Dido led her away by the arm. ‘Come on, let’s get you a drink.’ Scattered around the room were several white candles pushed down into the necks of round-bellied wine bottles. Streams of wax dripped down onto the straw holders. Jenny thought they looked very bohemian. She stayed glued to Dido for the first hour, being introduced to person after person. Alcohol and cigarettes were passed around along with witticisms. Chubby Checker ‘twisted the night away’, from a record player in the corner until someone shouted, ‘Let’s have some jazz.’
Jenny perched on the arm of a sofa and held a cigarette and a glass of rum and coke. Below her sat Nick, the host. He wore a baggy jumper with leather elbow pads, his brown hair combed back from his forehead. He turned to Jenny, ‘I’m off on a demo next week. I had all the posters prepared at college – ban the bomb, ban the bomb, no more old order, it’s our turn now – that’s what they say. Look at the mess the establishment have got us into. We don’t even know if we’ll still be alive next week, never mind next year. They’ve had their time, and we can do better. Are you coming?’
Before she could think of a suitable reply, the music changed and she was pulled into the centre of the room. Mike held her close and she placed both arms around his neck, her fingertips touching wisps of his hair as they rested on his collar. With three other couples they swayed to the slow tempo. They hung together for two more numbers and then collapsed onto the sofa next to Nick. Jenny turned and through the open lounge door saw Dido leading another friend of Nick’s up the stairs.
‘So how do you know Dido?’ Mike put his arm around her shoulders.
‘I work with her at the Ministry of Pensions. You know the building on the corner, near the floral clock.’
‘I know the floral clock.’
‘What do you do?’ Jenny asked.
‘I don’t. Well not work as such. I’m at Reading University in my second year – reading history.’
‘How long have you known Dido?’
‘Ages, Nick and I were at school with her brother, so we all know each other.’
On the stroke of midnight those who remained in the lounge staggered to their feet to toast the New Year. As they finished shouting Auld Lang Syne, Mike turned and kissed her. This is going to be a good year, she thought.
The party was showing no sign of ending as Jenny reluctantly checked her watch under the light of a candle. ‘I’ve got to go now,’ she said.
‘What already? It’s only just getting going.’
‘I know, I don’t want to; but I’ve got to order a taxi.’
‘I’ll phone for you. But before I do, you’re to promise me we’ll meet up next week.’
‘I promise,’ she smiled.
Snowflakes the size of draught counters tumbled down outside, cloaking everything with a silent blanket. Jenny walked unsteadily down the path, leaving her footprints in the virgin snow. She walked away from 1962, and into the big freeze of 1963.
12
January 1963
The heavy snowfalls continued, disrupting everyone’s journeys. Bus drivers manfully attempted to reach the end of their journeys in the outlying estates, but their vehicles jack-knifed and were abandoned. Jenny, with many others, had to walk past the church and the windmill, its sails heavy with snow, to where the buses now terminated. Although the pavements had been salted, they froze every night, and were treacherous in the mornings. She stepped gingerly, as she had slipped the week before, spraining her ankle. A frozen wall edged the pavement, which was added to by the council workmen following each fresh fall of snow. It now stood three foot high, with narrow exits shovelled out every few yards.
A collection of wellington boots, and a mountain of heavy coats and hats, cluttered the side entrance to the office. In an effort to boost the indoor temperature, Mr Winstanley had ordered electric bar heaters for every room.
Post was being delivered later than usual, but by ten-thirty, it had been opened, date stamped and distributed.
‘Here we are Miss Porter, your very own population explosion,’ said Mr Winstanley, laying four family allowance applications on Jenny’s desk.
‘I’ve bad news,’ Dido said as soon as Mr Winstanley had left the room. ‘Reza’s parents are coming to England in six weeks. So I suppose I’ll have to be on my best behaviour.’
‘It doesn’t matter what they think does it? You’re not planning on marrying him, are you?’
‘I haven’t ruled it out. His parents are wealthy. I could have a good life, so I don’t want to ruin my chances. Parents’ opinions are very important over there. Reza’s always going on about his family.’
Mr Golightly poked his head around the door. ‘Miss Worboys, would you take down some dictation please?’
‘Here we go again,’ Dido sighed, and after whispering, ‘back soon,’ walked out of the room carrying her shorthand notebook, leaving in her wake a waft of Midnight perfume. Jenny started unpinning the two birth certificates from the first application. She noticed that Virginia’s, the elder child’s certificate was slightly different from the younger child’s – a boy named Alistair. It was exactly the same size and shape. But instead of two lines at the bottom stating the registration district and sub-registration district; Virginia’s had only one line that stated Country of Birth; after which was handwritten in black ink – England. Jenny read the short accompanying note.
‘Please find my application for family allowance. I have now had my second child and enclose both short birth certificates as required.’ The note had been signed by an Audrey Pattison.
Jenny wondered why Virginia’s certificate should state country of birth instead of the registration districts. Every short certificate she had seen, had two bottom lines. She stared at it again. She had seen several certificates of children who had been born abroad, all of them differed, according to the country. But she hadn’t seen one until now that only stated country of birth.
