Fast Friends (60 page)

In just a few minutes now the train
would be pulling into
Paddington
station; already a few of her fellow passengers were
organizing themselves, arranging their bags and cases around
their feet. Hastily she kicked her empty Coke can
and three
apple cores under her seat
and brushed an apple pip from her
skirt.

God, she was so excited she didn’t know what to do with
herself!

How many times had she replayed the scene in her head?
Meeting her real mother. And since yesterday, when
Roz
Vallender’s letter had arrived, she had had to adapt it, for in her
imagination the meeting had always taken place indoors, in someone’s house.

Instead, it was happening at
Paddington station, amidst
crowds of strangers and hissing, roaring trains. Natalie approved.
She was adaptable, after all. Railway stations sounded
very romantic, very
Brief Encounter.

And
totally, totally mind-blowing.

She hoped she was wearing the right
clothes. Having watched
her mother on television she knew that she was an extremely
sharp dresser. Designer stuff, the real thing. And she had
been tempted at first to go for contrast – torn Levis, the black micro
T-shirt which revealed her midriff, the biker
boots sprayed
yellow.

At this point, however, her adoptive mother had stepped
in. ‘You want the poor woman to take one look at you and deny all
responsibility?’ she had challenged Natalie with
the ease of
long practice. ‘Good
heaven’s girl, whatever would she think
she’d given birth to? Wear
something that won’t frighten her to death, at least.’

Natalie
knew she was lucky. She had read enough problem
pages to know that
most adopted children wanted to contact
their real
mothers, yet many were afraid of upsetting the family which had brought them up
as one of their own.

Few women were as totally secure as Christine Purnell. She
and her husband Tom were a loving, down-to-earth couple who
had faced the situation with generosity and
understanding.
When Natalie, after many rehearsals, had broached the
subject,
she had kissed her tall,
dark-haired daughter and said, ‘I’d want
to know if it were me, love. You do whatever it is you have to
do.’

‘
I still love
you,
Mum,’
Natalie had insisted, remembering
the article she had read in
Woman’s
Own
about adoptive parents feeling rejected. Christine roared with
laughter.

‘
I love Tom, and you, and those two noisy
brothers of yours,
and there’s no rule to say
I can’t. We don’t each have enough
love for only one person. I daresay
you’ll have enough for two mothers, if you’re careful with it.’

Roz, shivering despite the heat on the station platform,
was beginning to regret her rashness. Urged on by Camilla, she had written to Natalie
explaining which train to catch and where to
meet
her. She wished now that she had suggested instead a
more private venue. Apart from Wembley Stadium or
centre
stage at Covent Garden there
was almost nothing less private
than
Paddington station. Greeting long-lost lovers there was
OK, but
long-lost daughters was quite another matter.

And despite her black sunglasses and
voluminous high-
collared trench coat
three people had asked her for autographs
already.
Any minute now, she thought wildly as her teeth
chattered with nerves, a
film crew would pop out of the nearest siding, fix up a few spotlights and set
the cameras rolling.

Finally, the train slid into the
station and Roz rammed her
fists deep
into the pockets of her white St Laurent jacket. It was
scarcely behind schedule at all yet those three minutes had
seemed
like three hours.

And all she could do now was stand and
wait. Natalie had
the
advantage. It was up to her to seek out her mother and
introduce herself.

Shit, thought Roz helplessly. This was
like preparing to go
on the air
without a script. She had no experience with greeting grown-up daughters for
the first time. She didn’t know what to
say
to them.

As a stream of passengers poured out of the carriages she
scanned them with anxious eyes from behind the
safety shield
of her dark glasses. There was a plump girl with dark hair
and
terrible acne . . . she breathed a sigh
of relief when the girl
flung her arms around an equally spotty boy. Maybe
that girl,
whose eyes were brown but whose
hair was bleached white?
She was
painfully thin and a hand-rolled cigarette drooped
from her mouth as she
dug in her jeans’ pocket for matches. Oh please, prayed Roz, realizing that the
girl looked distinctly unwashed,
don’t let her be Natalie...

’Hello,’ said a voice to her left, and
Roz felt time stop. Slowly
she turned
to see a tall, slender girl with hauntingly familiar eyebrows, dark catlike
eyes and razor-cut shoulder-length hair, wearing an absurdly adult navy blue
suit and carrying a huge plastic rucksack sprayed gold. ‘I’m Natalie. How do
you do?’

To her astonishment Roz found herself shaking her daughter’s
hand. Natalie, it appeared, had her own ideas
about mother-
daughter reunions.

Glad that
at least someone appeared to have a vague ideahow the script should run, she
said, ‘It’s good to see you. Er .. . how was your journey?’

Natalie shrugged, giving her a breezy
smile. "The pits.
Whoever
said it’s better to travel hopefully than to arrive must’ve been off his
trolley. I’m just glad to be here . . . at last.’

‘
I’m glad you’re here,
too,’ said Roz, praying that she
sounded
less awkward than she felt. Realizing that she was
fiddling with her dark glasses she shoved them
into the pocket
of her trenchcoat and
tried to look decisive. ‘Shall we go and
find a cab?’

