Chapter 43
The large dent in the passenger door made Nick’s car look like an empty Coke can that someone had started to crush then changed their mind.
But inside it was devoid of junk and completely spotless.
It was here Gemma found herself the following Saturday while Nick drove her to the residential address that was on her birth mother’s death certificate.
‘Okay, let’s run through what’s going to happen,’ Nick said, as he took a wide berth around a cyclist. ‘I’m going to knock on the door and say I’m a journalist doing research on the area and that I want to ask them some questions, yeah?’
‘Yes,’ Gemma said. ‘And if it isn’t her actual address …?’
‘Then I’ll find out whose it is. If it turns out to be her son’s – your half-brother – I’ll ask a few more questions for my “research” then leave. I won’t mention you at all.’
‘Okay, good. I really don’t want to give someone a heart attack because they suddenly find out their mum had another child they didn’t know anything about.’
‘Trust me, neither do I.’
‘It does feel a little deceptive, though. You’re supposed to do this sort of thing gently, considerately, or do it through an independent party.’
‘I’m the independent party. Anyway, I promise I won’t tell them the truth. We’re being inoffensively nosy.’
‘You might be used to poking into other people’s business, but I’m not.’ Gemma felt tense. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time.
‘Hey, I get it,’ Nick said. ‘But don’t worry, I’ll be with you. Anyway, we don’t really know what we’ll find. The house may have been knocked down and there’ll be no one to talk to.’
‘It hasn’t been. I looked it up last night on Street View.’
‘Okay, great. Just remember to keep an open mind so you won’t be disappointed. But if you do change your mind, it doesn’t matter. We can simply stay in the car, look at the house, then drive off.’
Gemma nodded but doubted she’d want to do that.
The street, across the other side of town in Walthamstow, in which Claire Rita Reed died consisted of a curved double-sided row of Victorian houses.
Number sixty-two was in the middle. Like most of the other houses, it had a bay window downstairs and two rectangular windows upstairs.
Its white paint was peeling like old nail polish, revealing snippets of red brick underneath.
The front door was a dull pink colour and either side of the tiled path leading to it was a slab of concrete with weeds.
Nick found a parking space two doors up on the same side of the road.
‘Faded glory springs to mind, don’t you think?’ Nick said.
‘I was thinking more of neglect. But I like how you’re trying to be positive.’
‘There’s no need to be negative until you’ve exhausted all the positives. How do you feel now that we’re here?’ Nick asked.
‘More nervous than I already was,’ Gemma said.
‘Do you want to leave?’
‘No. Curiosity is killing me. But if they’re a relative, you do promise not to tell them what you’re really doing?’
‘Of course.’
‘And if no one is in, you won’t sneak around the back and take photos of the inside?’
‘I can’t promise that,’ Nick said, as if that was the obvious second course of action.
Gemma blew out a breath of air to release some of the tension.
He touched her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to do that.’
She nodded. He got out of the car, left the keys in the ignition and the radio very faintly playing a remake of Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’. Gemma watched him put his satchel across one shoulder, pull out a notepad and pen, and walk to the house.
When he got to the front door and started knocking, she had to look away.
She wrung her hands and stared at her lap.
But she couldn’t keep her gaze there for long.
Anyone in their right mind would be burning with interest if someone else was visiting the house where their birth mother died and was trying to find out information on their behalf.
Nick knocked again. When no one came, Nick stepped back from the door and sized up the house, as if he was going to scale the downpipe, prise open one of the upstairs windows and climb in.
Before he had a chance to do anything foolish, the door opened, and a woman appeared.
Was it Claire Rita Reed’s daughter-in-law?
Gemma leant forward to get a closer look.
The woman looked pleasant in a plain, mousey kind of a way.
She was wearing dirty overalls and a toddler was wrapped around one of her legs as if she were a fashion accessory.
Nick began talking animatedly, gesturing like he did.
Maybe he was even telling her a lame joke to break the ice.
The thought of it made Gemma smile. Even though she suspected Nick loved this kind of investigative work, he was also going out of his way to help her when he didn’t have to.
Whatever he was saying, it was working. The woman nodded and smiled, then she beckoned him inside.
Gemma rested her head on the back of the seat and closed her eyes. She imagined Nick continuing the pretence of being interested in the history of the local area while being fed tea and biscuits by a stranger.
Her eyes had only been closed for a few seconds when she was startled by a frantic banging on the car door.
‘Gemma, Gemma!’ Nick was calling her name excitedly.
She opened the window.
‘We can go inside.’
‘I thought you’d gone in?’
‘I wanted to get you.’
‘Who is she?’
‘She’s the new owner. I ended up telling her about you and she’s really happy for us to go in and have a look around. They’ve started renovating. She’s in the middle of taking off wallpaper.’
‘She’s not a relative then?’ Gemma found herself feeling disappointed, which was awfully confusing.
‘No, sorry.’
Gemma ran a finger around her lips.
‘I thought maybe you’d be happy that you weren’t related. The idea seemed to terrify you—’
‘It did, but …’ Gemma felt so anxious she couldn’t think straight.
‘Come on,’ Nick said gently, opening the car door. ‘I think you’ll regret it if you don’t do it.’
Gemma closed the window, reached over the gearstick to get the keys and got out of the car. Nick took her hand and together they walked to the house in which her birth mother had passed away.
