The last piece, p.14
The Last Piece, page 14
‘She’s such serious little thing, this one,’ said Stella, reaching down to run the pad of her finger over my baby’s cheek. ‘And that tiny face seems so wise. It’s almost as if she’s been here before.’
It was a silly thing to say; of course, as you couldn’t possibly tell how intelligent the child was just from looking at her, but I could kind of see what she meant. There was something about my baby’s eyes and the way she watched you that made you think that she was quietly getting the measure of you and storing her observations up for another time. I wonder now if she knew, at some instinctive level, what was going to happen to her. As I looked at her lying there staring up at us, I could feel my throat start to tighten and I breathed in steadily, as I was learning to do when this happened, to make the burden of impending loss easier to bear, and refocused my attention on my knitting.
‘When is she next due a feed?’ Stella asked me, and I was relieved to be back in the safety of more quotidian matters where I felt less emotionally exposed. I looked up at the big clock on the wall. We were supposed to feed our babies every four hours whether they seemed hungry or not, although some of them started to grizzle long before the time was up. When I heard them, my breasts would swell and ache as the milk strained to be released, and little damp circles would form on my vest and blouse even though it wasn’t my baby that had cried. Just thinking about her could be enough to set me off as the four hours came round. The power of my body’s response to the smallest provocation would have been fascinating to me had it not been so heartbreaking.
We were permitted to feed our babies for the first four weeks, and after that they were weaned on to the bottle in anticipation of them being taken to join their new families. Every part of me dreaded this transition. Once our baby was weaned, the midwives would bind our breasts tightly with long, butter-coloured bandages to stop our milk from flowing and trick our bodies into thinking that it was no longer required. Sometimes I had seen the damp patches of milk blooming on the blouses of bound women, the layers of fabric insufficient to disguise the flow that our instincts drove ever stronger. I had seen these women in the dorm at night, crying with the pain of their swollen breasts for which their babies were no longer allowed to provide any relief, and I thanked God for each day that I was able to lift my own child to my nipples.
‘She’ll feed again on the hour,’ I replied as I struggled to unpick the stitches that I’d just done.
‘And she seems to be breathing a little easier now,’ Stella added. ‘I think she’s over the worst of that little cold.’
I wondered what would happen if my baby was below par on the day that they came to take her. Surely they wouldn’t release her if she was unwell? It would be confusing enough for her to be taken by strangers without feeling poorly on top. But this thought had too many constituent parts that were painful to consider, and so I resolved to take just one day at a time and to make the most of every moment that I had left with her, however long that might turn out to be. I knew that some of the mothers managed to hold on to their babies for longer than the six weeks, no adoptive parents coming forward to claim them, but mine was so beautiful that I knew they would find someone for her as soon as they were allowed.
We weren’t encouraged to name our children. This, we were informed, would result in an unhelpful attachment forming, as if the mere adding of a name was the thing that would create an unbreakable bond between mother and child. Therefore, each child was simply referred to as ‘baby’ or, where confusion might arise, our surnames were added. I assume this was designed to be as impersonal as they could make it without actually resorting to numbers, but in many ways calling her Baby Hardcastle did more to link her to my family and all the history that was caught up in that name than if I’d just given her a Christian name.
Despite the rule, however, many of us did choose a secret name that we used in our heads and whispered in their ears when no one else was listening, as if the memory of the sound of our voices might become lodged in their heads and sustain them once they were parted from us.
I named my baby Faye after Faye Dunaway. Ralph and I had sneaked into the pictures to see Bonnie and Clyde, me borrowing a pair of my mother’s high heels and her reddest lipstick to convince the ticket seller that I was sixteen. I did not want my baby to turn out to be a bank robber, but I did hope that this moniker, even though it would be hers for such a short period of time, would imbue her with a spirit that would stand her in good stead when she faced adversity as her life progressed. Of course, I longed for her to live a charmed existence, but although I was young, I wasn’t naive and I knew that she would have to face some hard times. Also, more practically, a neat, one-syllable name was easier to disguise as I whispered it into her tiny shell-like ear.
A chatter of voices outside signalled the arrival of the others back from their walk. My baby, Faye, turned her head towards the sound but she didn’t seem alarmed by it. I was so proud of her then. It sounds silly now, to be proud of such a small, insignificant action, but that’s how it was; we only had the small things to hang on to, and I was determined to hang on to as many as I could.
9
They didn’t tell me exactly when it would happen, although I’m sure they must have had a date in their sights from the very beginning. Of course, I could tick the days off the calendar myself, but I chose not to for reasons of self-preservation. I simply took each day as it came, learning and becoming more confident with each one that passed.
