by Amanda James
What do I say to that? The way she said it makes me think she’s disrespecting my parents, not just musing over the sound of the name. ‘Um, I suppose I’m used to it, but Rowe is a lovely name.’
She sits back in her chair, folds her arms and stares at me. ‘I hope that you will learn to call me Mum. Perhaps it’s a bit soon at the moment, though?’
What the fuck! I swallow anger and frustration. Yes, it is, given that the only woman I had ever called Mum was so recently in her grave. I feel my face flush under her direct scrutiny and wish I could rewind time to when she opened the door. At least I would feel more prepared. ‘Yes, I think it might be. Let’s just see how we go.’
Mellyn puts her hand to her mouth and her eyes grow round. ‘Oh, I’ve upset you. How stupid of me to say that? Your adoptive mother died not long ago. It just slipped my mind with all the excitement of having you back with me, darling.’
Slipped her mind? How the bloody hell could it just slip her mind? And ‘darling’? I want to get up and leave. This whole meeting is like a train crash and I’m in the last carriage, knowing what’s going to happen but unable to stop the inevitable. Luckily, manners come to my rescue and I thank my parents for making me be polite even when I don’t want to be. How very British. ‘No, you haven’t upset me, really. Don’t worry. How far is the hotel from here?’
‘You’re not going yet, surely?’ The fingers over her mouth began to tremble.
‘I thought I might. It’s been a long day and I need to check in and so forth.’ That was lame and we both know it.
Mellyn stands. ‘Oh, I have upset you, haven’t I? Look, don’t go yet, I was going to make us supper later. I’ve got lots of yummy stuff in specially – you like seafood, I hope? If not, I can nip down to the shops and—’
‘No, don’t put yourself out—’
‘I’m not. I was looking forward to it. I want to cook for you.’ She stops and sighs. ‘This isn’t going how I imagined at all. I’m so sorry.’
I watch a frown crease her forehead and she blinks a few times. I think she meant what she said and I’m glad, because I know how she feels. Damn it. Time to reach out with the olive branch. ‘No. It isn’t going how I imagined it either. Look, let me go and check in, hang my clothes up, get changed and stuff and then come back here in an hour or so? Sound like a plan?’
Her mouth tries to smile but doesn’t quite make it. Perhaps she’s been taking lessons from Adelaide. ‘Sounds like a plan. So, see you about six, six thirty? You just follow the road round and Pebble House is the second on your right.’
‘Okay. Thanks. See you soon.’ She looks as if she’s going to hug me again, so I bend down to pick up my handbag. She leads the way outside.
9
How ironic. I’d come to cast away stones and here I am in Pebble House. The B&B is only five minutes away from Seal Cottage but nearly in the town, so the view from the window is of a small car park and the backs of shops. The room itself is nice enough though. I had chosen it because it had lots of five-star reviews for friendliness of staff, food and cleanliness. It certainly has everything I’ll need for the next few days, or a week, depending on how things go. Right at this moment as I unpack my suitcase I think it might be the former.
The iron in its box weighs down one of the bags and I remember Adelaide looking at it in surprise as it lay in my boot this morning. I’m already homesick and that isn’t a good sign after only a matter of eight hours or so. It also reminds me to ring Dad and tell him I’ve arrived safely.
Hearing Adelaide’s voice on the line makes me wish I was just around the corner. ‘Lu! So glad you called, I was going to give it another hour and then ring you.’
‘Sorry. I know I said I’d call as soon as I arrived, but—’
‘No, don’t apologise, I quite understand. Your dad has just gone to the pub with your uncle Graham. He didn’t want to, but I persuaded him. I think he’s been sitting about wondering how you were getting on, so that will take his mind off things.’
‘Dad’s actually gone out for a drink? Blimey. Wonders will never cease.’ I talk in clichés for a while, wondering what to tell Adelaide about my less than perfect first meeting today.
Adelaide makes my mind up for me by asking, ‘So have you met your birth mother yet?’
‘Yes.’ Before the call I thought I’d just underplay my worries, but my tongue tells her everything.
‘I see. So, you’re disappointed?’
