Coincidences (26 page)

She heard a noise behind her,
and as she turned around she saw the next-door neighbour, whom she had met
yesterday.

‘Hello, Jane, dear,’ said the
old woman.

‘Um... hello,’ said Alice, not
correcting her. Then, she turned and walked towards the front door to avoid any
conversation with the old woman. The woman opened her own door and disappeared
inside.

As Alice stood outside her
parents’ front door, she began questioning why she had come. She didn’t feel as
though she belonged there, and she knew that she was not really welcome; but
somehow she couldn’t leave without meeting them—they were the only ones with
the answers to her questions.

Alice smoothed her black,
knee-length skirt with her now sweating palms. She had dressed smartly for the
meeting, almost as if she were attending a job interview. A black skirt, white
cotton blouse, and her long hair tied back. Making a good first impression was
important to her; so that her parents would not have anything bad to say about
her upbringing. But now she regretted dressing so smartly; it felt
uncomfortable, as if she was trying too hard. Perhaps if she had worn something
more casual she would have felt more relaxed. She sighed as that thought
entered her mind; there was nothing she could do about it now.

Almost immediately after she
knocked on the front door, it opened; as if her father had been standing on the
other side of the door awaiting her. She recognised his face straight away; it
was the same face that she had stared at in the old, faded photograph Stephanie
had given her. There were more wrinkles around the eyes, and he was slightly
fatter, but the face was the same. Ken Forester smiled and held out his hand to
welcome her. She noticed that although he was smiling, his eyes were sad, not
lively as they had been in the photograph.

‘Hello,’ he was the first to
speak.

‘Hello,’ said Alice, her mouth
felt dry. She shook his outstretched hand.

‘Please, come in.’ He led the
way along the narrow dark passage to the living room. The house smelt of
freshly cut flowers.

Nerves overwhelmed Alice again
as she stood at the entrance to the living room.

Someone was seated on the sofa
at the far end of the room. The sofa was positioned in front of the tall, bay
window. As the sun was shining through the window, the person appeared almost
in silhouette. As Alice entered the room, it became clear that the person
seated on the sofa was a woman. Her attention fixed on her.
That must be
Miranda,
she thought.

She looked old; her hair was
grey, and shoulder length. She was smoking a cigarette. Her large round glasses
appeared too big for her face, and made her eyes seem twice their actual size.
As Alice approached her, the woman smiled, and extinguished her cigarette into
an ashtray on the coffee table in front of her. Her hand was trembling as she
did so. She did not get up to greet Alice.

Ken led the way towards where
Miranda was seated. He coughed to clear his throat.

Is he nervous?
Alice
wondered.

‘Um, this is Miranda,’ he said.
‘Miranda, this is Alice.’

The two women nodded at each
other.

Ken sat down next to Miranda.
Alice continued to stand.

‘Please, sit down,’ said her
father, pointing at an armchair directly opposite the sofa.

Alice looked around the room,
but she was too nervous to take in any of the surroundings. The only thing she
could focus on was the black leather sofa, and the two people sitting on it.
Her parents. Eventually, she sat down. They sat in silence, the three of them.
Her parents on the sofa, and Alice on an armchair facing them. Her parents were
looking fixedly at the coffee table, in between the sofa and the armchair, as
if they had never seen it before. Alice stared at her father and Miranda. She
was scanning their faces to try to see any resemblance, any obvious family
connection linking them to her. She couldn’t believe she was sitting in front
of her parents.

‘Alice,’ Miranda broke the
silence, ‘would you like something to drink? Tea, coffee, something cold,
perhaps?’

‘No,’ said Alice. She looked at
Miranda and realised that she didn’t have any feelings at all for this woman.
All she felt was indifference. After all, this was the woman who had given her
up at birth, to Stephanie, for money. Alice wanted to feel some sort of
emotion, but she could not really consider the woman to be her mother.

