Chapter 34
Sure enough, on Saturday, Nick’s story was published.
He sent Gemma a link to the digital version while she was on the bus going home from a Pilates class.
Her first reaction to the photo was, I don’t look too bad, after all, even if I’m a nobody in knee pads.
Her second was how much she loved the headline, ‘Free as a Mudlark’.
Nick had captured the essence and attraction of mudlarking better than she’d been able to describe it to him.
Of course, the main article was far more interesting and if it wasn’t for Gemma’s hot-pink boots popping off the page, you could have easily overlooked the breakout box altogether.
She messaged him: Congratulations, it’s a great read.
Thanks, he replied. Then he sent her a photo of a gold-painted trowel. What do you think?
She had a chuckle but felt touched that he’d used the spray. Your dad would be proud, she wrote.
Actually, I think he’d say it was bloody gaudy and why did I ruin a good bloody trowel? (He used the word bloody a lot, FYI).
Gemma sent him a grinning emoji and typed, Kitsch and gaudy never goes out of style. Anyway, I like it and if you like it, that’s all that matters.
I’m going to put it on a plinth with a waffly explanation about remembering the dead and deification, and call it art. People pay good money for that sort of thing.
You never would.
Probably not. There’s some spray leftover if you’ve got anything that needs gilding. Costume jewellery you want to jazz up?
Gemma smiled.
Did I just say jazz? I’m turning into my father.
It’s all yours. Keep the spray to gild whatever takes your fancy.
Okay, thanks! Have a good weekend.
You, too.
She looked out the bus window, feeling very content. All in all, it was a good start to the weekend, especially now she knew that Nick, like her, was happy to just be friends.
Then, she re-read his story. How she’d love to show it to Adam.
But, no, perhaps she wouldn’t. If he chose to ruin their marriage and no longer be a part of her life, there was no need to include him in anything she did.
Instead, she sent the piece to her parents and a few of her friends, who gave her all the positive endorsement she needed.
Midway through the following week, when she came home from work, on a day that was being described as the hottest day of the year so far, Gemma nearly slipped on an envelope from the local authority’s children’s services.
Her heart skipped a beat. There it was, in her house, her social services file. She picked it up, her hands already shaking, and took it to the kitchen. But she was too nervous to open it. She left it on the bench and went to text Laila.
I need reinforcements, she wrote.
What? Laila replied five minutes later.
Gemma explained, then asked, You wouldn’t be able to come over, would you?
It felt silly needing a seventeen-year-old to sit with her while she opened a letter, but Laila wasn’t a regular teenager.
She’d already helped to get Gemma this far, for starters, and despite her limited years, Laila understood.
She knew what it was like to be all-consumed by the questions of who she was and where she came from and why she was no longer with her birth parents.
Of feeling incomplete, that something was missing, and which starts slowly eating away at you.
Yeah, I’m there, Laila replied. I’ll come now.
Thank you, thank you, Gemma wrote back. She put the phone down and left the kitchen.
The sight of the envelope, which contained information on her past, was proving too much.
It was finally here, and all she hoped now was that her only regrets would be that she hadn’t started on this journey sooner.
When Laila arrived a few minutes later, Gemma greeted her at the door, holding the envelope in front of her.
‘Here it is.’
‘This is so exciting. Where shall we do it?’
‘Let’s go to the living room.’
Laila pulled off her shoes and sat cross-legged next to Gemma on the sofa. Gemma looked down at the envelope lying in her lap and sipped some of her drink.
‘Just so you know, I don’t mind you reading it with me,’ she said.
‘Okay.’
For a moment, they both stared at the envelope, until Gemma felt Laila looking at her.
‘You can’t rush these things,’ Gemma said to explain her procrastination.
‘But it’s not going to open itself.’
For a second, Gemma wished it would stay forever sealed. Because what if the past was better left unopened?
‘I could do it?’ Laila suggested.
Gemma shook her head. The desire, rather the need, to know was strong.
The envelope flap unpeeled easily, and the paperwork slipped out as if the information had been waiting to escape. Gemma’s nerves rattled. She let the envelope drop to the floor and, holding the papers so Laila could see, began reading.
‘So … you’ve got an aunt called Louise, your grandparents were Elizabeth and Lyndon and your mum was an office administrator,’ Laila commented out loud as she leant in closer. ‘Oh, and you had a different name—’
‘I know.’
‘Huh, interesting. And look there, that’s the adoption agency your mum used.’
‘Mmm,’ Gemma muttered, trying to take it all in.
‘Are you okay?’ Laila asked, gently touching her back.
‘I guess,’ Gemma said. ‘I suppose I was hoping for something more detailed, more personal. This is like reading a bank statement, all facts and no feeling.’
There were no sentiments or description.
No photos or loving words. No hints as to what these people had been like.
It was as if she was reading someone else’s story.
It neither cheered Gemma up nor made her unhappy.
She felt at once removed and unmoved by the information, which made it feel disappointingly anti-climactic.
What’s more, all it did was open up a raft of new questions.
Had Claire Rita Munroe left school because of the pregnancy?
Had she really wanted to work in an office, or had she rued the day she got pregnant?
How much did she think of baby Hayley after giving her up?
Did she believe she was showing her love by giving her baby away rather than keeping her in less-than-ideal circumstances?
Did her parents Lyndon and Elizabeth ever wonder about their granddaughter? What had they thought of it all?
