It took a little coaxing, but eventually Ellie did as Colin suggested and took the seat next to Harriet’s bed, where the baby was placed in the crook of her arm. Her mouth trembled, then she looked up. The smile that followed seemed to begin in her heart and radiate through her whole being.
Several months afterwards, it occurred to Harriet that Ellie hadn’t mentioned Tabitha for a long time. Colin surmised that Lucy had plugged the gap in her life that had been left when Tabitha jumped out of the orphanage window. It was feasible, of course, but Harriet felt certain there was something else going on besides that.
Ellie, she realised, had become a master of self-preservation. Harriet had seen with her own eyes how close she had been to her friend in the orphanage, then afterwards how the mystery of her whereabouts had tormented her.
She’d long ago started to package memories of her past life into a box and bury them in a corner of her mind, never to be opened again. Now, she’d clearly felt her only option was to do the same with Tabitha. In some ways it made sense. It was certainly a relief to see her happy. But, as Harriet would later observe, the problem with some boxes is that they never stay shut, no matter how hard you try to nail them down.
Chapter 44
Ellie
I was only looking for something to help me cool down. It’s the hottest of August days, the kind too rare in the UK for anyone to ever bother installing air con, a decision I curse nonetheless, along with the stickiness that has been clinging to the small of my back all morning. I’d gone up to Mum’s office knowing that everyone was out and she wouldn’t mind me borrowing her fan.
As I reach the top of the stairs, the Observer magazine catches my eye, sitting on her desk on a blue folder. I suspect instantly that it’s the edition that ran her article about Romania and when I see a Post-It highlighting a particular page, I walk over and touch the glossy cover, recalling Lucy’s words during our walk.
If it was me, I’d have to know…
I lower myself onto the chair as my heart starts to beat in a queasy rhythm. Counter-intuitively, I open up the magazine and begin to read.
It is nearly three decades since the fall of Ceaus¸escu exposed the horrors of Romania’s orphanages. Harriet Barr was among the first journalists to visit the institutions in 1990, discovering infants hidden away in filthy conditions, lying silently in cots. Today, she returns to the country to learn what has happened since.
It’s the pictures from the early nineties that leave me momentarily unable to draw breath. The shaved heads. The rusting beds. The tiny, cold-looking bodies. The photographs are crystal clear and the colour vivid, with several pages of images, including one of Mum in the orphanage where I lived. She looks young and serious-minded, her red hair held back with an Alice band as she reaches out to a little boy who sits on a mattress, a knitted bonnet tied under his chin. Once I begin to read, I can’t stop, taking in the description of what Mum and the others found: the squalor, the smell. I have an odd sense of detachment as I read, as if the words are somehow separate from my own experiences.
Back in 2000, over 100,000 children were still living in orphanages in Romania. Today, there are 6,000, living in 181 institutions, a fall of nearly 95 per cent. Even this number is considered to be too high for charities operating in the region, which want all orphanages in the country to be closed down within the next five years. They attribute some of the enormous strides to Romanian teams on the ground, which showed compassion, courage and a commitment to totally transform the childcare system. ‘Romania now leads the world in demonstrating how it is possible to change systems by freeing children from institutions and getting them back to the love of families,’ says Andrei Rucarenu, the country director of one British-based charity. ‘But the job isn’t done.’
I read on, about a large orphanage my mother visited during her trip to Ias¸i for this feature. It housed two hundred children at one point and only closed for good this year, after a lengthy programme to find a safe, loving home for each child. In many cases, this meant being reunited with their birth families – because most ‘orphans’, both in Romania and elsewhere in the world, still have a living parent or other relative, but are taken into state care for reasons that include dire poverty, disability and discrimination, all of which may make it impossible for families to care for them without support.
‘These days, the remaining institutions are a long way from the horrors that were revealed in the early 1990s,’ Rucarenu continues. ‘The buildings are in a better state now, but they are still bleak and soulless, with nothing warm or cosy about them. They remind me of a big, scary school in which the home-time bell never goes off. Imagine how that feels for a young child. They are regimented. There’s no privacy. The children have no personal possessions. The ratio of qualified carers to residents is also still very low. Youngsters remain at risk of abuse and neglect, both from staff and older children. All of this means that this really is no way to live. What they need is the same thing as any of us: the love of a family.’
When it is not possible to place children with either their birth family or a foster family, they may move to a ‘small group home’, a bright and welcoming building which, while not the same as a family environment, is the next best thing. It’s little wonder why the charity now places so much emphasis on working with local professionals to prevent the separation of children from their families in the first place.
The article goes on to talk about partnerships and child protection volunteers, about the vast improvement in knowledge and skills – and how funding, which initially came from abroad, is increasingly from companies that operate in the Romanian market or private donations made by big-hearted Romanians. There is an understanding, it says, that what makes a nation civilised is not merely its infrastructure – but how it pools resources to help its most vulnerable members.
It is, I can’t deny, a generally hopeful piece. I can see why Mum and Lucy thought I should read it. But as I turn the page, there is a separate section that is rather less heartening. It’s clear that while the institutions of the 1980s are a thing of the past, their legacy lives on for those who experienced them.
