Oh, God. Kay’s head swam. She closed her eyes, squeezed them tight. She swallowed. Opened them again. Nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, offered a wobbly smile. Thinking all the while, Oh Jesus, I don’t think I can cope with this.
Theresa
‘Is Caroline there, please? Caroline Wainwright.’ She stared across the office wall to her certificates displayed on the wall opposite, the family photos alongside them.
‘She’s not here at the moment. Can I help? This is Paul Wainwright.’
‘No . . . erm, no thanks. Thank you.’
Theresa put the phone down. Sat down. Stood up immediately. She made a curious jumping movement across the room, then clasped her hands to her mouth. ‘Oh, God!’ she exclaimed.
She picked up the phone again and punched in a number.
‘Craig, I’ve found her, it’s the right place. She wasn’t there but her husband answered. Oh, God!’ She stopped speaking.
‘Good God!’ Craig said.
‘I can write or get Helen to, she said it’s best to use an intermediary at first. Oh, God. I can’t believe it. It’s really her. Somerset . . . No, I’m fine. I’m going to ring Mum, let her know. Yes, see you later.’
She paced some more, her face alert with excitement, shaking her head with disbelief, and then rang her mother.
‘Mum, it’s me. I rang that number, it’s the right one. She wasn’t there though, she’s away, but I spoke to her husband. Pardon? No, not like that, just to ask for her, and he said could he help, he was Paul Wainwright. Probably thought it was a customer or something, it’s a nursery and garden centre.’ Sudden, unexpected emotion robbed her of further speech or coherent thought. She listened to her mother’s congratulations and fought to retain control. She cleared her throat. ‘Talk later,’ she managed. ‘Bye.’
She locked the door to her office and returned to her chair, the tears already splashing down her face. Like a dam bursting, bringing relief and easing the awful pressure in her chest. She let it all go. All those hours in the records office searching, peering over microfiches and registers. The awful fear of not getting there in time.
Once she had found the marriage certificate she had to go all the way to Bristol to follow up the records. It had been hard, the family had moved. But she tried local phone directories in adjoining counties and found Wainwrights listed in both the residential and the business section in listings for Somerset. Now she had found her. Even if they never met, never spoke, she knew where she was. And she could write and ask about Ella.
She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She had a tutorial group in fifteen minutes. She went to the ladies’ and washed her face. Tried to make herself presentable. It obviously didn’t work, for on the way back she passed her colleague Dan Kingsley, who looked at her with concern. ‘Theresa? Bad news?’
‘No.’ She smiled and with alarm felt her eyes water again. ‘Good. Just a bit hard to take in. Found my birth mother,’ she explained. ‘I’m adopted.’
‘Oh,’ he said, disconcerted, and his face flooded with colour.
‘And now I’m late for my ethics tutorial.’
‘Busman’s holiday, eh? Digging up your past? Mining for information.’
‘Very good, Dan.’ She was grateful for his clumsy humour. ‘I’d best go. First years and still keen . . .’
Caroline
The address was handwritten and the sender had printed Private in the top left hand corner. That alerted Caroline’s curiosity but that was all.
She invariably opened her mail when she stopped for coffee halfway through the morning. Carl the postman called in about ten most days and the bulk of the mail was for the business.
She assumed the letter would be from one of the work-experience students wanting a reference or some local youngster enquiring about vacancies. Unemployment was high in the area, farms were going to the wall, and although people were moving into villages they weren’t bringing jobs with them. They were commuters, happy to spend a couple of hours a day travelling into the city.
Dear Caroline Wainwright,
I am writing on behalf of Theresa Murray, who I believe you knew briefly in Manchester in May 1960. Theresa would very much like to contact you and has left a letter with me to give to you.
Would you please ring or write and let me know if I can pass this on to you?
