The Mistake

by Wendy James

  Jodie glares defensively, trying to conceal her wretchedness, and fearing the woman’s objections, her judgement. But her expression hasn’t altered.

  ‘Well, it’s not a simple decision – not one a girl as young as you should be expected to make so quickly.’

  ‘But who organises these things? I need to find whoever it is that can arrange things.’ Now that the words are out, the idea made concrete, Jodie is beginning to feel the air fill her lungs again; her limbs seem as if they might be attached to her body, her body to her mind. ‘Isn’t there something I can do, something I can sign? I know there are people desperate to adopt out there. You hear all these stories about how hard it is.’ She speaks in a rush, as if that will somehow move things along faster.

  The woman sits on the edge of her bed. ‘Now, Jodie. Hold up a bit. It’s not as simple as you think – they won’t just let you give the bub away like that.’ She takes hold of Jodie’s hand, almost absent-mindedly. ‘You’ll have to have some sort of social worker talk to you, and then she’ll refer you on to a psychologist to make sure it’s not an impulsive decision, or just a symptom of post-natal depression, for instance – something you’ll come to regret. They’ll want you to spend some time with the child now – to make sure. Then they’ll put the baby into foster care for a while, so you have an opportunity to reconsider. It might be quite a while before it’s all finalised. Adoption’s not something you can do lightly – there are consequences for both the mother and the child, you know. And it can come back to haunt you down the track. You need to take time and see how you heal, how you think later, when you’ve recovered. You might feel like there’s no way you can deal with it all today, but believe me, so many first time mothers feel just this way straight after they’ve given birth. You’re exhausted, terrified, can’t see how you’ll cope. What you’re experiencing isn’t unusual at all.’

  Jodie pulls her hand out of the woman’s warm clasp, pushes herself up to sitting. ‘I’m not depressed, and I’m not terrified – well not in that way.’ She speaks slowly now, carefully, wanting the woman to believe that she is thinking clearly, that she means what she says, that it’s not spontaneous, a momentary consequence of pain and exhaustion. ‘I’ve had months to think about this, and I don’t want it. I really just want someone to take the baby away now. Can’t I just sign something and go home and get on with my life? I’m not going to change my mind. Truly.’

  Sheila sits quietly, thinking. Jodie can’t read her expression. ‘Look, you’ve just been through something huge – even a straightforward birth is an ordeal. You need a good sleep, a proper meal. I’ll arrange to have someone come and talk to you then. You haven’t even seen your little girl, yet. You really need to —’

  ‘No. Please.’ Jodie’s voice is sharp with panic. ‘Don’t you understand? I don’t need to see her. I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to touch her. I want her – I want her to be gone. Oh, God.’ She turns away, closes her suddenly stinging eyes. ‘Isn’t there someone who can just make it all go away? This is like some sort of crazy nightmare.’ Then, like the child that she is: ‘I wish I was dead.’

  The woman takes Jodie’s hand gently between her own again, rubbing them as if trying to warm her. ‘Now, it’s not that bad, surely?’

  Jodie says nothing, pushes her face into the starchy hospital pillow, tries hard to swallow her sobs.

  The woman sits quietly for a moment, then moves closer, strokes Jodie’s hair gently, her voice a soothing whisper.

  ‘There is … there may be something, if you’re quite certain you don’t want her. There might be some sort of private arrangement that can be made more quickly, without all the fuss.’ Her voice drifts, but Jodie, attentive now, waits for the woman to continue. ‘The rules for adoption are very … rigid, and there are sometimes good people out there who can’t adopt through the official channels. They might be too old, or not married – just some silly rule that means they’re deemed less suitable. But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t make perfect parents, given the opportunity.’

  Jodie turns to her now. ‘Does that mean … Do you think you can help me?’

  ‘Well.’ The woman is stroking her hand with a vague, unfocused tenderness, as if her mind is far away. ‘I might just be able to help you, sweetheart. I might be able to find a solution.’

