Fay Weldon - Novel 23 (13 page)

 
          
A
private eye agency called Aardvark Detectives had done excellent work for the
studio in relation to the Olivia/Leo fiasco.
Aardvark.
I kid you not. It seems that most detective agencies are chosen through the
Yellow Pages, and although the A. A. this, and the A. I. that enjoy priority of
initial, the more solid words are easier to read, and Aardvark I suppose did
have a kind of relevance: it being an ant-eater, a creature which searches
after scraps of scuttling nourishment with a long, busy, snuffling nose. By
virtue of its name Aardvark Detectives picks up no end of passing trade,
first-time inquiries - follow that husband, check out that home- buyer - and
flourish accordingly. It had found me Alison within weeks, in a briefer time
than I had needed to find the courage to contact them.

 
          
Wendy
made the initial contact. She was one of the founding Aardvark partners, a
comfy, inquisitive matron dressed in a neat navy suit and costume jewellery
(though nothing that clanked or glittered too much, and attracted attention).
The Aardvark agency had well-paid runners in all the big national enterprises:
social security, national health, vehicle registration, tax offices, credit
agencies and so forth, and within hours could provide any client with a broad
picture of any other citizen, one not quite legally acquired, so long as in
Aardvark’s view that client was comparatively law-abiding. Amazing how by
simply looking at credit-card expenditure you can acquire a snapshot of a life
as represented by a pattern of purchase, or indeed in some cases, as Wendy told
me, charity giving. Someone who spends a lot in expensive restaurants and pays
vet bills and gives to animal charities is going to be a very different person
from the one who spends in the supermarket, pays bookmakers, and gives to
children. Some people manage to run undercover lives, of course, have credit
cards in numerous names, false passports, and deal in cash - not necessarily
from criminal motives, sometimes from a distaste of so much easy overlooking by
the State - but even this lot, Wendy tells me, usually end up visiting a doctor
or hospital and cover is blown. Personally, I don’t mind who knows what about
me, and having spent vacations in
India
, when you’re lucky if your existence is
noticed at all, and dead bodies lie round for days to be walked over, see some
virtue in a society which at least has you on its computers.

 
          
Files
on adoption are in a peculiar state. I know, having once worked on a film
called
Babyroot
, and had to excise a
five-minute sequence at the last moment, the researchers having failed to
realize that the law had changed since the writing of the novel on which the
book was based. Five minutes is a lot of footage and in the end the film quite
frankly didn’t make sense. But I like to think those who watched it were crying
so hard they failed to notice.

 
          
Secret
records were kept until the mid-seventies, when mothers could give their babies
away secure in the knowledge that that was the end of it. But then, after the
screening of
Roots
, together with the
Insurance Companies’ growing desire to know the genetic destiny of their
clients - ‘parents unknown’ is doom to their ears: how can they make profits if
expected to take risks - it was decided that everyone had a right to know their
origins and would be miserable and unhealthy if they didn’t; that given-away
children, once they got to eighteen, should have the right to trace and find
their natural mothers. The right of the mother to find the child was not
asserted - the spirit of retribution still hung around, though undefined. The
new world saw it as unnatural and callous for a woman to give away a child; the
old world, living as it did without State benefits, and knowing that the
orphanage was the normal destiny of most of those born out of wedlock, was well
aware that early adoption, no matter how painful for the mother, was in the
child’s best interests. An unmarried mother could struggle on for a year or so
with her child: in the end, since female wages were so low, unless she was
lucky enough to find a man to give shelter to her and the child in return for
whatever services he insisted upon, she would be defeated.

 
          
In
the eighties and nineties, organizations sprang up to link the mothers of the
old world with the children of the new; reunions were tactfully organized,
bitter pills of truth buffered by soft- toned counsellors in the same way that
aspirin is coated against stomach pain. Let us all know our origins: this way
surely contentment lay. A myriad of disowned young turned up to claim their
backdated right to natural mother-love, and as often as not to retreat
disappointed and reproachful.
A mere six per cent of all
those reunited go on to deeper acquaintance.
But I didn’t know that at
the time.
Babyroot
presented a very
different picture.

 
          
Material
comforts were not enough, the abandoned asserted: they wanted all this and
mother-love too, their inalienable right. They could not understand, these
children of the therapy age, that there once were more important things than
the avoidance of stressful emotion. They had no notion of a world without safety
nets, where people starved, or if they jumped in the
Thames
with the newborn baby in their arms, would
be fished out and hung by the neck until they were dead. I know that from a
film I cut called
Watery Grave.

 
          
Many
a girl, around the age of eight, looks at her parents and decides they can’t
possibly be hers: they’re far too dull and ordinary: she must have been
switched at birth. How much more so does the child who’s told she’s adopted -
‘but we
chose
you, darling’ -
fantasize about the royal palace which surely must be hers by right of birth,
if only the terrible mistake had not intervened. Alas, on discovery the birth
parent turns out to be not the princess, but just another kitchen maid. An
older, wiser generation of social workers contrived to be obstructive in
reuniting a child with its parent: the new, younger lot ploughed ruthlessly on,
destroying lives and families in the name of genetic truth.