If you have any queries I would be more than happy to talk with you, at your convenience, in complete confidence.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs Helen Fairley
She scrambled to her feet, spilling her coffee. No, it couldn’t be. No. She stood by the desk, staring at the letter as though it might lash out and bite her. Theresa Murray. Theresa. The name rang in her head like a bell. The name she’d chosen. She tried to imagine her but the picture she had in her mind was of an infant, Baby Theresa. What was she going to do? How could she possibly tell Paul? Or Davey and Sean?
She made a moaning noise, sat heavily in the chair and rocked to and fro. The letter before her. Oh, my baby.
After a few minutes she got up and put the snib on the Yale lock on the office door. Her heart was hammering as she dialed the number. She could just get the letter. No one need know.
‘Hello, Helen Fairley here.’
‘This is Caroline Wainwright. You wrote to me,’ she cleared her throat, ‘about Theresa.’
‘Yes, of course. Thank you so much for ringing. She will be so pleased. It must have been a terrific shock.’
‘Mmm,’ she mumbled, not trusting herself to speak.
‘I ought to explain my part in all this. I’ve been helping Theresa with her search and counselling her as well. With something like this everyone needs time and space to adjust and it’s not in anyone’s interest to rush into things. I’m what they call an intermediary, a sort of go-between. I’ll be there to support Theresa, and you as well, if you wish, with each stage of the contact process.’
‘My husband doesn't know, my family. I can’t . . .’ She broke off.
‘You haven’t told anyone about Theresa?’
‘No.’
‘That’s quite a common situation. Theresa already knows that you’re married and that you have two sons, from the letter you sent. We did wonder whether they’d been told anything since. Obviously you have built up a life of your own since the 1960s and Theresa understands the need to respect your privacy and your wishes, though I know she very much hopes to meet you eventually.’
Oh, Theresa. Caroline pressed her lips tight together but there was nothing she could do to contain the tears that began to stream down her face. She sniffed loudly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she squeaked.
‘It’s a very emotional time. A rollercoaster for everybody. If at any time you’d like to talk, then we can meet up. I’m based in London but I can always get the train your way if it’s difficult for you to come up to town.’
‘Tomorrow, I could get there by the afternoon,’ Caroline blurted out. ‘Can I come then? And get the letter?’
‘Yes. I can give you Theresa’s letter then and tell you a bit more about her.’
‘Is she . . . ?’ What? Happy? Lonely? Beautiful? Gifted? Angry? ‘Is she all right?’
‘Yes, she’s married and she has a little girl. She has a good job as a university lecturer. They have been living in America for some time but now they’ve moved to London.’
Caroline tried to collate all this with the events of twenty-seven years ago and failed completely.
‘I have a photograph for you with the letter.’
Caroline couldn’t talk.
‘Let me give you directions. Will you be driving?’
Mechanically Caroline wrote down the details and agreed that she would aim to arrive after midday.
When the call was over Caroline gathered up the letter and placed it with the directions in the envelope. Her hands were shaking, thoughts helter-skeltered round her mind. She mopped up the coffee from her desk. She took the envelope with her and went up to the house. She wash
ed her face and brushed her hair. It was a grey, cold day but she had to get out. She wasn’t expecting anyone that afternoon, Paul and Davey were visiting a site for a water garden, they wouldn’t be back till later. She left a note for them, saying she’d be home in time for tea. She changed into her walking boots, got her waterproof coat out and let the staff know she was going out, they could run the place for the afternoon.
She walked quickly over the footbridge and into the woods. She began to climb the hillside but she was oblivious to her surroundings. She was in a new dimension, turning the unfamiliar facts over and over in her mind like the nuggets of stone that she carried in the deep pockets of her waxed jacket. Strange as a new language. Theresa had a little girl. That made her a grandma, somehow. She thought of her own grandma, calling her Mouse and entertaining her with her daft antics. Theresa. They’d kept her original name. Theresa. Who was now Theresa Murray, married, a little girl, America, lecturer – Theresa Murray. Would like to meet you. She sifted them again and again. Drumming them into her soul.
