Mothers and Daughters (36 page)

‘Oh, Mum …’ Zoe cried, rushing to her side. ‘How awful, how sad … And all this time you’ve kept it to yourself?’

‘I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t know how I’ll find her but I want to have a try. You are the first to know what I’m planning.’

Her children wrapped themselves round her, crying.

‘Oh, Mum, you have to find her,’ Alex said. ‘Now I have little Esme-Kate … the thought of losing her … How could they be so cruel to you?’

‘They thought they were doing it for the best all round. Hushing up everything, sending me away – that was how it was done. You young ones have no idea how it was then.’

‘Now it’s so different. My surgery is full of girls wanting the morning-after pill or an abortion.
It breaks my heart to see girls as young as twelve, pregnant because of some drunken dare or ignorance. No one cares a hoot, and that’s just as bad. And yet, Mum, I know it sounds strange but I always sensed there was something.’ Zoe sniffled, searching for a hanky. ‘I’ve always felt a gap between us … as if there was something unspoken, something hidden inside you I couldn’t reach. I thought it was me you couldn’t take to yet I knew that wasn’t true. It’s almost a relief to know this.’ Zoe drew up her chair and put her arm round her mother with concern.

Connie felt her tears dripping but she needed to explain.

‘I’ve learned that when something is unspoken, it doesn’t disappear but it grows ever larger, like Banquo’s ghost hovering, a silent presence; the absent face in the photograph more powerful than the ones you can see. You know Joy and my history, but it was hidden from us. I badgered my mother for facts when she was so ill. I have blamed myself ever since for forcing things into the open so I do the opposite to you. Can you forgive me?’

‘For what? For goodness’ sake, for something that happened long before we were born, in another time and place,’ Alex said.

‘We’ll help you find her, if you want to. I can go on the Net.’ Dr Zoe was back in control. ‘It just wouldn’t happen today, would it? Marriage is an option, not an order. Look at Joy and Harry. They’ve
never tied the knot but I suppose that was because of her first husband.’

‘Thanks, both of you, but this is a journey I must make on my own for as long as it takes. There may be nothing at the end of it but tears, rejection and regrets. That’s when I’ll be needing your support. Besides, you must both give yourselves time to get used to the idea of having a half-sister. Pass me a glass, I need a stiff drink.’

‘You’d better let me drive you to town, in that case,’ said Alex. ‘We don’t want the local magistrate done for drink driving.’

‘Neville’s doing the honours. He’s going to hold my hand while I tell the others tonight. They have a right to know. His mother tried to make us marry when she found out he was gay! The stories I could tell you – but I think I’ve shocked you enough.’

‘Believe me, some of the things we got up to behind your back would shock you rigid,’ Alex winked at Zoe. ‘Secrets in the family: the soaps have nothing on us.’

Connie sank back, relieved to have come clean. It had gone better than she’d hoped but it was early days for all of them. The journey had hardly begun and now she must face her oldest friends, backed up by Dutch courage.

Joy sank back into the sofa speechless. What a turn-up! How could they not have guessed? Connie’s
disappearing act for all those months, the family confabs behind closed doors and her absence from the christening, it all made sense in hindsight. Her own mother, sworn to secrecy for all these years, had never even hinted at Connie’s plight.

‘I wanted to tell you both,’ Connie confessed. ‘I nearly did, once or twice but …’

‘I was a wreck after Kim was born. I would’ve been useless,’ Joy offered.

‘And I was off swanning round the world with your ex-boyfriend … It’s not Marty’s child, is it?’ Rosa was like an arrow to the bull’s-eye.

She could have hesitated and hedged her bets but Connie was not going down that route. ‘I had a fling with Lorne Dobson!’

‘Old swivel-hips. You know he died, poor Dobby?’ Rosa added.

‘Yes, I heard.’ Connie wanted no complications. The baby must be his and his alone.

‘So, now what? Where do you go to find her?’ Joy said. ‘The Internet?’

Connie nodded. ‘Would it were that simple! There are tracing agencies, I can contact, lists to explore. I’ll find my way somehow. I just don’t want to withhold any more secrets from you. Neville’s known from the beginning, and that’s another thing. Tell them, Nev.’