‘Well, yes, a little,’ I answer, noting the surprise in Adelaide’s voice and wondering if she’s not been listening properly. ‘Don’t you think her behaviour is a bit odd, then?’
‘In ordinary circumstances, yes. But she’s had thirty years to mull all this over and probably feels guilty. She might be coming over all wrong because she’s nervous. And it sounds like she’s not had an easy time, what with the bullying, having you so young, her parents dying in that awful way and then her ex-husband being a, you know … what she called him.’
I smile. Adelaide couldn’t say the word bastard. I’d never heard her say anything worse than ‘damn’ in all the years I had known her. Perhaps she would spontaneously combust if she did. ‘Yes. I suppose that makes sense,’ I say. And it does to an extent.
‘Give her time. You don’t know enough yet. You haven’t even broached how she came to give you up, or who your father was, have you?’
‘No. That might come up over dinner, I suppose.’ God only knows what will happen when we do talk about that. After this afternoon I’m not looking forward to it at all. ‘So, you think it’s all okay then?’ I so wish Adelaide was here; her wise counsel is exactly what I need.
‘I think so, yes. As I said, it will take a bit of time.’
‘But what do you make of her wanting me to call her Mum so soon, while apparently forgetting that the woman who was my mum has only recently … left us?’ I’m sounding like Dad now.
‘I don’t know. Perhaps she was trying to make up for lost time. Wanted to show you how much she cared. You can’t rule out that she was jealous of Hannah either. It was insensitive of her, nevertheless, but she said sorry, didn’t she?’
‘Yes.’ I can almost see Adelaide perched on the edge of the sofa, eyebrows raised, mouth twisted to one side in a tight pucker.
‘There you are then.’
‘Oh, Adelaide. Thank you. You are so wise, and I miss you already.’ I hear a catch in my voice and draw in a deep breath.
‘What a nice thing to say, Lu. Now remember, I’m here at the end of a phone day or night, okay?’
I nod and then remember that I’m on the phone. ‘Okay. Thank you, Adelaide, I’ll be in touch soon.’
Trepidation steps over the threshold of Seal Cottage with me later that evening, but I needn’t have worried. Mellyn is in a much better mood and more … normal, somehow. That thought rattles me. How do I know what normal is for a forty-six-year-old woman who has been through whatever it was she’s been through? I don’t know her, or what her life is like or had been like, so perhaps I should leave labels out of it.
‘Would you like dinner outside on the patio?’ She touches my arm. ‘Though I’m not sure you’ll be warm enough in that sleeveless top. How pretty it is too, the dark green really brings out your eyes. Well, not out physically, of course, that would be a bit macabre. But you’re wearing jeans, and I have a cardigan that would fit if it gets too nippy.’ She stops and takes a breath. ‘I’m babbling, aren’t I?’
‘A little.’ I laugh and touch her shoulder. I do it without thinking, a reassuring touch, a caring touch and it felt natural.
She places her hand over mine. ‘I just want to get things right this evening. And I was thinking that we should leave the heavy question and answer session. It felt like an interview earlier – not your fault at all – I suggested it, stupidly. I think we should just chat and I promise that as the conversation turns to the past, as it will, I’ll try to answer you calmly. Please forgive me for everything I said before. I was
trying too hard and it came out all wrong.’
Thinking of what Adelaide had said I step forward and give her a quick hug and that feels natural too. ‘It wasn’t all you. I felt exactly the same.’ I return her smile and pull a bottle of Prosecco from my bag. ‘I could use a glass of this, how about you?’
‘That was the best seafood salad I have ever had in my entire life,’ I say as I clink glasses with Mellyn across the little white table on the garden patio. It’s the truth; I haven’t had many really, but of the ones I’ve had, this one was king. I roll up the sleeves of my borrowed cardigan. It had been a bit chilly outside at first, but the Prosecco is warming me up.
‘Thank you.’ Mellyn tosses back her hair and smiles. ‘It had all the finest local ingredients from Bob the crab man. He comes around the houses selling door to door and has a stall in the market too.’
