by Louise Voss
He handed me a half-empty can of Old Speckled Hen and a half-filled glass. ‘Why don’t you sit down, and tell me all about it.’
‘Thank you, doctor,’ I joked as I sank into the velvet sofa, nursing my beer.
Mack perched himself across the room on an office chair, in front of a desk groaning with expensive-looking computer equipment. He swivelled expectantly round to face me. I noticed that he wasn’t wearing his All-Stars, and his feet were in odd socks, one navy, one black. He looked so different without them.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever told you that I’m adopted,’ I began, abruptly.
Mack’s expression remained unchanged. ‘No, you haven’t. But Stella did, one night when I came over to see you and you were out. She and I had a bottle of wine together and she told me all sorts of things about you two and your family.’
I rolled my eyes. I vaguely remembered Stella mentioning that evening, and had felt miffed that she’d been muscling in on my mate when she had so many of her own. Plus I’d been worried – in those early days - that she might try to seduce him, and that it might somehow jeopardise Mack’s and my burgeoning friendship. She’d never told me that they’d talked about me being adopted, though. Bloody Stella. Was there anybody she hadn’t told?
‘I suppose she also told you that my best friend used to be a gorilla.’ Much to my irritation, I was unable to keep a small tremour out of my voice.
Now Mack did look surprised. ‘No. Really? Surely you’d have told me if you were abandoned in a jungle as a baby and brought up by wild animals, or anything wacky like that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes, I’d have told you and no, of course I wasn’t. It’s just that when Stella tells people I’m adopted, she tends to follow it by saying….Oh well, it’s a long story. And it was an orang-utan, not a gorilla – Stella always gets it wrong. Our mother was doing a PhD on them when I was a kid, that was all.’
‘So you’ve decided that you want to trace your birthmother.’ Mack stared intently at me and I looked away, studying the perfect depth of colour in the petals of the orange gerberas.
‘Yes. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and then the other day when you looked up Stella, I thought, I’m sure there’s a way to trace people on the web. I could just about have a stab at doing it through a search engine, but I hardly know anything about the Internet. I’m sure you would know ten times more.’
‘And what about your birth father? Do you want to find him too?’
‘Well, yeah, of course. But his name wasn’t on my birth certificate – there was just a blank space. I don’t think I’ve got any way of tracing him unless I find her first.’
‘Have you told Stella about this? Don’t you think she’d be supportive?’
I gritted my teeth. ‘I know what she’s like; she comes across as all streetwise, like she doesn’t give a damn, but I’m all she’s got left. She used to have nightmares that I’d die too, or leave her on her own. Of course, I know she’s older now, and that’s why I’ve waited this long; but I don’t want to get her all worried that she might be about to lose me too, unless….’ I tailed off, realising how it sounded.
‘…..unless she really was about to lose you.’
Mack swivelled awkwardly in his chair every time he spoke, making it seems as if it was this chair which controlled his responses, sending answers through his backside, up his spine, and through his mouth. ‘But why do you think she might lose you?’
‘I don’t! You said it, not me. She’ll never lose me. But I know how she thinks, and if I find my birthmother, and end up having a really good relationship with her, Stella will feel incredibly threatened. But I have a right to know about my natural parents, don’t I? I can’t spend my entire bloody life not doing things which are important to me, just for the sake of risking upsetting Stella! Surely you can appreciate that?’
Thinking about Mack’s chair made me wish that the bulk of the velvet sofa would soak up my own frustration; but it merely sagged uncommunicatively beneath me. I felt an urge to punch it, or throw my beer on it, or something. What the hell did Mack know about anything?
‘I’ve been trying to tell her,’ I said, in a more conciliatory tone of voice. ‘But I can’t find the right time, or the right words. So I’ve decided to make a start without her knowing. That way, if it all comes to nothing, she won’t have had anything to worry about.’
