‘But you’ve really helped me, Martha. More than you know. And I can’t help feeling that I am somehow supposed to do the same. That it’s what this is about somehow.’
‘You’ve let me live in your house, Kate. A virtual stranger. Do you not think that’s enough?’
‘No, I don’t actually. And you’re not a stranger. You’re a friend now, Martha. I mean, I realise it’s not been long, but I do really think of you as a true friend. And I am just so bloody angry. So churned up by what happened to you that I feel there must be something we can do. Something that I am supposed to do.’
Martha takes in a long, slow breath, her eyes softening, which gives Kate more courage.
‘Look. I hope you don’t mind but I’ve spoken to a few people. Not given your name, obviously. Not given any details or anything away – not without your agreement. But I’ve put feelers out about that journalist, the one who exposed the Millrose Mount scandal, and I feel pretty sure that if we approached him officially, he would want to take this up for you. Not just the Millrose Mount dimension but the charity. The adoption people. I mean, it’s a real outrage, Martha. Do-gooders playing God. It should be exposed. And there’s the European Court of Human Rights. From what I hear, more of this goes on than you would believe. Stuff brushed under the carpet. And this journalist – well, the word is he will believe you, Martha. He’d take it up, I’m sure, if… ’
‘And then there’d be a circus.’
Kate reaches into her sleeve for a tissue and wipes her nose.
‘OK – they’d want a story – yes. I’m not going to pretend they wouldn’t. But they have the resources, Martha, these people. The contacts. The clout. Links to politicians and so on. I mean – we don’t even know if they broke the law over the adoption.’
The problem whenever they discussed the details – over and over – was Martha genuinely could not remember whether she signed anything. Any forms. Papers. So it was difficult to know for sure if rules had been flouted or if anti-depressants, or whatever medication they put her on, had clouded everything.
‘It certainly needs looking into properly, Martha. And there’s not much we can do on our own. And I just feel… ’
Martha looks across at her, silent now, so that Kate shakes her head, tucking the tissue back into her sleeve.
‘You know the law’s just changed, Kate? Allowing searches for birth parents?’
‘Yes – I read about that. So can we use this new law? To investigate the status of the adoption?’
‘Apparently not. I looked into it all. It’s for the children, not the mothers. Adopted children are allowed access to their records now, but it’s a one-way street. It may come one day for the mothers, but not yet.’
‘So you’re the mother, but you don’t count?’
Kate stands up and walks over to the window, hands on her hips.
‘The only hope I have, Kate, is that technically now my son could come looking for me. It’s been my only hope. All these years. The reason I come to Aylesborough every winter. Kidding myself that he might find out something and come looking.’
‘We need to do something more. This is ridiculous. So unfair. Is there nowhere we can at least register your details?’
‘I’ve done that. I write every single year.’ Martha turns her gaze to the window again. ‘Just before his birthday – to the charity headquarters who keep adoption records. For all I know, they throw the letters straight in the bin. But I write.’ She brushes her skirt. ‘Then I come here for the winter – just in case. Wendy lets me use her address at the wool shop as a point of contact.’
At last Kate understands. That very first day she was introduced to Wendy. No letters.
‘So Wendy knows?’
‘No, of course not. I just told her it was important to be able to provide an address. For next-of-kin issues. Lawyers. Banks. That sort of thing. She’s never pressed for an explanation.’
‘Martha, do you mind me asking again? About the father? Why you never considered tracing him – when you got out of Millrose Mount, I mean? He might be able to help you with this.’
Martha shifts in her seat. ‘I think about it sometimes. But then I try to imagine what the hell I would say. “By the way, we have a child but I don’t know where he is.” No, Kate. No point. It would just spread the hurt.’
‘And did you never hear from him again?’
‘No, never.’
‘And on your travels, Martha. I hope you don’t mind my asking. But did you not have other relationships? Ever think about settling?’
‘I travelled because I needed freedom, Kate. Because Millrose Mount made me terrified of the alternative. And yes – I had a few relationships. But… I don’t know. I never wanted to stay in one place and nothing ever came close. I know that may sound ridiculous, because I was very young when I was with my child’s father. But it’s the truth. Nothing has ever come close… ’
And then Martha checks her watch suddenly. ‘Oh – Christ. It’s never that time.’
Hurrying through to the hall for her coat and scarf, Kate following. Martha is sharing the running of the café with a small team so that Carlo can stay full-time at the hospital, where Maria remains stable. There has been no official word or development from the council since the parade drama, but the family’s solicitor has won an extension on the eviction order, given the family’s new and terrible circumstances.
‘You know I’ll help any time you need me.’ Kate originally offered to pitch in full-time also, but has so far not been needed – so many other relatives and friends keen to do their bit for Carlo.
‘Any time we’re short, I’ll let you know. Promise.’ Martha wraps her scarf twice round her neck. ‘Look, Kate. Please don’t think I’m not grateful. You wanting to help. But, and I know it sounds strange, the thing is – if I do ever find him – my son… ’ A slow exhalation of breath. ‘I don’t want him to think I expect anything of him. That anyone else is involved. A journalist. An agenda. Does that make any sense?’
