Blood Ties (45 page)

‘Ah,’ she says. ‘Me and Willem.’ And she sinks her teeth into the bread.

 

Lots of things happened that week. Firstly, I won an award for Fresh As A Daisy. Silly really, because I never even entered any competition. It turns out that Baxter put me forward for some national florist’s showdown and my shop won for its innovative window displays. I even got my picture in the paper. I kept a copy this time.

Then, as the last shreds of autumn gave way to the first fingers of winter, Ruby shuddering and waving goodbye one morning as the air frost nipped down her back, as the bell of sky above hardened with a veneer of ice, my medical notes tumbled through the letter box with the gas bill and a couple of bank statements.

Reading through the notes, I learned I had been a surprisingly healthy child. Of course, everything stopped when I reached the age of fifteen. My last recorded visit to the GP was when I told Mother I was getting fat and she took me to see Dr Brigson. Looking back, I think I knew. And as I read on, it seemed that Dr Brigson did, too.

It occurred to me, as I read the notes, that I wanted my parents; a childish desire to be owned, protected, cherished. While it’s too late for protection – in fact, soon it will be my turn to protect them – I want them to know what I have become, that I survived. I want to ask them why they tried to have my baby adopted, why they thought I would be a bad mother, why they never noticed what Uncle Gustaw was doing to me.

I want them to see me. To take me back. And, after I admitted this to myself, I resolved that one day very soon I would drive to the dismal house where I gave birth. I promised myself I would go home.

No one ever did report my abuse to social services. But it was the medical proof, detailed accurately within those notes, that was precious now. They stated I was pregnant, estimated delivery date first week of January 1992, with a viable single foetus. What happened to me thereafter didn’t particularly interest the Registrar General. To file the form for a late, a very late, birth certificate required certain details, all of which I was now able to provide. Thanks to Louisa.

I called her two days after I returned home from Brighton. Robert and I were making a go of things and since I’d changed the email from James Hammond on Louisa’s computer, and since I knew that she knew, I wanted to talk to her – despite our brief moment of understanding. To explain. To make sure she was OK with knowing. I couldn’t risk losing Robert again.

‘Hey, I’m an investigator. I know when to stop digging.’ She told me that it was seeing Ruby and me slotted around Robert like three pieces of a unique puzzle that made her understand. ‘I don’t care who Ruby is,’ she said. ‘But I do care about what she can become.’

She didn’t mention her feelings for Robert. She didn’t need to.

So, with my consent and Robert’s backing, we paid for Louisa to pull up my medical records. Robert accepted what had happened, with Uncle Gustaw – God knows he’s seen enough child abuse in his line of work – and an understanding stitched itself between us about my life thereafter. That’s when I began seeing the counsellor. Once a week, on a Wednesday.

Then, without telling Robert, I asked Louisa to find out what had happened to Ruby. My first Ruby.

 

‘Let me take another look,’ she says. I slide the album across the table, careful not to get dressing on the cover.

‘It felt a bit creepy, taking pictures of a young girl without her knowing.’ I crane sideways so I can see the pictures too. ‘That was when she was coming out of the cinema with her friends. We went to see
Oliver Twist
—’

‘We?’

‘I sat behind her, eavesdropped on her conversation, watched her eat popcorn.’ Truth is, I tailed her so closely it’s a wonder she didn’t call the police.

From the minute I first laid eyes on my daughter, my biological daughter, I fell in love with her. She is everything I had imagined and more. Think of a lioness surrounded by cats; think of a sleek yacht in a sea of rowing boats; think of an orchid in a field of daisies; think of a ruby in a pot of glass beads.

‘Will you tell Rob?’ she asks.

‘What, that I lost my baby?’

‘You didn’t lose your baby, Erin. You lost your mind.’ Louisa snaps the album shut. ‘Someone took your baby. Someone threw your baby away.’

 

She called me at the shop, breathless with the news. The phone line was twanging between us. ‘I’ve found her,’ she said and I marvelled at how easy it had been. ‘She lives in London.’ I sat down, as if folding my body behind the counter would aid the absorption of shock. All this time and she’d only been a breath away.

The first time we met at the café, Louisa provided me with newspaper articles. They’d really made a thing out of it, a nationwide feel-good story of the baby who was thrown away. I never read the papers or watched the news. I was too busy earning money to pay for my baby’s treatment.

‘When you told me what happened, Erin, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if your baby had been found, a story of some kind would be in the papers.’ Louisa tucked a strand of fiery hair behind her ear.

‘They told me she was ill,’ I said again, just so Louisa didn’t think I had a hand in disposing of my baby. ‘That I would get her back just as soon as she was better.’ I was past bowing my head. I’d been a child myself. ‘They told me she was in hospital and I believed them.’

