by Louise Voss
Mack swivelled again. ‘Well, I doubt that it will be. It’s a huge help that you know her name and an old address, and you’re lucky that it’s quite an unusual surname. But anything could have happened in eight years. She might have moved abroad, or died, or remarried…. It’s a shame you don’t have a street number – if you did, you could go back to the Electoral Register for that year and look up the names of her neighbours and contact them, too.’
‘I did think of that. I suppose I could go to Teffont and ask around,’ I said doubtfully. ‘What are you doing now?’
Mack had been tapping away at his keyboard, and now a document entitled “Preparation Before Contact” filled the screen. His printer rattled into action, churning out onto several sheets of A4.
‘I just keyed in “adoptees + preparation” and this came up.’
I reached over and pulled the paper off the printer. Glancing over the piece, I laughed when I read the first point:
1. THE FANTASY. Let go of any lifelong image, any fantasy of your birthmother. No-one can live up to a fantasy….Be sure you are ready to accept her as she is because she’s probably not what you wanted, expected, or fantasised her to be.
‘That’s a relief, then,’ I said out loud.
‘What is?’
I read out the paragraph to Mack, and then told him about the babydoll nightie, and the compulsive praying.
Mack laughed too. He sounded like his printer when he laughed – brisk and staccato. ‘It’s so important to be prepared. Even if you only have a negative image of her, it’s still a preconception, and you’re going to have to try and get rid of all of those, otherwise whoever you find will be a shock, one way or another.’
He sounded as if he was already rehearsing for what he’d say on camera, and then he more or less confirmed it. ‘If you do let me go ahead and film this, we’ll have to do all this again. I wouldn’t want to miss out any of the stages.’
‘If I let you go ahead,’ I said darkly.
Mack scrolled down a list of sites, and clicked to enter another one. I noticed, for the first time, that his mousemat was a reproduction of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”, and I felt warmer towards him again.
‘Oh, here, this one looks good. Most of these are American sites, so the legal stipulations might not be quite the same. The advice will still be sound, though. I’ll just run off a few more articles, and that should be enough for you to take home and get stuck into. In the meantime, let’s do a couple of quick searches now. If nothing comes up, I’ll have a think about what else we can do, and get back to you in a few days, and you give me a ring when you’ve thought about the documentary idea. Is that OK?’
I was overcome with a sudden affection for him: silly hair, pomposity, “Scream” mousemat, and all. ‘Of course, that’s fine – although I’m not making any promises. Thank you, though, Mack. Really. I’d never have done this on my own – probably not even if I could figure out the internet.’
I squeezed his shoulder and he blushed, flapping his arm at me in a self-deprecatory manner. ‘It’s nothing. Glad to help. I just want to make you aware that you have to be prepared, that’s all.’
‘Be prepared. Did you know that’s the motto of the Brownies?’
The graphics on the computer screen changed, and Mack sprang into action, ignoring my question. ‘Right, here we go. Here’s a directory site. I’ll type in Paramor, Ann – I think if you leave the area box blank it searches the whole of the UK.’
I held my breath as he typed in the information and hit the Return key. The tiny little circle on the screen, which indicated that you had to wait, ticked interminably around and around, until finally the pronouncement was made: ‘SORRY NO MATCHES WERE FOUND.’
I was disappointed, but also faintly relieved that the moment of truth was not instantaneous. I realised that Mack was right, I did want the chance to read up a bit more on what to expect.
‘Fine. Thanks again, and I’ll leave you to the rest of your evening now. I need to get home and start on my reading.’
Mack looked at my satin skirt and high heeled boots. ‘I thought you were going out?’
It was my turn to blush. ‘Well, I was considering it… but I’m a bit tired, actually. I’ll probably just have an early night. I’ve got a lot to think about.’
Mack separated himself from his twirly chair and showed me to the door, helping me into my coat in a gentlemanly manner. I gave him a goodnight peck on the cheek, and climbed back up the basement steps, gingerly picking my way past a dropped packet of chips outside his building. Several of the chips had already been trodden on and lay crushed and slimy, vegetable roadkill, on the pavement. The smell of vinegar from the wet paper tickled the tops of my nostrils and made me feel hungry.
