Trio (43 page)

‘Joan!’ Caroline whispered. ‘I mean . . .’

‘You must be . . .’ Megan started.

‘This is Pamela,’ said Helen. ‘Joan’s birth daughter.’

‘You’re so like her,’ said Caroline, taking in the deep-blue eyes, the long nose, the jet-black hair, the identical features.

‘Spitting image,’ said Megan, ‘really.’ She shook her head. ‘Sit down.’ She pulled a chair round and Pamela joined them.

‘Is Joan here?’ Caroline asked her.

‘No, she died. Cancer.’

‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry.’ Caroline said.

‘Oh, no.’ Megan echoed.

Pamela nodded. ‘I . . . never got to meet her. Helen said you knew her, at St Ann’s.’

‘We shared the same room: Joan, Caroline and me,’ said Megan.

‘You traced her, then?’

‘I was a year too late.’

Caroline’s eyes watered and she blinked rapidly.

‘I got photos and other things but I’ve not been able to find out anything about when she had me or before that. She never talked about it. If you could tell me anything . . .’

‘Of course,’ said Caroline.

‘We thought she was the bees knees,’ said Megan. ‘She was older than us, she had a good job, shorthand typist.’

‘She was very kind as well, not gushing or anything, just in a quiet way. My grandma died while I was there and I wasn’t allowed to the funeral or anything; Joan was great, she smuggled tea up to the room for me and got me to talk about my gran, I remember that. It meant a lot.’

‘She couldn’t knit for toffee,’ said Megan and they all laughed. ‘No!’ she protested, ‘I did it for her. Made you a matinee jacket. White, baby mix so it was nice and soft and pearly buttons.’

‘Megan knitted for everyone there.’

‘Do you know what time I was born?’ Pamela looked from one to the other.

‘You were first,’ Caroline said.

Pamela frowned.

‘You were all born the same day.’

‘Twenty-fourth May?’

Caroline and Megan nodded.

‘I started first and finished last,’ said Megan. ‘Thirty-three hours. Can you imagine? And you,’ she said to Caroline, ‘yours was really fast.’

‘You were tea time,’ said Caroline to Pamela. ‘I remember Joan saying later that she was getting hungry and she didn’t want to miss tea. I don’t know exactly what time.’

‘Five o’clock they served tea,’ said Megan, ‘and she had some, didn’t she? So you must have been a bit before then. She called you Marion.’

‘I don’t know why.’

‘I think she just liked the name. You are so like her.’ Megan shook her head again.

‘Were you looking for her long?’ Caroline asked.

‘No, I only found out that I was adopted when my mum died. It was an awful shock.’

‘They never told you?’ Megan asked.

‘I think they were going to when I was older but then my Dad died when I was seven and I think my mum . . . I don’t know, maybe she was scared of how I’d react. I don’t know.’

‘What else?’ Megan looked at Caroline. ‘Joan was the last to arrive.’

‘She had a beehive, very fashionable.’

‘And suits, we called them costumes then. This lovely blue suit.’

‘She could play anything on the piano.’

‘And she’d make these verses up for people’s birthday cards, d’you remember that?’

‘She became a song writer.’

‘Did she?’

‘You know “Walk My Way”?’

‘You’re joking!’ said Megan.

‘Really.’

‘Crikey!’

‘She wanted to go to London,’ said Caroline. ‘She’d a friend there I think already . . . Is this the sort of thing . . .’ She spread her hands wide in question.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Pamela, her cobalt-blue eyes hungrily searching first Caroline’s then Megan's, avid for anything they could remember. ‘Yes, please. Just tell me everything. I want to know it all.’

And the three heads, the trio of women, bent close together once more.