Chapter 9 999 Parts of the Tower of London and No New Answers
I am sitting out on Margie’s terrace, her little terra-cotta chiminea keeping us warm, the outdoor lights illuminating the table between us.
It is feeling like autumn all of a sudden, with the sound of geese honking as they fly in formation, the signs of the seasonal change all around us. I have run for miles, in and out of the sand dunes, my feet pounding paths and sinking into hollows and my lungs bursting. The plants have started to fade, the sea holly drying to a bronzed crisp, the rosebay willow herb turning to seed. I have run, and I have showered, and now I am here, my body exhausted, my mind still on fire.
The two of us have been working on a thousand-piece jigsaw showing a garish version of the Tower of London, complete with Beefeaters in their red and gold uniforms. We have mugs of cocoa and have shared a Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate bar. Rock and roll.
We have just discovered that we are missing one tiny piece of the puzzle—the body of a cartoonish raven. His feet are securely perched on the crenulations of the tower, keeping it all safe, but his torso and head are nowhere to be found.
We have searched the floor around us and double-checked the box, but most of the raven, it seems, has fled, never to be whole again.
“Maybe it wasn’t in the box,” says Margie, perplexed.
“It was. I counted the pieces,” I reply.
“Of course you did,” she responds with a snort of laughter.
We gaze around again, mystified, until Bill raises one eyebrow at us and thumps his tail once on the ground. We both stare at him intently.
“Am I imagining it,” Margie says quietly, “or does that dog look guilty?”
“You’re not imagining it. That is the face of a dog who has eaten a cardboard raven, if ever I saw one.”
Bill chooses that moment to lie flat on his side, turning his face away from us as if to say, No comment. I reach down and ruffle his fur with my fingers.
“Well,” says Margie, “it is pretty small, so I don’t suppose it’ll do him much harm. It might mean that the Tower of London falls down though.”
I don’t reply. I am too busy thinking about a school trip I went on when I was ten, a tour of the Tower and an actor in medieval uniform giving us all the grisly stories in dramatic prose spoiled by the fact that he had really bad acne and a diamond ear stud. I was swept away with the place, and already knew all the stories, and wanted him to shut up so I could just lose myself in my own imagination instead.
That was before I was pregnant, of course, before Katie. Before I gave birth, I remind myself—not necessarily to Katie. I am making leaps that should not be made, and I need to calm myself down and take baby steps instead.
“Are you all right, love?” Margie asks, reaching out to touch my hand. She knows I’m not the most tactile of people, so I understand that she must be quite concerned. I squeeze her fingers very gently, not knowing how much pain she might be in today, and nod.
I wonder how it would feel to talk to somebody about all of this. How it would feel to hear those secrets spilled, those yearnings unleashed, to let all of this uncertainty fly away from me. How it would feel to share my past and my present instead of hoarding it, keeping it to myself like a twisted treat.
“You’re not all right,” she says more firmly. “I can tell, you know. My spider senses are tingling. What’s up? Is it work? Karim? Have you accidentally misfiled a book that starts with B in the D section?”
“Never!” I say, pressing my hands to my heart in fake horror. “And work is fine. Karim is—well, interesting, I suppose.”
“I’ll say!”
“Hush your mouth, you old pervert—I mean he’s an interesting person. And he’s asked me out again, and maybe I’d have said yes under normal circumstances, but right now I’m just not sure I can handle any more complications.”
I realize, as she twists her mouth into an O shape, that I have accidentally said too much. Margie does not need a lot of encouragement to prod and probe, and I have just given her the perfect opening.
Maybe, I concede to myself as I stroke Bill with my bed-socked toes, it wasn’t even an accident. Maybe some part of me needs to talk to someone, and I suppose Margie is the best I’ve got. She’s a friend, and I trust her. She knows very little about me, really, and certainly none of the big stuff—but somehow I still feel close to her. She has an accepting approach to life that I find refreshing and comforting.
