Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
It was late on Saturday night when Beatrice and Neil arrived back in London. They’d spent Friday afternoon sightseeing, but Beatrice hadn’t been able to focus on the statue of Oscar Wilde, St Patrick’s Cathedral or the Guinness Storehouse. She’d tried to be enthusiastic because Neil was –she sensed because he was trying to take her mind off what they had discovered – but in her mind all she could see was those lines of bland, official typescript laying out her history.
All she could think was, Is she my mother? How will I feel if she is?
Ever since the idea of tracing her birth mother had occurred to her, she’d imagined what their reunion would be like. She’d dreamed of her pulling her into her arms, embracing her with tears of joy, saying that this was the happiest moment of her life. Or, at other times, she’d imagined her coldly rejecting Beatrice, saying that she’d never wanted a child and that hadn’t changed.
Now, she tried to picture Orla in those scenarios. But she couldn’t do it. Partly, she told herself, it was because of the shadowy presence of that possible sister – the out-of-favour one, the disgraced one. That prospect gave rise to other imaginings – which one would she want as a mother: cool, rational Orla or the hot-headed, rebellious other one?
She didn’t know. She couldn’t decide and it was all fantasy, anyway, until she did what she probably should have done months ago, back when Neil’s grandfather had confirmed that number five Damask Square had been the Doyles’ property, and simply come out and asked Orla.
Back then, she had been stopped by the fear that if Orla simply denied all knowledge of Beatrice, there would have been nothing she could do about it. Now, there was still that uncertainty but she had more information, more ammunition. She knew that the Doyle family had owned the house on Damask Square. She knew it had never changed hands until it passed from Orla’s grandmother to Orla. She knew that an unmarried woman named Doyle had given birth to a baby with Beatrice’s birth name on her birthday.
It was enough. It had to be enough.
So she had explored Dublin with Neil, eaten dinner and drunk a couple of pints with him, and gone to bed in her single room with only one thought on her mind: Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll talk to her.
But their flight home had been delayed by bad weather so by the time Beatrice reached the house it was after midnight and the place was in darkness. Despite her impatience, she knew that bursting into Orla’s bedroom and demanding answers while her landlady lay in bed would not lead to any desirable outcome, and besides, she was exhausted.
Not bothering to unpack her bag, she fell into bed and slept for twelve hours.
When she woke up, she had a text message from Neil.
Everything ok? Call me if you need me. x
He’d added a kiss, which made Beatrice smile.
She got up, showered and sorted out her things. She put her dirty clothes in a bag to take to the launderette and made toast. She monosyllabically answered Livvie’s questions about how her trip had been, noticing with only mild interest that Livvie seemed somewhat monosyllabic herself.
Orla was out somewhere and so was Luke. Beatrice waited in an agony of impatience for the opportunity to catch her alone, but it was mid-afternoon before it came. From her bedroom window, she saw Orla in the garden below, alone. Luke and Livvie were nowhere to be seen and even the cat would be unlikely to brave the outdoors on this raw, overcast day with the promise of rain in the lowering clouds.
Orla was kneeling on what looked like a folded newspaper, digging in the earth with a trowel. From her high vantage point, Beatrice could see the thin curve of her spine under her waxed jacket, the strands of grey in her short hair catching the dying afternoon light.
Abruptly, she pushed herself away from the windowsill she’d been leaning on and hurried downstairs, bursting out through the kitchen and into the garden.
‘Beatrice.’ Orla greeted her with her usual friendly but guarded smile.
‘Hi. You look busy.’
‘I’m planting tulip bulbs. This looks like it’s the last chance before it gets too frosty.’
‘May I speak with you?’
Orla smiled again, but there was a flash of something like alarm in her eyes.
‘Of course.’ She gestured with her trowel, but there was nowhere for Beatrice to sit and she didn’t fancy joining Orla on her knees on the newspaper, so she remained standing.
‘There’s something I wanted to ask you.’ Now that the moment was upon her, all the opening lines Beatrice had researched seemed to have deserted her. ‘Are you – have you ever been married?’
