Sitting on the 168 bus, Niamh felt like a nervous child on the first day of school. Twice already she had checked the contents of her bag, her fingers seeking out the leather notebook that contained not only her mother’s letter, but also a photograph of her cradling Luke on the day he was born. She didn’t need to take it out to know the exact way his tiny fist was clenched around a strand of her hair. Nor could she ever forget the torrent of pain that he had put her through, a whole day of labour that only ended when the sun was finally pushing past the horizon on the first morning of May.
It had made her think of Leo, as most things tended to. She had looked down at her newborn son and wondered whether his father was gathered outside Magdalen College, along with all the other students who were waiting for the choir to start singing from the clock tower. Perhaps he had spent the night before in celebration at a May Day ball in a muddy field on the outskirts of town. Or maybe he had been in New College bar, playing table football and not thinking about her at all.
There was a woman opposite her with a toddler on her lap and a briefcase at her feet. She was trying to read through some notes whilst simultaneously placating the child, who was clearly in no mood to be ignored. Niamh watched as the little girl wriggled and jiggled and then threw herself backwards, so that her mother had to drop her papers and wrap her arms around the child.
‘Tabitha, please. Would you just stop,’ the woman said as she attempted to put her daughter back in the buggy. Tabitha responded by arching her body and letting out a scream that seemed too loud to have come from such a small person.
Niamh bent down to retrieve the papers, casting her eye over their contents and deducing that the woman in question was on her way to the Royal Courts of Justice.
‘A day in court is so much less stressful than staying with her.’ The woman smiled as Niamh handed back the papers. Her cheeks were nearly as flushed as Tabitha’s and there was a smear of something green on her blouse. ‘If I’d known what it was going to be like, I would have put it off for a few more years.’ The words were accompanied by a pained laugh and a glance in her daughter’s direction.
Tabitha stared at Niamh with two unblinking eyes rimmed with tears. Niamh covered her own eyes with her hands, then popped them open and mouthed ‘boo’, which rewarded her with a shy giggle followed by a yawn.
‘Do you have kids?’ the woman asked as she wiped at her blouse with a tissue.
‘No,’ Niamh said as she glanced out of the window, mentally calculating how much longer the journey would take.
‘Didn’t think so. You look far too young.’
Except she wasn’t too young, just stupid enough to believe that once she’d left the hospital and signed her son over to the social workers, she could carry on as if nothing had happened. But he was there with her always, buried deep inside her heart and refusing to ever let go. Sister Ingrid had called her the day before the process was due to be completed, sixteen long weeks after Luke had been born. She said that there was still time for Niamh to change her mind, to take him back and figure out a new plan. Niamh had given the same reply as she had every week when she called – that Luke had been with his adoptive parents for so long now that it would be cruel and selfish for her to pull his family apart.
Although that didn’t mean she had stopped missing him, or his father.
As the bus made its way down Kingsway, heading for the Strand, Niamh shouldered her bag and pulled at the overhead rope, signalling to the driver that she wanted to get off at the next stop.
‘Would you mind?’ the woman asked as she stood, pointing at the buggy that held a now-sleeping Tabitha.
‘Of course.’ Niamh stepped off the back of the bus then turned around to help the woman carry the buggy on to the pavement.
‘Is this yours?’ The woman held something out to Niamh, then set off at a pace, not waiting for a response.
Niamh looked down at the brooch she had been given, wondering where it had come from and whether or not she should hand it to the bus driver. But the 168 had already left, and so there was nobody to ask about the art deco silver butterfly with two tiny pearls set on the end of its antennae.
Pinning it to the strap of her bag, she lifted her gaze to catch sight of herself in the window of a café. She was wearing faded Levi’s, ballet flats, a white body and a cream leather jacket gifted to her by Gladys. Turned out the woman was something of a hoarder and hadn’t thrown anything away since 1975. She was also rather generous when it came to Niamh, inviting her to help herself to anything she wanted from one of the enormous wardrobes in the back bedroom.
