by Clare Empson
Luke
Michael is in the States this week and there’s a holiday atmosphere at work. At lunchtime, we all disperse in different directions, some to the pub, some up to Wandsworth for an hour of retail therapy and me to Soho for a liquid lunch with Ben.
First to Liberty. It’s Hannah’s birthday in a couple of weeks and I’m doing a recce of ground-floor accessories: scarves, necklaces, bracelets, hats. She has unchanging but definite taste, which makes her easy to buy for; if it’s crafted and hand-made she is certain to love it. Almost immediately I find the perfect thing – a black beaded necklace with hand-painted wooden discs, slightly gothic, shades of Madonna in her eighties incarnation. Hannah will love it.
Without quite knowing why, I find myself taking the escalator up to the fragrance department on the first floor. The necklace was steep (£130) and Hannah would be cross if I bought her anything else. Why then am I uncapping bottles and spraying my wrists, quick sniff, decisive shake of the head, no that’s not it, nope, nor is that, on and on until I’ve tried around twenty fragrances.
‘Can I help?’
The woman behind the counter looks kind; I think that’s the deciding factor. The truth blurts out before I’ve had time to recognise it.
‘I’m trying to find this scent I keep smelling. It’s driving me mad. But it’s none of these …’
I wave my hand at the ranks of Chanel, Guerlain, Dior.
‘Can you describe the smell? Who is wearing it?’
‘It’s nothing like these perfumes; they are all too sweet, too heavy. It’s light, lemony, spicy and smoky. Hard to describe. And it’s a woman I know who wears it.’
I hate the smile she gives me; I feel ashamed. She thinks I’m trying to buy the perfume of someone I’ve fallen in love with; perhaps she pictures me dousing myself in it each day like some kind of weirdo. One step away from wearing women’s pants to work.
‘Could it be cologne? Or aftershave?’
I nod, glad that someone is taking me seriously at last.
‘I think it could. But I don’t wear aftershave, so it’s nothing I recognise.’
She picks up a sheet of cardboard and begins spraying its corners – Dior Homme, Eau Sauvage, Gucci, Prada. It’s none of these.
‘Sharper,’ I say. ‘Fresher.’
She points to a bottle. ‘Long shot,’ she says, ‘but this is Acqua di Parma, an Italian cologne that’s been around for decades. A lot of women wear it.’
She uncaps the bottle and holds it out for me to sniff. And there it is, the scent of woodlands and lavender and cedar and lime; it is all of these things, but, critically, it is also the smell of my past.
‘That’s it!’
I’m not sure which of us is the more jubilant.
‘I’ll take it,’ I say, and while she wraps the bottle, I pick up the tester and dab it on my neck, my throat, my cheeks.
Of course, when I get to The Coach and Horses and find Ben at the bar, he steps back from me in surprise.
‘What the fuck? You’re wearing perfume.’
He looks so shocked, I can’t help laughing.
‘I’ve been buying presents for Hannah in Liberty.’
He hands me a pint.
‘Drink up. And man up while you’re at it.’
Oh it’s good to be here in the company of my oldest friend, the two of us quietly celebrating. Him the fact that he has just finished a couple of commissions – ‘Jude Law’s kids. Bit too pastel and cherubic for my liking, but it paid well.’ Me because Michael is away and I can take a longer lunch than usual. I’ve been working flat out these past weeks, desperate to clinch the deal with Reborn and keep Spirit safe. At night I dream about it; I dream of Michael appearing in my office, twisted and vindictive as he fires me. ‘You’re utterly hopeless,’ he tells me, ‘a complete waste of space.’ This happens night after night after night. Yet when I wake, I understand that the dreams are not about work, not really; on a deep level they connect to my concerns and fears about Alice.
Two pints turns to three in less than an hour. Lunch is two bags of cheese and onion crisps and a shared packet of KP nuts.
‘I’ve missed this,’ I say, raising my pint. ‘We never get a chance to go to the pub any more.’
