He walked from the offices in wonder, he said. He had the impression that he, his very self, was coming into focus, his outline defining like a figure stepping out towards him from the fog. So it had been when he had wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror as a boy: himself, quite simply there, except this time he was wiping away the fog of his life and claiming his place not in a house but in the world.
‘Phyllis.’ He said her name over and over as he walked, laughing like a child at his own footprints in the snow, his jacket flying open. He paid no heed to the cold. He jumped over a puddle where the snow had melted to slush. ‘Phyllis Curtiss.’
She taught English, which meant she liked to read, as he did. They could talk about books! They would have so much in common! How clear it all was. How right he was. Hadn’t he known he was adopted before Margaret had told him, before he had found the note in the case? And now… now he knew his mother and he would be friends, more than friends – family, once again. Phyllis Griffiths, who was still so young – only thirty-three. She must have been younger than him when she… why, yes, she would have been no more than fifteen. A child. A poor child in a terrible predicament.
Samantha had told him that Phyllis had two sons now with her husband, whose name was David Griffiths. But things had been different for her when she had given birth to these other sons, his half-brothers. She had been settled, older. Happy. But she had not forgotten him. She had not forgotten him.
* * *
Back in Leeds, the halls were deserted already for the Christmas break. Although from the state of Adam’s half of the room, it looked as though he was still here. Perhaps he, like Christopher, was delaying his return home. This seemed unlikely, for such a happy-go-lucky chap. Adam seemed the very embodiment of Christmas cheer, of family gatherings and merriment. He hadn’t mentioned his family, Christopher realised, but he imagined them, Adam and his father, their hair flame red, their cheeks bright pink, drinking pints of bitter and singing carols down at their local on Christmas Eve. He imagined Adam surrounded by friends and relatives, the life and soul, his homecoming something everyone looked forward to.
Whatever, Adam wasn’t there right at this moment, so Christopher threw off his coat, took his writing paper and his fountain pen from his desk drawer. He would write the kind of letter that someone at the council, someone like Samantha Jackson, might advise him to write. After a moment, he bent to his task:
Dear Mrs Griffiths,
I have been advised by my adoption counsellor at Liverpool Council, Samantha Jackson, to contact you by letter first of all. I would have contacted you long ago, but my adoptive parents only told me the truth of my situation in October of this year, the day I left for Leeds University, which is where I am now. My name is Martin Curtiss. I am your son. I was born on 12 March 1959 in St Matthew’s Convent.
I will be for a brief time at my adoptive parents’ home in Morecambe for the Christmas holidays, but you can contact me here at the halls of residence, as I will return in early January. I will include my halls address in this letter.
I must confess I am nervous at the thought of contacting you.
He stopped – bit the end of his pen. He sounded formal, too formal. Stiff. But that was better, wasn’t it? Familiarity at this point would be too much – she might become suspicious, doubt his intentions. He should keep his feelings in check. Goodness, if he were to write what he felt! My adoptive parents only told me the truth of my situation in October of this year, he had written, when what he wanted to say was: I have always known about you, all my life! I feel you in my heart as I feel the very pulse of life! But he did not. He had to keep close rein on himself. He could not possibly say even half the words that ran around his head, nor admit to the myriad scenarios that had begun to infiltrate his thoughts: he and his birth mother sitting beside one another in some pink-hued room, sometimes laughing, sometimes heads bent together, deep in conversation, sometimes even lying side by side on a large apricot-coloured bed, addressing their deepest desires, fears, insecurities to the ceiling. Their hands would clasp, the light would fall on these conversations without end. She would stroke his hair.
Martin, she would whisper. My darling boy.
But such images were not for this letter. Not yet, perhaps not ever. Better to tread with cautious steps. He continued:
I almost took English for my degree, but plumped for history in the end. I read in my spare time though – I love reading. I have just finished The Shining, by Stephen King. I like thrillers especially. Honestly, if you were to ask me if I prefer a night out on the town or a quiet night in with a novel, it would be the second choice all the way!
He stopped, looked at the exclamation mark with disapproval. Keep a tight rein, Christopher. Hold yourself back. Don’t frighten her away.
He squeezed a full stop after the y and made the exclamation mark into an I.
I have a room-mate here in Leeds. His name is Adam. I enclose a picture of us taken last week in Leeds town centre. It isn’t very sensible but I hope you find something familiar in it. It was taken last Saturday so it is recent. You can’t see in black and white but I am the one with the darker hair because mine is black. The other idiot is Adam.
Out of his wallet he dug two photo-booth snaps. In his desk drawer he found the Swiss army knife his father had given him as a boy (when he still hoped for a Swiss-army-knife kind of son) and used the scissor gadget to cut free a single snap. It had been Adam, of course, who had persuaded him to have his photo taken in the booth in WHSmith.
‘Come on, man,’ he had said, already feeding coins into the machine. ‘It’ll be a right laugh. We can have two each. I’ll give one to Alison – help her survive Christmas without me. You can keep yours in your wallet or… or give them to your ma or something.’
Christopher had acquiesced, as he always did. And here he was, staring at himself staring into the camera while Adam appeared to be growling into his right ear. Adam’s hair was beyond shoulder length now. The faintest trace of a smile on Christopher’s own lips gave away that he was in fact trying not to laugh, and he thought Phyllis would like that. She would see that he knew how to muck about, that he had a friend, but that he wasn’t an out-and-out Jack the Lad.
Jack: that name again, how peculiar.