They are in Hadrian’s restaurant in the Balmoral, where he is staying. The Maitre d’ has found them a quiet corner, and although already one tourist has not been able to resist asking for an autograph, they are being left pretty much in peace.
‘So, Susie darling, bring me up to date. You’re saving the world with your passionate protection of the arts—’
‘Saving Scotland, Maitland. Only Scotland,’ Susie protests, laughing.
‘Scotland, then. What brought you to it?’
‘I could see things happening all round me that made me angrier and angrier. All the time Margaret-Anne and Jonathan were growing up, I witnessed services being cut, the things that seemed to me the most important being dismissed as if they didn’t matter.’
‘Like drama, you mean?’
‘Like drama. And music, and painting, and poetry. And singing. Do you know, hardly any schools have choirs any more. Singing is so liberating. We’re failing our children.’
Now it’s Maitland who’s laughing. ‘Darling, you’ve got my vote, I promise you. If only I had one.’
‘Sorry. I know I get carried away. Of course, it’s not just arts I get passionate about. It’s the many injustices I see, all the time. Petty bureaucratic decisions that ruin people’s lives. Wrapping everyone up in cotton wool to avoid lawsuits, so that no-one dares to risk anything any more and all we do is sit around getting fat. The rich creaming off profits and dodging taxes, while all the time blaming all the woes of the world on benefit scroungers.’
‘Quite the little socialist, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t define myself in those terms. I just deal with things as I see them.’
When the waiter fills their tiny coffee cups, then discreetly leaves them the pot, Maitland says unexpectedly, ‘What’s troubling you, Susie?’
She is startled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Honey, I may not have seen you for years, but I know you well enough to see that you’re edgy. That article wasn’t the first little bit of nastiness, was it?’
Susie stares at him, amazed. ‘How do you—?’
‘I’ve seen it happen before, believe me. These people drop in more and more idiotic stories in the hopes that eventually their quarry will crack. Either it’s just malicious, or they’re really trying to get a bigger story they think is lurking there somewhere.’
‘Oh, God.’ It hasn’t occurred to her that this might be what’s happening.
‘Am I right?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she says slowly. ‘There is a journalist who’s being particularly troublesome, but—’
‘He doesn’t know about us, does he?’
‘Heavens, no!’ Horrified, she imagines the headlines screaming across huge spreads, the salacious gossip, speculation dressed up as fact, and the impact of it all on her family and her Party.
‘Does Archie?’
She shakes her head dumbly.
‘You never told Archie?’
‘No. By the time it was all over ... when we’d decided ... I saw no need. Did you tell Serafina?’
‘I tell Seri everything. I guess it’s why we’ve lasted.’
Susie weighs this. Archie has not been such an honest communicator, or he would have told her about the adoption.
‘Is there something else, Susie? Something this journo might know about?’
She shakes her head. ‘No!’ It comes out more forcefully than she intended.
‘You don’t have to tell me, darling.’
Maitland is outside it all, he’s only here for a few days and she knows she can trust him. She says, hesitantly. ‘I found something out recently. And ever since, things seem to have been going wrong. But I’m sure it’s just coincidence.’ She finds that talking is a huge relief.
‘Jeez, Susie,’ he says when she has stopped, ‘that’s some story. So have you met her? Your mother?’
Susie shakes her head. ‘Not yet, no. I’ve started writing to her a bit.’
‘And?’
‘It’s difficult.’
‘I guess it must be. Do you want to meet her?’
‘I’m not sure. I ... ought to want to.’
Maitland says softly, ‘What are you really afraid of, sweetie?’
Goodness, he’s perceptive. It occurs to her that Maitland is extraordinarily clever and that perhaps his madcap persona was deliberately constructed from the beginning. She says, hesitantly, ‘Maybe that it would make me a different person, in some way – and that I won’t like that person? It’s already made me look at Archie differently. Everything feels as if it’s shifting. The whole landscape of my life is unfamiliar. Sometimes I think I have to meet her, so that I can resolve everything that’s going round and round in my head. Other times I think I can’t bear the idea of meeting her because that would diminish all that’s happened in my life so far.’
