‘You’re very quiet today,’ Terry murmured. ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ I replied.
‘Looks like a lot of nothing.’
‘Well…’ I trailed off, suddenly unable to continue without bursting into tears. I couldn’t understand why I was feeling so emotional.
‘Are you okay?’
‘No, not really.’ The silence hung heavily between us. I felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the task that lay ahead. ‘I’ve decided to find my real mother,’ I blurted out.
Terry put his spoon down on the table. The dog looked concerned. ‘How are you going to do that?’
I could tell from the guarded look on his face that my news was a shock. ‘I’m going to ring everybody named Magnus on this list and see if anybody knows her.’
It all seemed so obvious when I spoke the words out loud. Of course, somebody would know her or at the very least have heard of her. My emotional turmoil abated.
‘Hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for. You’re on your own for this one.’ He got up from his chair, leaving the bowl of vegetable soup half-empty, and went out into the back garden. The dog looked even more concerned.
Terry’s response came as no real surprise. There was no malice intended. After all, he must have experienced the same emotional rollercoaster when he had unsuccessfully looked for his father. I knew that he didn’t want to see me disappointed in the same way.
I felt relief. I had shared the secret. Ever since I had decided to embark on the journey to find my mother, I felt like a character in the famous ’60s espionage thriller, Mission: Impossible. I kept hearing the voice on the tape from the show’s opening sequence permanently on repeat: ‘Your mission, should you decide to accept it…’
I knew that, just like the cast in the TV series, I would have to use guile, manipulation and deception to get the result I desired. What better way to get started than perfecting my cold-calling technique on fifty-three strangers? I only hoped that I wouldn’t self-destruct in five seconds like the taped voice.
FIFTEEN
THE MAGNUS EFFECT
I chose the box-room bedroom of the house to carry on my covert operation. Terry and I had converted it into an office space, complete with an office chair, large oak desk, computer, phone and fax. It was ideal for my current needs.
I decided to trust my instincts regarding what I might say if anybody answered. I told myself that it couldn’t be that much different from improvisational techniques that I’d used in acting classes. Best thing to do was dive straight in. I should have dialled the first number on my list, A. Magnus, but I was so eager that I scanned down the list until I found the only entry that read E. Magnus. Logically, it seemed a no-brainer to start with this name. Somebody picked up after about ten rings. A female voice answered: ‘If that’s you, Stacey, get fucking lost. You know not to ring at this time.’
Completely thrown by the greeting, I blurted out: ‘Oh, I’m not Stacey, I’m Pauline. Sorry. Is that Mrs Magnus?’
‘Yeah, what about it?’ she suspiciously replied.
I blundered on: ‘Well, you don’t know me, but I’m trying to look for somebody named Eileen Magnus. She lived in Dagenham about forty years ago, but might have moved by now, but since you share the same surname, I wondered if you might know somebody with that name?’
Apart from the sound of heavy breathing, there was silence at the other end of the line, but just as I was about to continue, I heard a loud male voice, possibly emanating from another room in the woman’s house, shouting: ‘You gonna watch this crap or what?’
This question seemed to zap the woman into life and she barked at me in a cockney accent: ‘You selling or somefink? ’Cos if you are then you can piss right off.’
‘No, nothing like that. I’m looking for a relative,’ I hastily replied, not wishing to antagonise her any more than I obviously had already.
‘Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place. Can you ring me back in five minutes, ’cos I’m watching Home and Away and it’s a good one today.’
I couldn’t imagine Home and Away ever being good on any day, but I said I would and put the phone down.
So much for those acting lessons! My confidence was shattered. I hadn’t been prepared for such a hostile exchange. Why on earth I thought that everybody would be helpful, I cannot imagine. I could see that I was in for a very long haul indeed.
Five minutes later, I redialled the number as asked and the man, whose voice I had heard earlier, answered. ‘Are you the person who rang just now?’
‘Yes,’ I answered.
‘Well, she don’t know no one called Aileen, all right?’
‘It was Eileen actually.’ But he’d put the phone down already. I didn’t dare ring again.
‘One down, fifty-two to go,’ I murmured to nobody in particular. I crossed E. Magnus off the list.
It took me the rest of the afternoon and early evening to call everybody on the list. Quite a lot were no answer. I left messages if they had an answering machine, but I didn’t expect anybody would call back.
Cold-calling is an illuminating way of eavesdropping on other peoples’ lives. Some of the conversations were heart-wrenching, in that I suspected that the elderly lady or gentleman on the other end of the phone really just wanted to reminisce about the old days with somebody who might be interested in them. They really didn’t care much who I was. I didn’t have the heart to cut them off as soon as they said that they had never heard of anyone called Eileen Magnus. It never ceased to amaze me how much information some people will give up to an entire stranger just to have a bit of conversation and not feel so lonely within their four-wall prisons.
Several people were so eager to be of use that they offered to ring around their other relatives and see if they knew anybody of that name. I would leave them my number and they would promise to ring back if they found out any further information, but I never heard from any of them again.
I concluded from such a generally positive response that people love to be helpful if they can and, more importantly, they adore a mystery, particularly if they can be part of the solution.
