The Adoption
Authors: Anne Berry
Contents
About the Author
Anne Berry was born in London in 1956, then spent much of her infancy in Aden, before moving on to Hong Kong at the age of six, where she was educated. She worked for a short period as a journalist for the
South China Morning Post
, before returning to Britain. After completing a three-year acting course, she embarked on a career in theatre, playing everything from pantomime to Shakespeare. She now lives in Surrey with her husband and four children. She is the author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning novels,
The Hungry Ghosts
and
The Water Children
.
Praise for
The Water Children:
‘Anne Berry is a wonderful writer with a poetic imagination and use of language; startling metaphors and images flow effortlessly from line to line and, from page one, the plotting is heart-in-the-mouth stuff. What more could you ask?’
Daily Mail
‘You will simply love this story of a broken family and its many hidden secrets’
Sunday Express
Praise for
The Hungry Ghosts
:
‘The most extraordinary debut novel since the
Lovely Bones
. Astonishing!’
The Lady Magazine
‘Epic in scope and voice so skilfully crafted, and the writing so elegant, it’s hard to believe it is a first novel’
Psychologies
This book is dedicated to my much cherished mother-in-law, Ethel Ellen Berry. We adopted each other.
‘An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when the mighty begin to fall, or when the wretched begin to rise, or when the stranger enters the gates, never, thereafter, to be a stranger. Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self: in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one’s nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. This trust in one’s nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one’s robes.’
James Baldwin
Chapter 1
Bethan, 1948
MY HANDS ARE
shaking uncontrollably, so that it takes a full minute to open the flimsy letter. Silly that I am so afraid when I know the likely contents. I allow my eyes to linger a moment on their motto, before I devour the rest whole. I taste not a word but knock it back like medicine. Cold. It is cold, so cold that I can see the steamy vapour of my breaths. I feel like … like … the air is being beaten out of me. And the thought makes me picture my mam beating the fireside rug outdoors in spring, little explosions of pearly dust. Barefoot, I pick my way across the rough floorboards to where a drawer lined with a quilt serves as a crib. Close by, the chest minus its middle gapes contemptuously at me. Will it poke its tongue out? I peer into its splintered gullet desolately and placate it with this thought. Soon now, very soon, your drawer will be returned – empty. Kneeling as if at chapel, I gaze down at my babe in her makeshift manger. Oh what a dark star led me here?
I must not touch her. When I look I must not touch. When I touch I must not look. In this way Mam says no bond will form. There is a milk blister on her upper lip, brushstrokes of rose pink on her cheeks and a curl of golden hair fine as gossamer on the crown of her head. Her eyes are tight shut, a gentle blush of mauve on their lids. But let me tell you what you’re missing. They are turquoise, pale turquoise exactly like mine, the colour of dreams. In my dressing gown pocket
is
a compact. I lift it out, open it up, hold the mirror in front of her nose, her tiny mouth. A fine veil mists the silver surface. My baby is as alive as I am. I read her a story, whisper the tale into her perfect ear no bigger than a half-crown coin.
‘The Homeless Child for the Childless Home’
The Church Adoption Society
(Founded in 1913 in Cambridge by Rev. W. F. Buttle, M.A.)
Telegrams
4A BLOOMSBURY SQUARE
,
BABICHANGE, LONDON
LONDON, W.C. 1
Telephone HOLBORN 3310
23rd April, 1948
Miss Haverd
,
42 Rochester Row
,
Westminster
Dear Miss Haverd
,
We have a very nice couple who are interested in Lucilla and would like to see her. All being well they will take her straight home with them. Could you arrange to be at this office at 2.45 pm on Tuesday next, the 27th of April?
Yours sincerely
,
Valeria Mulholland
Secretary
When my story is finished I do not say, ‘And they all lived happily ever after.’ But the ending I offer in its place is a fair exchange.
‘“The Homeless Child for the Childless Home”. Surely?’
Chapter 2
Lucilla, 1995
THE MUSCLES OF
my cheeks hurt tensed for so long in such a stupid, simpering smile. I wonder how dancers accomplish it, their faces portraits of bliss while their toes cramp mercilessly. I was woken at dawn by squabbling magpies, flapping and hopping about in the dove-grey light. Such a to-do! Spring has taken us unawares. The sun is at the window making the inside seem tired and dowdy, and the outside bright as fresh paint. The pear blossom is out. The bluebells are slowly unfurling their shy heads. And here am I confined indoors, having to listen to Cousin Frank prattle on endlessly about his daft wife and his obnoxious sons.