Jenny stood up, reluctant to leave the heat thrown onto her legs from the electric fire. She’d better check with the Bible. She had been told that if she was unsure of anything, she was to check it in “The Births and Deaths Registration Act 1947” – a copy of which sat on a shelf above Dido’s head. Jenny pulled the slim volume down, wiping off the dust with the palm of her hand. She turned to a page headed “Birth Certificates”. There in black and white pen drawings were examples of a full and a short birth certificate. The full birth certificate, gave full details of the child’s birthplace, mother, father and their occupations. She had always enjoyed reading these when they landed in front of her. To liven her day, she often shared the information with Dido. The cheaper, shortened version, like Alastair’s, gave only the necessary information. But of Virginia’s certificate there was no sign. Jenny glanced out of the window. Heavy flakes were falling onto the already compressed snow. People dressed in dark coats and hats scurried as fast as they could in the icy conditions. She flicked over the parchment thin pages, thinking that she would have to ask Mr Winstanley, when on a right-hand page she saw a black and white pen drawing of a short certificate, that stated country of birth. On the opposite page was a drawing of a longer certificate. Jenny read the lines above the short certificate, the short adoption certificate of which an example is printed below, provides no evidence of the child’s adoptive state and place of birth and is valid for all legal purposes.
‘Adopted,’ Jenny said the word out loud. That’s why I haven’t seen one like this before. Virginia must have been adopted, but not her younger brother; that’s why his is the usual type. She ticked the verified box on their mother’s application form, and pinning the certificates onto it, passed it for payment.
‘You’re concentrating especially hard today.’ Dido had returned to her typewriter and was applying some more mascara, having given up deciphering a particularly taxing phrase.
‘I was puzzling over one of my applications, but I’ve solved it now.’
‘Good. We don’t want any problems here. You’re still going
out with Mike then?’
‘Yes, we had our third date on Saturday. He’s gone back to Reading now, so I probably won’t see him again ‘til the end of March. I’ll write though.’ Jenny smiled as she remembered how Mike had stroked her hair and called her his little Jenny-wren as they had kissed goodbye. She liked him a lot, but was worried. He was nearly twenty, and part of another world in Reading; a world that didn’t include herself.
‘Can you come with me to the Gondola tonight?’
‘What on a Tuesday?’
‘Yes, Reza said he would be there.’
*
Dido and Jenny walked through swirls of cigarette smoke, to a round table at the rear of the coffee bar.
‘I’m glad you’ve come.’ Peter stood up and smiled at Jenny. His dark liquid eyes held hers until she was forced to look away. He put his arm around her, slowly removing her coat. ‘When are you going to come out with me then, just the two of us?’ Peter whispered the last five words, his mouth close to Jenny’s cheek.
‘I’m going out with someone now. Mike, he’s a friend of Dido’s brother.’
‘Mike, Mike, who is this Mike? I don’t see him here,’ Peter addressed his query to the small group huddled around the table.
‘Shut up Peter. Leave the girl alone,’ Dido said, her right arm wrapped around Reza’s shoulders.
‘Never mind this Mike, you can still come out with me, I’ll show you a good time, eh?’
‘We know your idea of a good time.’ Dido lit her cigarette.
‘That’s where you’re wrong. I mean good restaurants; cinema; drives along the coast, anything you want – anything.’ Peter stared at Jenny as he emphasised the last word.
‘I’ll pay for these,’ Peter said to the waitress as she placed two coffees on the table.
‘I can pay for my own,’ said Jenny.
‘For heaven’s sake, go and put that Beatles record on,’ said Dido.
‘Do I detect a jealous woman?’ Peter said, rising from his chair.
‘I’ve got to go now,’ Jenny said, after drinking her coffee.
‘But, you’ve only been here half an hour,’ said Dido.
‘I know, but my mother’s not well, and they’re expecting me home.’
‘You didn’t say anything earlier.’
‘It’s nothing serious; probably that flu that’s going round.’
*
‘I’ll do the washing up tonight,’ Jenny said as Charlie wiped drips of custard from his chin with his handkerchief.
‘You did it last night.’ Alice gave her daughter a surprised look.
Jenny knew that her parents would now watch television for an hour – they didn’t seem to care what was on – then her mother would go into the kitchen to make a bedtime drink. Their routine never varied. She left the kitchen door open and turned the kitchen taps full on. Water gushed into the washing-up bowl. She thought back to last September. Her mother had gone into her bedroom, and Jenny had heard her pulling out the drawers in her dressing table. She came out and handed Jenny her folded birth certificate. She had only given it a cursory glance, before handing it to Mr Winstanley’s secretary for verification, and had given it back to her mother that same evening.