But it wasn’t the clothes that were making Niamh feel a little unsettled, nor was it the way her hair was cropped short and dyed a rusty sort of blonde using a shop-bought kit. It was more what was waiting for her in a building around the corner that made her heart stammer and shake. The door to the café swung open, covering Niamh in the scent of burnt coffee and toast, along with a song that had seemingly been playing on repeat for weeks.
Elton John’s tribute to Princess Diana was heart-wrenching and Niamh always found it difficult to listen to. Even more so since watching the funeral on television – she, like countless others, would never forget the sight of those two young boys following their mother’s coffin. It was a single moment that affected so many, not just those boys but everyone who picked up a copy of the newspaper that fateful morning to discover that Lady Di had been killed. One turn of the wheel, or the decision to chase someone simply for the sake of a photograph, and look what had happened.
Niamh had been left with the overwhelming notion that everything you do has an impact – a ripple effect through time that never seems to end. Did Leo ever stop to think about how failing to turn up would change everything about her life? And not just hers, but their son’s, along with the people who adopted him? There would be more subtle ripples too – so many people touched by a person they had never even met, but would nonetheless be affected by the consequences of his inaction.
Her fingers sought out the butterfly brooch, tracing over the delicate strands, and told herself that it was a sign, a symbol of regeneration that she could remember whenever it felt as if life was becoming too much.
‘To new beginnings,’ she whispered to herself as she spun on her heels and joined the parade of students heading towards the student services department of LSE.
Standing in line, awaiting her turn for registration, Niamh looked around at the plethora of different faces. A small part of her expected to spot a Swedish goddess either arguing with a Jarvis Cocker lookalike, or flirting with all the boys who were unable to take their eyes off her. Even though she knew it was ridiculous, that the likelihood of either them, or Leo, being here was pretty much zero, another part of her was afraid that she would spend her life catching her breath every time she spied a boy with dark, curly hair. Because he was still with her, the ghost of him forever lurking in her subconscious.
‘Hey.’ The girl behind her held out her hand with a smile. ‘I’m Michelle. Has anyone told you that you look just like Stevie Nicks? Apart from the hair, obvs.’
‘Actually, you’re the first,’ Niamh said in response. Michelle was about six foot tall, with platinum hair and the kind of beauty that made you stare. But her smile was genuine.
‘What are you studying?’ Michelle asked as the queue slowly moved forward.
‘Economics,’ Niamh replied.
‘Me too. Perhaps we can sit together, at least for today?’
‘That would be great.’
‘I’ll come find you later,’ Michelle said with a wave as Niamh walked to the far end of the counter where a young man was sitting, ready and waiting.
‘Welcome to LSE,’ he said. ‘Can I take your name?’
‘Lindberg,’ Niamh replied as she handed over her paperwork. ‘Erika Lindberg.’
NIAMH
THIMBLE
London, 2012
If you listen carefully, you might hear the sound of the
cat’s purrs from where it is sleeping upstairs on the end of Layla’s bed. Or the soft tap of a branch against the fence in our small courtyard garden. Or perhaps even the dull clunk of a car door and the click of a cigarette lighter as a man wearing polished brown brogues looks along the lane to where a pink mews house stands.
What you won’t hear is the hiss and whir of Layla’s mind as she tries to piece together the crazy puzzle of events that I have just walked her through in order to tell her that her best friend is, in fact, a fraud.
‘Wait, what?’ Layla is sitting at the kitchen table cradling a cup of coffee and I wonder if I should give her something stronger.
‘It’s a lot, I know,’ I say with hands raised, as a lion tamer might do to a wary cub. ‘But I promise there’s a good reason.’
‘There better bloody be.’ Layla goes over to the fridge and peers inside, taking out a half-finished bottle of wine and pulling out the cork with her teeth. She takes several long swallows and uses the back of her hand to wipe her mouth. ‘Your name isn’t even Erika? It’s, fuck, I don’t know what it is.’