‘We moved in a month ago,’ the woman called Sarah explained as they followed her into the hallway. ‘It’s good that you’ve come now because the house is exactly as we bought it, apart from the principal bedroom upstairs where I’ve started stripping the wallpaper.’
‘We really don’t want to intrude,’ Gemma said, already feeling incredibly like she was intruding.
‘Your husband’s very charming. I couldn’t possibly refuse.’
‘He is, isn’t he?’ Gemma agreed, thinking he’d taken their game of pretence far enough.
Nick gave her the sort of loving smile a husband would give when their wife pays them a compliment. It was all Gemma could do to stop herself from rolling her eyes.
‘It’s very much appreciated, Sarah,’ Nick said. ‘My wife has been wrestling with her adoption and then the search for her birth mother …’ He sighed heavily as if he had been finding the whole process terribly difficult as well.
Gemma wanted to shrink into the carpet.
‘So, yes, I’ve just had a quick look at the house sale documents when you were getting your wife. What did you say your mother’s name was?’
‘Claire Reed,’ Gemma said.
‘Yes, that’s it, she was the previous owner.’
Gemma inhaled sharply. Her birth mother had owned this house! She’d lived here, had stood where Gemma was standing, had stared at the staircase Gemma was facing, had filled the place with her presence.
‘I didn’t mean to give you a shock,’ Sarah said. ‘Do you want to sit down?’
‘I’m all right, thank you, though.’
Nick took Gemma’s hand and squeezed it. ‘We’ll have a quick look around and then we’ll leave you in peace.’
‘To be honest, it’s a good excuse for me to have a break,’ Sarah said. ‘You can start down here if you like and, please, ignore the mess.’
Sarah gestured for them to go into the living room, the first room to their left, where there was a fireplace, a sofa and a rug covered in small toys.
‘It’s so lovely and light in here but I don’t know why you’d paint the walls so dark, do you?’ Sarah studied the room as though she wanted to attack it with white paint immediately. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She turned to Gemma. ‘I didn’t mean to criticise your mother.’
‘It’s okay,’ Gemma said, despite suddenly feeling defensive on behalf of her birth mother, because she would have had other attributes, even if interior decoration wasn’t her thing, wouldn’t she?
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ Nick whispered.
Gemma nodded.
Next, they went into the kitchen, saw the tiny utility and the bathroom. Nick started making small talk about the joys – or not – of moving house. Gemma chimed in every so often to try and appear chatty and interested, instead of self-absorbed and overwhelmed.
‘Shall we go upstairs?’ Sarah suggested.
And so, the tour continued.
‘This is my bedroom,’ announced the toddler who had finally detached herself from her mother and decided to speak. ‘I like blue.’ The girl grinned proudly and surveyed her sky-blue curtains and sky-blue bedding as if she couldn’t possibly have chosen any other colour.
The second bedroom was filled with boxes, either unopened or half-emptied, and a double bed, unmade.
‘The junk room,’ Sarah said.
‘We all have one,’ Nick replied, nodding to Gemma as if they really should set aside some time soon to tackle their own junk room.
‘And this is the main bedroom.’ Sarah took them to the last room.
A built-in wardrobe ran along one wall and there was a decorative corner chair, two bedside tables and a bed in the middle of the room. The wall behind the bed was half-stripped of wallpaper, revealing three layers of differently patterned aged paper. Gemma walked over to it.
‘Isn’t it fascinating seeing what was hung before?’ Sarah said. ‘Snippets of the eighties, nineties and noughties, I’m imagining.’
Gemma ran a hand over the wall, where the paper was torn like a photograph that had been ripped in two.
The base layer was an olive and cream pinstripe, in the middle was a beige damask, and the last a Laura Ashley floral that reminded Gemma of her grandmother’s nightdresses.
She closed her eyes and focused on the mix of shiny and rough textures of the different wallpapers.
Had her mother chosen one of these, or maybe all of them?
Gemma wanted to leave her hand there forever.
Then she pressed the tips of her fingers into the wall, as if somehow something of her mother could be transferred on to her.
After a moment, she opened her eyes and looked around the room again.
Perhaps this was the place where she’d died.
In a bed in the middle of the room overlooking the street.
A funny sensation came over Gemma. She didn’t believe in an afterlife but there was no denying she felt something ‘other’ in the room with her.
Was it her mother’s ghost or, simply, Gemma’s imagination?
Either way, she felt strangely comforted by it.
She’d made a connection and wasn’t that, in the end, all she could have hoped for?
Sarah was still talking. ‘I thought I might uncover Victorian or Edwardian wallpaper like I’ve seen happen on TV renovation programmes. I’d have kept some of that. Maybe made it a feature on the wall, you know what I mean?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do,’ Gemma said, an idea slowly forming. ‘Look, this might sound strange, but would it be possible for me to have some of it?’ she asked.
‘The wallpaper?’
‘Yes,’ she said tentatively. ‘All three.’
‘My wife loves keepsakes from the past,’ Nick said.
‘You mean, I’ve got to start stripping again?’ Sarah laughed.
‘I can do it or, at least, help?’ Gemma offered.
‘It’s not a bother, I’ll do it. And you can have what you want. It’s only going to go in the bin.’