by Karen Osman
Dear Diary,
After school, I went to C&A. It reminded me of the time Kath took us on our ‘girls’ shopping trip’. But unlike last time, I didn’t have Kath’s purse strings to pull at. Rifling through the clothes, I saw a mustard coloured zip-up top, which I slipped into my school bag. It would be perfect for the interview.
A.
Thursday 27 February 1975
Dear Diary,
Mark told me to meet him in the park tonight. It was really dark when I got there, and he made me jump when he called my name. I told him not to go sneaking up on me like that. He just laughed. We sat near a lamppost, the glow of its light shining on Mark’s open rucksack. Our breath showed up as clouds in the cold air. Inside was a pair of hot pants, some white platform boots, and a short-sleeved, V-necked top. I showed him my mustard top with the tags still on and he grinned at me, not needing to ask how I got it. He told me Keith was just going to ask me a few questions. He told me to say I was a quick learner. He also gave me a fake ID. I asked Mark what would happen if I got the job – what would I tell Ray and Kath? He said not to worry about it and just get the job first. Afterwards, despite the cold, we sat back and smoked before sneaking back. It was so bloody cold, I had to cuddle up to Julia to keep warm.
A.
Saturday 22 March 1975
Dear Diary,
My life is made up of school, Ray, homework, and working at the pub. It’s tiring but every time I feel the weight of my purse, I feel hopeful. This is my ticket to freedom. I work four nights a week at the pub and Ray and Kath are fine with it, but I have to give them a percentage of my wage. However, it does mean I get a bit more freedom and Mark is teaching me to think ‘long term’. He also reminded me about my tips. Keith is all right – a bit of a gobby flirt, but as long as he keeps his hands off me he can say what he likes. The punters can be a bit rowdy, especially if the football’s on, but it doesn’t take much to get a decent tip from them – a wink, a smile, and those drunken idiots are putty.
A.
25
Rosemary
Rosemary carefully pulled the cover up over James. After gently kissing his forehead, she looked into his face. What was once chiselled was now gaunt, his smile no match for the puppet lines that pulled his mouth downwards.
‘I love you, Rosie,’ he said now, cupping her face with his left hand.
‘I love you, too,’ she replied, stifling a sob.
‘Hey,’ he said gently, ‘everything’s going to be fine, OK?’
She nodded, determined not to cry. Turning away, she left the room to let him sleep. They’d been to the hospital that morning for chemotherapy and while James rarely said as much, she knew it took everything out of him.
Rosemary went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. She wasn’t going to think about what would happen if the treatment didn’t work. Instead, she was going to do what she had always done in a crisis: keep busy.
Pouring hot water over the tea leaves, she went over her to-do list. The main thing was the paperwork. Normally, James would see to it but with everything going on over the last few months, it had piled up and it needed to be sorted and filed. Rosemary also wanted to sort through the never-ending boxes of photos. She would do the paperwork first and she hoped by the time that was finished, James would be awake and they could go through the photos together.
*
Rosemary sat back in her chair satisfied. It had taken a couple of hours but she’d worked without a break sorting the correspondence into the manila files in the cabinet. It was mainly bills but there were also letters and circulars that needed dealing with.
As she put the key to the cabinet back in the desk drawer, she decided to check on James. Stepping into their bedroom, she saw the bed was empty. That was a good sign: he must be in the bathroom, she thought.
Going back to the office, she brought two boxes of photos into the living room so that they could sit on the sofa and sort through them together. She also made some tea, put two scones with cream and jam on plates, and placed everything on a tray to take through. James was already in the living room looking through their wedding album when she came in.
‘Hello, darling. How are you feeling?’
‘Much better, thanks. What have you been up to? Are those scones?’ he asked in surprise.
Rosemary smiled. ‘Well, I thought you might need a treat in return for helping me sort out all these photos.’
She sat down next to him and he put his arm around her while they flicked through the heavy pages together.
‘It was a marvellous day, our wedding, wasn’t it, Rosie? The best day of my life!’