 
          
Why
then, you might ask, knowing all this as I did if only from the film
Mother Trouble -
I had an affair with
that director too: his name was Tom Humble and we nearly got married but I
didn’t want to be called Sophia Humble, not after all that - why then was I
determined to find Alison for Felicity? I do not know. Why does one do stupid
things?

 
          
Revenge?
Not as strong as that. I loved Felicity: that was
my justification. I wanted a family: she could put up with it. Perhaps I wanted
something of hers for mine: I never felt she gave me enough.
Stupid,
sloppy, therapy reasons.
In the real world reason takes second place to
what one just finds oneself doing. Reasons are for police courts and soap
operas.
Why, why, why,
only happens
when things have gone wrong.
Because,
because, because
, is for settling the minds of the onlookers.
This happens because of that
is for
science, not for human beings. I just did.

 
          
And
okay, because of Harry Krassner, my own personal Hare Krishna, sometimes in my
bed, sometimes out of it, making me weak and needy for permanence. Settled,
now?

 
          
Wendy’s
favourite spy in the registered charity
Mother
Unknown
was young Melissa, aged twenty-four and just out of college, who
didn’t see why mothers over eighty shouldn’t get in touch with daughters of
seventy, and fought her way through piles of actual dusty hospital files - no
computers way back then - charred by blitz fire and stained by the water used
to put the fires out, in the basement of St Martin’s-on-Thames in Kingston,
whence they had been moved to safety and forgotten, to discover that a bastard
baby was born to Felicity Moore, aged fifteen, spinster of this parish, on 6
October, 1930.
(Father unknown.)
Further
consultations of adoption records, in rather better state, showed three babies
named Alison passed to new parents in the middle of November; the Registrar of
Births, Deaths and Marriages showed that two of these children had later died -
one at the age of three (of poliomyelitis), one at fourteen (killed in an
air-raid), and the other one, an Alison Moore, had married at twenty-two a Mark
Dow- son, student. There was a one-in-three chance that Mrs Dowson was
Felicity’s daughter. Personally, I had no doubt of it. If you deal with fiction
enough, your own life begins to be fictional. The narrative had me in its grip.

 
          
Felicity
returned from the funeral in high good spirits, which Nurse Dawn found a little
strange. Inappropriate emotions could indicate the onset of dementia. She
mentioned her worry to Dr Grepalli, who waylaid his newest and favourite guest
as she made her way down the long polished corridor, with the non-slip rugs and
the double-glazed windows, towards the Atlantic Suite. He fell into step beside
her.

 
          
She
pulled off her gloves as she walked; he noticed she had left off all but one of
her rings for the outing. Golden Bowlers, if they insisted on unescorted
outings, were encouraged to leave their jewellery behind, for fear of provoking
attack. It seemed to Dr Grepalli that the single ring was a compromise: she
halfacknowledged the dangers of the outside world: half-defied the wisdom of
the Golden Bowl. Soon she would give in and be happy. She looked at her fingers
as if seeing them for the first time. The skin of her hands was creased,
crumpled and liver-spotted, but the fingers were still elegant, long and
lively. She stretched them, as if testing them, warning arthritis away.

 
          
‘A
funeral, Felicity!’ he said. ‘How brave and in such weather. You must be upset.
Do drop by my rooms if you feel like it, and we can have a little talk.’

 
          
‘I
am not in the least upset,’ said Felicity. ‘I have been to many funerals in my
life and survived them without your help, Dr Grepalli.’

 
          
He
caught her arm in an excess of concern.

 
          
‘God
gives us feelings he means us to express, Felicity. Otherwise he exacts
a revenge
. Denial isn’t good for us. A reluctance to face
our emotions leads to chronic headache and exacerbates arthritic pain.’

 
          
‘Personally
I attribute arthritis to damp rather than denial. The heating in my room is
inadequate now the wind is in the east. Perhaps you will see to it.’ She smiled
at him so charmingly he failed to take offence, and walked on. Baffled, he fell
back. Nurse Dawn gave it ten minutes and then made tapping movements outside
Felicity’s door without actually touching it and went in. Felicity was sitting
at her table throwing coins in the air and making notations when they fell.

 
          
‘That
looks fascinating,’ said Nurse Dawn. ‘Is it a game?’

 
          
‘Kind
of,’ said Felicity. ‘I didn’t hear you knock.’

 
          
‘I
knocked really loudly,’ said Nurse Dawn. ‘We must expect our hearing to fail as
we advance in years. Some of our guests choose to have a warning light above
the door rather than rely on their ears.’

 
          
‘I’m
not that bad yet,’ said Felicity. ‘What are you trying to do, demoralize me?’

