by Amanda James
Ellie’s colour deepens to a warm scarlet even though I doubt Harry had heard what she’d said about Dave. ‘Oh, that would be lovely, wouldn’t it, girls?’ she says breathily and flutters her lashes.
I think she sounds as if she has asthma or has just run upstairs and looks as if perhaps she had something in her eye. I have never understood the commonly accepted change in behaviour of some women during interaction with a man they find attractive. I can’t imagine how Harry would find it so.
‘Oh, how kind. Mine’s a white wine spritzer, thanks,’ Sally says, twisting her curls into a ponytail and then letting them fall back around her shoulders, while all the time staring at Dave’s behind.
Harry puts his hand on the back of my chair. I look up at him and he smiles. He has a nice friendly smile, dark blue eyes and light brown hair. He also has the same kind of stubble as my ex-boss, but as yet hasn’t offered to rasp it. If Mum had been here she would have said Harry was a handsome and smartly turned-out chap. She would have encouraged me to get to know him and hoped we would hit it off, because it was about time I found a man. The thing is, I don’t want to find a man. I decline the offer of a drink and, after Harry has gone, I say I’m leaving to check emails.
Ellie pulls her chin close to her chest and harrumphs. ‘Do what you think is best. But, as I said, I think you should be careful about trying to find your mother.’
I am tempted to say that I think Ellie should be careful about drawing her chin in as it makes her look like a constipated Buddha, but that would be cruel.
Harry pops back to get his wallet just as I stand to leave. He sets his empty glass down on our table and says to me, ‘Are you really thirty today? I couldn’t help overhear your conversation earlier.’
‘Yes, I am,’ I say, aware of all eyes on my face as if searching for lines and wrinkles.
‘Well, I would say you look more like twenty-five, and a model to boot.’ Harry looks directly into my eyes. ‘I think it’s that blue-black hair, without a strand of grey – and those unusual moss-green eyes, of course.’
Ellie sniggers into her cider and I feel my colour rise. Then she blinks rapidly as if trying to dislodge the flash of jealousy I’d seen there and moves a hand of stealth towards a fly, which has graduated from the sticky circle to the rim of Harry’s glass. I raise my hand and flap the fly away. ‘That’s kind of you to say, Harry. Not true, but kind,’ I say, looking back at him just as directly. Though bold for me, it seems safer than looking at my friends. If I do I might lose my nerve and have to pull my horns in.
‘Blue-black hair is very precise, isn’t it?’ Ellie says through a tight mouth as if she’s afraid of allowing the fly access. ‘What are you, a hairdresser?’
‘Funny you should ask that, but yes.’ Harry pulls a few business cards out of his wallet and hands them round to us. ‘Just started my own business down in the precinct. Not doing too bad at all.’
‘“A Cut Above, by hair artist Harry Clements”,’ Sally reads. ‘We always go to Hair Today, don’t we—’ Sally’s arm jerks under the impact of Ellie’s elbow and she and I read the warning signal in our friend’s eye. ‘Oh, God. Sorry, Lu, I didn’t think.’ Sally speaks quietly to the floor.
I hadn’t needed Sally’s faux pas to remember what had happened to Mum as she left Hair Today. As soon as Harry had said ‘hairdresser’ I had been in the death day, by the side of the road in the rain, willing my mum not to cross.
‘That’s all right. It’s easily done,’ I say, and drain half my glass in one. The cool air from outside is calling and this time it won’t be ignored. ‘Thanks, girls, it was a lovely evening.’ I gulp down the remainder of the wine and step away from the table.
Ellie stands and tries to grab my arm as I walk past. ‘No, you can’t go like this. You’re upset.’
‘No, I’m fine, honestly.’ I muster a half-fixed smile that feels as if it wants to slide off my face.
‘Yeah, well, you don’t look fine,’ Harry says, his kind eyes finding mine. ‘Stay and have another drink. I don’t know what the problem is but—’ Ellie’s nudging elbow sets to work again, and he shakes his head.
‘Another time, perhaps? See you all,’ I send over my shoulder as I hurry to the door and at last make my escape into the night.