‘Niamh.’ I perch on the end of the sofa, a cold cup of tea at my feet. I am aware of my breathing, ragged and shallow, and I’ve got a trapped nerve somewhere in my leg that’s making my knee jiggle up and down.
‘Niamh. Right.’ Layla takes another swallow of wine, then dumps the bottle on the countertop and goes back to the fridge in search of something even stronger. ‘Changing your hair or your clothes after a break-up is one thing. Changing your entire identity is a bit extreme, don’t you think?’
‘I didn’t want anyone to find me,’ I say, watching her take out jars of sauce and packets of fresh pasta, piling them next to the wine bottle and not bothering to pick up a lone tomato that has rolled on to the floor. I didn’t want anyone to come looking for me and try to convince me to give Leo a second chance. Nor did I want all those voices and opinions and judgements as to what I was supposed to do next with my baby – the person I have missed with every single molecule in my body from the moment I chose to give him away.
‘There’s vodka in the freezer,’ I say and Layla shoots me a look. But she doesn’t say anything because she doesn’t even know my love of vodka started off as a lie. I guess it’s one habit I acquired from Erika, the real Erika, that has become part of me.
She opens the freezer and takes out the ice-cold bottle and I watch as she pours out two generous measures then comes to sit on the sofa next to me.
‘But why?’ She hands me a glass and we clink the rims together before downing the contents in one.
My body shivers its objection to having quite so much alcohol dumped inside it in one go. But I need it, we both need it to cast a veil over the shock of what I have finally found the courage to reveal. I also need it to push me into filling in the last detail, the very last piece of the puzzle that makes everything else somehow less important.
In the pocket of my bag is a notebook that I have carried with me for as long as I can remember. In the back of that are two photographs and a letter worn thin with love. I hand one of the photographs to Layla, but not before I look at it one more time.
‘Because of him,’ I say, pointing to the baby boy I am cradling in the photograph. A picture that was taken on the same day he was taken away. ‘Because of Luke.’
Layla stares at the photograph, tracing the tip of her finger over the tiny bundle wrapped in my arms. Then she looks over at me, at the clothes I’m wearing, down to my feet and back to the photograph of a woman wearing cowboy boots underneath a red gypsy skirt. The same skirt I am now wearing, which has been hidden in the back of my wardrobe since 1997.
‘He’s . . . I mean . . . you have a baby?’
‘I did. Fifteen years ago.’ I have to tilt my head back in an effort not to cry. Because it still seems so desperately unfair, even after all the time that has passed. I miss him every single part of every single day. Every time I see a baby I’m reminded of what I did, and each time I catch my breath in anticipation that it might be him. Even now, when Luke wouldn’t be a baby any more and I have no idea what he looks like.
‘I gave him away because I had no idea how to do it by myself.’ My hands are shaking, so is my voice, and it feels like all the words of my confession are fighting with one another to be set free. ‘I was so afraid that I’d hurt him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I was so broken.’ I’m openly sobbing now, air catching in my throat, tears soaking my skin before falling onto my lap. ‘I was terrified that I wouldn’t know how to love him. That every time I looked at him I would be reminded all over again that I wasn’t enough.’
‘And the father?’ Layla asks, although I’m pretty sure she knows the answer even before I give a contemptuous laugh in response.
‘Fuck knows.’ I go over and retrieve the bottle of vodka, pouring myself another shot and holding back the urge to throw it and my glass as hard as I can against the wall. ‘He never showed up.’ Even now, I can’t get rid of the anger, of the feeling that it was my fault for ever believing that a boy like Leo would actually choose a girl like me.
After Leo betrayed me, after my mother turned her back on me, I started to think it was my fault, that there was something wrong with me because why else would nobody love me? Then I convinced myself that whatever it was that made me so unlovable would be passed on to my unborn child. That the pain, the mourning I carried in my heart would seep into the womb and taint his soul.
