My Secret Sister: Jenny Lucas and Helen Edwards' Family Story (39 page)

She carried on sobbing.

‘Melanie! Listen. I’m not crying. I might do in a few days, but I’m not crying now.’

She calmed down and we talked a little more. Then I texted another cousin, Mac, who I’d always been close to:
I need to talk to you Mac. When can I call?

The reply came back immediately:
Now!

So I picked up the phone and called him. When I explained the discovery about Patricia, he didn’t sound surprised.

‘I’ve known that all my life, about you and Patricia.’

‘Really? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘My mother told me. But you know what, Helen? I’m just a guy. I was very young when I heard about it. It’s family stuff and it didn’t really mean anything to me. In fact, to be honest, I’d forgotten about it. But I’ve always known.’

I took this in with a sense of alarm. Everyone in the extended family seemed to know, except for Patricia and me, and even when she had found out she hadn’t got in touch with me to tell me. They also knew about Jenny’s birth and adoption out of the family. All these relatives had taken away from me the pleasure and support of having a sister. Now, suddenly, I had two.

When I spoke to George’s son a few days later, it was a similar story. George had apparently known about these two sisters who were adopted out, but he’d never thought to mention it to me. His son said that George had been forbidden to say anything. I felt overwhelmed by the regret and sadness that we’d missed out on so much, Patricia, Jenny and I. Indignation, too, that everyone knew my business except me. I was denied that right.

I was now determined to discover how it had all happened, and why. Bizarrely, my mind began to dredge up small details from my childhood. For example, I knew that George used to get into fights at school. I think I overheard someone say once that the other kids teased my brother George about his illegitimate sister. Of course, that was before I was born. I think when I heard this story I just dismissed it as a ridiculous rumour.

Once I started thinking about it, I recalled snatches of other whispered conversations, things I wasn’t supposed to hear. As a small child I had never understood them. Now I wished I could remember them better.

Then there was the way I was always blamed for everything: ‘It’s all your fault.’ Perhaps I was being blamed for being the one Mercia kept. There had always been something wrong. Why had I not noticed this? I was angry with myself.

I discussed everything with Dennis, of course.

‘This family secrecy has been an abscess for decades,’ I said. ‘And like all abscesses, it grew bigger and more poisonous until eventually it just had to burst.’

‘Oh, not another one of your metaphors!’ he groaned.

When I spoke to another cousin, Alice, a few days later, I asked her why nobody had told me, even after my mother had died and it didn’t matter any more.

‘Why did everyone continue to keep it all secret?’

‘We didn’t want to. We thought you had a right to know,’ she explained. ‘And we told Mercia, “Helen has a right to know she has a sister. We think you should let her know. You can’t leave her living her whole life and never knowing.” Mercia said, “I forbid you to say one word to Helen. I absolutely forbid it.” And she said it in such a way,’ said Alice, ‘that I thought I’d be murdered if I said anything at all.’

So that was it. Fear of my mother had been the power that blocked the truth. Nobody dared to betray her. But surely it was me they betrayed by not telling? To be fair, I don’t suppose it ever occurred to them. But I resented their silence all the same. How would it be when we all met up?

CHAPTER 35

Helen & Jenny

Reunion

Jenny

When Helen returned to England, we agreed that once she had found somewhere to live and had settled in, we should meet as soon as possible. I couldn’t wait to see her. I knew she needed time, but we’d waited so long and now I didn’t want to wait any longer.

‘Look,’ said Sam. ‘We’re going to go up there and I’m going to organize a dinner.’

We drove up and stayed at the Holiday Inn hotel. That’s where I met my half-sister, Helen, for the very first time.

‘Jenny,’ she said with a broad smile as if she knew me, had always known me. Her voice was so calm and serene – how did she manage that?

‘Helen.’ It felt good to say her name face to face. ‘Oh, Helen.’

We hugged each other for what seemed like an age. It had taken so long to find her, I didn’t want to let her go. I can’t describe how I felt. It was spooky, like snapping your fingers, the bond we had – it happened just like that. We both felt it immediately. We kept looking at each other, beaming. It was incredible. We were like that all afternoon. Here we were, aged fifty-seven and fifty-nine, sitting together after all these years. Helen looked so happy to see me, and I couldn’t stop smiling at her either.

