Ten Doors Down

by Robert Tickner

  I lodged the form to get my birth certificate only a week ago, and was contacted by the Deputy Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages, who has been very kind and allowed me to come to his house to collect the birth certificate. If you want to talk to him in confidence about anything I am sure it would be okay.

  I don’t know how long it will take the bureaucracy to get this letter to you but I hope it is not too long.

  It is probably unlikely, but if you felt like getting together on 24th December (my birthday), a special day for both of us no doubt, it would be fine by me.

  Alternatively, I will be back in Sydney in late December or the New Year, and in the meantime can be contacted on the phone numbers above.

  Life is wonderful!!!

  I hope to meet you soon.

  I included a photograph of me, Jody, and Baby Jack in hospital, soon after Jack was born. Unfortunately, in my rush leaving Stanwell Park earlier that evening, I had inadvertently grabbed a photograph that didn’t fully reveal my face.

  Can you imagine my feelings of deep trepidation and fragility as I got out of my car at ten o’clock that Saturday night and walked to Mr Miles’s front door with my handwritten letter? I was about to find out the name of my mother.

  Mr Miles answered my knock and warmly welcomed me. I was full of apologies for being so late, but he told me not to worry. I think we may have gone inside his house briefly, but I was so nervous I don’t remember. He handed me a brown envelope, which I knew contained my original birth certificate and the letter from my mother.

  With only the dim veranda light to see by, I couldn’t help peeking inside the envelope. There was the birth certificate, and there was the name of my mother: Maida Anne Beasley. The space left for my father’s name was blank.

  The name Beasley wasn’t new to me. I remembered my mother saying it in one of the few childhood conversations I could recall us having about my adoption. And there it was, right in front of me. I felt a rush of pride and admiration for my mum Gwen and her wisdom at being so open and honest about my adoption from the very beginning.

  I could see the letter inside the envelope, too, but didn’t look at it until I returned to my car. It was a short letter, written by hand on small pink-coloured writing paper. I climbed into the driver’s seat and leant forward so I could read by the glow of the streetlight.

  My mother also avoided a salutation at the start of her letter.

  20-2-91 [I assume this was the day my mother lodged the contact veto]

  My name is Maida Anne Kirwan (née Beasley).

  I am your birth parent.

  All my emotions are on the surface but I feel I must write to you.

  You have always been in my thoughts, and the family who adopted you. They would give you the love and security of a family which I was not able to do.

  Firstly, I must explain why my name is on the Contact Veto in case you feel you have been rejected by me. Please never feel that way. As some of my family still live in my home town I was concerned that any enquiries made locally may have become known to these people. My name is on the Adopted Contact Registrar. This means that if ever you would like to contact me you can do so direct and this would save you many hours of effort. May I ask that if you do decide to contact me, please do so by letter. I do not think I could handle a phone call or a sudden visit.

  A few personal details of myself. Born in 1928 and keep good health. Am 5 feet and 8 inches tall with medium complexion, and I have an identical twin sister. My parents died of heart attacks. Father aged 69 and mother aged 67. I married in 1957 and have no children from this marriage.

  My door will always be open to you.

  Always in my heart.

  Sincerely

  Maida.

  My head was a tangle of confused thoughts as I drove through the night back to Stanwell Park. Who was this woman who was my mother? What was her story? Was I made in her image? I still hadn’t seen a photograph of her. Did we share the same kinds of feelings and values? And how would this reunion journey roll out, if, indeed, it proceeded at all? She might decide to back out, and if she did, there was nothing I could do.

  Of course, these were all perfectly natural questions. There was still so much I didn’t know. Her letter was loving and reassuring on some key issues, but it was also very short and didn’t give a lot away.

  9

  Learning more about my birth mother

  In a follow-up phone conversation, Mr Miles explained to me that another part of the Department of Community Services looked after and supported people who had chosen to proceed with an adoption reunion. I would be allocated a caseworker, he told me.

  The next step was to arrange an appointment with my caseworker, Sandra (not her real name). We had our first meeting at the Department of Community Services’ Parramatta office so that Sandra could teach me about the processes of the reunion. I’d had a simplistic assumption that I would be meeting my mother within days, but, after speaking to Sandra, I quickly realised this course of action would have been catastrophic for Maida. At that time, I couldn’t conceive of her extremely fragile state or what an earth-shattering shock it had been for her when I made contact.

  As far as my own feelings were concerned, it was relatively easy for me to progress the reunion, but I know for many other people who were adopted it has been much more difficult, and I feel for them. By the time I began the process, I felt comfortable in my skin, had been fortunate to have had a good life, and was lucky to have experienced some very privileged life opportunities. In every way, I was at peace with the world and my circumstances. My mother Maida, on the other hand, had lived a radically different life because of my adoption, and the steps towards our reunion would bring back much of the haunting pain of my birth and adoption.

