Where I Found You (33 page)

‘It was all arranged. Aunt Flo would sneak out with the baby while Anne was visiting and I would wait in the park. Oh, how I waited and waited,’ Elsie told her. ‘I’m waiting still …’

‘More heartbreak?’

Elsie went quiet for a moment. ‘Dark times,’ she said but would say no more.

‘And it was Anne who adopted Tess?’

‘Yes, she whisked away my beautiful baby while her husband wrote his lies. I suppose we all thought the good doctor could rewrite history too but I was never going to forget, not even with a mind as befuddled as mine.’

‘What was Anne’s surname, Elsie?’

Elsie squeezed Maggie’s hand as if it would force the name from her memory. ‘Anne and Dr …’ There was a sigh of defeat but it caught in her throat. ‘Hammond! That was it, Dr Hammond. Why do you ask?’

‘I want to find Tess for you, or at least find out what happened to her. Would you want that?’

Elsie thought for a while then said, ‘I’ve spent my whole life wondering if she was happy and, more than anything, if she was loved. I would never have handed her over if I thought Anne wouldn’t take good care of her but you never can tell, can you? So yes. Yes, I would like to know.’ Then Elsie sighed unhappily. ‘But I’m not me very often these days, am I? I won’t remember this conversation by teatime, so how could anything you find out help?’

Jenny had said the same thing. Elsa had lived her life and suffered her losses and there was nothing Maggie could do in the present to lessen that pain, least of all as Elsie relived it.

‘But even though I go away,’ Elsie continued, ‘I’d like to think I’d find my way back for the right reason. If you can tell me that my baby went on to lead a happy life and that I made the right decision then I’d find my way back, for Tess. Of course, you’d probably have to tell me again an hour later but I’d never get tired of hearing it. I would like to know.’

‘If I can find out, I promise you Elsie, I’ll never get tired of telling you either.’

23

It was as noisy and lively as ever in the salon, the incessant chatter competing with the screech of hairdryers, but for once Maggie didn’t feel part of it. She was only a visitor today and one without an appointment.

‘So is it you or Harvey on autopilot?’ Kathy asked when she noticed the dog steering his mistress towards the treatment room.

Maggie brought Harvey to a reluctant stop and absent-mindedly rubbed her stomach. ‘I’ve managed four whole days at home twiddling my thumbs but it’s driving me crazy already.’

‘Don’t try pretending you’ve been stuck at home all of this time. I bumped into Ted and I know you’ve been visiting Elsie almost as much as he has.’

‘I haven’t,’ Maggie answered a little too quickly. ‘He’s there at least twice a day.’

‘It wasn’t an accusation, Maggie.’

‘Sorry, for a moment there I thought I was talking to James. He’s the one who thinks I should be housebound. I’ve only been there twice, no, three times but someone has to. Yvonne didn’t exactly hang around, did she?’

Kathy sighed. ‘It wasn’t easy for her. When she brought Elsie into the salon for a bit of pampering the day before she went into Sunny Days, Yvonne was in bits. It was as if she was already grieving for her mum. It made me think about James and how one day he might regret cutting his mum out of his life.’

Maggie’s only response was to smile at the tenuous connection that steered the conversation towards another family in crisis.

‘I know she doesn’t deserve your sympathy,’ Kathy continued, ‘but the last few weeks have been torture for Judith. She’s terrified of leaving the house in case she misses that all-important call from James.’

‘It may surprise you to know that she does have my sympathy; unfortunately, James doesn’t share that view. He’s being uncharacteristically stubborn but I’ll wear him down, I promise.’

‘Thank you.’

‘If you want to thank me then perhaps you could help me on another matter close to my heart.’

‘OK. I give in – that room over there is yours whenever you’re ready to come back. I’ll even go so far as to let you have it rent-free if it helps the figures add up.’

Maggie laughed, surprised. ‘Where did that come from? Kathy, I couldn’t!’

‘I run this salon because I enjoy being here, not because I rely on the income,’ Kathy explained. ‘I’m only thinking of myself – and I miss you. You and James are like family to me and I want to help. Besides, I’m expecting a lot from James in return.’

Kathy had been talking to him about putting together a property maintenance contract for her newly acquired responsibilities, and if he came up with the right deal it would put his own business on a more secure footing. ‘Even so, that’s too generous.’

‘It’s there whenever you’re ready,’ Kathy repeated.

There was iron in her voice and Maggie knew better than to argue. ‘Thank you,’ she said, stunned and immensely grateful, but the future would have to wait. It was the present and the past that would continue to preoccupy her, at least until the baby arrived. ‘Would it be pushing it if I asked another favour?’

