‘Pa Salt is your adoptive father?’
I ignored her. ‘Why couldn’t you find my name at the orphanage?’
‘The priest may well have registered you under a different name, but interestingly, there wasn’t a single baby who came in during the two weeks after she’d told me you were dead. I checked the original records with the secretary while I was there. I truly don’t know, Star. I’m sorry.’
‘And now my father’s dead too, and I can never ask him.’ My head was swimming. I folded my arms across my knees and rested my head on them.
‘Well,’ came Mouse’s voice. ‘Your coordinates point to Mare Street, which is where Patricia Brown – your grandmother – lived until her death. That’s where your coordinates sent you, not to an orphanage. Perhaps some form of private adoption was arranged. It’s ironic, isn’t it?’ he added after a pause. ‘That you both began to search for each other at a similar moment in time?’
‘If she’s telling the truth,’ I muttered.
‘She is, Star. Trust me, no one could have made up a story like this on the hoof, when I confronted her after the lecture,’ he murmured as he put a steaming cup of tea on the floor next to me.
‘And Mouse wouldn’t have let me near you if he hadn’t believed me,’ said Sylvia. ‘He even checked the National Archives to see if your death had been officially registered. It hadn’t. Oh Star, I was so, so happy! I’d tried and failed to trace you, coming over early on this trip to England to try again. I’d all but given up hope when your young man appeared.’
‘He’s not my young man.’
‘Your friend then,’ she corrected herself.
‘Why did you change your name?’
‘After my mom told me about your death, I lost it for a while. Really, I wouldn’t have put it past her to have murdered you with her own bare hands. She even told me she’d arranged your funeral herself so as to spare me the pain. I went home immediately, of course, to make sure she wasn’t lying, which was when she gave me the death certificate. Then I accused her of not caring for you . . .’ My mother bit her lip and I saw genuine pain in her eyes. ‘And she threw me out of the house. I swore I’d never return home again. And I didn’t. I stayed in Cambridge, working during the holidays to support myself. I wanted to disassociate myself from her completely. And I figured if I changed my name, she’d never be able to find me.’
‘Who was my father?’
‘He was my boss at the clothing factory I worked at during the summer before I went to Cambridge to gather some money to support myself through university. Married of course . . . Christ! I’m so ashamed to tell you this . . .’
I watched as my mother put her head in her hands and wept. I did not comfort her. I couldn’t. Eventually, she recovered herself and continued.
‘It’s not me who should be crying. I have no excuses, but he seemed so glamorous to me at the time, took me out to dinner at fancy restaurants, told me I was beautiful . . . Jesus! I was so naive. You have no idea what my mother was like: so overprotective, and all that church stuff she insisted I attend all the way through my childhood. I hadn’t any real idea of how to stop myself from getting pregnant. Take it from me, the Catholic version doesn’t work. You were the inevitable result.’
‘Would you have aborted me if you could have done?’
‘I . . . don’t know. I’m trying to be as truthful as I can here, Star. The point was, after that summer, I got to Cambridge and in November, I finally twigged something wasn’t right. I asked a friend and she bought me a pregnancy test. A doctor confirmed I was already over four months gone.’
As she picked up her cup to take a sip of the tea, I saw her hands were shaking violently. And felt the first stirrings of sympathy for her. She doesn’t have to put herself through this, I thought. She could have denied any knowledge of me to Mouse.
‘I’m sorry if I’m being rude,’ I offered.
‘She isn’t normally,’ Mouse chipped in for good measure. ‘Your daughter has changed us all since she arrived in our lives.’
I looked up at him and saw he was gazing down at me with something akin to affection.
‘Well then, I’ll leave you to it.’ He walked from the kitchen and I had a sudden urge to call him back.
‘Here, I brought you something I had made for you when I arrived back in Cambridge just after you were born. I was going to put it round your wrist when I next went home to see you.’ Sylvia stood up and walked over to kneel down next to me. ‘It was a little keepsake for while I couldn’t be with you myself.’
She handed me a small leather jewellery box. I opened it and saw the name of a Cambridge jeweller printed in gold on the inside. Lying on the blue velvet was a tiny bracelet. I took it out and studied the one heart-shaped charm dangling from it.
Lucy Charlotte
21/04/1980
‘I was going to add a charm to it every year on your birthday, but I never had the chance to give it to you. Until now. Here.’ She took the box back from me, then pulled out the central velvet display and produced a yellowing piece of paper. She handed it to me, and I read it. It was a receipt for the bracelet, dated 20th May 1980. The amount was for ￡30. ‘That was a lot in those days.’ She smiled at me weakly, and I noticed the enormous diamond engagement ring twinkling on her finger, and smelt her sweet, expensive perfume. I sat silently as I played with the tiny bracelet. And admitted that, if this was all a hoax, it was a pretty good one.
‘Lucy . . . Star, would you please look at me?’ Reaching out, she tipped my chin up towards her. ‘I loved you then, and I love you now. Please, please believe me.’
She smiled at me, her blue eyes still blurred with tears.
And suddenly, I did.
‘Could I . . . can I have a hug? I’ve waited so long,’ she entreated me.
I didn’t say no, and she moved towards me, her arms pulling me into an embrace. After a long hesitation, my arms moved around her of their own accord, and I felt myself hugging her back.
‘It’s a miracle,’ she murmured into my hair, as she stroked it with her gentle hands. ‘My baby . . . my beautiful baby girl . . .’
‘You okay?’ Mouse asked me as he wandered into the kitchen a good hour later to find us both still sitting on the floor with our backs pressed to the warm range.
‘Yes.’ I smiled up at him. ‘We’re fine.’
‘Well,’ he said as he surveyed us, ‘call me if you need me.’ He walked to the door, then turned back. ‘It’s like looking at two peas in a pod.’ Then he left the room.
‘That Mouse is a good guy,’ my mother said as she continued to stroke my fingers, as if imprinting them on her memory. She hadn’t stopped touching me in the past hour, apologising by saying she just had to convince herself that I was real and she wasn’t dreaming. ‘Is he related to us?’