  It was a big moment when I met Sandra for the first time. I was very nervous, having never been in this kind of situation before: my life was now totally in the hands of a government official. I needn’t have worried. Sandra welcomed me reassuringly in a kind and softly spoken manner, and I was immediately struck by her obvious intelligence and perceptiveness. Right from that very first meeting, we hit it off. I trusted her totally and was guided by her every step of the way. As our relationship developed, she taught me so much. Working to protect the interests of all parties involved in this reunion, she was always sensitive, supportive, and, importantly for me, right from the beginning had great patience in explaining to me how my mother was feeling. I often felt ashamed that I’d never had a proper understanding of the deep and ongoing grief that could be felt by a relinquishing mother.

  Some details of our conversations are a bit blurred with the passing of the years, but some things I recall with crystal clarity. For example, when Sandra told me about her first contact with my mother, she said, ‘She’s a very special lady. I was touched by her. I don’t think I’ve ever been more moved by anyone in this job.’

  I learnt from Sandra of the mind-numbing shock Maida had experienced when Sandra first called, and then when a letter about our possible reunion arrived from the department that same day. She explained that my mother had kept the secret of my birth from all but the closest members of her family in the town of Orange, where I was conceived. She had come to Sydney to have her baby, and then later returned briefly to Orange with her terrible secret, which had dominated her entire life from then on. She had eventually married Greg Kirwan some five years later, but could never have children because of her fear that they would be taken away or in some way lost to her. This revelation, perhaps more than any other, rocked me to the core.

  Sandra explained that the reunion process would be very controlled and taken step by step, and I came to see how important this was in giving my birth mother a greater sense of confidence and empowerment after the brutally disempowering experience of my forced adoption all those years ago. That process included the controlled shari
ng of personal details — Sandra hadn’t yet told me where my mother lived or worked, for example.

  Despite this care on Sandra’s part, Maida blew her anonymity out of the water on my birthday, 24 December, when she sent a fax to my electorate office.

  My electorate secretary, Anne Nichols, greeted me with a sheepish grin and said, ‘There’s an intriguing birthday message for you.’

  Despite the close, almost family relationship I had with my electorate team, I hadn’t yet shared the excitement of the unfolding adoption reunion. Anne must have thought I had a mystery romantic admirer when she thrust the fax into my hands.

  It was a simple handwritten message: ‘Happy birthday from Maida.’

  Looking at the fax more closely, I assumed my mother must have been overwhelmed with excitement and tension when she sent it, as the top of the page recorded that it had come from Parramatta City Council. This must be where Maida worked. I sensed this was a breach of the adoption reunion protocols and immediately wondered what lay behind it, and if all was okay with her. At the same time, her message touched me deeply. I noticed that she had inadvertently reversed the fax numbers on her first try, and then had had to resend it. This has been a chronic problem of mine all my life, reversing numbers and letters, and I felt immediate solidarity with her.

  I wondered whether the inclusion of Parramatta City Council’s fax number was a code signal indicating that she wanted me to contact her. I phoned Sandra and explained what had happened and asked whether Maida wanted me to phone her. Sandra called Maida, and afterwards explained to me that the inclusion of the Parramatta City Council information had been a complete oversight by my mother in the excitement of sending the message. This was, after all, her first direct contact with me since the first week of my birth. Little wonder she would be nervous and on edge and not be thinking about what other information the fax was revealing.

  The arrival of the fax was a prompt to me that it was time to break the news to my electorate staff, Anne, Margaret, and Noreen. Apart from anything else, I was busting to tell them about this unbelievable adventure I was living. I’d overheard them discussing the fax over morning tea, and one of them had even mentioned that she’d taken a call from a woman earlier in the day asking for my fax number. I was astounded, and also felt a bit cheated that someone in the office had spoken to my mother before me!

  ‘Could you all please come upstairs for a moment?’ I asked them. ‘It’ll only take a moment.’

  We trekked up the stairs into a more formal private office, which was a rarefied zone of calm compared to the relentless pressures faced downstairs all day every day.

  I began with, ‘Take a seat. There’s something I have to tell you,’ and realised my mistake when I saw the blood drain from their faces. When an MP takes his key staff aside and commences a conversation like that, it invariably leads to a resignation or a confession of a political catastrophe of some kind.

  ‘I have some extraordinary news, and I’m sorry I haven’t been able to tell you before,’ I added quickly.

  ‘What is it?’ Margaret asked nervously, almost at the same time as Anne said, ‘What’s happened? Has something gone wrong?’

  Tears welled in my eyes, no doubt making them even more alarmed. ‘I have a story to tell you,’ I said. ‘It’s a very wonderful and uplifting story, and partly to do with the fax you were all talking about before. It was from my birth mother.’

  I stopped then, because I needed a break to regain my composure. You could have heard a pin drop in the room.

  These three women, who were like family to me, knew I was adopted. They thought the world of my mother Gwen, whom they’d met on several occasions when she’d come to Sydney. Now, they hung on every word as I told them in detail what had happened to me over the past three weeks, and the tears flowed freely from us all. Not much work was done for the rest of the afternoon by any of us, but thankfully it was Christmas Eve and the rest of the electorate already seemed to have started their holiday.

