by Diana Finley
‘How’s the job going?’ Susan asked. I redirected my attention from the window to my friend’s question. I had recently started a part-time administrative job in the office of Lucy’s old first school.
‘It’s good – exactly what I wanted. I’m always at home in time for Lucy, and of course the school holidays are free. I know she’s a teenager now, and thinks of herself as independent, but I still feel it’s important to be there for her.’
‘Yes, but I think you have to take care of yourself too, Alison. You must be busy what with work and maintaining Lucy and a home all by yourself.’
‘Mmm. It’s not very demanding really.’
‘How’s Lucy?’
It took me a while to consider this question. I realised I was on the brink of making some revelations about Lucy’s background – and my own – which could alter the course of both of our lives irreversibly. I was frightened, yet I’d known for some time I couldn’t keep all the secrets totally hidden for ever. It was affecting Lucy’s mental well-being, as well as mine. Susan was a good and reliable friend, who clearly cared for us, and yet …there were so many dangers in revealing the whole truth …
‘Basically, she’s fine …’
‘But …?’
I took a deep breath. There was no point in putting off what I wanted to say.
‘Susan, if you found out I’d done something awful – well, maybe even illegal – in the past, would it make a difference to how you felt about me … could you still be my friend?’
Susan laughed. ‘Oh Alison, I can’t imagine you’ve done anything so terrible! I’m quite sure most of my friends have done something illegal in the past. Haven’t we all? I know I have. What’s the matter – have you been shoplifting or something?’
‘No!’ I said, shocked. ‘No, of course not …’
‘Joke, Alison.’
‘Oh … yes, OK. But, if I had … broken the law … speaking as a lawyer, would you represent me, if necessary?’
She looked quizzically at me.
‘Well, I’m a solicitor, not a barrister, so it would kind of depend on what it is you think you’ve done … but you must know, Alison, I’d always do whatever I could to help you.’
I was already beginning to regret having started this conversation. I concentrated on straightening the cutlery.
‘Yes, thank you, I know you would. It’s nothing, really. I’ve just been a bit upset by that hypnosis business recently.’
‘Oh yes, you did mention that to me. I must say, I don’t think it was a very good idea for such young girls to be taken to that sort of event. I was a bit surprised at Fiona.’
‘It wasn’t really her fault. If anyone was at fault it was me. I should never have let Lucy go – at least, not unless I’d been there too. That Hans Augenblick certainly shouldn’t have used such a young and vulnerable child as a “volunteer”. I’m really worried it’s upset her terribly. She seems to have lost confidence. And she doesn’t want to talk about it – not to me, anyway.’
‘Well, it all sounded very unfortunate, but she’ll get over it. Anyway, it was hardly you doing anything wrong, and certainly not illegal. You’re not planning to murder Hans Augenblick, are you?’
I knew she meant this as a joke, but couldn’t bring myself to smile. I ran my finger around my glass of Sauvignon silently, measuring its cool circumference. Susan watched me quizzically.
‘Were you, Alison?’
After a long pause, I resolved to tell a partial truth. ‘No, of course not. But I have done something wrong, which I think may be relevant.’
She studied my face expectantly.
‘You see, I haven’t told Lucy the full truth about her background, or you, for that matter, and I think I made a terrible mistake.’
Susan put her hand on mine. I felt the presence of her hand resting its weight on my own, heavy as a toad. Leave it there for a minute before pulling away, I instructed myself queasily.
‘I’ve always let Lucy think that I’m her mother – her “real” mother that is – but I’m not, you see.’
Susan looked at me in puzzlement, astonishment.
‘You’re not Lucy’s mother?’
‘No. You see, Lucy was adopted, like me. I suppose that, somehow, that hypnosis episode must have accessed some subconscious memories of her birth mother, even though she was tiny when she came to me … to us, I mean.’
I carefully slid my hand out from under Susan’s, noticing my heart rate start to slow almost immediately.
