That Girl From Nowhere (15 page)

‘Come on, love, I don’t like to see you so upset,’ Mum says. ‘You’re not one to cry unless something is terribly, terribly wrong.’

She’s right. I carefully pull myself together, upright, out of her hold until I can stand up by myself. Inhaling, exhaling, is a blessed relief – my entire body rejoices in this simple action. I rub at my eyes until they are dry, then furiously dry my hands on the folds of my dress.

‘What’s happened, love?’ Mum asks. I like that her accent, her real, natural one, comes out when she talks sometimes. It takes away the parts of her that I tend to fight with and lets me see the one who knows how to hug me and tells me I’m her whole world.

‘I just …’ I need to tell her. It’s going to hurt her, my mum with the Yorkshire accent who hugged away my worries. I have to tell her. I can’t not. ‘I just met my— I just met the woman who gave birth to me.’ It wasn’t that hard to say after all. It was really quite simple and easy. Like breathing – until you can’t do it properly. I did it properly, I know I did, because Mum doesn’t look all that shocked.

In fact, her face develops a smile and after a few seconds to let the news sink in, she says, ‘Well, that’s wonderful news. There’s no need to be upset, it’s absolutely wonderful news.’ She reaches out and takes my hand, and I know then that she’s seen the small butterfly box that lies on its side with a few black and white photos of a baby spilled out on the parquet. She saw the box and worked out what had happened. ‘Come and sit down and tell me all about it. It really is the most wonderful news.’

Mum doesn’t truly think it’s wonderful news. I can tell by the way she’s trying
really hard
to smile. From the fear spinning in her eyes, I can tell she thinks it’s terrible news but she doesn’t want me to have another panic attack. She’s also doing what I did whenever she asked if the other children were still picking on me at school – she’s pretending everything’s fine, like I did with her, to spare my feelings.

‘Now, tell me what happened,’ she asks gently. She holds my hand and I know her eyes are pretending that I’m not wearing this jacket, which she hates so much even though she did take it in for me. ‘Did it not go as you expected?’

‘I didn’t plan it, Mum!’ I’m screeching. Screeching like the deranged person I feel I am right now.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ Mum says. She soothes me with her tone, with a few strokes on my hand. ‘Tell me what happened.’

‘You have to promise you’ll listen to me without interrupting and you won’t get cross or think I’m lying. You have to promise.’ I sound like I’m fourteen.

‘I promise.’

‘Which part?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Which part do you promise about?’

Mum stares at me blankly. Actually, I sound like I’m five.

‘Which part do you promise about, Mum?’ I insist, still in five-year-old mode.

‘All of it?’ she replies.

I sigh, relieved. If she does get upset I can remind her of the promise she just made.

‘Will you tell me what happened now then, love?’ Mum asks. She’s showing remarkable restraint in the face of my completely irrational behaviour.

‘About two weeks ago I went to a nursing home and I met this old woman who was a neighbour of … of those people.’

‘Which people?’

‘You said you wouldn’t interrupt.’

‘I know, love, but I’m not completely understanding you.’

‘She was Finnish, this woman. It was her that they … those people … got the idea for the butterfly box from.’ Mum nods, now she understands. ‘And she said that the daughter of those people works there.’

‘Daught— Sorry.’ Mum purses her lips to stop herself talking again.

‘I went to talk to her then I changed my mind but she came out to the car park and I spoke to her. We had a chat and I found out that she has two brothers and her parents have been together for nearly forty years. So her parents are both my—’ I’m finding it hard to say the word in relation to them and me. ‘I came home and I wanted to tell you but I couldn’t, so I didn’t. She kept ringing me but I didn’t reply. So she tricked me. Got someone to pretend to want to talk to me about an engagement ring, you know, the man I was telling you about who wanted one done really quickly? Then suddenly she’s there and then
she’s
there.’

I look at Mum, expecting her to speak. She doesn’t. Her lips are still pursed, as though waiting to be sewn together.

‘
Her
,’ I say.

‘Your birth mother?’ Mum says when she realises I need her to talk now.

