An Unsuitable Mother

by Sheelagh Kelly

  ‘They’re only trying for a baby!’ Nina announced to her mother, who had demanded regular postings. ‘Now then, how bloody stupid is that? No mention of marriage – it’s only a piece of paper! That’s his words, of course.’

  Unfazed by the eccentricities of the modern world, Nell was dismayed for reasons other than her future great-grandchild being born out of wedlock, but said she supposed they should be thankful there was no stigma attached any more.

  Nina delivered an outburst. ‘Sod stigma! I’m bothered about my grandchild having that for a father!’ A look at her mother’s face told her that Nell harboured this fear too. ‘The daft little bugger, thinking this’ll make him mend his ways. When I think of what you and me both went through – you most of all, Mam, treated like vermin, and there’s her on about giving birth on purpose without a care in the world!’

  ‘We mustn’t be hard on her,’ advised Nell. ‘You and me least of all. Romy’ll need our support, and we’ll love it when it comes.’

  Nina was grim. ‘Aye, well, she isn’t having one yet, thank God, and let’s hope she doesn’t – with him at any rate!’

  Recalling the time of Romy’s birth, the angry scenes, the tears and recriminations, both agreed that it was better not to worry Joe until there was something to worry about, for it mattered not that times had changed when parts of society remained stuck in the past. There would be hell on, said Nina, if Dad heard. But Nina was to be regularly buttonholed by a worried Nell about the state of Romy’s health, both of them relieved and thankful when there was no pregnancy to report.

  ‘There must be a guardian angel looking after us,’ opined Nell, after a year had gone by, and then another.

  ‘Or else Hayden’s firing blanks,’ said Nina, which indeed would have been her mother’s preferred option too.

  But there was nothing either of them could do by worrying. They would all have to get on with their lives. Conversely, though, after more years had taken them into a new decade, the pair began to worry for Romy’s sake, that there might be some gynaecological reason why she had not yet conceived – though medical opinion said not, and, after all, she was only twenty-six.

  ‘You hurt for them, though, don’t you?’ murmured Nell, with an expression of deep feeling, her daughter’s nod conveying empathy. ‘I’m certainly glad I’m not her age again. Not just because of the awful world we live in now, all the violence and drugs and whatnot, but I shouldn’t like to be faced with all these choices they have today.’ She gazed into mid-air and hesitated for a moment. ‘I never asked you at the time, Neen, it was all still a bit raw … but did you ever consider what you’d have done if she’d been conceived just a few years later when the abortion law was relaxed?’

  The one at her side shuddered. ‘I’m glad I didn’t have the choice, Mam, really I am. I know back then I said if there’d been a magic pill I would have taken it, but that was early on, when I was terrified …’ She shook her head firmly. ‘I’ve every sympathy with a woman who finds out she’s carrying a deformed baby, it would be an horrendous decision – even then, I don’t know if I could live with myself. But it’s impossible to hypothesise once you’ve actually met the baby who might have been destroyed, if you see what I mean. What I do know is,’ she said with certainty, and not a little condemnation, ‘I can’t stand the way some of them go about it today, as if they’re just cleaning out their cupboards.’

  ‘Me neither,’ agreed Nell. ‘But I can’t help thinking what I would have done about William if the choice had been open to me. When you’re so alone and frightened, you’re not right in the head, you might snatch at any way out that’s offered …’

  ‘Not you,’ said Nina with great conviction.

  Nell shook her head. ‘No, you’re probably right. Whatever the case, I don’t know which would be less difficult to bear, having a baby ripped from one’s uterus or one’s arms.’

  Nina closed her eyes against the image, and when she opened them again a look of compassion had taken over her face. She said nothing more, and soon she was to depart, but there was a thoughtfulness about her attitude as she went.

  A short time after this conversation, Joe was to say to his wife, when they were settled in for the night, the doors and windows all locked against an increasingly hostile world, ‘Why don’t you go and find him?’

  Slightly absent-minded, Nell had been unravelling a length of knitting, having just discovered a mistake, and was picking up stitches with her needle. ‘Who?’