Even after leaving the orphanages in the early 2000s, the children continued to exhibit physical, emotional, social and cognitive developmental delays. Young people with an institutional upbringing are easy targets for exploitation and trafficking. Statistically, about 40 per cent of children who stayed until they were 18 ended up begging or turning to prostitution.
The piece interviews several former orphans, institutionalised at the same time as me. One 32-year-old man spent his childhood in state care from the age of two months, but ran away at twelve and was eventually rescued by his older brother, who was twenty. He now lives in a small apartment outside Bucharest, running an NGO that helps children who have had a similar upbringing. Another woman is living in a hostel, but remains upbeat about her future; her boyfriend works in McDonald’s and has won a scholarship to study at university. They plan to move in together and get married.
The least hopeful ending comes in the form of a haunting image of a woman who spent nearly a decade in exactly the same orphanage as me, though of course I don’t recognise her. Her name is Violetta. She’s five years older than me and ran away at thirteen. She’s still homeless, addicted to Ketamine and ‘Legale’, a legal high that is no longer in fact legal. She looks shrunken, ravaged.
‘My closest friends are dead,’ she says—
It’s at that point that I can’t read on. I feel a surge of anger that makes me want to rip the magazine in two. Instead I go to stuff it in the folder. As I open the flap, only then remembering that I’d actually found it out on the desk, I catch sight of a copy of the photograph of Tabitha and me, the original of which is in my own wardrobe. I place it on the desk and pick up the document beneath – a copy of a Romanian birth certificate. The name on it is written in typed, faded letters: Tabitha Florescu.
I don’t understand the Romanian words b
eyond the most basic of them, so put it to one side and remove all the rest of the papers. There is a small stack of official documents, interleaved with written notes in Mum’s light, Teeline shorthand. Her hieroglyphics make them indecipherable to me, but there is the odd longhand sentence – Phone call with Philippe Broudeur (photographer) 06.06.18 – that makes it absolutely clear what has been happening over the last couple of months.
‘Ellie?’ I spin round on the desk chair to find my mum at the top of the stairs. Her eyes dart from the folder, to the picture, then to me. Her chest rises.
‘You’ve been looking for Tabitha,’ I say.
She sighs. ‘Yes.’
‘Have you found her?’ I ask urgently. My heart thrums as she walks to the chair opposite her desk.
‘No,’ she says, sitting down dejectedly. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t. I’m so sorry, Ellie. But I honestly don’t think she’ll ever be traced.’
Only as I exhale do I realise exactly how much hope had been concentrated in that single held breath.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were even looking?’ I ask.
‘Because I feared exactly this. That I wouldn’t be able to find anything out, or at least nothing that would reassure you. I must admit I thought I’d get further than I did. I’d assumed that, with all the systems in place these days, I’d at least have a chance of tracing her. Andrei and I tried everything but in the end it came to frustratingly little.’
I glance down at the picture of the woman, Violetta, her thin arms mottled with the scars of addiction. I feel my throat thicken.
‘Could she still be at the station, like this woman?’ I ask.
‘I don’t believe so,’ Mum says. ‘It seems that Tabitha left not long after the picture of her was taken as a little girl. I spoke to the photographer, much to your father’s chagrin. It was years ago that he’d encountered Tabitha, but those images won him an award and he hadn’t forgotten her. She was one of a little group that stuck together, apparently. They begged from commuters and helped a couple of shopkeepers stock shelves for payment.’
‘How does he know she left?’
‘Because he went back a year later to document changes to their situation. He discovered that the police had dispersed many of the children – most had gone back to homes, a couple of others had made their way to the abandoned construction sites around the city.’
She rubs her temple and glances at the notes. ‘I decided to do some further digging. Andrei helped – again. As far as he can tell, Tabitha was never returned to an orphanage. Any orphanage. He looked at all the relevant records and then, when that amounted to nothing, he even went to the train station with that picture, on the off chance that anyone remembered her. He found one woman who said vaguely that she thought she did, but had no idea where she’d disappeared to.’
Mum moves the first couple of pages to one side and picks up the birth certificate.
‘Meanwhile, I managed to trace her birth mother,’ she continues. ‘I thought it might be a possibility that Tabitha had tracked her down at some point in her life. But when Andrei went to the address on the orphanage’s records, he learnt she had been living with a new husband and two children. She died of cancer in 2015. Her husband hadn’t even been aware of Tabitha’s existence. All of this brought us to another dead end – and the inevitable conclusion that wherever your friend was now, nobody was going to be able to find her.’
I knew this of course. It’s why I’ve tried my best not to think about Tabitha’s fate for years. But the knowledge that this is really it – that I’ll truly never find out what happened to the only friend I had in that place – seems to smother me.
As pressure starts to build behind my eyes, Mum rises from her chair and leans down to me, wrapping her arms round my shoulders. ‘Oh, Ellie, I’m so sorry. I really wish I could have given you some answers.’
I shake my head, sniffing myself together. ‘It’s okay. You tried. Thank you. God – and you must thank Andrei too.’