Ben is silent, sipping his ale, watching. I don’t need to tell him I’m close to the edge; he’s been right here on the brink with me many times. At school, he was the only one I ever cried in front of when my acute homesickness cut deep. We were eight, if that sounds lame, incarcerated for weeks at a time. I’ve come to understand, as an adult with my own child, that boarding school is little more than abandonment on repeat.
‘It’s Alice, isn’t it?’ he says eventually. ‘Ever since she came into your life you’ve seemed … messed up.’
‘Hold it there,’ I say. ‘We need something stronger for this conversation.’
I return to the table with doubles of Jameson’s and more beer.
‘I don’t think Alice is in the slightest bit interested in me,’ I say. ‘All she really cares about is Samuel. Hannah can’t see it – or won’t see it; she needs it to work with Alice so she can carry on with her job. The one thing we know is that we are leaving Samuel in good hands each day.’
‘But what is it you want from her? She can’t be your mother again, not after twenty-seven years apart.’
‘It’s more that there’s no connection between us. None whatsoever, and that seems strange to me. She never talks about the weeks when we were together. Why not? It’s the one thing we have in common.’
‘What about Rick?’
‘What about him? We’ve had a couple of lunches. He’s great, but I haven’t got to know him. He doesn’t feel in the least bit like my real father.’
I see Ben’s hesitation. I know him well enough to understand that he is weighing up whether he should tell me something.
‘What?’ I say, impatient.
‘Elizabeth doesn’t think Rick is your father. You know what she’s like, she never minces her words. For a start, you look nothing like each other. Rick has blonde hair and blue eyes. Also he’s gay. Go figure.’
‘I’m dark, like Alice. Why would Rick say he was my father if he wasn’t? Why would he be on my birth certificate?’
‘Just a hunch Elizabeth had. Probably nothing.’
‘Answer me this. Am I just being jealous and needy and insecure? Or do I have a point?’
Ben stands up.
‘More whisky needed, I think. And yes. You have a point.’
It’s almost six when our session breaks up; I remember nothing of the ride home, London blurring past. All I can think about, all I can feel, is a sort of disaffected rage, a venomous self-pity for my confused identity, my lone wolf-ness. Probably not the right state of mind in which to meet my birth mother, and it doesn’t help that I can’t get my key in the door. After a few minutes of scraping and scratching and rattling, the door opens and I lurch through it, almost toppling into Alice and my small son.
Oops.
‘Goodness,’ Alice says. ‘Are you OK?’
‘S’fine,’ I slur. ‘Sorr’m late.’
I reach out to take Samuel, and Alice actually backs away from me. What I see is the way she curves her arms protectively around him as if he is her child, not mine.
‘Why don’t you have a lie-down,’ she says. ‘I’ll wait here until Hannah gets back.’
‘Gimme m’son,’ I say, or at least I try to. I’m blind drunk, I realise now, without the fallback of Ben, who was so pissed himself we could communicate perfectly, a contrapuntal wave of sound unintelligible to all but us.
Alice shakes her head. ‘It’s not safe. You might drop him. I’m not judging you, don’t think that, just trying to make sure Samuel’s OK. Hannah will be home soon.’
And now I am inflamed with rage, hurt, disappointm
ent, self-loathing, of course, and it makes me vicious.
‘Is my child, not yours. You gave yours away, remember?’
I am crying as I haul myself up the stairs, clinging to the banister, step by step, until I reach the bedroom and throw myself on the bed, and mercifully my world soon turns black. But in the countdown to unconsciousness, in those final seconds, I am sure I see Alice’s face at the door. My mother standing there, my child in her arms, silently watching.
Then
Alice
It seems unfathomable to me now, four days into Jake’s drinking binge, that there could have been a time when I didn’t know him this way. We are living separate lives. In the mornings he is too deeply asleep to hear me leave for college, and I go straight to the Slade, forgoing my morning cappuccino, for I cannot bear to be in Bar Italia without him. In the evenings he is never at home and I have learned to go to bed, forcing myself into sleep if I can, waiting for the slide and scrape as he attempts to fit his key in the lock if I can’t.
