The Things We Never Said (14 page)

‘Never! We’re neighbours! Do you miss the sea? I do.’

‘A bit. And I miss my brother.’

‘I envy you, having a brother. There’s only ever been me and Mum.’

‘At least your mum’s still alive.’

‘Yes, well. So anyway, what d’you say? Eighteen bob a week and you help out here. Then you’ll only have to go in for a couple of weeks. Maybe you could even come back afterwards – you’ll get a job easily enough once it’s all over.’

Maggie is still doubtful about sharing a house with Boris, but she needs to move out of Dot’s by Saturday, so she agrees.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

After pouring him a brandy ‘for the shock’, his mother places a shoebox on the table in front of him. ‘It contains all the papers and so forth. And also, I always thought you might like to, well, I assumed . . .’ She rests her hand on the lid. ‘I kept the clothes you were wearing when you came to us.’

He drinks the brandy in two gulps, hoping its medicating qualities will kick in quickly. The lid of the shoebox bears remnants of the discoloured, brittle sticky tape that once secured it, and in the centre, written in his mother’s flawless copperplate, is his name in faded violet ink. He lifts the lid. Inside is a pile of clothing and a large, fat envelope. He shakes out the contents. There are official-looking letters, county court documents and medical records referring to blood tests and vaccinations, but he can’t keep his hands still enough to read them properly. He rests his head in his palms for a moment, but he’s aware of his mother hovering anxiously behind him. He needs to keep it together. He takes a breath and clears his throat before returning to the things on the table in front of him. On top of the pile is a little woollen cardigan, navy blue, quite thick, with five yellow wooden buttons shaped like ducklings. He runs his thumb over one of the buttons, then lifts the cardigan out of the box. Underneath is a pair of heavy cotton dungarees, blue with white stripes, and a thin white jersey. His mother is looking at him.

‘Jonathan?’

He’s never seen her look so worried. He wants to say something but he can’t.

‘It’s all there, darling. All the paperwork, your clothes, and the few things they sent with you.’

He picks up the wad of papers again.
We are pleased to inform you that your application has been accepted. In due course, we hope to place a baby in your care . . .
He shuffles the letters.
Baby will be ready for collection at twelve noon.
Ready for collection, like a pair of patched-up old boots.
Baby will be dressed and have food for a journey. We ask our adopters for a voluntary financial contribution. The cost to the society of each adoption is currently estimated at £10
. So he’d been bought for a tenner. The words shimmer in front of him; these documents are all dated 1964, but he was born in 1962. He picks up the dungarees, folds back the tag and reads:
To fit age 12-18 months.
He looks again, but there’s no mistake. Gerald and Daphne Robson took him into their care on 27 February 1964, not as a newborn, but when he was almost sixteen months old.

During the thirteen-week probationary period
, he reads,
the mother may change her mind
. Why
thirteen
weeks, he wonders? Fiona would say it was unlucky. He flicks through the sheaf of papers again, pulls out one headed
Matter of the Adoption Act
. It’s the formal adoption order, showing that the application was heard in Hastings County Court, although he doesn’t notice that immediately, only that it’s dated 28 May 1964. The adoption had gone through unimpeded.

Thirteen weeks; so she could have changed her mind. At any point during those thirteen weeks, she could have just picked up the phone and said she wanted him back. He thinks about Poppy, Malcolm and Cassie’s seventeen-month-old who, when they’d visited just before Christmas, had delighted everyone by toddling around the room picking up micro-scraps of wrapping paper and saying ‘hare-wah’ as she handed each one to Cassie. The dates, the facts, are beginning to organise themselves in his mind. His biological mother hadn’t been a weeping teenager, forced to hand over her newborn by an unforgiving family or a stern-faced nun; she had given away a child who could walk and talk, who had probably waved goodbye.

He stands and takes his coat from the back of the chair. ‘I need some air,’ he says. ‘I can’t . . . I mean, I need some time to . . . to take all this in.’

