(1990) Sweet Heart (17 page)

‘Truth,’ her mother said suddenly. ‘Go back.’

Charley looked at her, startled, but she was staring blankly ahead again. ‘“Truth”, mum? “Go back”?’

There was no reaction.

‘What do you mean
truth
?’ She leaned closer. ‘What truth? Go back where?’

Nothing. Charley listened to the traffic outside. A telephone rang in another room. Her mother still trembled.

‘I helped out at a jumble sale yesterday in the church hall in Elmwood. There’s an old lady down the lane —
Viola Letters — that’s an old-fashioned name, Viola, isn’t it? She’s getting me involved in the local community. A nice old stick. She doesn’t have any children either. Been a widow for years. You’ve been a widow for years too, haven’t you? Would you have liked to have remarried? Did I stop you, make it harder for you?’

Charley chatted on, trying to sound jolly through her heavy heart, about the party they were going to on Saturday, colours they had chosen for some of their rooms and the carpets they were going to look at. They thought a rug for the bedroom floor, keeping the bare wooden floorboards either side, would be more in character than wall-to-wall carpeting.

Her mother made no further sounds and gradually the trembling subsided during the next two hours. She was still staring vacantly ahead as Charley left, blowing her one final hopeful kiss from the door.

‘Tom, if I wanted to trace my real parents what would the procedure be?’

He dug around disinterestedly in his salad bowl, elbows on the kitchen table, his striped office shirt opened at the collar and the cuffs rolled up. He lifted a forkful of mung beans and alfalfa sprouts and gazed dubiously at it. ‘I thought you weren’t interested in tracing your parents.’

A light breeze came through the open windows and a late bird twittered. She speared a couple of pasta shells. ‘I used not to be. I suppose I am a bit now. I thought if we ever did have children it might be nice for them to know their ancestry.’

‘Your parents are dead.’

She ate a mouthful. ‘There might be aunts and uncles.’

He chewed his sprouts and screwed up his face.
‘Christ, these taste like an old sack.’ He had a pallor of grease on his skin from London that a quick dab from the cold tap had not cleaned away. He looked tired, strained. The way she felt. ‘Charley, when people are adopted it’s usually because there aren’t any relatives who can — or want to — care for the baby.’

‘I’m not saying I’m going to contact anyone. I think I’d like to know. I mean it’s not as if I was the result of a one-night stand or anything like that. My parents were married.’

‘Your mother died giving birth to you and your father died of a broken heart. Right?’

‘That’s what mum always told me.’

‘He probably died of something else.’ He frowned. ‘How would your mum have known that, anyway?’

‘That he died of a broken heart?’ She shrugged. ‘No idea. I’ve never thought about it.’

‘You were adopted within a few days of being born, weren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘People who die of broken hearts don’t die immediately. And adoptive parents never usually maintain contact with the real parents.’

‘Maybe he had a heart attack or something,’ Charley said.

‘Has your mum ever told you anything about them?’

‘Not really. They were young, hadn’t been married very long — about a year.’ She drank some wine but it made her feel queasy.

‘Do you know their name?’

‘No.’

‘The hospital where you were born?’

‘No.’ She saw her adoptive mother trembling in her bed.

‘If they had a common name, it can be very difficult. I’ve known it take years — and cost a fortune.’

‘What’s the procedure?’ she said. Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

‘You have to apply for your original birth certificate at St Catherine’s House in London.’

‘Is that a long process?’ It seemed as if it were someone else speaking.

Lies death
.

Lies
.

Lies about her parents’ death? Was that what her mother had been trying to say? That she had told lies about their death?

Truth. Go back
.

She remembered her mother trembling when she first told her they were moving. Had she started trembling because they were moving?

Or because of where they were moving to?

Go back
.

Where?

A fat hamburger slid past, leaking gherkins and ketchup from its midriff like an open wound. It was followed by a plate of bacon and eggs, then a girl tossing her long brown hair in the wind.

‘Alpha Temps. Join the smart set!’

Charley stood wedged in the crowd as the escalators carried her upwards like flotsam on a wave.

The rush hour. A few weeks of country living and she was feeling increasingly an alien in London. She stepped out into the daylight, found her bearings and turned right down the Strand.