He could sense the tension in her. Even though she returned his smiles and made small talk, asking how the site meeting had gone, he could read the signs. Eyes slightly guarded, the set of her shoulders, the extra precision with which she cut up her food. As if control was in the detail, the banal. And she had taken off this afternoon.
He wouldn’t press her, she would confide in him if and when she was good and ready. Any enquiry he made would be met with a dismissive shrug followed by brighter smiles and further withdrawal. It was a game of suspense. He reminded her that Davey was taking the transit, he wanted to collect some parts for the old motorcycle he was fixing up.
‘I’m going into town tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Dentist. This crown’s bothering me again.’
Perhaps that was it. She loathed the dentist.
Kay
‘It’s bloody awful timing,’ Kay told her friend, Faith, who was sitting beside her hospital bed. ‘I want to support her, I have to. But if I’m honest I just wish . . .’ she let her hands play along the edge of the sheet.
‘What?’
She glanced away, uncertain whether to continue, her mouth pulling with emotion.
Theresa had rung Kay a week before after another session with the intermediary. ‘I’ve been a secret all this time. So she said that she couldn’t see me but Helen says that often changes, that if you don’t push too hard they often decide to tell their family. She passed on my letter and she was really pleased to have it.’
Kay had held the phone, not trusting herself to say much. Theresa was so bound up in this business, it dominated everything. It was like she was in love or something, she couldn’t think about anything else, anyone else. She was frightened of rejection but desperate to meet Caroline. Kay was expected to listen and love and support her every inch of the way when Kay wanted to explode with worry and hurt.
‘I’m not going to sleep,’ Theresa said, ‘my mind’s just full of it.’
You’re not the only one, thought Kay.
‘I’d better go collect Ella. Oh, Mum, what will I do if she doesn’t want to see me? I couldn’t bear it.’
Kay tried to sound bright. ‘Given time, I’m sure she will.’ She had closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall.
‘Kay?’ Faith prompted her.
‘I’ve dreaded this. Oh, I can be rational and understanding till I’m blue in the face about her right to know and how Adam and I are the parents who raised her and loved her and . . . but I’m frightened she’ll walk away, fall in love with this stranger who just happens to be her blood mother and that’ll be us done with.’ She tore at a paper napkin as she talked, shredding it and rolling the pieces into tight balls. ‘I keep imagining them meeting and it . . . it makes me sick to the stomach. I’m jealous, Faith, I know that’s ridiculous but that’s what I feel. And on top of all this there’s this operation and, God,’ she hissed, ‘I feel so bloody hateful. I keep hoping she’ll turn out to be a horrible person and Theresa will never want to see her again.’
‘It’s only natural.’ Faith reached out to touch her arm. ‘Anyone in your position would feel the same. Have you said anything to Theresa?’
‘A little. But how can I, really? I’ve talked about what an upheaval it’s been and that her father and I have worries but we love her and she has to do what’s best for her. Adam never says much about his feelings but then she hasn’t discovered a birth father, he doesn’t have a rival in that sense.’
Kay had spoken to Adam on the phone about it. It was easier than meeting. They saw each other still on family occasions, Ella’s birthday had been the last time. He had a new partner, Karen, but at least he had the tact not to bring her along – yet. It hadn’t taken him long to find someone. Maybe he had her lined up, ready and waiting. Kay dreaded the prospect of meeting her. And she resented the fact that even now what Adam did could still hurt her so. It was as if the scars had never healed properly. Or perhaps she still loved him.
‘I never really expected this. I know I always told them they could search for their parents if they wanted to but . . . when we adopted Theresa, and the others, that was supposed to be it. Legally ours, no redress. Like it or lump it. It was a promise. Now it’s all changed and it feels like that promise has been . . . dishonoured. I just wish it was all over. But I was thinking this morning, it can’t be the same, whether Theresa meets her or not or sees her once and never again there'll always be that woman there . . . oh, it sounds so awful.’