‘Do you mean he is an actual crab, or that he sells them?’ I ask, remembering her crack about the top bringing my eyes out earlier. I’m a fan of literalist humour too.
She laughs out loud. ‘Yes, he’s an actual crab. He ties his wares on his back and runs sideways up our hill. On his six legs it doesn’t take him long!’
‘Is it six or eight?’
‘Hm. You’ve got me there. I think it could be eight including the big front pincers. No.’ She closes her eyes ‘No. It’s eight legs and two big pincers – so ten in total.’
‘I think you’re right, Mr Attenborough,’ I say, and divide the last of the Prosecco between our glasses.
‘And I think a nice zesty dessert wine is called for, don’t you?’ Mellyn smiles and gathers the dishes.
‘Pudding? Not sure I’ll have room after Bob’s finest and your lovely homemade bread.’
‘Could you try just a little? I made a mess of it though,’ she says, her mouth a straight line.
‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ I say brightly, hoping that she wasn’t going odd on me again. ‘I would love to try some. What did you make?’
‘Eton Mess!’ she says with a giggle. ‘Told you I made a mess of it.’
‘Ha, you got me there.’ I wave a spoon at her, thankful that the nice evening is still on track.
The pudding, like everything else, is delicious and, after I help her clear away, we return outside, just as the fading fingers of sunset cast a handful of stars high into the soft navy sky. The salt-washed breeze that encouraged me to wear the cardigan has quietened, and the honeysuckle hangs sweet in the air like a kiss to the day. Mellyn insists that we have a brandy to go with the chocolates I brought, and I agree, despite having misgivings about the amount of alcohol we’ve already consumed. We have a bottle of water on the table too, just to be sensible. It isn’t as if I’m drunk, of course, just relaxed and happy. We’ve not talked about anything personal all evening; the conversation has been easy, and we share the same silly sense of humour.
Mellyn swirls the amber liquid in her glass and holds the side of it against a candle in the middle of the table. ‘Nothing like a warm brandy,’ she says, her eyes sparkling in the flickering light. ‘Neil used to drink brandy.’ She removes the glass from the flame, swirls the brandy again and takes a sip. ‘In fact, he would drink anything he could get his hands on. That was the problem.’ She makes a noise in her throat somewhere between a snort and a choke. ‘One of the problems, I should say – he had many.’
‘Neil was your husband?’ I know that this is an unnecessary question, but safer than asking a more leading one.
‘Yes. We were married for six years. I knew after the first month that I’d made a big mistake.’ She looks at the question in my eyes. ‘He used to get drunk and then beat me. Oh, it was the usual story – sweetness personified until I had a ring on my finger and then, wham!’ She thumps her hand on the wrought-iron tabletop, making the candle and me jump.
My heart swells with sadness for her, but again I try to keep my questions neutral. ‘That must have been terrible for you … how did he take to the divorce?’
Mellyn gives me a sidelong glance, bites her lip and then speaks to the sky. ‘We didn’t divorce. He died – three months after my parents, actually.’
My mouth wants to fall open, so I put my hand over it and shake my head. The poor, poor woman. She looks at me and drinks some more brandy. I follow suit, glad of the burning sensation in my throat to clear a path through my emotion. ‘How did he—’
‘Die?’
I nod. She sighs. ‘Neil was cleaning the guttering in my parents’ house because we were selling it. He’d done odd jobs around the place, getting it ready for viewing, you know? Anyway, I was there too, painting in the downstairs cloakroom, and heard the crash. I ran out the back door. The ladder was on the patio and so was he. Death was instant according to the coroner. Hit his head on a rockery stone, caved one side of it in completely.’
A shiver passes through me and pulls shock after it. How did she cope with something like that? I note that Mellyn’s voice has taken on that faraway quality again and she’d spoken to her glass, the sky, the table, anything but me. She seems distant, unreal. It’s like watching a monologue in a play. I assume that must be how she copes – removing herself from the pain, being someone else. ‘I … I don’t know what to say,’ I manage.