She had not been back to the boutique, had not spoken to Laura since that Monday night. The thought of Laura at the moment made her uneasy. She was certain last night, when Tom had arrived back late again, that she had smelled Laura’s perfume on him.

The words ‘ST CATHERINE’S HOUSE’ were clearly
visible on the other side of the Aldwych. The building had large glass doors and a sign ‘Wet Paint — Use Other Entrance’.

Inside were two enquiry desks, a felt board with several blank forms pinned to it and some steps up to a large modern room filled with rows of metal bookshelves. Although teeming with people, the place had the studious quietness of a public library.

She joined a small queue for the desk marked ‘Enquiries only’, and waited her turn.

‘I’m adopted,’ she said, feeling as if she were saying
I’m a leper
. ‘I want to get a copy of my original birth certificate.’

The clerk, a small man with a cosy smile, pointed round to the right. ‘You’ll need the reference number,’ he said. ‘Those rows there are Adoptions.’

She walked along the brightly lit corridor between the rows of files. It was strange to have your identity hidden behind a reference number. There was a rack of metal shelves against the wall with ‘Adoptions 1927 onwards,’ printed above.

She half wanted to turn away, forget the whole thing. What if? If?

Lies death
. If what her mother had told her had been a lie?

So what if it was? If the truth was different, would it matter? She had met an adopted woman who had traced her parents and discovered she was the product of a one-night stand in the rear of an army truck. But that hadn’t made any difference, had not brought her world crashing down. She always said she was pleased she knew, felt more comfortable with life for knowing.

And if she had been the product of a one-night stand she wouldn’t have to tell her children, or anyone else (unless, maybe, it had been a duke). And if she was the daughter of a hooker or (please not an escaped loony) a
criminal, well, that would be a shock. And maybe a secret. But at least she would know.

‘1952.1953.1954.’

She lifted the ochre fabric-bound volume out. It was heavier than it looked. She laid it down on the flat writing surface and opened it. The pages were dry and turned with a sharp rustle; she was wary of tearing them. Boone. Boot. Booth.

There were about fifteen Booths, typed on old black typewriter ribbons. She ran her eyes down them, then stopped, feeling a sense almost of embarrassment at seeing her own maiden name there in print.

‘Booth. Charlotte Lesley. 12.8.53. No. of entry: 5A0712. Vol No. 388.’

That was all. Somehow she had expected there to be something more, something that might make it feel special. But there was nothing special. The ink was thicker on some entries than others, where errors had been corrected.

She read it several times, glanced at the rest of the Booths, wondering who they were and where they had ended up, wondered how many others had made the same journey here and had stared at the same page and felt the same flatness when they should have been excited.

She took the book back to the clerk’s desk.

‘You have to fill in one of those.’ He tapped a buff and yellow form on the felt noticeboard. ‘They’re out on the counters. Were you adopted before 12th November 1975?’

‘Yes.’

‘You have to send one of those to the CA section of the GRO. General Register Office,’ he translated, seeing her blank face. ‘The address is on the back. They’ll send you an adoptee’s application form and get in touch with you about counselling.’

‘Counselling?’

‘It’s the law, I’m afraid. You’ll have to be counselled. You can fill in the form I’ve given you here, if you like, and we’ll send it off for you.’

She went into a stall, pulled out the antique Sheaffer fountain pen Tom had given her for her birthday, and pressed the nib lightly against the form.

There was a sudden tang of musky perfume. She began to write. The smell became stronger, engulfing her, as if the wearer were leaning over her shoulder. She turned, but there was no one behind her; nothing but the empty stall across the narrow corridor.

The remains of the simple picnic were spread beside them and she lay back contented, her head nestling against his chest, smelling the sweet scents of the flowers and grasses.

His fingers ran through her hair, and the sun beat down between the trees. She closed her eyes and watched warm red spots dancing in the darkness. The chattering of the birds felt lazy, too, and the breeze rustled the leaves like the sea lapping on a shore. The ground seemed to sway a little, and she imagined they were castaways on a raft on a flat blue ocean.

Somewhere in the distance she heard horses’ hooves.

