Dear Mother —
The garden at Cairn Cottage is more rustic than cultivated. Only the cobbled courtyard has plants that need tending and although this is Susie’s job – and her pride and joy – she realises as soon as she looks out of the window that she has been neglecting her duties. The winter pansies are sagging pitifully.
Stirred by guilt at her neglect, she fills a watering can and pads across the cobbles, still in the furry zebra-striped slippers Jonno gave her for Christmas. How they laughed at them as they emerged from their snowman wrapping paper! What a glorious, trouble-free time it was. She and Archie—
Susie turns her mind away from Archie. The awkwardness between them is too awful to brood about. She lifts the watering can and watches as the silvery drops fall lightly onto the thirsty plants. The glorious purple of the pansies deepens as they slake their thirst gratefully and their beauty touches her. The air still holds the freshness of early morning, but it’s almost April now and the day promises to be fine. Surely today is a day for mending?
She picks a few stray weeds out of the tubs and lays them in a heap for later despatch to the compost bin. Prince is nowhere around, he has taken to sloping off to the studio to be with Archie. Susie tries not to think of it as a betrayal, but it feels like that right at this moment. She hooks her fingers through her hair and tries to calm its unruliness. The air is cool and she contemplates running in to fetch a coat, but settles instead for pulling her light negligee tighter around her and knotting the belt.
On the far side of the chicken coop, an overgrown path winds down to a glade on the fringes of the garden. Here, she and Archie constructed a small pergola (or rather, she corrected herself, Archie built it at her suggestion), facing out to the rolling countryside. It boasts the prettiest view from anywhere in the property and has the bonus of catching the early sun. She strolls past the chickens and makes her way down to it, zebra slippers ridiculous on the stony path. As she rounds the large rhododendron bush that shields the pergola from the cottage windows, she spots Prince lying on the grass.
‘Hello, old boy,’ she calls, surprised. ‘You haven’t been out here all night, have you?’
The dog shambles to his feet and trots towards her, clearly pleased at her appearance. Susie bends to pat him as the wagging of the tail redoubles.
‘He’s been with me.’ The voice comes from somewhere behind the leafy foliage of the clematis that has colonised the wrought iron work of the pergola. ‘I got up early, for a change.’
‘Oh! Hello.’ She scans Archie’s face and is shocked by how drawn he looks. ‘Problems with the composing?’
‘Why don’t you come and sit down?’ He shuffles along the seat to make room for her.
Susie hesitates. ‘I hadn’t thought about stopping. It’s a bit chilly. I’m only in my nightwear.’
‘I noticed,’ Archie says dryly, making Susie blush – so ridiculous, when they’ve been married for thirty years. ‘Here.’ He takes off his fleece and holds it out to her. ‘Put this round you. I’m warm enough.’
‘Okay. Thanks.’ She drapes it around her shoulders and sinks onto the bench. His warmth lingers in the garment. Its smell is faint, but achingly familiar.
They sit for a while in a silence that feels companionable rather than awkward. In the sky far above them a buzzard wheels magnificently, intent on some hapless vole or mouse hundreds of feet below. If only we were blessed with sight so extraordinary, Susie thinks. If only I could see even further – into the minds and feelings of my children, for example.
As if catching her thoughts, Archie asks, ‘Does one ever stop worrying about one’s children, d’you think?’
‘You feel it too?’
‘Of course. I feel responsible.’
‘You always wish you could suffer something yourself rather than watch your kids go through it, don’t you?’
‘It would be much easier.’
They are talking. Susie feels the pleasure of it with sweet delight. ‘Jon’s problems will all disappear, I’m sure, as soon as he gets a job.’
Archie’s hand is on his knee, inches from hers. It seems completely natural to reach out for it. At once, Susie finds her fingers encircled by the familiar clasp of her husband’s grip. They sit side by side, gazing quietly at the view over the valley and woods below them, just as they sat here before they built the pergola, just as they have sat here for years. Despite their children’s troubles and her anger at what has seemed like a long betrayal, it feels to Susie as if her world is being restored to her.
She lays her head on his shoulder and feels his own rest comfortably on hers.