To my surprise, Mack came over and sat next to me. He looked into my face, taking me in with his pale blue eyes. I wondered what it would be like if we fancied one another, and tried to imagine us a couple. But the idea of kissing him was as preposterous as the idea of kissing old Percy from the flat downstairs.
‘I’m sorry. You’re right – of course you’re entitled to find out. I don’t mean to be negative, it’s just that there’s something I’ve never told you, either. I know more about this than you might think - I’m adopted too.’
I gaped at him. ‘I’ve never met anyone else who was adopted before,’ I said incredulously. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, if you knew that I was?’
He grinned, a little sheepishly. ‘Stella made me promise not to let on that I knew. And besides, I hadn’t told her about me, either. Like you, it’s not something I tell many people.’
I had so many questions that I could barely think where to start. ‘So when you saw your mother today, was that your real mother, or your adoptive one?’
‘Emma, I only have one real mother: I had a birthmother, and then I had a real mother. The one who brings you up, and loves you, and looks after you – that’s your real mother.’
‘But have you ever met your birthmother?’
‘Yeah. I lived with her until I was three. Then she got sent to prison for blinding someone in a fight in a pub – she pushed a broken pint glass in this woman’s face because the woman called her a slapper – and then she killed herself in prison. She was an alcoholic and a drug addict. She didn’t know who my father was, apparently. When she first went to jail I was fostered by a lovely older couple from Cheshire, and they later adopted me.’
I was stunned. ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’
The Coldplay CD ended and was automatically replaced by Pink Floyd on the radio. Mack stood up. ‘Nothing to be sorry about,’ he said abruptly, ‘unless I’d stayed with my birthmother. Now that would be a reason to feel sorry for me. Another beer?’
He walked noiselessly out of the room in his odd-socked feet, whistling a note-perfect rendition of Dave Gilmour’s guitar solo at the end of ‘Another Brick in the Wall’, and returned immediately with two more cans, holding them both in one hand and popping their ring-pulls with the other.
‘How will you feel if you find that your own birthmother is someone like that?’
Mack stuck two of his fingers into the ring-pulls he’d just removed from the cans, and seemed momentarily to admire them, like a girl showing off her diamond engagement ring, before dropping them into a wastepaper bin next to his desk. He gestured for me to pass over my empty glass.
‘I promise you, Emma, this isn’t something to take on lightly. You’ve got to be prepared for the worst. I mean, it’ll be wonderful if it turns out great – although then you risk Stella getting hurt – but it might not. If you want my opinion, I think that before you go ahead you should get some counselling. We could look up on the Net where you could go.’
Pink Floyd changed into Tom Robinson’s ‘War Baby’, a song which had been on the radio a lot when Stella was a baby. Dad, always the purveyor of terrible puns, used to sing, ‘Sore Baby’, whenever she had nappy rash or teething problems: ‘Sore baby, talking about the Third world’. I used to poke him in the side and say, ‘Da-ad! Stella can’t talk about the Third world. She can’t talk at all!’ The Third World sounded like something off Star Trek.
‘I’ve already done that, I did it ten years ago. I’ve read the books – well, a few of them. I’ve had the advice. I know what I’m supposed to feel and do, I’ve just never had the tim
e, or the nerve, to actually do it before.’
I watched Mack pour the frothy amber ale into my glass, and it reminded me of the almond oil with which I’d anointed myself the previous day. ‘I’m still not sure I’ve got the guts for it. If there was some way that I could – oh, I don’t know – not go all the way. Like, if I could just find out what she’s like first, without having to commit myself –‘
‘Or find out if she’s even still alive,’ Mack interrupted.
‘Yeah. Then I could decide whether or not I want her to know who I am.’
‘That’s a bit… selective, isn’t it? Appearances can be deceptive, you know. She might seem really eccentric, but be a lovely person and you’d never know. Or what if she turned out to be disabled, or mentally ill, and you felt obliged to look after her, or – ‘
I put my hands over my ears, balancing my glass between my thighs to do so, and slopping a little beer onto my satin skirt. ‘Stop. I take your point.’
