat food – but on second thoughts we go our separate ways.

  Nightfall and the crescent moon is gold, a buttery gold grin, the haze around it a wondrous violet. In the middle of the night, I rise from our bed where Henry is snoring, and slip downstairs. I find the cheque where I left it months ago, in the envelope among the few photographs I have of me as a baby, me as a little girl. I tear it up and rake the ashes in the fireplace over it. I am amused by the whimsy that tomorrow we will have a nine-thousand-pound blaze roaring in our small grate.

  The end of my confinement is prompted by the end of Gina’s confinement, and the safe delivery of a second bonny granddaughter, Jessica. She has a shock of dark hair, eyes the colour of cornflowers and the cutest button nose. But despite the flurry of activity the baby’s arrival necessitates, or possibly because of it, my mind strays to my own absent baby. I miss Tim, my youngest. He started out making musical instruments and has wound up as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital in Sydney. Maybe he wanted to fix people, to fix the tragic inexplicable glitches in their heads, to absolve them of the obsessions that if dwelt on will make them go mad. He flew out in September. It is as I slog about the shops buying Christmas presents desultorily that I decide I want to visit him, to go to Alice Springs and Ayers Rock, to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef. Henry is supportive on my behalf, but adamant he cannot join me. ‘Travelling so far you should book a minimum of three weeks. I couldn’t take a holiday that length. The gardens would suffer. But you’re not to let that deter you,’ he says over dinner one evening. ‘It’s precisely what the doctor would prescribe, change of scenery, injection of culture. Besides, Tim wants you to go. It means a tremendous amount to him.’

  I am drifting pleasantly into the realms of sleep when a thought strikes me as a hammer does a gong. ‘Henry?’

  ‘Yes?’ says my husband drowsily.

  ‘Henry, I haven’t got a passport.’

  We sit up then as if one spine serves both Mr and Mrs. I switch on my bedside light. It is true. I do not possess a passport. Until this hour, this day, this year, it has not been an issue. I have never ventured abroad. Mainly it is a lack of funds that has kept me from exploring beyond the British coastline. Most of the holidays I went on with my adoptive parents were connected to the temperance movement. In those days, families seldom went abroad. You holidayed in your own country, the seaside being the most popular resort. By the time Henry and I had a family of our own, there was no money to go jetting off to the Mediterranean. But now it suddenly seems imperative that I obtain a passport permitting me to travel anywhere, a passport with my photograph in it, and my name, a document that tells passport control anywhere in the world I choose to visit that I am a British citizen.

  ‘You’ll need to apply for one then, quick smart,’ Henry says with a yawn.

  During my morning walk with Lola, my mind grapples with the scale of my lack of identity, the handicap it is when contemplating distant horizons. It is incredible now I come to think of it, that all these years I have survived without a passport. I sit on the bench that overlooks the green hill – not green today but pearly grey, a carpet of frost under a cloudy canopy. I close my eyes and envision it, me lifting my passport out of my bag and pushing it forwards across a counter. I envision the man in passport control, clean-shaven with quick perceptive eyes, picking it up and thumbing through the pages. I envision him pausing over the photograph and the name, Lucilla Ryan. And then … and then I envision him calling a colleague over, asking me to step aside, and me being ushered into a cramped room for questioning. I hear myself saying, ‘What exactly seems to be the trouble, officer?’ and him replying apologetically that it is my name, that my name doesn’t fit. It is borrowed. I am travelling under a false identity. My passport is forged.

  And this is how it comes about that at the age of fifty-two, with no previous criminal record, I resolve to enact a murder. Lucilla is stalking me. I keep catching sight of her in shop windows. ‘Oh go away,’ I tell her, but she will not listen to me. I plan it meticulously. It is premeditated, of this there can be no doubt. Murder in the first degree. If caught, I face a life sentence. So the stakes are the highest conceivable. This is survival of the fittest. Her or me? Lucilla has to perish. Lucilla, who as a baby was presented to the Pritchards with as much ceremony as a bag of flour. Lucilla, whose formative years were spent in a house not a home. Lucilla, who was unloved by her adoptive mother, a woman of limited vision, incapable of seeing beyond her German prejudices. Lucilla, whose primary dream of being an artist was stampeded, not long before her secondary dream of becoming a veterinary nurse went the identical way. Lucilla, who was dragged to John Lewis, her nightmare realised when she was assigned to the despised haberdashery department. Lucilla, whose suitor, Henry, was exiled after making her pregnant. Lucilla, whose adoptive father drunkenly groped her. Lucilla, who gave birth to an illegitimate child at nineteen just as her mother had done before her in 1948. Lucilla, whose search for her birth mother ended when she was ruthlessly cast aside for the second and last time by Bethan Sterry. She has not a vestige of her birth family remaining to insure her against identity theft.

