Night after night the whole family's sleep was disturbed, but what concerned everyone most was the mystery of what was wrong with Eunice. The Manns had no idea what to do. 'Come on, Eunice,' one or other of them would say somewhat lamely, 'there really is no need for all of this.' They suspected that the many changes in her physical abilities and her behaviour, some of which seemed quite irrational, were probably psychological in origin. At the same time they were aware that if this was not the case, she could be suffering from some no less worrying physical disorder.
Eunice's behaviour had indeed become bizarre. No longer a small child, she had a compulsion to ask, quite unabashed, inappropriate questions of complete strangers. She considered it her business, for example, to know what someone was planning to eat that evening. This and other eccentricities made Grace feel her sister was slipping away from her - and the worst part was there was nothing she could do for her.
It was Eunice's headmistress who was the first to realize that her pupil was not a wilfully disruptive girl. 'That child needs a doctor, Mrs Mann,' she told her mother.
And so the Manns embarked on a circuit of medical consultations that would become all too familiar. First one general practitioner was visited, then another. Then one paediatrician, followed by a second. To add to the strain on the family, Grace was also required to attend each time, and asked to perform physical tests for the purpose of comparison and to determine whether she too was suffering from the same illness. Time after time doctors shook their heads ponderously and suggested yet another series of tests with another specialist. And still nobody could pinpoint the problem.
Eventually Eunice was seen by an eminent neurosurgeon, and that was when the family received the verdict they had been dreading. Scarcely nine years old, and the subject of one ghastly test after another without ever bemoaning her fate, Eunice displayed all the classic symptoms of a malignant brain tumour.
'It's difficult to describe exactly how we felt,' Irene would later recall, 'other than to say it shattered us completely. It was as if the bottom had dropped out of our world.'
Professor Lambert-Rogers, of Cardiff's Royal Infirmary, was quite clear: surgery was required as a matter of the utmost urgency. Drawing strength from their faith in the Almighty, the Manns accepted that they had no alternative but to agree: it was a matter of life or death. They signed the consent form.
When Eunice came round after several hours of surgery, her head shaved, she became hysterical. 'Mummy, Mummy,' she called out, sensing Irene's presence beside her bed. 'I'm blind. I can't see you! I can't see anything or anybody!'
It was true. The doctors were quick to explain that it was the shock to the brain. More specifically, reducing the pressure exerted by the tumour had caused the optic nerve to cease functioning. But, it was emphasized, she would regain her sight within twenty-four hours, and when Irene returned the next day Eunice was sitting up in bed smiling, cheery as always, and able to see again. Even so, Eunice was the first person to admit that she looked a dreadful sight, swathed in bandages and with an enormous, turban-like dressing on her head.
If the Manns had hoped that this single surgical intervention would conclude the matter, they were disappointed. Professor Lambert-Rogers informed them that a second operation was imperative, for all that had been done so far was to remove a piece of the cranium to let the tumour have its way. The next step was to attack the tumour itself.
This time, after a complicated four-hour operation, Eunice lay unconscious for three weeks. To reduce her temperature, she lay naked, with just a light cotton sheet above and below her fragile frame. All day and every day Irene sat at her bedside, keeping vigil, hoping and praying for her daughter either to open her eyes or, if it was God's will, to stop breathing for ever. Little Eunice must have decided that her life had not yet run its course, for after what seemed an infinity to her family she opened her eyes, looked up and smiled.
With Eunice still engaged in her struggle to survive, the Manns decided that it was important for Grace to be released from the suffocating atmosphere of illness, and their doctor readily agreed. They were convinced that she would be happier at a boarding school, well away, for the time being, from her sickly twin. It would be a healthier way of life for Grace, and it would enable Irene to devote her time and energy to the sister who needed it most.
Not for the first time in her life, Grace felt the pain of separation. Once again she was leaving the world that she knew, the people and places that gave shape to her life. Although greatly distressed as she said her goodbyes, even as her father was driving her to her new school she resolved to survive.
Shunted off to Somerset, that first night Grace lay in her bed in the stark and chilly dormitory of Yeovil's private Park School feeling bewildered and alone. Once again her world had been turned upside down. In time, however, she evolved a strategy for coping: to make others smile, and to bring mischievous fun and laughter to every situation. It certainly won friends for her, and more than one of the teachers fell under her spell - even as they wrung their hands in despair over what should be done with her. At bottom it was all a way of securing attention, and it gave Grace a heady, alive feeling even when that attention brought punishment with it. And yet if she craved anything more than to be noticed it was to be loved.
During her first term Grace seldom passed an undisturbed night. The reluctant boarder had a number of worries on her mind, and they loomed especially large during the hours of darkness. One particular nightmare recurred endlessly. She dreamt that her sight had been wrested from her, just as Eunice had briefly lost hers. Surely it was only a matter of time, strange, recurring images would suggest, before she too was wheeled off to the operating theatre. Sweating profusely, she would emerge from her half-sleep urgently in need of someone to tell her it was only a dream. But in the enclosed world of the British boarding school, no such soothing voice was to be heard.