Maitland goes to the heart of the matter at once. ‘I do think you’ve inadvertently opened Pandora’s box, darling, and now it’s impossible to stuff everything back into it.’
She thinks about that for a long time. At last she says quietly, ‘I guess I’m going to have to face my demons.’
‘Good girl. Is this story what’s at the bottom of all this newspaper stuff, do you think?’
‘Oh no,’ Susie says. ‘No, I don’t see how it could be.’
They part affectionately. Meeting him has been good, she has laid to rest one ghost. Now she knows she must face another spectre.
At Cairn Cottage, Archie takes time out to fetch the newspapers from Hailesbank. He’s exhausted with the strain of composing, but particularly drained because he still has no inspiration for the words to his tune. He pours coffee and sits at the kitchen table, determined to enjoy half an hour’s tranquillity before Sandie arrives.
A headline on page five catches his eye. Creative Scotland strategy launch boosted by presence of star. Susie will have been at that launch, it’s square in the middle of her territory. He scans the story with scant enthusiasm, then his eye stops dead, arrested by two words.
Maitland Forbes.
So Maitland is back.
‘Scots-born Hollywood star Maitland Forbes created a sensation last night by appearing at the launch in the Scottish Parliament of the new Creative Scotland strategy. Forbes, who is in Edinburgh only until Wednesday evening—’
Today is Wednesday. Hating himself, Archie thinks of a pretext and dials Susie’s number in the Parliament. It’s Karen who answers. ‘Hi Archie, good to hear you. How’s the album coming along?’
‘Not bad, Karen, thank you. Is Susie there by any chance? I wanted to check whether she’s remembered she has a dental appointment this afternoon?’
Karen sounds puzzled. ‘This afternoon? I don’t think— oh I see it, Archie, it’s next Wednesday. Just as well, because she’s gone out to lunch with someone.’
‘Oh really?’ His heart sinks, but he is compelled to probe further. ‘Business or pleasure?’
‘I haven’t a clue, Archie. Sorry. She didn’t say.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
But it does matter. To Archie, it matters very much.
Chapter Fourteen
Susie edges towards the meeting with her mother with caution. There are more letters, more doubts, more urgings from Mannie. The Easter recess comes and goes and this year there’s no quick trip with Archie to Prague or Nice or to a cottage in the Highlands, because their relationship has dwindled to the politeness of strangers.
Susie sometimes feels as though she’s fighting on all fronts. She’s at war with her Party on funding cuts, she’s struggling to help Rivo Trust to find a way out of its mess and she’s drowning in the sheer number of emails that require her daily attention.
Eventually, she decides that her apprehension about meeting her mother is like a festering wound – it has to be dealt with. Once it has been swabbed clean, she’ll be able to tick it off her Things To Do list and get on with her life. So a few weeks after lunching with Maitland, Susie find
s herself standing in her bedroom in an agony of indecision.
Business suit or jeans? The neat green knee-length broderie anglaise skirt teamed with a cream cardi and pearls? Or perhaps just black trousers and the white linen jacket with the tiny flowers embroidered on it? What is most appropriate?
Meeting your mother for the first time, she reflects with a growing sense of panic, must surely be the most important day in your life. For most people it happens on Day One: your birthday. And then you spend the rest of your life learning to love her or loathe her; testing the boundaries of her love; vowing never to grow into the person you think she is; making your own mistakes with her but, above all, whether she’s a rock, a yardstick, an irritant or your best friend, in the safe and secure knowledge that she is your mother. But this is not so for her. She has so many things to learn, and to unlearn. So many lost years to recapture. So many secrets to uncover.
The pile of discarded clothing on the bed grows while Susie struggles to work out how to present herself to this new mother of hers. She settles in the end for the black trousers and white linen jacket, adding a simple black tee and the pearls. Easy dressing. Presentable but not over the top. Neutral. Because the truth of the matter is that she has absolutely no idea what kind of person her mother is, what she looks like, what her tastes are, her background, her life – nothing.