He launched into a hilarious account of that terrible Christmas when Ivy went berserk. There was
always a funny side to family dramas in hindsight. The line between tragedy and farce was very thin. Neville told the story with such drama, not missing a detail. How glad she was to have had his support for so many years.

‘This is better than
EastEnders
,’ Rosa laughed.

‘Where do you think they get their plots from?’ Neville quipped. ‘Life is much more bizarre than fiction.’

‘Let’s drink to you finding her and soon, Connie. You deserve some luck.’

They raised their glasses yet again. It was going to be a long and boozy night. Connie sat back with relief. All who mattered to her knew. Whatever the next months would bring, she’d not be alone on this strangest of journeys into the unknown. Who else but friends and family would give her the courage to face whatever was ahead?

Connie began the journey at first with such enthusiasm, buoyed up by everyone’s encouragement: searching the Web for the right agencies, contacting old colleagues from her brief social work career to ask for guidance. It was like a journey without a map reference, just a few signposts along the way.

Once she had a name it would be easy to find an address, but she knew that was the wrong approach. It was all right some mother turning up on the doorstep in a TV drama but it never worked in real life unless you were very lucky.

There were cul-de-sacs when her search bore no fruit. No baby was born on the day she gave birth. The West Riding was no more and the records scattered. In her mind’s eye it would all be straightforward, but doors shut and she began to despair.

‘Keep going,’ Paul said. ‘We just haven’t opened the right ones yet. It’ll happen, you’ll see.’

‘Have you tried the National Children’s Home archives, the Church of England Children’s Society or the Catholic adoption agencies?’ Everyone was being so helpful, so curious. She’d tried them all, to no avail. Furthermore, her own name was not on the list of children seeking to find their birth parents. That was a real downer. It was then Connie realised how late she’d left things. But it was only recently that birth parents had the right to go in search of their adopted children. At least she could put her own name down on that list, just in case.

It was time to dig deep into reserves of determination and obsession to make her dream come true. Anna was out there somewhere, not knowing how hard Connie was looking, but was it all too late?

It was Zoe who broke the deadlock. ‘I’m not breaking confidentiality here but I have a patient, about your age, who was on the same mission. She found her child through Barnardos. It’s worth a try.’

‘They’re one of the last on my list. Thanks. Can I ask how she got on?’

Zoe hesitated, looking at her mother with those piercing blue eyes. ‘Not very well. She went through all the processes. They made contact with her son but then he decided he didn’t want to meet her or have anything to do with her. His right, of course … Mum, you have to be prepared. She’d built herself
up and now, well, you can guess. Sorry, that’s not what you want to hear, is it?’

‘I guess that’s not unusual and I’m trying to brace myself for rejection, but at least I’ll know she’s alive and well. I’ll have to be satisfied with the fact I made the effort.’

Connie smiled, putting a brave face on this news. Better to get on with her chores and duties and follow the lead, even if it led to the dark valley of despair.

Next morning she found the number to ring, made a tentative enquiry, listened to the implications of trying to trace her child, left all the relevant details with the agency, then went to visit Auntie Lee and Uncle Pete, who weren’t well.

‘I’m glad you’ve gone in search of your baby. I never agreed with Mother, as you know. We had a falling-out. I think the timing was bad for her and I know she regretted it to her dying day.’

This was news to Connie. ‘What did she say?’

‘“I was too hard on the girl … I let her down. We should never have let her give the baby away. I hope the Good Lord doesn’t hold it against me.” Then she smiled. “Our Connie’s a Winstanley. She’ll not give up on one of her own. Happen it’ll be right one day.”’

They sipped tea by a roaring fire and Connie felt enveloped in their concern and love. The shelves gleamed with all Pete’s trophies, photos of him with footballing heroes of yesteryear: Bobby Charlton, Tom Finney and Nat Lofthouse. Arthur was now
coaching the local juniors. He’d never gone as far as his dad but was a teacher at the independent grammar school.

Connie took herself round the shops just to cheer up her flagging spirits but her purse stayed closed. She was in no mood for such compensations.

At least her borders were getting a good weeding. All the tension of the past weeks drew her from the tyranny of the phone, out into the fresh air to flowers and shrubs, and the effort to keep on top of the veg plot. After forty, went the saying, women go for God or the garden, and she was putting all her energies into redesigning her flowerbeds. It took her mind off her disappointment, and when the phone rang she strolled to the one in the potting shed. Doctors have to have phones everywhere when they are on call.