And then, before Kate can say that she understands absolutely, Martha is waving and is gone, the door slamming with the wind.
Kate sits down on the bottom step of the stairs and closes her eyes to the echo of Martha’s presence. It is something which has always both puzzled and pleased her – this very physical sensation when someone leaves the room. Someone you care for.
She read a theory somewhere that human energy is absorbed by its surroundings, leaving behind a sort of physical shadow – a resonance. And though it is more likely to be the contrast of the silence which feels so very odd at times like this, she likes to sit very still until the sensation passes.
And so she waits, thinking of Martha. And thinking also of Toby, who she misses more with every passing day.
44
And then suddenly, the next morning, there it is on the doormat.
It is a shock at first for Kate to see his handwriting there on the envelope. On their doormat.
Married life hasn’t presented the need for letters. Kate and Toby have hardly been apart since their wedding. And yet, staring at the letter now, Kate is remembering that when they were first together, they wrote often. Kate spent a few months in France as part of her final year at university, and they missed each other horribly; sent postcards and letters all the time. Sometimes every few days. She loved to take photographs and often enclosed a series of random shots. A good meal. A pretty pattern of clouds. A shop window display.
Kate was a good deal less confident back them. Yet she felt so very close and so very comfortable with Toby that she put all of her insecurities in her letters. Goodness. Until this moment she has forgotten about them. They were open and chatty and confessional – those letters. How she worried what everyone thought of her French. Of her clothes. Her blessed hair. And in comparison to this, how much she loved everything about France. The way the women all around her seemed always to look so stylish and self-assured. How she wished with all of her heart that s
he could be like that. And how she wondered some days if it was an act. If anyone was really that lucky – to feel so sure of themselves? Or whether it was a mask? What did Toby think?
And there is a shudder of connection and surprise and déjà vu as she opens the envelope to find Toby remembers all this also; referencing the very same thing.
Do you remember how you used to write to me from France, Kate? All those amazing and rambling letters. I so loved them. Still have most of them but sadly not all. Feel very cross with myself now that I did not keep every single one…
He writes honestly then, on the second page, about how confused and hurt and knocked sideways he is about her confession. How he never saw that coming but regrets parting the way they did, leaving without talking more, because he is beginning slowly to see how hypocritical he’s been. And so he wants to keep up some line of communication between them and has decided to write letters.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to write back. I just need to do this…
The letter then rambles on – warm and chatty. How his father is now into stamp collecting and seems to think distraction is what Toby needs, dragging him around endless antique fairs and auctions. His mother meantime trying to fatten him up. You are what you eat, Toby.
And then, at the end of this first letter, he says how very sorry he is that they have somehow never found a way to be in tune over how to grieve. How to even talk about it.
Is there a right way or a wrong way? I have no idea, Kate. I only know that for some reason I couldn’t cry and I remember how much this upset you. I don’t know why. Maybe I thought that if I gave into it, I would never recover. That you needed me to be strong. I don’t know. But I cope in my own way, Kate, and that is by picturing him in the present tense. Every day. I close my eyes and I picture him colouring at that little red plastic table we bought. Driving us mad with that bloody drum.
I hold his picture in my head, clear and bright as if he is still here, Kate. That’s what I do. That’s how I cope. That’s what works for me.
And I need you to know that I have honestly never blamed you for what happened. I have blamed God. The ferry. The barrier. Fate. But never you…
You have to believe that.
Kate reads this first letter over and over that day and goes to bed, shocked and dazed that it has taken a separation for him to say these things.
It was ridiculous and unfair of her but, yes: in the midst of all the madness, it had always really bothered her that in the early days Toby didn’t cry. She couldn’t understand it.
In the blur of those terrible first days, she remembered very little. Snatched images. Finding Daniel’s favourite pyjamas in the washing machine. Being helped to a car after causing an appalling scene at the funeral; trying to stop them from lowering the coffin into the ground.
You are not to let them do that. You hear me! Toby. You have to stop them. Stop them doing that…
Mostly just a blur, which probably had a lot to do with medication, which was a blessing at first because it just made her sleep so much. But later – not so great because her body started to reject sleep, as if it was over-rested. Too full up of sleep. And then lying in bed, between sleep, it became too hard to stop all those terrible images from surfacing.
And that’s when she got up and started the cleaning. At first just a jolly good clean to fill up a day. And then another day. Followed by the obsessing. Scrubbing and bleaching until her skin burned red and angry.
All this Toby watched – helpless and broken – with visitors and friends and relatives calling in from time to time with cakes and cards and casseroles. Let her do it her way. Whatever works.
And Toby didn’t cry. That’s the one thing she remembers incredibly clearly. Sometimes his eyes would bulge as he struggled. But always he stopped it. Fought it.
‘Why don’t you cry? What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you just cry?’ She remembers hurling the words at him one night and slapping his arm as if watching him cry was somehow necessary.
