That Girl From Nowhere by Dorothy Koomson
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ she asks.
I shake my head. If I don’t say anything, I can truthfully say to Mum later, ‘And I haven’t spoken to them since.’ There is no way I can avoid telling Mum any longer.
‘Why won’t you talk to me? Aren’t you completely freaked out? Cos I am. My whole life has been this huge, colossal cover up. If you met my mum and dad, your mum and dad, you’d know they were never the kind to do this sort of thing. I’ve always thought that they only did “it” three times, you know, what with them having three kids. But they … Before marriage and everything. And they just gave the baby away and got on with it.’
‘That’s me you’re talking about in that matter-of-fact tone,’ I want to say to her.
‘I keep thinking we’re supposed to be hugging and crying and stuff because of those TV shows.’
Reluctantly I smile at her because I know what she means. This feels a little under-emotional and inappropriate. We’re supposed to have exchanged letters, phone calls and arranged to meet on neutral ground. We’re supposed to have prepared ourselves for this moment once we knew the other existed. The meeting is meant to be a moment of great apprehension followed by great joy. Real life isn’t like it is on the telly, why do I find that so surprising?
‘Are you seriously not going to say anything?’
‘Who was the guy with the engagement ring?’ I ask.
‘My child’s father. He wants us to get married. If I’d let him, he’d have actually come today to get you to make an engagement ring. But I’m not marrying him.’
‘How old’s your child?’ I ask. ‘How old’s my niece or nephew?’ I should have asked.
‘I’m not telling you until you tell me why you’ve been avoiding me.’
‘It’s too hard to think about.’ I can feel tears filling up my eyes, ready to fall. I shake my head to will them away. ‘It’s too scary.’
‘Aren’t you even curious? Not even a little bit?’
‘Yes. But it’s all been sprung on me by, I don’t know, Fate I suppose. I didn’t mean to meet you. It was never meant to be like this.’
‘It’s the same for us, too.’ Us. She’s including my parents and my brothers in that. I wonder who else knows about this when my own mum doesn’t.
‘I was also avoiding you because I haven’t told my mum. She—’
Confusion dances on Abi’s face for a second. ‘Oh, you mean your adoptive mum.’
‘I mean my mum,’ I reply. My tone is as sharp as the saw I use for piercing and in response Abi draws back a little. I won’t have her do that, I won’t have her dismiss or downgrade my parents – she has her mum and I have mine. ‘I haven’t told her I met you,’ I say carefully. If I expect her to choose her words wisely, then I should do the same. ‘Mum lives with me. We’ve only just moved down here and my dad died recently. I don’t know what the thought of all this will do to her. It’s not as simple as being curious. If I’d gone looking for this I could have prepared myself and her a bit more. I didn’t, so I’m having to get my head around it in pieces and chunks. I need to steel myself to do the next thing. I would have called you back eventually.’ At least I hope I would. ‘But not until I’d told my mum and not until I was sure I was ready to deal with another chunk of this.’
Remorse, pure and potent, crawls across Abi’s face as she looks down at her hands and my fluttering heart begins its frenetic dance of escape again.
‘What have you done?’ I ask.
Abi’s right leg begins a slight but anxious jiggle. ‘I, erm …’
‘What have you done?’ A terrified type of nausea creeps up my throat.
‘She couldn’t wait. She wa—’
‘Oh, God, no.’ I need to leave. I need to get out of my chair and run as fast as I can away from here. In case of a fire, you’re told to exit the building as quickly and safely as possible; to leave everything where it is and run – do not, under any circumstances go searching for your belongings. I need to run, I need to not sit here and allow my belongings, the people I belonged to, to come for me. I need to run but I can’t move. ‘Please, no.’
‘She only wants to see you,’ Abi pleads.
Abi turns to the glass wall that separates the courtyard from the inside of the hotel’s café and beckons to the person beyond. I didn’t even notice someone sitting there, I hadn’t felt the weight of someone observing me, scrutinising every inch of me while I spoke to my sister.