  This same Lucilla, if I let her live, if I nurture and feed her inadequacies, will destroy me. The only escape is to beat he
r to it and pull the trigger first. I must unmake her, like the knitted garments Aunt Ethel unpicked, rolling the crenulated wool into balls, casting on and beginning afresh with another pattern. When complete, I often marvelled at how speedily I forgot the previous incarnation. I was blind to the old disguised in the new – all were irreparably transformed, as I will transform, starting with my name. I shall select the name I should have been christened, the name that is as snug as a skullcap. I broach the subject as I fillet fish for our supper, speaking to Henry through the open kitchen doorway that gives on to the lounge.

  ‘Henry?’

  ‘Yes?’ says Henry. He is seated in the chair by the crackling fire, cup of coffee on the side table, flipping through a book on Elizabethan knot gardens.

  ‘I’m considering changing my name, changing it legally.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ murmurs Henry, still seemingly engrossed.

  ‘To Laura. Laura Ryan. You know I’ve tried it on, substituted it for some while. Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to make it permanent, lawful.’ The fish scales on the knife blade glint silver as sequins in the lamplight. Head askew, he makes no comment, so that I assume he disapproves. ‘It seems sensible to make it official,’ I continue. The fire spits. ‘You think it’s a crazy thing to do at my age?’ Lola gives a double sneeze and flicks her feathery tail. ‘You prefer Lucilla?’

  His considered response is indirect. ‘Laura,’ he utters the name with respect. ‘Laura.’ This time there is an unmistakable hint of tenderness in his tone. ‘Laura.’ I breathe hesitantly and await his pronouncement. ‘ “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”,’ quotes Henry, his timbre quivering with his ardour. ‘Should have done it years ago,’ he affirms to himself, taking up his pipe.

  I need an accomplice in my dastardly crime. Having no previous association with villains, I take pot luck, picking him out of a phone book. Messrs Hawkins and Cowley, solicitors with offices in Epsom. Next day, I dial the number. I am put through to Mr Arnold Hawkins, senior partner. I am seeking an assassin and come straight to the point.

  ‘I want to change my name by deed poll,’ I blurt out. ‘I want to get rid of Lucilla.’

  ‘Lucilla?’ whispers Arnold Hawkins, conspiratorially. Perhaps he thinks the line may be bugged.

  I brief him on the mark. ‘My first name, the name I was christened. From now on I want to be known as Laura.’

  ‘I see,’ cogitates the senior partner of Messrs Hawkins and Cowley. He pontificates with, ‘Ho-hum. Well, well. I don’t think that will be a problem. So long as it is all done within the letter of the law. Dots and crosses, that’s what the court likes.’

  A flood of renewed hope has me rising to my toes. I make an appointment two days hence. Having tolerated Lucilla all my life, I am now so eager to do her in that I am prepared to dispatch her with my own bare hands. Mr Arnold Hawkins, senior partner, has a suitably sombre appearance. He is clothed in a dark suit of expensive fabric and cut. He has a low ragged voice emitted without motion of his unsmiling mouth. He is one of those adults impossible to envisage as a child. He is plump, his double chin and the back of his fleshy neck spread over his impeccably starched white collar. Heavy brows preside over sunken eyes. His few black hairs are carefully groomed. I am whisked off to America, a poor Italian woman grovelling before the renowned Mafia godfather to end my affliction and suffering. If anyone can succeed in killing Lucilla and getting away with it, my intuition tells me that Hawkins is the man for the job.

  He draws up the deed, as I look on mesmerised, overcome with the solemnity of the proceedings. He does not intrude into my affairs, waving them away with his pudgy pale hand. His client is desirous of a new name. That is all the information he requires, he says. When he has finished tapping away at his computer keys, he prints the document and, handing it to me, invites inspection with a flourish of his stubby fingers.

  ‘Read it through carefully at least a couple of times, Mrs Ryan. And then I’ll call in Mrs Billings, my secretary, as a witness and you can sign it.’

  I give it my undivided attention. I want no mistakes this time, no accidents of birth. Laura is on purpose, meant. I am naming me for no one but myself.

  THIS DEED OF NAME CHANGE is made on the 21st day of December 2000 by me, Lucilla Ryan, of Pear Tree Cottage, Brightmore Hall, Dorking, a married woman and British Citizen under the British Nationality Act 1981, Section 1, WITNESSES AND DECLARES as follows:

  1. Whereas before and after my adoption I was known by the forename, Lucilla.

  2. I absolutely renounce and abandon the use of the forename, Lucilla, and instead I assume the forename, Laura.

  3. I declare that I at all times from now on, in all records, deeds and instruments in writing, and in all actions and proceedings, and in all actions and transactions, and on all occasions, will use and sign the name of, Laura, as my forename instead of my former forename of, Lucilla, which is now renounced.

