Stolen Child (35 page)

Dear Joy,

I know this will be a difficult letter to read but I hope you will finish it and understand that I seek only to protect you. I had decided not to contact you until you were ready to meet myself and Robert. However, I’ve heard that you are planning a press conference for tomorrow. I understand your reasons for doing so but I beg you to cancel it. The wrong publicity can do untold damage and only make things worse for you and your family. I speak from experience. If you ignore this letter, then please think carefully before you answer questions and remember that the truth, as you know it, can become someone else’s torrid headline.
Please
, have good people surrounding you and listen to their advice.

My heart is breaking all over again when I think of the shock and confusion you have endured since you were removed from your home. I always believed that one day we would be reunited but I never understood, until now, how devastating that would be for you. Please do not feel threatened by me or by Robert. He, too, only wants what
is best for you. We will wait until you are ready to meet us, no matter how long that takes.

Goodbye for now. My thoughts are always with you.

Carla Kelly.

Patricia did warn her in advance that the letter was from The Other Side but Joy is still unprepared for the anger she feels after reading it. She tears it in half and flings it into the rubbish bin. How manipulative is that? Pretending to protect her while at the same time trying to stifle her. The first thing
she
did when her baby was stolen was to hold a press conference.

She puts on her iPod and listens to Eminem until she falls asleep. It’s still dark when she awakens. Her head aches. She wants to cry again but tomorrow is an important day. She needs to look her best when she puts the record straight. The letter, jutting from the litterbin, annoys her. She takes it out and places the pieces together, a jigsaw with ragged edges that will never join. She places it under her pillow and drifts restlessly towards morning.

A green baize tablecloth, bottles of water, glasses that tinkle with ice. Her solicitor wrote the statement he expects her to read. She has studied it many times. It is filled with words like ‘allegedly’ and ‘purportedly’ and ‘adjustment period’ and ‘conciliation’. All it stops short of stating is that Joy is looking forward to a happy-ever-after reconciliation. He has advised her to read it slowly and clearly. Thanks to the school musical, Joy knows how to breathe correctly and project her voice. She has been warned about the media presence but the crouching movements of the photographers and the blaze of the television cameras is terrifying.

‘Thank you all for coming.’ Her voice, which sounded so
strong earlier when she was rehearsing, suddenly shakes. She ignores her solicitor’s statement and opens her own one.

She had spent so much time writing it, then reading it aloud to herself, that she could recite it off by heart. She spreads it out on top of her solicitor’s statement and presses her hands flat against the green baize tablecloth.

‘My name is Joy Dowling. I’m fifteen years old and that is all I have in common with the Anticipation Baby, Isobel Gardner.’

She stiffens when her solicitor’s hand rests commandingly on hers. He leans towards her and whispers that she must, as arranged, read what he has written. She ignores his warning and continues.

‘A grave miscarriage of justice has been perpetrated against my father, David Dowling. Throughout my life he has treated me with kindness and love, as my mother did until her death. I was removed from my home without any warning on the 16th January 2009. Since then I have seen my father twice. We are not allowed to spend time alone. I believe this is an infringement of his civil rights. I demand to know why my father is being treated like a criminal when he has done nothing wrong. I’d like to extend my deepest sympathy to Carla Kelly and Robert Gardner for all the suffering they have endured. But I am not their child. I appeal to them to stay out of my life and allow me to return to my own home and family. Thank you for your time and attention.’

Cameras click and the lights flash like scattered firework sparks. The journalists, having remained silent while she spoke, rear upwards with questions.

‘How can you explain the different blood groups?’

‘Isn’t DNA evidence irrefutable?’

‘How will you feel if it’s proved you are the Anticipation Baby?’

‘When do you intend meeting Carla Kelly and Robert Gardner?’

‘Had you any suspicions when you were a child that you were stolen?’

‘Did you ever wonder why you were brought up in such an isolated place?’

‘Why did Susanne Dowling home-school you for years?’

On and on the questions fly, their microphones jabbing at her like claws. Have they listened to a word she said? Her panic grows. A man stands in the front row and approaches her. He has wrinkles around his eyes, and a wide, narrow mouth that curves in a smile. A woman with a television camera closes in on Joy. He looks familiar but she can’t think of his name. The journalists fall silent when he speaks.

‘Joy, I’m Josh Baker from
The Week on the Street.
’ His voice creeps over her like something furry and soft. ‘On behalf of the assembled media, I want to thank you for speaking so frankly to us. Congratulations on your courage in holding this important press conference.’

