The Baby Laundry for Unmarried Mothers (23 page)

I was stunned to hear this. It had been such an ache in me, such a yearning, for three decades. It seemed unfathomable. ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I do find that impossible
to imagine.’ I thought back to all the girls who had suffered the agony of loss with me. Would that apply to them? I couldn’t conceive of it. And yet . . .

‘There are a myriad reasons, of course,’ Frances continued. ‘But in many cases, perhaps the vast majority of cases, it’s an event in their past that they’ve kept
secret ever since. So it becomes complicated; potentially destructive to the relationships and families they’ve built since.’

I got the feeling she must have had this conversation many times in the years since I’d last seen her. Then I thought again of all those girls who had told no one, who’d travelled to
the convent in secret, too terrified to tell a soul. How terrible it must be, then, to have their lost child make contact and feel unable to acknowledge their existence.

‘But anyway,’ Frances continued. ‘Let’s talk about you. You’ll be wanting to hear about James, won’t you? He’s a policeman, you know, which is what
helped him trace you . . .’

It took a moment for this to sink in. Michael’s earlier words of caution now had some resonance for me. It had been Paul in my thoughts and heart these last thirty years. That he was
called James was upsetting, a jerk back to the reality of a person unknown and a life lived without me. He was a stranger, just as Michael had said. But I put that to one side. When we met, it
would be different. When I saw him, I just knew, I’d see myself.

‘So what happens now?’ I asked Frances. ‘Should I write to him? Phone him?’

‘No, not yet,’ she said. ‘The next step is for me to go back to him, convey the details of our conversation – and I know he’ll be so pleased – and invite him
to write directly to you, though via this office. I normally suggest that they enclose a photo or two with the letter, and perhaps some idea of when and how you could meet up. That can even be
here, if you like. That’s what some people do. And let’s hope it won’t be too long,’ she finished. ‘Though given you’re so pleased to hear from him – which
is lovely, Angela, I truly am so pleased for you both – it’s going to seem it, I’m quite sure!’

I nearly blurted out ‘
And tell him how much I love him
!’ but then I thought again of Michael. This was a time to be calm, to temper my excitement. I must try, and try
hard
, not to get my hopes up too much.

As I put the phone down, memories of that day at the Crusade of Rescue came flooding back, assaulting my senses and making me cry all over again. They were tears of relief this time, but also a
metaphorical deep breath. I had not been able to say goodbye to my infant son that afternoon, and the pain of that loss had never left me. I had waited thirty years to tell him how much I loved
him. I could manage to wait a few more days.

If I could wait, though only just, to speak to my son, I was desperate to tell my daughter right away.

‘I don’t think you should tell her. I really don’t. Not yet.’

It was the evening now, and Michael was speaking. Once dinner had been cleared, and Katharine was busy upstairs revising for her A levels, we’d gone out to take Monty for a walk. It was a
job that on most days Michael tended to do alone, but we needed a chance to talk privately and this seemed the most logical way to do that.

‘You don’t? But surely I must?’ I said, surprised. ‘I don’t think I can bear to hide it from her. It feels wrong to exclude her. I feel like I’m going to
burst as it is.’

Michael squeezed my hand. ‘But sweetheart, you
have
to. At least till you’ve made contact. It’s an awful lot for you to expect her to take in, whatever happens, but
suppose it doesn’t work out? Suppose it all comes to nothing—’

‘That’s not going to happen. I just can’t see that – not from what Frances said, I really can’t, Michael. She
has
met him, remember. And she said he would be
so pleased to hear that I was—’

‘But it still
might
,’ he persisted, gently but firmly pushing his point home. ‘You
haven’t
met him yet, remember. You can’t know. You can’t read
his mind, can you? For all you know, he might have no interest in having a relationship with us [I was so touched by that ‘us’]. How do we know it’s not just that he’s going
to have a baby or something, and wants to find out a little more about his genes? How do you know – and I’m not trying to seem negative, I’m really not, just playing devil’s
advocate – that he hasn’t already got a child, say, and that there’s some sort of hereditary medical problem, something that he wants to find out about? Suppose it’s
something like that?’

