There was nothing about how old Megan had been. She scanned it again to make sure. Megan Agnes Driscoll. And the address. With that she had some place to start from. She read and reread the piece of paper. Megan, wasn’t that a Welsh name? But Driscoll sounded Irish. There were loads of Irish in Manchester. Collyhurst was just out of town. She had passed through there on the way to Leeds on the coach. It was a run-down area, lots of slums. She thought they’d knocked quite a bit of it down.
She could look it up in the A-Z, see if it was still there. She wanted to go there now. Daft. She told herself to calm down, sit down. Her ears were buzzing with the excitement and her heart felt like it was too big. That’d be great, wouldn’t it? Have a heart attack and die before she could trace her. Marjorie and Robert finding her, the certificate clutched in her hand. Wracked with remorse for never understanding her.
She pulled out her portfolio from under the bed, brushed off the fluff and dust and untied the ribbon. She got out her folder and looked again at the notes she’d made from the books and from the phone call with the social worker. She could use this now to write to the adoption agency, the Catholic children’s place, and to ask them for her adoption records. But she’d be expected to have counselling from someone before she was given them. She might as well see what they had. There was nothing to stop her seeing if the house was still there in the meantime.
She went the following Saturday. Collyhurst was awful. Even worse on foot. She felt out of place and some boys had called out at her, made dirty suggestions which made her feel frightened. There was no 14 Livesey Street. The whole lot had been flattened. There was just a big patch of waste land and, beyond the railway bridge which crossed the street, there was a primary school and a scrap yard.
She had passed some shops a few minutes down the main road with a newsagents amongst them. She retraced her steps and went in. She had practised a story, which she trotted out to the woman behind the counter and the customer she was chatting to. Nina said she had moved away and lost touch with relatives who had lived on Livesey Street. When had they knocked the houses down?
‘Be a good few years now,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘You could try asking at the Housing. Some people went out to Wythenshawe. What were they called, love?’
‘Driscoll.’
Recognition lit the woman’s face. ‘Anthony Driscoll. They had a stall on Tib Street for years. Don’t think they’ve got it now though.’
Would that be Megan’s father? Nina’s grandfather.
‘And Grey Mare Lane,’ the other woman piped up.
‘I couldn’t swear to it but I think they moved out to Wythenshawe when they did the clearance. Try the Housing, they should know.’
Nina nodded and left.
It was cold and she struggled against the wind as she walked back along Oldham Street to Piccadilly Gardens. People waited at the bus stops, many of them poorly dressed and carrying bulging shopping bags. Nina was aware of her neat, new clothes – one of the perks of working at the shop. A couple of tramps were begging and Nina gave them some change. The wind seemed to howl down the street, lifting litter and dust and blowing over a sandwich board outside one of the shops.
Wythenshawe was the other side of Manchester, near the airport. A stall on Tib Street and Grey Mare Lane, a market. Nina had never been there but it would be like the market in Longsight, she thought, cheap and cheerful. Was that what Megan did? Worked on the market with her family? Outdoors in all weathers. She might be really common, swearing and rollers in her hair, like Hilda Ogden off Coronation Street. And what would Megan make of Nina? A right snob? But then when she was adopted that’s what people wanted, didn’t they? A better life, a good home for their child.
In Piccadilly the pigeons flew in an arc around the gardens. The place was noisy and busy and her bus was full so she had to stand all the way back. If she got stuck tracing Megan she could always try finding her father first in Wythenshawe, look in the phone book. Nina was getting closer. The bus lurched to a halt suddenly as the driver swerved to avoid a car. People muttered and cursed. Nina straightened up, smiled at the woman who’d bumped into her. She must tell Chloe. What next? She could try and find a marriage at the records place so she’d know if Megan had changed her name, or she could just go up to the markets the woman had talked about and see if anyone knew where the family had moved. Or try the Housing Department, but she thought they might be a bit cagey about giving details out unless you could prove a connection. She could even put a little advert in the paper. But that felt scary. How would people contact her anyway without Marjorie and Robert finding out? It was probably best to wait and get her proper records. After all, Megan might have sent details of where she was so she could be easily found. Yes, she’d hang on and do that first.
‘There are only the formal records, I’m afraid,’ the counsellor said. She held the large manilla envelope in her hand. Nina wanted to snatch it from her.
‘Sometimes there is a letter or photo but that’s less likely because of the time when you were adopted. In the sixties your birth mother would have been told very clearly that she was giving up all right to you, she had to swear in court, to make everything legal.’ She drew out the papers. ‘I’ll just explain what’s here and then I’ll give you a little time to yourself if that’s what you’d like?’
Nina nodded. Get on with it. Her palms were damp and her throat felt as though she’d overeaten.
‘This is the History Sheet.’ She showed Nina a typed-up form. ‘It would have been made by the social worker when your mother first applied to the society for help, and attached are some notes obviously made after you were born. Then there’s this medical record – all the children had to be examined by the doctor, of course. I’ll be next door if you need anything or want to ask any questions.’
Nina felt disappointment steal through her. There was so little. She read it through slowly. There was some new information. Her mother’s age – sixteen, only sixteen – and a note that she had been a packer in a factory. She read the handwritten sheet.
24/5/60 Baby girl born at Withington. Both well.
27/5/60 Baby baptised Claire by Father Quinlan.
10/7/60 Baby placed for adoption with Mr and Mrs Underwood, 29 Darley Road, West Didsbury, Manchester.
12/7/60 Megan discharged home.