Adelaide is asleep in front of the ten o’clock news. Though relaxed, her face still hangs from the eyebrows of surprise and looks as if it can’t quite make sense of a dream. I tiptoe past and pick up my laptop from the coffee table. I really ought to wake my neighbour, but an awake Adelaide will not allow the quiet time in my room I very much need after the birthday disaster. Why hadn’t I stayed for a drink with Harry? He clearly liked me, but it was the same old story. I have no confidence meeting new people, particularly where men are concerned. Something always feels awkward. Out of place.
The second escape of the evening is nearly complete until a floorboard announces my departure with a traitorous squeak.
‘Lu, is that you?’ Adelaide burbles. She sounds as if she’s underwater.
Can I ignore her and dash upstairs to my room, stuff some pillows under the duvet and then hide in the wardrobe if Adelaide comes in to check? A second squeak says no. ‘Yes, it’s me,’ I whisper, and give a little wave.
‘Had a lovely time?’ Adelaide rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands and gets up from her chair.
‘It was great, thanks. Shall I walk you to your door?’ I step into the hallway and flick the light switch.
‘Fancy a cuppa first?’
Still with my back to her, I unhook a coat from the rack and hope my neighbour won’t be offended when I decline. I fake a yawn and turn to look at her, but the yawn remains stuck, hippo-like, and I hear a choked laugh in my throat. I cover my giggles with another yawn and a cough because Adelaide’s eyebrows are … gone. Well, not gone exactly, but the carefully crayoned arches have smudged along the bridge of her nose to the south and disappeared into her hairline to the north. Must have been when she rubbed her eyes.
I step behind Adelaide and help her into her coat. ‘I’m so tired, I wouldn’t be great company. We’ll have tea tomorrow?’
‘Tired, on your thirtieth birthday at only five past ten?’ Adelaide raises the skin above her eyes. A bloodhound looks at me … a bloodhound with a smudged forehead.
Laughter bubbles in my stomach and though I try so hard to hold it back, it bursts from my mouth. I flap a hand in front of my heated face and say, ‘I know! What a boring Betty I am, eh?’
Adelaide raises the folded skin above her eyes again. I’ve never seen a suspicious bloodhound until now. ‘Hm. Never mind, I’ll be off then. Your dad went to bed with a hot drink about an hour ago.’
Her tone sobers my mood, but I have to force myself to think of serious things when I look back at my neighbor’s disappeared eyebrows. ‘Oh, you are such a treasure. Thanks again for looking after him.’ I touch Adelaide’s arm lightly and reach for the door handle.
Adelaide turns a stiff back. ‘No need to walk me, I’m perfectly fine,’ she says, and leaves.
I pick up the laptop from the hall table and feel like an idiot. Poor Adelaide obviously realised I was laughing at her for some reason, but she wouldn’t know why until she looked in the mirror at home.
Dad’s gentle snoring snakes under his door and across the landing floorboards. I enter my room, change into my pyjamas and for a few moments I draw my legs under me on the bed and just listen to the computer booting up and the familiar house noises. The old building sounds like an elderly person relaxing stiff joints and settling down for the night. Clicks, creaks, soft taps from the boiler, and Dad’s snores perform a comforting tune conducted by the rustle of tree branches outside my window.
If I really concentrate, hold my breath and half close my eyes I can almost see Mum wave from the dimly lit landing and say, ‘Night, love. See you in the morning,’ as she had on so many nights. Almost, but each time I try I can’t hold her there. At the last moment her image is sna
tched away like smoke in the wind. She is gone and all I have left are memories.
At my desk, I scroll through emails full of adverts and offers, until I see the name I’d been hoping for. Maureen’s. I look at the bold type on the email’s subject line and poise my forefinger over the mouse; it trembles as if the left-click button is about to deliver an electric shock. I clench my jaw and place the pad of my fingertip on the mouse. Since that day on the bench I had decided to live life with my horns out, but once I open the email the future will stretch before me, unknown and untested.