*

This morning’s rain has turned to sleet, so it’s wet and freezing; the worst of both worlds. But he’s got to get out; the air in his mother’s kitchen is thick and heavy with revelation and he fears what he’s just been told will crush him if he doesn’t give it room to expand and take shape. He walks quickly along Lee Terrace and turns into Blackheath Village. The sleet is icy on his scalp, wetter than rain. He can feel the wetness trickling down the back of his neck inside his collar. As people around him scurry into doorways, he breaks into a run. At first he doesn’t seem out of place because so many people are sprinting to the shelter of a shop’s awning or a bus stop, but Jonathan is picking up speed. Shoppers move out of his way. He is breathing hard now, and getting hot; he unbuttons his coat and it billows out behind him. He can feel his feet slamming against the pavement and water splashing up over his ankles as he runs through puddles. He begins to move his arms for momentum, but the coat is restricting him so he shrugs it off, bundles it over his arm and, after trying to carry it for a while, gives up and throws it over a wall. Sweat breaks out on his back, neck and forehead. The icy drops are almost welcome now, soothing his overheated body as he pounds on through the wet streets and up through the village towards the heath. His jeans are soaked through, and the flapping wetness slaps raw against his legs as he runs and runs, stopping only when the ground becomes soft underfoot and his feet begin to squelch on the boggy grass.

Still panting, he stops to rest under the shelter of an ancient oak tree. He stands there for a while, leaning against its rain-blacked bark, looking out across the greyness and listening to the white noise of heavy rain. He’s trying – really trying – to properly absorb what he’s just been told, but his mother’s words are still tumbling around in his head. His instinct is to call Fiona, but he hesitates. He feels like an imposter, as though he’d somehow got her – if indeed he still has her – under false pretences. He knows it’s ridiculous – he is the deceived, not the deceiver. But seeing those clothes, those papers; tangible evidence that’s real and solid, whereas he seems to be fading: not quite a teacher, not quite a father, not quite a son.

Her mobile’s switched off, and there’s no reply from Nick and Jean’s landline. He tries Malcolm, but his phone is off as well. Things have been pretty cool between him and Malcolm since the panto, but at least they’re still speaking.

His breathing has slowed now, and he tries to gather his thoughts as he watches the sleet jumping and spitting off the pond. As a boy, he’d often spent long, sunny days squatting at the edge of this pond, net poised, trying to see past his reflection to the tiny fish that darted back and forth beneath. Whose was the face that would look back at him now? This time yesterday, despite everything that was going on, he’d known who he was. He kicks a mudcaked twig into the water. After the initial shock of his mother’s bombshell, he’d actually been relieved that it couldn’t be Gerald the police were looking for; but that only lasted for about thirty seconds, and then it dawned on him that his DNA was still linked with – with whoever it was.

The temperature is falling by the minute; his nose, ears and even the surface of his eyes feel cold. Iron-grey clouds tinged with yellow crouch above him as he stands looking out across the black water. The sleet suddenly eases, and now barely pierces the surface, but the sky seems to be gathering itself, filling up with snow ready to smother him. He should make a move. But still he stands there. He reaches into his pocket for his wallet, takes out his driving licence and looks at it. The photo was taken five years ago; he’s smiling.
Robson
, it says next to the photo.
Jonathan Hugo.
Ha. Still holding the photocard, he lifts his arm, curls his wrist around, and flicks. The licence goes spinning out across the pond, then slices through the surface in a flash and disappears down into the sludge.

He is walking slowly back towards his mother’s, soaked through but barely noticing the discomfort, when his phone rings. ‘Fi, thank God—’

‘What is it, Jonathan?’ Her voice is colourless. ‘You promised you wouldn’t call—’

‘I know. Look, I’m sorry, but I need to tell you . . .’ He stops. She’d wanted a break from all this, and now he’s going to burden her again. He takes a breath, then speaks more steadily. ‘I don’t see how I can
not
tell you about this.’

He hears her sigh. ‘Go on then,’ she says.

‘Well, it turns out I’m . . .’ But he finds he can’t say it straight out. ‘I’ve just come from my mum’s. She told me more about what happened after that first baby died. It seems she did get pregnant again, four more times, in fact. But she lost them all; miscarriages. All boys, apparently.’

‘But . . .’

‘Hang on. There’s more. She said part of her wanted to keep on trying, but by that time she was becoming convinced that she and my . . . that she and Gerald were somehow “biologically mismatched” and that they’d never produce a live child. So she started thinking about adoption.’

Fiona doesn’t say anything but he can tell that she’s listening closely now.

‘He was against the idea at first. But she was in such a state. She begged him to consider it, and eventually he agreed.’ He waits. ‘Fi?’

There’s a pause before she says, ‘I’m still here.’

‘Say something.’

‘I . . . I don’t know what to say.’ She speaks slowly. ‘So let me get this straight. You’re saying that Daphne and Gerald . . .’

