And now Emily is frowning. ‘Are you all right, Matthew? I’ll fetch some water, shall I? As I say – it’s a lot to take in. Is there a tap?’
‘Through there. In the little kitchen.’
There is the sound of running water. Richard Ellis. Matthew shakes his head against the dots forming on the periphery of his vision as Emily passes the glass of water, urging him to sip and breathe slowly. ‘Now there is more news, but we need to take this slowly, Matthew. Have a drink first.’
More news. Matthew is obedient, sipping at the water with his eyes closed for a moment. In front of him the entrance to Millrose Mount. He is trying not to think of it. The idea of a man and a woman side by side at a window above it.
‘OK now?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. Really. I’ll be fine. Go on.’
‘The address given when your birth was registered was here in Aylesborough. You noticed that, I’m sure.’
Matthew stares back down at the paper, struggling to make his eyes focus properly.
‘Millrose Mount? Is it linked to Millrose Mount? This address. This place?’
‘No. Well – not as far as we know. The house is an accountant’s office now, but I’ve run some checks and in the fifties it was a home for single mothers run by a charity.’
‘So my mother wasn’t in Millrose Mount when I was born?’
‘Well, it doesn’t look that way, Matthew. But we can’t know for sure. Has your adoptive mother been able to help?’
‘She says that’s what they were both told. She and my father. That my mother was in Millrose Mount and that’s why I was available for adoption.’
‘Right. Well, it’s a puzzle, that’s for sure. I just don’t know. All I can say…’ Here she pauses, as if weighing something up, trying to assess how he is coping.
‘Go on. Please go on.’
‘Well – I’ve been in touch with the adoption agency used by the charity which ran the home. They’re no longer operational but they hold records at a headquarters in Hertfordshire.’ Emily has put her hand back inside the A4 envelope.
‘There was a fire, Matthew, which I’m afraid destroyed a lot of old records, but they ran a check on the names and— ’ She is withdrawing two blue envelopes from the file. ‘They came up with these.’ Emily takes a deep breath. ‘They’re letters from your mother, Matthew, asking for information about you.’
Matthew can feel his pulse suddenly manifesting itself in his head, chest and fingers. Very slowly he reaches out his right hand, watching it as if it does not belong to his body, Emily again smiling encouragement.
‘The most recent is dated two years ago – the other, almost identical, from several years back. Would you like me to read them out?’
‘No. No. I’m fine.’
Matthew, his hand trembling, begins to take out the first letter from the envelope, pre-opened very neatly – almost certainly with a knife or proper letter opener. A neat serrated edge.
There is a single sheet inside – the writing remarkably neat also, very upright with long loops below the lines. Fountain pen. Rich blue ink.
‘What’s most extraordinary, as you will see, Matthew, is the forwarding address.’
He is not listening. Before him just a few short lines, which Matthew, like the birth certificate, scans very quickly and then re-reads more carefully. The temperature in the room suddenly seeming to fall.
I am writing again with regard to my son Richard Ellis who was adopted through your agency in 1957. I am extremely keen to know if it’s possible now to have news of him – to be reassured that he is well and happy. I have written many times before without success and hope you will be able to help me on this occasion. I can be contacted via the address above and would be very happy for my name and this address to be passed on to him and/or his new family, should this be possible.
‘So why was this never sent to me?’ Matthew’s face is now white.
‘It wasn’t allowed, Matthew. Adoptions were finalised in the past with a strict rule of no further contact. It was considered best for everyone back then.’
‘I don’t understand.’ He is looking now at the forwarding address.
Emily is shaking her head in shared amazement.
‘I know. It’s bizarre, isn’t it? Very unexpected. So do you know this woman – this Wendy? This wool shop?’
‘Yes – yes, I do, as a matter of fact. She’s a good friend of Maria. The café owner who’s in hospital. So… ’ Matthew’s eyes are now darting about, as if trying to settle on some imagined explanation somewhere about the room.
‘So Wendy from the wool shop knows my real mother?’
‘Well – it seems that way. But we can’t know what the relationship is exactly.’
Matthew is standing up now, folding the letters back into their envelopes.
‘Well, come on – we need to go round there. Ask her. It’s just two doors down.’
‘No, Matthew. Sit down. Please.’ Emily’s tone is very much more serious now. ‘This is a very private, very sensitive matter, Matthew. This Wendy Martin may not know anything about it. She may simply have a forwarding address. We can’t go barging in assuming anything. I must also counsel you very strongly to let me handle this next step on your behalf. It’s been a long time and I have a responsibility to guard not only your privacy but also Jessica’s. I’ve thought about this, and my advice is that we compose a letter between us and that I take it on your behalf to Wendy Martin to check that she still has a current forwarding address. I can make some careful enquiries without compromising anyone. It’s too emotional for you, Matthew. Too much at stake. And we don’t want to get this wrong.’
Matthew is using his thumb and forefinger now to pinch his bottom lip over and over. Finally he sits again.
So he was born in Aylesborough-on-sea. But what was all this about Wendy? Where the hell did Millrose Mount fit in? And why had the records been mysteriously destroyed? They were just covering up. That was what all this was about. Some bloody cover-up.
