Hope Nicely's Lessons for Life

by Caroline Day

‘Paternity. To confirm or disprove his biological fatherhood. DNA is the most reliable method of ascertaining paternity using the analysis of patterns of Short Tandem Repeats or microsatellites. These are highly repetitive sections of DNA and consist of a number of nucleotide repeating …’

  Fatherhood? I’m looking at Connor Flynn and I’m trying to understand. Because there’s a thing that I think he’s saying. About Simon Taylor. About him being …

  ‘He’s my …’ I can’t say the word. There is no air in me. It’s not even a jumble. It’s like my brain is too surprised to even do any thinking anymore. Because all my life, I’ve thought about having a birth mother who threw me away, but I never ever even thought about having a father. Or hardly at all.

  I say I don’t understand, but Connor Flynn is still talking. And it’s about tracts of repetitive DNA and bi, tri and tetra nucleotides and polymorphic regions and forensic certainty.

  I say I don’t understand again and Connor Flynn says: ‘Investigations of short tandem repeats based on the mutations of—’

  ‘I don’t care about short tandems.’ This is me. I’m shouting. ‘Why is Simon Taylor a test in my mum’s papers? What test did he do? I don’t even understand.’

  ‘The DNA results were with your mother’s papers, along with all the adoption documentation. I didn’t have time to read them fully, but they were in fact irrelevant. However, I do recall the name. Although both Simon and Taylor are common enough names, so it’s not beyond the realms of probability that it would be a different …’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ My brain is still trying to understand but, flip a pancake, it’s like this has to be a big make-it-up fib. A ginormous one. Because how can it be true? It’s like my brain is on a merry-go-round, and everything is turning too fast for me to see it properly.

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘About the DNA. About me having a father who was Simon Taylor.’

  ‘Unnecessary. The forensic analysis proved objectively that he was not your father. And a negative DNA result must be accepted as conclusive beyond doubt since in ninety-nine point—’

  ‘Simon Taylor did a test to see if he was my father …’

  I still don’t understand. Not about the ninety-nine point nines or the negative DNA or about Simon Taylor doing the test. And I need to understand. But the train must be coming soon. The one to Rainham (Kent). And then it will be too late.

  ‘Yes. It proved that he was not. Conclusively. The probability of a false result is so small as to be negligible. Of course, without full knowledge of the precise methods used in testing it is impossible to say quite how small the chance of a wrong result is. But assuming competent geneticists, approved conventional methods and aseptic technique in a laboratory environment, the likelihood of an inaccurate result is between one in two million and—’

  ‘But …’ My head is so tired. It wants all the questions and the ginormous muddle to go away, and just to leave it. Because I’m not even meant to be thinking about this.

  ‘My mum would have told me. About the DNA. And Simon Taylor. And the being my father. Or the not being. Conclusively. She would have done.’

  Connor Flynn isn’t saying anything more to me, really. He’s just looking into the air with his fingers moving. And he’s talking only to himself, about the accuracy to nine decimal points. Or maybe ninety. And about one to six or more base points, and about variable numbers and more about short tandems and genetic linkage. But I’m here too. I’m on the platform. And I don’t even know what I should be thinking about. Because if the train comes, the Rainham (Kent) one, which is coming in maybe just a minute or two, maybe I should still be doing the throwing myself, because that is what I’ve come here for. Only for that. But my brain is so full.

  I want to ask my mum – Jenny Nicely – what all these things mean. But I can’t ask her. And now I don’t even know if I can ever ask her again.

  Connor Flynn is still sitting on the bench. He is still moving his fingers and still looking at a place that is not quite on my shoulders. And he is still looking like he has all the answers in the world and that he is the cleverest person I have ever met. But most of all, there is only one thing that I really want to know.

  ‘And she’s not dead? Really not?’

  Connor Flynn doesn’t reply, because of still saying mutation rates and homologous chromosomes. So I say it louder. A bit shouting.

  ‘My mum is alive? Really, really really? She is alive? She’s not dead?’