The fingers touched her cheek and then her lips, and she bit one gently with her teeth. His stomach rumbled loudly and the baby inside her own belly made a few tiny jerks. She opened her eyes and saw a tortoiseshell butterfly skim the bluebells that were all around them.

He shifted his position and his face was over hers. He kissed her and she could taste the beer and sausage on his breath. She put her hand up to his chin, felt the rough stubble, and stroked it.

‘Your name? Can you tell me your name?’ a voice said.

He traced a line down her neck, then slid his hand inside her frock, inside her brassiere and began to fondle her breasts. He took hold of a nipple between his finger
and thumb and she flinched.

‘Ow! Careful! It’s sore!’

‘Your name? Tell me your name!’

Not far away a horse whinnied.

‘Dunno.’

‘Who is the man you are with? Your boyfriend? Husband?’

A hand was on her knee, sliding up her thigh, coarse fingers moving up her bare flesh.

‘Do you know where you are?’

‘Bluebells,’ she murmured, irritated by the intrusion, wishing the voice would go away. The branches swayed above her, sunlight dappled through the leaves. A bee buzzed past them, a bird flew overhead, then the man’s face blocked out the light as his lips pressed down again, his tongue ran along her teeth and searched hungrily inside her mouth. His fingers slid inside her knickers, tugged their way through her pubic hair. She tightened, pushed his hand firmly back down, said, ‘No. The baby. We mustn’t.’

‘Course we can.’

The hand pushed its way back up.

‘No!’ She giggled. ‘Stop it.’

‘Won’t do any harm.’

‘It will. We mustn’t.’

‘Don’t be a stupid cow.’

‘Dick, please.’ She closed her knees together. He rolled away from her and she sensed his anger.

She lay still. Her heart felt heavy and she did not know why. She lifted the locket that lay on her chest and stared at it, the heart-shaped stone glinting in the sunlight, ruby red, the gold chain sparkling. Then a shadow fell across the locket. A horse stamped its right foot behind her.

She looked up.

A woman on a chestnut horse, silhouetted against
the sky, stared down at them. She had fine features, handsome but severe, jet black hair tied back below her hat, and an elegant hacking jacket, smart breeches and shiny boots.

The woman’s eyes were shadowed by the peak of her velvet riding hat, but they seemed to burn like sun through a mist. She could feel scorn, disgust, and something else — something that made her afraid.

Before she could react the woman had turned and ridden off, but the stare of the eyes remained and burned into her own retinas like sun spots.

Her dress was up over her stomach, and she tugged it down and giggled, a solitary giggle that fell away into silence. ‘She must have seen. Why didn’t she say nothing?’

He stood up abruptly, brushing the grass from his trousers.

‘She was dressed fancy,’ she said. ‘I ain’t seen her before. She must be stayin’ at the manor.’

‘She’s from London,’ he said brusquely. ‘A lady. She’s rented old Markham’s place for the summer.’

‘The mill?’

‘Wants to buy it, I’m told.’

‘That’s ’er? The one they talkin’ about? She ain’t no lady from what they say.’ The venom in the woman’s eyes was vivid. ‘Was that Jemma she were ridin’?’

‘She’s paying good money for me to saddle her.’

‘Jemma’s
my
’orse. You promised.’

‘After the summer. Anyway, you shouldn’t be riding at the moment.’

‘They say she’s loose.’

‘She’s a lady,’ he said, his voice rising.

‘Do you think she’s pretty?’

He did not reply and she put out her hand to him. ‘Dick, you love me, don’t yer?’ It was dark suddenly. She was cold, shivering. ‘Dick?’ Dick?’

She smelled burning. Flames licked the darkness. Flames all around. Horses whinnied. There was a splintering crack above and a burning beam was tumbling down on her.

She screamed. Ran. Another beam fell in front of her, more beams were falling. Flames everywhere. A figure staggered towards her, a human being burning like a torch. She screamed again, turning, running, running into a wall of flame.

The flame dissolved into a red glow.

Eyes looked at her, myopic eyes through thick lenses. Anxious eyes. A voice intoned, ‘Charley, wake up now please. You are back in the present. You are no longer in trance. You are back with us. You are safe.’