‘Archie—’ she starts to say, thinking it is time to welcome him back into her life. But for some reason she slips her fingers into the pocket of the fleece and feels something in there, some paper. She draws it out idly and glances at it. An envelope, partly opened, addressed to her.
‘What’s this?’ she asks curiously.
‘Oh sorry, I meant to give that to you days ago. I completely forgot. I started to open it, but saw it was for you and shoved it in my pocket.’
‘You kept my mail?’
‘I got distracted, love, that’s all.’
There aren’t many handwritten envelopes these days. Susie removes her hand and uses a finger to slit open the rest of the seal. Inside is a sheet of A4 paper, ruled. She can see writing covering both sides, and a signature:
Your ever loving mother, Joyce.
‘It’s from my birth mother,’ she says, staring at it. ‘I’ve been waiting on tenterhooks for this, thinking that after all she couldn’t want to know me or she would have written. And all the time you’ve been hiding it from me!’
‘I wasn’t hiding it, sweetheart, I just—’
‘Just stuck it in your pocket and forgot it.’ The anger that seems to have become so much a part of her feelings for Archie is resurfacing. All the tension that has been wrapped up inside her ever since she penned her own note to her mother explodes like a bomb, with Archie as the target. ‘How could you Archie? As though keeping my adoption secret all these years wasn’t enough!’
‘I – darling—’
‘Don’t darling me!’ She stands up and shakes off the fleece, gripping the letter so firmly that the paper crackles in her fingers. ‘It’s too much, Archie, really it is!’
Shaking with anger and disappointment, she turns and marches back round the rhododendron bush and up the overgrown path to the house. She’s conscious that she may be doing herself a disservice as well as doing a wrong to Archie, but overshadowing this insight is the notion that has embedded itself in her head.
Once again Archie has tried to keep the secret of my birth from me.
Susie showers and dresses before she can pluck up the courage to look again at the letter. At last, with no more excuses to procrastinate, she sinks down on her bed, opens it again, smooths out the crinkles she made and turns it right side up. The words are clearly written, the writing almost childlike in its simplicity.
To my much-missed daughter
I am shaking so much I can hardly write this letter. For all these long years I have dreamed of this day and now that it is here I don’t know where to start. The agency says that we should not say too much at first, just tell each other a few things about ourselves, so here goes.
I am now seventy-three years old. I was just seventeen when I found I was pregnant with you and eighteen when I gave birth. I wanted to keep you – oh, how I wanted to keep you – but there was a great deal of pressure from my family and I knew there was no way I could afford to look after you. It wasn’t like it is now. No free council flats or benefits. And they told me they would find you a good home, so I did what I thought was best for you, even though it broke my heart.
Anyway, later I found a nice boy and even though I told him everything, he still wanted to marry me. I was lucky.
I had two more children of my own, though Andrew and I never did tell them about you. Now I suppose I have to tell them. I’m not ashamed, but it will be difficult to come out with it now, after all this silence.
Maybe it will be a relief.
My husband Andrew died eight years ago and I really miss him. My daughter lives in Australia but my son lives not too far away. He has two children of his own – my grandchildren – so I’ve done quite well after all, maybe better than I deserved.
Anyway, they told me don’t say too much at first, get to know each other bit by bit, so I’ll sign off now. I just want you to know that there hasn’t been a day gone by that I haven’t thought of you and wondered whether I did the right thing.
Your ever loving mother,
Joyce
PS I always think of you as Brenda, but they tell me you are called Susie now. It’s a pretty name.
Below her, in the courtyard, Susie can hear voices. She glances out of the window and sees Archie talking to Jon.
My husband. My son. My family. But now I have another family as well. How strange that is. A woman called Joyce is my new mother. And she was only a teenager when she gave birth to a small, lustily howling, illegitimate baby. Ten years younger than Mannie is now. She must have been frightened, maybe alone, certainly her pregnancy was not a time of joy and celebration.
Susie scans the letter again. She was loved, that seems clear. Words and phrases jump out at her.
I did what I thought was best for you, even though it broke my heart. ... There hasn’t been a day gone by that I haven’t thought of you ... Your ever loving mother ...
It’s a step, and she knows she will write back. Hopefully, she’ll soon meet this new mother and that is important – but is meeting her more important than making up with Archie? Is a family she has never known more important than the one she has now? Will it be possible to retract her angry words or has she just created another gulf between them?