The truth was she wanted to be punished. She wanted him to be much angrier at her. She wanted Toby to hate her as much as she hated herself. Justice. But Toby was strong. He held in the tears and he kept on loving her and this was the thing she could neither understand nor cope with. His kindness and forgiveness, despite the terrible, terrible thing she had done. The bomb she had exploded in all of their lives.
Instead Toby turned all his fury on the ferry company, and the garage, and saw a lawyer and Trading Standards, and started this blue box folder which he kept on the top of a pine wardrobe in their room.
This must never happen to anyone else, Kate. I am going to make sure this never happens again.
At two a.m. Kate gets up and puts on the bedside lamp to read Toby’s letter all over again. She strokes the pages and she realises something dangerous immediately. That deep in her heart, she would like to write back to him…
But she knows this wouldn’t be fair. Because he wants another child and it would give him hope and she wants Toby to be happy again and she can’t believe this would be possible together now.
And then, just a few days later, another letter arrives and this time Martha notices.
‘Another letter from Toby? That’s good.’
‘Is it?’
‘Why don’t you write back?’
‘I don’t want to encourage him.’
‘Why ever not, Kate?’
And over the coming days, as more letters arrive, Kate doesn’t know what to feel. She tells Martha that it is still hopeless between her and Toby; way, way too complicated. While Martha, with so many problems of her own, just knits – click, click.
‘But you still love him, Kate? What’s complicated about that?’
And then the letters stop and Kate is completely thrown. She has become used to and comforted by them.
And now Kate doesn’t know what on earth to think. Or feel.
Isn’t this what she wants?
For Toby to give up on them too?
45
Matthew refuses to meet Emily at the council offices. It feels like a small but important gesture for Maria and all of the people who have been so kind to him in Aylesborough.
He has not visited the hospital. Does not know Maria well enough. Too shy and awkward to know quite how to handle this. Just more anger suddenly. More churning inside over how unfair everything seems. Shocked especially at how distressed Geoffrey is. Wendy and all the others too.
They whisper a lot – everyone terrified to admit out loud the terrible fear that Maria may not recover. Have another, even bigger stroke? And the whole business unsettles Matthew so badly that he has phoned his mother a few times, needing to hear her voice. Touch base. Suggesting that she may like to visit again soon? Realising very suddenly that life does not always give you the opportunity to patch things up, however angry you feel.
She is doing OK – his mum. Staying permanently at her sister’s. New job, dressmaking for a dry-cleaner’s, apparently, which she loves. She used to do a lot of that, years back. Dressmaking. She mentions that there is going to be a divorce but you’re not to worry. I am going to be just fine. It is for the best. Something I should have done a long time ago, Matthew.
‘I’m sorry but I’m not coming to the council offices, Emily. No way.’
She was surprised on the phone, at first, but then regretful when he explained. A very sad business, Matthew. I didn’t realise the woman who collapsed was a friend of yours. Yes, of course. I understand completely.
But she says they need privacy for this next meeting, rejecting the quayside café, and seems pleased when he suggests the piano shop during lunchtime closing. Geoffrey will be out piano tuning. They can have the back office to themselves. Good.
And now she looks strangely out of proportion perched in her smart suit on the stool among the packing boxes, and Matthew wonders if he should have set two chairs at the desk in the showroom, to make it feel a little more comfortable
. Emily says no. This is fine. More private. A deep breath then from both of them as she removes his file from her briefcase – her smiling encouragement.
‘As I said on the phone, we’ve had the birth records through and I’ve been able to make a few more enquiries on your behalf. Now. One step at a time. This is your original birth certificate, Matthew.’
She places a document on the small table and turns it around, pushing it towards Matthew, still smiling her encouragement.
‘Take your time. It’s a lot to take in.’
Matthew glances over the document and then reads it through more slowly. Once. Twice. Three times. Concentrating. Heart pounding.
He looks up at Emily.
‘Richard? My name is Richard?’ It hadn’t occurred to him. That there would be a different name. And now he feels stupid. Realising that, of course…
‘That’s the name your birth mother gave you, yes. It’s very common for adoptive parents to change it. You weren’t expecting that? I should probably have said.’
‘I didn’t think about it.’
Richard. Richard. Richard? He turns the name over and over in his head, checking it against his reflection in an imaginary mirror, unable to make it fit.
And then his mother’s name. Jessica. He says that out loud too. Jessica Martha Ellis. Spinster.
The section for the father’s name is blank and Emily, who is following Matthew’s expression closely, explains that this is not at all unusual – the father’s name often omitted. Your mother would have needed his permission. Very often it just wasn’t possible. She was single, remember. We don’t know the circumstances regarding your father.
At this reference Matthew feels suddenly and unexpectedly quite light-headed. He tries breathing more slowly but very soon the sensation becomes stronger. Borderline dizzy. He has not told Emily, not even Geoffrey, about the extent of his research into Millrose Mount. His meeting with the journalist. The new fear which has overtaken any worries about a hereditary mental condition. The dark thought which haunts him now at night – that he may actually be the result of a crime. Part of the Millrose Mount abuse scandal. The real reason his mother did not want him. Gave him up.
Last Kiss Goodnight Page 21