‘Mark is sifting his way through a mountain of paperwork as we speak,’ Kathy said. ‘I’ve already heard about your fool’s errand to find Elsie’s long-lost daughter.’

‘You think I’m mad, don’t you?’

‘Have you really thought through what will happen if you do find her?’

‘I know I can’t go back to 1953 but Elsa is still a lost soul and a wretched one at that. She had her heart broken when Freddie died and then ripped out of her chest when Tess was taken away. Even if she can’t find complete peace, if there’s one fleeting moment, just one, when she knows what became of her baby, then it’ll be worth it.’

‘It was Tess I was thinking about. Have you thought how this might affect her?’

‘If I’m honest, I’m trying not to. There’s no way of knowing if she’s been looking for her birth mother or if she even knows she’s adopted – after all, it wouldn’t have been recorded officially. So how do I drop that kind of bombshell and then explain that Elsie has Alzheimer’s and would struggle to recognise her husband, let alone the child she gave up sixty years ago?’

‘It doesn’t bear thinking about,’ Kathy said. ‘We can only hope that she would want to know the truth; and I suppose even a glimpse of the person Elsie was is better than nothing.’

‘Exactly! And if it was me, I’d want to know,’ Maggie agreed. ‘But first we need to find her.’

There was a flutter of cotton sleeves as Kathy held her hands up in surrender. ‘OK, you’ve convinced me. I’ll even help Mark go through the paperwork. Come on.’

‘And how may I help you today, madam?’ Mark asked when Maggie knocked politely and then stepped into what had been her treatment room. ‘Let me guess … You’re having trouble sleeping because you’re too busy delving into the past and uncovering dastardly plots. Mmm. I’m sure I have a bottle of smelly stuff around here somewhere that will cure you of your ills.’

‘Those bottles of smelly stuff are my bread and butter,’ growled Maggie, referring to the stack of removal boxes that were the last remnants of her beloved business.

‘Ah, so it’s an insatiable appetite you’re struggling with. No wonder you’ve doubled in size since I saw you last.’

Maggie took another step. ‘Would you like to come here and say that?’

‘Certainly,’ he said. Mark stood up from behind the desk that had taken the place of Maggie’s treatment table and came over to give her a hug.

‘We’re here to help you track down the elusive Flo Jackson,’ Kathy said. ‘Maggie’s getting impatient and time is of the essence.’

Mark pulled up two chairs for them before returning to his desk. ‘You couldn’t have come at a better time,’ he said. Papers rustled in his hand. ‘I’ve only just found these. One is a copy letter from your dad’s solicitor, Kath. It’s dated 1978 and terminates a ten-year lease on your house.’

‘That was the year we moved in,’ Kathy explained. ‘It had been a nurses’ home before that, but I didn’t realise Dad already owned it.’

‘A ten-year lease?’ Maggie repeated. The squeak from the chair as she sat forward was achingly familiar. ‘That means he bought it in the late sixties, which was around the time Flo Jackson died, so chances are her niece was the one who sold it. Mark, we’re looking for anything that refers to either Anne or her husband, Dr Hammond.’

There was the sound of a box sliding across the table as Kathy started to rummage through musty paperwork while they talked.

‘So what else did you find?’ Maggie asked Mark.

‘Nothing about the Hammonds, I’m afraid,’ he said, starting with the bad news, ‘but this is an almost identical letter serving notice to the proprietor of a shoe shop “formerly known as Flo’s Fruit and Veg”.’

‘Kathy’s dad owned Mrs Jackson’s shop too?’ Maggie asked before Kathy had the chance. The shuffling next to her had stopped.

‘Yes.’

Mark was giving nothing away but suddenly he didn’t need to. Maggie had already made the connection. ‘Alice told me the salon was once a shoe shop …’

‘And before that it was a greengrocer’s,’ Mark concluded.

‘I don’t care how we do it, but we have to track down the sale documents!’

‘Have you found something, Kathy?’ Mark asked, directing his attention to the one person who hadn’t been swept up by the revelations.

‘Hmm? No. No, nothing,’ she said a little too quickly for Maggie’s liking.

‘Kathy, what is it?’

Her friend’s chair squeaked as she moved away from the box. ‘Oh, ignore me,’ she said at last. ‘It’s probably just seeing all this stuff my dad accumulated. He’s been gone eight years but l look at his handwriting and it’s as if it were only yesterday.’

