The World at My Feet

by Catherine Isaac

  ‘You could take me to his book lunch.’

  ‘It’s not a lunch, it’s a launch. There’s no food.’

  ‘We could order pizza,’ he suggests.

  ‘It’s not that kind of thing. Anyway I can’t go, I’m afraid.’

  His expression darkens. ‘You mean like you didn’t go to my assembly?’

  I was supposed to attend Oscar’s school for his event one morning in early November, but in fact was lying in bed surrounded by fags as I binge watched the third season of Nailed It on Netflix.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ I say, sheepishly.

  ‘Did you have a dentist’s appointment?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was it a funeral?’ he asks.

  I frown. ‘No.’

  ‘Did you have a car crash?’

  ‘No, I was just busy.’

  He suddenly looks angry. ‘No, you weren’t! Don’t lie!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask, taken aback. It’s clear we’ve stumbled onto a subject about which his feelings are more raw than I’d thought.

  ‘I’d saved a seat for you specially and told my teacher you were coming,’ he says, blowing out his cheeks.

  ‘Did you?’ I say weakly, feeling a swell of shame.

  ‘There was a surprise for you. I’d drawn a picture of our sunflower. It got put up on Mrs Gilmour’s big screen. I stood up and told everyone that I’d planted it in your garden, then I was meant to point at you. But you weren’t even there so I looked stupid.’

  His bottom lip is wobbling.

  ‘Oh Oscar, I’m so sorry. I really am,’ I say, with a rush of regret.

  ‘You were just here doing your gardening. That’s all you ever do.’

  I feel my chest brace. ‘Look, I’m really sorry but… please don’t talk to me like that. I know Mum wouldn’t be happy about it.’

  ‘She wouldn’t care. She said you’re weird,’ he fires back. ‘She said all you ever do is stay in the house and if she was single she’d be out on the town, not at home like a mad old woman.’

  ‘She… called me a mad old woman?’

  ‘Why didn’t you come to my assembly, Ellie?’ he asks, tearfully. ‘If you’d really wanted to come you would. And if you really wanted to go to the book lunch you would do that too.’

  He turns and starts running to Mum’s house.

  ‘Don’t go in with your wellies on!’ I call out after him. He comes to an abrupt halt and sinks onto the patio. Then he wrestles off his footwear, stands up and marches through several puddles in his socks, before stepping into the house.

  My eyes drift to the gate. It’s open and I hadn’t even realised. I wander over to it and click it closed as an unsettling vision appears in my head. Of me, at eighty years old, doddering about this garden like the mad old woman Mandy clearly believes me to be. But it isn’t the thought of gnarled fingers or curved spine that chills me. It’s the thought that the house next door is empty. Gertie, my only friend, is gone. My parents are long dead. And I’m completely alone.

  Chapter 61

  Returning to Colette involves more than simply picking up the phone and booking myself in. After all the false starts, she’d be within her rights not to have me back, even if logic tells me she can’t have signed up for a job like hers without expecting a few hiccups. Despite this, I have a certain amount of commitment to prove. I don’t want to return empty-handed – and I’m not talking about buying her flowers.

  I dig out my homework sheets from the folder I’d buried in a kitchen drawer and review my weekly targets. I run through the Beck Depression Inventory, a self-scoring system designed to monitor the scale of relapses. This, officially, is big. But I already knew that. I re-read the weekly target sheet she showed me when I first returned to her. To the average, non-affected person, they sound laughable. Go to the local supermarket (accompanied). Walk to the village (alone). No matter how insurmountable they feel to me, I do as I have before and start with baby steps, namely, Walk for five minutes outside your home (accompanied). It’s with Dad the first time, Mum the second. The third I’m on my own. And so it all begins.

  I throw away half a box of Marlboro Lights and buy some patches. Lucy was right about Mum having known about my habit for some time. She tries to persuade me not to tackle this now, worried I’m doing too much at once. But oddly, having a nicotine craving on which to focus is a distraction from the other stuff I’m grappling with.

