Father Unknown (34 page)

Number 7 was right at the end of a long, lovely road of huge old houses. There were cherry and magnolia trees in full bloom in almost every garden, and though many of the houses had clearly been converted into flats for students, judging by the copious amount of dustbins, they didn’t have that seedy, run-down look student houses in London had. There were many roads off to the right and left that begged to be explored, little communities with a few shops, restaurants and pubs, and she felt like a child on a Sunday school outing.

She was very early for the appointment, so she parked her car and took Fred for a walk on the Downs, which was at the top of Pembroke Road. She was staggered to see such an enormous green space in the middle of a city. Bristol certainly was a city of surprises.

‘We’ll come up here again later,’ she told Fred as she put him back on his lead. He had gone mad for a while after being cooped up in the car for so long, rushing about and rolling on his back on the grass with evident delight.

She put Fred back in the car, and taking her notebook and the adoption documents her mother had given her, she walked up the path of number 7. It was strange to imagine that Ellen must have walked on this path, both before and after Daisy’s birth, and that her parents had collected her from here too.

She looked up at the old house and wondered if Ellen had been intimidated by it when she first came here. It was very grand with its stone steps up to the front door and its huge bay windows. But like the other houses in the road it appeared to be divided up into flats as there were six bells. She rang Dr Fordham’s and for the first time felt a little nervous.

‘Dr Fordham?’ Daisy asked when the door was opened by a white-haired lady in a lavender knitted two-piece. She didn’t fit the image of a hard-bitten professional woman that her mother’s note had created. She just looked like a sweet old granny.

‘You must be Daisy,’ she said with a warm smile. ‘I am Dr Fordham, do come in. Did you manage to find your way here without too much difficulty?’

‘Yes, I found it easily. What a lovely place Bristol is. I just took my dog up for a walk on the Downs, I can’t believe that a city has so much open space.’

‘Clifton’s not what it was, my dear,’ the doctor said as she led Daisy through a door into her flat which was on the ground floor. ‘It used to be very smart, the shops comparable with Bond Street, now it’s all restaurants and take-aways.’

‘But the houses are so lovely,’ Daisy replied.

Once she was inside the flat she wondered how Dr Fordham could afford to heat such vast rooms on her pension. It had clearly been very elegant once, but the velvet drapes were dusty, and everything was very worn. She wondered why she didn’t move somewhere smaller and easier to manage.

‘Do sit down, Daisy,’ the doctor said. She looked delighted to have a visitor. ‘I was so pleased when I got your letter, for I remember you well as a baby, and your parents of course. I am so sorry to hear of your mother’s death, I remember her as being such a vivacious woman.’

Daisy had explained in her letter that she only wanted to know a little more about Ellen at this stage, and that she wasn’t sure she was ready to meet her, even if that were possible. She hoped the old lady had taken that in and wouldn’t suddenly produce Ellen from behind a door.

‘The first thing I want to know is, why was it a private adoption?’ Daisy asked. ‘I didn’t think that was allowed.’

Dad had told her that he and Lorna had got so fed up with the red tape and all the endless visits and questions from the National Adoption Society that when a friend of theirs offered to put them in touch with someone who dealt in private adoptions, they had jumped at the chance. Daisy was just testing Dr Fordham to see if she answered the question truthfully.

‘It was frowned on by the main societies,’ the old lady said carefully. ‘Of course that was because there are so many unscrupulous people around. But doctors often get to know girls in trouble, and in turn know ideal couples who want to adopt. You mustn’t get the idea I was running some kind of baby farm here, dear me no.’

‘I didn’t mean that at all,’ Daisy said quickly. ‘I just wanted to understand how it came about that I was matched with John and Lorna.’

‘Ellen was brought to me for an examination by the people she worked for in Bristol. She was intending to go to a mother-and-baby home later. As it happened, I had friends in London who knew John and Lorna well. I had already been told how badly let down they felt by the National Adoption Society, for they were just kept hanging on, their hopes built up only to be dashed again and again. I knew they were good people with everything to offer a child, and like natural parents they weren’t the least concerned about its sex, they just wanted a baby.