Rosemary agreed. While James’s family had turned up in droves, she’d only had a few friends from her side. Despite that, she’d never had any regrets.
‘Look at the size of my kipper tie. And my flares! I loved those trousers. I wonder where they are now,’ reminisced James.
‘I have no idea. Probably in the loft somewhere,’ replied Rosemary, ‘which I also need to sort out at some point. What about the size of my beehive? I can’t believe I managed to get the veil over it!’
‘You were so beautiful,’ said James. ‘I remember it like it was yesterday.’
Rosemary leant her head on his shoulder, each of them lost in their wedding day. Kissing her on the forehead, James placed the album to one side and picked up an envelope with a hand-written label that said ‘Angela 1977’.
‘Angela was sixteen then,’ said James, as he browsed through the images. ‘Oh, but those were great days, too, weren’t they? You, me, and our lovely Angel.’
Rosemary looked at the photos and remembered. A family holiday to the Spanish islands where they’d spent their days sunbathing and swimming. The trips to London where they would have lunch at Brown’s Hotel and shop for new clothes. The relaxed evenings barbecuing in the garden when James got home from work. They were great days, as James said, but Rosemary wouldn’t want to go back to them.
‘Sorry, love, nature calls,’ said James.
Rosemary took the photos from him, so he could make his way to the bathroom. As she placed them back in the envelope, a picture fell out that she didn’t remember seeing before. Rosemary smiled as she saw the close-up shot of James and Angela hugging, grinning at the camera, their cheeks pressed together. Just then the doorbell rang and, with the photo still in hand, Rosemary went to answer it. She was expecting some clothes she’d ordered from a catalogue.
‘All right, Mrs Steele. How are you?’
‘Hello, Simon.’ She’d met the delivery man on several occasions and he was always friendly.
‘Sign here, please.’
She leant over to print and sign her name, the photo of Angela and James still in her hand.
‘Is that your husband and daughter? Don’t they look alike then! Two peas in a pod, I’d say.’
Taking the form and pen from her, he turned to leave.
‘See you next time, Mrs Steele.’
But Rosemary didn’t hear him. She was too engrossed staring at the photo.
26
Angela
The crackling fizz of walkie-talkies bounced off the walls as Angela climbed the stairwell.
‘One unidentified body, female with multiple stab wounds to the stomach and chest. Over.’
‘Received and confirmed. Awaiting ID. Over.’
Curious rather than alarmed, as she approached the third floor, Angela could see several people on the landing outside a flat. The door was open forty-five degrees and she glimpsed streaks of blood on the walls in the hallway.
‘You live here?’ asked a policeman, his uniform a smart contrast to the squalor of his surroundings.
‘No, we’re just visiting someone in this block,’ replied Angela as Susan came up behind her, slightly out of breath.
‘What happened?’ asked Susan, more to Angela than the constable.
‘Can’t disclose that at the moment, madam,’ he responded. ‘Which flat are you vis
iting?’
‘Flat 3B – this one here, just opposite.’
‘OK, well on you go then, nothing to see here.’
Susan was already ringing the doorbell but Angela had the sudden urge to bolt. A dog had started yapping and after a few seconds, she heard footsteps. Susan had prepared her for this very moment so why did she have a bad feeling? Was it the scene in the flat opposite giving her jitters? Either way, she didn’t feel ready. Her life was clean, organised, and busy. When she’d first seen the council estate where her birth mother lived, she tried to hide her dismay at the flashes of graffiti, overflowing rubbish bins, and blaring music. This area of London was a far cry from her own home. Susan had walked confidently past the groups of teenagers, some just loitering, some messing around on skateboards. As the sharpness of a wolf-whistle rang out across the open area of grey concrete, Angela wished she’d worn something a little subtler. She’d dressed carefully that morning, choosing a royal-blue skirt suit that hung off her slender frame and emphasised her height. She had told herself it was because she had an important client conference that day, but she wondered now if she’d wanted to convey a message to Evelyn: Look at how well I’m doing – I didn’t need you then and I don’t need you now.