  ‘It is most probable that your adoptive mother is alive based on the fact that Danny Flynn received a call …’ he looks up at the red light clock, ‘twenty-seven minutes ago asking for you to go to the hospital as soon as possible. Jenny Nicely has regained consciousness.’

  26

  In the taxi, I’m staring out of the window and we’re going past the shops that say bookmakers and off-licence and hardware and post office. And underneath the streetlights there are people, doing the things that people do, like walking, and standing at the bus stops, and wrapping their scarves around their necks. And I don’t know what I’m feeling inside, because of it being almost like there have been too many feelings and now there are none left.

  My hands are in my lap, one on top of the other, and I can’t stop them shaking.

  And – I don’t know why I’m doing it – I hold out my hand, and put my fingers around Connor Flynn’s fingers.

  He pulls his hand away, fast as anything, like I’ve burned him and says: ‘I don’t like being touched.’

  I lift up my hand, to show him how much it’s shaking. I say can’t he hold it. I say, I need him to do it. I say please.

  ‘But I don’t like anybody touching me.’

  ‘Please can you. Just for one minute. Please.’

  He makes a sound, a bit like humming, but he takes my hand, holding it inside his. It is stiff and tight, with his fingers just holding onto mine on the outside, not in between them. He’s also lifting his other hand up to in front of his face. I think he’s looking at his watch, because he’s mumbling the numbers to himself. And when he gets to sixty, he takes his hand away again.

  ‘Where have you been? We’ve been worried sick. Hope, what were you thinking, running off again? Nobody had any idea where you’d …’ Julie Clarke’s accent is like somebody singing in my ears but she’s looking at me with her mouth down, and a bit like the man with no cereal left. But then she stops, and shakes her head. And she says: ‘Oh, sweetheart, thank goodness you’re OK. And you heard, about your mum, that she’s been trying to talk …?’

  Julie doesn’t want me to be overexcited. She says the doctors told her we should keep our expectations realistic, and of course, Julie says, she’s so disorientated – Jenny is – and it’s not even real words. I shouldn’t expect a miracle.

  ‘She didn’t seem to recognise me at all. And she didn’t seem to understand what I was saying. So I wouldn’t want you to think …’

  Connor waits outside while I go in. Julie Clarke stays in the corridor with him too, because she has to send lots of messages to tell people I’m safe, but a nurse comes into the room with me. Her name is Zehra.

  My mum, Jenny Nicely, is sort of sitting up, because of the bed being higher where it can lift her up at her head. And the mask isn’t on her, just the little tube under her nose – and that’s good because I can see her face. Her eyes are closed, and I’m thinking that this is what she’s been like all the time, but then she opens them. And she looks up towards the light on the ceiling and then she looks towards the window.

  I say, hello Mum. And in my body, it’s like bumbum bumbum, really hard and really fast, because it’s not very nice to think that I was going to throw myself and be squirrel goo, but also because she’s moving her head, and she hasn’t done that for all the time since she had the thing, which was the emergency.

  She doesn’t say hello back, and she doesn’t open her arms for a big, lovely hug. But she does make a noise. And it’s not a word, I
don’t think, but it’s like a few letters, like maybe A and O and maybe U. And then she blinks, and it’s a big blink, like her eyelids are hard to move and like she’s having to try really hard.

  I walk to beside her bed and I put my hand onto her hand. I put my fingers into hers, and I do a little squeeze, gentle as I can. I say, hello Mum, again.

  She turns her head. Away from the window and slowly, slowly, slowly until it’s towards me. And her eyes are on mine, but it’s like they’re not really looking at them. And they’re closing again. I think maybe she’s falling asleep.

  I say, please don’t be gone. I say, come back to me. I say, I love you. I don’t just say it once. I say it twice and then again more times, many times. I keep saying it. I love you, Mum, I love you, I love you.

  And she makes another sound. It’s still not a word. It’s still more just like a letter. Like a letter O. And then again. O – o – O.