Run. Get out of this seat and RUN! Inside my head that is what I’m screaming. I cannot move. She’s going to walk out of there and right up to this table and she is going to speak to me. And I am going to … I don’t know what I’m going to do.
She looks nothing like my mum. My mum has peach skin and grey-streaked brown hair that she’s finally stopped dyeing, and she wears Bermuda shorts to ride her tricycle.
This woman looks nothing like my mum. She looks almost exactly what I would expect to look like in seventeen years’ time, but not like my mum. I think I want to get up and hug her. I think I want to scream at her, ‘WHY?’ I think I want to walk away and never, ever look back.
‘Hello,’ she says. A simple and honest greeting. All the best conversations start with hello. I do not know what to say so I say nothing.
In her hands she holds a small cream box, on the outside of which she has drawn and coloured butterflies. She places the box in front of me. ‘This is yours,’ she says as if she doesn’t mind I haven’t said anything in response to her ‘hello’. ‘I made it to keep my pictures of you.’ She sits in the seat that Abi has vacated and she smiles at me like I’m a baby. ‘Talei. That’s what I called you. Of course you won’t remember that. It means precious one.’
I think I want to cry. I want to break down and cry until there’s nothing left inside me. A teardrop escapes from my eye and lands on top of the miniature version of the butterfly box I keep my precious photos in.
I stare at the woman opposite me.
She continues to smile at me as if she knows me, as if she’s always known me. As if I am all her dreams come true.
I can feel a pressure building up in my head that will cause me to explode. Gently, because I don’t want to disturb it, I push the box off my photo album, it really is nothing to do with me.
I am on my feet now. The woman smiles a bit deeper, but there’s sadness now and desperation. She doesn’t want me to leave. How can I stay here, though?
‘Talei,’ she says.
‘Stop calling me that!’ I shout inside. ‘That isn’t my name!’
‘Clemency,’ she says then, as if she has heard my silent screams. ‘Please, just stay for a while?’
I shake my head. No, no, I can’t.
‘Please?’ She says it so quietly, so kindly, I know I should change my mind.
No, no.
She picks up the box, holds it out to me. ‘Take this at least. It’s yours. I made it and kept it for you.’ My teardrop, perfectly preserved, sits on top of the butterfly, distorting in that tiny section the look and shape of its lilac and pink wing, causing a small patch of black veins to bulge.
I don’t want to take anything from her, but are there photos inside? Of me? Of her? Of the other people who are my family? My trembling hand rubs at my face, tries to dry the tears then reaches, still shaking violently, for the box.
‘I wish you wouldn’t leave,’ she says.
I wonder if that’s what I thought about her, the last time I saw her. I’m curious if in my small baby world, governed solely and wholly by the instinct to stay alive and knowing who was meant to do that for me, I looked at her with my blurred newborn eyes as she walked away and thought, I wish you wouldn’t leave. I wonder how long I cried for her, wishing she would come back for me, would take me in her arms, would fill my senses and world with that smell of mummy that all newborns are meant to know instantly. Did it occur to her as she walked away, went off into her new, childless life, that I would be craving that? I doubt she thought
I fumble in my jacket pocket, the nylon lining too cold and slippery to provide any comfort until I come across the emergency tenner. It always sits there, a neatly folded escape route if I need to pay quickly without rooting through my bag for my purse or the unsheathed change languishing at the bottom. I slide the brown note under my cup to stop it blowing away.
‘We’ll see you soon,’ she says. She smiles, although there are probably as many tears in her eyes as there are in her voice.
‘Yes, we’ll see you soon,’ Abi adds.
I wonder if either of them realises how much of a threat that sounds. How dangerous it is to someone like me who has been tricked and then trapped into this situation.
I nod. I find it hard to be rude and unfriendly to people, even at some of the worst times of my life. This is, it has to be said, one of the worst times of all. But I still can’t come right out and say no.