‘Charlie, shut it,’ came a voice behind the door. The dog continued barking but as the door swung open, Angela finally came eye to eye with the woman who had given her away.
*
When she looked back, she was ashamed to say that her immediate thought was that Susan had made a mistake. How could this person be related to her? Evelyn was forty-five but looked at least a decade older, her greying hair had been combed from a side parting. Her wide-set eyes – the dark shadows underneath like bruises – scanned Angela from head to toe. A cigarette hung loosely from her thin lips, the crevices around her mouth confessing a lifetime of habit. Large, gold-hooped earrings sliced through her hair on either side of her pockmarked face, while a large, heart-shaped silver pendant hung around her neck. She was dressed in a lime-green, fuzzy jumper over black leggings, her cork slippers revealing flaked gold nail polish. As they stared at each other, Angela saw something in her eyes. Fear? Disdain? Envy? Excitement? It was a flare of emotion before a hardness returned.
‘Hello, Evelyn, nice to see you again. Can we come in?’ said Susan warmly.
Without responding, Evelyn snapped her eyes away from Angela’s to look over her shoulder at the commotion in the flat opposite.
‘What the hell is going on over there?’ she shouted.
The police officer turned. ‘There’s been an incident, madam.’
‘I can bloody see that – that’s not what I asked. Is that blood?’
‘Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to say.’
‘Of course not. Typical,’ muttered Evelyn, before turning her attention to her visitors.
‘Come in, come in,’ she said. She went back into the flat, leaving the door open. Angela looked at Susan questioningly. There wasn’t going to be any hugging today. Nodding her head indicating for Angela to enter, Susan stepped inside the flat and they both followed Evelyn and her dog down the hallway.
*
‘Bloody bobbies,’ said Evelyn. ‘I told them, I did,’ she said to Susan as if to convince her. ‘Even though I didn’t want to. But no one ever listens to me, do they?’ She continued talking about the issues she’d been having with the neighbours as if Angela wasn’t even there. Susan had explained Evelyn had had a difficult past with drugs and had lived on benefits for much of her life. She’d also warned her that Evelyn could come across as slightly defensive and to tread gently, but still, Angela found it difficult to hide her surprise.
As the sounds of her birth mother’s complaints continued to drift over her, Angela looked around the flat. She guessed it had been recently cleaned as she could see a smear of furniture polish across the coffee table, yet the smell of cigarette smoke lay heavy in the air and Angela spotted a heavy glass ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts on the arm of Evelyn’s chair. The dog was now sitting at his owner’s feet, cleaning himself, one leg cocked in the air. Angela felt a strong desire to open a window.
‘So,’ started Susan, gently interrupting Evelyn, ‘having spoken to you both, I’m here to help facilitate this first meeting between the two of you. Evelyn, I know Angela has a few questions. Do you think you might be up to answering—’
‘Look, before you even start,’ interrupted Evelyn, ‘it wasn’t my fault. Back in those days, we had no idea.’
Angela, too stunned to respond, was taken aback.
‘Anyway, it looks like you’ve turned out all right, doesn’t it?’ continued Evelyn, nodding at Angela, before drawing on what must have been her second cigarette in a matter of minutes. ‘I doubt you’d have turned out so well if you’d stayed wi’ me.’
She laughed, a cackle that sounded hollow to Angela’s ears and she knew then that Evelyn was nervous.
‘So, a solicitor, eh? That’s what Susan said you do. Bet you get paid lots of money an’ all.’
‘I work in the City,’ acknowledged Angela, ignoring the reference to her salary.
‘Fancy,’ smirked Evelyn. ‘Anyway, so what do you want to know? I’m not sure how much I can tell you because I was out of it for most of the time.’
Angela looked at Evelyn questioningly.
‘Giving birth,’ clarified Evelyn impatiently. ‘I presume that’s one of the things you want to know. It’s not like it is today with all these new-fangled ideas.’
Curiosity piqued, Angela waited for her to continue.