When I got home, however, I decided I didn’t want to eat after all. Nor did I want to get stuck into the literature immediately. Instead, still wearing my coat, I went straight to my bedroom and lay flat out on the bed. Closing my eyes, I did a mental exercise I had once learned in a healing workshop. I imagined myself inside a circle of light, which was attached to another one, containing the praying image of my mother in the babydoll-nightie. In my head, I drew a figure of eight three times around both circles. Finally I got a large imaginary pair of scissors and snipped the two apart, watching the circle containing my caricature of a mother begin float up and away, like a huge bubble. I hoped that once I’d finished this exercise, I would no longer have any preconceived ideas about who Ann Paramor might be.
Then I began the exercise again. In the bubble this time was a television, whose screen was filled with an image of my own face, to try and get me over the craven panic that the thought of being filmed induced. It seemed only fair that I should do Mack a return favour, for all the help he was going to give me, but I just wasn’t sure if I could face the prospect of being on TV.
I fell asleep before the second bubble had even cleared the rooftop of the house in my imagination. The sound of my own snoring woke me up several hours later, cold and stiff, with Mack’s printed sheets scattered all over the floor, and my overcoat rucked up uncomfortably beneath me.
Chapter 18
‘This’ll be the first real scene, I think – you looking in the envelope. Then I’ll edit in some of that stuff we talked about before, maybe I’ll just overdub your voice on different footage for bits of it – kids playing on swings for when you talk about your childhood, and so on. So, whenever you’re ready….’
Earlier on the same dark, freezing evening when Mack filmed me opening the envelope, I’d bumped into him in Sainsbury's. But I hadn’t even noticed him until he tapped me on the shoulder, because something very strange was occurring in my line of vision, right there in the Pet Foods aisle.
It was that baby bird, the one from Stella’s book. There he was, in front of me, hopping along the faux-marble tiled floor. I couldn’t believe it. It meandered nonchalantly up Pet Foods, swelled a few deep breaths into its peanut-sized lungs, and leaped up to perch on the baskets of various single women shoppers as they stopped to browse. Its legs were the thinnest black twigs imaginable, as if they should have gobs of cherry blossom on the ends of them, like fluffy slippers, instead of sketched and fragile branches of feet.
‘Are you my mother?’ I thought I heard it say to an elderly lady with grey bags under her eyes, beige mac, and indeterminate hair-do, who was bulk-buying Pedigree Chum for Small Dogs and stacking it into her shallow old ladies’ trolley. Even though the bird had jumped right onto the front of the trolley, presenting a tiny riot of colour against her drabness, she still didn’t appear to have seen it, although it was perfectly visible to me, perched like the figurehead at a ship’s prow on the top of the little clipboard-thing you were supposed to stick your shopping list on.
I watched it jump down – for of course, it hadn’t yet mastered the art of flight - and approach a dreamy pregnant lady, who was pushing her trolley with straight arms because her stomach stuck out so far. She didn’t see
it either, even though it cocked its head winsomely to one side and chirped its question again, clambering up the mesh of her trolley and over her cereal boxes.
So this is what it feels like, I thought. I really am going mad. I turned away and blinked owlishly a few times, taking off my glasses and rubbing my eyes, as much of a cartoon myself as the baby bird was. That was when Mack tapped me on the shoulder.
‘Got something in your eye?’ He was idly scrutinising the Whiskas, picking up a tin of what looked like Chicken, inspecting it like a Weightwatcher reading the fat content of a sticky toffee pudding, and then replacing it again as he waited for me to answer.
I glanced surreptitiously behind me, but the bird seemed to have vanished. ‘Hi, Mack. No, I’m…fine. I think it’s gone now – whatever was in my eye, I mean. Since when have you had a cat?’
