by Lisa Jewell
She thought of a dozen different moments where Gloria had been patient, proud, attentive and loving and she realised that even though this woman wasn’t her mother, and even though her feelings towards her had never been those of a daughter towards a mother, this woman had, in actual fact, been a very good mother indeed. And with that thought she took a deep breath and said, ‘OK, I’ll try. But I can’t promise anything.’
Before Melody left, Gloria gave her an envelope. ‘For you,’ she said.
‘What is it?’ Melody asked.
‘Open it.’
Melody opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of cream parchment.
‘It’s your birth certificate,’ Gloria said. ‘I’ve kept it all these years, always thought you’d come back for it, that you’d need it. For a passport application or for a job. Thought that would be the moment, that would be when I’d tell you everything.’
Melody had never been abroad. She’d never needed a passport. If only she had, she thought, staring at the details penned in thirty-three-year-old ink, of her real parents, the name of the hospital in South London where she’d really been born, an address in London, SW8 where she’d really spent the first few years of her life.
She could have known all this time. All she’d needed to do was ask for this piece of paper and she’d have known everything. But she never had. She folded the certificate back into a rectangle and put it in the envelope. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘I’ll be needing this. Thank you.’ And then she kissed the little lady in the wig, just once, on a powder soft cheek, and left her there on her Canterbury doorstep, alone once more, but no longer wondering.
Melody sat for a while, after she got home that afternoon, and tried to decide how she was feeling. The sun flooded her bedroom with light and sparkled off her mirror. Hanging from the corner of her mirror was the necklace, the one she’d stolen from Gloria’s jewellery box all those years ago, the one she’d taken to a pawn shop when Ed was two months old to get some cash to pay her bills and had been told was worth about five pounds. She’d almost taken the five pounds but something had stopped her, something had made her snatch the necklace back off the counter and stuff it into her handbag. She’d never really thought about that moment before now, but now she knew what it was. It was about her mother, the very essence of who she was and what she represented. She needed to keep something, one small thing, something that had touched her skin that still, remarkably, smelled of her. The necklace was a talisman. It was there, in the absence of an actual mother, in some strange, unknowable way, to protect her.
And with that thought, Melody got up from her bed, opened her wardrobe door and kneeled down to pick something up from the bottom. The box, the one her auntie Susie had given her. The box that contained, she imagined, the essence of her other mother, her real mother. She brought the box back to her bed and, very slowly, with her heart gently racing, she sliced open the tape that secured it. The flaps popped open and Melody peered inside. She removed the contents, slowly, one by one. First a large pair of jeans, pale blue, scuffed at the knees and hems, a label in the back that said they were Lee jeans and in a size 36. Then a loose tunic top, navy polyester with a pale blue print, slightly stained under the arms, with a greying satin label in the back that said ‘Dorothy Perkins’. After the dress came a coat. It was blue denim with a black splodgy print and a matching belt. Melody recognised it immediately. The thought flashed through her mind in a nano-second. It’s Mum’s coat.
She put her hands into the pockets, and brought out a creased tissue, a tube of Lipsyl and a Polo mint. She held these objects in her open hand for a moment and stared at them. Where had her mother been when she’d bought the mints? When had she last wiped her nose on this tissue, rubbed this balm on her lips?
Beneath the clothes (which included, also, a full set of underwear, from Marks and Spencer, and a pair of oatmeal socks with holes in both heels) was a floral wash-bag containing a jar of deodorant, a tube of Crest toothpaste, a rather battered turquoise toothbrush, a damp terracotta emery board and a wooden hairbrush, filled with wiry brown hairs. Finally, at the bottom of the box, Melody found a large manila envelope. She unpeeled it and let the contents fall onto the bed.
There were three small envelopes, one with the name Romany, written on it, one with the name Amber and the other with her name, Melody, in a neat handwriting very similar to her own. Melody shivered slightly with the kind of excited anticipation that had once accompanied the unwrapping of childhood gifts. What would she find – locks of hair, fallen teeth, letters filled with words of tender mother love?
She couldn’t decide which envelope to open first. Amber’s, she thought. She wasn’t real. She peeled apart the ancient tacky seal and pulled out the contents with shaking hands: a photograph of Edward James Mason, taken from a newspaper, a pink bootee and a lock of brown hair, sellotaped to a piece of card.
Next she opened the envelope with her own name on it. She could feel through the manila the outline of an A5 envelope, the lines of a letter, and she’d waited long enough, long enough to hear what Jane Ribblesdale had to say about everything. Sweat crackled on the palms of her hands as she pulled apart the flap. Inside was a lock of soft auburn hair, a tiny white mitten, a plastic hospital bracelet with the words ‘FI of Jane Ribblesdale 3 November 1972, 5.09 a.m.’ written on it. There was also a smaller envelope, her name written on it again, in a less confident script. Melody took a deep breath and opened it. It was written on lined paper, but the words didn’t follow the lines. They ran around the page erratically, almost as if they were drunk. Melody had to concentrate to decipher the scrawl.