  Sandra explained that the next step was for my mother and me to exchange letters and photographs — and this was where the challenges and complexities intensified. Jody, Jade, Jack, and I were spending Christmas in my mother Gwen’s unit in Tuncurry, and so Sandra agreed to mail the very first photographs of Maida to me, care of the post office there.

  We drove up on Christmas Day to start our holiday and to visit my mother Gwen in the aged-care residence around the corner. I was beside myself with the anticipation of getting the promised photographs, and could think of little else, despite the ongoing pressures of my ministerial role, which saw debate over Mabo issues extend into the Christmas break. The thought of such precious cargo winging its precarious way to me via Australia Post, incongruously sharing the mail van with thousands of Christmas cards and other assorted everyday cargo, was more than I could bear. I seriously considered calling Sandra to tell her I would drive back to Sydney to collect the photographs, but by then it was too late, as they’d already been posted.

  On 30 December 1992, I went to the post office as planned to collect the expected mail and the very first photograph of my birth mother. The town was packed with tourists and locals going about their business, and there were long queues in the post office. People were buying stamps, lodging priority mail, and picking up business parcels, and it all seemed to take an inordinate length of time. Finally, I reached the counter.

  One of my old school friends was standing there, and greeted me with, ‘Hi Tick, what are you doing in town?’

  ‘Just up to see my mum,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a parcel here for me to collect?’

  ‘Hang on, I’ll check for you.’ After what seemed like forever, she came back empty-handed. ‘Nothing here, Tick, but there’s some delays in the mail because of Christmas.’

  I trudged mournfully back to the unit and called Sandra to chase the missing letter. She told me it was on its way, and now expected to arrive on New Year’s Eve.

  The following morning, I arrived at the post office as soon as the doors opened, and this time quickly took possession of a large brown envelope, which I knew had my mother’s letter and photographs inside. I handled it reverently, like a sacred object. I was about to see the face of my mother for the very first time since I’d been taken from her as a tiny baby 40-plus years ago.

  I didn’t want to open the envelope on my own, so I rushed back to the unit and up two flights of stairs to be with Jade, Jody, and Baby Jack. I burst into the living room clutching the envelope, but suddenly felt overcome and daunted by the moment and needed encouragement from Jody and Jade to go through with opening the package.

  We gathered around the dining-room table, with Jack crawling around the floor beside us, and I opened the envelope to see the face of my mother.

  I stared and stared, unable to talk, just trying to cope with the magnitude of the moment.

  It was a beautiful photograph of a very attractive woman looking up at the camera. She was smiling and bending over to look after a small child, who I learnt much later was the granddaughter of her twin sister.

  Wishing the photograph would come to life, I stared at it for a long time. Her face held a sense of familiarity for me. There were my eyes looking back at me, and a striking resemblance in other features, too.

  ‘She looks like you, Dad,’ Jade said.

  I immediately recognised where the photograph had been taken: Angel Place in Sydney, 50 metres from where I’d attended the Sydney University Liberal Club meeting and Malcolm Fraser’s speech had propelled me into joining the ALP. Such a coincidence. I had thought about that meeting and place many times over the years, and about its contribution to shaping my path in life. There were some other photographs enclosed in the package, including photographs of her as a young schoolgirl in Orange.

  Jade agreed to hand-make some special paper for me to use to write to my mother. She was always
such a caring child and clearly understood the importance of making Maida feel welcome to our family. I was proud of her for the work and thought she put into this gesture; the paper she made was stunning.

  And so, later that night, I poured myself a glass of wine and sat down at the dining-room table to write a long reflective letter to my mother Maida on Jade’s paper. It was handwritten in my terrible script and, like all my letters, hard to read. But its saving grace was that it came from the heart. It was well after midnight by the time I finished writing.

  1st January 1993

  Dear Maida, Mother, Mum!!

  How do I start this letter, what do I call you? That is only one of the many things we have to work out. I will abide by your wishes, but for my part, the fact is that you are my mother. Also I have always had a private disdain for the way some people call their mothers by their first name just to be smart. So IF and only IF you are comfortable I would like to think and speak of you as my mother. But if you would like me to call you Maida, it is okay with me too.

  Be warned that this is unlikely to be a short letter as like you I am very emotional!!!

  I do not feel afraid or nervous as you mentioned. I do, however, feel very excited and perhaps a little worried only because I want things to go so well as we both would hope. I am especially concerned that events unfold as YOU would want them to, and that you and Greg find your lives enriched, as we hope ours will be from meeting you.

  Where do I begin?

  Perhaps I should explain that there is another person I should immediately introduce you to and that is Jade, aged 13, whose dad I became when I married Jody 7 years ago. She made this paper at my request to start off this letter, and is very comfortable about these exciting developments. She has an obsession with horses and leases one, and she goes to Bulli High School. I wanted to write on this paper Jade made to show that she is with us in this exciting new adventure.