‘I haven’t. I’m cat-sitting for my mate while he’s on holiday. It’s a nightmare – Brian spends all night charging up and down the hall, and he won’t eat, either.’
‘Is that why you’re looking after his cat for him?’
‘Emma, Brian is the cat.’
‘Oh, right, of course – sorry.’ I laughed, and listened with gratitude to Mack banging on about Brian, feeling more grounded by the minute, until I decided that maybe I was just over-tired or something.
‘…I had no idea that cats were so much hassle. I’m exhausted. He either sleeps on my head, or scratches and yowls at the bedroom door in between galloping up and down the hall all night if I shut him out, the little bastard. Anyway, it’s great to see you – I was going to ring you when I got home from here, actually. I’ve got some information for you.’
‘Really? You’ve found something out? What?’
‘Come round, and I’ll tell you. I need to get this on film. I’ll be home in about half an hour.’
I leaned on the handle of my trolley, absently pushing it back and forwards in tiny little ice-dance movements of excitement. ‘Brilliant!’
Maybe the baby bird was a – what were those mythological bringers of news called? A harbinger? Maybe it was telling me that I was finally on my way.
‘Told Stella yet?’
For a moment, I thought he meant, had I told Stella about the bird.
‘No, I’ve only just…..oh. No, not yet. I’m working up to it.’
Mack gave me the sort of look I imagined Brian might get after sharpening his claws on Mack’s chick-fur scalp. ‘I still think you should let her in on it.’
‘I know you do. And I will.’ I turned away, pretending to be fascinated by the Pork and Liver Morsels. Then I noticed that the Jolene Crème Bleach, which Stella had added to the weekly shopping list, was sitting very noticeably next to a punnet of pears in my trolley. Bloody Stella and her non-existent facial hair. Stella had a few tiny little hairs on each side of her top lip - a minuscule amount of peach fluff not at all visible to the naked eye - which she obsessed about until anyone would think that she was in possession of a twirlable and luxuriant handlebar moustache.
Mack was a mate, but not one of those girly blokes who you could tell your period problems too, and I certainly didn’t want him thinking I had moustache issues. I’d never been one of those girls who could merrily pee with other people present, or who asked loudly around at parties if anyone had a tampon. Even Gavin rarely saw me naked – the first time he’d burst in and caught me shaving my legs in the bath, I was mortified, and had shouted at him to go away.
Luckily, a small fracas broke out in Catfood, centred next to the Kidneys and Heart flavour, during which a tiny and splenetic pensioner - one with far more verve and colour than the beige lady my bird had approached - managed to get her trolley tangled up with Mack’s. Whilst Mack was extricating himself and apologising needlessly, I quickly draped my loaf of Medium Sliced Wholemeal over the top of the Jolene, thinking that it was about time I grew out of this extreme body-consciousness.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you round at yours in half an hour, then. If I’m going to be on telly, I’d better go home and get some slap on first.’ Not to mention try and recover from my unexplained hallucinations, I thought, waving over my shoulder at Mack and hurrying away before anything else untoward occurred.
In the end, of course, I had relented. I was to be the sole subject of Mack’s documentary – on the strict understanding that there would be absolutely no on-camera reunions, faked or otherwise, and I could pull out if I was in any way unhappy with the way things were going. I’d given it a great deal of thought, and on balance, the appeal of having Mack’s assistance and shared responsibility in the quest outweighed the horrific prospect of being on TV. Also, I secretly rather liked the idea of being part of a team; helping Mack create something, hopefully, of profound benefit for his career.
And now here I was, staring transfixed at the envelope lying on Mack’s kitchen table. I wasn’t even self-conscious that the camera held to Mack’s eye was registering my every expression; since, to my surprise and relief, he’d been right about that - after the first few sessions, I had almost succeeded in pretending that the camera wasn’t there at all. I no longer dried or fluffed, or any of those terms which sounded laundry-related, but which actually applied to public performance. I still had absolutely no wish to see myself in the finished product, though.