‘He feels as frustrated as I do.’
She pulls away and sits opposite me. ‘Do you think she’s dead?’ I hear myself saying.
And there it is. My worst fear, out in the open.
Mum’s shoulders slump. ‘I’ve seen enough of the world to know that people can defy odds, even when they’re stacked against them.’
‘But, realistically, if Tabitha had done that and now had a nice job and home somewhere she’d show up on some employment records, wouldn’t she?’
Her brow tightens. She thinks carefully about her response and the weighty responsibility it holds. ‘I don’t know, Ellie,’ she says quietly.
But I think she does.
Chapter 45
ELLIE HEATHCOTE
The tree I love more than any other in my garden is the weeping willow. This gentle giant, with its feather leaves, was planted by my late grandma and grew at a rate of knots, so that within a few short years it had risen over everything else in the garden. Its branches are flexible but strong; they can bend without breaking. It can weather storms and, above all, has a remarkable ability to regenerate. Willows are easy to grow from a cutting because their tissues contain a natural, root-promoting hormone. They can be started at any time of year in pots, or outside in late winter or early spring, and grow up to 50 feet within 15 years. This ability to grow so quickly is why, in many parts of the world, the weeping willow is held up, above all, as a symbol of renewal, strength and hope.
#thisgirldigs #gardensofinstagram #EnglishCountryGardenista #englishcountrygardens #weepingwillow #gardener #gardening #garden #gardenlife #flowers #plants #gardens #nature #gardendesign #growyourown #gardeninspiration #instagarden #gardenlove #growyourownfood
@Misusmiggins
Where did you get that nail polish Ellie? And how on earth does a gardener keep their hands looking so nice?
@Pastelgardener
@misusmiggins I’m usually terrible for forgetting to wear my gloves and the result has been scraggy nails for years. But I’m off to a wedding soon so thought I’d make an effort.
The wedding is in two weeks and it is clear that it is not on Guy’s mind to the same extent as mine. I am consumed by the impending event, probably more so than the bride herself. Guy, on the other hand, has hardly mentioned it since he first invited me, something that feeds my growing paranoia about his feelings towards me – and convinces me in my more neurotic moments that he regrets asking me altogether. It is during one of these that I decide to compose a casual-sounding text asking about the plan on the night – whether we’re getting a taxi and, if so, at what time. I press send just as Dad arrives to take me to my session with Colette.
‘All set?’ he asks, as if we’re off for a trip to the seaside.
‘Nearly. Give me a minute.’
I know my anxiety will bubble under the surface during the eighteen-minute journey – twenty-three if there’s traffic – but that it will be better as soon as I arrive. I also know that I will later reflect on the experience and conclude that this time wasn’t as bad as the time before, just as that time wasn’t as bad as the time before that.
As summer draws to a close, there has been a sense of change and renewal in my life. I’ve been going out more. Not just on walks in the countryside that surrounds Chalk View, but also as far as the village. I’ve strolled past my old primary school and seen the children in little uniforms through the railings, playing hopscotch like I used to with Jo and the others. I’ve been to the Post Office and stood in the queue, chuckling when the lady behind the counter enquired about the contents of a parcel and its sender replied, ‘My teeth’. (He went on to explain that it was destined for a denture repair company.)
I’ve taken cream tea with Mum in the café Grandma used to love, going through the ritual as she taught me – jam first, clotted cream second. I’ve promised Oscar I’ll go to one of his assemblies. I’ve browsed round the little bookshop in Chorleywood with Dad and on the same day we stumbled across the sign for G
reen Fingers garden centre. I knew I couldn’t let the moment pass.
As we pulled up to the gates, I felt my heart rise, but it was an entirely pleasant sensation that continued as I browsed through rows of evergreen and deciduous shrubs, hedging and climbers, grasses and alpines. They had a superb range of fruit trees – damson, mulberry, pears and gages – and I watched as a group of women took part in a hanging basket workshop.
I’d texted Jamie, to ask if he was at work, the moment we’d stepped through the sliding doors and, having not heard back, approached a member of staff to see if they knew where he was, imagining him in the back somewhere, hair awry as he heaved boxes into the van. But he was on a day off, at a meeting in London.
I came away feeling deflated because it’s been a while since I’ve seen him. He only rarely stops for a tea after he’s delivered something these days and somehow I’m starting to get the feeling he’s humouring me. He doesn’t seem to go out of his way to see me any more.
Now I’m concerned that my only friend is no longer interested in spending time with me, or at least not as much. It’s hardly surprising in some ways, given that he’s been organising Mike’s stag party and his book publication is imminent. He has so many other people to go out with. But I instinctively feel that something else might be at play: that he may have become involved with someone romantically.
If that is the case, Jamie is not the kind of man to offer this information freely, even in response to my sister’s direct questions about his love life. He’s too discreet to say if he was going on a first date and would only announce that he had a significant other at the point when she became just that – significant. He might not ever feel the need to announce it. Why would he? Who am I, after all, but an old acquaintance, rekindled? This time six months ago we barely even remembered each other’s names.
The World at My Feet Page 21