He is lost to me, but I understand he is drowning in torment. I know this from the notes I come home to, the desperate scrawls in a page ripped from his notebook.
Alice. Forgive me. I’m so sorry. I hate myself. This will stop, I promise.
But it doesn’t stop. Four days turns into five. I ring Eddie and he suggests meeting for lunch. We go to a caff near college and he orders a full English: undercooked bacon, pallid sausages, beans, fried egg, tinned tomatoes and a rack of white toast. It makes me nauseous to look at it. I drink a cup of tea and try to eat my hot buttered toast, but I can’t manage more than a couple of bites.
‘You must be going out of your mind,’ Eddie says.
‘Pretty much.’
‘He does this sometimes, Alice, when it all gets on top of him.’
‘I don’t understand why it has to carry on. He made the decision not to go the funeral, why isn’t that the end of it?’
‘It’s not about the funeral any more. This is Jake’s depression. It’s a self-hate thing. A self-perpetuating thing. You might not understand this, but Jake is punishing himself.’
‘But why?’
‘Goes back to his grandparents. Jake still hears the things they said to him as a child. He still believes them.’
‘It’s like he’s avoiding me.’
‘He is avoiding you. He’s ashamed. He doesn’t want you to see him like this.’
‘When will it end?’
Eddie shrugs. ‘He’ll burn himself out sooner or later.’
‘Shouldn’t he see his doctor?’
‘He should but he won’t. What will happen now is that he’ll come to his senses and he’ll quit drinking. And for a while everything will be fine.’
I wake in the middle of the night and sense Jake’s presence even before I see him sitting with his back against the bedroom door as if he has simply slid down it, his knees pressed high against his chest.
‘Jake?’ I whisper and he says, ‘Hey.’
I can tell from this one word that he is sober. His face, lit up by the moon, seems so beautiful to me and I am overwhelmed with longing for him.
‘I miss you.’
I cannot stop myself from crying.
‘Will you come to bed?’
He shakes his head.
‘You want to know about that time when I was sixteen?’ he says and his voice is so sombre I feel afraid.
‘Yes. If you want to tell me.’
He takes so long to begin that I am drifting towards sleep when his voice cuts into the darkness.
‘My grandmother knew about the beatings. And she blamed me for them. She used to say, “Your grandfather is a good man but you push him to the limit.” She resented me living with them and she told me that most days. She’d say: “Even your own mother doesn’t want you. Don’t you think you ought to try and be more lovable?”
‘I tried to change, but whatever I did it wasn’t enough. And whenever my grandfather beat me up, she would tell me: “Look what you’ve made him do now.” So I grew up thinking I was flawed. But I had an escape route and that’s what kept me going.
‘When I turned sixteen, I was going to live with my mum in London. “Just wait till you’ve left school,” my mum would tell me, “you and I will have so much fun.” I was going to get a job and earn enough money to buy myself a decent guitar. And then I could join a band.’
I know that I mustn’t talk or touch Jake or do anything to stop his story. But I move noiselessly from the bed and I sit on the floor, just a few feet away, in a pool of moonlight.
‘My mum came to stay on my sixteenth birthday, she gave me a Van Morrison record and my grandmother made a cake. And in the morning my mum said she had some news. She told me she was moving to Canada with her new boyfriend and I could join her in a year or so if I wanted. She’d bought her plane ticket and was leaving in a month. She had known for weeks but she didn’t want to spoil my birthday …’
He stops speaking for a moment and this heartless betrayal, a decade old now, lingers in the air.
‘I didn’t mean to kill myself. It was an impulse thing. I saw the kitchen knife and I was drawn to it. But the doctors thought I was suicidal. Next thing I knew I was in a secure psychiatric unit in Epsom. I was locked up there for nine months.’
‘Jake.’
