The Adoption (40 page)

My father then ordered Henry from the house. I wanted to go with him – but where? He lived at home, and his parents knew nothing about the baby yet. If I wasn’t working we couldn’t afford rent even for a bedsit. Henry threw me a doleful look. Then he backed awkwardly from the room bumping into my father’s desk, and knocking some of the temperance society’s accounts onto the floor. I was prevented from showing him to the door by my father. He intercepted me and stomped after dear Henry, yelling abuse. When my father returned, my mother and I were eyeing each other like territorial cats.

He approached me, a conciliatory expression on his sanguine face. A pace between us, he paused and opened out his arms. I flinched backwards, almost tripping over the fire surround. ‘Lucilla, you’re going to be fine. We’ll look after you and the baby.’ A small strangulated mew emitted from my mother’s blue-tinged lips. My father dismissed it and adjusted his glasses. ‘You’re best off home here with us,’ he said.

The child in my belly kicked in displeasure and, glancing down, I realised that I still had a rock cake grasped in my hand. I dodged my father and made for the door, kicking at the accounts scattered over the floor en route. The theme tune of
Champion the Wonder Horse
blared out from the television in the dining room. Just where was that rearing stallion when you needed him? At the door, I whirled around, raised my fist and hurled the rock cake, scoring a tidy hit on the dome of my father’s forehead.

As I neared the due date my father repeated his advances. It had been a hellish month. On a dim rainy day, I visited our doctor for a prohibitively late antenatal check. He harangued me, saying that I had been no end of a burden to my harassed mother. Which one? I had
been
tempted to reply. Which mother? The one in Wales who had carried me, or the one in London who had ruined me. ‘It is no wonder that your poor mother has been so ill with tension,’ he scolded, wagging his stethoscope at me. Lying on the examination table, my vast belly exposed, I felt at a distinct disadvantage. When I emerged, tears were coursing down my inflamed cheeks. A few days later, Henry paid my parents a second visit. This time he had his father in tow, an affable soft-spoken man with the friendly battered look of a favourite armchair about him. If Henry opened with a tone of reasonable discourse, he was hollering and scarlet with frustration by the time he closed. My father would not budge. Our marriage was outlawed. I was sent upstairs to stew in my room as if I was five. I heard the door slam on our unwelcome guests, when only a few minutes later they left.

The following morning, my mother confronted me on the stairs, demanding what the neighbours would think. ‘What have you done? Oh what have you done, Lucilla?’ she wailed. ‘You bad, bad girl. The shame of it, the everlasting shame. How will I ever withstand the shame? What were you thinking of?’ I really did want her to stop asking rhetorical questions or I might just surprise her with an answer. What was I thinking of, with the knobbly spine of the tree digging into my back, and the aroma of overly ripe apples filling my lungs? My knickers wound about one ankle, Henry’s trousers rumpled around his knees, us groaning in chorus with each delectable thrust, and the apples thudding sweetly on the lush grass. Mostly that it was glorious, sensual and enthralling, and I wanted it to last forever. But I spared her the graphic image. Patting my Humpty Dumpty girth I japed back, ‘I’d say that was obvious, Mother.’

My aunt Enid was equally galled, and only just stopped short of chucking stones at me. ‘You’re a harlot, Lucilla, a slut. I might have guessed. Cheapening yourself with that Henry fellow.’ Frank added his penny’s worth, telling me that I was no better than a dog. I rather liked
this
. Truthfully, I would have preferred to have four legs and fur, and nothing to worry about but a bone. And Rachel, who by now had suffered a second early miscarriage, ostracised me with cold resentment, saying only, ‘There is no justice in this world when whoring is rewarded with pregnancy, and respectable wedlock with miscarriage.’

A Friday night with D day imminent. My father waylaid me when I went to bed. As I closed the door behind me, I saw him lurking in a corner by my chest of drawers.

‘Did I … st– startle … you? I’m sorry, my dear,’ he said.

I saw that yet again he was inebriated. ‘Go away.’

As I went to open the door, he moved speedily to block me. ‘I only wanted to say goodnight,’ he slurred.

I took a few paces back. ‘I’m tired,’ I said.

‘Of course you are, Lucilla. There’s two of you now.’ He came closer on a whiff of whisky.

‘I shall scream,’ I informed him, calmly.

‘Let me look. Just … just let me look at you. That’s … all,’ he whispered feverishly, diving at my buttons with trembling hands.