  ‘The one you’re always thinking about.’

  The knitting was dropped to her lap, his wife looking at him sharply to demand, ‘Has Nina been talking to you?’

  A few more wrinkles appeared in Joe’s brow, his milky eyes projecting confusion. ‘Should she have?’

  Nell shook her greying head, and got on with her knitting, mumbling, ‘Just wondered.’

  Joe turned back to the screen, ostensibly watching the colourful underwater display on the Great Barrier Reef. ‘If you mean, did she tell me she offered to pay for your trip all them years ago, and you turned her down, then yes.’

  Nell’s head shot up again, her voice annoyed. ‘I asked her not to say anything!’

  ‘Because you thought it’d inconvenience me,’ divined Joe, turning to look at her, his eyes asking, am I not right?

  She became less obdurate, her gentle brown eyes searching his face as she asked, ‘If I were to take her up on it, would you come with me?’

  ‘At nigh on eighty-three? Oh, I don’t think I could manage it.’ He looked downcast.

  ‘That’s what I thought, so I’m not going either,’ said Nell, looking down again.

  Then he uttered a chesty laugh. ‘You silly bugger! If you’d bothered to ask we could have gone years ago!’ And, rising, he pulled two airline tickets from his trouser pocket and presented them.

  ‘That little tinker!’ Nell shot to her feet, looking cross. ‘Has she bought those?’ But her complaint petered out in a smile of gratitude as she clutched Joe’s arthritic fingers and gushed with emotion, ‘Oh, isn’t she the best daughter …’

  ‘Aye, she is that.’ He chuckled with her, wrapping his arms round his wife and holding her for a while, before Nell put him aside and said:

  ‘Just wait till I see her!’

  But, of course, after jocular rebuke there was to be only gratitude for the daughter who had made this possible, and excited conversation about their expedition to the other side of the world. Although Nell confessed to being so nervous she had hardly been able to sleep since she had found out, not just because of the enormous implications, but also because of the flight. ‘We’ve never flown in our lives, and here we are on one of the longest trips one can make! And what’s going to happen if bills arrive whilst we’re away, we’ve never been gone longer than a fortnight – and the garden’ll revert to jungle. Why, I don’t even know what clothes to take …’

  ‘That’s why I bought the tickets well in advance,’ a smiling Nina indulged the catalogue of worries, ‘so you’ve plenty of time to plan for all eventualities – you’ll need visas, by the way.’

  ‘We’ll need to renew our passports too,’ Nell warned Joe. ‘We haven’t used them for years.’

  ‘It’ll be coming into autumn over there,’ informed Nina. ‘I thought I’d better book it for then, we don’t want to kill me dad off with the heat.’

  ‘Check them tickets, Nell,’ kidded Joe. ‘I’ll bet the little bugger hasn’t booked a return flight for me.’

  ‘Damn!’ Nina thumped the air as if foiled. ‘I knew he’d twig.’ But she cracked a grin.

  ‘It’s all very well, and I’m so grateful, Neen, for this chance of finding William – but I’ve no idea where to start.’ Nell’s hands were now clasped to her breast, her eyes worried. ‘It could turn out to be a wild goose chase, I don’t even know where to begin looking – you shouldn’t have spent all this money, it could all be wasted.’

  ‘Will you shut up about the bloody money! I’
ve got more than I know what to do with.’

  ‘Ooh, get her!’ laughed Joe. ‘Haven’t you heard the saying pride comes before a fall?’

  ‘She’s a right to be proud with all those books under her belt,’ defended Nell. ‘It’s only by reason of her success that we can go.’

  With a chastened Joe falling quiet, Nina said, ‘Right, I thought about hiring a researcher over there, but he’d need something to go on, so we’ll have to do some digging over here first. I’ve got this neighbour who keeps boring me to death with her family tree, in which I’ve not the slightest interest, but she does seem to know how to go about tracing people. She says there have to be immigration records, or whatever, they wouldn’t just let people in willy-nilly –’

  ‘You mean like they do here?’ mocked her father.