Giving him up is the hardest thing I have ever done, but I still believe it was the right thing to do. Because he deserved the very best, the absolute best chance of happiness and I knew it couldn’t come from me.
‘Did you ever ask him why?’
I swirl the vodka around the glass, staring at the clear liquid and thinking about how it could so easily have been different. If I hadn’t gone to the bar or decided to go for a punt, or even applied to Oxford in the first place. At one point I was going to turn the offer down, but my history teacher threatened to scalp me if I even breathed such a ridiculous idea ever again. Because opportunities like that very rarely came knocking and I would be a fool not to at least try.
‘I wrote him a letter every single day for a month. Countless more the entire time I was holed up in the convent in Liverpool where Luke was born.’ I still remember making that reverse journey across the Irish Sea, six months pregnant and deliberately avoiding eye contact with all those people who so clearly disapproved of my condition. Sister Ingrid thought it might be a mistake, but I was determined to give birth in England so that my son would have the option I never did – to find his mother.
‘But Leo never wrote back,’ I say with a drawn-out sigh. ‘And neither did Erika.’
‘So why take her name?’
Technically I only took her first name; the other one came from Uncle Alex, who, along with Sister Ingrid, tried to get me to change my mind, but I refused to back down. I refused to even consider any other name but hers.
‘Because she was right.’ My words come out pitched and strained, riddled with anger and frustration. ‘I never should have chosen Leo over her. She was the only one who understood what it meant to lose the person you love most of all. I pushed her away because I thought she was asking me to choose between her and Leo. But all she was asking was to be my friend. Every single day I think of her, of all of them, and am thankful that I knew them, if only for a little while.’
‘And you have no idea where they are now?’ Layla says, reaching for her phone and I know what it is she intends to do. Maybe it’s time. Maybe, now that I have someone to help, I’m ready to face up to how much of their lives I chose not to be part of.
I used to imagine them living together in Oxford, in that blue-painted house where I wasn’t welcome. They would no doubt have thrown momentous parties for all their friends and told themselves how stupid they were to have taken pity on an Irish reject. Then the fantasy would move on to their glittering careers, w
ith Duncan a professor in Oxford and Erika running a global corporation, safe in the knowledge that she was always so much better and more deserving than everyone else.
Finally, the dream would turn into a nightmare, with Erika and Leo surrounded by their adoring children, him kissing his beautiful wife and telling her that I was nothing but a terrible mistake.
But I never went so far as to discover if any of what I feared might be true.
‘Don’t,’ I say and Layla lifts her head from the screen.
‘I could look,’ she says, glancing back down at whatever it is she has clearly already found. ‘Then just give you the bullet points?’
‘They’re here.’
‘Who?’
‘I saw someone this morning. In the café.’ I can’t help but laugh at the admission. Because saying it out loud means it’s real; it’s not a figment of my twisted imagination. ‘At first I didn’t realise because I’d stopped looking. It’s ridiculous really, to have spent all those years scared of who might suddenly walk back into my life and then bam, right out of nowhere the past decides to turn up.’
‘It was him, wasn’t it?’ Layla’s voice comes out as a whisper. ‘It was Luke’s father.’
I shake my head. Why is it that even now, even after I’ve done everything I can to distance myself from that part of my life, Leo continues to have such a profound effect on me?
‘I couldn’t breathe, Layla. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t figure out what on earth I was supposed to do if he saw me.’
‘So you ran.’
Just like always, I ran to forget. I run every morning, with the music turned up loud, trying to push away the demons and the doubts. Because I ran that night, all the way to Ireland and I have never dared to go back.
‘I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d gone right up to him and punched him as hard as I possibly could. Because he broke me, completely and utterly broke me and took away my chance to be a mother.’
‘Could you . . .?’ Layla looks down at the photograph, the one of me when I was little more than a child, cradling the boy who I loved but lost.
The Love We Left Behind Page 26