She stretches backwards in her seat, suddenly scared, which is ridiculous because Josh smiles again.

‘Joy, can you tell us about your first childhood memories?’ he asks.

She remembers looking through the bars of her cot and seeing her father and mother smiling at her from their bed. The memory is so sharp she presses her hand to her chest, but it’s not a true memory because her father’s bed was always in the other room and he was gone so often…She remembers crying on the steps of his office…but that’s not a good memory…And she thinks about the games they played…how she used to pull the duvet over her head and he would crawl underneath her bed and into the wardrobe,
pretending he couldn’t find her anywhere, and, how, when she jumped from under the duvet, she’d startle him so much he’d collapse on the bed, clutching his chest, yelling, ‘I give in. You win again, Champ!’

So many memories pressing against her head. Josh is waiting and smiling and it’s important to explain to the world that she did not have a weird, mixed-up childhood.

‘My father used to tell me stories in bed. He’d bring me to the Burren and teach me the names of flowers and once he—’

‘In your bed?’ asks Josh.

She stops, unsure if she has heard him correctly.

‘He told you stories in your bed?’ Josh, no longer smiling, looks concerned.

‘Yes. In…I mean…
on
my bed.’ She shakes her head, willing him to smile again. ‘We used to play games—’

She is aware that Patricia is pressing her knee, a hard squeeze from her dead-leaf hand, which is the signal for Joy to stop talking. But she can’t because Josh looks so grave and the camera is an all-seeing eye that freezes her expression.

‘Catching flies,’ her mother would say if she could see her sitting here with her mouth open, gulping when she swallows. She is unable to look away from Josh Baker when he asks, ‘Were there other men who played games with you at night?’

Her solicitor is on his feet, so angry that his hands bang off the table, and Joy is shrinking smaller and smaller, the way she felt when her father steered the boat through the towering walls of the Grand Canyon.

She stands at Patricia’s command. Her feet wobble. Jelly on a plate…jelly on a plate…another childhood memory…and Patricia supports her, moves her away from the green baize table.

A face flickers at the edge of her eye, stands out for an instant from the crowd. The journalists are leaving the room, ordered out by a woman in a Garda uniform. She looks so formidable that they obey her instantly. All except Clare Frazier. She wears glasses now. They make her look stern and stand-offish but they cannot hide the tears on her cheeks.

Joy wants to go to her. The pull is so strong she stops and tries to walk back but Patricia, strong for an old woman, has such a tight grip on her arm that she’s unable to break free. When she looks around again, Clare Frazier has disappeared.

Back in the foster home, when she is left alone at last, she does what she has wanted to do since that terrible morning. Katie, hearing her banging her head on the bedroom wall, holds her so still she can no longer harm herself.

Hi Joy,

Can you forgive me for being so stupid? I was so excited when I believed Isobel Gardner had been found that I emailed you without thinking it through. My mum says I’m always running off at the mouth and I guess that applies to email as well. You were right to be mad at me. I can’t bear to think how I’d feel if the social services came into my house and took me away by force.

I watched your press conference. It was horrible. Josh Baker is a sicko and I hope he suffers from leprosy of the tongue. My father used to read me stories and lie on my bed too. It’s disgusting the way that sicko twisted everything. But you were really cool.

If you don’t believe you are Isobel Gardner, no one can force you to do so. Even if (and I know it won’t happen) but even if your father is found guilty, you still can be who you believe you are.

If you want to email back that would be cool. But it doesn’t matter if you don’t. I’ll understand.

Yours sincerely,

Jessica Kelly.

The media showed no mercy. Josh had set the honeytrap and her daughter had walked right into it. Carla watched that night’s edition of
The Week on the Street,
read the papers the following morning.
No Joy for Anticipation Parents
was the kindest headline.
Was Anticipation Girl Victim of Paedophile Ring?
the most cruel. She was safe from prying eyes in her citadel, yet she was inside her daughter’s skin, flashing back in time and spinning from the exposure.

She had hoped Joy would change her mind and meet them after the press conference. But the meeting she and Robert had attended this morning with Patrica had proved that their daughter was still determined to keep her distance.

‘Joy has had to make huge adjustments and she’s not yet ready for that final step,’ Patricia had told them. ‘It happens regularly enough when adoptive children prepare to meet their birth parents. They desperately want to make contact but the weight of their fear paralyses them. I know the situation is different with Joy—’

‘Isobel,’ Robert had snapped.

