by Louise Voss
Mack looked at his watch, and then switched off the camera, placing it carefully on the table next to him; an oversized black carapace. I could see the sweaty imprint of his hand already evaporating off the side of it.
‘Actually, I can’t stop. I’ve got footie practice tonight. Why don’t you decide which one you want to try and contact first, and we’ll go on Saturday? Oh, and if you want something to do in the meantime, could you ring Directory Enquiries, and see if you can get any more phone numbers? I don’t think I’d need to film that – although when you actually phone them up, I’d like to be there.’
‘Sure,’ I said, beaming at both Mack, and the mothers in my hand.
Chapter 19
No time like the present, I thought, as I unpacked the shopping I’d dumped in the kitchen before running over to Mack’s. I felt light, elated, almost euphoric, as I loaded up the freezer with already-defrosting oven chips, and fish fingers in slippery wet cardboard containers, which I half-expected to wriggle out of my grasp and escape in a flash of silvery fins across the quarry tiled floor, as if excitement was animating my groceries as well as myself.
‘Directory Enquiries first, then maybe just call one of the numbers,’ I muttered, as I stuffed empty plastic bags into the kitchen cupboard which seemed to exist for that sole purpose, until the cupboard was full to bursting and we threw all the bags away. Stella and I never had got to grips with the local council recycling scheme, and it always made me feel guilty. Mum had been very eco-minded, with her composting and recycling. She even went through a brief phase where she used to bring Betsey’s family’s manure home for our garden. Orang-utan shit made excellent mulch, but after a while the boot of our car started to smell so bad that Dad and I made her desist.
I felt a pang of missing Betsey, wishing it could have been her I’d seen in Sainsbury’s and not a stupid little bird. Why didn’t one get a choice of hallucination? It wasn’t fair.
No, I decided. I mustn’t phone up any of the Anns yet, not after I’d told Mack that I’d wait until he was there to film it. But now the ball was finally rolling it was too tempting, like being seven and alone with a massive pile of Christmas presents all addressed to me. I’d have to make do with calling Directory Enquiries for a start. Double-checking that Stella really was out - she’d told me she was going swimming, but I wanted to make sure she wasn’t skulking in her bedroom unbeknownst to me – I dialled 192. As I pressed them, the digits played a tinny synthesised rendition of the first three notes to the tune of Big Ben, before it struck the hour.
‘Which town, please?’ droned the operator, sounding bored witless.
‘Ann Paramor,’ I replied, not listening properly. This was getting to be a very bad habit – not listening to people when they spoke to me. Perhaps it was a trait I’d inherited from Ann Paramor… It would be so nice to know.
‘Which town, please?’ said the voice, with more animation.
‘Oh – sorry. Well, there’s one in Harlesden, one in Nottingham, and one in Shrewsbury.’
There was a pause. ‘Thank you, madam, but I’m afraid I can only give out two numbers at a time. You’ll have to ring back for the third. May I have the address of the first one?’
As I read out the first address, I felt like a baby bird myself, unable to fly, teetering on the wire rim of a supermarket trolley. I couldn’t see over the top, but I knew that it was a long way down.
My two calls to Directory Enquiries yielded just one more telephone number, the Harlesden one, making a total of three out of five. By now I was hooked. Adrenalin pumped through me and I could think of nothing else but those five Anns.
I rang Mack’s mobile and left him a message. ‘Hi, it’s me. I know you’re playing football, but when you’ve finished can you call me? I got one more number from Directory Enquiries but it’s doing my head in not to be able to start phoning them. Can’t wait for Saturday – we should go to the London one first, don’t you think? If you get a chance to come over before Saturday so I can make a start phoning them, that would be great. Anyway, call me.’
He rang me back a couple of hours later.
‘Have you got any massages on tomorrow?’ Mack asked. I could hear a lot of loud male braying and what sounded like heavy rain in the background.
‘No, I haven’t. Why? And where are you?’
‘In a changing room, surrounded by a lot of naked men. Sorry about the noise.’
