The Making of Us (32 page)

‘Come on.’ She got to her feet. ‘Let’s go in.’

The stairwells were empty and seemed somehow less forbidding than they had when she was younger. On the third level she stopped. In front of her was the place she’d called home for the first eighteen years of her life. She pulled in her breath, straightened her clothes and then she knocked, hesitantly, against the door.

It was opened by a slightly breathless elderly man with greasy white hair and a tortoiseshell cat held in his arms. ‘Who is it?’ he asked, peering at them blindly.

‘My name’s Lydia Pike,’ she said. ‘I used to live here.’

The man’s face relaxed and he put the struggling cat down. It attempted to squeeze through the front door but the man yanked it back by its collar. ‘Quick, quick, come in, before this one does a runner.’ They slipped through his door and into a flat that smelled of stale clothes and fried eggs, and the man pushed the door closed behind them.

‘So,’ he said, appraising them, ‘your Trevor’s girl?’

She looked at him in surprise.

‘I wondered when you’d be back,’ he chuckled.

‘Sorry?’ She began following him into what had once been her living room but was now very clearly the living room of an elderly man. ‘Did you know my dad?’

‘Yes. I did. I used to live on the other side of the building, over there, overlooking the fields. Then I was made a widower and my son got married and it was just me so I asked for a smaller place. They offered me this and I knew no one else would want it, on account of what happened.’ He sighed sadly and looked at Lydia with watery eyes. ‘I’m not a believer in all that karma stuff, you know. I don’t believe in negative energy, or whatever it’s called. And I liked to have the view of the people, you know. I like to sit and look at the kiddies on the swings and watch the world coming and going. I was bored of the view the other side and this suited me just fine. So I snapped it up. Been here on my own ever since.’

Lydia blinked. She had been expecting a young family. She had been expecting nothing to remain here of her past. Yet here it was. Sitting right in front of her.

‘So, do you remember me?’ she asked, uncertainly.

‘That I do.’ He nodded, easing himself into his ugly nylon sofa. ‘You had a dog. You were a bit
moody
, if I recall.’ He smiled at her.

‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘what’s your name?’

‘I’m Pat,’ he said. ‘Pat Lloyd. You might remember my son. Tony. Tony Lloyd?’

She gasped. She did remember. Tony Lloyd had Down’s Syndrome and used always to stop and cuddle Arnie when he passed them on the stairs or in the garden.

‘I remember Tony,’ she said, ‘and he got married, you say?’

‘Yes, he did. Took us all by surprise that did. But they’ve been together ten years now, still as happy as the day they met.’

‘Wow,’ said Lydia, ‘that’s lovely, that is.’

‘So,’ he looked from her to Dean and back again, ‘what brings you back around here then?’

He was looking for an introduction so Lydia gave him one. ‘This is my brother,’ she said. ‘We’ve only just been reunited. I wanted to show him where I came from.’

‘Oh, right.’ He stopped and smiled at Dean. ‘I can see the likeness,’ he said, ‘between the two of you. I can see you’re kin.’ Dean and Lydia smiled at each other. ‘But I thought …’ his mouth hung open, mid-sentence. He blinked. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no, never mind. Anyway, can I make you both a pot of tea?’

‘You thought what?’ asked Lydia.

‘Nothing. Nothing. Just getting myself confused.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’d offer you coffee but I’m clean out. Or I think I’ve got some barley water somewhere.’

‘No, don’t worry. We’ve got a taxi waiting, we can’t stay.’

He smiled sadly and returned to the sofa.

‘So,’ he said, ‘how’s life been to you?’

Lydia nodded. ‘I’ve got a good life,’ she said.

‘Married? Any babies of your own?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘just a cat.’

‘Cat’s no substitute for a child. What about you?’ he addressed Dean.

Lydia looked at Dean. Watched the pinkness leave his skin. ‘Er, yeah, I’ve got a baby. A little girl.’

The old man smiled, satisfied it seemed that at least one of the strangers in his living room had added to the population. ‘Ah!’ he said suddenly, rising to his feet again. ‘Since you’re here, I’ve been keeping this all these years and not known what to do with it …’ He headed towards the door of what had once been her father’s bedroom. ‘Wait here,’ he said. He returned a moment later clutching a rather vintage carrier bag. ‘Now this,’ he began, holding the bag on his lap and opening it slightly, ‘I found when I was replacing the fitted wardrobes. It was hidden inside a sort of false cubby hole. Never knew what to make of it and had no one to ask. But now, well,’ he turned to Dean and smiled, ‘I suppose this should really be for you. Here, take it.’