My dearest, most darling Melody,
How are you? I have been meaning to write for a long time now but the days here are so complicated somehow and as soon as I’ve started it’s time to go somewhere or sleep or eat or take some more infernal pills it’s all I ever do. But how are you? I think of you often my lovely girl and wonder about you with your new family. Are they kind to you? I’m sure they must be, I think they are my cousins so they are as good as family and one day soon maybe they’ll let me out of this place and you and I could be together again. Would you like that? they are trying to make me better but I’m not so sure about it. I wish I could explain to you how it’s been for me these last few years but I’m not sure I can. It’s been a blur, baby girl, a big long blur and you’ve been so good. It’s something to do with babies, you see, something to do with all the time and effort it takes to make them, all the waiting and the hoping and the way they feel when they’re inside you and all the dreaming and wondering and the anticipation and then fate comes along and takes them away from you, takes away everything good, leaves you with nothing, an empty hole, empty arms, an empty heart you know maybe some people could find things to fill themselves up with again but I never could not even you, you were always so good at finding other people to take care of you, such an appealing little girl you are.
I do miss you all I miss Ken, I miss the house, but its better for me here. I want to get better but I’m not so sure it will happen, so many black holes in my head baby girl, so many bad things. Thank god you’re not like me, you are daddy’s girl, you always were if only he hadn’t gone and left you, should never have gone away in the first place with that woman at least she managed to make you a sister though, not like me, poor Romany, and then poor little baby Amber, gone at twelve weeks, all over the bathroom floor, how could I tell Ken that I’d lost his baby, poor little baby Amber and then my terrible sin, to take that girls baby, what a terrible person I have become, no good for you, no good for anyone. I think this pen is running out of ink. Sorry. I do love you Melody, you are my baby girl. Be good. Mummy xxx
Melody sat for a moment, entirely motionless, the letter held in her open hands and tried to piece together a person from the jumble of words, the bundle of unpretty clothes and the photos she’d seen in the newspapers. There was something childlike about her haphazard style of dressing, her explanatio
n of the cycle of unhappiness that had brought her to incarceration in a mental facility and her eventual suicide, and even her floral wash-bag. It was clear to Melody that this woman would have been incapable of looking after her properly. There would have been no Brownies, no cakes, no visits to professional hair salons, and perfectly executed birthday parties. But more than that, Melody felt overwhelmed by a sense of empathy. She thought back to the first few months of Ed’s life, the constant fear of losing him that had accompanied every simple afternoon nap or trip to the supermarket. This woman, Jane Ribblesdale, had experienced the worst thing that could possibly happen, she had held her baby in her arms and then watched that baby die. There could be nothing worse, Melody thought, nothing worse in all the world.
She put the letter to one side and then she brought the third envelope onto her lap: Romany’s envelope. This, as Emily had told her, was where it had all begun. She peeled it open and then gasped at what she saw: another white plastic ankle band, a red rosebud, dried to the colour of sediment, and a photograph. She hadn’t been expecting a photograph. And there she was, her baby sister, tiny and pale, skin the colour of distemper, head bald and blotchy, hands held in tiny fists, staring directly into the camera with enormous dark eyes. On the back were the words: Romany Rosebud, 4 January 1977. The picture had been taken when she had just been born, perhaps before they knew that there was something wrong with her, when her parents were still happy and life had been set on a different course altogether.
Melody brought the photo closer to her and stared deeply into her sister’s eyes. ‘Hello,’ she whispered, ‘hello, Romany. I’m your big sister. It’s lovely to meet you, you’re very lovely, very lovely indeed …’
She sat like that, for a while, her dead mother’s clothes bunched up in her lap, emitting a strange, damp aroma, her sister’s photo in her hands, and she let herself cry for a while.
She glanced up at the portrait of the Spanish girl beside the window and she smiled at her. ‘You knew,’ she chastised gently, ‘you knew everything, and you never told me.’
Then, she put the objects back in the box, slid the photo of her dead sister into the glass of her dressing-table mirror, next to her mother’s necklace, and went to find her son, to take him out for lunch, to tell him the whole story.
Chapter 53
Now
True to the forecast, the next day dawned bright and warm. Melody let Ed sleep until midday and then she awoke him with eggs and bacon on toast, a mug of tea, and a pile of gifts. He smiled when he saw her sitting on the end of his bed. ‘Morning,’ he said.
‘Morning,’ she replied. ‘How does it feel to be a man?’
He smiled again. ‘Kind of cool,’ he said. ‘How does it feel to be the mother of a man?’
She laughed. ‘Bloody weird,’ she said. ‘Not sure how we got here so quickly.’
‘Doesn’t feel quick to me,’ said Ed. ‘I feel like I’ve been a kid all my life!’
He took the mug of tea from her and balanced the tray on his lap. ‘Everything feels different today,’ he said, ‘not just because of my birthday, but because of all that stuff you told me yesterday. I just feel all kind of … excited.’
‘You do?’
