by Diana Finley
‘You’re the one with personal experience in this field, aren’t you?’
An uneasy silence fell on the room. Susan sat bolt upright, as if preparing herself for protective action.
‘Well, I mean, you’re adopted aren’t you, so you must know all about how much of you is down to what your adoptive mother nurtured in you, and how much is … well … a complete mystery?’ Lucy continued. She giggled, adopting a facial expression of wide-eyed innocence. She took another hefty gulp from her glass. I felt colour burning my cheeks. She hadn’t finished.
‘And … of course, you adopted me as well! It was an adoption, wasn’t it? So there I was: a tabula rasa for you to make of me whatever you wanted. You could nurture me in your own image! Hmmm? Oh, but maybe I wasn’t completely a tabula rasa – maybe sometimes some of those nasty nature characteristics crept in, did they? Betraying my origins, despite your best efforts …?’
‘Excuse us, everyone!’ Cassie said loudly. She had stood up and put her hand on Lucy’s shoulder. ‘I think we should go out in the garden, Lucy, maybe get some fresh air.’ She hauled Lucy firmly up by her arm, and guided her out towards the kitchen. Their departure left an awkward vacuum in the room.
‘Well …’ said Mike, ‘kids, eh?’
Slowly, murmurings of conversation picked up again. I sat, mute and unable to move. Susan came and perched on the arm of my chair. She touched my arm gently.
‘You look tired, Alison,’ she said. ‘Listen, Lucy can come back with Claire. Why don’t I drive you home?’
Claire nodded her assent.
‘Yes, leave your car in the drive, Alison,’ said Simon. ‘I’ll bring it back for you in the morning, if you don’t mind leaving the keys.’
I said my thanks and goodbyes, and gratefully slid into the front passenger seat of Susan’s car. She studied me with one of her meaningful looks and then switched on the ignition.
‘Simon’s very hospitable, very generous with the wine, but I think Lucy had quite a few too many tonight,’ she said.
‘Young people can be very hurtful sometimes.’
‘I know, Alison. But think of it as the wine talking, not Lucy. A term away at university will do wonders for helping her to appreciate her home and loved ones.’
I was glad of the lift, but didn’t ask Susan to come into the house with me. I couldn’t wait to be by myself, for the blissful relief of silence. Was Susan right? Would Lucy’s time at university bring her closer to me again – or would she regret having to come home at all?
I paused in front of the mirror on the landing. I touched the familiar pewter surround and my fingers automatically slid over the cool relief pattern. In the cruel glare of the wall light, I stared at my reflection. I was fifty-eight. My face looked drawn and lined. Gravity had worked its relentless force on every feature. My forehead was marked by horizontal “worry” lines, which appeared to compete, above my nose, with two deep vertical “frown” lines, as if my face needed to allow for each emotional possibility, but was uncertain which to engage.
I looked at my eyes; the lids drooped, spaniel-like, at the outside corners; shadowy semi-circles beneath merged with my cheeks, which appeared to have sunk inwards. A line each side of my nose drew deep chasms down to the corners of my mouth, dragging them further down still, to end in jowls interrupting the curve of my jaw. My hair had lost its blond brightness, and though Susan had insisted I get a “colour rinse”, it looked coarse and dry to me, and obviously disguised grey.
I could be more than sixty, I thought. I’m getting old. In two years’ time I will be sixty, and ten years after that I’ll be seventy.
Lucy had her whole adult life ahead of her, and I could no more control her future than I could control my own ageing process.
Strangely, this was a comforting thought. All these years I had been trying so hard to be the perfect mother to Lucy. Now I was tired; desperately tired of the constant, deliberate effort. Part of me was terrified of her departure to Birmingham, of being alone. Yet, another part felt a degree of relief that, for a time at least, I could abandon all that effort. Lucy needed her independence, to forge her own directions. I could do little to influence her choices.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
2003
Shelley
There’s a programme on the telly called Blood’s Thicker. I watch it nearly every week. It upsets me something terrible, but I can’t help meself. It’s about people separated from members of their family as babies or young children – for loads of different reasons, different situations – sad situations. Often the children grow up longing for their true relatives, wondering who they are and what they’re like. Even if they’ve been adopted by kind people, and well looked after, the kids seem to have this longing all their lives to find their missing family members, to know why they were given away or separated, to find out whether they were missed or loved. Or even just to find someone who looks like them.