  I stay beside her, with her hand in my hand. I’m listening. And I’m crying, but silent, with just tears and no noise. And then my mum makes another sound, like two letters together. Like O and then p. Like O-p. O-p. Like she’s trying to do the alphabet.

  And her eyes are opening again, and they’re looking towards me, and they’re black and brown, like coffee, but with just a little tiny bit of milk. And they’re looking, not up to the ceiling or not to the window, or not like it’s into nothing. They’re looking at me. Right into my eyes.

  I say, ‘I love you, Mum. I love you so much. Please come back to me.’

  And she says it again, and this time I know what she’s saying.

  ‘Hope.’

  9

  CONCLUSIONS

  27

  ‘And how do you feel about this?’

  This is Camilla da Silva. She’s the one who asks all the questions, but there are no right answers, just me talking and talking and talking. And mostly it’s about how did I feel about this thing, or what did I think about that thing. She has a candle on the table by her chair, it’s a big one, with not just one burning string, but one-two-three, in a glass pot, and it smells really nice, like our tree in the front garden when all the bees come buzzing. And the burning bit is called a wick. One, two, three wicks.

  She has a notebook. Camilla da Silva does. But it’s not as nice as my notebook. It’s blue too but it’s not so big and not quite so blue. Her pen is really nice though. It’s shiny and silver, almost as nice as my special pen, but not quite.

  ‘I feel …’ I’m thinking hard, to give the right answer. But in my head, I’m hearing a word. And the word is silver. Maybe because of the pen. And also because of her name being da Silva too. But I have to stop thinking about the word and think about how I feel about the things I know now.

  ‘I feel …’ Silver. Silver. Silver. ‘I feel …’ I’m telling myself not to stare at the pen. Julie Clarke says it’s important for me to say the truth to Camilla so I’m trying really hard to do that. I’m squeezing my brain and I’m telling all the silvers to be quiet. And I’m thinking Camilla’s question in my head again. How do you feel?

  But it’s not easy to know the answer, because of my memory, maybe, and the jumble and forgetting lots of things, even if they’re feelings and even if they’re important. And really because of not understanding quite everything still, although it’s been explained a lot of times. Because of it being such a lot to take in.

  We’re going to talk about it a bit more later. Julie Clarke and Simon Taylor and me. They’re going to take me to the hospital to see my mum, Jenny Nicely. But now I’m concentrating, and trying to think about feelings, and all the practising and all the magazines and buses. But I can’t find the right answer.

  ‘I don’t know what I feel?’

  Camilla da Silva doesn’t say anything. Her chair is the same as my chair – which is brown and I think it’s leather – except that my chair has arms and hers doesn’t. And also my chair can spin. I’m holding the arms with my hands and going a little bit from side to side. And still Camilla da Silva isn’t saying anything. She’s just looking at me. I think maybe she wants me to say something else.

  ‘It’s a lot to take in.’ This is me. And Camilla da Silva is nodding so I think this was a good answer.

  ‘You have had a lot to take in. How do you think you should feel?’

  Her eyes are very wide, and I really want to give her a better answer instead of just ‘I don’t know’ again. I put my thumbs inside my fingers and squeeze, like maybe that will help me think. How do I think I should feel?

  And I’m thinking about adverts in magazines, and role playing with my mum Jenny, and pictures on buses, and cereal and biscuits, and Simon Taylor crying when he came to the hospital with Danny Flynn. And him saying he was so sorry.

  ‘A bit sad, and maybe a bit angry. And mostly sad …’

  ‘Sad. Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because of never saying thank you for the monkey. And because of Simon Taylor, too, and him wanting to be my father and not being my father, because of the DNA and the test showing that it was ninety-ninety-nine at least probably-ty that he wasn’t … And him saying everything was his fault, even though I don’t think it was really.’

  ‘Why do you say it wasn’t his fault?’

  ‘I don’t know. Julie Clarke says my mum had tried to tell me before.’

  ‘About your birth mother?’

  ‘Yes. But I don’t remember it.’