‘When I saw what a sweet girl Ellen was, they immediately sprang to mind. I had a feeling it would be a perfect match.’

That was almost exactly what Daisy had been told by her father, and the fact that the doctor could recall it so clearly made her think she must be entirely trustworthy.

‘Of course there were other circumstances too, which prompted the private adoption.’ Dr Fordham frowned as she spoke, as if this was the one area she wasn’t quite happy about. ‘The family Ellen was working for didn’t want to lose her, she was so good with their children, and they were afraid if she went through the normal channels of a mother-and-baby home, she would be tempted into keeping you. So it was in their interests too, to encourage a private adoption where the baby is taken away at birth, rather than the mother looking after it for six weeks.’

‘So Ellen was pushed into it then?’ Daisy said bluntly.

Dr Fordham sighed. ‘Yes, she was rather. Not by me of course, I was merely a mediator, and in those days we all really believed we were doing both the mother and child a favour. But I’m older and wiser now, and with hindsight I would have given Ellen more time, and counselling too.’

‘Do you think she might have kept me then?’

Dr Fordham looked at her sharply.

‘Who can say, dear? Things were very different then, so very difficult for a single mother. She wanted the best for her baby, and John and Lorna were the perfect couple. I never had the slightest qualms about them, I was delighted I could help to make their dream come true. But looking back, from this more enlightened era, I’m not so sure that we were fair to Ellen.’

‘Do you know where she is now?’ Daisy asked.

The old lady shook her head. ‘The last contact I had with her was when I sent her on the letter and photograph from your mother, about six years after the adoption. I didn’t send the original letter of course, but copied it, omitting the address. At that time she was still working at the handicapped children’s school in South Bristol where she’d been since leaving the family she worked for. After I got your letter I contacted the Education Department, and asked if she was still there, or working at any other school in the county, but it seems she left their employ in 1978. She was still single then.’

Daisy did a quick mental reckoning and found Ellen would have been thirty-one at that time.

‘Maybe she left to get married?’ she said, feeling a bit disappointed as this would complicate tracking Ellen down.

The doctor nodded. ‘Well, I’d always assumed she’d married years before and that was why she suddenly stopped sending me a card. But I suppose once she had that letter from your mother she felt more at peace, and didn’t feel the need to keep in touch with me any more. She was very involved with the children she worked with too, I daresay that helped her.’

‘What about the family she worked for when she was expecting me, might she have kept in touch with them?’ Daisy asked.

‘I doubt that very much, my dear.’ Dr Fordham made a sort of flurry with her hands. ‘You see, they were angry when she wanted to leave them. She was the perfect nanny for their children, a real-life Mary Poppins. They couldn’t understand why she wanted to go and work with handicapped children when she could be looking after their two dear little boys. I believe the woman was quite unpleasant to her about it.’

‘So how long was she with them then?’ Daisy asked.

‘I can’t remember exactly, but for at least a year after you were born, she adored the little boys. But she was right to move on. She had a fine brain and she was worth a great deal more than just being a mother’s help. She came to me for a reference for the school in South Bristol, and I applauded what she intended to do.’

Daisy noticed then that the doctor had a slightly distant expression. ‘Do you think now that was wrong for her too?’ she asked.

‘Oh no, it was very laudable. But it was at that time that I began to regret my part in hurrying along the adoption. I could see she hadn’t got over it. I had a feeling she never would.’

Daisy felt her eyes prickle with unexpected tears, and all at once she knew she wasn’t going to be satisfied with just the information Dr Fordham had to give her. ‘Have you got any idea where I could go from here?’ she asked.

The doctor thought for a little while. ‘It might turn out to be a dead end, but Ellen was very close to a lady called Mrs Peters. She was the wife of a school teacher and lived in the same Cornish village Ellen came from. It was through her that Ellen came to Bristol to have you, and I remember her telling me at the time she took the position at the school here that she still visited Mrs Peters regularly when she went home to Cornwall. The village has a funny name, Mister Smith or something.’

‘Mawnan Smith,’ Daisy smiled. ‘I was intending to go on down to Cornwall so I’ll try and find her there,’ she said. ‘If you think of anything else, will you contact me?’