Perhaps, after all, I need some comfort right now. Perhaps I am not as self-sufficient as I once was, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I count everything, but I count on no one apart from myself—and even then I always second-guess my motives. Perhaps this latest turn my life has taken is too much for me to deal with alone. I stare at her for a few moments, an internal debate raging in my mind. Some instinct must tell her to be silent, to refrain from launching into an interrogation, and it strikes me that she actually knows me a lot better than I had assumed. That we are all made up of much more than facts. That in some ways, she has slipped stealthily into being pretty much the strongest maternal figure I have ever had.
I don’t even see her as old enough to be my mother, but of course she is, easily—and the way she is always interested in me, always supportive, always appreciative . . . Well, I suppose, in a less twisted world than mine, that is exactly what mothers are like.
I know I am safe with Margie, and even as I think it, I feel a knot untangle inside me. Of course, I am made entirely of knots, and it will take time to unravel them all—but this is a start. For now, for this one moment, I feel safe. I make my decision and act on it before I can talk myself out of it.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I say, getting to my feet and slipping them into my trainers. “Put the kettle on and bring out a bottle of something with a high alcohol content.”
“Aye, aye, Captain!” she replies, giving me a jaunty salute as I leave.
I go round to the front of the building and let myself into our communal door before running up the stairs to my flat. I find what I am looking for immediately, because it is never out of my mind, lying encased in a protective hard-backed envelope in a drawer in my bedroom.
I return to the terrace quickly, aware that if I linger too long I will probably change my mind, that I will chicken out and retreat back into my fortress of solitude. Or, more accurately, my one-bedroomed flat of solitude.
By the time I return, Margie has brought out a bottle of Baileys and two fleece blankets. It is nearing 9:00 p.m., and dark now. It is usually quiet down on the beach on these kinds of evenings, the gentle roll of the waves and the occasional lights of a ferry heading into port the only distractions.
“Didn’t bother with more cocoa,” she says, wrapping her knees up while I throw the blanket around my shoulders. “This seemed like a strictly alcohol kind of talk.”
I smile and nod, and hold the envelope close to my tummy. I have never shown anybody this in my entire adult life, and it feels strange—like I am giving a piece of myself away. My fingers claw against it, reluctant to part with its contents.
I feel Bill shimmy up by my side, the warmth of his large body against my legs. A moth flutters around the chiminea, and somewhere out there a small animal scurries in the dunes.
I open the envelope, and I pull out the flimsy black-and-white square of paper, and I hand it to Margie. She peers at it through her specs, then looks up at me, frowning in confusion.
“Gemma,” she says seriously, “are you pregnant? Is that why you’re so distracted?”
“No!” I reply, fighting down hysterical laughter. I can totally see why she has jumped to that conclusion, but it’s the wrong one. Unless you believe in immaculate conception, it would be impossible, as I’ve been firmly single for over a year.
“But this is a scan photo, isn’t it?”
“It is,” I reply. “A scan photo of a baby. But if you look at the date on it, in teeny-tiny writing, you’ll see it’s very old. About eighteen years old.”
“Right . . . and whose baby is this, love?”
I can tell from the gentle way she speaks that she already has her suspicions. She is a sharp cookie, and there probably isn’t much she hasn’t seen in life.
“It’s my baby. I had her when I was sixteen, and I gave her up for adoption. I couldn’t cope with a child. I could barely cope with myself. I was in and out of the care system, my mum had her own issues, and—well, I was sixteen!”
“Of course you were,” she says, stroking the picture in the familiar way that I have done so many times over the years. It is the only photo I have of my baby. Geoff had offered to take one for me to keep when she was born, but I said no—I was ruthless about it, in a way I barely recognize now, but understand. I couldn’t survive the pain of that, of having a reminder of her tiny body and her staring eyes and the sense that she somehow knew that I was betraying her.
What I didn’t realize then, of course, was that I didn’t need a photograph to remind me of any of that.
“How did it happen?” Margie asks, looking up at me. “How did you get pregnant that young?”