As the Reverend Mann's posts changed, so too did Grace's schools. From Yeovil she was moved to an institution noted for laying great emphasis on Christian ethics: Clarendon School, in North Wales.
The five years Grace was to spend at Clarendon turned out to be the most magical period of her childhood. Although entirely secluded, the school's setting was majestic, with the rolling Welsh countryside all around and the sea within sight. The entrance to the school's grounds opened on to a large expanse of open park land. When delivering their daughters, parents would turn into this concealed entrance, off a long and winding lane, and the approach of a car was always an exciting event, betrayed by the sound of its wheels negotiating a sheep grid set in the road. If the girls missed that clue, they could hardly fail to notice the sound of a car coming to a halt on the gravel outside the main door. On entering the main building in winter, the visitor would be greeted by a log fire glowing beneath the finely crafted wood panelling.
Clarendon's regime was strict. The girls' reading material was drawn from the Christian and Classical traditions, with little input from the outside world. Prayers were said regularly, and every girl was expected to attend. For the older pupils there were additional laws, rigorously enforced, outlawing dancing and the wearing of make-up. And yet, despite the austerity and repression of the girls' natural femininity, for the first time in her life Grace felt both happy and free. Much to her parents' regret, though, her studies were a matter of supreme indifference to her. She was too busy enjoying herself, for she had overcome her earlier sense of exile and isolation and was now rejoicing in the feeling of freedom.
Manners, as Grace was known to friend and foe alike, soon established herself as a personality. Now coming up to eleven years of age, she was emerging from her shell with a vengeance, driven partly by the need to make up for lost time. Always misbehaving and in trouble with the teachers, she rapidly developed a reputation for her quick wit and repartee. Such skills might not have been what her parents had envisaged, yet there was no denying that in terms of strength of character and self-esteem Grace was mak
ing remarkable progress.
However, in a dramatic reversal of mood she would become very downcast as the end of each term drew near, and with it the prospect of going home for a few weeks. Grace had come to dread the atmosphere of the Manns' household, and in particular the daily threat of falling foul of one of her father's thunderous rages. For the Reverend Mann the opposite was true: he always looked forward keenly to the day of his daughter's return. And always, once she was home, he would immediately set about reiterating certain fundamental rules - just in case they had faded from her mind while she had been away. It was a crucial message that she had heard many times before.
'Remember, Grace, that you are never to mention the word "adoption". There's no need to. It's a big, big secret that you must never tell anybody. You won't, will you? Promise me now. Because you are mine, and I want everybody to believe that you are mine.'
Having received the pledge that he desperately needed to hear - all the more so since both girls had once asked him whether he and his wife were their real parents - the Reverend was satisfied for a while. His secret, it seemed, was safe.
Edward Mann was rather clever with words. Many a student at Wightside, the evangelical Bible college on the edge of Manchester where he was now Principal, would have testified to that. What the Reverend Mann said, he meant. Therefore Grace could not fail to be aware that she was his personal property. And not only did Irene appear to accept her husband's proprietorial claim: she actively colluded in reinforcing it. For example, she would emphasize to anyone visiting the house that any invitation to Grace that would take her away from her home, however briefly, would first have to be vetted by her husband. The Reverend seldom deigned to grant her an exit visa. On the contrary, he enforced a regime so restrictive and severe that it began to make Clarendon, for all its tightly drawn rules and regulations, seem like a holiday camp.
At home during the school holidays, Grace found herself a prisoner in her father's study, for it was there she had to remain so as to be at his beck and call. Strictly forbidden to form friendships with children of her own age, indeed deprived of the chance to develop outside relationships of any kind, she was even discouraged from reading newspapers and magazines. And within that study, bursting with theological and Scriptural texts, Grace would have another of the Reverend Mann's cardinal rules drummed into her time after time: 'Don't talk to anybody else, Grace.' The common purpose of all these prohibitions was simple: he wanted Grace entirely for himself. Lines of demarcation had been drawn up in the Mann household: while Irene tended to the needs of Eunice, Edward was responsible for Grace's welfare. This duty he took seriously, and it is clear that many of his impulses towards her displayed genuine care and dedication.
But, as the years went by, the Reverend became more and more besotted, and eventually obsessed, with Grace. And since this was an arrangement which served his purposes very well, it became unthinkable to him even to contemplate setting her free. A complex man, proud and very emotional, he would repeatedly declare his love for his foster daughter. It was, however, a love that placed a heavy burden on the young girl. 'You mean so much to me,' he would tell her. 'I do love you so much. I don't ever want you to leave me. You won't ever leave me, will you, Grace?'
Part of Grace recoiled from such possessiveness. Suffocated by her father's demands, she always counted the days until her return to Clarendon. And yet another part of her responded more readily to his apparent devotion. Desperate for love and approval, and as a result constantly fearful of rejection, she realized that his repeated declarations had begun to touch her. She had found someone who cared. The fact is, Grace had learned to compartmentalize her life, being outgoing, sometimes provocatively so, at school, and yet regressing into submission to her father's will at home.