‘It still feels like I’m skimming the surface of what happened. I’m getting basic information and nothing else.’
‘Yeah, I get it,’ Laila said. ‘But what you really want to know about is your birth mother, right?’
Gemma nodded.
‘So what do you know already?’
‘Not much. Her name. Her age when I was born. Her parents’ names. A job she did …’
Gemma didn’t know whether her mother went on to get married or have other children. Whether she lived in England, or not, and what she was doing now.
‘This is a start, though, right? You know enough to begin googling.’
‘True,’ Gemma said.
‘Okay, let’s do it.’ Laila stood up.
‘You’ve done enough for me already, Laila.’
‘So?’
‘So, you don’t have to.’
‘I know I don’t, but I’d like too.’
‘Don’t you want to find things out about your own birth family?’
‘Not with the mother I’ve got. I don’t want to learn that my genetic heritage is addiction.’
‘It may not be. Your mum might have got caught up in unfortunate circumstances, where one thing led to another. Look at Phyllida’s husband.’
‘S’ppose.’ Laila shrugged. ‘But right now, I’d rather help you with yours.’
Gemma couldn’t deny how reassuring it was to have Laila by her side, an ally urging her on.
‘Come on,’ Laila said, reaching out an arm. ‘Before you get cold feet.’
Gemma gathered the social services papers, and she and Laila went to sit at her computer.
‘What are you going to search for first?’ Laila asked.
‘I suppose I have to go back to the beginning, like I did with the birth certificate.’
‘How do you do that?’
‘By looking up the United Kingdom birth and marriage records.’
And that’s what Gemma did, with Laila ready to take notes, because she thought Gemma might forget the detail in the heat of the search.
Knowing the names of her grandparents and her birth mother’s age meant it wasn’t difficult to find her birth certificate.
From there, they were able to confirm that Louise was Claire Rita Munroe’s only sibling, two years older than her.
Next, they uncovered a marriage certificate which revealed that when Gemma was ten years old, a twenty-seven-year-old Claire married thirty-two-year-old Steven Reed in East Sussex.
So far, her birth mother had not yet left the county in which Gemma was born.
Then, assuming her birth mother took her husband’s name, she was now Claire Rita Reed.
Knowing this, Gemma searched her new name and discovered that she went on to have one more child, a son named Benjamin Reed, who would now be twenty-three.
‘You’ve got a brother!’ Laila cried, spinning around in the swivel chair.
‘Gosh, yes.’ Gemma pressed her hands to her chest. She thought her heart might explode with joy. She had a half-brother, a real, blood-related sibling.
‘What if he’s got the collecting gene, too?’ Laila said in delight.
‘What if—’ Gemma began.
‘You could get to meet him and her.’
‘Yes, but …’ Gemma got a sudden, unpleasant sinking feeling in her stomach. ‘What if they don’t want to meet me?’
‘Don’t say that.’
It was a possibility Gemma had to accept.
Because the reality was that her mother had kept her brother and not her.
Did her mother think of her baby girl with shame and embarrassment?
Was it her son whom she loved the most? Did Gemma’s brother even know she existed or had Claire kept Gemma’s birth a secret from everyone?
She got up and went to the bathroom. She splashed her face and drank some water.
Her heart raced and she leant over the basin.
‘Are you all right, Gemma?’ Laila called out.
When the feeling had dissipated, Gemma returned. ‘Sorry, Laila. It’s really overwhelming. The more I learn, the more questions I have. Questions that I don’t know if I’ll ever find the answers to or if I even want to know the answers to.’
‘We can stop, if you like.’
‘I think there’s one more search we should do,’ Gemma said.
They found one more record, and then that needed double-checking, too. Gemma searched electoral rolls. She scrolled, she clicked, she read. She found her mother’s name. She checked the date of birth. Again, she read everything. She got Laila to do the same.
The sinking feeling returned. White noise pulsed in her ears.
Gemma stared at her birth mother’s death certificate for what seemed like an age. Claire Rita Reed, living in East London, an admin assistant for an undisclosed company, died of cancer aged fifty-two, on 16 November last year.
Last year!
‘Oh, no.’ Laila put a hand over her mouth.
‘I never entertained the idea she could have died,’ Gemma said, stunned. ‘I just never did. How stupid was that?’ A tear dropped on the keyboard.
‘I’m sorry, Gem. Life can be so shitty sometimes.’
‘And here I was, more worried about whether she’d want to meet me! Oh, God, why didn’t I do this earlier?’
More tears fell and the world became a smudge, a sheet of frosted glass. Laila rubbed Gemma’s back and let her cry.
Even though, for thirty-six years, it never seemed as if she’d had a birth mother, Gemma now felt her passing keenly and desperately.
The information that had previously felt impersonal, suddenly became personal.
The biological mother she’d finally taken the courage to find was now not even here to meet, let alone welcome into her life.
All that was left were words on a piece of paper.
Gemma held her head in her hands and sobbed with an acute sense of loss – the loss of a parent, the loss of an opportunity and the loss of hope.
August Discoveries:
More bits of broken clay pipes – how many there are!
But it makes sense when you know that they were only smoked once or twice before thrown away.
A lead token that was used as a coin substitute for the exchange of goods and services in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
A black leather watch strap, whose age I can’t tell.
An absolutely disgusting bloated dead rat.
But the worst thing of all, is the tragic and untimely death of my birth mother.