  The woman sighs, and lets go of Jodie’s hand, patting her on the shoulder. ‘Now, you just sit up and wipe your eyes. I’ll bring something to eat and then see if you can have yourself a good sleep.’ She plumps up the pillows behind Jodie’s back. ‘I’ll get them to keep the baby in the nursery for a while longer – make sure you’re not disturbed. And when you wake up, Sheila will have found you a solution. Is it a deal?’ She holds out her hand, and Jodie grabs it, clings on. It’s a deal.

  6

  The letter arrives in the week before Christmas. Since the dramas of early spring, life has returned to normal: though she still has a slight limp, Hannah’s leg has healed beautifully, and despite the occasional concerned inquiry into her wellbeing from Angus, Jodie has managed to put the whole episode at the hospital to the back of her mind. She assumes that the envelope will only hold another Christmas card to add to the pile, opens the envelope unsuspectingly, doesn’t even bother to glance at the back, to check the address. It is only one page, and somehow official looking, though it is hand written, in small, upright printing, on smooth unlined paper.

  Dear Jodie,

  I’m writing to let you know that according to a search that was made subsequent to our conversation in September, it appears there is no official record of an adoption being processed for your daughter Elsa Mary. Further inquiries also indicate that her birth was never registered.

  As it is clearly my legal duty to report such findings, I have made these discoveries known to the relevant authorities, including the police. However, because our conversation was not strictly official, and what you told me was in confidence, I thought it only right that I should contact you personally with this information.

  Yours sincerely,

  Debbie West

  Jodie crumples the letter up tightly in her hand and shoves it in the pocket of her jeans. She tears open the next envelope in the pile, then the next, briskly adding each bright Christmas card to the display on the kitchen dresser, without pausing to read the inscriptions.

  She leaves the paper in her pocket, can feel the ungainly lump through the denim, its slight diminishing whenever she sits down. She extracts it from her pocket later that evening, when both children have disappeared for the night – Tom to Christmas-coloured dreams, Hannah to a movie and then a sleepover. Angus is sitting on the lounge room couch, drinking red wine and channel surfing, and she hands the note to him, crushed and body-warm, without a word, then turns to the window and gazes, unseeing, into the darkness of the garden.

  When she’s sure he’s had time to read the letter through, she speaks, still looking out into the night. ‘What I didn’t tell you before … what I didn’t tell Debbie, was that the adoption wasn’t regular. It was a private arrangement with the matron. Completely illegal, I suppose?’ Jodie tells her husband now – this story she’s never told anyone – clearly and concisely, never faltering, her words measured, calm.

  She waits through an interminable silence, turning back only when she hears him stand. Jodie looks at him, desperate for some sort of reassurance, a clue to what he is thinking, what should be done, but his expression is closed; he doesn’t meet her eye. His face is strangely red, and he rubs at his eyes, shuffles his feet; his breath loud and ragged.

  ‘Angus? Are you okay? It’s not that bad, surely?’ She moves towards him, holding out a hand as if in supplication, but he moves out of her reach. ‘Jode, I … have to —’ He rushes past her before he finishes the sentence, exits the room rapidly, almost running, knocking over his half-full glass in his haste.

  Jodie follows him up the hall to his study, but the door has locked behind him. She taps, calls
out, worried now. ‘Angus? Angus, are you all right? Angus. Can you open the door?’ There is a long silence, then, his voice comes low and breathy: ‘It’s okay, Jode. Just remembered something I’d forgotten to do at work. Urgent. Gave me a bit of a shock. I just have to make a couple of calls. I’ll be back down in a minute.’

  She goes back to the lounge room and mops up the worst of the spill, then waits, certain that he’ll return with assurances, answers, some sort of a plan. After what feels like an age, she becomes aware of the dark rumble of Angus’s voice coming from the office and she moves back up the hall carefully, trying hard not to make a noise on the timber floor. Even before she can make out the words, she can hear the intonation – Angus’s voice has returned to normal, is calm, businesslike, assured. She stands as close to the door as she dares, can just make out his side of the conversation.