‘Are you certain you’re ready for this?’ Helen at Birthlink asked when they made the arrangements. ‘We do suggest not meeting if you are in any way stressed about anything in your life.’
Stressed? Susie just laughed.
In her mind, her hopes are well defined – that this meeting will in some magical way resolve all her emotional turbulence.
She takes a last look at herself in the bedroom mirror, sees the billowing caramel-gold hair, the amber eyes so many people described as ‘extraordinary’, the heart-shaped face, still presentably pretty even in middle age. Will she look like her mother? As the reality of the imminent meeting takes hold, her nerves ratchet up a gear. She has enlisted Mannie’s support, but it’s Archie she longs to confide in. She even hopes, as she runs downstairs, that he might be in the kitchen and that she can bridge the ridiculous gulf between them, that he’ll hold her and kiss her and tell her everything is going to be all right.
But he isn’t in the kitchen. Instead, a note is propped against the kettle:
‘Sandie’s here. We’re composing today. Please do not disturb.’
The surge of disappointment almost swamps her.
The café on the first floor of the bookshop at the west end of Princes Street has stunning views over the Gardens and south towards the Castle. It’s a pleasant and popular spot for a break from browsing and buying. Mannie has settled at a table right by the window and Susie spots her daughter’s dark hair and pale, perfect face right away.
‘Hello, darling.’
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Thanks for coming. Was it difficult? Taking the time, I mean.’
‘No problem.’ Mannie indicates her laptop and the ever-present mobile. ‘I can work while you’re meeting her. Joys of modern technology. There’s no such thing as escape.’
Susie grimaces. ‘Don’t I know it.’
‘How long do you think you’ll be?’
‘Not long, I shouldn’t think. It’ll be—’ she pauses, overtaken by uncharacteristic anxiety, ‘—a little difficult. Best to keep it short.’
Mannie says, ‘It’ll be brilliant. I’m sure it will,’ and places a reassuring hand over her mother’s.
‘Yes. Thank you. You will wait for me? Afterwards?’
‘Of course I’ll wait. That’s what I’m here for. ’
Susie glances at her watch. ‘Thanks. Well. Better go, I suppose.’
‘It’s not the dentist, Mum. It’s a joyous occasion.’
She manages a smile. ‘I know. I’m really looking forward to it.’ In a way this is true, but her apprehension is great nevertheless. ‘Back soon, then.’
‘Don’t worry, Mum.’
Birthlink’s modest premises are in an unlikely spot above the Golden Dragon Chinese restaurant in Castle Street. There are a few stone steps, a white painted door in need of some attention, then a winding staircase that leads up a narrow entryway to the first floor offices. In these humble rooms, Susie thinks as she mounts the scrubbed stone stairway of the interior with ever-increasing apprehension, dreams are realised or broken, lives mended or ruined for ever.
‘We’ll ask your mother to come a little early,’ Helen has told her. ‘We’ll get her settled comfortably. We’ve found that it’s not a great idea to meet for the first time by bumping into each other on the stair.’
Susie senses years of experience, deep sensitivity, calmness and perception. The staff have been so good to her. Everything has been done just as it should be – the careful beginnings, the letters delivered through their mediation, the painstaking arrangements for this meeting. Still, the apprehension is indescribable. Only one thing mitigates the sense of mounting panic – the understanding that her mother, waiting inside the room at the back of the office, must be feeling something very similar.
‘Hello, Susie.’ Helen is smiling, calm, reassuring. ‘Ready for this?’
‘I think so.’
‘Sure?’
‘Let’s do it.’