My teddy bear was off-duty on my bed. I seized him by his mohair legs. A hop, skip and a jump and I was at my father, whacking him hard across his face with it. Momentarily stunned, he cowered, his glasses fogged, his hand rubbing his sore head. I made as rapid an exit as my cumbersome shape permitted. Mrs Fortinbrass, her door open a few inches, peeped out, giving me a timorous victory sign as I shot by. I was on the landing when I had the sudden urgent impulse to empty my bladder. Seconds later and there was a puddle at my feet. My waters had broken.

I’m not sure why, certainly not to deliver tea and sympathy, but my mother came with me in the ambulance. You’d have thought out of decency my father would have made himself scarce, but not a bit of it. Swaying precariously, he saw us off waving his grubby, spotted hanky
proprietorially
, promising to get to the hospital as soon as he could. It was as though he believed in his stupor that I was not his adopted daughter but his wife, that the baby I was about to have was not Henry’s but his.

My mother appeared dazed on the journey to Barnet General Hospital. As I huffed and panted and moaned, arching my back and rocking my pelvis, she sat inspecting me curiously. It was as if she expected,
hey presto
, a pristine powdered baby to bounce out of me and into the medic’s waiting arms. At the hospital, a nurse took me into a bathroom, leaving my mother waiting outside. When we came out, me now in the throes of strong labour pains, my mother leaped to her feet.

‘Where’s the baby?’ she asked.

‘The baby?’ The nurse, Irish and as broad as she was wide, perused my mother from her feet upwards. When she reached the ridiculous hat with its spray of moulting black and white ostrich feathers, her expression was pitying. ‘We’ve only had a bath, a shave and an enema to make room for baby to come out.’ Hearing this, and feeling somewhat like a plucked chicken, I thought, oh my God, a bomb is going to drop out of my arse. A second later and I was groaning with another contraction.

‘So she hasn’t had it?’ my mother assayed, staring idiotically at the tub of me gyrating under the hospital gown.

‘Good gracious no! It’s the early stages altogether, Mrs Pritchard. It could take all night. Probably will what with it being a breech birth.’ Swimming in and out of seismic spasms of pain, my mother’s face flashed before me, a vision of bewilderment. She’d no notion what a breech birth was. It might have been laughable if it wasn’t so tragic. ‘Why not go home and get some sleep, so? Your daughter will be fine with us,’ came the nurse’s practical suggestion.

My mother needed no second prompting. ‘Get a message to Henry,’
I
gasped, as she set off down the corridor, though I doubted she would. My daughter was born in the early hours of the morning. She was unquestionably the most beautiful infant I have ever seen, with ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes, blue eyes and a golden down of hair. She was 7 lb 9 oz, a good weight the midwife said, as she was wheeled away to the nursery.

Dropping in and out of sleep, I started at my first visitor. It was not Henry, as I had hoped, come to clap eyes on the wonder of our baby, but my father. He was sitting in a chair staring at me through the large lenses of his glasses. He looked a sorry sight, eyes bloodshot, clothes and hair in disarray, as if his batteries had finally run down. I didn’t think he had changed or slept since the previous night. He was prattling. As I rose through the confusion of slumber, I was able to extract his meaning, why he was there.

‘Clever, clever, Lucilla. I’ve been to see her. Our daughter. The nurse pointed her out. I’m thrilled we’ve had a girl. Thrilled! I was wondering about a Welsh name for her. What about Gwyneth? Gwyneth is a good name, a name to be proud of. I’ve run it by Mother. She didn’t say much but I think she likes it. Oh she’ll be along this afternoon after she’s done her bits and bobs. You know how she is. I can’t wait to take you both home. I’ve been looking at cots. I’ve a bit of money put by. How do you fancy going shopping for Gwyneth? When you’re rested, of course, and you’re fit enough to be up and about.’ He licked his lips and stood, running the rim of his trilby hat through his hands. ‘We’re going to be a proper family now, you and me and Gwyneth. Mend everything.’

Awkwardly, I pushed myself up in the bed, ignoring the discomfort. ‘Her name’s Gina,’ I said painstakingly. ‘She’s not Welsh. And she’s not yours. She’s mine, my daughter.’ The name had grabbed me instantly only weeks earlier. It was from a newspaper article about an artist. As I spoke my visitor seemed to close up like a book. He was not
my
father, not the chairman of the Sons of Temperance either. He was one of the shadow men, the shabby tramps crumpled in doorways swigging from their bottles, the fallen we prayed for on our crusades in Bermondsey. I took a breath. I was so tired and wanted desperately to rest, but this had to be dealt with before sleep. I was in a ward with other beds, where other mothers lay reconfiguring their lives, wrestling with the epiphany that they were unutterably altered.