19
Smitty
Seth. I need him.
Around the corner, on the busy main road, I stand in the archway entrance to the Ship Hotel, hidden from the street, and from the two people I’ve fled from, and with a shaking hand take my mobile from my pocket.
He’ll understand. He always understands. He’ll know what I should do now. I call his number. He answers halfway through the second ring, I imagine he looked down, saw my name, snatched up the phone and hit the answer button.
‘Smitty?’ It’s only my name, but his voice, that I’ve been hearing for twenty years, soothes its way through my sensibilities. My body unclenches, my chest, which I hadn’t noticed was tight and almost immobile, is now freer, air is entering and exiting my lungs properly. Suddenly I’m able to breathe at the sound of him. I need him.
‘I—I … I—I …’
‘Smitty? Is that you?’
What am I doing? I don’t get to call him. He’s not for that any more. We’re not together, he’s not that person.
‘Clem, are you OK?’
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you. I’m sorry. Bye. I’m sorry.’
With still-shaking hands I cut off the call. I shouldn’t have rung him, it was instinctive, what I’ve been doing for more than ten years. Even before that, if I had a problem, Seth – not Dylan – would be the first person I called. In a moment like this, calling him was the obvious, natural thing to do. I have to break that habit, learn to cope on my own.
A white and aqua-green taxi pulls up outside the hotel. Its passengers spill out, laughing, joking, collecting suitcases from the open boot as if the world hasn’t been turned on its axis. When Dad died, that was the most hurtfully confusing thing of all: everyone carried on with their lives as if something huge hadn’t happened. Half of my world had been devastated and everyone acted if nothing had happened at all.
The taxi driver talks the whole way back to my flat. I must have answered because he kept talking, asking me questions, and there were no long awkward pauses that told me I was meant to be replying.
I am still shaking, trembling violently, as I open the door. When the door clicks shut behind me and I turn the corner into the main part of the corridor, the enormity of what happened descends again and I can’t breathe. I try to draw air into my chest. Nothing happens. I can’t breathe, my chest is on fire, my heart is like a speeding train without wheels that races and races on the spot.
‘Clemency!’ Mum calls from the living room. ‘Is that you?’
My photo album, my bag, the coin change from the cab ride, my purse I didn’t put away, my heavy bunch of keys, and that box create a huge sound when I drop them so I can push my hands against my chest, try to force air into my body.
Nothing happens, no air enters my lungs. I’ve had a panic attack before. It was like this. I couldn’t see. Couldn’t stop myself from shaking. Couldn’t breathe.
‘Clemency?’ Mum calls.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. I need to breathe.
I hear Mum put her puzzle aside, take off her glasses, get up from her seat. Or maybe I am imagining hearing all that since my breathing is vociferous, gasping, and my heart is thundering in my ears.
‘Clemency.’ Mum is horrified when she arrives in the corridor. At the mess from all the things I dropped, probably at the state of me. She comes to me, circles me with her arms. When I was ten I came home in tears at the things some of the boys at school said to me. The names they called me, what they said about where I came from, but mainly from the way that my cousin Nancy shrugged and said, ‘Well, it’s true.’ Mum had put her arms around me. ‘I’m going down to that school tomorrow – if their parents don’t skelp their hides, I will,’ Dad shouted. That was one of the few times I’d seen him so angry.
‘Hush, now, Don,’ Mum said. In her arms, so close to her, I could smell the sweetness of her make-up and the bleach that she’d used to clean the kitchen. ‘That’s not important right now. The only thing that’s important is our Clemency.’ She stroked her hand over my hair. ‘You’ll be OK, Sweetheart. You’ll be OK.’
‘What’s happened, love?’ Mum says to me twenty-seven years later. She is filled with concern, over-brimming with worry.