Turning the taps off, she crept into her parents’ bedroom and carefully lowered the light switch. Her heart thumped at twice its normal rate. Whenever she entered her parents’ bedroom – which was always when they were out – she felt guilty, as if it was a forbidden city, like Llasa. Sometimes they would lock the door, but not always. She would open her mother’s wardrobe, releasing the smell of mothballs, and place the soft fur of her fox stole – that she had never seen her mother wear – against her face. She always avoided looking at its head; those orange glass eyes staring accusingly at her. She walked over to the 1930’s style dressing table with its large oval mirror and pulled out the top right-hand drawer revealing, a pile of clean stiff corsets. She put her hand underneath, nothing there. Her mother’s smell wafted into the room. After listening for any movement from the sitting room, she opened the second drawer. Delving under the pile of brassieres and knickers, she found a dark-blue book, Married Love. She had seen it when she was thirteen, she had not been looking for anything in particular, but knowing that whatever she found would be something they didn’t want her to see. She had been fascinated by the old-fashioned drawings, but shocked that her parents would have such a book at their age. She covered the book with her mother’s underwear, and pulled open the third and bottom drawer. Underneath the pile of woollen vests, she felt paper. Removing a large brown envelope, she tipped out the contents. There were two ancient brown birth certificates, each one bearing the name of one of her parents; then their marriage certificate; and another piece of paper; her own folded certificate. She stuffed the others back in the envelope, and replacing it under the vests, hurried from the room.
In the safety of her bedroom she opened her certificate and stared hard at the last line; Country of Birth, and alongside, handwritten in black ink – England. It was the same as Virginia’s. She stared at it for a further minute, then slipped it under her pillow and went back into the kitchen. There must be another reason why mine’s different, she thought, because I’m not adopted. If I had been, they would have told me, something as important as that. They tell me everything else; all those boring stories of years ago, that nobody’s interested in. So they would have told me something as important as that. A deep gurgle came from the plughole. They even told me about… a blurred baby’s face floated before her – she didn’t like thinking about it, and tried not to remember his name, as that made him real, and was upsetting. She was back again on the top deck of the bus. ‘You had an older brother,’ Mum had said. So she couldn’t have been adopted, her parents could have children. Her mother had given birth to her dead brother before her.
She returned to her room and tuned her transistor radio to Radio Luxembourg. A few minutes later, exasperated by the crackling that prevented her from enjoying her favourite record, she switched it off, removed the certificate from under her pillow and put it in her handbag.
*
Jenny’s first thought on waking was the certificate. She was not unduly concerned. It was just something that needed to be explained. Plenty of children must have been given them. They’d probably run out of the others.
Arriving at the office she removed her boots, hung her heavy winter coat on the coat stand and went upstairs. She sat for five minutes on the iron radiator, until the undersides of her thighs turned bright red, then took a deep breath and went over to the shelf above Dido’s head.
‘I can’t have this. That’s the second time this week you’ve got your nose buried in that boring book.’ Dido was repairing her make-up from the ravages of the early morning cold. Jenny wondered if she slept in her beehive hair style. It looked too complicated to re-arrange each morning.
‘I thought you said that you’d solved the problem of that certificate?’
‘I had, but I thought of something else last night.’
‘Last night! What are you doing thinking about work? You’re obviously not having enough fun in the evenings. I’ll have to speak to Mike when he comes back.’
Jenny smiled at her friend, knowing she had her best interests at heart, even if their ideas of the amount of fun necessary for a happy life differed.
‘Back to the grind-stone, I suppose,’ Dido sighed and returned her make-up bag to her desk drawer.
Jenny took the certificate from her handbag and returned to page fifty-eight. Her heart raced. Although she had seen the example the day before, she stared at it again, as if seeing it for the first time, comparing every word with her own certificate. It was exactly the same. She turned to the index; there were no other pages dealing with birth certificates apart from the ones she had already read. She flipped a page back and saw “Adopted Children’s Register – Schedule Six, page 256”. She turned to the page and read, A register of all adopted children under their adopti
ve names with the date of the adoption order is kept at Somerset House, Strand, London… which is open for public inspection.
‘How’s your mother?’ asked Dido.
‘My mother?’
‘Yes, you left early last night. You said she hadn’t been well.’
‘Oh, she’s getting better.’
Jenny remembered a genetics lesson at school. They were learning about Mendel and the Laws of Inheritance. For homework they were asked to produce a family tree showing eye and hair colouring. Jenny’s grandparents were dead, so her tree was a spindly specimen. She had shown her mother’s eyes as hazel/brown, and her hair dark brown. Her father, well, he only had one eye, and that was blue, so she had assumed that his other eye must have been the same colour. She remembered puzzling over his hair, which was white as a result of his accident. But a dark-haired, handsome man in his early thirties, dressed in his white and black mess suit, looked down at her from the picture frame hanging on the sitting-room wall; so dark hair went down on the tree. She had then added herself, a solitary short stem. She wrote against her name – green eyes and dark brown hair. She remembered proudly showing it to her mother. Mendel’s theory had been proved correct in the Porter household. If I had been adopted they would have told me then, she reasoned. The next day at school her homework was returned with a heavy, black tick. She reasoned that it must be that some children were given these, because they’d run out of the other certificates. But she hadn’t seen any others, apart from Virginia’s. She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a leave request form – “I apply for… day’s leave on …… January 1963” – she filled in the number 1 and 24th January, signed it at the bottom and took the form downstairs to Mr Winstanley’s secretary. One hour later it was returned marked “agreed”.
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