  ‘No, no. It must have been illegal – she received some sort of a payment …

  ‘To be honest, Pete, I haven’t really wanted to ask anything else. And if it comes to that, maybe it’s better that I know nothing. I don’t know which laws we’re dealing with here, or what the legal position would be after so many years. But even if the adoption itself can’t be prosecuted, I suspect that there’d have to be some sort of investigation. That somebody somewhere’s going to want to know why the birth wasn’t registered and what happened to that child.

  ‘I don’t think so, no. She says she doesn’t remember anything about the people who took the baby, only that they were quite old. Evidently the matron arranged it all, told her that everything was kosher.

  ‘Look, do you think you could come over? I know, I know … I’m really sorry. It’s just that I have a bit of a bad feeling about this letter, mate. I haven’t even discussed it with Jodie yet, don’t want to panic her, but it just occurred to me that we should do something pretty quickly … go over the possibilities. If there’s any likelihood of the police getting involved. Maybe we could make some sort of contingency plan?’

  Jodie creeps back into the lounge, grabs the bottle of red wine as she passes through the kitchen. Soon she hears the ensuite shower running and then the low murmur of the television in Angus’s office. She wonders about his continued avoidance, thinks about going in and confronting him, asking him why he felt the need to arrange a visit from a solicitor – even if he is their friend – without consulting her, but somehow it’s all too hard. Instead, she fills her glass to the brim, waits.

  Angus answers the door when Pete arrives, then leads him down the hallway and into the lounge, where Jodie’s still sitting, polishing off the last of the bottle of red. Angus answers her questioning glare with an oddly apologetic smile, before backing into the kitchen to get Peter a glass, open another bottle. She gets up to greet him, ready with a quip about the incongruity of him bringing his briefcase when he’s so obviously in holiday mode, wearing worn shorts, thongs, sporting the beginnings of a beard, but the joke shrivels on her lips when he evades her outstretched arms and gives her hand a cursory squeeze instead, reluctantly offering a bristly cheek.

  ‘Jodie. How are you? How’s Hannah’s leg?’

  ‘Well, the plaster’s been off for weeks now …’

  But he’s not really listening. ‘Bloody children,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘There’s always some drama. Sometimes you’ve got to wonder if it’s worth it.’

  She is stung by his conspicuous lack of warmth, his awkward formality. ‘It’s lovely to see you, Peter, at any time of the day.’ She smiles to lighten the atmosphere. ‘But I’m not quite sure …?’

  ‘Well. Angus has told me all about … about your situation, Jodie. Now, I’m not actually a specialist in this sort of thing, though it’s a very odd situation and I’m not sure where we would find an expert. Anyway, Angus thought it might be a good idea if we put our heads together and tried to work out a plan of action, work out what sort of, well, what sort of strategies we can put in place to minimise the damage. If it comes to that, which of course it may not.’

  He sits down abruptly, and she follows, sits directly opposite him on the long sofa. He pulls a notebook and pen out of his case and places them precisely on the coffee table, as if he’s setting up his office desk. He hasn’t looked at her properly since he arrived, and now his eyes dart back towards the kitchen. He clears his throat, shifts nervously in his seat.

  Angus finally returns, pours them each a glass and sits down beside Jodie. Gives her a reassuring smile, takes her hand.

  ‘So,’ Pete says finally. ‘Can you show me this letter?’

  Angus pulls the letter from his top pocket – folded neatly now, but there’s no disguising the evidence of its earlier ill-treatment – and hands it over.

  Pete smooths his fingers over the letter’s dog-eared edges as he reads. His expression gives nothing away, retains its sober but impassive cast.

  ‘Well,’ Angus’s voice is edgy with anxiety, ‘what do you think? Could it go any further?’

  Pete gives him a brief, grim smile, nods his head slowly. ‘I’m afraid it could go quite a long way, mate. But before we start panicking and before we think about making any plans, I need you to tell me what you told Angus, Jodie. He’s given me a rough outline, but I really need to hear it from you. The whole story.’