I nod. ‘Yes. My birth mother.’ I can say it now that Mum has said it first. She’s broken the taboo so I can too.

‘I bet you were a bit surprised.’

A bit surprised? A BIT surprised? A BIT SURPRISED?! ‘Yes. It was too much for me, I had to get out of there.’

‘You must have been in all sorts of turmoil. I bet she was, too.’

I glare at my mother. I don’t mean to, but it sounds like she is putting herself in
her
shoes.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Clemency. It will have been a very difficult thing for her to do, to come and meet you like that. She won’t have known what your reaction would be, and imagine seeing for the first time someone you haven’t seen since you gave birth to them. Imagine how terrifying it would be. She must have been in bits anticipating it.’

At least she got to anticipate it, not like me, who had it sprung on them
, I think in reply. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ I say.

‘I’m sure she’s thought about you all these years and I’m sure she was just bursting with the things she’s wanted to say to you after all this time. Did you speak to her at all?’

I shake my head. ‘She gave me the box with the photos that’s in the corridor, but we didn’t really speak.’

‘Would you like to see her again?’ Mum asks.

‘Would you mind if I did?’ I reply.

I’m carefully watching my mother: I see the edges of her smile touch her eyes, but don’t take over them. I see the strain from having to smile, the clenched tightness of the hand that is not stroking my back. ‘It’s not about me, love, it’s about what you want,’ she says eventually. So eventually that inside I think:
I knew it! I knew you didn’t think it was wonderful news.

Mum doesn’t want me to get hysterical again, which is why she is playing along for now. She’s probably hoping this whole experience will have put me off, will stop me from even contemplating getting in touch with them again.

‘I don’t know what I want to do,’ I say. As much as it’s the truth, I need my mother to be honest with me. She needs to tell me what she really thinks. Over the years there’s been one abiding message that she has sent me: do not go looking for your other family. Do not do anything that will upset what we have. Dad wouldn’t have minded, but with Mum, it was obvious it would have been to her a huge rejection of who she was and what she had done for me. Why she was now pretending not to mind could only have been down to her not wanting me to become hysterical again.

‘OK, love,’ Mum says quietly. ‘I understand.’

To: Jonas Zebila

From: Abi Zebila

Subject: Total disaster!!!!!

Wednesday, 24 June 2015

Well, that went well, NOT!

I set up a meeting with Clemency using Declan as bait through her job and she completely freaked out and ran away when she saw Mummy.

I actually felt sorry for Mummy. When I told her I’d arranged a meeting, she looked so happy and terrified at the same time. She didn’t say much on the way there, and when she sat in front of Clemency for the first time the look on her face reminded me of how I felt the first time I saw Lily when I gave birth to her. I was completely freaked out. I loved her, don’t get me wrong, and I thought my heart was going to explode because I had such a fierce need to hold her, but I was also really shocked. I kept blinking at her, wondering if she was real and if she had really come out of my body and if she was really something to do with me. Mummy was looking at Clemency just like that.

Mummy was devastated when Clemency left and I was gutted, too.

This is all so messy and horrible when they always show you on the telly people just getting hugged and being happy. This is all so big and out of hand, I wish, wish, wish I’d never done as Mrs Lehtinen asked and gone to check on Clemency. Then I’d never have known and none of us would be feeling this bad.

I’d never know, though, what hypocrites Mummy and Daddy are. There, I said it. You’ve always said they were, but I wouldn’t accept it because they’re Mummy and Daddy and we’re supposed to do what they say and believe them about
everything
.

On the way home Mummy didn’t talk much at all. She stared out of the taxi window, then as we pulled up outside she said, ‘I have to tell your father.’ She said it like he was going to blame her or something.

‘What about Gran?’ I said, because sometimes I don’t know when to leave well enough alone, do I?

Mummy breathed out slowly and angrily. ‘Yes, her too.’

I can hear voices downstairs – they’re quite loud but not loud enough for me to be able to make out what they’re saying so I’m guessing Mummy’s told Daddy and Gran. I wonder how they’ll take it? Thankfully, Lily is staying over at Declan’s so she won’t witness any shouting.