‘He must have been an amazing dad, setting you up with all this property,’ Mark said.

Kathy took a while to answer and Maggie sensed her staring at the papers strewn onto the desk. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll call it a day,’ she said, and before anyone could object she was up and leaving. ‘It’ll be chaos out there.’ Her voice sounded stronger the further she removed herself from her dad’s archives. ‘My girls are already in a tizzy as it is, with Mark on the scene.’

Mark cleared his throat. ‘No need to mention that to Jenny,’ he said when Kathy had left them. ‘To be perfectly honest, they terrify me.’

‘Your secret’s safe with me. Now, back to work.’

An hour later and the door Maggie thought she was opening onto the past had begun to close again. Mark had found nothing more.

‘What if Kathy’s mum still has more boxes, Mark?’ she said. ‘It’s worth a try, surely.’

‘Sorry, I’ve been cataloguing everything and we have all there is.’

Maggie could feel four walls closing in on her. The room she thought she knew so well had been stripped of its identity in more ways than one. She didn’t need to see to know that all her rows of bottles and jars with their explosion of colours at the twist of a cap had disappeared, replaced by countless brown boxes of musty, decaying paper. But it wasn’t the latest reincarnation of the room that played on her mind but an earlier version, one that would have been known intimately by the young woman who was always one step ahead of her; in fact, so far ahead that she risked disappearing completely from view.

Maggie’s eyes were closed and she made no acknowledgement of James’s return to the bedroom. He placed a cup of tea on the bedside table and then leaned over to kiss her.

‘You’re not fooling anyone. I know you’re awake,’ he said, ‘but at least try to get some rest. You don’t need to get up yet, Harvey’s been fed and watered.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘What I wouldn’t give for an opportunity to stay in bed.’ He groaned as he pulled himself upright and away from temptation. ‘All your tossing and turning kept me awake too. I don’t suppose I need to ask what’s playing on your mind, but isn’t it time you accepted that tracking down Tess might be an impossible task?’

‘And that’s precisely what’s keeping me awake,’ Maggie said as she pulled herself up on one elbow. Her bump stayed where it was. ‘Jenny’s scouring through lists of Manchester GPs on the internet but it feels like clutching at straws. It would have been so much easier if the adoption had been legal. At least then there would be proper channels to go through.’

‘It’s probably a blessing in disguise that you can’t trace her, for Tess at least. How’s she going to feel if a complete stranger tells her how her so-called parents illegally adopted her?’

Maggie felt the ever-present knot in her stomach twist and tighten. ‘Thanks, I needed that encouragement.’

‘I’m not encouraging you, Maggie. I’m worried about you – and for the record, so is Kathy.’

‘Kathy knows how important this is and she agrees with me; we need to find Tess and at least give her the chance of meeting her mum.’

‘She also agrees with me. You’ve taken it as far as you can but it’s time to let go. You can’t though, can you? You’re obsessed with that family. Isn’t it enough that you’re visiting Elsie every other day? Do you have to spend every waking hour thinking about her too?’

Maggie’s jaw tensed as she spoke. ‘You should be glad I’ve got Elsie to divert my attention or I might start making plans to reunite another mother with her child.’

There was a sigh of exasperation but James heeded the threat. ‘Is it a crime to be worried about you?’ he said before stepping away. ‘I have to go to work.’

‘You can’t prevaricate forever,’ she called before he had escaped completely. When he turned, he would see the self-righteous look his wife was casting in his direction.

‘Are you actually looking for more ways to stress us both out?’

‘The stress is there anyway. If this morning is anything to go by, then you’re not the usual patient and supporting James I know and love.’

‘I
am
being patient, that’s the point. I’ve told you what I think about your search for Tess; I haven’t told you what to do even though I’m sorely tempted. And for the record, I’m not prevaricating about Mum; I’m playing the long game.’

It was the first indication that his resolve was weakening, helped no doubt by the browbeating he would be receiving from Kathy while they worked on their business deal. Maggie was tempted to add her own argument for Judith’s defence, but if she was honest, life was simpler dealing with one crisis at a time. ‘I know, and I won’t tell you what to do either. Now go, you’re keeping me from my beauty sleep.’ But even with all the lotions and potions at her disposal, Maggie couldn’t find sleep. Her stomach churned as it followed the same twists and turns as her thoughts. She pushed her head into a pillow and breathed in the lavender and chamomile scent she had added to her linen, it was a trick her mum had once used. The wave of nostalgia brought with it an inescapable sense of loneliness and there was only one person left to turn to.