‘I should have told her the truth right from the start … but at first she was far too young to understand, and then she was so unsettled at the time we moved up here – do you remember what she was like? When at last she started to settle down, I couldn’t bear to risk opening new wounds again. It was wrong of me, I know. Maybe it was cowardly. But “the moment had passed”, Mother would have said. By the time I thought Lucy might have been ready to hear the truth, it felt too late. It’s not as though it made any difference to me – I couldn’t have loved her any more than I did – and still do, love her. Giving birth – or not giving birth – seemed an irrelevance, a meaningless detail. It’s just that … I’m afraid she’ll lose trust in me, if she feels I’ve withheld information about something that may seem important to her. Especially if any other memories were to surface …’
It was some moments before Susan spoke. Her expression was, at first, one of horror and disbelief. She stared at me, her mouth unattractively open. Gradually the lines of her face softened and she appeared to be trying to process what I had told her.
‘Yes, I see … Oh Alison – how awful to have kept such a huge secret hidden all these years. How could you bear it? I’m so glad you trust me enough to have told me now – I feel honoured. But, oh my goodness, what to do now? My instinct is that it’s always best to tell the truth and be completely open. Of course, now it’s harder, more complicated. But Lucy’s a bright and insightful girl. She may be surprised, maybe even hurt that you didn’t say anything sooner, but I’m sure she’ll understand. She may react angrily – you know how adolescents are – but I’m sure she won’t hold it against you, not for long at least, if you explain it to her as you have to me. Of course, she may want to contact her birth mother one day, assuming she’s still alive. Have you thought about that?’
Thoughts spun wildly in my head. No, I hadn’t thought about that! I hadn’t thought properly about any of this before. How lies reproduced, one spawning another, and another, in increasingly complex circles.
‘That’s just the problem. When Lucy’s daddy was alive …’
‘Russell …?’
‘Yes, Russell. When Russell was alive, he was adamant that Lucy shouldn’t know, that she should become our real daughter. He didn’t want her ever to know, in case she should doubt we loved her as much as we would our own daughter …’
‘Well, yes, he might have thought that at the time … but now …?’
‘Yes, but you see, he felt it so strongly that he destroyed all records relating to her original name and her adoption – burned everything, every scrap of paper.’
Susan stared at me open-mouthed.
‘What about the adoption agency? Surely they could give you some information. They must have to keep their records for years.’
‘Her entire file – everything relating to the adoption; Russell burned it – he burned it all. The agency disbanded years ago. And the ghastly times that followed have erased everything from my mind.’
‘Everything? But you must remember some details?’
‘Not a thing. Russell’s death, my bereavement, was so dreadful, so huge; it wiped everything from my mind. Plus losing my mother … I can’t remember anything. For me, Lucy’s life and identity – and mine too – began when I became her mother, and more particularly, when we arrived in Newcastle. It’s as if nothing before that time existed – a blank page.’
‘Oh Alison, you poor, poor thing. You must have been so traumatised.’<
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Chapter Thirty-Two
1997
Lucy
Following the hypnosis evening, Cassie was keen to return to the discussions we’d had a few years earlier, when I had discovered the red coat and the newspaper cutting. She seemed to feel there was some connection between those discoveries and what had happened when I was hypnotised by Hans Augenblick. Once she got the idea into her head, Cassie wouldn’t – couldn’t – leave the matter alone, though I begged and begged her to. She wanted me to confront Mummy again, to ask her questions, to probe further. She questioned me mercilessly at times, particularly about what I’d apparently said during the hypnosis session.
‘What does “Wyan” mean, Lucy? What about “Tacy”?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know …’
Once Cassie got her teeth into something, she wouldn’t let go; she worried at it and shook it like a terrier with a bone.