I don’t think either of us had known what to expect. I didn’t know whether she was angry or bitter at the way her mother had kept everything secret from her, but if she was, she didn’t show it. She was openly accepting of me. It was a great relief. But it must have been traumatic for her.

Helen

It was such a coincidence that when I first heard from Jenny I’d already booked my flight back to England. I had packing cases all around me as we had planned to move back to live in the north-east where my children and their partners lived. I went first. Dennis was about to retire and he would follow me out a few weeks later.

When I got back to Northumberland, Sam arranged to have this big family reunion at the Grand Hotel in Tynemouth. Before that we were going to have a barbecue at my cousin Mac’s house. The first time I met Jenny, I didn’t want it to be when we were surrounded by other people, all looking at us, so I asked her if I could come to the hotel where she was staying and meet her there. We agreed that it would just be her and me, and her children, as mine would be at work.

I drove to the hotel. I arrived first in the reception area, so I called Jenny on my mobile.

‘I’ll be straight down.’

As I sat and waited, I was in complete turmoil inside. This was such an important meeting. I watched as the lift descended and the door opened. When I saw her come out of it, I knew it had to be my sister. Straightaway, it was as if she was the missing part of me finally restored. We fell into each other’s arms. I can’t remember what we said. We just hugged each other and cried. I noticed straightaway that she was the double of Mercia. The image of her. It was eerie to see that resemblance.

On the day of the barbecue at Mac’s house, it was just Jenny, Katie and Josh. Sam and Ben were going to come up north later and join us, so they weren’t at Mac’s that day. Donna and Scott couldn’t be there either. We met up with Patricia and her partner, so the three of us, Patricia, Jenny and I, got together for the first time that afternoon. Patricia seemed a little more detached and reserved, whereas Jenny and I felt very close and completely open with each other. We all marched in with our bundles of photographs, passing them round to share over our drinks. ‘That’s George, and this is . . .’ We explained everyone to each other.

Seeing all the photos started a conversation about resemblances.

‘I can’t get over how alike you two are,’ commented Mac to Jenny and me. ‘And what’s so amazing is Jenny’s resemblance to Mercia. It’s uncanny.’

Mac’s girlfriend Debbie turned to Patricia. ‘You don’t look much like Helen and Jenny,’ she said, ‘so I suppose you must look like your father.’

Patricia looked uncomfortable. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But I’ve no idea what he looked like.’

‘Well, he must have been good-looking,’ said Mac with a smile.

As the afternoon went on, the conversation focused by turns on our families, on what we were all doing, and finally, amid much laughter, to reminiscences of family gatherings when we had been children, all except Jenny, of course, who was keen to learn more about the different family members.

It was as good a first meeting as it possibly could have been – light and easygoing, warm-hearted and fun. Fortunately, all our children were happy for us too. I remember a conversation I had with Donna at around this time, discussing Mercia’s secrecy.

‘Why didn’t she tell us?’ asked Donna. ‘You know the number of times you sit with the family and you watch a programme about adoption, or about a woman who is having an unexpected baby? That would have been an obvious opportunity to have those sorts of discussions. She could so easily have slipped it into the conversation, but she never did.’

‘Yes, you’re right. She must have had to work hard not to mention it at times like that.’

‘I could strangle Grandma! What must she have put herself through, living with that secret all of her life?’

‘Well, the family used to call her “the ostrich”,’ I said, ‘because she wouldn’t face things, and that was the ultimate example. These days we’d call it the elephant in the room.’

The main reunion event was the dinner at the Grand Hotel. As we walked in and I introduced Scott and Donna to Jenny, Donna just took one look at her and burst into tears. That was rather disconcerting, especially for Jenny.

‘I haven’t seen my gran for three years,’ Donna said, ‘but I’ve just seen her again now.’

Despite the more formal surroundings of the hotel, the whole evening was an absolute riot. Jenny had all her family there, and I had my children and their partners with me. What a lovely night that was. So much laughter, and quite a few tears as well. Right from the start, we all felt we were just one big family.