Even in my birthmother-preoccupied state, I couldn’t resist the mental image of weedy Mack sitting on a wood-slatted bench talking to me on the phone whilst great strapping hunks paraded naked around him, dripping wet, towelling themselves off, their muscly buttocks round and perfect punctuation marks at the base of their broad-shouldered, tapering torsos….mmm. It was months since I’d last had sex. Well, weeks, anyway.
‘Any nice naked men there? You know, ones I might be interested in?’ I asked, casually. I’d finally managed to confess to Mack that Gavin and I were finished and, as Stella predicted, Mack wasn’t the least bit ‘I told you so’ about it. Just sympathetic and tactful.
He laughed, obviously picking up on my mental picture, but the sarcastic tone of his snort was a clear indication that the other members of his football team were probably not the Adonises I was visualising.
‘Not even slightly. They all make me look macho. Besides, haven’t you got enough on your plate at the moment? That’s why I was asking you about tomorrow – if you’re desperate to get on, we could do it then. I was going to give myself a couple of days’ holiday to re-decorate my bathroom, but I think I’ll just end up emulsioning Brian to the wall if I stay in the flat with him for that long.’
All thoughts of male flesh evaporated instantly. ‘Really? Brilliant, thanks That would be great.’
‘I’ll come round at ten, then, shall I? I’ve got a little gizmo that I can plug into your phone to record both sides of the conversation, for the film, if you can wait till then to ring the Harlesden one.’
‘Oh. OK. I suppose so. But I’m dying to do something - want me to look up her address in the A–Z?’
‘Yeah, why not. You’ll have to drive, anyway, because I’ll be filming you, and I’m a pretty crap navigator.’
‘Mack?’
‘Mm?’
‘So what happens when we call them?’
‘Up to you, really. I suppose you’re just establishing that they really do live at the addresses we’ve got for them – you’ll have to make an excuse for why you’re ringing, unless you just come right out with who you are – ‘
‘God, no way! I don’t want them to know anything until I’ve visited them, and I’m sure we’ve got the right Ann. Then it has to be face to face.’
‘That’s what I thought. Well, we’ll just have to visit them all until we find the right one. I hope they don’t mind being filmed – we’ll have to ask them first, of course. People can be funny about that kind of thing – I mean, look how nervous you were at first.’
‘Come on Mack, you PONCE,’ yelled a voice extremely close to the receiver. ‘Get a MOVE on, we’re missing out on SERIOUS DRINKING time here!’
‘I’ll let you get back to your male bonding exercise, then. Have fun at the pub,’ I said hastily, as another image sprang to mind, this time of Mack in an headlock, some hairy knuckles kneading his skull through its ill-protecting sheath of fine wispy hair. Honestly, men. Maybe I was better off without one.
‘See you tomorrow, then, Emma.’ His voice did sound somewhat muffled.
Two minutes later I was lying on my bed, tracing a path with my finger along the arteries and veins of London in the A-Z, plotting our route to Harlesden. Stella burst into the room, rosy cheeked and icy fingered, bringing with her a blast of cold air from the front door and down the hallway. I quickly flipped the A-Z shut.
‘Brrr, it’s brass monkeys out there. Any supper left over?’
‘I haven’t eaten yet. I’ll cook us something, if that’s what you’re hinting at.’
&nb
sp; ‘Wouldn’t mind. I’m starving. What are you looking up in the A-Z?’
Without waiting for an answer, Stella tipped the contents of her backpack out on my bedroom floor, the damp towel, fogged-up goggles and chloriney black Speedo one-piece.
‘The bloody pool was packed – I only managed forty lengths before I got sick of people crawling up my legs or sticking their feet in my face.’
She scooped up her wet things and dumped them into the fraying wicker laundry basket in the corner of my room.
‘Don’t leave them in there, Stella; put them in the machine, or they’ll start to smell. Oh, come here, I’ll do it.’ I extracted the laundry and went into the kitchen to put on a wash.
‘Yes, Mummy,’ said Stella, and I heard a creak and a rustle as she flopped down on my double bed. Then a thwack and a curse, as the back of her head seemed to have collided with something – oh, shit, the A-Z.