  I also meet Jakob. Lucy brings him along to her final dinner at home before she leaves for Singapore – and I immediately recognise him as the antithesis of some of the egomaniacs my sister has dated in the past. He’s all big beard and dimpled smile, with an accent that sounds more English than half the English people I know. He is wearing a spectacular patterned jumper, which he tells us casually was knitted by his mother, a biochemistry professor. He is somehow immensely clever and sophisticated, but without any airs or graces whatsoever. Part of this is down to his huge, roaring laugh, which makes you feel witty even when you’ve said something so lame you ought to be cringing into the carpet. It is the most wonderful night, full of silly jokes and memories and delicious food. By the time they’re getting their coats on to leave, Lucy is flushed with happiness and wine, judging by the faint red stains at the edges of her mouth.

  ‘You definitely think he likes me then?’ she whispers drunkenly, as Mum is busy pressing a Tupperware box full of leftover torte into his hands in the kitchen.

  ‘He adores you,’ I say, under my breath. ‘More importantly, he respects you.’

  ‘I know. It’s so hot,’ she grins.

  But then it’s time for her to leave for Singapore and that’s when things get tough again. There are a few days when my fragile sense of stability nose-dives. Yet, my anxiety never feels insurmountable, my self-doubt doesn’t achieve the vice-like grip of previously. We Facetime on her second day there, which proves to be the start of a regular three-times-a-week video call. The intervening days are punctuated by constant WhatsApp messages, her favourite being photos of amusingly translated menu items, such as ‘Soup for sluts’ or ‘Deep Fried Farmer’.

  I begin keeping a diary. Without my daily Instagram captions to produce, it seems to be an outlet for something and, though I start off writing solely about my agoraphobia, my entries begin to drift elsewhere. I predominantly write about Tabitha. Not for me, but her. I feel as though I owe her that much. She may have been lost to a cruel chapter of history, but she can continue to exist in every word I write down, every memory, good and bad, that I consign to paper.

  When I’m not writing, I spend much of the day outside. I photograph everything but instead of posting my efforts online, I print out my favourites and keep them in my journal. This usually amounts to three pictures per day, to document my evolving garden. Because it is evolving, albeit slowly. I have to remind myself of that sometimes, on the freezing days when the ground is too hard to concede an inch to my spade. I also remind myself that the lack of light and vivid colour is not a bad thing. Because as sure as the sun rises every day, it will not last. The bare soil and cold frost is simply nature’s way of proving that everything changes. Sometimes you’ve got to shed all your leaves to be able to grow.

  By the time I go back to Colette, I’ve already made progress. I still feel sheepish when I return, but I get no sense of resentment from her. On the contrary, she welcomes me back with open, patient arms. It’s during my first session that the issue of the orphanage comes up. This time, it isn’t her who raises it, but me. I tell her that I’m writing down my memories of Tabitha and that contrary to what I might have imagined, I am finding comfort from it.

  She wonders if I feel ready to talk to her about the subject, or to my parents again.

  That night, before I have time to change my mind, I ask Mum if she’ll watch a documentary with me called From Romania with Love. I’ve been aware of its existence for some time and know she watched it when it was first screened on ITV a few years ago. I couldn�
�t even contemplate the idea at the time.

  The programme follows the real-life stories of three people who were adopted from Romanian orphanages by British couples back in the early 1990s. By the time it was screened, they were in their twenties. In all cases, they’ve been raised by loving families. They’re young, bright and sound very British, just like I do. Two came to the UK when they were toddlers and can’t remember anything of their orphanage. One was there until she was older than me, aged ten.

  There is an uplifting conclusion to the programme; the journeys it features are enlightening, the reunions touching.

