Mother

by S. E. Lynes

  He straightens his tie, pulls in a lungful of air and heads into the conference suite.

  Chapter Four

  Understandably, I think, Christopher’s first week at university passed in a blur. Not that he skipped lectures, no. Christopher would never have done that. He attended all his classes with the diligence that was so much a part of him. Consensus and Contention: Investigations in International History; The Crusades and Medieval Christendom; Empire and Aftermath: The Mediterranean World from the Second to the Eighth Centuries… whatever the module, the message was the same: ‘It is history that tells us who we are… it is only history that can put us and everything we know into context…’

  Grey-haired academics lectured from dog-eared stacks of paper at the front of vast halls, radiating a bored air of wanting to be elsewhere. In another century, perhaps, he thought.

  Christopher took rigorous notes, borrowed books from the Brotherton Library – a reading list as long as a phone directory – and bought more hardback tomes second-hand in the union shop. His best distraction from the terrible anticipation of his meeting with Mrs Jackson from the Adoption Records Office, he told me, was to begin research for his first assignments. Adam scarcely to be seen in the evenings and over that first weekend, Christopher found himself alone with his books. On the Sunday, he found a church – Our Lady of Lourdes in Cardigan Road. There he attended Mass and lit candles for the mother he longed to bring from the shadows of his imaginings. He prayed for her to be delivered to him as he had prayed as a child on Christmas Eve, guiltily requesting toys for himself when he knew he should be thinking about the poor and the sick. Though Friday’s appointment with Mrs Jackson never left his mind entirely, once back in his room in halls, he took up his books. As he had for much of his life, he took his refuge there.

  * * *

  Friday came around at a speed, I remember Christopher saying, that made Edwin Moses look like a sloth with a bad leg. It later transpired that this was one of Adam’s catchphrases; Christopher did like to try them out for himself sometimes, and if anyone laughed, his face would break open in surprise.

  That morning, the cold air met him at the exit to Liverpool Lime Street station. Not that this bothered him. He was above all delighted to have made it through the week, and besides, it had been colder and windier back in Leeds. He walked in what he hoped was the direction of the council offices, he said, head bowed, map pressed to his chest, heat building in his belly. All the way to Liverpool, he had thought – had not been able to stop thinking – of the infant taken in by his parents eighteen years earlier. He had tried to picture that baby in the shawl he had found in the case – washing it in his mind from grey to white. His mother had wrapped Jack Junior and Louise in soft white wool she herself had crocheted, but when he tried to put himself in such a blanket, Christopher could only conjure the image of Jesus in the manger. Not even Jesus, but the time-yellowed plastic doll they used in St Stephen’s for Christmas Mass.

  Of course the baby his birth mother had wrapped in swaddling bands and laid in a manger was not Christopher at all.

  ‘That child was but a baby,’ he said to me once, ‘a being yet to form.’

  His birth mother had not left him at the convent, no, not at all. She had left an unformed being, no one she knew. In fact, that baby had nothing to do with the person he was now. Nothing whatsoever! His birth mother didn’t know him. Not the boy, not the man, not the name. If she could see him now, that would be different; she would know him as soon as her eyes met his. He hoped he would know her in return, felt sure he would. He might love her – why not? And she might love him. Was that so impossible? It would be in a different way perhaps than had she raised him, but all the same… there would be a lifeline connecting them, linking one to the other. What else was this coil in his chest if not that very lifeline, his silken rope to throw out to her and say: ‘Here. Grasp this. Rescue me.’

  I’ll admit that when he told me, my heart tightened for him, poor boy. I find it’s often the way that the hopes of someone you love are heavier to bear than your own.

  He reached the council buildings in Henry Street, gave his name at reception and a few minutes later, a woman came to collect him. She was very small. She wore a burgundy skirt suit and high spike heels. Her hair was short and grey.

  ‘Mr Harris?’

  He nodded and stood, dwarfing her.

  She shook his hand. Her pale blue eyes looked up into his. ‘Samantha Jackson,’ she said. ‘We spoke on the phone. Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘Great stuff. Now, if you’d like to follow me. Can’t abide the lift, so we’ll take the stairs, all right?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

  She went ahead and he followed, kept his head down for fear of finding himself staring directly at her small but round rear as it swung from left to right in its tight pencil skirt.

  ‘How was your journey?’ she said over her shoulder. ‘It’s Christopher, isn’t it? Are you all right with Christopher, or do you prefer Chris?’

  ‘Christopher please. Thank you.’

  ‘You came from Leeds.’ This she added as a statement before turning and heading up the next flight. Her steps echoed against the hard institutional flooring. ‘So do you like football? Do you have a team?’

  ‘Ah, yes. Yes I do. Liverpool in fact.’

  ‘Good man. And what do you think about Dalglish, eh?’

  ‘I…’

  ‘Four hundred and odd thousand they paid for him. Obscene, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s a lot of money.’

  ‘It is for kicking a leather bladder round a field with twenty-one other blokes.’ She stopped and placed her hand to her chest, rolled her eyes and puffed. After this brief performance of tiredness, she pushed open her office door. ‘Now. Come in and have a seat.’