During the evening, I noticed Patricia leaving the room, so I followed her outside. She was crying; just leaning on the balcony with tears coursing down her cheeks. I put my hand on her shoulder and said, ‘It’s OK, Patricia. We’ve got each other now.’

She turned round and hugged me, and I started crying too. Then Jenny came out and joined us, and she started crying as well! So there we were, three sisters, all blubbing together.

We went back inside, just in time for Sam’s speech.

‘It’s so good to see the whole family together at last. There are twenty-four of you here tonight. When I first met Jenny, we had our family reunions in a telephone box. Now we’ve got a whole hotel! I think we should drink a toast to the three graces – sisters at last – Helen, Patricia and Jenny.’

We all joined in with gusto. For some reason, I suddenly felt a rush of emotion. Without thinking, I stood up and added, ‘I’d like to make an additional toast to the one person who’s responsible for us all being here tonight. To Mercia.’

Everyone repeated ‘Mercia’.

I don’t know why I did that. What was I thinking of? Yes, she had been our birth mother, but we hardly owed her a thank you for bringing us together when she had done everything in her power to keep us apart and ignorant of our sisterhood. If it hadn’t been for her, we wouldn’t have needed a reunion, would we?

Jenny

What a night the dinner was! We all had a great time, meeting so many unknown relatives and getting to know each other on neutral ground.

I was a bit concerned, though, at one point, when Patricia was upset, but that wasn’t surprising. I think we were all emotional. But I wondered if there was a sense of uncertainty in her reaction.

I felt uncomfortable about that, as it was me who had spilled the beans to Helen about Patricia being another half-sister. Was she cross with me? Perhaps she didn’t tell Helen herself because she wasn’t sure in her own mind how she felt about it? It had been an epic shock for Helen, who’d grown up thinking that Patrica was a distant cousin, so it must have felt awkward for them both.

I find all that really odd – the way the family guarded Mercia’s secrets, almost as strongly as she kept them herself. Mercia must have been quite something, quite a manipulator. I mean, you’ve got to be pretty cool, haven’t you, to do things like that? Is it hard? I wondered. I just can’t imagine giving away your own child. There was so much to learn about this woman who was my mother, and the things she’d done, and who my father was, too, but now at last I had an ally in Helen and we could try to find out more together.

CHAPTER 36

Helen & Jenny

Too Many Coincidences

Helen

I began to piece together the facts. My mother was married in 1939, at the age of twenty, to George Dick. My brother George was born the following year. George Dick had gone to war by this time and was captured by the Germans. He was a prisoner throughout the rest of the war. During 1943, my mother had a relationship with an American airman, from which she had a baby girl. This was Patricia. Apparently, when she discovered she was expecting, she concealed the pregnancy by wearing tight corsets. No one knew until the local midwife stopped my grandma in the street.

‘You’d better get home quick. Your Mercia’s just had a baby!’

When I told Jenny this, she was amazed. ‘What kind of corsets?’ she asked.

‘I’ve no idea. Why do you want to know that?’

‘My mother used to sell Pul-front corsets in Seghill from the beginning of the war to earn some extra money, so perhaps she sold a corset to Mercia.’

I was stunned.

‘Wouldn’t that be an amazing coincidence?’ continued Jenny.

I tried to picture these two women together, perhaps in my Grandma’s house, five years before Connie unknowingly adopted Mercia’s next baby.

Baby Patricia was hastily handed over to relatives, who had just suffered a miscarriage. It would have been shameful in those days for anyone outside the family to know Mercia had given birth to a baby while her husband was a prisoner of war. I suppose this must have seemed like the perfect solution. Nobody gave any thought to what might be best for the baby, though I think Patricia had a happy upbringing; a great deal better than mine, at any rate.

Patricia’s health visitor was a great friend of Jenny’s adoptive mother and became Jenny’s godmother five years later.

In the meantime, Mercia’s first husband, George Dick, my half-brother George’s father, came back from the war with a German girlfriend and eventually divorced Mercia in June 1950.