The programme helps people find their missing child. Often they take a letter from the child to the parent – or the other way round – and there’s lots of tears as they read it. Then the programme sets up a reunion. It’s dead sad – but happy at the same time. That’s when I can’t stop crying, but I have to watch it, like. It gives me hope; hope that maybe one day me and Stacy will be reunited.
I love the bit where they manage to bring them all together. It’s really touching to see how they first meet. How they hug and cry and laugh. They can’t take their eyes off each other, almost like lovers. It’s like they fall instantly in love with this person they’ve thought about for years. Sometimes it’s like they find the other half of themselves.
I sit there watching, blubbing, and thinking about my Stacy – and how much I want to see her, and hold her in my arms, and know her. I want that so much it hurts.
Is she still alive? Is she out there somewhere, wondering about me, wondering if I ever loved her, if I still love her, and if I still care about what happened to her? If she is alive, does she remember anything? What might she remember? She was such a tiny, little mite when she disappeared. She must have cried and cried for her mam and dad; wondered why we didn’t rescue her, why we didn’t fetch her home. She must have been so confused.
It breaks my heart to think of it. Maybe she hates me for not protecting her from the kidnapper, for not finding her and rescuing her. Does she still think about me, about her family, after all these years? Or has she forgotten all about us? Stacy, Stacy, where are you? What are you doing? What are you thinking?
After my baby went missing, the police searched and searched for her for weeks and months on end – and never found her. Gary always said she must have been murdered by some maniac or paedo. I think he just couldn’t cope with the situation, with not knowing. It was easier for him to think she must be dead, that we’d never see her again.
I never believed that – I still don’t. As a mother, I’m sure I’d know – inside – if she was dead. I don’t think she is dead. I’ve always felt her alive – I can’t exactly explain it. Inspector Dempster believes she’s alive too. He doesn’t say it in so many words – I suppose he can’t. But I know he does think someone kidnapped Stacy, and took her away. She was such a gorgeous bairn. If someone had really, really wanted a kid, someone a bit disturbed or mental, my Stacy would have been just the sort of little girl they might have gone for. She was so pretty and cute, like a little pixie.
Well, she won’t be little any more. She must be nearly twenty-one. If I close my eyes I can just picture what she might look like; still pretty, blond, not too short, not too tall, and slim. That was the only good thing Gary passed on to the kids. He was dead skinny. Not one of them’s fat like I was. Mind you, fat or not, I was a lot prettier than Gary! ’Til he turned me into an old baggage, what with all them pregnancies, and the drugs, and the tabs, and the booze – and the chips.
I try to look after meself these days. I cook proper meals, with vegetables from the market. You’re no use to anyone
else if you don’t look after yourself. And I do help out with my kids, and the grandkids too.
The telly and the papers made out I never cared about Stacy. They said me and Gary only thought about ourselves and didn’t look after the bairns properly. Maybe that was true about Gary; he couldn’t look after his left foot, let alone a kid. But it wasn’t true of me. Maybe I wasn’t the world’s most perfect mam, but I did love them. I did me best, even if it wasn’t very good all the time. Trouble was, I hadn’t had a proper mam meself, to help show me what to do, how to look after them.
In the end I learned though, I had to. I can see, now, I shouldn’t have let them run so wild. I shouldn’t have drunk so much, and I shouldn’t have let Gary turn me on to the weed. After Stacy was taken I went to pieces for a while. I took to the drink in a big way. Some days I couldn’t get out of bed. It was a terrible time.