Felicity
, I thought, as I positioned myself outside her house. It was just after six in the morning and I’d told Robert that I was going to a trade show. He promised to look after Ruby, while I went off to spy on the baby that had been thrown away.

It was a nice house; very middle-class in a suburb with trees and clipped hedges and no doubt a competition of fairy lights at Christmas. Felicity’s house was painted white and had fake black beams criss-crossing the front. There was a Volvo estate parked in the drive and at ten past eight exactly, Felicity’s mother came out of the house laden with school bags, calling back inside the house and beckoning frantically.

She was more like someone’s mother than me. Better all round, with her neat brown bob and sensible shoes.

Then Felicity came out of the house, looking like any other teenager with her school tie knotted short and her black trousers trailing in the wet –
except that she was my teenager
. She eased herself into the Volvo, not in any hurry, after which her mother sped out of the drive.

I started up my car and followed closely, inhaling the tang of exhaust that blew in through my heater vents in case I got a whiff of my baby. Fifteen minutes later, we pulled up outside a high school and Felicity got out of the car without kissing her mother goodbye.

I never got to kiss you goodbye either
.

I saw her three times during the day. Once at ten thirty when the bell rang and she marched across the front of the school to the science block. She was at the head of a V-shaped formation of five girls. She was the prettiest, the tallest and obviously the most popular, the way the others all flowed behind her like a bridal train. She had nothing of Uncle Gustaw about her. Her blonde hair whipped about her shoulders in the cold wind.

Put your coat on, young lady
.

At lunchtime, Felicity sloped off to the fish and chip shop a couple of blocks down from the school. I got out of my car and went for chips too. Nice big fat greasy ones and I leaned against the wall while Felicity sat on a bench with a friend and shared cod and chips. I couldn’t hear everything but they mentioned a couple of boys, sprayed Coke through their noses and bent double with fun.

A warm river of blood flowed through my heart. Felicity was happy.

I saw her at three forty, when she loitered in the street for her mother. Many kids got onto the school bus but I was pleased to see that Felicity was picked up by a parent. She managed a quick brush of her lips across her mother’s cheek after she’d hurled her school bag into the rear.

I let them drive off into the distance. Next time, I would bring my camera.

 

‘The Yorks seemed happy to share their story. They even went on a daytime TV show for adoptive parents and discussed the morals of taking on someone else’s baby without knowing its history. They said that was the least of it. Getting to know and learning to love your child was the bigger part of the journey.’

‘They did?’ That’s good, I think, as I sew my baby’s name together in my head.
Felicity York
. It sounds nice. She sounds nice. I think of her lying in a skip. I think of her lying in another woman’s arms. ‘Louisa,’ I say. ‘You’re still sure you won’t tell Rob, aren’t you.’ It wasn’t a question. Her eyes go wide at the mention of my husband’s name.

‘I’m sure,’ she says earnestly, pulling a crumb from her lip. ‘Why would I want to hurt him? Why would I want to hurt you or Ruby?’

And I believe her as we finish our paninis with runny pesto dressing and talk over the noise of the cappuccino machine and watch silver bulbs of rain wiggle down the window. We do this until it is time for me to go home.

 

Robert is taking a thrashing from Ruby on the Playstation. He rolls on his back like a dying insect, groans and lays down his controller as a sign of defeat.

‘Ha, you’ll never beat the Mighty Red,’ Ruby says and begins to tickle Robert’s ribs with her foot. He grabs it and tickles her back and I have no chance of being noticed as they begin death by tickling. I go into the kitchen to unpack the groceries that I picked up on the way home from my meeting with Louisa.

I wonder if Robert will sense that I have been with her. Will he smell her scent on me, catch her words on my breath or the shadow of her kiss on my cheek as we parted? I wash my hands in case.

‘Oh, you scared me,’ I gasp. Robert is pressed behind me, his arms round my belly.

‘Hey, fat woman, how you doing?’

‘You wait,’ I say. ‘Cooking later or going out?’ It takes him less than a second to decide that we are going out.

‘Why don’t you have a lie-down or a hot bath before we go?’ He gently massages my stomach. It’ll be classical music pressed to my skin soon.

‘Why don’t you come with me?’ He knows what I mean and follows me upstairs while Ruby plays the piano. Briefly, I wonder if Felicity plays an instrument.

‘Will you look at that?’ Robert is pointing at the stuffed bag on the landing.

‘She’s so excited,’ I say. ‘She packed yesterday and the school trip’s not for another week.’ Robert takes my hand and leads me into our bedroom. He lays me down on the bed and a waft of fabric conditioner pillows around me. I smile as he closes the door.

‘What?’ he asks, pulling his shirt off over his head without unbuttoning it.

‘Nothing,’ I say, meaning everything.

Just that my three children are safe. Ruby, Felicity and the one tucked inside me, growing at a million miles an hour.

 
 
 

 
Blood Ties

 

 
SAM HAYES

 
 
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