 
          
‘Better
to face than to deny,’ said Nurse Dawn. ‘The game seems really absorbing. Maybe
you could teach it to the rest of us? It would be a good way of getting to know
everyone.’

 
          
‘Bloody
hell,’ said Felicity. ‘I’ve thrown twenty-seven and not a single changing line.

 
          
‘The Marrying Maiden.

           
Nothing that wouid further.’

 
          
‘Shit.’

 
          
‘There’s
a Reconciliation and Tranquillity session starting any minute in the Library,
Miss Felicity,’ said Nurse Dawn, at a loss to know what else to say. ‘It might
be a good idea if you joined us.’

 
          
‘Please
call me Miss Moore,’ said Felicity. ‘I am Felicity only to friends and family.
I think I have told you this before.’ ‘Informality frees us up,’ said Nurse
Dawn. ‘Research shows that friendly intimacy with others is what keeps us young
in body and mind. And I like to think I am your
friend,
and counsellor too.’ ‘You are self-appointed in these roles,’ said Felicity. ‘I
wish the Golden Bowl could simply provide me with my creature comforts and
leave my soul alone.’

           
‘You may be becoming a little
confused in your memory,
^’
said Nurse Dawn. ‘We have you on our guest
list as Mrs Felicity Bax. Now all of a sudden you are Miss Moore.
^’

 
          
‘Don’t
worry about it,
^’
said Felicity. ‘Mrs Bax will still sign the cheques.
^’

 
          
And
she rose to her feet and ushered Nurse Dawn out of the door and closed it quite
firmly behind her. It was as if she had come back from the funeral ten years
younger than she had set out, and thirty years more delinquent. Nurse Dawn
wished she had stuck by her original plan and accepted the Pulitzer Prize
winner, smoker or not.

 
          
Nurse
Dawn joined Dr Grepalli in the Library for the R and T session. At least ten
Golden Bowlers had come along. That was good. Attendance was in no way
compulsory - how could it be? If your heart wasn’t in it what was the point?
But sherry was available - a moderate amount of alcohol kept old arteries
flowing free, and invitations to local events were announced: to the Aquarium
- there was always some new fish to see - or the new
Indian
Museum
, or some theatre or dance event.

 
          
Trips
to the Foxwoods Indian Casino were not encouraged: gambling was not within the
Golden Bowl ethos: the elderly could get all too easily hooked on the slots: go
into a trance and throw their money away. Not for the old the wildness and
skill of craps, let alone blackjack or roulette, just the mindlessness of
feeding in quarters, and waiting to see what happened next.
Which
was nothing, and then nothing, and then all of a sudden something.
But
never enough nothing to make up for the something, as any rational person could
see, or how would the Casino live, despite the background beat and the dimmed
lights and the rushing chinking of coins, and the wafting smell of barbecue
sauce and junk food, and the row upon row, rank upon rank, of blue-haired
widows and matrons not even playing a system, content to succumb to fate.
Very blue-collar.
Not Golden Bowl.

 
          
If
there was one thing the Golden Bowl could do for the relatives, it was keep
Golden Bowlers away from the slots: what price inheritance then? And were not Native
Americans, on whose reservation land normal anti-gambling state edicts did not
apply - therefore Foxwoods - and who didn’t have to pay tax on their vast
profits, and who were scarcely pure-blooded anyway, having mingled so freely in
the past with African-Americans, playing the victim card too ruthlessly? One
way and another no-one who slipped out of the Golden Bowl for a day’s outing to
Foxwoods cared to admit where they had been. Entertainment on a higher plane,
that is to say self-improvement, was always available at home in the Golden
Bowl. Yes, home. The Golden Bowl was home.

 
          
This
evening Dr Grepalli sat in a deep armchair, backed by rows of leather-bound
books. Cruel white light from the snowy land reflected through mullioned
windows on to withered faces and carefully combed hair. Eighty, ninety, for
some even a hundred winters had passed: still they did their best.

 
          
‘Is the glass half-empty or the glass
half-full? Altogether now!’ boomed Dr Grepalli.

 
          
^c
Half-full,
Dr Grepalli,’ came the quavery, stalwart answer.

 
          
‘Every breath we take,

           
Every
move we make,

           
What
do Golden Bowlers do?’

 
          
‘We
live life to the full!’ came the answer.

 
          
As
she listened, Nurse Dawn’s ruffled feathers were soothed and smoothed. She felt
proprietorial towards Dr Grepalli, who today was looking so patricianly
handsome and benign. Hers, all hers! As for Felicity, sooner or later something
would happen to bring her to her senses and a proper sense of gratitude. A hip
or a knee that needed replacing, arthritis in the hands, a disabling loss of memory,
and she would cease to be independent: she would become like everyone else in
the twilight of their days, and not think herself so special. Time was on Nurse
Dawn’s side: the great advantage the young have over the old.