Oddly, the future will also be my past. A circle of time joined end to end, spinning out of control on its axis – and the axis is me. My horns recede, but before I can retreat fully I close my eyes and force my finger down. I take a breath, open my eyes and read:
Hi Lu,
Good news! I have your birth mother’s name and current address (see below). I found it back when you first contacted me, and, as intermediary, I tentatively touched base to see if she was indeed the one we were after. I gave her your basic info as we agreed. She was over the moon and even asked if I had your contact details. Of course, I very soon had to tell her that you had changed your mind, so didn’t give them to her. But don’t worry; you aren’t the first to have had second thoughts!
So, I think it is best that you write a letter in the first instance and see what happens. As I said before, I am here to offer advice and support. As we discussed last time, these matters are rarely straightforward and often not like the programmes we see on TV. Email or give me a ring.
Best, Maureen.
Ms Mellyn Rowe, Seal Cottage, Tregrenas Hill, St Ives, Cornwall
I touch the screen with my fingertip and trace each letter of the name and address of my birth mother, static prickling every loop and curve. Then I fold my hands in my lap and the tears that have been so long overdue finally find release.
5
July dawns are like notes of hope. They remind the days to be bright, fresh and summery.
Sometimes the days forget to read the notes or prefer to sit under rainclouds or hemmed in by thick walls of pollution. But sometimes they pay attention. Today is a note reading day. I watch from my window as the muted dawn light reveals the purple shadows and sages of the garden as a base coat, while gradually adding the bolder brushstrokes of sunlight to transform the canvas into a kaleidoscope of dazzling colour. In corner barrels, lupins boast pink and blue; in hanging baskets, yellow primroses glow under the blush of red geraniums, and, in the foreground, the huge white rose bush Mum had loved presents myriad of dew-covered buds, pregnant with fragrance.
In the four months since Mum has been gone, my life has become unrecognisable. Years of working in the office, going through the motions of repetitive nothingness, are over. Like the rose bush, my future has bloomed into an exciting prospect of something – something with promise and hope. I’ve always loved my adoptive parents, nobody could have wanted better, but I’m convinced that finding my birth mother will unlock the answers to questions I have kept hidden in my heart. Even the schoolyard memory has left me alone, so things must be looking up. I’m not looking forward to the immediate future though.
I find Dad in the kitchen, his back to me, reading the instructions on a packet of something. Over the last while he has thankfully started functioning again, but not enough to go back to work. Adelaide doesn’t come over as much now, but she has brought him a load of jigsaws and he’s completed at least one a day. It’s as if every time he successfully places a bit of shaped card into the appropriate space on the puzzle board he’s helping to rebuild the pieces of his shattered life.
Dad turns to look at me and points at the packet. ‘It says here that you have to fill this sachet full of milk and pour it on the porridge. What a daft idea.’
‘Why daft?’
‘Because it’s a flimsy bit of paper and it will probably spill all over the shop. Why you bought this microwavable stuff I don’t know.’
I can’t tell him that it was Mum that bought it because he’d feel bad, and that’s the last thing I want. ‘Do you want me to make it? You sit down and have your cuppa.’
‘Thanks, love.’ He sits at the kitchen table and rustles a newspaper. ‘No luck on the job front?
‘No, not as yet.’
He turns a few pages. ‘Not to worry, you have to find the right one.’
‘Yes. And thanks to you having me still live at home, I have enough in the bank to tide me over for ages yet.’
‘Smashing.’
This is a ritual we go through every few days. It’s as if we have a well-rehearsed script that has to be adhered to, and if we deviate from it the world as we know it would fall about our ears. I stir milk into the bowl, put it in the microwave and hope the scriptwriter isn’t listening. ‘Dad … I have something to tell you that you might not like.’
He looks up from the paper and frowns. ‘What is it?’
The hum of the microwave sounds like a giant angry bee and it puts me off my stride. Since finding the email about Ms Mellyn Rowe I’d pictured the scenario a hundred times. Imagined what I’d say, what he’d say back, and how it would all pan out. Now, with Dad’s anxious eyes on mine and the beep of the microwave coming in just when I’d plucked up the courage to open my mouth, the scenario turns into a blank screen.
Dad’s face threatens to drain to grey again after so recently getting some of its colour back. ‘How bad can it be? Just say it,’ he says, folding the newspaper and setting it aside.
