CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I dropped Rhona back home and had a cup of tea with her to make sure she was okay.
I was heartbroken for her.
But even as we were driving back, a plan was forming in my mind.
It involved a call to Serena, who – when I explained what I wanted to do – was keen to play her part.
It all resulted in me driving over to Bogg House later that day, soon after the builders had left. I’d explained the plan to Rhona and she was looking after Maisie, playing games with her in the café after closing time.
When I arrived at the house, there was a lime green Citro?n parked by the gate. Serena’s car. My fingers were firmly crossed that Polly was in the passenger seat. (After the no-show earlier at the café, I wasn’t sure what to expect.)
But when I got out, the passenger door of Serena’s car opened and Polly emerged.
Pasting on a bright expression, I walked over to her. She looked pale and anxious, and I felt for her. This must be such a nerve-racking moment for Polly. I bent to the car window and waved hello at Serena, and she smiled and gave me a nervous thumbs-up in return.
Straightening up, I smiled at Polly. ‘Right. Shall we go inside?’
She glanced quickly behind me. ‘She’s not here, is she?’
‘Rhona? No, no, of course not. Don’t worry. As Serena probably explained, I just want you to see something.’
She gave a helpless shrug. ‘Okay. But I’m not sure anything you’ve got to show me will make me change my mind.’ She swallowed. ‘I’ve lived my whole life without my biological mother. I’ve got wonderful parents who I love more than anything. Everything’s turned out fine. So why would I want to meet the woman who didn’t love me enough to keep me? She let me go when I was a month old, even though that must have been ample time for her to bond with me.’ There were tears in Polly’s eyes. ‘I mean, how could she? I know I couldn’t. If I had a child, I’d do absolutely everything I could to make sure we were never parted.’
‘It’s not always that easy, though,’ I said softly, with a sad little smile.
Polly folded her arms, her back to the house, seeming reluctant to venture any further. But Serena leaned forward and gave her friend and encouraging smile.
‘Shall we?’ I pointed at the house.
‘Okay.’ She gave a defensive shrug that really didn’t get my hopes up.
Inside, I took Polly upstairs, pausing in the corridor outside the nursery. ‘Before you were born, Rhona . . . your mother . . . she painted a room that became your nursery.’
She looked unimpressed. ‘All parents do that, don’t they?’
‘Maybe. But not necessarily like this.’ I pushed the door open.
I watched her face, wondering how Rhona’s mood-lifting, inspiring murals would affect her. But her face betrayed not a flicker of emotion as we stood there, locked in a silence that seemed to stretch on forever.
As I stared at what Polly was seeing for the very first time, I suddenly noticed something I hadn’t noticed before. There was a patch of damp where the wall joined the ceiling in the corner by the window. It was almost hidden by the canopy of dark green leaves Rhona had painted on a tree. My heart sank. Was it another leak? I’d have to speak to Mac.
But Polly was the priority. I couldn’t think about that now.
At last, she moved, walking into the centre of the room. Her back was to me as I followed her in, but I could see her studying the teddy bear and the baby bricks on the wall below the windowsill.
‘That’s my teddy bear,’ she murmured.
‘Is it? Wow. She must have bought it for you long before you were born, then, if she was able to include it in her paintings.’
Polly shrugged as if that meant nothing to her. ‘When I was adopted, all my parents were given from my previous life were that teddy bear and this photograph.’ She buried in her handbag and brought it out to show me. It was a tiny section of mural that focused on a bee resting on the petals of a daisy.
‘Gosh. And you’ve kept it all this time.’ I looked around the walls and at last found the bee in the photo. ‘There it is.’ I pointed but Polly had already found it and was studying it intently.
‘I’ve no idea why I kept the photo,’ she muttered. ‘I guess deep down I wasn’t prepared to let go of the past completely.’
‘It’s the bee you paint all the time,’ I murmured. ‘Your signature.’
She gave a half-smile, her mouth lifting at one corner.
‘She painted all of this for you.’ I smiled, looking around me. ‘She told me that herself. She said she wanted you to wake up every day and see the birds and the flowers and the trees. She wanted the world for you, Polly. And this was her way of giving it to you.’
She swallowed. ‘I mean, it’s lovely. She’s obviously an artist.’