‘Yes. They’re not my real parents.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Maggie is only five months gone when Clive tells her she must leave. He’s very nice about it, but her condition is now so obvious that he really can’t keep her on any longer, so she takes up her role as Vanda’s housekeepercum-wardrobe mistress. Monday to Wednesday, Vanda works shifts at the pub on the corner, and from Thursday to Sunday, she plays the clubs and theatres in Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester. Sometimes, Maggie goes along to watch. On stage, Vanda sparkles like the sequins on her costumes. Even Boris livens up under the powerful stage lighting, slinking around Vanda’s shoulders, waist and legs, then drawing his head back as though about to strike, eyes fixed, tongue flicking menacingly. Vanda buys dead things from a greasy little man who comes to the door once a month and looks shifty as he hands them over, packed tightly together in a plastic bag. She dangles them in front of Boris, who widens his jaw and swallows them whole. To her own amazement, Maggie has overcome her fear of Boris. She’s even become rather fond of him, and spends many an evening with the dozing snake draped around her shoulders and resting his head on the warm boulder of her belly.

The baby – she is forced to think of it as a baby now – must be huge, because she is like a fat, round pod about to burst. According to Dr Sarka, the child’s size means there’s not much room for manoeuvre within Maggie’s womb. On the mercifully few occasions when there is movement, Maggie flinches, but bears it; after all, considering she is going to give the child away without even looking at it, she feels it’s entitled to give her the odd kick.

*

Two weeks before her due date, Maggie feels a band of pain tighten around her middle as she heaves herself out of bed. It isn’t much, but it’s enough to trap her breath in her lungs. After it subsides, she makes her way slowly downstairs.

‘Morning, Fatso,’ Vanda smiles, pulling out a chair for her.

Maggie butters a slice of bread, spoons pale amber honey onto it and is just biting into it when another pain flings its steely arms around her and grips until she is forced to let out a low moan.

Vanda’s eyes widen. ‘What is it? It’s not starting already, is it?’

When Maggie is able to speak again, she lets out her breath. ‘It’s probably just practice contractions.’

But then her waters break, and Vanda’s back-room floor is awash. Maggie wedges a tea towel between her legs while Vanda calls the ambulance, her voice rising in panic and settling again in response to the operator’s words.

Maggie tries to relax. She’d asked the midwife how much it would hurt. ‘Worse than having a tooth filled, not as bad as having a leg cut off,’ the midwife said without looking at her. ‘Maybe tha should have thought about that before tha jumped into bed.’

The pain is monstrous. It rises up and swamps her, then retreats, leaving a tidemark of fear. Just as Vanda says she’s going to call 999 again to find out what the bloody hell in the name of Jesus H. Christ is going on with this sodding ambulance, two ambulance men walk past the kitchen window.

The men fill the room; they are big, smiley and capable-looking. The older one rubs his hands together and says not long now, an early Christmas present and where’s the proud dad then?

‘There isn’t one,’ Maggie says quietly. ‘And the baby’s being adopted, so I won’t be bringing it home.’

His smile only falters for a second. ‘Right you are, duck,’ he says. ‘We’d better have a look at you, see how you’re going on.’

‘It’s not due for another two weeks.’

‘Well, you’re definitely on’t way, love. Better get you into hospital to be on’t safe side.’

Maggie nods; the sooner she goes in, the sooner this will be over. And when they take the baby away, everything will be back to normal.

*

Maggie labours for two days. When she was first admitted a lifetime ago, she thought she would be strong enough to get through this. Pain tears through every cell and nerve ending, but it comes from outside of her, opening its cavernous jaws and clamping down, carrying her off to another place. She has her eyes closed against the harsh light of the delivery room, but she can hear them talking.

‘This one should have been straightforward,’ the doctor mutters, sliding his stethoscope over Maggie’s enormous belly. ‘Heartbeat’s there, but it’s feeble.’

He hands the stethoscope to his colleague, who listens intently, then nods. ‘Bit echoey; I don’t think we can wait.’

From up on the ceiling, Maggie looks down at the woman and the people around her. There’s something familiar about that great bloated body, but that is all.

‘Wait!’ the midwife shouts. ‘It’s crowning!’

Maggie lands back in her body; someone is trying to suffocate her and she fights the mask, which smells of hot rubber. Then she hears bumble bees, senses them buzzing in her nose and begins to feel a little calmer.
That’s it
, a voice says,
good girl, deep breaths, ready for the next one
. Next what, Maggie thinks. Then the pain rips through her again.
Bear down now
, a voice says.
You can do it!