“The usual way,” I reply, realizing that she is wondering if the baby was the product of anything more sinister than a teenage girl making a mistake. “A party and vodka.”
“Ah. A tried-and-tested method. What about the dad?”
I have, of course, thought about him over the years. Wondered if he is out there, living a parallel life, going about his business unaware of everything that happened after he left.
“I didn’t really know him, Margie. I don’t think it could be more of a cliché—just one of those stupid things that teenagers do. I didn’t even know his name. Nobody else in our gang really knew him either; he was just visiting. After, when I found out—when everyone else found out as well—I did ask around, in case. I mean, I don’t know what I’d have done about it, but nobody else knew how to find him either. We weren’t quite as connected on social media back then. He was known as D—quite the man of mystery.”
“Maybe his name was Derek and he was too embarrassed to say?”
“Maybe, who knows? All I remember is he said he was staying with some relatives, and we met him in the park riding his bike, and he hung around with us for a bit. He wasn’t at our school, and he was from the North somewhere, which seemed like a million miles away back then. He was cute, and I was drunk, and—well, these things happen, right? I felt so stupid when I found out I was pregnant. Like such a cliché. But he was . . . he was one of those boys, you know? The ones with the cool clothes and the swagger and the Zippo lighter and the confidence. The ones that make you feel so special when they pay you attention, like the sun’s come out?”
“I do know, exactly. We’ve all had boys like that in our lives, and they’re usually the ones that make us do stupid things.”
“Yeah. Well. I did. I never thought he’d be into me, and when he was, at that house party, I just—God, I suppose I was just pretty needy back then. I was in a decent enough foster placement at the time, but I never felt like anyone actually wanted me around, really. That little bit of attention from someone was all it took for me to stop being the sensible kid and start being the one who rushed headlong into sex—for the first time. And we used a condom. Even now, it sounds silly—but I’ve always had this sense of injustice about it, for being so unlucky!”
She laughs, and I have to join in. I sound petulant, after all these years. All the way through my pregnancy I felt like wearing a badge that said, “We Used a Condom, Honest!”
“So he never knew about it?” she asks. “He never knew that you were pregnant?”
“No. Strange, isn’t it? That he’s a dad and doesn’t know it? He’s probably better off. I don’t think it would have changed anything—he was a kid too.”
She nods and says, “So you were all on your own with it. That must have been so hard, Gemma—and obviously there is a lot of stuff I don’t know about you. But that’s just stuff. I know the really important things—I know you’re kind and thoughtful and you don’t do anything without thinking it through. Apart from maybe the vodka incident. So I also know that if you did this, you did it for all the right reasons—you did it for the sake of the baby.”
I feel tears sting at the back of my eyes, and it is a sensation I am not overly familiar with. I am not usually one of life’s criers, but something about her small speech turns me liquid. I’m not sure she’s right. I’m not sure that I’m kind, or thoughtful, and over the years I have questioned my motives over and over again.
“I don’t know, Margie. Sometimes I think I did—that I wanted her to have a better life than I could give her. A better life than I’d had up until that point. But then sometimes I wonder if I was just being selfish, if I couldn’t actually face the fact that it would mess things up for me even more, and take away any chance I had at changing things.”
“Is there any reason it can’t be both? They’re both perfectly good reasons, aren’t they? You were a child yourself—you deserved better as well.”
I sip some Baileys and wipe away some tears, and think about what she’s said. She is, I think, right—it can be both. Yet for some reason I always yo-yo between the two, unwilling to accept the complexity of it all.
“If you were my daughter, Gemma, I wouldn’t want your whole future to be derailed by that one mistake. If you’d wanted to keep the baby, I’d have helped you do that in a way that meant you could still chase your own dreams. But from what you say, you didn’t have that option—so you did the best you could at the time. For both you and the baby.”
“I wish you had been my mum,” I say miserably, feeling guilty even as the words leave my mouth. “It wasn’t her fault,” I add quickly, as though I’m trying to make up for it. “She was ill. She’d had me young, on her own, with no family to help her either. Maybe that was the only thing we had in common. But she couldn’t cope, she couldn’t look after me, and it was bad sometimes. Sometimes it wasn’t, and I do have happy memories of her, but—well, not many. And then I wonder if I’m any better—we both gave up our children.”