Yet the relationship was by no means all darkness and torment for Grace: there were positive aspects too. On occasion the Reverend would not hesitate to back his daughter in the event of a showdown between her and Irene; and every now and then he would hand her a half-crown to spend on herself. In addition, despite the severity of her father's regime and all it demanded of her, somehow she felt she was able to communicate rather well with him.
Fearful as she was of crossing her father, Grace nevertheless felt proud of him when he stood in the pulpit preaching to his congregation. His sermons were full of kindness and Christian compassion of a high order. But this message was not restricted to words, for he was a man of action too. Towards the end of the 1930s, in the period immediately after the twins had arrived safely from Germany, the Reverend had felt moved to carry out further work with refugees. He and Irene had helped to secure the release and resettlement in England and Wales of no fewer than ten other refugees from what he always referred to as 'Hitler's hell'. Six of these were children, two were doctors and one an architect of great distinction. The Manns' determined fight to uphold fundamental human rights put to shame many Jewish families living in Britain at that time.
For all this, for Grace a return to Clarendon was a return to tranquillity. The prisoner of her father's study was now free once more. Friendships, forbidden at home, could be enjoyed again. Grace was close to many girls of her own age and together they had a wonderful time, although Grace's rebelliousness often lead them all into trouble. Some of them knew of Eunice's existence and felt very sorry for their friend, realizing how difficult it must have been to have a twin who was desperately ill and yet out of reach most of the time. But not even Grace's closest confidante knew anything of her dark and hidden past. Keeping her promise to her father, she revealed nothing.
By contrast, the school authorities knew all about her. As they were well aware, the law dictated that foreign children could not be formally adopted until they had reached the age of eighteen. Thus the one word guaranteed to send the Reverend into a fit of anger - 'adoption' - should not have troubled him at all. If anything, it was fostering that should have been the unmentionable, for the twins had only ever been foster children. What was more, the names Grace Elizabeth and Eunice Mary had been given to them informally by the Manns and had no legal status whatsoever. The same was true of the girls' surname. On all relevant official documents, therefore, the names Susi and Lotte Bechhöfer lived on, as Grace was about to discover. This was the one remaining part of the twins' heritage that he had been unable to obliterate, much to his regret. Even the charismatic and influential preacher was powerless before the law.
It was the summer of 1954, and sixteen-year-old Grace entered the school hall to sit her GCE O-level examination in English Literature. She was apprehensive, like the dozens of other girls facing the same ordeal. Told to line up in alphabetical order, Grace took her place among the M's, but was immediately called to one side.
'Grace, today you're going to be with the B's,' said Miss Weston, a teacher Grace knew well, in a matter-of-fact tone.
Grace was puzzled. 'Why?' she asked.
'Susi Bechhöfer - well, that's your real name,' Miss Weston explained, pointing to the unfamiliar name on the piece of paper in her hand.
As she clutched the paper the teacher had given her, Grace's mind raced back to the time when, eight years earlier, her mother had explained why Grace and Eunice had left Germany and settled with her and their father. Then she remembered that nothing more had been said since then. The girls had asked no further questions, and no other information had been volunteered by the Manns.
As she filed slowly along the corridor leading to the examination room, now rubbing shoulders with Baker and Brown, Grace felt stunned and humiliated - and all the more because she was among her friends. Most people liked Manners very much indeed. But how on earth would she be able to explain her situation to her classmates? Surely her popularity could only suffer. And yet to launch into an explanation was unthinkable, for how many times had she been told that it was strictly forbidden to say anything at all about her past?
Every year, come examination time, the same words would crop up, as if for their annual a
iring. Perhaps it was a coincidence that most of the teachers at Clarendon used the same phrase: good passes in the GCEs were, they stressed, the girls' 'passports to the future'. Despite this pressure, for the ninety minutes of the English Literature exam Grace sat in a daze, staring out of the window, unable to write a single word except for the strange-sounding name she had copied from Miss Weston's piece of paper. She looked at it again and again: 'Susi Bechhöfer'. Had she not seen those two words somewhere before, tucked away in a drawer at home, on a ration book from the war years? And had she not seen those two funny dots over the 'o' once or twice? She was not sure. Yet they struck some dim and distant chord in her memory. At the same time the name Mann was buzzing around in her head. That was her name; it would just not do to dispense with it like that. It was as if Edward Mann was sitting beside Grace in the examination hall, for he could not have put it more succinctly himself.
As the minutes ticked by, her pen refusing to budge, Grace felt that she was completely different from the other girls, as if her clandestine, almost criminal past had finally caught up with her. Unlike all the others, she apparently possessed a dual identity. The skeleton in the cupboard, which her father had tried so hard to keep from her, had insisted on making an appearance after all. Not only was this sudden turn of events very distressing for Grace; it could not have come at a worse moment. Here was one girl who would not be receiving her passport to the future.
Rosa's Child Page 4