She had thought about everything
long and hard over the past few days and told herself not to prejudge the woman
who had given her away; she didn’t know the whole story. But, as she sat here
looking at her, she could not get past the fact that she seemed cold-hearted.
All she had done when the daughter she hadn’t seen for over twenty years walked
into the room, was stub out her cigarette and give her a half-smile. She hadn’t
even made an effort to stand up to greet her. Her father’s shaking of her hand
had seemed a bit formal, but that was better than nothing at all. Alice could
only conclude that Stephanie had been right about her: Miranda had never wanted
her. The thought of this almost made Alice feel angry. She was the woman who
had come between her parents. As far as Alice was concerned, Stephanie was her
mother—the only one who had loved her as a mother should.

There was silence in the room,
as if no one could think of what to say. The silence became too much for Alice
to bear; it seemed to consume the atmosphere. She felt she had to start the
conversation somewhere. Clearing her throat, she spoke directly to her father.
‘I came to see you because I wanted a clearer picture of my background. I
wanted to meet you, out of curiosity, I suppose. I know you are not keen for us
to have a relationship or even get to know each other better. I was offended by
that at first, but I’m fine about it now. It’s probably too late for all that,
anyway. But, I need some answers for my own peace of mind.’ As she spoke, she
began to feel calmer.

‘Alice,’ said Miranda.

It came as a surprise to Alice
when Miranda spoke, as she had been deliberately avoiding her eyes and speaking
directly to her father.

Miranda continued: ‘You have to
understand, we had our reasons for leaving you with Stephanie. We thought it
was for the best. That way, everybody was happy, and there would be less
explaining to do. We were both feeling guilty. Your father felt guilty for
getting into a relationship with me, and I felt guilty about the agreement I’d
made with Stephanie. It was complicated. If things could have been different—’

‘But why have you never even
tried to have any contact with me? Didn’t you have any feelings for me at all?
I mean, what about
when
you had Jane, didn’t you think of me then?’

Miranda looked to Ken, as if for
assistance.

Alice felt frustrated at her
hesitation, and continued: ‘I don’t know when you had Jane, but didn’t you
think about me then? Didn’t you ever think it would be better for Jane to have
some sort of relationship with her sister? Or had you just forgotten about me
by then?’

Miranda and Ken stared at Alice.
There was silence again. It appeared that they were unwilling to give her any
answers, or maybe they just couldn’t think of any decent excuse for abandoning
a child. It seemed as if she was talking but they were not listening.

It felt to Alice as though they
were silently mocking her. 

Eventually, her father began to
speak. ‘Oh, Alice, of course we didn’t forget about you. How could we? I think
it’s best if I just explain everything to you. Hopefully then you’ll
understand.’

‘Okay,’ said Alice, ‘That’s all
I want.’ She felt as though she had made some kind of breakthrough; her father
was willing to talk to her, at last. She felt as though she was on the first
step to getting to know her parents better, and although there would be many
steps to climb, she felt that the hardest part was over.

‘The way it happened was,
Stephanie and I, made a surrogacy agreement with Miranda.’ Her father stopped,
as if he were trying to recall everything, then he continued, ‘I was still with
Stephanie at the time. When you were born, I stayed with her until you were
nearly two years old. I wasn’t seeing Miranda at that time. When I left
Stephanie, I happened to meet Miranda again by chance. We got on well, and we
decided to get married. That’s when I contacted Stephanie for a divorce. We
decided to leave you with Stephanie because she also had rights over you...
because of the surrogacy agreement. We were sure there would be a lot of fuss
from Stephanie if she found out we were together, and we didn’t think she’d let
us have you without a battle. And, anyway, we felt guilty about getting
together.’ Her father stopped.

‘Why? It doesn’t make sense. Why
would you feel guilty about getting together, if you’d already split up from my
mum... I mean, Stephanie?’ Alice shook her head.

‘Well, it wasn’t that simple.
The attraction between us began at the time of the surrogacy, and we’d seen
each other regularly, during that time. Stephanie was unaware of this, so I
felt guilty,’ said her father.

‘I still don’t understand,’ said
Alice, frowning.