‘Well, if that’s the case, then, well, it doesn’t preclude us also trying to—’

‘I’m not saying it
does
.’ He stopped on the path while Monty investigated a tree. ‘Look, poppet,’ he said. ‘All I’m asking is that we wait. Just
until you’ve heard from him. Just until you know a little more about him. I think that, what with her exams so close and everything, it would be better to be sure what we’re dealing
with than to land her with this bombshell and then have it come to nothing. I mean, look how painful it’s been for you, knowing he’s been out there but not knowing anything about him.
Can you imagine how big a thing it would be for Kate? To know she has a brother and then have the exact same thing happen?’

I nodded. He was making perfect sense, as always. And his words were spot on. Our daughter had always hankered after an older brother. Not a little sister or brother – which, sadly, had
never and was never going to happen – but an older brother. That had always been her wish when she was smaller: to have a big brother like several of her friends had. So, yes, it would mean
such a lot to her. Michael was right. I shouldn’t tell her, not till I was absolutely sure that Paul – James – really
did
want to know her. And yet . . .

‘Look,’ Michael said, as we walked on. ‘It just seems the safest thing to do. If it does come to nothing – and, God, I so hope it doesn’t, you
know
that
– then surely it’s best that things remain as they are? There’s no point in her knowing if she doesn’t need to.’

And he
was
right. I knew that. Why burden her with it? It made so much more sense to wait a bit and see what happened. Oh, but it was going to be
so
hard.

I
was half demented with anxiety.

For the next two weeks I lived in a kind of personal hell, preoccupied, stuck in this horrible limbo of knowing he was out there and had taken that life-changing first step. Not knowing what
would happen next, and having been so bombarded with them by Michael, my mind couldn’t help but keep focusing on all the negatives. All those cautionary comments he’d made, and which
I’d tried to ignore, were now lining up to make themselves clear to me. It had been sane and sensible of Michael to prepare me for the worst, but as a result, Paul – no, James –
had become this unknowable power in whose hands rested so much of my future happiness.

Would
he change his mind about wanting to meet me now? Having satisfied himself that he now knew where and who I was, would his curiosity have been satisfied after all? Would he have had
second thoughts about the emotional can of worms he might open? Might he have now told his adoptive parents that he had found me and, having done so, been faced with a reaction so powerful that he
decided that to pursue it would be too painful for them?

Fretting was pointless. I could do nothing about any of it, could I? He knew who and where I was. I still knew nothing about him, bar the scraps of information Frances Holmes had given me. If he
decided not to follow through – for whatever reason I could conjure, be it crazy or rational – that
would
be the end of it. There would be nothing I could do.

So I kept trying to carry on – go to work, eat, sleep, function normally,
appear
normal – shored up by blind optimism and Michael’s steadying presence. Though he
counselled me not to get carried away, in one thing he was confident: my son would be in touch. ‘He will be,’ he kept telling me, as each day went by without a letter. Perhaps he was
worried that he’d sent me spinning too far the other way. ‘Stop worrying, sweetheart. He
will
,’ he kept saying. ‘He wouldn’t have come this far if he
didn’t mean to see it through. You must know that?’

I knew that. But still I fretted, and not only about myself; I also fretted about Katharine. It was becoming increasingly difficult not to tell her what was happening, as I was well aware I
wasn’t myself. I was jittery, preoccupied and overemotional, and I was finding the burden of the secret hard to cope with. No, I’d not told her about Paul – there’d never
been any point because there’d never have been a benefit. But now that my secret ache had become flesh and blood –
her
flesh and blood – it felt all wrong, morally wrong,
to keep it from her.

She knew there was something going on, though. It had been unusually warm and balmy for early February that year, almost springlike, and I’d taken to spending periods lying on the hammock
in our garden. It was one of those big swing seats, more like a swinging sofa, really. It had a big overhanging canopy and canvas side panels, which kept the cold out, and it had a wonderful view
of the orchards and woods beyond the garden.

I was lying there one afternoon, trying and failing to read a book, when having returned home from school early, she came out and found me. She was in her uniform but she had her own distinct
style. She had long hair, very thick, which she rarely tied back, and though she’d gone through a slightly alarming ‘grunge’ stage at fifteen, she was beginning to change into an
elegant young woman. She wasn’t a follower, either, preferring to go her own way. While everyone else seemed obsessed with Oasis and Robbie Williams, Katharine would be listening to PJ
Harvey. She plopped herself down on the seat beside me, and began to swing it back and forth.