When Dr Shah and the social worker, suggested “counselling”, I didn’t think much of the idea at first – didn’t seem like something the likes of me would do. I wasn’t very good at expressing my feelings, ’specially not with strangers. Well, no one had ever shown any interest in my feelings before, not even me. Only agreed to go on the course to get the bairns back. But the counsellor turned out to be a nice woman. She really seemed to care.
Gradually I got to trust her. She talked a lot of sense. Told me taking all the blame onto meself for what had happened was negative, that it didn’t help. Blaming meself was different to taking responsibility, she said. She used words like that. At first, I couldn’t understand her meaning – I could hardly see what she was on about. But I stuck with it, and slowly started to see what she said was true. It was hard, very hard. But in the end, it forced me to take a good look at my life, and to make some changes.
Gary being gone was a blessing in disguise. Having him out the way was the best thing that could have happened to me at that point. I feel sorry for him really, he’s a useless drunk and druggie. Can’t even rob an empty house without getting nicked. He’s lost to me, and to the world now; homeless, sick, skint, hungry. He looks old, but I don’t think he’ll make old bones. I used to think he was that powerful – now I reckon he’s just pathetic. I’ll never refuse to help him if he asks me, but I’d never, never have him back.
I’m dead proud of how I managed to make a proper home and get a steady job to support meself and the bairns. Now they’re all grown-up, and doing really well, every one. Even the eldest two – Dean and Leanne – have done all right in the end. Our Ashley’s got her hands full with her twins – pity she didn’t get some exams behind her first, but never mind. My own twins, Sean and Kelly, were always bright sparks; they both did really well at school and went on to college. I was so proud of them.
I was dead proud of Ryan too. When Stacy was taken the poor lad went to pieces, and he’s never stopped missing his little sister. I can’t forget those early months after little Stacy disappeared. Our Ryan would wake night after night screaming with a nightmare. Used to think it was his fault she’d gone. I told him he wasn’t to blame; it was a “bad man” or a “bad lady” what took her. That just upset him more, though, to think Stacy was with somebody bad. ‘What if that bad man or bad lady is nasty to our Stacy?’ he’d say. Well, what was the answer to that?
After school, our Ryan trained as a plumber. Now he’s making good money with his own plumbing and bathroom business. Never forgets his mam, though – he’s a good-hearted, kind lad – gentle, even if he talks rough sometimes.
I know Stacy’s grown up now too, but she’ll never stop being my baby, and I’ll never stop worrying about her. Inspector Dempster said he thought it was a woman what took her. But just like Ryan, I can’t bear to think of that “bad lady” either. What if she was unkind? What if she hurt Stacy? I used to torture meself with thoughts like that. Inspector Dempster tried to comfort me by saying he thought she was someone who really, really wanted a baby and maybe couldn’t have one. He said he was sure someone like that would look after Stacy well. I hope so, but nobody truly knows, do they? Not even him.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
2003
Lucy
The time at Birmingham was mostly wonderful. I enjoyed being a student and made some very good friends. No one quite as special as Cassie, of course, but important friends just the same. My friendship with Cassie had been so close, I could hardly imagine finding that sort of relationship with anyone else. Yet I did find trust and close companionship with others once I got to know them – and Cassie and I did still get to see each other during the vacations, when we each went home to Newcastle.
Despite that, nothing could beat the fantastic times we had when Cassie visited me at Birmingham, and the equally fantastic times when I stayed with her in Edinburgh – but neither of us could afford to make those trips more than once or twice a year.
The course was an inspiration to me – I loved it. Studying was no problem because I found the subject so interesting. I suppose I had to join in with the moans about workloads when I was with my friends – it’s what everyone did – but really I liked nothing better than those long evenings at the library poring over books, high on coffee and elated by the thrill of knowledge and discovery.
For the first time in my life I felt uninhibited, free to express my personality. I missed Mum at first and worried about her, but not having her constraining judgement, stiffness and control, not always worrying about her approval, was a total liberation. I knew there were issues still to acknowledge and sort out, but I told myself I had a few more years of growing up to do before I needed to face them – and certainly before I wanted to face them.