I rushed, too quickly, back into the room, still carrying Stella’s togs. Stella was rubbing her head and examining the scrap of paper on which I’d scribbled 7, Andover Rd, Harlesden, NW10. Her wet hair had left a stringy damp patch on my blue duvet cover.
‘Give me that,’ I said, snatching the piece of paper out of her hand, furious with myself for drawing attention to it. Stella looked at me, and then at the A-Z, whose page-marker ribbon was stuck in between the pages showing the Kilburn, Willesden, and Harlesden areas. I considered grabbing the book, too, but it was so old that it would immediately have disintegrated. Dad used to use that A-Z to get around to his photographic assignments, and it was so out-of-date that it didn’t even contain the Hangar Lane Gyratory System.
‘Whose address is that?’ Stella sat up. ‘We don’t know anybody in Harlesden.’
‘No-one you know.’
‘Oh, come on, Em, tell us – have you got a new boyfriend?’
‘No….no. It’s just….an old friend.’
‘Who?’
‘If you must know, it’s Esther’s new address, you know, who I went to school with. I might go and see her, so I was looking it up. We were talking on the phone the other night.’
This part at least was true – I had found a card from her the other day, stuck in between Van Morrison and Stevie Wonder on our CD shelf; a doleful snowman surrounded by glittery silver snowflakes, and I’d thought it might be nice to get in touch with her again. It would be wonderful to have a girlfriend to talk to about this whole birthmother thing.
Since Gavin, many of my girlfriends had fallen by the wayside. I supposed it was that classic situation where, when you got together with a new boyfriend, you weren’t interested in seeing your old friends. Their jokes and habits and routines seemed dull in comparison to the electric shock and adrenaline rush of your lover’s soft, dry lips brushing yours, and the thrill of staying in bed all day, having sex and eating pizza.
Their names were still in my address book, and there was the obligatory and pointless Christmas card – the one in my hand being a perfect example: I knew before I even opened it that it would say Dear Emma, Happy Christmas, love Esther – or Jo, or Jacqui; substitute as applicable - PS. We must get together soon!
Although I was just as guilty of negligence as the Esthers/ Jos/Jacquis. I found it one of the hardest things in the world, to ring up someone I hadn’t heard from in months and suggest going for a drink – I couldn’t shake a horrible sneaking suspicion that the reason I hadn’t heard from them for that long was because, actually, they didn’t like me. Just because we were friends once, didn’t mean we were honour-bound to be tied together till death did us part. People changed.
Anyway, Esther was such an old friend that I’d told myself not to be paranoid, and to phone her. So later that evening, when Stella was watching television and painting her toenails, I’d taken the telephone into the kitchen, closed the door, and dialled Esther’s number three times before I allowed it to ring, as if I were plucking up the courage to phone someone I really fancied, instead of puny little Esther, with her fondness for Bananarama and frilly ankle socks, and her secondary school propensity for dating the the ugliest boys in West London.
Predictably, Esther had sounded embarrassed to hear from me. There were several awkward silences, and some self-conscious chit-chat about her new house, her twin baby boys, and her new-found passion for upholstering things. I furrowed my brow at the mental image of Esther upholstering everything in sight: doors, wardrobes, husband, babies…
But Esther, I felt like saying, I need you. I’m looking for my birthmother and the only person I’ve really got to talk to about it has a camera shoved constantly in my face. I’ve been dumped by my boyfriend. For the first time in my life I’m keeping a seriously big secret from my sister, and I feel shitty about it. You were the only one who was there for me after Mum and Dad died, you were the only one who still came over to play records and watch Eastenders with me. Everyone else had buggered off to university without giving me a second thought; but you were there for me that night we sat up late, drinking wine, and you held me when I cried hysterically, shuddering with drunken, out-of-control sobs, railing helplessly against the unfairness of my predicament. It was you who closed the door so that Stella wouldn’t wake up and hear me. You who made me black coffee and handed me streamers of toilet paper to blow my nose on.
But I didn’t say any of those things. Instead, there was another pregnant pause.