  But there is no escaping from the fact that the footage and photographs from the orphanages in the early 1990s are harrowing. To me, these are not merely images of thin, starving babies, they are long-suppressed memories brought back to life. I knew these films existed of course and have simultaneously managed to avoid them. Now, as I watch them silently on the sofa next to Mum, cocooned in a soft blanket, it’s hard to put into words how I feel. Angry? God, yes. My anger is electric. But more than that I’m sad and bewildered, not just about what happened to me, but about the world we live in. Most of all, I’m flooded by some other emotion that seems to stem from the pit of my belly, hollow and raw. By the end, I am wrung out; my cheeks sting with the salt of my tears.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Mum asks softly. She reaches out for my hand and when I let her find it, she clutches it so tightly that my knuckles jam together.

  I sit up and wipe my face with the ball of my other hand. ‘Yep.’

  There seems so much to say yet I’m unable to say anything at all. Because what is overwhelming me is not the reminder of the squalor, nor the cold, dirty conditions and the violence we accepted as completely normal. It’s not even its juxtaposition with this house, its warmth, its comfort and the pretty bedroom that my parents gave me. Materially, these differences are vast, yet the value of what Mum and Dad gave me amounted to infinitely more.

  Oddly, although I imagined what I’d just watched would encourage the worst kind of memories, the one that pushes right to the front of my mind is of a day when Mum took me to buy a party dress, only a few weeks after I’d arrived in the UK. It was not the dress I was dazzled by. She strapped me into the car seat and handed me the pretty bag containing my new clothes, before planting her lips on my forehead, as softly as you’d kiss a newborn baby.

  ‘Come here,’ she says now, opening her arms. As she folds me into her embrace I realise we haven’t hugged like this since I was a girl. Far from feeling silly and childish, right now this is the only place I want to be.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say into the wool of her cardigan.

  She pulls away slightly, frowning. ‘What for?’

  I brush away the damp stinging my cheek and look into her eyes. ‘For being my mum.’

  Chapter 62

  Harriet, the present day

  Harriet gets nervous before making speeches, though people never believe this. They think that a background in war-reporting gives you immunity from the irrational but very real terror of saying something idiotic in front of several hundred people. But the spasms in her gut before she steps on a podium refuse to settle until the moment she begins speaking. Then, as a curious silence descends on her audience, the possibility that she’s managing to entertain them makes her jitters begin to subside.

  ‘There are two questions I’m always asked when people discover I was a war correspondent,’ she says, addressing a gathering of audiologists in a plush Oxfordshire hotel. ‘The first is: Weren’t you scared? The second is: Where exactly did you go to the loo?’

  You might wonder what particular interest a group of audiologists have in newsgathering during the late eighties and early nineties and the answer to that is none. There rarely is a connection. But, without planning to, Harriet has somehow accrued a neat sideline in speaking to all manner of groups – architects, neurologists, rheumatologists; the medical profession in particular seems to like her and several such groups invited her back to their next conferences immediately. This recently happened with the National Association of Chiropodists, which was especially handy as it came hot on the heels of a gig with the Independent Footwear Guild and meant she could recycle an excellent gag about ingrowing toenails.

  She only throws in the odd joke, though – that’s not what audiences want from her. They book her because of a fascination with what she’d experienced, the people and places she’d encountered. They wanted to know if she’d ever knowingly put herself in danger, how close she’d ever come to losing her life, of how affected she was by some of the things she’d seen.

  ‘A foreign correspondent gets to do their job, then leave. They can be parachuted out of a place and into the next. In that sense, you are by definition detached. But did that mean I didn’t care about what I saw, or was unaffected by the plight of those I met and interviewed? Absolutely not. I don’t know how anyone could fail to be moved by much of it.’

  She takes a sip of water.

  ‘It was an immensely satisfying and enjoyable career though – as well as an occasionally near-lethal one. I was never bored. And I liked to think that what we were doing was important. I never had ambitions to have one of those jobs that mattered, but that’s what I ended up doing in my own small way. I was glad of that. Glad that what my colleagues and I wrote had the capacity to change public opinion, or open the eyes of those back home who otherwise wouldn’t have known anything about what was going on in some parts of the world.’