‘Lucilla, you’re exhausted and –’

‘I am not coming back to the house with you and Mother,’ I said.

‘Don’t be silly. Where would you go, you and our baby?’ My adoptive father scratched his forehead, as if this conundrum was too much for his befuddled brain to take in.

‘Henry is going to look after us,’ I said, trying to convince myself.

‘Henry! Henry! Why the lad has no security. You’re coming home with us and that’s that.’

I didn’t buckle. Henry came next. He had called at the house and Mother had told him. I watched him cradle our daughter in his arms, smitten with paternal love. As he gazed into her pinched tiny face, holding her as if she was constructed of glass not flesh and bones, I told him we were returning home with him. ‘We will all live together in your parents’ house,’ I said. He nodded absently, adrift with our bundle. ‘Promise to ask your parents,’ I exacted.

‘She’s adorable,’ he sighed.

‘Her name’s Gina.’

He smiled. ‘Gina. Hello Gina.’

‘Promise?’

‘I promise,’ he agreed.

My mother didn’t visit me in hospital. She sent her emissary instead. When I’d been in hospital for a couple of days, a woman from the social services came to see me. Her name was Margo Keir. She was tall, her shoulder-length rusty brown hair swept back off her forehead
and
worn loose. She had a horsy look to her face. Her large but unappealing brown eyes homed intrusively in on me as I nursed Gina.

‘Good morning,’ she opened assertively. ‘I thought I’d get in quickly before the lunch rounds begin. I’m Margo Keir and I work for Barnet Council Social Services. Your mother got in touch with me. She’s very worried about you.’ I flinched and Gina gave a reflexive little jump. Then she fell immediately asleep, her wee face a portrait of tranquillity. I tidied my pyjama top, and fastened a few buttons. I did not return the greeting. I had taken an instant dislike to this woman, and I was to discover that my intuition was sound. ‘You are Lucilla Pritchard, and this is your enchanting baby daughter?’ She paused and I continued in silence, lips pressed together. ‘The nurse pointed you out to me,’ she added, as if in reply to her own question. She showed me her uneven teeth, pulling her lips back in an ingratiating smile. Her shade of lipstick was too bright, an orangey red. Glancing about her, she moved to draw the curtain around my bed, as if the subject of our conference demanded privacy.

Then Margo Keir pushed up the sleeves of her primrose-yellow cardigan, as if she had had enough of this dilly-dallying and now meant business. ‘Why don’t you let me hold the baby,’ she said, arms reaching for Gina. I clasped my daughter more tightly to me and shook my head. Another pause as she judged how entrenched my uncooperative attitude was. Then she shrugged. ‘As you like,’ she said. Her voice was very dry, a voice with all the tone sucked out of it, a smoker’s voice. ‘As I say your mother rang me. She asked me to look in on you, to see how you are coping. Lucilla – oh you don’t mind if I call you, Lucilla?’

‘Actually I do,’ I rejoined, a fingertip touching Gina’s flushed cheek.

She gave a fleeting smile. ‘Really?’ Her tone was falsely upbeat. ‘I always feel it’s so much nicer to be on first-name terms when you’re
nattering
.’ She sat down on the end of my bed, neither asking, nor it seems requiring permission for this liberty.

‘Are we nattering?’ I queried coldly. She kept eyeing Gina, swaddled in her blanket.

‘Oh yes, I think we are,’ Margo Keir ordained. Her backcombed hair looked plastered in place, staying put when her head moved. She must have used a whole can of hairspray on it. The synthetic odour she exuded was making my stomach heave. ‘
Miss
Pritchard –’ she stressed the ‘Miss’ ‘– I understand that you are unmarried? Your mother and I are of the shared opinion that it can be very difficult in your circumstances. Setting up home in a respectable society with this kind of obstacle to inclusion can be such an ordeal.’

‘Do you have children?’ I threw back.

She was momentarily stumped for words then recovered herself, rosy sparks of anger spotting her cheeks. The colour stood out on bad skin unevenly layered with ivory foundation. ‘Actually, no. But you must understand I deal with babies and unmarried mothers every day. It’s … it’s my job. And believe me I know the pitfalls.’