Where, she berated herself as they made their way out of
the station, were her maternal feelings? This still felt like a
blind date on the verge of going terribly wrong. Surely there
should be something
more
between them than this stilted
English
politeness?

When they were settled in the back of a taxi, Natalie
leaned over her gold rucksack, unzipped it and drew out a bunch of drooping
yellow freesias.

‘
These are for you,’ she
stated matter of factly. "They’re
from
my mum, actually. She thinks of things like that.’

‘
They’re
lovely. How kind of her,’ said Roz, feeling more helpless than ever as she
accepted the wilting blooms. Then she watched in horror as a large tear rolled
down Natalie’s smooth brown cheek.

‘
I’m sorry,
I’m sorry,’ sobbed Natalie, searching wildly for a
tissue. ‘I planned all this for so long. Right up until the train
stopped I was going to run up to you and give you
the biggest
hug in the world and you
were going to burst into tears and it
was all going to be so . . .
wonderful . . .’ She paused, sniffing loudly and gulping for breath. ‘And then
I got scared and thought
you might not like
it because we don’t even know each other so
I decided to be all polite and businesslike instead . . . and now
I
hate
it. I feel like I’m here for a job
interview. Oh shit .. .
didn’t you ever
miss
me in all those
years? I’ve wondered for so
long about what
my real mother was like. Haven’t
you
ever
wondered what might
have happened to
me?’

‘
Oh my God,
Natalie . . Roz felt her defences crumble. The
fear and passion in the girl’s voice clutched at her heart and
without
even realizing what she was doing she reached for her. ‘How can you even think
that I wouldn’t? Of course I thought
about
you.
Always.
And now . . . I’m just glad you contacted me
so that we can both find out about each other. If
you hadn’t
done it, I wouldn’t ever have been able to learn anything
about you.’

It had been an exhausting day all round.

By the time Camilla, Loulou and the
children returned home
at six –
having vacated the house for the day so that Roz and Natalie could have some
privacy in comfortable surroundings –their feet were aching and the Science
Museum definitely knew that it had been visited.

When they entered the sitting-room they found Roz alone,
smoking a cigarette and looking drawn.

‘She didn’t turn up?’ said Loulou, horrified.

Natalie’s upstairs having a bath. I’m
down here having a
guilt attack.’

Camilla shooed the children into the
kitchen. ‘How’s it
going?’ she asked,
pouring out gin and tonics.

Shaking her dark head, Roz murmured, ‘Nothing
like the
movies. I had to lie a
lot. I don’t
feel
like her mother – I haven’t had the practice, for God’s
sake.’

‘
It’ll take time,’ said
Camilla reassuringly, handing round
the drinks. ‘What’s she like?’

A glimmer of humour showed in Roz’s eyes. ‘Me, I suppose.
With a bit of a Geordie accent.’

Chapter 45

It was certainly not like the movies, thought Camilla
later that evening as she watched Roz struggling to conceal her unease. Natalie
was chatty, likeable and openly demonstrative towards Roz. It was fascinating
to compare their striking looks and the inescapable similarities in their
characters, but the differences were equally interesting. Roz had always been
naturally reticent,
an intrinsically private
person. Within the space of one hour,
they
had all learnt Natalie’s entire life history, her likes and
dislikes, her views upon almost everything and her
aspirations
for the future.

It also rapidly became clear that she was star-struck.
Which
wasn’t, of course, unusual for an
eighteen-year-old girl, but it
made Roz edgy, that much was very
apparent.

Since discovering her mother’s
identity Natalie had scoured
the gossip
columns like a stockbroker devouring the FT Index. She
adored
Nico
Coletto, was quite
au fait
with Loulou’s recent adventures and was a
great admirer of Mac and his work. And whilst she was clearly thrilled to be
reunited with her natural mother, the fact that Roz was a celebrity was a
wonderful bonus. It was so exciting. She knew so many famous people. And the
small Tyneside town where Natalie had grown up
couldn’t
compare with the glitter and
glamour of London. Natalie was
due to
go to university in September – a degree course in
Geology – but that was
so
boring . . . she
had always wanted to
be a model or an actress . . . and London was the
only place tobe if she wanted to really make something of her life .. .

‘I can’t believe it,’ groaned Loulou, having followed
Camilla into the kitchen on the pretext of helping her make the coffee. ‘Any
moment now she’s going to ask Roz for her autograph.’

Camilla
tried not to smile. ‘Or worse, ask for Nico’s.’

The following morning Roz and Natalie
came dangerously
close to having their
first row, with Natalie pressing hard to be allowed to go to the TV studios
where Roz was preparing a programme and Roz reacting violently against the
suggestion.

‘Are you ashamed of me?’ demanded Natalie with wounded
eyes, and Camilla realized that she was expecting
too much,
too soon, of the woman who had so recently been thrust into
the role of mother to such an ebullient teenager.

‘Of course not,’ parried Roz, agitated and unprepared. ‘But
I need to finish two days’ work in one if we’re going to leave for
Gloucestershire tonight, and none of it will get done if I have to
waste time introducing you to the world and his
dog. Some
other time, OK?’