‘Hello, darling,’ I said, as she leaned across to kiss me. ‘Good day at school?’

‘All right,’ she said. ‘Same as yesterday, pretty much.’ Then she turned. ‘Mummy?’ she then asked. ‘Are you okay?’

I began swinging the seat with her. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I said.

‘Are you sure? Only I was wondering. Has somebody upset you?’

I shook my head, conscious of how closely I was being scrutinised. ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Not at all, no, everything’s fine. Busy at work, of course. A bit tired, but no,
honestly, I’m fine.’

‘Only you don’t seem yourself,’ she persisted. ‘So I wondered if, you know, there was something that’s upset you.’

I racked my brains for something I could make up that would be sufficiently plausible to put her mind at rest, and came up with nothing. Oh, this was killing me. I so wanted to blurt it all
out.

‘Honestly,’ I said again. ‘I’m
fine
.’ She didn’t look convinced and I hated myself for deceiving her. We’d always been so close.
Were
so
close. And then I hit upon something that
was
true. ‘Though you know what?’ I took her hand. ‘I
am
fretting. Just a little. About your exchange trip to
France.’ She was going to Lyon in a couple of weeks, as part of her A-level course, French being one of the subjects she was studying. ‘Feels like such a long time, ten days,’ I
said. ‘And you’ll be so far away.’ I stood up, pulling her with me. ‘And I’m going to be worrying about you.’ I would be too. I’d be just like this while
she was away. I always was. ‘I know I’m just being silly,’ I said, as we headed up the garden. ‘But you know what I’m like. Come on, let’s go in and have a cup
of tea, shall we?’

‘Honestly, Mummy,’ she said, apparently satisfied. ‘I’m seventeen!’

And then, finally, the torture was over. On 3 February, another letter dropped on the mat. I arrived home from work and there it was, waiting for me, presumably having come in
the second post.

It was a bigger envelope this time, brown manila and typewritten, and when I picked it up I could tell there were lots of pages in it. I couldn’t stop myself. I ripped it open and pulled
out the contents.

Inside was a short letter, which was once again from Frances, telling me that she had now enclosed a letter from James, and that she also had his address and phone number on file, so that if I
wanted to I could now contact him directly. She also told me that I should not hesitate to contact her, in any case, if there was anything I wanted to discuss, or if I was worried about any
difficulties that might arise, particularly in regard to telling Katharine.

I paused, put that letter down and scrutinised the other – a second envelope, cream this time, not brown, with just the word ‘Angela’ handwritten on it. I felt the bulk of the
letter in my hand. It was so
fat
. Just knowing that made my body flood and tingle with adrenalin. It was fat in that way that letters used to be in my childhood, in the days of pen pals,
long missives and Basildon Bond.

Now I did take my time, even though my fingers were already trying to get the better of me again. I put the letters down on the hall table, along with the other post, a couple of bills,
carefully nudging aside the vase of flowers and telephone that both sat there. I then took off my coat, hung it on the newel post, replaced my door keys in my handbag and then, swinging the bag
back onto my shoulder, picked up the single cream envelope and took it into the kitchen.

Monty was waiting for me, as he always was, tail wagging furiously, so I put the letter down on the table and made a big fuss of him for five minutes, before unlocking the utility room door so
he could go outside. I then made myself a cup of tea, pulled out a chair from under the table, sat down, took a sip and picked up the envelope again.

I took my time opening it, not wanting to rip something so precious, and pulled out a letter and two photos. It was the photos that I attended to first. I pulled them out – they were face
down – and slowly turned them over, revealing first a picture of a man who no person, however persuasive, however adamant, however definite, could
ever
have convinced me wasn’t
my son. I could see Peter, if only fleetingly, in the shape of the head and the angles of his face, but the likeness between the two of us was so arresting it made me gasp out loud. Oh, God –
here he was! My baby! He was real at long last! All those years of imagining what he might look like, and here he was. I could hardly believe my own eyes.