‘You are very like Ellen,’ the old lady said suddenly, her eyes looked suspiciously damp. ‘Your hair is just like hers. Not just the colour and the curls, but the way the light from the window catches it. It takes me right back to sitting here talking with her.’

She paused for a moment, looking at Daisy reflectively. ‘You have a much bolder attitude than her, she tended to hang her head and rarely asked questions, but you are lovely, just as she was. Of course I’ll let you know if I think of anything more.’

Daisy felt that was the end of the interview and got up, holding out her hand. ‘Thank you so much for your help,’ she said. ‘But I ought to go as I’ve left my dog in the car.’

Dr Fordham got up too, and shook Daisy’s hand firmly. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you,’ she said, smiling with her eyes. ‘Do let me know if you find her, won’t you?’

All at once, for no particular reason, Daisy had a
déjà vu
feeling. ‘Was I handed over to Mum in this room?’ she asked.

The old lady half smiled. ‘Indeed you were, dear. This was still my sitting-room then, the surgery was in the basement. The foster-mother who took care of you for the first six weeks brought you here at midday to meet your parents. They were so happy and excited. But that’s adoption for you, one woman’s joy comes from another woman’s anguish.’

As Daisy left the house the doctor’s last words rang in her ears. Until now, somehow it hadn’t quite clicked in her mind how terrible it must be for a mother to give up her baby.

That night Daisy sat up in her bed in the guest-house with Fred close beside her and thought about everything Dr Fordham had said.

She had walked miles with Fred after leaving the old lady, right over the Downs, all the way to Clifton village. She’d seen the Suspension Bridge and Avon Gorge, explored all the little shops in the village and felt she was falling in love with Bristol. Although she had always thought of herself as a Londoner, in fact she was born in Bristol, so maybe that was why it enchanted her. She felt at home here, in touch with something she couldn’t quite explain.

Later, after checking into the guest-house, she’d gone out again, found a pub that didn’t mind dogs, and bought fish and chips to eat on the way back. Yet now, in bed, she felt suddenly saddened as she thought over all that Dr Fordham had told her. Reading between the lines, Ellen was probably just an innocent little country girl, no match for the predatory woman she worked for who wanted the baby whisked away so that her life wouldn’t be disturbed. If she had really cared for Ellen wouldn’t she have let her keep her baby and her job?

‘But people aren’t like that, are they, Fred?’ she said stroking him. ‘Shall we stay another night here and go exploring again, or move on to Devon?’

He half closed his eyes, as if saying he didn’t care what happened tomorrow, all he wanted was a sleep now.

Daisy stayed another night in Bristol, spending the second day exploring the city further. Then early on Wednesday morning she set off for Cornwall, planning to go straight to Mawnan Smith and find somewhere to stay for the night before going on to the cottage at St Mawes on Thursday.

It began raining as she got to Bodmin, but even the grey sky couldn’t detract from the rugged beauty of the Cornish landscape. As she got closer to Truro, Daisy began to feel excited at the prospect of seeing all those places immortalized by Daphne du Maurier. She had read most of her books as a young teenager and felt she knew Cornwall from them, never realizing at the time she was reading
Frenchman’s Creek
and loving it that her real mother had lived nearby.

It was a little after two when she finally drove into the village of Mawnan Smith. She stopped her car by a small row of shops in the centre of the village and sat there looking at them for a few minutes. They must have been built since her birth, for despite being constructed mainly of Cornish stone, they had a distinctly late Sixties and Seventies style. Where was her grandfather’s farm? Would Mrs Peters still be living here?

The post office seemed to be the best place to inquire. That at least looked as if it had been there for a good fifty years.

‘Mrs Peters?’ The dumpy middle-aged woman in a floral-print overall beamed at Daisy. ‘Oh yes, she’s still here, though her husband passed away a few years since. You’ll find her cottage just up the road, past the pub, it’s called “Swallow’s”.’

Fred was desperate to get out of the car, so Daisy put him on the lead and walked him up the road towards the cottage. It had stopped raining about half an hour earlier and the sun had come out again. She thought she’d just make a reconnoitre, then take him for a short walk before returning him to the car.