“I’m sure she did her best, babe, and I’m sure she loved you. But maybe you also put your baby up for adoption to break that cycle, eh? Because you wanted her to grow up in a different environment, with people who made her feel safe and cherished, like all kiddies should be?”
“Yes. And I think she did.”
Margie stares at me and takes off her specs, perching them on top of her hair. She’ll be looking for them later and forget where they are.
“How do you know? Have you tracked her down?”
“No. Yes. I’m not sure.”
“Right,” she says. “Well, that clears everything up. Have a drink, take some deep breaths, and get it all off your chest.”
She fills up my glass, and I pick it up with trembling hands. This confiding in people lark is a lot harder than I thought; I’m not at all sure why it’s so popular.
“Well, I haven’t looked for her, no, although I’ve wanted to every day since. And now something weird has happened. You know that girl Katie from my class, the one I told you about?”
“I do. Suffragette Katie. You seemed very taken with her.”
“I was. I am. What I mean is, even before anything else happened, I liked her a lot—you just feel more of a connection with some students than others, and I thought she was going to be one of those. But then I met her mum, totally accidentally, at the yoga class.”
“You met her mum at the leisure center?”
I feel a brief flash of impatience as Margie struggles to keep everything straight, and remind myself that even though I have thought about little else for days now, this is all new to her.
“Yes. I didn’t know it was Katie’s mum; we just started chatting over a coffee, and then Katie turned up, and Erin looks nothing like her, and then they told me—that Katie was adopted. And before you say anything, yes, I know—lots of kids are adopted. But Katie—well, she kind of looks like me. She’s tall and has the same hair and she likes history.”
“Okay. I trust you to know the statistics on this one, Gem, but what are the odds that she’s yours?”
“Long. And actually, I wasn’t convinced when it was just that. But Katie had mentioned it was her birthday soon, and so I checked up on the school record, and she was born on the exact same day as my baby!”
I lean back in my chair, feeling triumphant, like I should add: “I rest my case, Your Honor!”
I don’t know what I expect, but it isn’t silence. Margie is so rarely silent that it takes me by surprise.
“So, what do you think?” I ask, prompting her. Now I’ve managed to tell her everything, I’m oddly desperate to hear what she says. I think I want somebody to tell me what to do next, to take the pressure off.
“I’m not sure,” she replies, biting her lip. “I can see why you’re thinking what you’re thinking. But coincidences happen, love. Did I ever tell you that my hubby, God rest his soul—”
“What? He’s not dead, is he? I thought he’d moved to Wales?”
“No, he’s not dead—I just sometimes say that. Anyway, the point is this—me and him, we had the same birthday. We met in town when we were both out celebrating our twenty-first. It happens. You can look up your birthday and see how many famous people were born on it, and sometimes you bump into people with the same one, and—well, it’s not that unusual, is it? It could just be one of those weird coincidences. Haven’t you ever met anyone with the same birthday as you?”
I nod. I have, of course. In fact, there was a girl in my class at school with the same birthday, and she always had big parties and I kind of hated her for it.
“But she looks like me,” I say. “And she’s adopted. And she’s from Middlesex.”
“And that matters because . . .”
“Because it’s—well, it’s not far from London, is it? I never knew where she went, but that could make sense.”
She looks at me sternly, and that mothering vibe suddenly feels a lot stronger—and a bit less welcome.
She is bursting my bubble, and even though I know she is right to do so, I am not enjoying it.
“I think, Gem, that anything can make sense if you want it to.”
I am silent, trying to drag together enough coherence to explain myself.
“I just . . . I feel it as well, Margie. You know I’m all about the facts, but this one is different. She just feels familiar somehow. I can’t even explain it properly to myself.”