‘You’re the ones who raised her and you and Theresa are close. I’m sure it will be all right.’
Kay stretched, winced at the pain.
In the days immediately after the operation she had found herself angry with her body. At the womb that had never held a child and then caused her such pain. Its removal felt like a symbol writ large – she had been barren before but now there could be no late miracle to affirm her womanhood. She had been surprised at such thoughts and depressed by them. What did it really matter? But in those bitter moments she counted her regrets rather than her blessings. All the things she had never had: the swelling of her stomach month by month, the twisting of a child inside her, the magic of birth, the feel of a new born in her arms, breast feeding. Not being able to look at her children and see herself in them, her own parents in them, gestures, the way they walked.
And now Theresa was likely to meet the woman who had all that. Birth mother. Caroline. And Kay felt pierced and ugly and spent and miserable. It was truly lousy timing.
‘I’d better go,’ Faith said. ‘They’ll let you home tomorrow, yes? Shall I pick you up?’
‘Theresa’s offered.’
‘OK. I’ll call round. Let me know if you need any shopping or anything. Remember, no lifting.’
Faith turned back to her. A good friend, so important. ‘What about a holiday? We could go away.’
She looked at her askance, peering over the top of her glasses.
‘No, really.’ She smiled. ‘Do something for ourselves. You and me, free woman now. Once you’re feeling better.’
She couldn’t imagine feeling better.
‘I’ve always fancied the States,’ Faith said.
‘Christ, Faith. I was imagining Devon.’ Faith had holidayed there for years. The odd trip to Brittany. No further afield with three children.
‘The States?’ Kay repeated.
‘Yep. Well, where would you go?’
‘I don’t know,’ she considered, her mind flicking through continents and countries. ‘Egypt.’
‘Egypt!’
‘Yes,’ she smiled.
‘OK.’
‘OK, what?’
‘Egypt, this year, the States the next.’
Kay grinned. Why the hell not? It wouldn’t change everything else but it wouldn’t make it worse. And after all it was about time she saw something of the planet.
Caroline
She had written again and Theresa had replied again. More
photos. Wonderful pictures of her with her husband and Ella, the little girl. Her grand-daughter. They were worried about Ella. Theresa had asked Helen to find out about the family medical history. Caroline didn’t know of anything like epilepsy in her background and she didn’t remember anything like that about the Colbys. There was a picture of Ella as a newborn and she looked just like Theresa had. She had put everything with her stones, hidden away.
She had spent two hours with Helen in London. Once she started talking she couldn’t stop, an avalanche. She had told her everything. About the breakdowns, about the night they caught her trying to run away with her baby. The memories so vivid they were like flashbacks and the feelings so strong she got in a right state but Helen was very good about it.
‘Some things have gone forever,’ she said, ‘the ECT, bits that are just missing. I feel so guilty. She sounds so happy but I still feel guilty. I always have. Like carrying a big sin around. No one knew. Well, my parents, but they pretended it was all hunky-dory. I’d lost a child and there wasn’t even a grave.’
I want to meet her, she realised. I want to see her.
‘I’d like to meet her,’ she told Helen. ‘But I have to tell Paul. I don’t know what he'll do.’
‘What do you think he’ll do?’
She shook her head. ‘And the boys.’ She sighed, maybe she shouldn’t.
‘We find that siblings are often quite pleased to find a brother or sister, especially when they’re already grown up. After the first surprise it can be quite a strong relationship. Responses vary of course but it sounds like you’re quite a close family anyway.’
Caroline shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m frightened of what might change. It’s like blowing everything up.’
‘It feels destructive?’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘I don’t think so. It’s a big upheaval certainly and people feel a lot of conflicting emotions but there’s the positive aspect of some sort of resolution. You must decide for yourself, take your time. If you want to talk to me just pick up the phone. And if you do decide to tell you husband and your sons I’d be very happy to see any of them if they needed some support.’
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