‘I’d better go,’ said Esther, without suggesting that we meet up, or even speak again soon. ‘Someone needs changing.’
There were no sounds of a baby crying in the background, and I couldn’t help wondering if Esther was inferring that I, in fact, was the person who needed changing. I’d hung up, miserably, wishing I hadn’t bothered.
Stella narrowed her eyes. ‘Oh, that was her you were talking to while I was watching Top of the Pops?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because I distinctly heard you ask how she’d settled into her new house….in Amersham.’
I was speechless for a moment, rumbled. I opened my mouth to confess, about all the Ann Paramors and Mack’s help and everything – God knew it would be good to have someone to confide in – but then I remembered lying in our parents’ cold bed holding Stella’s hand the day before we moved house, and the broken vases. How could I tell her that I was about to go and find a new mother, when she had none? It felt wrong. Although not wrong enough not to proceed with my search.
‘Just drop it, Stell. It’s not important.’
‘Oh well, then. Suit your bloody self.’
Stella stomped out of the room and into her own bedroom, and all I heard from her for the next hour was the Red Hot Chili Peppers blasting out at top volume. Even when I text-messaged her to say that there was a toasted cheese sandwich and a bag of crisps – mis-texting it as CHEES UOASTY & CRIPS - sitting in the hall for her, Stella only stuck her head out long enough to grab the plate and retreat again.
‘Well done, Emma,’ I told myself. ‘You handled that really well.’
Chapter 20
Mack came over as soon as Stella had left for college the next day, trailing around after me with his camera like a persistent four year old playing Grandmother’s Footsteps, even though I was only making tea. As I stood with my back to him, mashing a teabag against the side of a mug, I could feel his presence behind me, the camera lens like a gun barrel aimed at my spine. I made a mental note to check later my rear view, with the aid of two mirrors, and then thought, what’s the point? I could hardly go all prima-donna-ish on Mack’s documentary, like Mariah Carey insisting on only being shot from the right side of her face. It would be vanity in the extreme.
‘Right, I’m ready,’ I said, although Mack had been filming for a good ten minutes already. ‘Let’s do it.’
I sat down at the edge of the sofa and dialled the number of Harlesden Ann, as Mack zoomed in for a close-up of my shaking fingers.
The phone rang. And rang and rang, until the anti-climax of nobody answering made the ringing
tone echo round and round my head. Mack was panning around the living room now, trying to find things to film as a backdrop to this endless, tortuous ringing. He focussed for ages on a photo of Stella and me with our heads together, Stella, as a chubby baby on my lap. Her blonde curls looked almost white against my own dark hair, and she was so wreathed in smiles that I could almost hear her gurgle.
Mack tracked across to another picture, this time of Mum and Dad on holiday. Dad had on hilariously tight striped trunks, and Mum was wearing the stringiest bikini I’d ever seen. They looked dashing and sophisticated. I noticed, as if for the first time, what an exact replica Stella’s body was of Mum’s, down to the small breasts, long hipbones, concave stomach. The picture had been taken when Mum believed her belly would always be flat like that, flat and as empty as a pecked-out snail shell.
Still no answer. I imagined the phone’s ring racing out of the front door of 7 Andover Road Harlesden, down the street, searching for Ann Paramor. Phone, it was insistently calling. Your daughter’s on the phone. Quick!
There was a click on the line. ‘Sorry,’ said a snooty British Telecom voice. ‘Your call has not been answered.’
I slammed the phone down and leaped up off the sofa, almost kicking over my mug of tea.
‘Yes, thank you. We had noticed.’ I said to the red eye of Mack’s camera. I had to turn my back on it for a moment - my breathing was so shallow that I felt as if someone was ironing my lungs.
‘I’ll try the next one,’ I said, turning back and forcing my fingers to dial the next number, the one in Iwerne Minster, Dorset.
A different ringing tone this time; more sonorous, making me think of a butler padding silently down a long tiled hallway. Perhaps I was of noble birth. Perhaps Ann Paramor was a duchess. What did they call the daughters of duchesses?