“Well, I’m not going to argue with you on that, Gem—I’m a big believer in instinct, even though I never thought I’d hear you say you were swayed by it . . . So. I suppose, then, the million-dollar question is: What next? Have you thought about that?”
“I’ve thought about nothing else, Margie. It’s so bloody complicated. I want to know for sure, but I don’t want to do anything that could put her, or her mum, in a difficult position. And even if she is mine, what do I do about it? I have no right to barge in. I have no right to claim a place in their lives. I don’t deserve that.”
“Deserve? I’m not sure that’s the proper word, babe. It is complicated, yes, no doubt. But it’s also not the kind of thing you’re just going to be able to forget about, is it? Nobody could, especially not you—not knowing stuff drives you mad.”
I nod, and drink, and realize that I am disappointed. I was hoping she’d have a magical solution, some wise-woman advice, a way to untangle this complex web.
“I’d normally just move away,” I admit. “That’s what I usually do if stuff gets too difficult. But you’re right; I couldn’t just put this one behind me. Even if I moved to Timbuktu, I’d still be wondering. I don’t even know what I want the truth to be.”
“Oh, I think you do, hon,” she replies, smiling. “You want it to be her, I think. Even though it’s complicated and messy and you don’t like messy, you want it to be her. And I can completely understand that. So what’s the plan? Do you have a plan?”
“Not really, and I hate that I don’t! I always have a plan, but with this, it feels like the more I think about it, the less clear it feels. Erin—her mum—has asked me round to theirs for dinner. I don’t know how I can do it—how I can sit in their home and talk about their lives and keep quiet about this.”
“You’ll figure it out—either you’ll figure it out, or you don’t go. You can’t go blundering in there with this. You can’t drop this kind of drama over spaghetti and a glass of red, can you? It wouldn’t be fair.”
She speaks firmly, and I know it’s true. Just because I’m messed up doesn’t mean I have any right to mess them up as well. They’ve been through enough in the last year.
“Maybe you can swipe a glass she’s drunk from, or her hairbrush,” says Margie, raising her eyebrows. “Get a DNA test done secretly?”
I laugh at this because I have already thought through the exact same thing. Apart from the moral implications, it’s also not as easy to do in the real world outside a police crime lab.
“Been there, decided that would make me a nutter,” I respond. “And if it was her, I’d have a lot of explaining to do about how I found out . . .”
“Yeah, I suppose. Well. Look, I don’t really know what to suggest. But for starters, you need to relax and not let yourself get so wrapped up in this that your brain explodes. If you’re going round to theirs for dinner, try to switch off for a bit first—go out with Karim or something. Stay in with him, even. I’ll put me earplugs in!”
I roll my eyes and reply, “Seriously, you have a filthy mind! And maybe I will go out with him again—but if I do, I want it to be because I like him, not because I’m . . . I don’t know, using him as a distraction?”
“In my experience most men don’t mind being used like that, but fair enough. Maybe tell him you need distracting and see what happens. But about Katie and her mum, I probably only have one thing to offer.”
I nod and say, “Okay. What’s that? All suggestions gratefully received.”
“I’d say be careful. I’d say this is a situation nobody is prepared for, even you. I’d say remember that poem, the one about treading softly?”
I know the one she means—“Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.” It’s by W. B. Yeats, born 1865, Dublin, died France 1939. The dates are irrelevant, but the idea is not. I run over the last two lines in my mind:
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
I look back at Margie and reply, “Yes, I know it. I need to tread softly because I can’t crush their dreams, mess up their lives?”
“Yes, that,” she says, “but also your own, sweetheart. These are your dreams, whether you’ve realized it or not, and you are also laying them beneath their feet. I don’t want to see you crushed either.”
She is right. She is looking out for me. She knows my biggest secret; she has seen me at my weakest. I have talked about Baby to someone for the first time in almost eighteen years, and I am not sure how I feel now. Relieved? Scared? Like I have shared a burden? Possibly all of them.
I am also worried about what will happen next. I have untangled some of my knots, with Margie’s help, and do feel freer for it—but I know that even more are yet to come.