I can’t speak, nor breathe, nor stop my heart from the pain it’s causing me by hammering so fast. She draws me closer and because I am taller than her I have to stoop to rest my head on her shoulder, to let her comfort me. I can smell the lavender and rose citrusy tang of her perfume, the vanilla and cocoa scent of her conditioner.
‘Is it Seth? Has he done something?’ she asks. ‘Said something?’
I shake my head.
‘You need to tell me what’s happened, love, if I’m going to make it better.’ That’s what mums do, isn’t it? They make it better, even if you’re really old, your mother puts her arms around you and makes it better. She doesn’t turn up out of the blue and try to give you gifts she’s made and call you by a different name.
Mum’s hand strokes down my back, soothing me. Considering she doesn’t do this very often, she’s very adept at it, seems to know where to press her hand so I feel better, my body relaxes, I start to be able to breathe. Maybe it’s because we’re all the same. Maybe, no matter who we are, a touch in the right place, a caring, loving hug will cure whatever ails us. Maybe I should have hugged that woman. Maybe I would have felt something for her if I’d let her put her arms around me and do what my mum is doing to me now. It might have changed everything if I’d given her a chance.
‘Come on, love, I don’t like to see you so upset,’ Mum says. ‘You’re not one to cry unless something is terribly, terribly wrong.’
She’s right. I carefully pull myself together, upright, out of her hold until I can stand up by myself. Inhaling, exhaling, is a blessed relief – my entire body rejoices in this simple action. I rub at my eyes until they are dry, then furiously dry my hands on the folds of my dress.
‘What’s happened, love?’ Mum asks. I like that her accent, her real, natural one, comes out when she talks sometimes. It takes away the parts of her that I tend to fight with and lets me see the one who knows how to hug me and tells me I’m her whole world.
‘I just …’ I need to tell her. It’s going to hurt her, my mum with the Yorkshire accent who hugged away my worries. I have to tell her. I can’t not. ‘I just met my— I just met the woman who gave birth to me.’ It wasn’t that hard to say after all. It was really quite simple and easy. Like breathing – until you can’t do it properly. I did it properly, I know I did, because Mum doesn’t look all that shocked.
In fact, her face develops a smile and after a few seconds to let the news sink in, she says, ‘Well, that’s wonderful news. There’s no need to be upset, it’s absolutely wonderful news.’ She reaches out and takes my hand, and I know then that she’s seen the small butterfly box that lies on its side with a few black and white photos of a baby spilled out on the parquet. She saw the box and worked out what had happened. ‘Come and sit down and tell
20
Smitty
Mum doesn’t truly think it’s wonderful news. I can tell by the way she’s trying really hard to smile. From the fear spinning in her eyes, I can tell she thinks it’s terrible news but she doesn’t want me to have another panic attack. She’s also doing what I did whenever she asked if the other children were still picking on me at school – she’s pretending everything’s fine, like I did with her, to spare my feelings.
‘Now, tell me what happened,’ she asks gently. She holds my hand and I know her eyes are pretending that I’m not wearing this jacket, which she hates so much even though she did take it in for me. ‘Did it not go as you expected?’
‘I didn’t plan it, Mum!’ I’m screeching. Screeching like the deranged person I feel I am right now.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ Mum says. She soothes me with her tone, with a few strokes on my hand. ‘Tell me what happened.’
‘You have to promise you’ll listen to me without interrupting and you won’t get cross or think I’m lying. You have to promise.’ I sound like I’m fourteen.
‘I promise.’
‘Which part?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Which part do you promise about?’
Mum stares at me blankly. Actually, I sound like I’m five.
‘Which part do you promise about, Mum?’ I insist, still in five-year-old mode.
‘All of it?’ she replies.
I sigh, relieved. If she does get upset I can remind her of the promise she just made.
‘Will you tell me what happened now then, love?’ Mum asks. She’s showing remarkable restraint in the face of my completely irrational behaviour.
‘About two weeks ago I went to a nursing home and I met this old woman who was a neighbour of … of those people.’