The Baby Laundry for Unmarried Mothers (15 page)

I knew then that I would never find peace. I would never find a way to be reconciled to my loss. The pain would never diminish. It would be there for all time, like a stain I would have to live
with – one that never washes away and colours everything.

My mother, perhaps wisely, stayed away from me. I could hear the normal house sounds but felt removed from them, separated by an invisible barrier. I wasn’t sure I would ever feel
‘at home’ here again – not without my little boy. I was no longer the same person who had left all those months ago. I was a mother now. But unlike my own mother, who had known
the joy of raising her children, I was a mother without a baby.

After a while, I realised that there was an answer. If I could die, then I wouldn’t be in pain any more. I got up and quietly crept into the bathroom. I had hoped for a bottle of pills of
some sort, but all I could find were half a dozen paracetamol. I took four of them anyway, but then hesitated. What on earth was I thinking? I mustn’t die. To die would only make certain what
was at present only probable. If I died, I would
definitely
never see Paul again; if I lived, there was a chance, albeit infinitesimal, that I might. That thought allowed a seed of hope to
grow. There might be a very small chance of somehow seeing my son again; although it was improbable, the possibility was there. And that possibility wasn’t important just for me: if I died,
he would never be able to see
me
again, either. I was his mother. If he ever needed me, then it was my
job
to be there.

I slept then, still in the clothes I had dressed in back at the convent, and I didn’t stir until the next morning. When I did, one thing was clear: I wasn’t ready to face the day,
much less the rest of my life, but equally I couldn’t stay in that bungalow.

M
y mother was finding it as difficult to cope with things as I was. I didn’t blame her. It didn’t matter how much hurt I had inside me
or how much I wished she had felt better able to support me: the ‘sin’ was mine, so the consequences were mine to bear also. But I felt so alienated from her. I knew she wouldn’t
understand the pain I was in – how could she? – but she seemed not to be making any effort to, either. I had to pretend nothing had happened; I wasn’t able to acknowledge it, talk
about it or explain quite how much I was hurting and missing Paul. My head was teeming with a cacophony of thoughts and feelings, none of which I was able to share with her. I couldn’t bear
the atmosphere this created between us, and I craved the supportive company of the girls in the convent, who had been through the same experience and understood.

I was also awkward around my stepfather, and he around me. We’d never been close, Sam and I, initially because he hadn’t understood teenagers; now he didn’t have a clue what to
say to me.

It was John and Emmie who came to my rescue. Just a week before I’d left the convent they’d moved house. Since John had finished his national service, they’d been living with
Emmie’s widowed mother in Dagenham, but now they’d bought their own place in Eastwood, just outside Southend-on-Sea.

‘Okay if I come in?’ Emmie asked, a few days after my return. She and John had popped over for a while, and she’d come to my bedroom, where I was now spending most of my time.
I was feeling paralysed by grief and increasingly disinclined to leave the room, even though I knew the isolation was probably the last thing I needed. Tormented by my loss, my room was the only
place where I felt I could just be me, and I would spend hour after hour staring sightlessly at the posters on my wall. They were prints of modern art mostly – stylish, quite sophisticated,
but now they seemed to belong to another life.

I tried to read:
The Best of Everything
by Rona Jaffe. But even though I felt a kinship for Jaffe’s heroine, Caroline Bender (her mother’s sage advice was similar to that of
my own – ‘don’t let boys touch you’), her life and world now felt very distant from mine. The outside world, generally, felt hostile and alien. No one knew what I’d
been through and, even if they had, they wouldn’t have cared.

I nodded. If there was one person I could talk to, it was Emmie. She gestured to the bed, where I was lying, listlessly trying to read my book, and sat down beside me.

‘Your mum’s worried about you,’ she said. ‘I know it might not seem that way, but she is.’

My expression must have suggested that I wasn’t convinced, but she wasn’t having that. ‘She doesn’t really know what to say to you,’ she continued.
‘That’s the problem. And how can she, after everything you’ve been through?’ She lowered her voice. ‘And let’s face it, she has no
idea
what you’ve
been through. None of us do, do we? But, well, you know your mum. It’s especially hard for her, because she feels . . . well, it’s difficult for her to talk about, isn’t it?
Sooo,’ she said, her tone changing now, ‘we’ve hatched a plan between the two of us. How about you come to me and John for a bit?’