  4. I authorise and request all persons to designate and address me by such an assumed forename of, Laura, only.

  IN WITNESS whereof I have hereunto set my hand the day and year first above written

  Signed as a deed by the said

  Laura Ryan.

  In the presence of:

  I glance up and nod portentously. I am ready. Mrs Billings is summoned. I sign. She signs. Mr Arnold Hawkins, senior partner of Messrs Hawkins and Cowley, solicitors at law, signs. The deed is done. Several photocopies of the document are printed. Mrs Billings withdraws. As my assassin blows smoke from the barrel of his gun, he has these words of sagacity for me: ‘You must waste no time in informing the bank, the medical practice where you are registered, your dentist, the tax office, national insurance, not to mention relations and friends.’ He presses his hands together as if in supplication. ‘You can help the process, Mrs Ryan. Henceforth you are to be addressed as Laura by those you are on first-name terms with. If they fail to comply by using your legal name in addressing you, then you must give no reaction.’ He leans close and drops his voice a notch. ‘Remember, Lucilla is no more. You cannot talk with the deceased, not in reality.’

  I trace my name on the documents, the script that spells out Laura, Laura Ryan. These papers are entrusted with the task of acquainting all and sundry with my new identity. Smiling hugely, I gather up my deeds of name change and hug them to me. Mr Hawkins raises a finger in caution. ‘Naturally, you cannot alter the name on your birth certificate or your wedding certificate.’

  ‘But I can on my passport?’ I quiz, anxiously. If Lucilla endures there, if I am trapped by her at every border crossing, then all this has been futile.

  ‘Oh most assuredly yes,’ vouchsafes Mr Hawkins, getting to his feet. ‘I suggest you tackle the passport office without delay.’

  My accomplice assists me filling out the forms for such, which I have precipitously collected from the post office in Dorking. He double-checks that all the facts are correct. I write an accompanying letter explaining that I was adopted Lucilla Pritchard, but that I have now changed my name by deed poll. Following post office guidance, I also include copies of all my certificates. The lady at the counter, with the Union Jack transfers on her fingernails, reviews my papers, pencilled eyebrows almost colliding, replying in answer to my query that I should hear in about a week.

  The New Year, 2001. Every day I expect to take delivery of a bulky package containing my passport. I have stacks of Australian travel brochures by my bed, and drop off leafing through them at night. I wonder what it will be like boarding an aeroplane, for I have never been airborne – except in my dream, the dream that still comes to me, the dream where I fly off a chalky Empire State Building – Beachy Head. The letter from the passport office and the letter from Tim arrive together. The passport office wishes to see me in person, to examine all my documentation, the originals, and interview me. Tim writes that he is very excited about my forthcoming visit, and that as soon as my dates are confirmed I mus
t tell him so that he can book time off.

  My elation at the prospect of such an adventure and a reunion with my son is tempered by irrational misgivings. Born to a Welsh farming girl, reared by the Pritchards, a Welsh man and an English woman, I have only one home. I know no other. For fifty-three years I have resided on this island. I am British, a loyal subject to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Almost an old age pensioner, I have been summoned to the passport office at in London for interview. Henry maintains this is merely a formality but I am not so sure.

  Whatever Henry evinces, the authorities have the clout to say no. No, Laura Ryan, we are not issuing you with a British passport. As I near my February appointment, my dread expands until worry beads a mile in length will not mollify me. ‘Forsaken by two mothers, now my own country wants to deport me – but to where? Who will take me in? Will I wash up on the streets of Berlin, a pavement chalk artist, scanning faces for my father?’

  Henry tunes in placidly to my melodramatic histrionics. ‘It’ll be a simple process, Laura,’ he soothes.

  But I spit out this comforter, contemptuous of his faith, waking on the day of my interview nerves jangling. I have had a prolonged ear infection. My right ear is totally deaf, my left whispers sibilantly. There is no discomfort merely an acute sense of isolation, as if my head is boarded up. The weather is filthy, sheeting down with rain, a synonymous climatic backdrop to my emotional desolation. Henry offers for the sixth time to come with me. But I want to go by myself. A bit like dying, I reflect, if that is not endowing the situation with too much pathos. You can’t really die with anyone else, can you? So, I reason, that you cannot be reborn with anyone else either. And I know I shall only truly inhabit Laura, when I see her name printed in my passport. So I patch together a faint smile and say, in mimicry of Greta Garbo, ‘I want to be alone.’ It doesn’t sound anywhere near as sexy, only feeble and bleak. But he nods affably and offers to make the tea.