  Peter sits very still, with his eyes half closed as she tells him, his fingers peaked beneath his chin. He nods now and then, but says little – occasionally double-checking a statement or gently insisting that she keeps the narrative ordered. He wants the bare bones only, he says, is not interested in motivation or explanation – nothing but the facts. Angus paces around the room while Jodie speaks, interjecting at various junctures, worried that she has changed details, or left out some vital element.

  When she has finished, Jodie leans back in her chair, exhausted. There’s a strange sense of disembodiment connected to retelling the tale, and an unexpected sense of relief, release.

  ‘Well?’ She gives Peter a weak smile, and for the first time since his arrival he looks at her properly, his own smile slight, but genuine, and, she imagines, a little apologetic.

  ‘Well.’ He sighs and gives his shoulders a little shake, rubs the back of his neck.

  ‘So what do you think, Pete?’ Angus sits down heavily beside her again. ‘Should we be worried?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Peter’s tone is neutral, but his face is sombre. ‘There’s quite a lot here to be worried about, I think. In the first instance there’s the adoption itself. Look, we can argue that Jodie was young, that she was coerced, but she was over eighteen and it would be hard to argue that she didn’t know that what she was doing was wrong. She did it outside the system – knowingly and for money. And then …’ He falters.

  ‘What?’ Jodie’s voice feels like it’s coming from far away.

  Peter clears his throat. ‘I’m almost certain the authorities will institute a search – they’ll have to. Then there’s a very strong possibility that they won’t be able to locate the child, after all this time, that no one will want to admit to adopting her this way. Why would they, after all? There would have been reasons that this couple didn’t go through the ordinary channels. I can’t imagine them volunteering the information as they’d be liable to prosecution, too. So then, assuming that the child – the young woman now – can’t be found … well, that will open a Pandora’s box.’

  ‘What do you mean? Why wouldn’t the police assume what you suggested – that these people just don’t want to be found? Why would they take it any further?’

  ‘It’s not that simple, Jodie. The investigating police will have to follow certain lines of inquiry. They have no choice. If the search for the child comes up negative, then she becomes, to all intents and purposes, a missing person. Last seen in your company.’

  ‘But I still don’t understand what you mean by a Pandora’s box. Are you saying that they won’t necessarily believe what I tell them if these people don’t come forward? But that doesn’t make any sense at all. She c
ould be anywhere now. Surely they’ll be able to work that out.’ Jodie turns to her husband, who is watching her intently. ‘Angus?’

  Angus takes her hand again, but it’s Pete who answers. ‘It’s not a matter of what they believe, Jodie. A missing person investigation can quickly morph into something else – especially when there’s bugger-all evidence to back up your statement. There might be a thousand possibilities that can never be proven – the child could have been taken overseas, she could have been taken by aliens, who knows. And there may only ever be circumstantial evidence to incriminate you – but that can be enough. There are precedents.’

  ‘Incriminate me? Precedents for what?’

  This time it’s Angus who answers. ‘Sweetheart. Pete is just trying to give us the worst case scenario. It’s only the remotest possibility, but there’s a chance that the police could investigate you, if all else fails, just to make sure that you didn’t harm the child.’

  ‘But —’

  He interrupts, ‘But as I said, it’s highly unlikely – so let’s not get too hung up on that right now. I’m sure Pete has some genius idea about how we can avoid any unnecessary … complications.’ He turns to his friend. ‘So where do we start? What should we do? Should we just wait and see what happens? Wait to see what they – the authorities, the police, whoever – are planning to do?’

  Peter thinks a moment, drumming his fingers on his knees. ‘This might seem counterintuitive to you both, but I have a feeling that it might be smarter to pre-empt them. Make a huge effort to stay one step ahead.’

  ‘And what would that entail?’ Jodie can hear the anxiety leaching from Angus’s voice; as his professional self engages, he stops slouching, sits up straight, looking alert. Jodie, though, feels slightly befuddled, knows she has missed some vital point in the proceedings, but is grateful to have it all taken away from her, content to let them take her in hand, take her over. It’s almost as if she isn’t there, isn’t Angus’s wife, Peter’s friend, but merely a problem to be solved. She relaxes, curling up on the lounge with her wine, contributes little, lets the men’s words, their plans, wash over her.