  Inside was a desk, a bookshelf, two easy chairs facing each other and a G-plan-style coffee table on top of which lay a faded red cardboard folder.

  ‘Go on in, take a seat, Christopher, you’re all right.’

  When he told me this, I could just imagine him standing there, not knowing whether to go in, whether to sit down. He’d been uprooted – of course he felt that way. The confidence he eventually found came much, much later.

  Seeing Christopher hesitate, Samantha gestured to the chairs. Without saying anything more, Christopher sat on the smaller, apparently less comfortable of the two. It was hot in the office and the air smelled of heating, of cigarettes. Samantha Jackson sat in the other chair. Behind her, a low winter sun shone through the dusty window – through the gap where the blinds did not reach She picked up the file and held it, closed, against her chest.

  ‘So, Christopher,’ she began, and smiled as if in afterthought. ‘I’m what’s called an adoption counsellor. I’m basically a social worker specialising in adoption, if you like. In cases like this, the council provides someone to help you through the process should you decide to go ahead. Is that clear?’

  He nodded.

  She plucked some half-moon glasses Christopher had not noticed until that moment from a chain on her chest and slid them onto her nose. She peered at him over the top of them. ‘So as a starting point, Christopher, it might be best if you tell me what you’re hoping for today.’

  ‘Hoping for,’ he repeated, suddenly with no idea why he had come or how to put what he wanted into words.

  ‘I mean, in terms of making contact. What is it you’re hoping will come out of it?’

  ‘I suppose,’ he began again, just to say something in the hope that more words would follow, ‘I was wondering whether my mother had left her details at all. Or if she’d been in touch. Or tried. I mean, I don’t know if that’s even possible. I… I don’t really know how it works. I only found out I was… I only found out the other week.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ She nodded, her blue eyes fixed on his. ‘You must be feeling quite up in the air with it all.’

/>   Up in the air. That was it exactly. A red helium-filled balloon floating in a vast blue sky. He nodded his agreement, tried to smile. At the maddening prickle in his eyes, he blinked, coughed, pushed himself back in his chair. He crossed his legs, uncrossed them – crossed his arms instead. He wished she would not look at him and stared down at his knees.

  ‘What I’m trying to ascertain, Christopher’ – her voice was gentle, so gentle, but still he could not look up – ‘is whether you feel ready, potentially, to start a search. Actually, you won’t know this, but none of this was possible up until this year really. The law didn’t change till 1975, and these things take a while to filter through. So you’re lucky in that sense. Before now, you’d have been on your own.’

  ‘On my own,’ he repeated. Again, she had said exactly what he felt, as if she were him and he her. On his own – he had felt this since his mother, Margaret, had told him the truth of his life. Before that. Perhaps always.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘In terms of any investigation you might have wanted.’

  When she didn’t say any more, he made himself look at her. Her eyes were such a vivid blue, like the celestial paintings in church. They made him want to tell her everything about himself, to start talking and never stop. He looked away.

  ‘I suppose I’d like to find out who I am,’ he said, to the window. ‘My real name, that sort of thing. Where I belong.’

  ‘You don’t feel like you belong at home?’

  ‘No. Yes. Of course. I mean, of course. It’s just that, when they… my parents… my adoptive parents told me, I… I can’t really explain it. Except to say I already knew. I didn’t know. It’s not that. What I mean is, is that common? Is that normal? To know something like that before you’re told?’

  ‘People feel all sorts of things, Christopher. Everything’s normal in that sense.’

  The sound of traffic from outside. She had paused, was looking at him. He spoke – to fill the silence. ‘I knew my brother and sister were natural, or biological, or whatever it’s called, and that I was… different, is maybe the word. I knew they were biological because I saw my mother with… with… you know, pregnant. And I don’t remember being born, obviously – I wouldn’t expect to. I don’t remember any before, in terms of the feeling. What I mean is, I suppose I always felt…’

  In another office, a phone trilled twice and stopped. He heard a man’s voice, though nothing of what he said.

  ‘No one else in my family has dark hair,’ he went on – couldn’t help himself. ‘Not even aunties and uncles. I’m the only one.’ He stopped, attempted another smile, feeling his face grow hot. ‘Anyway, sorry, I was hoping, I am hoping, that maybe if I could see my actual biological mother I would see where… where I fit, I suppose. Where I make sense. In the world, I mean. That probably sounds ridiculous.’

  ‘Not at all.’ The counsellor still had the file held to her chest. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘All right. Now, of course, there’s the possibility that you won’t feel that. These things are never perfect.’ She spoke with such gravity, Christopher felt, as though she were a surgeon come to deliver the worst possible news to the next of kin. Except here there was no next of kin. At least, not yet.

  ‘Never perfect,’ he said. ‘Of course. I understand.’

  ‘You have to take that on. And what I also have to tell you is there is the possibility that your birth parents are no longer with us.’

  ‘Of course.’ He had not considered this eventuality, and the thought hit him flat in the chest. ‘That… that stands to reason.’