Orla looked surprised. ‘Yes. A long time ago, when I was living in South Africa. His name was Adrian. It didn’t last very long but I kept his surname. I don’t really know why.’
Beatrice nodded. ‘And, Orla – do you have a sister?’
Orla’s look of surprise turned to one of suspicion. ‘No. I’m an only child. My parents’ marriage didn’t last long either; I suppose it must run in the family. Why do you ask, Beatrice?’
Beatrice didn’t answer her question. Instead she asked another of her own.
‘You had a baby, didn’t you? At St Gerard Majella hospital in Dublin in February 1983.’
Orla turned her whole body towards her now, swivelling her knees around on the newspaper. Her face was as bleak as the bare branches of the chestnut tree, disappearing now against the clouds in the dying daylight.
‘That’s right,’ she said weakly. ‘A daughter.’
‘And you gave her up for adoption, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I did.’
Orla’s face was still; Beatrice had no way of reading her thoughts. Her own were in turmoil: torn between fevered anticipation of a conclusion she’d longed to reach, longing for recognition and – overwhelmingly – fear of the response she might be about to receive.
‘And you never tried to make contact with her. Not even when the contact register thing opened this year.’
‘Beatrice.’ Orla extended a hand. There was earth on her fingers; beneath it, they were bone-white with cold. ‘Are you telling me you are Aisling?’
Beatrice nodded. All the scenarios she’d imagined seemed to have vanished in the wind; there were only Orla’s eyes, confused and impossibly sad. Beatrice shivered, wishing she hadn’t done this – not now, not alone.
Orla stood up, slowly, as if her knees hurt from kneeling on the cold, hard ground for so long – but Beatrice couldn’t bring herself to reach out her hand and assist her.
‘After all these years,’ she said slowly, ‘I never imagined this would happen.’
‘Because you never wanted it to happen?’ Beatrice demanded.
‘Because it was impossible. There was no question of me ever seeing my daughter – seeing you. That was how it was then. How it’s been all along, until very recently. Everything was a secret, and you get used to keeping secrets if you do it for long enough. I’m sorry. Sorry you’ve waited so long. Sorry it happened in the first place. Sorry for it all.’
She took a step towards Beatrice, her arms lifting.
Now , Beatrice thought. This is the moment – the embrace.
But Orla didn’t touch her. Helplessly, she spread her hands up to the sky.
‘Sorry I was born?’ Beatrice asked, her voice tight and angry.
Orla’s hands dropped to her sides. ‘Of course not.’
Beatrice didn’t believe her. ‘Why did you do it? Why did you give me away?’
‘I had no choice. It’s hard to understand now, I know. But for women who – women like me – there was so much disgrace, so much shame. All we were left with was the possibility of pretending it had never happened. And the only way to do that was to give the – to give my baby away.’
‘But you wanted to. You must have wanted to.’
Orla tucked her hands under her arms, hunched against the cold. ‘I wanted you to have a good life. Better than you could have had with me. That seemed like the only good choice there was – the best thing for my baby.’
‘But I didn’t get to decide what the best thing was for me!’ Even as she said the words, Beatrice realised how irrational they were.
‘Well, no. You didn’t.’
‘What about my father?’ Beatrice demanded. ‘Couldn’t you have married him? Isn’t that what people did then? Or didn’t he want you, same as you didn’t want me?’
‘He never knew. But even if he had, he wouldn’t have married me.’
‘Why not?’
‘Beatrice.’ Orla sighed. ‘It’s cold. Why don’t we go inside and have a cup of tea, and try to talk about this more calmly?’
Beatrice looked at her, blazing with hurt and anger. ‘I don’t want a cup of tea. I don’t want to talk to you. I’m going out.’
She turned and ran into the house, through the kitchen and the hallway and out of the front door, slamming it behind her. She ran – but not fast enough to miss hearing the first sob break out of Orla’s throat. With every step, she felt her anger abating, shame and regret replacing it.
So now she knows , she thought. Now she knows what it’s like to have me as a daughter.