One of the first decisions I made after meeting my birth father was to have Michael and Rose back properly. I reckoned that if I was going to hurt anyone, I would have done it by now. Obviously I had hurt Neil, but that was different. I hadn’t blacked out then. To my shame I didn’t even have that excuse. I had been fully aware during the whole thing.
It was lovely having them back again. Neil made sure that he was with me as much of the time as possible when I was with the children — just in case I went loopy on them. He went into work after they had left for school, and made sure that he was home as soon as possible after they got home. He used up a lot of his annual leave in half-days.
I saw Colin again. On my own this time. It turned out that the missing phrenology head, the scratches on his face and the bandaged wrist were all as a result of his cat — Mathilda. She had knocked over the head, which smashed on the floor, but she had stayed balanced on the small table she had knocked it from. Colin tried to lift her off the table so that she wouldn’t cut herself on the broken bust, and she scratched him. He fell back and cut his wrist on one of the broken pieces. I met Mathilda. I still didn’t like cats.
I had an appointment date through for my psychiatric assessment. It sent me into a frenzy of tidying up around the house. I had two weeks to go.
The dreams of the girls being killed and dragged into oblivion were a constant, though unwanted, companion. Whether awake or asleep they were always with me. Always there in my conscious and unconscious mind.
We talked more than we had done for a long time. Neil and me. Talked about everything. All the things we had done together, all the things we would like to do in the future. At one level, it helped to keep me positive. To think about the places we would go and the lives we would live. But, of course, on another level it scared the shit out of me. I wasn’t sure that my future held anything more than being secured in a hospital somewhere, medicated up to my eyeballs.
Dad was brilliant — the dad who took me fishing and helped explain the world to me.
‘Chris,’ he said. ‘We will always be here for you. We’ll make sure Michael and Rose aren’t taken away. Neil is there for them, and we are too. Besides, you’re not going to be locked up anywhere. You’ll be fine.’
And when he said it, I believed it. Against my own thoughts and suspicions, I felt I could hold onto what my dad said, because he was my dad.
I told Mum, the one who baked cakes with me, about my birth mother. About her suicide.
‘Oh how awful,’ Mum said. ‘I’m so sorry, darling.’
‘He found her on the stairs,’ I said. ‘She had done it sometime in the night. Obviously just couldn’t take it anymore. Neil and I went to her grave, . Tidied it up a bit. No one had been there for years.’
‘Are you going to see him again soon?’ Dad said. ‘Your father?’
His words twisted inside me. I know he hadn’t meant them to. He was just trying to be as understanding as possible. Trying to make it as easy as possible for me.
‘You’re my dad,’ I said. ‘You always have been and always will be. Nothing will ever change that. Richard Lapton is not much more than a stranger to me. He may be my birth father, but he won’t ever be my dad.’
‘I don’t know what else to call him,’ Dad said. ‘Don’t know the words to use.’
Neither did I. It was difficult for us all.
‘Richard, I suppose,’ I said.
‘Are you going to see Richard again?’ Dad said.
‘I think so. There are so many questions that I feel I need answers to. I don’t know about long-term, but certainly for the moment I think I need to see him as often as I can. What with the assessment coming up. I may not get the chance in the future.’
The next time I went to see my Richard, I went alone. I still couldn’t risk driving. The train from Bristol to St Germans took just under three hours, including a change at Plymouth. A week had passed since our first encounter. In truth, I had wanted to go back down again the very next day, but we both needed a bit of time to soak up what had happened. I rang him instead, and he sounded happy to hear from me.
‘I feel a bit funny about what to call you,’ I said.
‘Why don’t you call me Richard.’
He met me at the station. Although the house was only a few minutes away, he had come by car.
‘Shall I take you for a coffee?’ he said.
We drove to the outskirts of St Germans and parked outside what looked to me like a large wooden cabin. There were quite a few cars in the car park and a campsite in a field adjoining the cabin.
‘There are lots of places like this,’ he said. ‘Throughout Cornwall. Lovely food too.’
I hadn’t realised how hungry I was. An “All day breakfast” was just what I needed. Richard had toast.
‘I went to Cawsand,’ I said. ‘To the church. It’s ever so overgrown there.’
‘I haven’t been down there for quite some time,’ he said. ‘I suppose it was too painful for me really. Brought back too many memories. Did you find …?’
I nodded.
‘We cleared some of the undergrowth and brambles. Made it look a bit nicer. But the whole graveyard is seriously in need of some love and attention.’
I didn’t mention going to the house. I didn’t want to stir up any memories that he had buried deep within him.
He looked out of the cafe window. I wondered if he was looking in the direction of Cawsand.
‘It was such a shock,’ he said. ‘You and Neil turning up like that. Took me completely by surprise. You know, you hope for things. Wonder if things will ever happen. And then when they don’t, year after year, when you’ve waited for so long, you just resign yourself. Just accept that they never will happen. That your life just isn’t going to be like that. And then there you were — on my doorstep. Just like that.’
I wanted to reach out and hold his hand. Break through the physical barrier that the years had built. Just a touch of our hands would heal us both, send the years flying away. His lips started trembling.
‘Marjorie spoke to me, at the golf club,’ he said. ‘Told me that you and Neil had been to see her. She was under the impression that you both worked for a bank, that I had some money coming to me.’
He turned his gaze from the window and looked directly into my eyes. I blushed.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know how else to find you. It wasn’t Marjorie’s fault. Neil does work at the bank, but I just needed to get an address. I am sorry.’