The phone by Susie’s bed shrills brutally. Blearily, she reaches for it. ‘Hello?’
‘Christ, Suse,’ Karen sounds very much awake, ‘You sound rough. You okay?’
Susie peers at the clock on the bedside table. It feels like five but the dial reads eight thirty. She has slept in.
‘I’m fine,’ she says, her voice hoarse with fatigue.
‘I take it you haven’t seen
Scotland Daily
yet?’
‘Not yet. Why?’ She doesn’t feel prepared for a new week. A few months ago she lived and breathed politics, loving every minute of the work – meeting her constituents, talking at conferences, opening fairs, even the media work. Especially the media work. That’s where she feels at the top of her game – after all, it brings all her skills into play, and she adores being in the limelight. But now? Everything has spun topsy turvy, all the things she used to love doing have become a chore.
‘You’d better brace yourself.’
‘Oh God. What now?’
‘Let me quote: “MSP denies she is a lesbian. Susie Wallace, Member of the Scottish Parliament for Lothians, is not a lesbian, she claims. Despite reaching stardom in a role that lent scorching credence to rumours of her sexuality, her long term partner said yesterday—” ’
‘What?’ Susie breaks in, incredulous. ‘What is this crap?’
‘ “—her long-term partner said yesterday—” ’
‘Karen. For heaven’s sake, what is this? Who’s written this drivel?’
‘Byline is Justin Thorneloe. It goes on—’
‘I don’t want to know how it goes on,’ Susie says wearily. ‘What is it with Justin Thorneloe? The story’s utter bollocks and he know it.’
‘I know that. You know that. But no smoke—’
‘What does Mo say?’
‘She’s not here yet. Are you coming in soon?’
‘I’ll be there in an hour.’
‘Did you talk to him over the weekend?’
‘Justin? No.’
‘Did Archie?’
‘I’ve no idea. I don’t think so.’
She can’t believe that Archie would have made any kind of comment to any journalist, but she’s beginning to wonder if she knows her husband at all. He concealed her letter, didn’t he? Maybe not deliberately concealed, but he’d ‘forgotten’ about it. Perhaps he ‘forgot’ to mention a conversation with Justin Thorneloe too?
She puts the phone down tiredly. She misses the warm comfort of Archie’s presence in her bedroom and she misses being able to chew difficult things over with him. The ache is not alleviated by a nagging sense that she was the one who drove him away. One way or another, she has become pretty good at messing things up.
‘What do we do about it?’ she asks Mo Armstrong an hour later.
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing? But the story’s outrageous.’ Susie has worked herself into a state of righteous anger on the drive in from the cottage and is now in combative mood.
‘And completely fictitious, yes?’
‘Of course!’
‘Then we ignore it. There’s nothing to back it up. The other newspapers might poke around a bit to see if there’s anything in it, but it’ll disappear. I give it three days, max.’
‘Three days! I’ve got to live with this garbage for that long?’
‘Just get on with other things, Susie. Don’t talk to the press, let me deal with it.’ Mo smooths back her red hair then asks, ‘Anyone got it in for you, Susie? Apart from this journo, I mean?’
Susie shakes her head. ‘God knows. In this game, there’s always someone, I guess.’
Karen says, ‘There’s a few people quite jealous of your popularity. In the Party, I mean.’
‘Really?’ Susie, who is a conviction politician rather than a career politician, is sublimely unaware of internecine struggles. ‘Why? I mean, I’m not exactly jostling for a ministerial post or anything.’
‘You’re the first person the press call on for all kinds of media appearances. Especially since the repeats of “Home” started. There’s a lot of people would kill for that kind of exposure.’
‘You think someone’s planted the story?’
‘It’s a possibility,’ Mo says. ‘Listen,’ she sweeps up her notebook and the folder of the morning’s press clippings and stands up, ‘I’ve got to get on. Leave this with me, but don’t worry about it, I think it’ll just go away.’
When she has gone, Susie says, ‘That Thorneloe guy’s got it in for me.’
‘Ignore him.’
‘Easier said than done, Karen.’
‘I know. But you’ve got a busy day. Let’s get started.’