What do you think I should do now? Do you think I should leave Clemency alone or get back in touch? What if I ask her to do a DNA test with me so we can see if we are related? Because it could still all be a huge coincidence. And if it is, that means she can go back to her life and Mummy and Daddy will realise they need to be honest with us in future if they want to avoid things like this happening.

What if she’s not the only one? I keep thinking about that possibility. What if there are more children they had adopted who are going to turn up one day?

I think a DNA test is probably the best way forward and then we’ll all know where we stand.

Love,

Abi

xx

‘Would you mind if I did see my birth relatives again?’

It’s two days later. Mum is about to go for a ride on her tricycle and I am going to work via Beached Heads. In the past two days we haven’t talked about it. Mum left me to look at the baby photos on my own and I didn’t. I simply put the box on top of the other butterfly box at the bottom of the wardrobe, looked at the composition, realised that it looked like the big box had given birth to the smaller box so had to move the smaller one to my bottom drawer where I keep my hats, gloves and scarves, which I’m obviously not going to be going through any time soon.

Mum, who had hoisted herself up on to her bike, steps down again and turns towards me but doesn’t rotate enough to look at me fully – instead she stares mostly at the sea. It’s rough out there this morning; the waves seem wrathful, their anger appearing as a white, frothy rage upon the tops of the grey surf. I wonder if that’s what Mum is feeling inside about this.

‘Why do you ask?’ she replies, quietly.

‘Because I want to know how you honestly feel.’

‘How I honestly feel,’ she murmurs. A long pause then: ‘Yes, I would mind.’

Oh. I thought she might try to sugar-coat it, talk around it, gauge if I’m thinking of doing it.

‘Why?’ I ask.

We’ve never talked about this openly, it’s all been carefully, wilfully, left unsaid.

The pads of Mum’s hands are covered by fingerless cycling gloves and she raises her fingers to unclip her Hell’s Angels-inspired helmet and take it off. She ruffles her hand through her hair and continues to contemplate the sea. The first line of ‘Somewhere Beyond the Sea’ plays through my mind as I watch her.

‘Because I’m scared you’re going to get hurt again if you do this. What if they reject you? How will that make you feel?’ She hooks her helmet on to the padded leather seat of her tricycle, traces the outline of one of the flames.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought it through. I just know—’

‘I have. I
have
thought it through and I know you wouldn’t be able to withstand such disappointment and hurt.’

‘Mum, I’ve withstood worse.’

‘Like what?’ she demands.

‘Like what?!’ I’m amazed she has to ask. ‘Like losing Dad. Like my— my relationship with Seth coming to an end.’

‘They’re not like being rejected by your mother.’

‘But she’s not my mother, is she? You are. At the moment I barely know her.’

‘At the moment.’ Mum seizes on this so immediately I wonder if she has been waiting for me to say something like that. ‘When you do get to know her, you’ll start to think of her as your mother.’

And you think that will mean I’ll love her more than I do you
, I think. Mum acts like my love for her is fragile, transient and transferable; as though I’ll never have room in my heart for two people with the tag ‘mother’. As though it is a forgone conclusion I’ll reject her in favour of the person who was there first – even though I have barely met the woman.

‘How do you know that?’ I ask.

‘I just know. A mother knows these things.’

‘So if you had a biological child you’d have loved them more than me?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘How is that ridiculous, Mum? You’re saying that if I get to know someone I’m biologically related to they’ll replace you, so why is it ridiculous for me to say the same about you having a biological child?’

‘It’s not the same,’ she snaps. Defensive, angry, my mum snatches up her helmet, plonks it heavily down on her head. Fumbles crossly at her chinstrap. ‘You know very well that it’s not the same.’

‘I really don’t,’ I reply. Out loud. For once it’s something I don’t keep in.

‘Yes, you do,’ she hisses at me. She mounts her bike, indignation on her features, and without another word or look in my direction, she cycles across the small car park in which we stand and heads to the cycle path that snakes around the building and towards Portslade, the opposite direction to the one I’m heading in.