I inch towards him, needing to be closer.
But he says: ‘I’m going to finish, Alice.’
His voice is determined, almost chilling, and so I stay where I am, just out of reach.
‘My mum came to see me a few times before she left for Canada, but she never stayed long. She was too scared.’
‘What was it like?’
‘Do you really want to know?’
I nod my head, unable to speak.
‘It was like hell, or worse maybe. I was so out of it to begin with, I lost my grip on who I was, I just existed in this crazy place where people banged on the walls and shouted and wept and moaned all day long. There was one young guy and he used to talk to the wall, a proper conversation with pauses, like he was addressing an invisible alien or something. There was a woman in the room next door to me who used to howl every night, these long, awful cries of anguish. The Screamer they called her. So much anger, everyone fighting and shouting and arguing, the patients, the staff. And sadness. It was like bathing in it all the time. These people had nothing and no one cared about them. And suddenly I was one of them.’
‘Did you need to be there?’
‘Not for nine months. I was depressed not dangerous. But the doctors didn’t care. They kept me pumped so full of drugs I just lay around in a ball of apathy. Those pills stopped me from feeling, from living. All I did was exist.’
He pauses.
‘Eddie saved me. He visited me every week. And he kept telling me “you don’t need to be in here.” He was only sixteen himself, but if he was scared he never showed it.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this? Why didn’t Eddie?’
‘Because mostly I can pretend it didn’t happen. But then my grandmother died and it came rushing back, and the feelings I had, the memories, were too much…’
At last he stands up and holds out a hand and pulls me to my feet. And I am in his arms, my face buried against his neck, my tears wetting his skin.
‘Promise me you’ll never let me go back to a place like that.’
I understand so much about Jake on the strength of this one conversation. I know now why being with him has always felt so potent. He inhabits every moment of his day, from the morning cappuccino to the songs he listens to and the food he cooks at night. Jake’s terror, I realise, is blankness.
‘I lost you,’ I say when I am able to speak. ‘You left me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
His mouth against my hair, his arms holding my waist. We’ll go to
bed and we’ll make love until the light begins to press against the windows and we will fall asleep, wrapped up so tightly that our faces touch and our breath becomes one.
‘Don’t ever leave me again,’ I say.
‘I won’t,’ Jake says. ‘I promise I won’t.’
And I believe him. Because I must.
Now
Luke
Self-sabotage or acts of destruction are a common response in adoptees. They will put themselves in a situation and push and push until the thing they fear most happens. We call it self-fulfilling prophecy.
Who Am I? The Adoptee’s Hidden Trauma by Joel Harris
On the outside it must look as if my life has never been better. Reborn have rejected Universal’s offer and their manager, Steve Harris, has told me Spirit is back in the race. I should be ecstatic with relief and excitement at the prospect of potentially working with one of the hottest unsigned bands in Britain.
And yet I am clenched with a feeling of doom from the moment I wake.
Ever since I came home drunk, Alice has barely spoken a word to me. I’m convinced I have offended her, but I can’t remember anything about that night other than me storming off to bed when she wouldn’t let me hold the baby. Even Hannah, my glass-half-full, twenty-four-seven optimist, thinks she is being distant.
‘Is everything OK, Alice?’ she asked one evening while Alice was packing up her things to leave.
‘Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘You’ve seemed a bit quiet the last few days.’
‘Oh no, you’re imagining it.’
What I noticed was the way Alice managed to avoid eye contact with both Hannah and me; I saw how she rushed from the room the moment her bag was packed.
But as soon as she had gone, Hannah said, ‘There you are. Nothing to worry about.’
I keep up my lunch-hour surveillance, sandwiches on park benches, a little light shopping on the high street. Sometimes I see Alice and Samuel, sometimes I don’t. Even on the days when she doesn’t appear, there’s a tantalising cloud of Acqua di Parma in the air around me; I hear snatches of a lullaby she often sings to Samuel with her sweet, clear voice.