One man I spoke to in the East End of London, H. Magnus, asked me if I knew that the name Magnus was Jewish. He thought that maybe my mother might belong to a family of bookmakers in the East End. He said that this extended Stepney family branch was very large, so there was a good chance one of them might know her. Apart from that nugget of information, he could throw no more light on the whereabouts of Eileen Magnus.
It had never occurred to me that Magnus was a Jewish name. I had always thought of Magnus Magnusson when considering the origins of the name. I thought perhaps my mother was Scottish, Irish or perhaps even Norwegian in origin, but not Jewish.
My adoptive mother, Ivy, had always been very suspicious of Jews. Mind you, she was impartial. She had been suspicious of any foreigner.
When I was a very young child, my adoptive dad had been a coalman. Part of his delivery route was in Gants Hill and Redbridge, which had a sizeable Jewish population in those days. My mother would always complain to anybody who would listen that Jewish families never paid their bills. Often they would offer my father things in lieu of payment, like the faded crimson velvet curtains complete with gold braid-edged pelmets that adorned the bay window in our living room. They really had seen better days, and were discoloured where the folds overlapped, but my dad liked them. Ivy was never convinced, although she hung them as requested. Dad thought they looked classy. They did look as though they had been very expensive once upon a time.
On another occasion, he arrived home carrying a huge doll’s house whose roof had collapsed. I loved it on sight. It even had some of the furniture rattling around inside the four rooms. He never did fix the roof as promised. Another time he brought home a beautiful, carved wooden rocking horse. When I look back I think most of my toys originated in the homes of Jewish boys and girls. Ivy made it plain to m
y dad that she thought he should be tougher and demand proper payment instead of other people’s cast-offs. It probably never occurred to her that maybe they didn’t have enough money to pay for their coal, particularly if they were Jewish émigrés from post-war Europe. I was too young to offer an opinion on the matter. I just loved to get the ‘presents’ that my dad brought home.
Her dislike of Jews was even more inexplicable when coupled with the fact that our neighbours on the opposite side to the Green family were Jewish. Dr Biro ran a surgery next door to us and they lived in the house adjoining. Rumour had it that he and his wife were Jewish émigrés from the continent.
Anybody else who lived next door to a doctor’s surgery would have considered themselves very lucky, particularly when illness struck, but not Ivy. She never registered with Dr Biro. Oh no, she caught a bus to her favourite Scottish doctor’s surgery over three miles away, even if she was half dead with the flu.
Mrs Biro spent much of her day peering through the net curtains of her sitting-room window, noting the comings and goings of her neighbours. Every year, usually on Christmas Eve, she would beckon to me from her open front door if she saw me passing the house. Dutifully I hurried up her sloping garden path.
She was a tiny, wizened woman, old beyond her years, but always immaculately made-up and stylishly dressed. I was in awe of her. She sported the same fancily winged, horn-rimmed glasses as Marjorie Proops, the famous gossip columnist, which gave her leathery face an owlish appearance.
I stood on her doorstep, uncomfortably smiling as she stroked my cheeks with her arthritic hands, softly murmuring, ‘Mein Liebchen, mein Liebchen.’
She always looked as though she might burst into tears at any moment. Then she would give me a small, hand-made, drawstring gingham bag, full of tiny iced gingerbread cookies to take home. ‘Für Mutti,’ she said and shut the door.
My mother invariably turned her nose up at these annual goodies. ‘I’m not eating that foreign muck.’
But I loved them. They tasted so much more exotic than Ivy’s favourite custard cream biscuits. Secretly I wished I could be Jewish.
A year after I had left home, Ivy told me that Mr and Mrs Biro had been found dead together in their bed. They had committed suicide. Mrs Biro had an incurable disease and her husband, unable to live without her, decided to help her die and then kill himself. They must have been very old by this time and I found myself feeling inexplicably sad about this, despite the fact that I didn’t really know either of them. Somebody told me much later that both of them had had their families wiped out in the concentration camp at Auschwitz. They had managed to escape, but Mrs Biro had never recovered from the trauma of the Second World War.
Would my mother be like the tiny tragic figure of Mrs Biro? Was she waiting for me somewhere with a tiny bag of cookies? The ringing of an insistent phone broke my romantic reverie. I hastily picked up the receiver.
‘Hello. Did you leave a message asking about an Eileen Magnus?’ a woman asked.
Yes I had, I’d left many messages, all with my phone number in case they wanted to get back to me. Nobody had, yet.
‘Well, I might know somebody who knows her.’
Thank goodness I was sitting down because my knees had turned to jelly. Could it really have taken only one afternoon to find her? I couldn’t believe my luck. I forced myself to stay calm and make light conversation.
‘Whereabouts do you live?’ I asked as casually as I could.
‘South Ockendon,’ she said. ‘I know someone who’s got an Eileen Magnus in his family. Her dad used to live in Dagenham years ago. Think she’s a cousin. I’ll have to wait until he gets in from work to be sure.’
‘Really,’ I said, trying hard not to regurgitate my cheese sandwich. My stomach was flip-flopping as if it was on a fairground ride.
‘Can you ring back later?’ she continued.