Dean blinked at him in surprise, wondering what part he could possibly play in this story. ‘Are you sure, mate?’ he asked.

The man nodded and handed him the bag. Dean opened it gingerly and Lydia watched him peer inside. ‘What?’ he said, looking up again at the old man. ‘I don’t get it.’

‘Well, they must be yours,’ said Pat, ‘being blue and all.’

Dean put his hand inside the bag and pulled out a tiny pair of blue cotton leggings, a blue and white striped jacket and a pair of miniature white socks.

‘You mean, for my daughter?’ asked Dean, his eyes screwed shut with confusion.

‘Well, no,
yours
. These must be yours. From when you were, you know, from when you were a baby.’

‘But I’ve never been here before in my life,’ said Dean, with a small laugh.

‘Well, I suppose you don’t remember it, being so small, but you must have been.’

Lydia interrupted. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘You mean, there was a baby here? A baby boy?’

‘Why, yes,’ said Pat, his eyes opening in surprise, ‘don’t you remember? Just before she died, your mother had a baby. A baby boy.’

And as Pat said these words, Lydia looked at the pile of baby clothes on Dean’s lap and saw, with a flash of shock and revulsion, on the sleeves of the striped jacket, a smudge of candy pink paint, dried to an immovable crust.

Daniel Blanchard. Fifty-three years old. Bury St Edmunds.
Daniel Blanchard. Fifty-three years old. Bury St Edmunds
.

Robyn held the sheet of paper in her hands and stared at it. She had not been expecting this. Donor
Sibling
Registry it was called. For siblings. Brothers and sisters. Not
fathers
. She had not been thinking about her
father
. But he, it appeared, had been thinking about her. And the others. He wanted to make contact. Daniel Blanchard. Her father.

Jack brought her in a cup of tea and placed it on the table in front of her.

‘Fuck,’ he said, sitting down and resting his hand against her leg.

Robyn grabbed his hand in hers and nodded. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have done this,’ she said. ‘I knew it was a mistake.’

‘You don’t have to see him.’

‘No. I know. But then I’ll have to go through the rest of my life knowing that he wanted to see me. And that I rejected him. I’ll go through the rest of my life feeling guilty.’

‘You’ve got nothing to feel guilty for!’ said Jack. ‘This was his choice! His choice and your parents …’

‘They didn’t have any choice,’ she snapped, defensively.

‘No. But you know what I mean; none of this is your fault. You didn’t ask to be in this situation and, frankly, if this man wanted children he could talk to, he should have had them the normal way.’

‘But he lives in Bury St Edmunds!’ she wailed.

Jack looked at her curiously.

‘I mean, I’ve been to Bury St Edmunds! I might have passed him in the street! I thought he lived in France! He wasn’t supposed to live here! And now I can never go to Bury St Edmunds again!’

Jack laughed.

‘It’s not funny!’ she cried.

‘No, I know, of course it’s not funny. It’s just, well, you can probably live without going to Bury St Edmunds, can’t you?’

‘That’s not the point! It’s just, I preferred it when he was in France. I liked having him there. And now he’s here. And I don’t like it.’

‘I promise you, on my life,’ said Jack, ‘that I will never knowingly let you go to Bury St Edmunds.’ He brushed his nose against her hair and Robyn let him. He was right. She was being silly. But so far none of this had gone according to plan. She’d made contact with both of them. The woman and the boy. And neither of them had responded. This was remarkable to Robyn. She’d been sick with nerves from the moment she agreed to have her information shared with them. Every morning she watched the postman pull up outside the house with his red cart and sort through bundles of post. Every morning she scurried down to the communal hallway and sifted through the pile of mail, and every morning she breathed a sigh of relief when there was nothing there from the Registry. But, at the same time, she was unnerved. She’d just assumed that they would jump at the chance to meet her. She assumed that they’d be slick, professional Registry users, all primed and ready to go. It had not occurred to her that they might be as uncertain as her. It had not occurred to her, she supposed, that they might be human.

And then this morning there had been a letter from the Registry. Her heart had lurched. Which one, she’d thought, which one? Would it be the boy, close in age to her, or would it be the woman, the terrible aged facsimile of herself? Or would it, in fact, be the missing man, the one who was the same age as her Jack?

But it had been none of those. It had been him. The one she hadn’t expected ever to encounter. Her father.