‘What I suggest is that you have a think tonight about what you might like to say in this first letter to Jessica. To your birth mother. You need to take this slowly. Let it sink in. Talk this through with your friend Geoffrey – yes? Phone the counsellor again if you need to. We can meet again tomorrow – here at the same time, if you like – and then I will take the letter on your behalf. Is that OK? Matthew, are you listening? Are you happy with what I’m suggesting here?’
‘Yes. Yes.’ His eyes are still glazed, not looking at her.
‘And you have your friend Geoffrey you can talk this over with. Or do you want me to phone the counsellor now? Set something up?’
‘I’m fine. I’ll talk to Geoffrey. He’s very supportive.’
Emily stands then to make Matthew a cup of tea with two large spoonfuls of sugar, and stays for a further ten minutes to ensure he seems steadier before explaining that she has to leave for her next appointment.
‘Now you’re sure you’re feeling OK?’
‘Yes. Absolutely.’
‘It’s a lot to take in. More progress than anyone could have expected. So I’ll see you tomorrow? Same time?’
Matthew nods as she gathers up her things, then waits six or seven torturous minutes to be sure she will have reached her car – on one of the meters in a neighbouring street, she said – before marching straight around to Wendy’s wool shop.
There, he kicks the bottom of the door in frustration – the sign and the locked door confirming half-day closing.
He goes around the back to try the bell to the flat – once, twice, then a long third ring, but there is no reply.
Still holding the two envelopes in his hand, he decides to try the café next. He picked up a bacon sandwich earlier so knows Martha is on duty. She might know where Wendy is.
The lunchtime rush is over – the last two customers leaving from the table closest to the window. Martha, straining under the weight of a large catering-size tray of what looks li
ke macaroni cheese, signals to Matthew that she will be over in just a moment. Still feeling unsteady, he sits at one of the benches in the middle of the café, so that by the time she joins him he is tapping his foot against the table’s central support.
He has got better used to Martha now – she seems OK enough. But that business in the council offices. The streak and the court case. He is never quite sure around her. Never completely at ease. He can feel his heart still racing, one hand tightly holding the two letters beneath the table top, the other still rhythmically pinching his lower lip.
‘Do you know where Wendy is, Martha? It’s just I really need to find her. Urgently.’
‘Oh right. No – I’m sorry, Matthew. It’s her half day. Is she not at the flat?’
‘No – I’ve tried that.’
Martha looks surprised and then concerned. ‘Look – let me get you a drink. Something to eat – yes?’
‘No, I’m fine. I ought to get back to the shop.’
‘I insist, Matthew. On the house. You can delay opening up the music shop for ten minutes and Wendy might be back then. She’s probably at the hospital.’
Martha then puts the macaroni cheese in the oven, to be ready for service later, she explains, and dishes up a large portion of lasagne left over from lunch onto a plate with some salad for Matthew. He is still agitated, not hungry but not wanting to seem rude. Ungrateful.
Martha smiles encouragement as she puts it down, whereupon Matthew instinctively lifts his hand still clutching the letters above the table, ready to take the cutlery she is holding out.
That Martha should recognise her own writing straight away is no surprise. That she should recognise also the address of the charity headquarters is perhaps more so. But what is most surprising is how she reacts.
Much later, given the grave consequence, she will agonise over and over about why she speaks up now so aggressively. Why it does not occur to her, the blood draining from her face, that Matthew could possibly have legitimate business with the letters. Her letters.
‘Where did you get those?’
She spits the words, lunging forward to snatch the letters from him, his instinct to pull back his hand, a look of intense shock on his face.
Her only explanation, when she relates this scene later to Kate, is that her brain simply cannot, will not, compute any option other than that Matthew has intercepted a reply meant for her via Wendy and in doing so has happened upon her most private business.
‘I’m sorry, but that’s mine, Matthew. And you have absolutely no right… ’
Matthew looks at the letters, which he has stretched out of Martha’s reach, and then back at her.
‘“Mine”? You know these letters?’
Again he stares at the writing, narrowing his eyes as if a new shape begins to take form from the neat and careful writing.
Then, and only then, does Martha pull back her hand.
No.
She closes her eyes. No way. Absolutely not. She would have known. If there was one thing, all these years, she has been absolutely certain about it is that she will know. Straight away.
She opens her eyes to see his – wide and unblinking. His skin suddenly pale.
‘Jessica Martha Ellis.’
Matthew says the name very quietly, eyes still unblinking.
‘You’re Jessica Martha Ellis?’
And then he is pushing the plate away, standing up. It is as if suddenly the room is too small for them both.
Martha steps back – needing more space also, the room shrinking, shrinking between them. He straightens his back now and is staring at her, waiting for a response – words he cannot know she has rehearsed a million times under a million skies across a million miles but are gone now.
Mute.
‘Well?’ His eyes becoming wilder.
She opens her mouth but nothing will come out. She is thinking of all the times she has seen him round about. At the piano shop. On the quay. At the café. How could she not have known? No…
Matthew is clenching his free fist. ‘All this time and you have nothing to say to me?’