‘Of course,’ I said politely. ‘What’s the number?’
She gave it to me and I scanned my list looking for an accompanying address. I discovered that she was phoning from a caravan park. I asked her if the address was correct.
‘Oh yes, we live on a caravan site, love, there’s only one phone in the caretaker’s office. The caretaker’s my husband. I pop in now and again just to check for messages. Ring about nine. He should be back by then. He’s got a scrap metal business down Tilbury way and he gets busy in the evenings. If it’s the woman I’m thinking of, I think she lives on a caravan site over Thurrock way. All right, love, talk to you later.’
Then she was gone. I hadn’t even had a chance to ask her name. I looked at my watch. It was 8 p.m. Where had the day gone?
Terry knocked on the door and asked me if I wanted some food. I’d completely forgotten about eating. He offered to make baked beans on toast, which I gratefully accepted. All I could think about was how I was going to survive for the next hour without self-destructing.
I mentioned what had happened with the South Ockendon connection over the makeshift dinner. He looked up from his plate and peered over the top of his glasses.
‘You do know what you might be letting yourself in for, don’t you?’ he said gravely. ‘You don’t know who she might be associated with. Living in a caravan park hardly sounds as though she’s made much of a life for herself. Be careful.’
I had to confess that I hadn’t looked at this new discovery in quite the same way. I had happily glossed over the bits of information that would ordinarily make me sit up and take notice. So what if she lived in a caravan park? She was still my mother. But I didn’t dare utter those words, because I could see where he was coming from.
I slipped back upstairs at the earliest opportunity to collect my thoughts before ringing back at nine o’clock. At the appointed hour I dialled the number. It rang for five minutes. Nobody picked up. I continued ringing every fifteen minutes, but all to no avail.
My mind reeled with possibilities. South Ockendon, Tilbury, Grays, Thurrock. I remembered those place names from the destination signs on the red London buses that had passed through Romford town centre. In our family these places had been seen as East London’s badlands. It was generally accepted among my adoptive brothers that a different breed of ‘cowboy’ lived there. Maybe the fact that somebody was looking for Eileen Magnus had sparked suspicion in her family. They might have put two and two together and now wished to remain undiscovered. What could I do? Nothing, just keep phoning.
I had accepted that the probability of this family being my long-lost relatives was fairly high. I imagined a family falling on hard times, and gradually sinking, through no fault of their own, other than poverty, from a council estate in Dagenham to a cold, damp caravan park in the Essex hinterland. I envisaged a Dickensian scene with them all huddled around a campfire late at night, discussing whether they knew an Eileen Magnus or not.
I began to wonder whether I was making a mistake. Perhaps ignorance was bliss. What manner of people were they? Perhaps they were gypsies or travellers. Then I chastised myself. Whoever they were, they were my most helpful lead so far and indeed had said that they would ask around for me. I decided that I would have to take what came. There was no pick-and-mixing to be done when tracing relatives.
I knew when I started that it was unlikely that I was a rich person’s child. Such people did not live in Dagenham. But at the back of my mind was a nagging voice saying: ‘But there is poor and poor.’
Suddenly it dawned upon me that my future relationship with my mother, if I was to find her, might come with various responsibilities. What if I found my mother in a rundown, leaky caravan with no money? What if she was sick or incurably ill? Would I be callous enough to find her, not like what I saw, and then just walk away? I didn’t know the answers to these questions. What had started out as a simple premise – find your mother – had become a complicated web of thoughts and feelings. I’d only been searching for half a day. What would I feel like if it went on for months?
At 10.30 p.m. somebody p
icked up. ‘Hello, I don’t know if you remember me, but I rang earlier looking for somebody named…’
I didn’t get a chance to finish. The woman I spoke to before answered. ‘Oh, hello, love. I had a word with him and his cousin Ellen’s dad lived in Ilford, not Dagenham. Sorry.’
‘Ellen?’ I repeated numbly.
‘Yeah, it was Ellen you said, wasn’t it?’
I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was Eileen. I thanked her for her help and put the phone down.
Did anybody in the entire world ever really listen? Or did we just hear whatever fitted our agenda at the time? I was exhausted and none the wiser. I showered and slipped into bed. Terry was blissfully asleep, with the dog snuggled in beside him. I lay there dozing for a while, but by 2 a.m. I admitted defeat as far as sleep was concerned and got up.
I find that the best cure for insomnia is to watch an Open University lecture in the middle of the night. It never fails; better than any sleeping pill. That night’s offering was a module on advanced engineering, delivered by a young mullet-haired professor. As the camera focus pulled back to show him in full view, I was amazed to see that he was wearing flares. He looked as though he was an extra in The Sweeney TV series.
I absent-mindedly stared at graphs, pie charts and crudely drawn diagrams showing the forces exerted upon a spinning ball in a given medium and the resultant whirlpool that it creates. My ears pricked up when he explained that this was due to the ‘Magnus Effect’. For a moment I thought that I was so preoccupied with the name Magnus that I must have misheard, but then he repeated the phrase. He said that most footballers tried to bend the ball into the net when they took a corner. The curve of the ball was a direct result of the Magnus Effect.
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