Back in Morecambe, on the way to the station, he had stayed silent in the back seat of his parents’ car and all the while they’d waited for the train. Now they were gone, he was full of questions. He had not asked his birth mother’s name. He had not asked his birth father’s name. He had not, come to think of it, asked his own name.
But he could not. Not now, not ever. The subject had been opened like a library vault, only long enough to retrieve this lone and dusty book before being closed and locked forever. Jack and Margaret would never, could never, speak of it again.
Out in the corridor, more doors whined open, slammed shut. The smell of floor cleaner, of damp, of sheets washed in different detergent. He lay back on his knitted hands and stared at the ceiling.
‘Karen,’ he whispered, to try it. He liked the feel of that name, the shape his mouth made when he said it. ‘Where can I find you?’ he asked of the ceiling. ‘Or are you Denise? Julie? Barbara? Valerie?’
He did not imagine names for his father. But there, where there had been only air thick with doubt, was now the shadowy shape of a woman. The shadow needed detail, features he could recognise: a broad nose like his, perhaps, or his brown eyes or black hair. If he could only see her, clear the fog – meet her eyes with his. He should register with the adoption agency, or bureau, or whatever it was called. Perhaps the local council was his best bet. Lancashire. No, Liverpool. The letter had said Railton, so it would most likely be Liverpool City Council, wouldn’t it? There was only one way to find out.
The way he told it, that was the moment he leapt up from his bed, scooped the loose change from his overcoat pocket and headed out. The university rep who had given him his key changed a pound note and pointed him in the direction of the phone, and after several false starts and a few wasted two-pence pieces, Christopher reached the Adoption Records Office in Liverpool.
After going round the houses, he said, he spoke to a woman called Mrs Jackson, who took his name. After a few more questions, she asked, ‘How does two o’clock a week this Friday sound?’
‘Two o’clock next Friday,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there.’
He took the stairs two at a time, his heart thudding against his ribs. Mrs Jackson had spoken to him kindly, yet as he entered his room, it occurred to him that she had given him no hope. Her only assurance, thinking about it properly now, was that they would meet soon and get the process under way. What the process would deliver had been left unsaid. She had promised nothing.
He threw himself once more onto his bed. No matter what Mrs Jackson had said, he, Christopher Harris, had started upon a journey that would lead him to his mother, and no amount of polite obfuscation could prevent this… this knowledge. He would find her. The certainty quickened the blood in his veins. Blood she shared! Through her he would locate himself in the world. She would tell him his name. She might already have left her details with the relevant officials. She might be waiting for him to get in touch right at this moment. She wouldn’t know him as Christopher, of course, but by the name she herself had given him. His jaw tightened at the thought.
But then he shouldn’t get his hopes up. His birth mother might not have made any attempt to find him. She might not be expecting him to search for her, might not want him to. Oh, but if he could meet her, he could tell her that everything was all right. He could go to her like Jesus, and say, I forgive you. No, that was too grand. Who was he to forgive anyone? But he could at least make sure she was well, happy, settled. He wouldn’t even have to tell her who he was. He could just… watch her.
Chapter Three
I suppose at some point I need to think about Benjamin, whom I found out about too late. Perhaps that’s the real disaster. If I’d known about him sooner, we could have worked something out. I could have prevented all of this – and if that isn’t enough to drive a person out of their mind, I don’t know what is. When I think of Ben, I’ll admit the idea I have of him is romantic. If you never get to know a person well, you can keep them in your mind as a kind of idealised dream, and that’s what Ben is to me. When I picture him, it’s morning, sometime in early 1981, and he’s throwing an espresso down his throat and grabbing his keys from some artsy kitchen table in a boho apartment in San Francisco. He has floppy brown hair and a lopsided, boyish grin and moves with a kind of easy charm that people don’t notice straightaway. It’s only later that they realise they find him attractive, find that they want to be around him, though they can’t pinpoint why.
I see his apartment somewhere near the bay, on the fourth floor maybe, somewhere with a view. Or maybe he and his girlfriend Martha rent a room in one of those painted-lady houses on Alamo Square with a pot-smoking landlady like Mrs Madrigal from Tales of the City. Whatever, I see him soft-footed and cartoon-creeping into the bedroom where Martha is still sleeping. He bends over her and kisses her soft, warm cheek. It is still dark out. He has brought coffee for her, which he sets down on the bedside table. The steam seems not to snake upwards but to trail down, fanning out into the cup from some invisible point in the air.
‘See you later, honey,’ he whispers.
She stirs and, even in stirring, eyes still shut, rewards him with a lazy smile.
‘Are we going out for dinner later?’ Her voice is slurred and hoarse with sleep. He could just crawl back into the bed and press his face against her belly.
‘Sure. We’re meeting the others downtown at eight.’
She opens her eyes. They are green, like his. Oh, how lovely she is.
‘Are you going to do what we talked about?’ she asks him.
‘Sure,’ he says. ‘I’ll do it today.’