His mouth tightened into a smile. His lips stopped trembling.
‘It’s all for the best though, isn’t it,’ he said. ‘All’s well that ends well.’
We sat in silence for a few minutes. Both staring out of the window, both caught up in our own thoughts. I wondered if any of those thoughts crossed over. Was he too thinking of my mother? Wondering what might have happened if she hadn’t been afflicted? What if?
‘How bad was she?’ I said.
His head didn’t move from the window. He blinked a couple of times, swallowed.
‘Did you manage to find any medical records?’ he said.
‘No. You can’t get that sort of thing Online. I spoke to the adoption adviser about it, but she said that it probably wouldn’t be possible to find them even if they still existed. Most GP records are only kept for ten years after the death of a patient. It’s longer for mental health issues, but not if the person dies.’
He stopped gazing out of the window and turned his attention fully to me.
‘I don’t really know what to say to you, Christine. I’ve told you what happened. First Emily taken away from us, then you. Obviously there was a reason for that. They don’t just take children into adoption for the sake of it. They must have recognised the illness in her. Maybe she even recognised it herself, perhaps that was why she drank so much. It’s hard to imagine anyone of sound mind taking their own life.’
‘But what was she like with you? How was she around you?’
/> He put his finger to his nose, rested his thumb underneath his chin. Just like he had at his house the first time we’d met.
‘I loved your mother very much. And she loved me. I never doubted that. In a way, that made it all the more difficult to bear. All her mood swings and strange behaviour. It seemed that for a long time I didn’t really know where I was with her. All I could do was give her the best love and attention possible. And that’s what I did. I just loved her.’
He smiled. And for a moment I saw what Neil had seen. An act. The briefest moment of performance. Then I blinked and it was gone.
‘Was she getting help?’ I said. ‘Was she seeing anyone about it?’
‘I think just her doctor,’ he said. ‘There wasn’t much else could be done back then. A little place like Cawsand. Plymouth probably had mental health people there, but your mother never went to see any of them. I think she was in denial, you see. Didn’t really think she was ill. Didn’t think she had a problem. I encouraged her to get help. I offered to go with her to see whoever she needed to see. But she wouldn’t hear of it. She was a strong woman. Very determined. Knew what she wanted.’
A warm feeling grew inside me. For the first time I was hearing the things I wanted to hear. About how like me she was. And how like her I was.
‘Do you have any photographs of her?’ I said.
He shook his head quickly.
‘None, I’m afraid. I think she destroyed a lot of them herself. As though she couldn’t bear to look at them. Because she blamed herself for what had happened with you and Emily. She didn’t like to look at what she thought she had become. I managed to keep a few, of course, but I think they were all lost when I moved. You know how it is. Boxes of stuff from one attic to the next, never opened. I daresay there might even be one in the attic at home somewhere, but it’s a nightmare up there. I can’t even get up there myself now. Too old and shaky. Like I said to you before — things like pictures just bring back too many bad memories. It’s hard.’
We left the cafe and walked to the car. At one point I thought he was going to take my arm, but I think he just stepped awkwardly on a pebble and nudged into me by mistake. We drove to his home. Ernie the cat sat in the living-room window looking out at us as we walked to the front door.
Richard fetched us both another coffee and we relaxed into the soft chairs in the sparse room.
‘I’ve been given a date for my assessment,’ I said. ‘My psychiatric assessment. It’s in two weeks time. That was why I really wanted to try to find as much about my mother’s history as possible. To see if it could shed any light on my current situation.’
Ernie hovered behind Richard’s chair. I wondered if he might lash out at him again.
‘It’s such a shame they don’t have the medical records,’ he said. ‘I’m sure they would have been so helpful.’
‘I told you I get dreams,’ I said. ‘Dreams and visions. They’re with me all the time really. Horrible nightmares. That’s why I asked you if she ever hurt anyone else. Because in these dreams, I hurt people. Badly hurt them. Kill them, I think.’
‘Could these not just be as a result of your head injuries?’ he said. ‘You said that your brain swelled?’
I nodded. ‘I’m sure that some of the things I’m experiencing are as a result of that. I’m sure they are. My sense of smell has gone haywire for a start. But this seems different. It’s like this is a part of me. Ingrained into me. That’s why I think it comes from my mother. That’s why it would have been so useful to find out about her family.’
We sipped our coffees. Behind Richard’s chair Ernie arched his back.
‘What was her maiden name?’ I said.
He took another sip of coffee and stared over my head. Surely he didn’t need to think about what his wife’s name was? Or was he considering what I might do with the name if he gave it to me?
‘The name was Pelland,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want you getting hurt.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t want you to be disappointed if you go looking for her family and don’t come up with anything. They never really wanted to know much about her when she came over here. And they certainly haven’t been in touch since she died. As you know, they didn’t even have the decency to come to her funeral. I’ve only just got my daughter back, I don’t want her getting hurt.’
I wanted to call him Dad. Or birth dad. Or something.
‘I would only research it Online,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t imagine going over to France looking for them. Besides, her parents would be dead by now, surely. Did she have any brothers or sisters?’
‘None that I knew of. She rarely spoke of her family in France. I think she was pleased to be shot of them. Pleased to be starting over.’
I wondered how awful they must have been for her to want to move to another country and not stay in touch. How awful they must have been for not coming to her funeral. How awful they were for not caring about their grandchildren.
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