‘Oh, they’re smashing lads. A credit to us both. No surprise that they’ve done really well for themselves. Like father like son, eh? A quantity surveyor and a banker. You can’t say better than that, can you, Lucilla?’ Certain that I can, wisely I hold my peace. There comes a pause, a lengthy pause into which Merlin, my golden King Charles spaniel, gives an enormous gummy yawn. Glancing down, I see him slumped at my feet. He’s partially blind, poor old gentleman. His right pupil and retina are a swirl of milky white, giving a piratical slant to his adorable pugnacious face. Now he rolls his liquid eyes up at me, his expression skew-whiff. In them, I see he has surpassed my state of boredom and is inching his canine way into a coma. The urge to
replace
my look of feigned interest with one of genuine fond amusement, is almost irresistible. Across the way from me I see Henry, my husband, lever himself out of his chair. At the welcome sight of him my heart gives its familiar tug, as if an invisible cord fastens us together.
‘Anyone for … for more coffee?’ he offers hesitantly, smoothing his greying handsome cinnamon-brown beard and moustache. There is something of the chivalrous musketeer about my Henry. He should have a cap adorned with swirling feathers to sweep off, now and then, from his bowing head. Whereas Frank is more the scurvy rascal, bent on rape and pillage rather than acts of selfless gallantry. I mark the disparaging twitch of his pompous mouth, the subtle quarter rotation of his wrist where his imitation Rolex is strapped.
‘
Tempus fugit
, Henry.
Tempus fugit
.’ Another glance at his fake watch. ‘Time waits for no man.’
‘
Sic transit gloria mundi
,’ returns Henry in his element, elbows propped on the arms of his chair, hands clasped, fingers linked, face expectant. He opens out his hands inviting Frank to translate. Frank frowns, annoyed and at a loss. And I reflect that there are many industrial diamonds that are worthless in value and only one Star of Africa, which is priceless. ‘Thus passes the glory of the world,’ Henry supplies with a magnanimous smile.
‘Quite so. Quite so,’ mumbles Frank, recovering himself with a show of latent comprehension. He stretches out his stick-insect limbs and pedals his right foot, as if revving the engine of a car. ‘Alas, I must wend.’ Henry, reading my rapturous reception at this long-overdue cherub-of-departure, silences me with a look of whiskery Victorian censure. My pretentious cousin is on his feet now. He wears of all ridiculous get-ups on this lovely day, a day that demands a frivolous butterfly palette, a workaday suit, a dung-brown tie and black lace-ups buffed to the shine of a policeman’s boots. Tall, imposing, with his irritating sermonising way of speaking, he appears more like a funeral
director
than a man at his leisure on a fine Saturday. ‘The lunch was awfully nice. Home cooking. Can’t beat it,’ Franks oozes.
‘Shop bought,’ I mutter rebelliously. A white lie but then I suddenly wish it had been, that I had expended no culinary effort at all on our lunch.
‘Marks and Spencer, I bet. You can always tell.’ The snobbery of my cousin is legendary.
‘Tesco – economy brand,’ I retort without missing a beat, embellishing my white lie with wicked delight. Disappointingly he bypasses this. I stay seated for a few moments more listening to birdsong, and enjoying the feeling that this is my space, my chair, my domain. It is the home I share with my man, my Henry, worth a thousand Franks even on a bad day. We are downstairs in the long room in the cottage, the one that does for a lounge and dining area, both. Frank is fussing with his papers, spread out on the oak dining table, pedantically putting them into his briefcase. He licks his finger as he flicks through them, something I have always held to be a disgusting and unhygienic habit. His black hair, salted generously with dandruff, looks as if it has been varnished onto his skull.
‘So, Lucilla, how’s your job going in that dinky little tea shop?’
I wince at the sound of the name. To me it sounds like a scream, which is ironic really because it often was – screamed at me, I mean. I do not believe anyone loathes their name as much as I do. The lucky ones store up early memories of their names spoken with wondrous love, mine is of the three syllables being picked at like leftovers on a plate. Was Lucilla worth saving for tomorrow when, with imagination, she might be transformed into something more palatable, or should they just scrape me into a bin and wait for the dustmen to take me away? Sensing my preoccupation, Frank leers at me, his proximity together with his halitosis eliciting the unspoken observation that a visit to the dentist is long overdue, my cousin.
‘Getting on all right are we?’ he asks patronisingly.
We
are definitely not getting on all right. ‘It’s bloody hard work,’ I choke out.
His face spasms momentarily in shock. He reviles women using foul language. I am tempted to give vent to a diatribe of the filthiest, most offensive swear words I know. Henry’s hands are thrust deep into his jeans pockets, a bad sign, and I see them wriggle now in agitation. I catch his eye and the gentle reproach I see there brings swift repentance. With a soft sigh, I harness my wayward tongue and remind myself that, God willing, for miracles do occasionally happen, he will soon be gone.