  A mordant nod summed up Nina’s own feelings on this matter, but she was soon back on track. ‘You know all William’s different names, Mam, let’s poke around a bit, see what we can find.’

  ‘But where?’ Nell dared not allow herself to become over confident. ‘It’s too late now for Doctor Greenhow to be of help, I saw his obituary in the paper. That big house that used to be the orphanage was turned into offices years ago. Although I suppose it’s good that there’s less need of such institutions these days …’ finished Nell, thinking of those unfortunate waifs.

  ‘Yes, but that doesn’t do you any good,’ said Nina. ‘Can’t you think of anywhere else we can start?’

  ‘Would his birth certificate be any good?’ helped Joe.

  ‘No, how could it?’ returned Nina.

  Dismissed so cavalierly, Joe shrugged and, with a curt tug of his fawn trousers, lowered himself into his armchair. ‘Ah well, you’re more up on these things. Maybe you should be going on this trip with your mother, you’d be more help, and you are the one who’s paying …’

  ‘She wants you to go,’ pointed out Nina, then turned to see that Nell’s face had turned ashen. ‘What is it, Mam? Do you feel ill? Shall I get you a glass of water?’

  ‘Why haven’t I thought about it before in all these years?’ breathed Nell, her eyes staring at them both in dismay. ‘I don’t even know if his birth was registered under his proper name!’ She felt sick at the thought that there might be no record of her being his mother. Yes, it would be illegal, but the way she had been treated by the doctor and her parents, people she had trusted, they could be guilty of anything. Her voice and eyes portrayed how unbearably awful this would be.

  ‘Well, there’s only one way to find out,’ said her daughter. ‘The register office.’

  Nell became visibly afraid then. ‘I’m not saying it’s going to help with the search – and we might need an appointment …’

  ‘Mam, nobody’s going to arrest you for wanting to find what’s rightfully yours. All you have to do is go up to the counter, say you’d like a copy of your son’s birth certificate, and give them the date. Don’t worry, I’ll be there with you to sort them out if there’s any quibble.’

  It was no coincidence that Romy turned up for the visit to the register office too, having been in on the surprise, and telling Nell that she had taken a week’s holiday to devote to this search. ‘I always promised I’d help you find him, Nan!’ Though it was more in the hope that this involvement would take her mind off her own fixation over the lack of a baby.

  ‘I know you did, love,’ said Nell, allowing herself to be guided between them along the splendid Georgian parade of Bootham. ‘But I don’t think any of us took it seriously – I can’t believe I’m actually going to Australia to look for him!’

  ‘And the search starts here!’ came Nina’s melodramatic utterance upon reaching the register office, and she led the way inside.

  ‘Take that worried look off your face, Nan,’ said Romy, linking arms. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’

  And it was. After the tiniest interrogation, armed with the details Nell had given her, the superintendent registrar went off to search the indices, soon to return with a copy of the red certificate. All as simple as that. With shaking hands, Nell held the document before her, with an immediate sense of victory. William exists. I exist, as his mother.

  Watching that expression of joy, and sharing it, Nina saw her mother’s mood turn in an instant to dejection, and wondered what had caused the metamorphosis. Having paid the fee, she and her daughter each took one of Nell’s arms, steering her through the foyer and back to the main road and its fumes.

  ‘They’ve left the father’s name blank.’ An angry mutter joined the noise of traffic. ‘He did have a father! His name was William too. William Kelly.’

  ‘I know, Mam.’ Nina tried to give comfort, Romy too.

  ‘But he won’t!’ objected Nell. ‘What if he has a copy of this, what will he think of me?’

  Nina could not immediately answer, but Romy could. ‘You’re his mum, Nan, he’ll just be glad to have you.’

  Nell felt this was too simplistic. ‘Just because you’re well-adjusted doesn’t mean he will be. He was born at a time when to have no father was unthinkable –’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t exactly a picnic for me having no dad,’ laughed Romy, with an apologetic glance at her mother. ‘But I never once blamed Mum. I love her. And your son’ll love you.’