‘Well,’ said her father, ‘when
Miranda and I decided to marry, Stephanie had already been looking after you by
herself for a couple of years. We decided to leave you with her, because we
knew we could have another child. Stephanie was a good woman. We knew she’d be
a good mother for you, and we didn’t want to disrupt your life.’ He looked at
Miranda as if he was seeking her approval for what he had said, and she smiled
and nodded at him.

‘You still haven’t said why you
didn’t try to keep in contact with me,’ said Alice.

‘We didn’t want to upset
Stephanie. That was our reason at first, because we didn’t know how she’d react
when she found out we were together. We just didn’t think she’d allow us
access. It would be too complicated, and we’d have to go to court, and
everything about the surrogacy would come out. We didn’t want that, and we
didn’t think we’d stand a chance of getting access if it was discovered that
Miranda had given you to Stephanie for money.’

‘But, what about when I was
older? You could have contacted me then,’ said Alice.

‘But I didn’t want to confuse
you. I didn’t know what Stephanie had told you. I didn’t know if she had told
you she was your real mother, or if she had another husband and if you thought
he was your father. It was difficult,’ said Ken.

It was hard for Alice to see her
father’s facial expression as he spoke because the sun was shining through the
window and making her squint. Her father’s explanation of what had happened did
not satisfy her. There were too many questions still remaining. He had not
seemed sure of his answers, and his story seemed vague. Also, it struck her as
odd that Jane was supposedly that much younger than her—maybe three or four
years younger—yet she was sure that she’d heard Jane was already going to
university.

Miranda seemed to be staring at
the ground, trying to avoid looking at her. Alice couldn’t help feeling that
there was more to the story—something they hadn’t told her—but she couldn’t put
her finger on it.

‘Maybe we should have contacted
you,’ began Miranda. ‘We often thought about you, but years pass by so quickly
and we don’t always do what we should. We are sorry, but surely you were happy
with Stephanie?’

‘Yes, I was. I still am.’ Alice
spoke defensively, looking Miranda in the eye. It felt to her as though the
woman was trying to belittle Stephanie. ‘This has got nothing to do with my
relationship with Stephanie. As far as I am concerned, she is my real mum.’

Miranda looked down at her
hands.

‘I just wish someone had told me
the truth before. I would have liked the opportunity to have known Jane when we
were growing up,’ Alice added.

‘Sorry,’ her parents said in
unison, nodding their heads and looking apologetic.

‘About Jane...’ began her
father: ‘She knows nothing about all this—the surrogacy agreement, and
everything. Of course, we’ll probably have to tell her eventually, but we’d
like to do so in our own time. We would appreciate it if you didn’t say
anything to her.’

Alice shook her head, not really
able to believe what he had just said. ‘But, now we’ve met,’ she started, ‘I’ve
spoken to you and everything is out in the open; surely you can tell Jane?
Then, we can all get to know each other. You both just said that you would have
liked to have had some contact with me. It doesn’t have to be on a daily basis.
We could just see each other sometimes. Jane knows I exist now, so she might
decide she wants to know me. If she does, I’m not going to lie to her. I’m sick
of lies.’

Her parents looked at each
other. They both wore frowns when they looked back at Alice. She felt as if she
were at a job interview, and the two employers had suddenly decided that they
didn’t think she was right for the job but didn’t know how to tell her.

Silence hung over them for a few
moments and then her father spoke: ‘So, Alice,’ he said, losing his frown and
actually smiling; even if the smile appeared transparently false. ‘You
mentioned on the phone that you are studying.’

‘Yes,’ she replied. Then, after
a pause, she added: ‘I’m doing a Law degree.’

‘Oh, so is Jane!’ Miranda smiled
at her. Alice noticed that her smile did in fact appear to be genuine.

‘Really?’ Alice wasn’t sure she
wanted to smile back at Miranda just yet. There was something she couldn’t
quite trust about her.

‘Yes, she’ll be in her final year
this year.’

Alice’s raised her eyebrows.
‘How can that be? I mean how old is she then? I heard she was at university,
but I thought she’d be in her first year. I thought she must be about eighteen,
because I was nearly two when you split up from Stephanie.’ She looked towards
Ken, shaking her head in confusion.