Chapter 15
The following Saturday, her mother caught the mid-morning train to London because Gemma’s father needed the car to get building supplies.
He was laying paving stones in their back garden, which worried her mother because, although he may be a sprightly seventy-five-year-old who’d taken up yoga later in life, she didn’t think he should still be doing manual labour.
‘He never listens to me, so I may as well come and see you,’ she’d told Gemma.
Gemma met her mother at the train station. With her straight grey hair now shoulder-length, she reminded Gemma of a sleek long-haired hound.
‘You’re looking thin, Gemma.’ Her mother’s first words.
Gemma glanced at her thighs. She couldn’t tell. She only wished that her mother didn’t fuss.
‘Now, what’s going on?’ Her mother linked her arm into Gemma’s. It was a habit she hoped her mother would never tire of.
‘Let’s get back to my place,’ Gemma said, not wishing to talk at the train station.
Her mother patted her hand. ‘Well, okay, but I want to take you out to lunch. I’ve booked that posh place. What’s it called? Audrey and someone? We’ll have champagne and lobster or whatever you like.’ Her mother had the opinion that splashing out on an expensive meal was the antidote to any woe.
‘It doesn’t need to be anything fancy.’
‘I know. But why not? But first we need to get you changed. Do you wear anything other than those dirty old jeans?’
Her mother insisted Gemma change and persuaded her to wear a floral sundress she’d bought on a trip to Greece, even though it annoyingly reminded her of Adam, and some low-heeled slides she hadn’t worn since last summer.
Gemma didn’t feel like herself. Then again, she hadn’t felt herself since Adam had left.
But if it pleased her mother to see her in something smarter than jeans, then she was happy to oblige.
She had more important things to talk to her about.
At the restaurant, lobster wasn’t on the menu, but sustainably farmed prawns were.
Gemma finished the first glass of champagne before the mains came out.
She hadn’t expected to feel so nervous about raising her adoption with her mother, considering how it had never been a taboo subject between them.
‘More bubbles?’ her mother asked.
‘Yes, please.’ She took a large drink to calm herself.
‘Is it Adam?’ her mother said. ‘You seem very on edge.’
‘It’s not Adam. It’s …’ She fiddled with the stem of her glass. ‘Look, I know you’ll be honest with me, Mum. I’m just scared.’
‘Go on.’
‘I guess, I want you to tell me about me.’
‘About you?’
‘What I was like as a baby and what it was like getting me.’
Her mother looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Well,’ she began. ‘When we first took you home, we sat on the sofa, laid you on our laps and couldn’t take our eyes off you. We were bewitched.’ She shook her head as if still astonished at how mesmerising a baby could be.
‘I remember you being equally entranced by us,’ her mother continued.
‘Your eyes were big and wide, watching us intently. This might sound fanciful but it seemed as if you were so enamoured with us and the world that you dared not go to sleep. Then we found out that you actually weren’t a big sleeper, yet it didn’t seem to bother you.
You didn’t cry like other babies did when they woke up.
Not like Rich! Often, I’d go into your room and you’d be wide awake in your cot, happy as anything.
’ Her mother smiled with contentment, then studied Gemma.
‘Is that what you really wanted to know?’
Gemma shook her head. Her mother reached across the table for Gemma’s hand and held it.
‘Is this about your adoption?’ her mother said gently.
Gemma nodded. Her mother squeezed her hand which was shaking.
‘I’ve been waiting for this day. You know it won’t change how we feel about you. We never felt any different about you than we did with Rich. We wanted to treat you exactly the same.’
‘Except when I tipped paint over his head. You weren’t happy with me then.’
Her mother laughed. ‘No, but we’d have been just as cross with him, if the roles had been reversed.’
‘Did it feel strange to fall pregnant when you never thought it would happen?’
‘Oh, yes, especially as I didn’t find out until I was five months. That was a shock. We thought we’d only have you. But, of course, it was joyous and you were so excited about being a big sister, that it wouldn’t have mattered how Richard came into our lives.’
The mains arrived. Two of Gemma’s prawns were unpeeled and stared disconcertingly back at her. Her mother had a rack of lamb. Gemma could smell the garlic from where she was sitting.
‘Bon appétit!’ Her mother took a sip of her drink, then sliced through a piece of lamb. ‘Now let me see, what can I tell you about the adoption?’ She waved her meat-skewered fork as if it would help conjure up the memories.
‘We didn’t want to do IVF because it was very expensive and back then it didn’t have high success rates.
We also liked the idea of adoption to help a child who’d had a poor start in life.
Initially we were in line for a different baby, but the mother had a last-minute change of heart.
That was upsetting, but we’d been warned it was a relatively common occurrence.
Yet everything happens for a reason. We eventually got you. ’
Her mother paused, a nostalgic look on her face.
‘I could talk for hours about what it was like bringing you into our lives, although I suspect you really want to know about the time before that, don’t you?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Gemma chewed her lip.
‘The problem is we know very little.’
‘Like how little?’
‘All we were told was that your mother was young and your father unnamed. It was common for the father’s name to be missing from birth records.’
‘Okay,’ Gemma said, trying not to feel let down.
She had – perhaps wrongly – hoped her mother had known something more.
Like a name or an explanation. Anything that Gemma could have taken hold of and claimed as her own, the smallest piece of information to make her feel a little bit more whole.
‘But surely my mother’s name would be in the records somewhere? ’
‘It should be, but we never saw your birth certificate. When a child is put up for adoption, their birth certificate becomes superseded by an adoption certificate, which is what adoptive parents get. I’m sure you’ll be able to find out about it, though. Is that what you want to do, go searching?’
‘Yes,’ Gemma said softly, as a single tear dropped on a prawn tail. ‘I think I do.’