  ‘Have you ever thought of looking for your father?’ Nell saw Nina’s lips purse, but she made no apology for asking.

  Romy shook her head, and spoke truthfully. ‘I felt curious, yes, but I never felt the need to pursue it, given we’d be strangers.’

  ‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ agreed her grandmother, a disturbed look in her eye.

  Then they went home to discuss where they could go from here.

  After the Christmas intervention, their search resumed. Bent on solving the mystery, Nina wondered whether there would be any embarkation records at the Public Record Office in London, and, having found out that there were, proposed this as their next port of call.

  Again, Joe was to remain behind. ‘You’ve got Cagney and Lacey to help,’ he said to his wife. ‘I’ll only get in the way.’

  Feeling slightly piqued at this show of martyrdom, Nell had become so caught up in her investigations that she had no intention of allowing this to stop her. Though she did make a great fuss of him prior to departure, and left a home-cooked meal that only required a few microwaves, and plenty of his favourite cakes, and made a point of responding merrily to Joe, who waved from the bottom of his garden as the train carrying his wife sped past.

  Alas, it turned out to be a wasted journey, for the records did not cover the right dates, and any others that might have helped them were not open for public scrutiny.

  Nina apologised for this, but said there had been no real way of knowing for such amateurs. ‘It’s the orphanage that’ll provide the key,’ she decided as they were on the train home, all rather despondent. ‘Yes, I know we can’t get at their records, either,’ she forestalled her mother’s interruption. ‘But that’s not to say we can’t find out from one of the other orphans who was there at the same time as William. I should have thought of this before. We’ll put an ad in the press, asking for anyone who was at The Willows orphanage in the 1950s to contact you – no, better still! Put, “anyone who knows the whereabouts of William Morgan, who was at The Willows orphanage between blah de blah, and so on – REWARD.”’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ said Nell. ‘Who’ll provide this reward – not you, you’ve spent enough.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be a fortune,’ put in Romy, who was seated on the other side of the table, travelling backwards. ‘Just the mention of cash should do the trick.’

  ‘Even so …’

  ‘Mam, I’d be willing to pay anything if it got your lad back for you,’ vouched Nina.

  ‘Lad?’ Nell smiled fondly at this description. ‘He’s nearly fifty – not that I think of him like that, he’ll always be a baby in my mind.’ Then she saw a wistful expression spring to Romy’s face, and
she leaned over to grasp her arm, all of them knowing what she meant as she said encouragingly, ‘Don’t you worry, love, it’ll happen in time.’

  As the train raced on, Nell was to adopt an air of reminiscence, and stared out of the dirty window as if seeing her own lifetime streak past, the good bits and the terrible. ‘Gosh, haven’t we had interesting lives,’ she murmured. And how different things could have been for all of them, the others were to murmur in response. Whilst not wanting to vilify Joe, Nell pointed out that it might well have been Romy whom they were looking for now.

  ‘I’d go to the ends of the earth to find her as well.’ Nina made no move to touch her daughter, but sent a caress across the table with the warmth of her voice and her eyes.

  But she had never allowed her child to be taken in the first place, Nell pointed out, in a tone that held self-blame. ‘I wish I’d fought more …’

  Nina said briskly then, ‘Anyway, back to this reward thing. We’ll get all sorts of nutters, I suppose, but there’s bound to be someone who can give us a lead.’

  And Nell agreed that this was the way to go.

  Joe seemed awfully glad to see her when she got back, but his first words were not to ask how she had gone on but to show her the renewed passports that had arrived whilst she had been gone.

  ‘Look at these bloody little red things they’ve sent us!’ He brandished the offending items at her. ‘What happened to our blue ones?’

  ‘Can’t he even wait till I’ve got in the house?’ Nell sighed to Romy and Nina, who had brought her home. Too tired and disappointed from her wasted journey to display similar agitation, she gave him short shrift. ‘We’re a part of Europe now.’

  ‘I’m not, I’m British, and I want a passport that says so exclusively, not with European Community printed first!’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to lump it, Joe.’ She wished he would shut up.