‘Is that Constance Jerviss, née Winstanley?’ a voice said.

‘It is. Who’s speaking?’ Not another sales plea from a charity?

‘Is this a convenient time? I’m phoning on behalf of Barnados.’

‘I’m in the garden …’

‘I hope you’re sitting down then. We’ve found a match!’

Connie collapsed on the sack of potting compost. ‘Are you sure?’

The voice gave date and place of birth and date of the signing of the adoption papers. Everything tallied.
‘What happens next?’ Connie croaked, too shocked to take in the rest.

She’s found, my daughter is found!

Oh, that life was so simple! She told only Paul the good news. She walked around the house hugging it around herself. The first stile was mounted into a green field where they would meet and be friends and live happily ever after, but this was 2006 and there are forms to fill and processes to go through, turnstiles and checks, and it was like trying to get through Manchester Airport after a bomb scare. She must be scanned, tested, counselled, and it all took time. She must wait for a counsellor-cum-mediator free to take on both parties, if needed, to act as a go-between, a liaison officer, a wise woman to guide them both through the path to a meeting place, and there was none free. It was all going to take months. Connie wanted to scream with frustration.
I can’t
wait that long. What if my cancer comes back?

Those were dark months, holding on to just a hope until one day, six months later, she found herself sitting in a comfortable room with a box of tissues on the coffee table, facing a beautiful woman of mixed race called Marilyn, who gently explained the purpose of these counselling sessions and how they were necessary to prepare Connie for some future contact with her daughter, if she was agreeable.

She was now in the departure lounge waiting for boarding. The journey had really begun but there was no certainty that the plane would ever take off.

They talked through all her past, her hopes, nothing was left out, even the truth about Lorne and Marty. This was a room where the walls wept with all the sadnesses confessed, mistakes, uncertainties explored, all the tears shed.

Nothing was promised but listening and support, until one morning Marilyn came in with a beam on her face. ‘We’ve made contact with your daughter and she is willing to proceed further. That’s all I can say, but she wishes you to know her name is Joanna, Joanna May.’

Connie sped through the Manchester streets with wings on her feet.
I have a daughter called Joanna and
she’s willing to write to me
.

She found herself close to the cathedral and stepped inside. I have to thank someone for this, she prayed, lighting a candle, barely able to stop grinning. Joanna … so close to the name she’d always called her, Anna.

Joanna … what a beautiful name. Who are you?
What do you look like? Will you write to me? Will we
ever meet?

It has been a long and ardent courtship of letters, cards, emails, phone calls, photographs exchanges, tentative reachings out on both sides to understand
why things had happened the way they did. There were tears and recriminations, misunderstandings and silences at times, but Marilyn was there, holding their hands each step of the way, guiding them ever closer to this first meeting.

‘Fifty things you don’t know about me!’ Joanna sent a questionnaire for her birth mother to devour and Connie replied with a special scrapbook compiled by the Silkies. ‘Fifty things you’ll need to know about Connie.’ It was full of old photos and quotes, her likes and dislikes, her outrageous clothes and gardening mania, even stuff Connie had long forgotten.

Life histories winged their way through the post and email. Joanna was married to Mike Kenyon with two boys, Harry and Freddie. She lived near Hebden Bridge, close to Sylvia Plath’s grave. She taught modern languages at a further education college and supported Burnley football team. She had lived most of her life close to Bradford.

Then, when they felt ready, this plan was hatched, this holiday, this private honeymoon of sorts, away from prying eyes. Where better than Crete to share time?

Now is the moment of truth. Connie shakes as she stands
at the barrier watching the first dribble of pale-faced
passengers pushing trolleys out into the foyer. Where is
she?

And then she sees Joanna, tall, sandy-haired, beautiful,
just like her photo, just like the portrait of Freddie
on the piano. They lock eyes in recognition and move
towards each other in a gentle, tentative hug for all
those missed years
.

My daughter … you’re here, my firstborn at long last!

There are no words, only tears. One journey has
ended and another wonderful journey is beginning.
There’s no certainties, only hope, but that is enough for
now, Connie smiles as she guides her daughter into the
sunlight
.