Patricia had nodded, apologetically. ‘I must put Isobel’s interests first. I’m sorry. Please be patient. The accident has
further destabilised her. I’m so sorry your hopes have been dashed again.’

The meeting had been as frustrating as all the others and the social worker’s apologies had only increased Robert’s annoyance.

‘As her parents we have rights. Don’t you think we’ve suffered enough,
waited
long enough?’ His expression had hardened. ‘Does she think about us at all? Has she any consideration for the fact that we also have lives to lead. Can’t you talk to her again, change her mind?’

‘What would you like me to do, Mr Gardner?’ Patricia had compassionate eyes but her steadfast gaze was capable of steel. ‘Frogmarch her towards a meeting? That would hardly be the most auspicious way to begin a family relationship.’

With her reproof ringing in their ears, they had left her office.

Unable to stay still when she returned home, Carla tackled her apartment. She cleared out presses, swept mats, dusted the tops of picture frames, lifted armchair cushions to vacuum every crease and crevice underneath. She worked with a feverish intensity, as if by cleaning the hidden dust and grime of her surroundings she could bleach the confusion from her mind.

When her apartment was spotless, she soaked in a bath. Steam clouded the mirror and the bath bubbles slowly evaporated, every muscle in her body seeking relief. When the doorbell rang she sighed and decided to ignore it. Robert would not call to her apartment, nor would her family. Unable to ignore a second, more prolonged ring, she pulled on a bathrobe and checked the security camera.

David Dowling was standing outside the apartment entrance. She stepped back, as if he was physically confronting her. Robert had sought to prevent him or any members of
his family making contact with him or Carla. But David was not breaking that injunction. He was calling on Clare Frazier, hoping, perhaps, that she could bring him comfort. His face had that askew appearance, as if the muscles aligning his features had collapsed. She recognised his loss of control, his all-consuming anguish.

‘David.’ Her voice was softer than she intended as she pressed the release button. ‘Come on up.’

By the time he had taken the elevator to the sixth floor she was dressed in a skirt and top but was still in her bare feet. He hesitated at the front door, reluctant to enter.

‘Joy saw you at the press conference,’ he said. ‘I wanted to thank you for not asking her any questions.’

‘I’m not a journalist,’ she replied and led him into the living room. ‘I went there to offer her support.’

His hands, resting on his knees, clenched into fists. ‘I wanted to kill Josh Baker with my bare hands. No knife or gun, just my bare hands. You’ve seen the headlines, the insinuations. I had to seek an injunction to stop them
alleging
I abused my child. As if I would harm a hair on her head. But the damage is done. She was taken from me and now my reputation’s also gone.’

‘I’d hoped to talk to her afterwards,’ she said. ‘But she was whisked away so fast.’

He slumped into an armchair and hunched forward. ‘That sums it up.’ His voice cracked. ‘They just came one morning and lifted her.’ He paused, still unable to grasp the enormity of what had occurred. ‘It was over in a few minutes. My life…her life. Everything we’d shared…gone, just like that. You would think it couldn’t happen, wouldn’t you? The state can’t come into your home and destroy you. But they can…and they have…I can only see her in the company of a social worker. It’s one of the conditions of my bail.
This morning, before I could leave Maoltrán, I had to present myself to a guard I’ve known all my life. I don’t know what to do, Clare. I’m lost…’

‘But she never belonged to you. The DNA evidence is irrefutable.’

‘Yes.’ He shook his head from side to side. ‘Irrefutable. Even Joy has to accept that now. Joey is with her, trying to convince her to meet her parents.’ He continued speaking, more to himself than to her, the raw anger on his face giving way to bewilderment. ‘Susanne never gave birth to Joy. How can that be? Who is going to believe I didn’t know? I should have known…’

‘David, listen. I need to tell you something.’

‘How could she do this to me…to steal another woman’s child?’ He was incapable of hearing her. ‘But the dead can’t speak and I’m left to explain…what? Who will understand what I can’t understand myself?’

His mobile phone rang. He answered it immediately and spoke tersely to the caller. ‘How long since she left?’ he asked. Already he was walking from her apartment. ‘I’m on my way now.’

He clicked out of the call and said, ‘That was Joey. Joy’s missing. She’s taken off with Danny Breen.’

Then he was gone. Carla heard the front door slam. The truth fell like a stone into the silence he left behind.