Putting my drink gingerly on the floor next to my feet, I flopped against the back of the sofa, staring at the plastic ripples of the fake ceiling rose until the awful panicky feeling passed.
‘No,’ I said eventually. ‘I need to do this. I want to look at it as an experiment; in life, if you like, something that I do for myself. I don’t want to pay a detective or go to an agency. But equally I don’t want to spend years and years getting obsessed with tracking her down, and having no success. I already know her name, and where she used to live. I’ve got my birth certificate - although it doesn’t really tell me all that much more, except that I was born in Wiltshire.
‘Anyway, if I can’t find her, or I do find her but decide not to take it further, then I’ll let it drop - for good. I’ll look at it as a “not meant to be”. Stella will be none the wiser, and nor will my birthmother.’
‘What if you find her and she doesn’t want to have a relationship with you? She might have a husband that she hasn’t told about you.’
‘I think she does have a husband, or did – she was down on the Electoral Register as a Mrs. But there wasn’t anybody else listed as living with her – at least, nobody over eighteen, anyway. And unless things have changed drastically since then, she does want to know me. I wouldn’t do this if I wasn’t sure of that. Look.’
I delved into my handbag and pulled out the letter, putting it in my lap to smooth out the already-smooth memories of creases, before passing it over to Mack. ‘I found this after Mum and Dad died, just before I went for counselling. It doesn’t have her surname on it, but I looked it up on the Electoral Register of that year via her address; it’s Ann Paramor.’
Mack read the letter, absently stroking his newly-shorn head as he did so, in a way which made me think of Stella’s mate Lawrence. I wondered idly if I would see Lawrence tomorrow morning, a towel around his waist, nipping into our bathroom. But, I supposed, at least Lawrence would be preferable to that Charlie, anyway.
‘Wow.’ Mack handed back the limp sheet of Basildon Bond. ‘So why didn’t you contact her then?’
‘I did, a couple of times. She’d moved house and not left a forwarding address. I must have just missed her.’ I folded up the letter and left it on the sofa cushion next to me like a place setting. I tried to imagine Ann Paramor sitting there, joining in the conversation, but all I got was the same old image of a praying woman on her knees in a frothy nightie.
‘After that, I just kind of gave up at the first hurdle. It was all too stressful. Stella was so young, and she needed me. I suppose I hoped that Ann Paramor would write again, but when she never heard back from Mum, she must have assumed that Mum wanted her to stay away.’
I paused. It felt so strange, all these secrets rolling out of me - although the consumption of one and a half Speckled Hens did make it easier. ‘I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.’
Mack smiled. ‘I’m flattered. Besides, what are mates for? And don’t think you’ll get away scot free either, because later I’m going to quiz you about whether you think your gorgeous sister might deign to go on a date with an older man...’
I snorted, jokingly, but my heart sank. ‘Oh, Mack, I’m sorry, but you really aren’t her type.’
He looked at me dolefully. ‘Yeah. I guessed as much already. Oh well, no harm in hoping, is there?’
I hastily tried to change the subject. ‘So, about the internet stuff; will you help me?’
‘Of course. If you’ll do something for me in return.’
His eyes slid over to the corner of the room, where his expensive digital video camera lay zipped up in its black canvas case, like the newborn offspring of my giant Bastard. I felt envious of the fact that the tools of his trade were so portable.
‘Did I tell you that I’ve been commissioned to make an hour-long documentary as part of a new BBC series on families?’
I was simultaneously irritated and proud of him. It was great news for him – but why was he talking about his work now?
‘Wow, Mack, that’s great. No, you didn’t.’