Cassie was convinced I had to “face up to’” what she believed were secrets Mummy was keeping from me. Of course I sensed there were secrets too, but Cassie didn’t seem to realise how terrified I was. Opening up secrets could have unpredictable consequences: outcomes I couldn’t begin to contemplate. Maybe Cassie hadn’t thought about what those consequences might be – and I certainly didn’t want to. Just starting to think about it made me feel quite ill. Worst of all, it caused Cassie and me to have our first argument.
‘You don’t know anything about my mother, Cassie – or me – you know nothing about us!’ I shouted, on the verge of tears.
‘Maybe not, but it seems that you don’t either, Lucy.’
‘Oh, you’re so good at twisting my words …’
I stormed out of the room and stomped down the stairs. Cassie called to me from the top of the stairs.
‘Lucy, please don’t go! Please stay! I’m sorry – I won’t say any more about it if you don’t want me to. Let’s listen to some music instead!’
I faltered at the bottom of the stairs, and heard Fiona call to me from the kitchen, her voice questioning and anxious.
‘Lucy, sweetheart! What’s going on? Are you all right …?’
I so much wanted to return to Cassie, to make it up, to be close as we always had been. I wanted life to be simple and fun again. But it wasn’t simple. It certainly wasn’t fun. I wanted to run to Fiona too; have her put her arms around me, cuddle me as she often did, and assure me that she’d make everything all right. But I couldn’t go to Fiona, or to Cassie either. I was past staying there, in their house with them.
I opened the front door and slammed it behind me. I could hardly breathe. I staggered home, my face wet, my chest heaving, straining for air. Cassie and I had never argued in the past. Why did Mummy have to come into everything I did, everything I thought. Why couldn’t she just be ordinary – an ordinary mother. There always seemed to be something mysterious about her, something unreal. I didn’t understand what was happening to Cassie and me, but even that felt like Mummy had something to do with it.
My life felt like a runaway train. Out of control. Speeding ahead, faster and faster. Changing lines and direction without warning. And I felt like an impotent, petrified passenger at its mercy – I wasn’t even the driver – waiting for the inevitable derailment, waiting for the crash that would surely come. The brake was out of reach. There was no stopping it.
* * *
When I got home, Mummy was sitting reading in her favourite place: just inside the sitting room by the open garden door. The last of the evening sun illuminated her and the faded ochre velvet of her chair with a soft golden light – so out of keeping with my mood. She looked up when she heard me come in, and smiled. The innocent, genuine pleasure of that smile sent daggers of rage through my heart.
‘Hello, Lucy. Have you had a nice time, dear? Here I am again, enjoying the last bit of warmth and sunshine. I’m so lucky to have this little shelter from that chilly wind. It’s just lovely here – what bliss. I’m so glad we chose a west-facing garden, aren’t you?’
‘We didn’t choose it, you did. I didn’t choose anything in my life – you chose it all, didn’t you?’
I don’t know where the words came from. Like a doll or a puppet with an automatic, preordained script, I couldn’t help myself. It was happening more and more these days. I could see Mummy was shocked and hurt, but I couldn’t stop the wounding words. There was some sort of satisfaction in seeing her pain. I hated myself for feeling pleasure, yet it was as if I was compelled to continue.
‘By the way, now that I’m fifteen, I think it’s ridiculous to go on calling you “Mummy”. It’s so babyish, don’t you think?’ I glared mercilessly at her.
Mummy stared back at me. Her eyes glistened. She turned her head away from me for a minute. I could see the muscles and sinews of her frail neck working. Her chest heaved. She swallowed several times. Then, slowly, she turned back to me, her face white and chalky.
‘No, I can’t say I think it is babyish or ridiculous. Surely it’s natural for a child to continue calling its mother “Mummy”, however old that child is?’
I stared at her fiercely. She looked up into my face. Her voice was quiet and controlled. Yet there was a quaver lurking. We stared silently at one another. A muscle in her chin twitched. The corners of her mouth trembled downwards. I thought momentarily of how a small child might draw a “happy face” by making a curved line for the mouth point upwards. Right now, Mummy’s mouth was not pointing upwards, it was pointing downwards – definitely a sad face.