‘What, now? You’ve come for supper, haven’t you?’

Emmie shook her head. ‘No, we’re off soon, I think,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t mean for supper; I meant to
stay
with us.’

I pulled myself up onto my elbows. ‘To stay?’

‘Yes, to stay.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t look so surprised. It’s not going to be the Ritz, I know, and, no, it doesn’t have a sea view. But we’re still close
enough to smell the ozone.’

‘Oh, Emmie, I’d
love
to. Thank you
so
much.’

‘Okay, steady on. Don’t get carried away. You’ve not seen the “to do” list I’ve drawn up for you yet. You’ll have to earn your keep, you know.
I’ve got a lot of boxes that still need unpacking. So there’ll be no time for lying around feeling sorry for yourself.’

I couldn’t have been more grateful. I could sense the cloud lifting already: I could get away to somewhere entirely new, where I’d able to talk to someone who was happy to
let
me talk. ‘Leave them
all
for me,’ I said, sitting up and putting my arms around her neck. ‘Anything you need doing,
really
, I’m happy to do it. Oh, this is so
kind of you, Emmie, I can’t tell you.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ she said. ‘It’s all a ruse to get some work done around the house. I just booked two weeks off work, and want some company that’s a little
more entertaining than an emulsion brush.’ She stood up. ‘Plus the sea air will do you a world of good. You’re so pale, you look like you’ve been living in a cave with a
load of trolls.’

I swung my legs around and stood up too. ‘So when can I come?’

‘How soon can you get packed?’ she replied.

I was never party to their conversation, but I found out later that my mother had been very worried about me, traumatised and depressed as I so clearly was. So she had confided
in Emmie, and they had indeed hatched a plan. So for all my upset at her inability to give me the emotional support I needed, at least I knew my mother cared.

It was such a comfort to get right away from home and spend time with Emmie. She was so kind, and having taken two weeks off work just to be with me – something I only found out later
– she looked after me in every way possible. Though the January winds bit and the sky remained as dark and gloomy as I felt, we spent many, many hours sitting on the promenade at Southend and
walking along the local seafront, stopping for endless lunches and cups of tea and coffee.

‘So tell me more about that dreadful convent,’ she’d demand. ‘Such a grim and gloomy place! I nearly died at the thought of you locked up in there with all those ghastly
nuns!’

And off I’d go, telling her about the milk kitchen and Sister Teresa, and how we’d shiver in our dormitory and swap our tragic tales. It was so therapeutic to
tell
someone. I
showed her my little Polaroid of Paul – up till then not a single soul besides Linda and I had seen it. I described every detail of his foibles and little ways: how he’d been, the
things he did, the way he’d looked so lovely in all her outfits. And I recounted every detail of the day I’d travelled into London and handed him over to Frances Whiteley, which was
still so raw and painfully clear in my mind.

Sometimes we didn’t talk much at all. We’d just walk along the prom, arm in arm, saying nothing, because sometimes it was too difficult for me to speak. Other times we talked about
my elder brother, Ray, wondering about the changes in his life since he’d returned from South Africa, and about his and Jean’s children, Sean and Lynne, now both gorgeous toddlers. He
had a business set up here now, which was already doing well, and we agreed how nice it was to have the family together again.

It was good to be able to talk about the future, because I needed to accept and embrace that there was one, for Paul with his new family and for me. I couldn’t hide away and nurse my
broken heart forever.

I left Emmie and John’s feeling so much stronger, and determined to get back to work. I needed occupation for both my mind and my body. I knew it was important that I try not to dwell
endlessly on my loss. So I called Bunty, my former boss, and to my great relief she urged me to return right away.

But it wasn’t simply a case of returning and slipping quietly into my old life. I’d been gone for eight months and it felt like a lifetime. And, more importantly, in terms of the
welcome I received, they were eight months during which I’d ostensibly been having the time of my life.