Being away from home and Newcastle gave me the chance to see Mum more objectively, at a distance, for once. At the same time, that detachment meant I was forced to accept some of the unanswered questions about my background. There were times when I felt pretty down about it. So much so, that in my first year, I wrote a note to the senior police inspector in charge of the Stacy Watts disappearance in Frainham. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, even though it took me a few weeks to actually take action and post it. The note didn’t give much away – I wasn’t ready to initiate a proper dialogue – but it did help me to feel I had taken a first step, opened an avenue that I could pursue if and when I felt ready, or not.
I took a train to Worcester early one morning, and posted the note there. I often imagined Detective Inspector Dempster receiving the envelope, opening it, and reading the note. I wondered if he would believe I really was Stacy. I still didn’t truly believe it myself. I still didn’t know what I believed. Maybe Inspector Dempster would just think I was some sort of crank, seeking attention. I wondered if that’s what I was too.
From Worcester, I went on another train to Great Malvern and spent most of the day walking in the Malvern Hills to clear my head. I stood on the Beacon, where I could look eastwards and see the flat plains stretching away, with Worcester and Birmingham in the distance, where I had come from. If I climbed over the brow of the hill a few yards further on, and looked westwards, the hills of Herefordshire and Wales disappeared in misty layers towards the sinking sun. The ridge of the Malvern Hills was like a division, I thought, separating two opposing worlds. A metaphor perhaps. Just like the two directions open to me. One, to the world of silence and concealment, a world of safety. The other, to the world of truthfulness – opening up any number of frightening and unknown possibilities. Which route would I travel?
* * *
The first time Mum came to visit me in Birmingham – it was during my first year at university – was odd, quite a shock. She had always been so definite in her views, especially about anything concerning me. We’d had some difficult times when I was younger, but I think that was mostly about me trying to assert myself and not being very good at doing it in a reasonable and adult manner. I’d either become stupidly upset, or else I’d be angry and confrontational. I shudder to remember some of the things I said to her.
Generally
she managed to keep her cool, and just let me make a lot of noise. Her way of dealing with my behaviour was to withdraw into herself. That lack of emotional response drove me crazy with frustration at times, but I suppose in the end it forced me to calm down. Now, suddenly, seeing her in Birmingham, outside her own environment and in foreign territory – my territory – she seemed diminished, older, and unsure of herself. Sometimes it felt almost as if she was afraid of me. Perhaps that should have made me feel powerful, but it didn’t; it just made me feel sad, and uncertain of my own place in the world.
Mum came to stay once or twice during each year that I was at university. We would go out for meals together, go for walks along the canal, explore St Paul’s Square and other historic areas – and above all, we both enjoyed the feeling that we were building a more adult relationship, one of equals. Whenever I told her about my subjects, she picked up on everything in an instant. She actually helped me understand an aspect of statistics I’d been struggling with for ages. I only had to explain a new concept to her once and she understood it better than I did! She just loved me talking about my current area of study – it was as if she really came alive. We talked more than we ever had before.
I wish I could have asked Mum more about her experiences when she was my age. I know she went very briefly to Durham University, and that it was an unhappy time. She never told me exactly why, and I never asked her. She’s so intelligent, it’s a real shame she didn’t stay at university herself. By some unspoken agreement we didn’t touch on anything very personal in our conversations together. There was still so much to resolve between us, so much for me to resolve about myself, for which I didn’t feel ready. Would I ever feel ready? I wasn’t sure.
It was as if my visit to Worcester and the Malvern Hills was a turning point. It seemed to settle something in my mind. I made a conscious decision not to think about my background for the moment. Not at a time when I was delighting in all the experiences I was exposed to, the joy of discussion with like-minded people about topics that interested me: psychology approaches, personality, social issues, politics, and more. The whole exciting world was opening to me.