  ‘There’s also the possibility, and I’m not saying this will happen or it won’t, that she or they won’t want contact. It happens. But in the eventuality that they do want contact, we advise getting in touch by letter first and then perhaps by phone before an actual physical meeting.’

  In his mind’s eye, a faceless woman fought to emerge. She was holding a red balloon, holding it out to him: Here, she said. She let go. The balloon floated away before he had a chance to grasp it. The woman was gone.

  ‘I understand,’ he said.

  Samantha Jackson laid the file on the coffee table, opened it and drew out a document. ‘This is a form for you to apply for your birth records.’ She held it out and he took it from her. ‘You’ll have to fill that in and send it to the Registrar General.’ She pulled out another paper and laid it over the first. ‘This is another form you can send to the court overseeing the adoption, which in this case is Liverpool. There’s some more information for you here.’ More documents landed, until a small pile of papers lay on his lap. ‘I’ve photocopied the relevant information on adoption contact registers. You can register a veto, you see, if you don’t want to be contacted. And that’s obviously a possibility.’

  ‘I have no expectations,’ he said, taking hold of the papers and stacking them on his knee. ‘I just want to know.’

  ‘I’ll put a call in to NORCAP. Sometimes birth parents register their details there. I’ve got a colleague there – Robert. He’ll have a look and see if your mother’s been in touch. All right? In the meantime, you have my number if anything’s troubling you or if you need to ask me something or talk to me, OK?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much.’

  And that was it. I remember thinking how photographic his memory must be. And along with the visual details, he was able to relay the conversation too, verbatim, as if it had happened the day before. What I’ve written here is an approximation, of course, but everything he said stayed with me long after he’d said it. That’s the way, I think, with the people who become important to you, who impact your life. And Christopher did more than impact mine.

  He destroyed it.

  * * *

  On the return journey from Liverpool, he took out his book, but the words swam, dissolved, blackened like a swarm. He felt as if he were floating, looking down on himself there in the train carriage trying to read. But at the same time he was in his own body, sitting down with the book in his hands, the words fidgeting on the page.

  After a few minutes he closed his eyes, pushed his head back into the headrest and saw at once the documents that would lead him to his birth mother. Forms he would have to sign: Christopher Harris. Funny, he’d always been so particular about his name, and here he was on the brink of claiming another. Christopher please, not Chris. How pernickety that seemed to him now, watching the northern towns shuffle by: Huyton, Eccles, Rochdale, Halifax. Christopher please, not Chris, thank you. As if the shortening of his name diminished him in some important way. Had that all been down to the rope, to that feeling? Yes, he thought now, it probably had. A self always so precarious it could stand no further alteration. Perhaps if he had been less of a stickler, he would have found himself picked for lunchtime football games instead of consigned to the bench, summoned only when they were short-handed or needed someone in goal. And later, perhaps he would have known better what to say to the girls at youth club instead of standing at the edge of the room, mouthing the words to the hits, flat R White’s cream soda warming in his sweating hands. He had kept too tight a hold on himself – he saw that now. Perhaps that was normal, under the circumstances. Perhaps it had been the only way to prevent himself from unravelling.

  And so a new name would soon be his, if all went well. If he could choose from all the names he’d ever heard, he would not know which he would prefer, only that he no longer wanted Jack, as he once had. Jack belonged to his brother, to the Harris bloodline, not to him. He, Christopher, or whatever his real name was, had his own line now, flowing from a past he had yet to discover all the way to this moment, to this train carriage, to this young chap called Whathisname. The line ran through his present and on to the man he was to become. All would become clear. His history would tell him who he was, who he could be. His history would give him his future.

  ‘Who am I?’ he asked the vacant railway carriage. ‘What is my name?’

  A change of air. He opened his eyes. The
carriage door had opened and opposite him a woman with white hair was arranging her small case on the overhead rack. As she sat down, she stared at him through grey haloed eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, did you say something?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said, without taking her eyes from his. ‘I thought I heard you say something as I came in just now.’

  ‘Nothing.’ Christopher looked out of the window and saw trees, pines, all bent the same way. ‘It was probably the wind,’ he said with a polite smile.

  He closed his eyes once more and returned, this time in silence, to his imaginings.

  Hello. Yes, hello. I’m David. I’m Thomas. I’m Matthew. I’m John. I’m Matthew Mark Luke and John, next-door neighbour carry on… A rose by any other name. A name, a name, what’s in a name? I am your son. My name is Harry, JimBob, William… He could almost see her, his mother. She was tall, like him. Yes, tall. And she had black hair, like his, a lock that fell over her eye when she was reading or cooking or whatever it was she liked to do. He could not see her face but could feel its kindness on his skin like sunlight. Hello… Doris, Daphne, Julie, Jean, I’m… I’m Peter I’m Michael I’m Zachary, your son. You can shorten it, customise it, call me what the heck you like. I am your son. I am your son. I am your son.

  .

  Chapter Five

  Christopher arrived at the halls a little after six to find Adam lying on his bed in his Y-fronts, reading Tyke, the Leeds rag magazine. On the front was a cartoon. Of what, Christopher could not make out, apart from a speech bubble: Only 20p!