Sensing her interest, Evelyn seemed to straighten up a little. Angela realised that despite her abruptness, she liked being the centre of attention.
‘Well, like I said,’ she began, ‘I was eighteen back then and quite frankly I had no idea about anything. It was the early sixties and free love was all the rage – anything went. Things like AIDS didn’t even exist, and pregnancy was something that only happened to bad girls.’ Evelyn rolled her eyes.
‘It was only one morning when I struggled to fit into my clothes that I thought something might be up,’ she continued. ‘I mentioned it to Jackie – we were close – I had grown up with her and we went around together, although Mother didn’t approve. Not that she approved much of anything, mind. We used to sneak out at night and go to nightclubs. I’d been seeing Jimmy then for almost a year and most people thought of us as a couple. He gave me this pendant – vintage, it is now,’ smiled Evelyn, fingering the heavy silver between her fingers. ‘Probably worth a bob or two, an’ all. Anyway, I didn’t really believe Jackie when she said I might be pregnant but as I got bigger and bigger, I knew she was right. I was terrified. Mother never forgave me but she dealt with it likes she deals with everything – only thinking about herself. Stone-cold, that woman is. Mother made up some cock-and-bull story about me being offered a live-in service job and then sent me to a St Anne’s Mother & Baby Home. It’s not there any more but they used to take women in and arrange for the babies to go to children’s homes. It was hell, but what alternative did I have? I managed to get a message to Jimmy through Jackie. She told me he’d said he would sneak in to come and see me but whether he got caught, I don’t know as I never saw him again.’
Jimmy. Her parents had not said much about her birth father – mainly because they had had very little information themselves – only that he hadn’t been present at the birth.
At his name, Angela was assailed by a memory from her time at the children’s home. Going to bed, she would imagine that Marlon Brando was her real father. In her fantasy, he would find and rescue her, all the while apologising over and over for leaving her. It was a technique she used to help her fall asleep, her mind able to conjure up all sorts of pleasurable possibilities that were a world away from her current reality. As she remembered, she wondered why she held her birth mother solely accountable for giving her up while romanticising the role of her birth father. Was it unfair? Perhaps, but this woman who
sat before her, smoking her cigarettes, complaining, and generally playing victim, had carried her for nine months. Evelyn knew her before she even arrived into the world; knew when she liked to sleep and when she liked to kick and play. Evelyn would have put her hands on her belly, feeling life grow within, the roar of motherhood – promising to protect – already coursing through her body. So why hadn’t her birth mother listened? Did Evelyn even feel an inkling of remorse? She didn’t appear to.
Angela saw Evelyn look out of the window as if lost in her past. For a brief moment, Evelyn’s face softened, and Angela saw the woman that Evelyn perhaps once was – young, vibrant, and in love.
‘Can you tell me a bit more about Jimmy?’ asked Angela, still unsure if she wanted to shatter her childhood celebrity illusion.
‘Not really,’ replied Evelyn unhelpfully. ‘He was a bit of a cad, if truth be known. He was good-looking, that’s for sure. All the girls wanted him, so I was feeling rather pleased with myself that he’d chosen me. He’d grand ideas about his future. Ha! Can you imagine! He worked in his dad’s family business, but he never took it seriously. The last I heard of him was that he’d managed to wangle his way into a sales job. That was Jimmy: could talk his way into – and out of – anything,’ she added ruefully.
Angela wondered if she looked like him. Although, she didn’t see any similarity between herself and Evelyn, she had the sudden urge to ask her if she had a photo from when she was younger before the drugs got her.
‘But Jimmy never did the right thing, did he?’ continued Evelyn, her face hardening. ‘Never asked me to marry ’im, did he?’ she said, looking at Angela as if it was all her fault. ‘No. Obviously off with someone else and I never heard from him again.’
The room went silent.
‘That must have been very difficult for you,’ said Susan softly, her over-used response an annoying catchphrase to Angela’s ears.
‘Well, what could I do?’ said Evelyn, turning to Susan. ‘Life isn’t rainbows and unicorns. I had to get on with it and do the best I could.