Two days after, oh God! She wiped at her eyes. Looked at the medical form – nothing there of interest except her birth weight, six pounds twelve ounces.
Nothing about who the father might be or how Megan came to be pregnant.
No letters.
No photo.
She had been expecting so much more.
Maybe Megan didn’t care, hadn’t cared. Maybe ‘Claire’ had been the result of some silly mistake, larking about with some loser from the market or the factory, him taking advantage and bingo, a bun in the oven. A problem to be got rid of. Forgotten about. These days she’d have an abortion, it was illegal back then and dangerous. Nina was furious. She hated her. How could she just leave her like that? Walk away and never, not once, think about her and leave some sign.
When the counsellor returned, Nina tried to hide her rage but it was too big for that, clambering all over her.
‘I want to punch her,’ she blurted out. ‘That sounds stupid doesn’t it?’
The counsellor talked about anger and emotions and how she might feel lots of different things and try to accept them. She gave her leaflets and a magazine. She told her to take things at her own pace and to come back any time if she wanted to. She talked about the importance of using a go-between if she tried to find her mother, an intermediary she called it. Less threatening all round. Nina nodded to show she was listening but already her thoughts were racing ahead. She’d find her, see what she had to say for herself.
‘Some people wait a long time, years and years, before they are ready to start tracing, some don’t go further than this, it’s enough for them.’
Not for me, Nina thought. Can’t stop now. It was the only thing she could think of. She had to do it, the sooner the better. Whatever it was like.
Marjorie
‘We don’t know where to turn, Father. It’s affected the whole family. I’m only glad Stephen doesn’t have to put up with it.’
‘He’s gone to Birmingham, is that right?’
‘Yes, he’s doing really well. But Nina, this constant depression. Moodiness. I can’t remember the last time there was any joy in the house. It’s like walking on eggshells.’
‘Adolescence is a tricky time,’ he agreed, ‘hormones all over the place, identity crisis, the rest of the world all seem to be against you. But it will pass.’
‘Will it? I don’t know, I think it’s more than just the usual teenage ups and downs.’
‘You’re not the first parent to sit here and say that. When you’re in the middle of it, it seems never ending. Talk to your husband, try and share this, support each other.’
If only, she thought. Robert had completely withdrawn from any attempt to be a father to Nina. He endured her presence at mealtimes and that was it. Marjorie felt as if they were all actors pretending to be a family but with no conviction.
None of them ever referred to the night in France. Marjorie had tried to talk to Nina about it. Just the once. ‘I’m sorry,’ she had said the following morning as the two of them sat on the verandah eating bread and apricot preserve and drinking coffee. The sight of Nina’s face sickened her. ‘Nina, I’m sure he never really . . .’
‘It wasn’t you,’ Nina said. ‘You don’t need to be sorry. I don’t want to talk about it, anyway.’
It was like a boulder of shame rolling round the house, like a leg iron they each wore, silent and invisible but dragging the life from them. She could never tell the priest about it. That would be disloyal. And Nina had been difficult before then.
She knew Nina continued to drink too much, probably meddled with drugs as well but she no longer flaunted her abandonment for the family to see. She spent a lot of time at her friend Chloe’s. She had become secretive, withdrawn and uncommunicative. The fight had gone from her and now she was sullen instead.
‘I don’t know how to help her, Father. There doesn’t seem to be anything I can do.’
The priest nodded. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘That’s all you can do. Be there for her and listen.’
What to, she thought, the sound of silence?
Nina
‘Have you no regard for your mother’s feelings?’ Robert thundered, his face dark with rage.
‘I never asked you to,’ Nina retorted and then, sensing rather than seeing her mother flinch, she reined in her temper. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you, I knew you’d be upset. I’ve a right to find out about my own background. Lots of adopted people do it.’
‘Stephen hasn’t.’
‘This isn’t about Stephen, and it’s not about you. I’m not doing it to hurt you, I’m doing it because I want to – for me. I’m sorry if you’re upset.’ She could hear her voice shaking and hated herself for it, ‘but those are my papers and I want them back.’
‘Why?’ Marjorie asked. ‘I don’t understand why you have to drag it all up. Weren’t we good enough? We love you like our own . . .’ She couldn’t continue and Nina looked away.
‘I want to know, that’s all.’
‘She didn't want you,’ Marjorie said. ‘What is she going to feel like when you barge into her life?’
‘I don’t know.’ She hugged her arms tight to her body.
‘It’s downright selfish. You go trampling all over people's feelings, not a thought for anyone else. Well, I suggest you think about this very seriously before you carry on.’ He thrust the papers at her. ‘And I, for one, don’t want to hear another word about it. You are our daughter. We clothed you, fed you, taught you right from wrong, or tried to. This woman has never been a mother to you.’ He sighed, his face folding into weariness. ‘I don't know where we went wrong with you, Nina, but if you want to break your mother’s heart you’re going the right way about it.’
She closed her eyes. There didn’t seem to be any way to make them understand. None of this should have happened. If her mother hadn’t gone into her room, Nina on the bed and the papers ranged all around her. The distinctive colour of the birth certificate, the bold headings for the Catholic Rescue Society. Too late to try and scoop them up, her mother’s eyes had drunk them in, looked at Nina, wounded. She tried to explain. Marjorie had made a small sound of distress and had run stumbling into Robert, who had taken her downstairs. Nina had waited for the summons. She had collected the papers together and, when he called, taken them down. Thinking with some small, uninformed part of her mind that they might care to know something of her story. Stupid. They couldn’t see past their own injured feelings. They certainly weren’t interested in anything she thought or felt.