Martha is frowning, her head tilted. Yellow wallpaper. Her mother holding the buttercup under her chin. The smell of him still in her nostrils. The feel of his hair still on her fingers. The cot empty.
She is feeling suddenly a little dizzy and closes her eyes.
No. She would know him.
‘I’m sorry, Matthew. But there must be a mistake.’
46
Kate answers on the fifth ring. It is several minutes before Martha makes any sense at all, fifteen more before Kate can negotiate the afternoon traffic and find a parking space near the quay.
The chairs, kicked over by Matthew as he fled, still lie on their sides alongside the overturned plate, food splattered across the floor – Martha sitting at the bench nearest the serving counter, staring blankly ahead.
‘I couldn’t speak, Kate. I just couldn’t speak to him.’
Kate moves behind the counter to fetch water which she insists Martha drinks before continuing. Martha takes just a couple of sips before standing up.
‘There’s no time, Kate. We have to find him.’
They try the piano shop first. Locked up. And then in the car as they drive fruitlessly around the town – by the park, the Ridge, the bed and breakfast, all the places they can think of – Kate is trying to reassure Martha that she mustn’t blame herself. It was the shock.
Shock can paralyse, Martha. The body is a strange instrument.
Forty minutes and Kate insists they drive back to the quay to check if Geoffrey has returned – he their best hope to second-guess where Matthew might go.
‘So – tell me again exactly what Matthew said?’
Martha, dazed, is shaking her head, not hearing. Rocking. To. Fro. To. Fro. ‘Oh God. I’ve messed up so badly, Kate. I’ve really, really messed this up… ’
‘Martha, listen. You’ve had a big shock. But I need you to look at me. And to listen. We have to find Matthew to make sure he’s OK – yes? So try to breathe more slowly. And to think. Yes? What exactly did he say when he ran off? Why was he so angry?’
Still she is shaking her head.
‘I told him it must be a mistake. Why did I say that? I should never have said that.’
Unable to find a meter, Kate abandons the car at a precarious angle on a double yellow line and leads Martha by the arm back round to the café – sitting her at a table before checking at the piano shop. She reappears just a few minutes later with Geoffrey, white-faced, behind her.
‘It’s all right, Martha. I’ve told Geoffrey everything.’ And then, turning to him. ‘So do you have any idea where he might have gone?’
‘You’ve tried the B&B?’
‘Yes – no sign.’
‘We could try my house. He might have gone there.’
They take Kate’s car again – Geoffrey having walked to work to enjoy the fine skies. En route Kate very gently tries to coax Martha to go over why it had gone so very badly.
‘He wanted to know who his father was. He was very upset. Really worked up.’
‘And you told him?’
‘No.’ The tone is incredulous – only later understanding and wishing, wishing with all her heart, that she had.
And now Martha’s breathing is becoming strained again.
‘His eyes, Kate. He looked so… I don’t know— ’
‘Take deep breaths, Martha. Breathe more slowly.’
‘Oh my God. This is my son, Kate. My son. We have to find him… ’ Tears now – so that Kate reaches out her arm to rest it on Martha’s as she drives.
It takes about twenty minutes through the traffic to make it to Geoffrey’s home – his face registering confusion then alarm as they pull up outside.
‘My car’s gone.’
An anxiety deepening but unspoken as Geoffrey fumbles for his keys, all of them then rushing through the house from room to room. Bumping into one another. Each room
empty.
On the pavement outside again as Kate helps Martha, unsteady on her feet, back inside the car, a neighbour of Geoffrey’s appears after watching the scene from his window.
‘So – broke down, did you?’
‘Sorry?’ Geoffrey is holding the driver’s door for Kate.
‘Well, I saw your friend. The lad – Matthew, isn’t it? – loading petrol cans in the boot. Run out of fuel, did you? In that piano van? Would have offered to help but I’m waiting in for a repair man. Washing machine,’ he rolls his eyes. ‘Everything all right now?’
‘Yes. Yes, thank you. Listen – when did you say that was?’
The neighbour checks his watch, pulling a face. ‘About an hour ago now.’
In the car, Martha has her head in her hands.
‘We’d better call the police.’ Kate directs this as a question to Geoffrey, whose expression suggests he is trying to weigh up the danger Matthew is in … versus the trouble he could be in if they involve the police.
‘He must have taken my keys from the shop.’
‘And the petrol cans? What the hell is that about?’
‘God knows. I should never have left them in the garage. They were for an old generator. Full – both of them.’
‘Oh dear God… ’
And now Kate turns to Martha, lifting up her head gently.
‘You said he got really upset when he was talking about his father – yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come on – think, Martha. What exactly did he say?’
‘He was wound up suddenly about Millrose Mount.’ Her face is screwed up. Confused. ‘How did he even know I was in Millrose Mount? You didn’t tell him, did you?’
‘No – of course not.’
And then Martha pauses, looking about the car as if trying to figure something out. ‘He said something very odd. He asked if his real father was at Millrose Mount too.’ Then looking up at Kate, frowning. ‘Why on earth would he ask me that?’
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