‘Sure you want to go ahead with this?’ he asked, as my hand wavered over the envelope. This was typical of Mack, to bother putting it in an envelope and sealing it. Anyone else would have just handed me the sheet of paper. Still, I supposed, it was for dramatic effect.
‘Well, it’d be pretty hard to resist having a look at what’s in this envelope, even if I didn’t. But yes, I do want to go ahead. I’ve read all the stuff, and I’m ready, for whatever we find. I don’t want her to know I’m looking for her until I find her, though. Then I decide. And if none of the names you’ve tracked down – assuming you have – turn out to be the right Ann Paramor, then I’m going to put it all behind me, stop wondering, and forget about it – her – once and for all. It’ll be a shame for your documentary, but that’s the way it’s going to be. Reading all those articles you printed off for me has made me even more certain: I don’t want it to take over my life. I don’t need to know badly enough to spend years and years searching, and possibly never get an answer. If I don’t find her within six months, that’s it.’
Mack snorted faintly, but I chose to ignore it, instead taking a deep breath. ‘So shall I open it, then?’
‘Go on, then,’ he said. ‘It’s like the Oscars, this, you know, the bit where you have to make an embarrassing speech and cry all over your Versace frock.’
I flapped the envelope gently up and down in front of me, agitatedly, rapidly losing my nerve again. God, I was such a coward. It was only a piece of paper. What on earth would I be like if I ever came face to face with the actual woman? Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of yellow, and started, but when I looked more closely I realised that it was just a sponge lying beside Mack’s kitchen sink.
‘Are there many of them? Ann Paramors, I mean.’
‘Just a few. Open it, Emma, for God’s sake. The suspense is killing me, and I already know what’s in there!’
A few. He had really found a few people with my mother’s name! I realised that I had began to doubt that there would be any Ann Paramors at all, after drawing a blank on the on-line phone directory. I took another deep breath, almost hyperventilating, and ripped open the envelope.
It was a single sheet of A4 , on which was a very short typed list:
Paramor, Ann: 39 Dewhurst Gds, Nottingham, NG8 4FX
Paramor, Ann: The Old Forge, Ellesmere Road, Shrewsbury, Shropshire
Paramor Ann B.: Number 8, Back Lane, St.Aubin, Jersey
Paramor, Ann H: 7 Andover Road, Harlesden, London NW10
Paramor, Ann S: Lowgill, Iwerne Minster, Dorset
I stared at the word Paramor so many times that it ceased to become a word, or a potential parent, or a r
ed herring; but a hieroglyph, an abstract pattern; wallpaper, plastering the inside of my mind with Paramors. I felt excitement and nausea spiral up inside me, and accidentally jogged Mack’s camera with my elbow as he was slowly panning down the list over my shoulder.
‘Wow. I don’t know what to say, Mack. Did you get all these off the Internet then?’
‘Actually,’ he said, so sheepishly anyone would have thought he’d been looking for pornography, not parents; ‘I started to use the on-line phone directories and things, but the really comprehensive ones are all based in America, or else you have to pay for them. Then I found some information about this CD-Rom you can get. It’s based on the Electoral Registers as well as the phonebooks, and so it lists people by their Christian names and surnames. I just went down to the library and – ‘
‘You went to the library for me? That’s so sweet of you!’ It was undeniably great, to have all this research done on my behalf. I momentarily forgot that he was actually doing it for his documentary.
Mack fidgeted with embarrassment, as if he wished he had his computer chair to twirl on. ‘It was nothing…..Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I just did a search on Ann Paramor, and these came up. Unfortunately there’s only a phone number listed next to two of the addresses. Still, it should be easy enough to check them all out.’
I flung my arms around Mack’s neck and hugged him, and for a moment our ears pressed together. I felt a rush of heat transmitted from his earlobe to mine.
‘Oi! Mind me camera,’ he grumbled good-naturedly as I pulled away, adjusting my glasses. ‘It’s not going to look very professional if the picture’s wobbling all over the place.’
‘Sorry. I’m just so excited that I’ve got something concrete to work with now. You’re fantastic. Let’s have a drink to celebrate.’