‘Well, I have been. They liked my short film last year on teenagers and the internet, and approached me with a view to doing something similar for this new series. But when I told them that I was adopted, and that I’d like to make a film about how adopted people find their place in the world, they were even more enthusiastic. So, you see, this is perfect timing. I’d been feeling that my own story wasn’t interesting enough for a full hour, and I was thinking about asking this other guy I know from football, who’s also adopted, but now, here you are, with your own story. The idea of filming someone who’s actually searching is much more appealing to me.’
I was flabbergasted. ‘What – me? Be in a documentary?’
‘Why not? I could film everything we do to try and track down your birthmother, and then if you meet up with her, you could let me film that, too –‘
‘Not bloody likely - you must be joking! I can see it now: “Hello, I’m your daughter, and this is the film crew!” This is personal, Mack, I can’t believe you’re even suggesting it.’
Mack stayed calm in the face of my increasing agitation, although I saw him look longingly over at his video camera again.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said, ominously.
He spun around on his chair even faster. ‘Oh, Emma, please? It’s the most brilliant subject - such human interest. I promise I’d do it sensitively. And if you didn’t want me to film you all the time, I’d let you borrow the camera and set it up so you can talk directly into it; you know, like a video diary. If we find your mother, of course I wouldn’t have to film the actual reunion. We could set it up so that you could pretend you were meeting for the first time, after you already had.’
I could have hit him. A faked reunion had to be one of the tackiest, most horrible things I’d ever heard. There was no way I’d be involved in something like that. Besides, the whole prospect of being on camera was anathema to me – I couldn’t even bear to have my photograph taken. But, I thought immediately afterwards, it would be kind of nice to have someone really pulling out the stops to help me look….
‘So are you saying you won’t help me unless I let you film it?’
Mack tutted. ‘No, of course not. I’m not that callous. I just think it would be fantastic. And the fact that you’ve approached me for help, before you even knew about what I was doing – well, it just seems like such a ‘meant to be.’ Plus, I genuinely think it would be good for you, too. Feeling that you’re not alone in it. Confronting your fears and doubts; getting them out in the open. And don’t forget, if for whatever reason we end up drawing a blank, then who knows? Maybe your birthmother will see it and get in touch.’
‘We-ll,’ I said, wavering slightly. ‘Can I have some time to think about it?’
‘Sure. And in the meantime, let’s have a quick preliminary look online.’ He swivelled around and switched on his computer.
‘We’ll check out some online phone directories, and do a general searc
h first, to see if we get anywhere. She might just have registered on some on-line reunion site for adopted kids and birthparents. And I want to print out some info for you, as well. I know you said you had counselling, but that was a long time ago - I think it would be a good idea for you to have a little refresher course.’
Pompous arse, I thought, feeling a momentary flash of irritation. I wondered if he was hoping we’d draw a blank, so that he’d have more material for his documentary.
‘Do they have special sites for adopted people, then?’
‘Oh yeah. Mostly based in America, but she could still have posted a message on those, asking about you, and that means her name would show up in a general search. We mustn’t overlook the obvious.’
I finished my beer and, standing on unsteady legs, tottered across the room, taking the first steps towards my birthmother in eight years. As I stood next to Mack’s chair, I felt as if we were posing for an Edwardian family photograph: the husband seated, mutton-chopped and suited up, the obedient wife in crinolines behind him, resting her hand on the patriarchal shoulder, staring into a 5”X4” box camera – exactly the same as the ones Dad used to make. The photographer would have taken off his top hat to bend down behind the camera’s squat body, throwing a black sheet over him to keep out the light, and clicking the shutter remotely via a long lead protruding from underneath the sheet…..
‘Emma?’
I jumped. The camera once more became Mack’s grape iMac, and Mack was shaking his head in mock-exasperation. ‘Anybody in there?’ He passed a hand to and fro in front of my eyes.
‘Sorry, I was miles away. Oh God, I don’t know. Perhaps I am being too hasty. Knowing that I’m only going to give this one shot – it’s like, I don’t know – maybe I’m rushing into it. It was so easy, really, last time, finding out her name. What if it’s that easy this time?’