  ‘You don’t remember her telling you?’

  ‘No. Julie Clarke says it made me do not very good things. Like maybe drinking vodka or running into a car.’

  ‘So when your mum, Jenny, tried to talk to you about your biological mother, it made you do harmful things to yourself?’

  ‘Julie Clarke says it did. I don’t remember.’

  ‘You don’t remember drinking alcohol or being hit by a car?’ This is Camilla with her big eyes looking at me.

  My head is a bit tired now, like maybe it’s time to stop talking. But Camilla is still looking at me. She’s still waiting for an answer.

  ‘I do remember that, of course. I remember the vodka because of the boys from school saying it was fun to do it. From class 11E. And they had vodka in bottles that were for water, Because of the bottles saying Highland Spring, except when you drink it, then yuck. They said I should drink it with them, because if I didn’t, I would be a lame Spaz. And that’s not a nice word. It’s a horrible word. And I didn’t want them to call me it. I didn’t think they should even say it at all. So I do remember it, actually. And I remember drinking the vodka mostly in the playground. Because of us being friends and having fun. I remember the car too. Because of it hurting.’

  ‘You say they were your friends? The boys you drank with?’

  ‘Yes. That was why we had to drink the vodka together. Because of being friends and it being fun. They said that was why.’

  ‘Did you think it was fun?’

  I’m looking at Camilla da Silva. And I’m thinking about the boys saying, look, Spaz Nicely’s drunk, and about them saying your mum threw you away in a cardboard box like you were rubbish, and about them saying, come on, Spaz, you know you want to. And about the car. And my arm pointing the wrong way. And screaming for my mum.

  Camilla is still looking at me like she’s waiting for an answer. But I can’t remember what her question was until she says it again. ‘Did you think it was fun?’

  And I shake my head and I say, no, not very fun.

  I’ve talked and talked already and now my head is feeling not so chatty anymore. Really I’d like to close my eyes and not answer any more questions and not have to think about what I remember and what I don’t remember and how did I feel. But I’m not closing my eyes. I’m looking at the three burning bits of string. One, two, three. Wicks, actually. And I’m smelling the nice smell from the wicks, which is me using a word which is like an old factory. And I’m spinning a bit in my chair, one way and then the other way.

  ‘Hope?’ It’s Cami
lla. She’s asked me a question but I haven’t listened properly, so she has to ask it again.

  ‘You don’t remember your mum trying to tell you about your birth mother?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ve been told that you attempted to do harmful things to yourself after she talked to you about your birth mother. But you don’t remember it yourself?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And how do you feel about that?’

  She’s looking at me with her eyes wanting me to talk. I don’t want to even talk. But it is very important, that’s what Julie Clarke says, and it will help me. So even though I don’t want to talk, that’s what I have to do.

  ‘I don’t know how I feel. Julie says that was why my mum thought it might be good for me to write my book.’

  ‘It might help you to know how you feel about your birth mother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And why do you think you can talk about it now, when it was so hard for you before?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just can. I don’t know why. Maybe because of my book. Maybe because of writing it to find her now.’

  ‘OK. So, your book is helping. You’ve talked about being part of a writing group. How’s that going?’

  But I don’t want to tell her that. And now in my tummy it’s a bit like something squeezing, like it’s making everything inside me feel heavy and tight. And I say I don’t want to talk anymore. I say thank you. I say I think it’s time to stop.

  I’m not going to tell that it’s poached eggs for lunch, because of the number one rule, but I’m going to show that there are one, two, three pieces of toast on my plate, and it’s white bread, but a little bit brown because of being toast now, and on one of them there are baked beans and on the other pieces of toast there are white circles – except more oval really. They’re my favourite sort of eggs, much better than scrambled, and even better than fried ones, actually. Because of not being so flat. When I put my knife into my egg, the yellow runs out onto the toast and onto the plate too. And it’s the yummiest bit. But when Connor Flynn puts his knife into his egg, none of the yellow runs out, because of Bridget making it not so runny for him.