  She takes questions from the audience, the first from a gentleman a few tables away. ‘Do you think there’s too much ego in news reporting these days?’

  She considers the question and smiles to herself. ‘Well, my number one rule when I started out was to keep myself out of the story. To never become personally involved in the subject matter. It was a rule I felt strongly about, but which I did break, on just one occasion.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It turned out to be the best thing I ever did.’

  * * *

  She stays for a drink afterwards, chatting to the host on her table, a woman about her age who tells her that she’s stubbornly refusing to retire, and the chairman of a hearing aid company sponsoring the event. They’re a fun group, interesting and full of good humour, but she makes her excuses when she can and heads to her hotel room, hoping Colin is still awake.

  It’s a very nice suite. They were generously upgraded and it has a charming view over the croquet lawn and a selection of swanky toiletries that Harriet intends to take home for the downstairs loo. Colin is propped up on top of the duvet, in a fluffy robe, his glasses perched on his nose as a television programme she’s certain he didn’t choose drones on in front of him. He’s nodded off. She smiles and slips off her shoes, crawling onto the bed next to him. She curls her arm across his body and he responds by gasping like he’s just been given the kiss of life.

  ‘You frightened the life out of me,’ he says.

  ‘How romantic,’ she replies.

  He chuckles and sits up to remove his glasses and rub his eyes.

  ‘Fancy a nightcap if I order room service?’ she suggests.

  ‘Oh, go on. You’re a terrible influence.’ Then he swings his legs out of bed and adds: ‘Before I forget, your phone rang tonight. It was Andrei. I think he’s left you a message.’

  ‘I wonder what that’s about,’ she said, surprised. ‘It’s ages since we last chatted.’

  It was too late to return the call now of course, but she listened to the message while Colin scanned the room-service menu.

  ‘Harriet, I hope you and the family are very well. I wondered if you could give me a call when you’ve a moment? Nothing to worry about. I’ll explain all when I hear from you. And I’ll look forward to talking – it’s been too long!’

  * * *

  She phones back after breakfast the following day. Andrei is his usual jovial self and she is making a mental note to take him to lunch next time he is i
n London, when he starts talking about the orphanage where Ellie spent the first years of her life. It had been closed in the 2000s as part of the major deinstitutionalisation project that would ultimately be replicated across Romania. Some of the children there had been placed in a new, purpose-built ‘small group home’, jointly run by a British charity and the local authority.

  ‘A man called Cristian Lungu turned up there this week,’ he says.

  ‘Should I have heard of him?’ Harriet asks, idly piling clothes into her overnight bag.

  ‘No, not at all. But a friend of his had read something on the internet. He sent me a link. I don’t know if you’re aware that Ellie posted something online about spending the first part of her life at the orphanage?’

  Harriet closes the case and zips it up. ‘She mentioned something. She’s not on any social media any more though. She didn’t get a very positive reaction so decided to come off it. I think it’s for the best, at least that she has a break.’

  ‘Mr Lungu repeatedly tried to send her a message apparently, but had no response. He wanted to talk to her. It’s very awkward as I didn’t know whether it was a question simply of Ellie not wanting to talk.’

  Harriet stands up, letting this sink in. ‘Was he at the orphanage himself?’ she asks.

  ‘No,’ Andrei replies. ‘Not him, but his wife. Tabitha.’

  Chapter 63

  Ellie

  With the day of Jamie’s book event looming, my thoughts about what to do have veered from one standpoint to another like a drunk driver. I tell myself he will want to see a friendly face. If so, I want it to be mine, even if I’m blotchy and red with blind panic.

  Once I’ve accepted this, a host of technicolour scenarios play out in my head, including one in which I arrive at the bookshop like it’s the final scene of a Hugh Grant film and we kiss under the paranormal teen fiction section before riding into the sunset. Of all the problems with this fantasy the main one is that going for a walk (alone) or driving to the local supermarket (accompanied), is very different from getting the Tube and travelling all the way to London on the first Saturday of December, even with my mum and dad in tow, which they’d simply have to be.