I nodded. ‘You have her genes. You’ve clearly inherited her talent.’
‘Yes, but what I mean is – she’s an artist and this is what an artist would do.’ She held out her arms, looking at the walls. ‘It’s not necessarily personal . . . designed just for me.’
‘I’m sorry but I think you’re wrong there,’ I murmured.
She shrugged and looked down at her feet, and I caught the high colour in her cheeks . . . the giveaway gleam of her eyes as she blinked a few times.
‘You know how I can tell she was thinking only of you when she painted this? Look at the baby bricks. Look at the jumble of letters and see what they spell out if you look hard enough.’
I watched her turn and look. And then I saw her shoulders slump. ‘Eliza Beatrice,’ she whispered. And when she turned back to me, there was an anguished look in her eyes as tears spilled over. ‘But if she loved me so much, how could she bring herself to give me away? It seems so selfish to me, like she thought she’d have a better life without me. It doesn’t make sense.’
I sighed heavily. ‘It does if you remember she was still just seventeen . . . all alone and feeling utterly desperate. Her mum, who she was very close to, had just died and she needed help – but the only grown-up around for her was her Great-Aunt Mildred, who was of a generation who still regarded being a single mother as quite shameful. The aunt probably thought she was doing what was best for Rhona and you in insisting she have you adopted.’
I shrugged sadly. ‘Who knows what Mildred’s real motives were? But the fact is, Rhona had a baby to care for, while being little more than a child herself. She had no money and she knew your prospects in life were bleak if she kept you with her. I think she was the very opposite of selfish. She wanted you to have a better start in life as part of a loving family, with parents who could give you all the things she couldn’t.’
In the silence, Polly swallowed hard, although she was staring miserably at the ground.
I reached out and put my arm gently around her. ‘I can guarantee she’s thought about you, her beautiful baby, every single day since then. She wasn’t thinking of herself when she gave you away. On the contrary. She was thinking only of you when she took her great-aunt’s advice and had you adopted. But she’s told me she bitterly regrets being swayed by her. I’ve seen the sadness in her eyes. I think she’s regretted it ever since the day Mildred forced her to hand you over.’
Polly turned to me and there were tears rolling freely down her cheeks now. ‘I told myself I really didn’t care that she didn’t want me. But being here . . . where she lived and where she was pregnant with me and feeling so many conflicting emotions . . . it’s changed things. I . . . think I need to see her.’
I nodded, tears brimming in my own eyes as I pulled Polly into a hug.
She broke down completely then and sobbed for a long time in my arms. And it seemed to me that all the carefully-constructed defences she’d built up over the years were being washed away in that flood of fierce, heart-rending emotion . . .
*****
We drove back to Sunnybrook, where I expected to find Rhona at the café with Maisie.
They weren’t there, so I opened up and told a nervous Polly I’d make her a hot drink while I tracked Rhona down.
I thought maybe they’d gone over to the shops, but when I looked out across the green, I saw Rhona sitting on the bench by the duck pond. Maisie was playing with Maisie-Moo, our collie, throwing her a ball that kept landing perilously close to the duck pond.
Rhona’s back was to me. She was staring straight ahead and my heart ached for her. Even from over here, I could sense from her body posture her deep despair over her daughter’s apparent rejection of her.
The bench was where she’d found me that first day, in a panic over the laundry disaster. Maybe she was hoping that sitting there might bring her some measure of relief from her troubles?
I beckoned Polly over to the door. ‘There she is.’ I pointed and we went outside. And at that moment, something made Rhona turn around and look over in our direction.
I watched Rhona stand up. But she hesitated, waiting there, as Polly began walking slowly across the green towards her. She drew near but stopped an arm’s length away, and I found I was holding my breath, my fingers firmly crossed for a good outcome. They were talking now but there was still that distance between them.
And then, just as I was despairing of there ever being a happy resolution, the pair suddenly moved together. Rhona wrapped her arms tightly around her daughter, stroking her hair as Polly sobbed on her shoulder.
Finally, they drew apart. But they were smiling and I could tell that this time, the tears were happy ones.
After all the agony of separation for Rhona, and Polly’s raw vulnerability over the circumstances of her birth, they’d finally managed to breach the gulf between them.
I wiped away a happy tear.
They’d found each other again . . .