Her mother is looking out of the window. She’s fidgeting with the cord of the blind, twisting it between her fingers, and her back is rigid with tension. What kind of being has Susie imagined? The eighteen-year-old who gave her away? Some little old woman, twisted by regret and bitterness? Some aged reflection of herself? Her mother turns, and Susie realises that she’s none of these things. She is small-boned and slight, a little shorter than Susie, her hair a glorious silver, her eyes the colour of sage and bright as shiny buttons. She has an impression of tidiness and a blur of aubergine before she finds herself locked in a fierce embrace. She is filled with hope and confusion – but not love, not the overwhelming visceral feeling she has longed for and feared in almost equal measure.
There are tears – a few – and hankies, and anxious laughter and at some point, Susie realises, Helen has discreetly withdrawn so that she is alone with her mother.
‘I knew you must be Susie Wallace,’ Joyce says when they break apart at last.
Susie has kept her full name private until now, fearful that knowledge of her celebrity might influence her mother’s decisions and feelings.
‘Really? What made you think that?’
She studies her mother, looking for something familiar that might tie her to this person. There’s something about the way she carries her head, perhaps, upright and a little defiant? Maybe the way her mouth curls and moves as she speaks is a bit like her own?
‘You’re so like— I can see—’ Her voice tails off and she shakes her head. ‘You’re my daughter, that’s all that matters to me.’ She repeats the word with a kind of wonderment. ‘My daughter.’ Her eyes are still bright; tears near the surface, pride holding them back. ‘All these years. Every day, thinking about you, thinking about my baby, not knowing – not daring to believe – that I would ever see you again. And here you are. Here you are.’
She sits down gingerly on a low chair, her back straight as a pencil and her body just as slim. The suit, Susie now sees, is a classic, nicely cut and neither old-fashioned nor trendy. Her mother has a sense of occasion. Susie takes a moment about her choice of seat. To face each other or sit side by side? To be close enough to touch, or a little further removed while they each make their assessment? Space and time to examine, with care, the tender surfaces of exposed emotion?
She settles back, just out of reach. For her part there’s caution, certainly. Curiosity, perhaps. Maybe there’s love in the mix, maybe there’s still anger – a deep-seated fury at what this woman has done to her, how some moment of irresponsibility has caused her to be brought into the world, then given away for fate to treat as it would.
‘I need to kn
ow things,’ she says.
‘Of course. Where do you want me to start?’
Susie draws a deep breath. ‘Tell me about my father.’
There’s a pause. It’s so long that she wonders if Joyce might, even now, baulk at giving her the information she craves. At last she says, ‘You’ve got his hair. When you walked in the door, my breath was taken away by that.’
‘Did you love him?’
Joyce gives a short laugh. ‘It was fifty years ago and the world was a very different place. I was seventeen years old and I was working in a tea room near the theatre in Glasgow as a waitress. It was a summer holiday job with long hours and poor pay, but I was happy because the money gave me some small kind of freedom.
‘And I liked the actors. They came in for their tea before the show quite often. High tea, we served in those days. Poached egg on toast followed by bread and jam, pancakes and scones, with a big pot of tea to wash it down. Fish and chips on a Friday. Mutton pie and beans instead of poached eggs some days.
‘There was one of the actors took a shine to me, a young lad. Jimmy, his name was. He had glorious red-gold hair and honey coloured eyes and he was quick and funny and teasing. All the girls were a bit in love with him, but it was me he fancied. I was proud as punch when he asked me out.’
Susie finds she hasn’t been breathing. Her father was an actor? Maybe one bit of her life is about to make sense. As Joyce pauses reflectively, she inhales deeply. Her story is about to unravel.
‘He had difficult hours, of course, being in the theatre and all, but I used to wait for him at the stage door and then we’d be off out, to the dancing, to a party at some friend’s flat, then eventually to his own room.’
She glances across at Susie. ‘It was very different then. To go with a boy like that was chancy. I relied on Jimmy ... We thought we were being careful. We had such fun. What a boy he was! He made me feel like a queen, even though we had no money. He had the gift of the Irish for talking. Oh, he was a charmer. Did I love him? Yes, at the time, I thought I did, I was besotted with him.’
She stops talking for so long that Susie has to prompt her.
Loving Susie: The Heartlands series Page 14