I pick up a tea towel and open the microwave door. ‘Let me just get the porridge and—’
‘Forget the bloody porridge. I can’t eat it until I know what’s made your face look like somebody has died …’ He draws his hand across his chin. ‘They haven’t, have they?’
I take the porridge over to the table anyway and sit opposite. ‘No, Dad. But it was because Mum did that I decided to do something.’ I take a deep breath. ‘I decided to find my birth mother and … well, I have.’
I look at him, but he shrugs his eyebrows and pulls the porridge towards him. He picks up the spoon but doesn’t eat. Now the microwave has stopped humming there is nothing to break the silence apart from a few birds squabbling outside on the feeder. I wish he would say something. ‘We got any honey for this stuff?’ Is not what I expect, but at least it’s a start. I get the honey.
‘So how do you feel about it?’
Dad stirs honey into his porridge and shrugs his eyebrows again. ‘I knew it would come one day. Even though you said you’d never want to find her when you turned eighteen.’
My scenario had involved shock, possible tears – his and mine – recriminations, and eventual acceptance. It had not involved calm porridge eating and shrugging eyebrows. I weigh my response carefully and then reply, ‘I didn’t at the time. Also, I thought it would be a slap in the face for you and Mum after everything you’ve done for me.’
‘So how has your mum leaving us changed all that?’
Dad always makes it sound as if Mum hadn’t died, just that the marriage had broken down. He can’t bring himself to say the words. And how am I going to answer that question? ‘It was a lot of things, coming up thirty, and I hadn’t been happy for a while. You know, just drifting from one New Year’s Eve to the next, wondering what the year would bring rather than making things happen? I’d made the decision to find her about a year or so ago, just never did anything about it.’ He eats his porridge and looks at me. I look out of the window at the rose bush and wish Mum was here; she’d know what to say.
‘When Mum …’ I can’t say it either, not out loud, not in front of him. ‘I guess it was like a catalyst. I’d already set the ball rolling by quitting that awful job. The fact her life was cut short so suddenly made me realise how important it was to live mine, stop going through the motions, you know?’
‘You’ve always been ashamed of being adopted, haven’t you, Lu?’ Dad wipes his mouth and sits back in his chair. I can’t dec
ide if he is angry, sad or both. His face is serious, yet his eyes are unreadable.
I want to say don’t be daft, that’s ridiculous, but instead find myself saying, ‘Where’s that come from?’
‘From that day when you ran out of school when you were eleven. That vile Megan girl had bullied you about it.’
I really wish he hadn’t said that because, wham! There I am in the playground again, surrounded …
Megan takes a step closer and pokes a long crimson-painted fingernail in my stomach. The pain is bearable, but the humiliation accompanying it sheathes the expectant silence. The air grows thin, harder to suck, while the atmosphere in the crowd becomes thick, palpable – heavy with anticipation. ‘What the hell are you staring at your socks for, you nutter? I asked you a question and we’re all waiting for an answer.’
The question had been asked only a moment or two ago but carries with it the weight of ages and stab of betrayal. I will never trust anyone again. Ever.
The sun sears a warning on the exposed skin at the back of my neck as my long black hair curtains forward, but I can’t look up. A car drives past the school gates; the exhaust fumes mix with tar. There’s a roll of nausea in my throat. ‘I’ll ask you one more time,’ Megan hisses, poking me again, and someone sends a nervous giggle into the sepia sky. ‘Then I’ll do more than poke you. Is it true what Gill Morris says about you being adopted?’
The girl is so close now that I can smell the waft of cheese and onion crisps on her breath and the overpowering deodorant fails to mask the smell of sour sweat. The space between us is charged with electricity, a sure sign that Megan is high on adrenaline – itching to carry out her threat.
I have to give in.
Dad’s voice snaps me back. ‘You said you had kept it all a big secret until your friend betrayed you.’ He leans his elbows on the table and stares into my eyes. I can see that he isn’t angry now. Just sad. Really sad. ‘Betrayed was the word you used. That’s the kind of word you use when the secret you’re hiding is big, bad and shameful.’