She feels a mighty urge to expel the thing that is taking up two-thirds of her body, and that’s when she remembers: she’s having a baby. The deep-red curtains of pain pull back briefly. All these people, she thinks. Then the curtains close again, and she is sinking.

Come on, lass. You don’t want us to have to cut it out, do you?
They’re shouting now:
Come on! One more push should do it.
Maggie makes a supreme effort, hears a noise coming from so low down inside her that it seems like another country, and then the pain changes, rushes up to the surface and burns as though she’s passing a ball of fire.

The head is born and everybody seems pleased.
One more
, they say,
one more little push
. She feels it slither out of her and opens her eyes just in time to see them whisking it away. She remembers she’s not supposed to look, but she catches a glimpse and it’s not what she expected at all. Not pink and plump, but blue-grey and scrawny, like a bird thrown from the nest. There is no cry.

‘Is it all right?’ she asks the student midwife, who looks terrified and doesn’t answer. The doctors huddle over the baby, poking around in its mouth, holding it upside down. She knows it’s nothing to do with her, not now, but do they have to be so rough?

After all the noise and shouting, the delivery room is eerily silent. Apart from the little student who looks tearful, everyone is clustered around the baby, but Maggie can’t see what they’re doing. She asks again if it’s all right, but they ignore her. She bites her lip.
Please don’t let it be dead, I didn’t mean to hate it, please don’t let it be dead
.

Then, to her surprise, another pain grips her, forcing her back against the pillow and causing her to cry out.

The senior midwife, a stout, thunderous-looking woman, looks round from where she is helping attend to the baby. ‘That’ll be the afterbirth,’ she tells the student. ‘You can deliver it. Give her more gas and air and if it doesn’t come away after three or four contractions, just knead her stomach.’

Maggie grabs the mask this time, hangs onto it like a life raft. She’d assumed the afterbirth was something that would just slip out, not this huge thing that she was going to have to ‘deliver’. The next contraction reaches up, grips her and pulls her down into the depths. Bubbles of pain pop in front of her eyes. She barely rushes back up to the surface before it drags her down to its lair again, and this time she lets herself go with it, and finds that in doing so, she becomes oddly lucid. This, then, is her punishment for wanting to kill the baby, for thinking it a monster. The student midwife starts to pummel her stomach and Maggie lashes out, pushing her away.

‘Don’t make a fuss now. It’s just to help bring the afterbirth along,’ the girl says, attempting the same patronising tone as the older midwife.

The next pain looms, and before Maggie closes her eyes – she needs to lock herself in – she sees the older midwife whisper to the student, and then she sees the young girl’s tears. As her pain peaks, she opens her mouth and lets out a long, anguished cry. She has no reason to be brave.

But as her own cry subsides she hears another, high, furious and insistent, surrounded by whoops and cheers and well-dones and thank the lords and other things, in among which Maggie detects the ‘she’s and ‘her’s. So she has given birth to a little girl.

Again Maggie cranes her neck and tries to sit up, and they don’t try to stop her. In their joy at having got the child breathing, they seem to have forgotten the instructions not to let the mother see it.

‘She’s perfect!’ The student brushes a mascara-stained tear from her cheek. And Maggie sees the little squirmy thing, pink now, its cries settling to an outraged grizzle.

The older midwife comes over to the bed just as another pain begins to rise. ‘Come along now,’ she says, her tone impatient. ‘This is taking too long.’

Maggie is about to yell that she can’t bloody help it when the pain mutes her. The midwife starts to knead her stomach, then stops, turns to the student and adopts a teacher-like tone. ‘What must we always check before delivering the afterbirth, Nurse?’

‘But you said—’

‘I repeat, what must we check before—’

‘Oh, just shut up and get it out of me,
please
,’ Maggie yells, then grabs the rubber mask and clamps it over her face.

‘Quiet now, Mother,’ the midwife says, and Maggie wants to scream
I’m not your bloody mother
but she needs all her energy to stay afloat in this ocean of pain.

‘A twin!’ the student says. ‘We should always check for a twin.’

‘That’s right, now if you . . .’

Maggie feels the pain change, like it did before. It burns but not as brightly, and suddenly they are all around her again, both doctors, the midwife and the student, all shouting, all excited. And then she feels the same slithery feeling only all in one go this time, and they are lifting it up, another bruise-coloured thing, smeared with blood and greasy white, a thatch of golden hair. It cries immediately and fills up with life, its little face hot and red and screwed up in fury.

‘Twins!’ The young student is grinning, ecstatic. ‘One of each!’