‘Ah, the wanderer returns!’ was the first greeting I was met with when I entered the office. ‘So,’ everyone seemed to want to know, ‘was it fun?’

Though Bunty knew the truth, as did my friends Doreen and June, no one else at the company knew what had happened to me. As far as everyone else knew, I had just returned from my extended spell
in Italy, where it was assumed I’d had lots of exciting adventures.

This left me on tenterhooks for weeks. ‘You must bring in some photos,’ demanded Barbara Walton, as soon as she saw me. She was the MD’s secretary, and was always very chatty.
I often bumped into her because we both worked on the same floor. It was obvious she wanted to know all about my trip. ‘I’ve been thinking of going to Italy this summer,’ she
said, catching me in the corridor. ‘Where did you stay? Can you recommend it? It would be brilliant to see your snaps.’

‘Er, Laigueglia, it was. And I’ll bring them in,’ I told her. ‘Tomorrow, I promise.’

And I kept promising to bring them in, over and over, in what seemed like a constant round of interrogations about why I’d forgotten them yet again
.
I became expert in the art of
bluffing, fielding difficult questions with off-the-cuff fabrications, and ducking out of conversations that threatened to get tricky by suddenly needing to be somewhere else.

It was so hard trying to keep up the pretence and appear jolly, but not as hard as it was to cope with the weight of my loss. Despite my determination to try to get back to normal, I still felt
depressed and empty – hollowed out inside – and thoughts of Paul and how he was faring were constantly at the forefront of my mind, but I had no release for them. Apart from Emmie,
there was no one I could talk to about him. Though my friends at work were sympathetic, I knew I couldn’t burden them with it. They didn’t want to hear my woes all the time, did they?
And, besides, as soon as anyone
did
talk to me about it, I seemed incapable of preventing the tears from coming.

I was on the verge of crying every time I so much as
thought
about Paul, so I constantly had to try to shut out those thoughts and keep my head firmly fixed on my work. For that reason,
and also because I felt so at odds with the world now that I carried such a big and dreadful secret, I clung to the friendship I’d made with Pauline at the convent. With Pauline, at least, I
could talk about Paul without worrying she’d get distressed if I cried. So we’d talk on the phone and we’d sob to each other. The pain was no less, but when I talked to her I felt
a little less alone.

But I
was
alone, in the sense that mattered most to me. I had had a child and that child was elsewhere, with a different family, being loved and cherished by people
other than me. But how
was
he? Was he coping okay without me? One thought that kept surfacing and wouldn’t go away was how bewildered he must be about where I’d gone. Did he cry
for me a lot? Did he miss my smell and touch? All those days and weeks of his new life when it had been just me and him – surely he must be feeling my absence?

I also ached – physically ached – to touch and hold him again, and felt so wretched to think he would forget me. I prayed he wouldn’t, but I knew that
of course
he’d forget me. He was so tiny. I wouldn’t even be a memory for him. Just one more time, I kept praying. Let me see him one more time. Just give me one chance to hold him and tell him
that I love him.

I had at least been able to give him one lasting thing: he still had the name I’d chosen for him. I became fixated on knowing his adoptive parents hadn’t changed it, hadn’t
taken away that one thing he had from me. And, luckily, I had a chance to find out.

One evening in late February I was visited at home by a Mr Hasler from Middlesex Probation Service. It was Mr Hasler’s job to help me fill in and sign all the legal papers, ready for the
adoption to take place formally in the courts at the end of March. He was a nice man, quite formal, but approachable and kind. I didn’t know if it was allowed, but I had nothing to lose, so I
asked if he’d be in touch with the adoptive couple himself. He told me that, yes, he certainly could be.

‘So, do you think,’ I asked him, ‘that you could perhaps ask them a favour? Could they perhaps send me a photo, so I can see how he’s getting on?’

‘I don’t see why not,’ he said, noting it down on his pad.

‘And could you maybe also ask them about his name?’

‘His name?’

‘Whether they kept it as Paul? That was what I asked for, before they took him: that they didn’t change his name. Could you check that too, do you think?’