Oh, what had she called him?
She had been younger than her coat and headscarf suggested, that much he could remember – no older than his schoolteacher, Miss Briggs, who was getting married. But she had a wild look to her. Nothing he could have explained – she wasn’t raging insane like the madwoman from the town centre who kept dogs and sang in the street, but there was something in her face, in the way she insisted on pushing a name onto him like the gypsies on the pier pushed their lucky heather, a name he hadn’t asked for and didn’t want. I must look like someone she knows, he had thought at the time, but now, staring at his birth certificate, he realised with a burning feeling in his abdomen that she might not have been mistaken. Perhaps she did know him after all? Was it possible? No, no of course not. But he had seen this woman more than once, always on the street, never going into anyone’s house or talking to anyone or moving with any sense of purpose. She had been there the day he left for university, he remembered. He had seen her at the corner when his parents pulled out onto the main road. As they passed, she had turned her face away. He had seen only the sky blue of her headscarf.
After a moment, he brought the certificate to his eyes once more.
Name, surname, and maiden surname of mother: Phyllis Anne Curtiss
Occupation of father: Merchant sailor
Signature, description, and residence of informant: Phyllis Curtiss, mother, 22 Greenway Road, Runcorn, Cheshire
When registered: Sixteenth March 1959
He tossed the certificate onto his desk and dashed out of the room to the lavatories, where he relieved himself with a sigh. The hot stream coursed from him, splashing into the porcelain with the force of an open tap.
‘Martin,’ he said to his reflection in the rust-corroded mirror. ‘Martin Anthony Curtiss.’
Martin. House martin. Martin Luther King. St Martin of Tours, who gave his cloak to the beggar at the gates. Was he, Christopher, kind enough to do something like that? Could he be a Martin? He studied his eyes, his broad nose, his chin, which struck him now as almost square. A square jaw, that was a good thing, wasn’t it? Martins had square jaws in a way that perhaps Christophers did not. Adam always teased him about his height – you lanky bastard, fucking leggy bugger – had once shaken his head and told him his appearance was wasted on him. Angie had kissed him, she had…
He hoped never to see her again. If he did, he would pretend he hadn’t.
Back in his room, he pored over the birth certificate until he could see it even when he closed his eyes. His mother was from Cheshire. He could go to the address listed on this document – he could go now. His mother, Phyllis Curtiss, wouldn’t live there any more, of course, but perhaps her parents did. His grandparents! The thought hit him in the solar plexus. His mother was probably young; that would mean his grandparents would not be too old – early sixties, maybe, or younger if they too had had children early. Children! He might have an auntie or an uncle. They might all get together at Christmas – sing carols around the piano like the pictures on the front of Christmas cards. He wondered whether they drank alcohol, like Adam and the other students, or were sober like Jack and Margaret – whether they went to Mass together on Christmas Eve, or not at all. He wondered if his birth father was still around – Mikael, a sailor; it was unlikely. He sounded foreign – Polish, perhaps, or Russian. The thought mattered less than the rest.
But, he said, Samantha Jackson had told him to wait, to proceed through the proper channels. He would make another appointment with her – that was the correct course of action.
The light fell. His window greyed, blackened. In his mind’s eye, his family posed before him: a faceless group shot of his ancestry, imagined smiles in a darkroom developing tray. Uncoiled, the rope cast itself towards them. He would tie himself there and, finally, moor.
Chapter Eight
He called Samantha Jackson the next morning. She told him to photocopy the certificate and send it to her, which he did, skipping a lecture so as to catch the post.
A week later, there was an official-looking letter in his pigeonhole. He had known it would be there. He plucked it out and tore it open, unable to wait until he got to his room. His eyes cast about, fishing for and catching the sense without any logical reading. Liverpool City Council read the letter heading, a coat of arms underneath: two mermen, two birds – herons or cormorants possibly. His eyes flicked to the bottom: Mrs S. Jackson, Adoption Counsellor and Liaison Officer. Beneath, her signature scrawled in blue ink. He could not train his eyes to read in any kind of linear way.
… NORCAP… colleague… pleased to inform you a Mrs Phyllis Griffiths, née Curtiss…
Dear God! He read the letter again, made himself do it properly this time, one hand clapped over his mouth. His mother had registered her details on his birthday, 12 March. One Phyllis Griffiths, aged thirty-three. Samantha looked forward to hearing from him. He folded the letter and headed up to his room. He sat on his bed, the letter still in his hand.
She, Phyllis, had searched for him.
A strange and lovely warmth filled him. It spread to his bones, his stomach, his heart. His skin felt ticklish, his hair lifted on its follicles. His mother. His mother, Phyllis, was waiting for news. She was waiting for him. If all went well, if he could keep his cool, next year, 1978, would be the year he would finally meet her. In his chest, the rope untangled, tied up anew in what he imagined as a bow. A bow around a gift. He laughed. Had he not imagined the rope tied to the harbour, ready to pull him in? Ah yes, he had envisaged it in all sorts of ways, but a mooring was the better image. A mooring post and a rope – yes, perfect. He could feel the water beneath him, guiding him towards her.
* * *
Only days later did he remember the letter from Margaret. He was studying at his desk (no sign of Adam as usual) when he saw the corner of the white envelope protruding from his books.
With a feeling of tiredness laced with guilt, he drew it out and opened it, but at the sight of his own address in the top right-hand corner, he smiled despite himself. Margaret had worked in a typing pool for years before leaving to get married – such an old-fashioned idea, now he thought about it. And so sad, actually, holding beneath it as it did the assumption that she would soon be in the family way, which of course she was not. And here, writing to the boy she had taken in when her body failed her, she had not forgotten the rigours of official correspondence. The address present and correct even when writing to her own son, who, after all, lived there. Underneath she had written:
Dear Christopher,