‘Yeah! I mean, my whole life’s been full of all this missing stuff – you know, my dad, my grandparents – and I was all right with all that because of you, and now it’s like, suddenly, all these new people, all this … history. Makes me feel like life’s just starting, you know what I mean?’
Melody stroked the top of his hand and nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I know exactly what you mean.’
‘Did you ask her?’ he said.
‘What, Emily?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes. And she’s coming. She said she’s going to pull a sickie. She can’t wait to meet you. And Ben’s coming too. He’s got a hospital appointment about his wrist anyway, so he’ll just come straight on from there.’
‘Cool,’ said Ed, picking up his cutlery.
‘You not going to open your presents?’ she asked.
‘Do you want me to?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ she smiled. ‘Go on.’
He unwrapped the iMac first. ‘Excellent!’ he said. ‘Thanks, Mum.’
He pulled her to him and kissed her on the cheek. And then he opened his other gift. Melody held her breath. It was a small photo album that she’d filled the night before, with precious, irreplaceable pictures. There was a picture of Ed in her arms, the night he was born, the photo of Melody on the beach at Broadstairs that Grace had given her, a photo of her father that Emily had posted the day after their meeting, a photo of Ed with Cleo and Charlie when they were all tiny, pictures of Jane Ribblesdale, Ed’s real grandmother, taken from the news cuttings, a printout of a picture of Melody and Emily she’d taken on her phone, and there, on the last page, was Romany Rosebud, his perfectly formed little auntie.
‘I want you to keep this for ever,’ Melody said, ‘and fill it with photos that really mean something to you, not just nights out with your mates, but the important things, your first love, your first baby, treasured things.’
Melody looked at him. She knew it wasn’t as exciting to him as the iMac and that he was probably wondering why she’d given it to him, but one day, when he was older, when he had a history of his own, she knew he’d appreciate it, he’d show these pictures to his own children and tell them about the aunt he never had a chance to know, the grandmother who let tragedy pull her under and the grandfather who never had a chance to make things right.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ he said, leafing through the pages. ‘Next page …’ he pointed at the blank page, ‘Tiffany Baxter!’
‘If she’s got any sense at all,’ Melody agreed. She put her arms out towards her son, she pulled him to her and hugged him as hard as she knew he’d let her.
Stacey, Pete and the kids were already there when they got to Lincoln’s Inn two hours later. They had installed their Swingball, laid out blankets and had already opened a bottle of Champagne. One of Stacey’s many extravagances, for which she always seemed to have just enough cash, was Champagne. There was little in the way of celebration that she would consider unworthy of the uncorking of a bottle of Champagne.
‘Gorgeous day!’ she trilled, heading towards Melody with a full glass and outstretched arms. They hugged and Melody noticed that her breath was minty fresh. She took the glass of Champagne from Stacey’s hand and looked at her quizzically. ‘Any news for me?’ she said.
‘Well, yes,’ she smiled, ‘I am officially pregnant. Six weeks today. And feeling like shit. Yay!’
‘Yay!’ agreed Melody and squeezed her best friend. ‘That’s fantastic! Are you happy?’
Stacey shrugged. ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘I am. I’m not looking forward to getting fat again and all I can think about is booze and fags, but another baby, yeah – I can’t wait!’
And neither, thought Melody, could she. There hadn’t been a new baby since Clover, three years earlier, and now, with her heart full of little holes where babies should have been, Stacey’s news couldn’t have come at a better time. ‘That’s brilliant!’ she said, squeezing her again. ‘I’m so happy for you, I really am. Am I allowed to tell people?’
‘Yeah, of course you can. Everyone’ll guess the minute they see me without a fag in my hand anyway, so you may as well. And what about you?’ She gestured at Melody’s hand. ‘Are you still off the fags?’
‘Yes,’ said Melody, ‘I had one a few days ago, just made me even more sure that I really don’t like it any more.’
‘Weird,’ said Stacey, ‘really weird.’
‘I know,’ said Melody. ‘The whole thing’s been weird, really weird indeed.’ And she was about to start trying to explain what had been happening to her for the past fortnight, when someone tapped her on her shoulder and she turned round and it was Emily.
‘Hi!’ she smiled. ‘Sorry I’m early!’
Stacey looked from Melody to Emily, and then back a
gain, her eyes wide with incredulity. ‘Oh my God,’ she said, before Melody could squeeze in an introduction. ‘You two look like twins!’
Melody and Emily smiled at each other and then at Stacey.
‘Emily,’ said Melody, ‘this is Stacey. My best friend. That over there is Pete, her husband, and her kids, Cleo, Charlie and Clover. And in there,’ she pointed at Stacey’s stomach, ‘is another little one on the way.’
‘Oh,’ said Emily, ‘congratulations!’
‘Thank you,’ said Stacey, throwing Melody a curious look.
‘Stacey,’ she said, ‘this is Emily. Emily is my baby sister.’
Stacey looked at both of them again, her face a picture of confusion. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I think I could have guessed that. And the reason I’ve known you for eighteen years and you’ve never told me about a baby sister before, is … ?’