Robyn and Jack left the house a few minutes later. They took a bottle of rosé from the fridge and a bag of crisps and some olives and bread and they headed towards the park. Summer had crept up on them and the end of May was tantalisingly warm and sunny. They were meeting Jack’s friends, Jonathan and Leo, in Whittington Park for lunch and Frisbee. Wary of being the only girl, Robyn had asked Nush along. She hadn’t seen her friend for weeks. She missed Nush. Nush was her handle on her old life, the life she’d had before she met Jack when she was uncommonly self-confident, the queen of the scene, the centre of her own tiny universe. Maybe, she thought, seeing Nush might help her remember how to be that person again.

Nush was already there when they arrived, stretched out in the sunshine on a beach towel, a glass of wine on the grass by her hand and Leo trying frantically, it appeared from this distance, to get on top of her.

‘Oh my God,’ she said, sitting up abruptly as she saw them approaching. ‘Who is this guy? I’ve told him about a billion times I’ve got a boyfriend, but he keeps trying to hump me.’

‘I’m not trying to
hump
you,’ said Leo, mock-hurt, ‘I’m just trying to cuddle you.’

Nush looked at him in amused horror. ‘But I don’t even know you!’ she squealed. ‘Seriously,’ she addressed Jack, ‘who
is
he?’

‘Get off her,’ laughed Jack, pulling his friend away from Nush by the arm.

‘I only wanted a cuddle,’ he said, pushing out his bottom lip.

‘Sorry about him,’ said Jack, ‘he’s a bit like a dog, you know, it doesn’t mean anything. Just pat him on the head occasionally and he’ll leave you alone.’

Leo smiled sheepishly and opened himself a can of lager. ‘It’s your fault for being late,’ he told Jack.

‘We’re ten minutes late! And I cannot be held accountable for your rampant sexuality.’

Jonathan arrived a few minutes later and Robyn and Nush sat together, with plastic glasses of wine and sunglasses, like a pair of twenty-somethings, watching the three older men behaving like teenagers.

‘So,’ said Nush, linking her arm through Robyn’s and resting her head against her shoulder, ‘how’s married life?’

Robyn dropped a kiss on to Nush’s shiny black hair and smiled. ‘It’s lovely,’ she said.

‘I still can’t believe it,’ continued Nush. ‘Can’t believe you’re
living with someone
. Seems like only yesterday you were being banged up against the wall by Christian thingy in that club on your birthday.’

‘God, yeah, I know, don’t remind me!’

‘I saw him last week, by the way,’ she nudged Robyn in the ribs, ‘he asked after you.’

‘Euf!’ Robyn shuddered. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. That seems like another life …’

‘Yeah, well, I guess it was in some ways. I tell you what, though. We don’t half miss you. It’s dead up there without you.’

‘Oh, now, I’m sure you’re keeping up the good work.’

‘Nah.’ Nush glanced down between her cupped bare feet and pulled at a strand of grass. ‘It’s just not the same any more. You know, you’ve gone, I’m all coupled up, it’s the end of an era really. We’re all growed up.’ She smiled sadly.

Robyn smiled back and brought Nush towards her for a shoulder-to-shoulder embrace. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I guess we are.’

‘So what do you do?’ her friend asked. ‘What’s your big grown-up life like? Do you do, like,
ironing
and stuff?’

Robyn laughed and rocked back on her folded legs. ‘Nooo,’ she said, ‘but I do do washing up. And I go to the launderette …’

‘What, do you, like, take Jack’s clothes? Do you fold up his
underpants
?’

‘No! I take things for a service wash!’

‘What’s a service wash?’

Robyn smiled. She hadn’t known what a service wash was either until two months ago. ‘You take your washing and you pay the lady in the launderette to wash it for you.’

Nush wrinkled her nose. ‘What, you mean she, like, touches your dirty underwear and stuff?’

‘Yeah, and then she washes it and folds it all up for you.’

‘Eugh!’ said Nush. ‘That’s nasty.’

Robyn laughed. It had been a long time since she’d had an Essex Princess conversation and she was enjoying it. ‘And the other day,’ she said, ‘I emptied a bin.’

‘You emptied a bin?’ repeated Nush, blankly.

‘Yeah, a really disgusting one, full of, like, old cereal and stuff.’

‘Oh, my,’ said Nush, her hand against her heart, ‘you are now, like, a
goddess
to me.’

The men were showing off frantically, to each other and to the two beautiful teenage girls watching them. Robyn and Nush smiled at each other. ‘Cheers,’ said Nush, holding out her plastic cup to Robyn, ‘to you, and your big grown-up new life.’