I was aware of us having reached a critical point, a choice, a line beyond which there would be no return. Was I really going to cross that line? Of course not, I realised, as the seconds ticked by. I’m not ready. I’m not old enough to handle possible revelations that might change my life, both of our lives, for ever.
It was as if we had both screeched to a halt on the edge of a cliff, like Road Runner in the cartoon, applying brakes to our feet just in time. Smoke from the friction of our heels rose. We stared down at the abyss far below.
* * *
Of course, I cried upstairs in my room. I’d never felt so bleak. Mummy left me alone for a long time. As it grew dark she came upstairs. I heard her hesitate at the top of the stairs. She knocked on my door – something I don’t remember her ever doing before.
‘Yes …?’ I called uncertainly. I was sitting on my bed.
She opened the door and came in. ‘I’ve made us some leek and potato soup, Lucy.’ It was a favourite of mine.
‘I thought we could have supper by the fire and watch The X Files on the television. It’s on at half past. Would you like that?’
I’d never heard her suggest watching television before. She didn’t really approve, unless it was an educational documentary. A hard lump was pressing unpleasantly in my chest. I looked down at my lap and nodded. She came and sat next to me on the bed and put her arm around me.
‘You do know I love you, Lucy, don’t you?’
I nodded again, a lump growing in my throat.
‘I need to tell you something, Lucy. I should have told you years ago, but I was too cowardly to do so. I hope you’ll understand. I hope you’ll forgive me for not telling you before. I think I was afraid you might love me less.’
She sighed and gently turned my face towards her. And then she told me. She and my dad had adopted me, she said. I wasn’t really their child. They couldn’t have children of their own. She told me how she’d chosen me from rows of babies in cots. She’d fallen in love with me the moment she set eyes on me. She knew immediately I was special.
It was a shock. Yet maybe it was also a solution. A new history. I’d been adopted. It explained a lot, yet it didn’t really change much. Adopted – I could get used to that idea. Surely it made sense.
In time – after only a day or two, in fact – I talked to Cassie. I told her what Mummy had told me. We restored our close friendship. It was a relief for us both. By some silent agreement, we didn’t refer again to my parentage,
whatever it was.
Chapter Thirty-Three
2000
Lucy
Over the coming years, Cassie and I both concentrated on trying to demonstrate how detached we were from our parents – whoever they might be – and from their entire generation. We were assured of our uniqueness, of the originality of our thoughts, and how extraordinarily misunderstood we were. We became scornful, rebellious, moody and troublesome. We discovered causes, social and political issues and ideology, music and literature. We discovered boys and hesitantly began to explore sex. We tiptoed our way in and out of punk and goth culture. Cassie handled the adolescent years with relative ease – Fiona was relaxed about all her experimentation.
‘It’s what being a teenager is all about. Just make sure you respect your own autonomy and your own body, and you won’t go far wrong.’
Cassie emerged at the other end of her teens with a clutch of good A levels, hoping to study Medicine at university.
My own experience of adolescence was much more difficult, as it must have been for my mother. She tried not to show it, but I knew she detested everything about my teenage years: the clothes, the hair, the drinking, the boys. Above all, she hated the inevitable distance that grew between us – seeing me unhappy, confused, vulnerable, self-harming at times – and having no idea how to respond.
During the late summer after we’d done our A levels, when Cassie was eighteen and I was soon to be, there were picnics and barbecues and parties galore. We were invited to a party at the home of twins called Aidan and Callum. Their parents were on holiday in Majorca, and had “trusted” them with the house. They were nineteen and were both considered among the most attractive and desirable boys in our circle of friends.
At the party alcohol flowed freely. Callum made a move towards me. We danced. We kissed. We drank. There were beer, wine and spirits of all sorts. I lost count of what I’d had to drink and how much. Cassie was dancing with one of Callum and Aidan’s friends. She was watching me. I knew she was looking out for me.