‘Nothing to say really.’ Mellyn pours us both more brandy before I can put my hand over my glass. ‘I wasn’t sad he died, just indifferent really. No, that’s not true. I did feel relief if I’m honest, no more beatings, and I could do what I liked with the money from the house. Neil had already started dictating what we would use it for. He wanted a new car, holiday, clothes, and of course he would have frittered it on endless bottles of booze. We lived in rented and I told him I wanted to own our own house. He laughed at that, said it was a waste.’ She shrugs her shoulders and gives me a smile. ‘Anyway, I moved here, bought this place, started a new life.’
‘I’m so glad you did. You deserve some happiness after what you’ve been through.’ I sip my brandy and offer her a chocolate. She pops it in her mouth and makes appreciative noises. I want to steer her away from thoughts of Neil and death before the mood gets any more miserable. ‘Do you have siblings?’
She pulls a face. ‘No. Just me. I was a bit lonely growing up, but at least I was spoiled rotten!’
‘Same here,’ I say, and then flick my gaze away, hoping that she wouldn’t ask about the loneliness.
‘You see it would have been all very different if I’d been able to stay with your father, Joe. He was my one true love. Your life would have been different too – we would all still be together now as a family …’ Mellyn leans forward in her seat, rests her elbows on her knees, and covers her face with both hands.
At this revelation, the caramel chocolate in my mouth somehow slips half-chewed down my throat and I start to cough. I feel her slapping my back and holding a glass to my lips. I take a sip and cough even more because I’d taken in the fumes from the brandy as I drew a deep breath. I point at the bottle of water and she hands it to me.
Once I’ve recovered she says, ‘I’m not sure we can handle any more history tonight if you’re going to conk out on me!’
I hear the hint of laughter in her voice and that sets me off. We both laugh hysterically, though it hadn’t been that funny. It’s the best medicine and just what we needed. I nod. ‘I think it might be best to wait until tomorrow now.’
Mellyn stands and leads the way inside, still giggling. ‘Yes, and I’ve taken the next few days off work. So tomorrow I have a lovely surprise for you.’
‘Ooh, interesting,’ I say.
We hug on the doorstep, say goodnight, then I set off down the moonlit street wondering what the surprise will be. For the moment, however, I will be happy just getting to know more about Mellyn and my birth father, Joe.
10
The Sprite, twenty-three feet of sleek and shiny green motor cruiser, complete with a bathing platform on the stern, four berths, kitchen, and powerful engine turns out to be the surprise … an
d she’s mine. Mellyn, once clear of the harbour, opens the throttle and races towards the far horizon. I wipe salt spray from my face and laugh into the wind. I still can’t quite take it all in. I relive the last few hours over again in my head.
This morning I had received a text from Mellyn to meet down at the harbour because we were off on a picnic. I thought it was an odd place to meet, but it all became clear when, through the shimmering haze, I saw her waving at me from the deck of a boat. Dressed for the part in white crop trousers and a stripy T-shirt with a sweater knotted around her neck, and hair twisted up into a clip at the back of her head, I thought she looked more like my age than her own today. She wore a smile as wide as the sky and her eyes reflecting the sparkling water danced with mischief. The breeze clanked a metal tune through the rigging of an armada of moored craft and I was glad I’d opted for trousers too.
Once aboard, I’d received a hug and the news that to celebrate our reunion, this boat was a gift. My mouth had opened and closed itself a few times and then I asked her what on earth she meant. ‘Simple, you silly thing. This boat was mine and now it’s yours. It’s to show you how much you mean to me,’ Mellyn had said, happiness clear in her eyes.
‘But … but you can’t. It must be worth a fortune,’ I’d whispered, realising as I said it that I had no idea about boat prices, but this was no old tub.
‘I can, and I have. Not a fortune, a few bob, but you are worth far more to me than any possession.’
Overwhelmed, my heart swelled at the enormity of such a gift, but also because of her last words. I thought it safer not to speak and just hugged her tightly. I could sense that she was waiting for me to reciprocate, but although I felt affection, until I could tell her genuinely that I loved her, I would keep those words in reserve. I’d spoken into her sweater. ‘I don’t know what to say.’