In the long weeks before my baby was born I had imagined that when the day finally came to give her away, I would be prepared. After all, I reasoned to myself, I would have had six long weeks to say my goodbyes, and I really was desperate to get home and to slip back into the life that I had left behind. But as my six weeks anniversary approached, I could feel a desperate kind of panic settling over me. It felt like a balloon in my lungs, each day blown a little larger so that my breath shrank until all I had left were little snatches of oxygen to survive on. I would grasp any opportunity I could find just to stare at her as I tried to fix each of her features in my mind, like a photograph developing in a darkroom. I examined the way her tiny fingernails were set, how her hair grew from her forehead around the swirling cowlick that she would no doubt curse when she was older, the darkness of her eyes, no longer deep blue but a rich brown like roasted coffee beans, which matched the colour of her hair perfectly. Each of these details I clutched to my heart as if someone could steal them from me. I wanted to be able to describe her minutely to Ralph so that it would be as if he had seen our daughter for himself. I would be given a single photograph, I knew, but that could only show one side of her, one expression, one moment captured of her ever-changing face. The rest I would have to preserve for myself.
It was a Wednesday, the very last day of July, and the day dawned warm and bright when really it should have been dark and brooding to match the occasion. I knew as soon as Stella told me that I was required in Matron’s office that my time had come. Fear grabbed me, fixing me to the spot, and I saw in her face that I was right.
She gave me a weak smile. ‘It’s all right, Cecily,’ she said gently. ‘They won’t take her whilst you’re gone. You’ll have the chance to say goodbye.’
Taking her at her word, I made my way with heart pounding and legs trembling to Matron’s office for what would be the final time, running my fingers through my hair as I walked. My young body had already shed the extra pounds that the pregnancy had created, and I remember feeling that it was vital that I looked my best so that Matron understood, if she had not done so before, that although I was young, I knew how to present myself and was the kind of mother that my baby could be proud of.
I was determined to be strong, but the moment I sat and looked into Matron’s kindly face my resolve fell apart. Tears were running down my cheeks before she had even begun to speak. She commenced without introduction, as if to spare me having to wait any longer for the terrible news that she had to pass on.
‘Today, the couple who will adopt your baby will come to collect her,’ she began. ‘As you know, there will be no opportunity for you to meet them personally, but they have been through a stringent vetting process and I can tell you that they are a highly suitable couple with no other children of their own.’
Was that it? Was that all I was permitted to know? I was just expected to give up my child, the most precious thing I had, to people judged suitable by some test that I knew nothing of.
But of course, that was exactly what I had agreed to, and now I had to trust the system and release my baby into it.
Unable to speak I simply nodded, wiping my tears away ineffectually with the back of my hand.
‘They will arrive at 2 p.m., so you may spend the next hour with Baby to bath her, give her a bottle and get her prepared. Have you made her a baby box?’
I nodded again.
‘Then get that ready also,’ she added. ‘Mrs Croft will come and collect Baby from you just before two. Do you understand, Cecily?’
I looked up then and our eyes met through the film of tears. Her eyes also had a glossy sheen. I wonder now how often she had done this thankless task and whether she responded like this each time, although perhaps I was a special case. I hoped that it was clear to her that in different circumstances I might have made an excellent mother. That, however, could never be. My child was to be given up and there was nothing either of us could do to make things different.
‘Afterwards you may pack your things together. I have telephoned your parents and they will be here to collect you at four.’
At least I could be grateful for this. I would not have to sleep another night here. Then I thought of Peggy. I had been so angry with her for just leaving without saying goodbye, but now I could completely understand how she had felt. Without a baby I had no place here and I wanted to be as far away as I could get.
‘Do you have any questions?’ Matron asked.
My head was filled with questions but I knew that she wouldn’t be able to answer any of them, so I just shook my head.
‘In that case, go back upstairs to your baby.’
I stood up and crossed her office to the door. Suddenly, remembering the manners that I had been taught, I turned.
‘Thank you for everything, Matron,’ I managed to say.
‘No. Thank you, Cecily, for the decorum and courage that you have shown us. You have been a delight to have and I truly hope that your future brings you everything you wish for.’
Except the one thing that I cannot have, I thought.
Upstairs my baby had been moved to a private room off the main nursery and a baby bath filled ready for me to use. I collected the little gingham dress that I had bought for her and the box that I had decorated with pictures of yellow roses, cut carefully from old rolls of wallpaper, from under my bed. Then I went to spend my last moments with my baby.
I have never shared my memories of that day. They are my private, cherished possessions. I have taken them out often over the years and polished them until they have shone like precious stones, admiring them one by one but also handling them with great care; for each is like a poisonous dart with the power to fell me if I drop my guard for even a second.
PART FOUR
1
GREECE
The sun had reached its zenith in the faultless blue sky and was making its slow traverse towards the west when Cecily finally got to the end of her story. The water that Marnie had brought with them had long since run out and her throat felt parched and rough as sandpaper. At some point the sun had rested on her bare arm and she knew that the skin was burned and would be sore later, although now it just glowed comfortingly, like an inner heat source.
When she had finished her tale the pair of them said nothing; shell-shocked, numb or just contemplative, Cecily had no idea which. Tears had trickled down her cheeks as she told of her days in the Home and she could feel the trails of salt still, pulling her skin taut where they had dried. Marnie, however, had remained impassive throughout, clearly listening but with no outward indication of what might be going on in her head.
Despite her tears, Cecily had almost enjoyed it. Telling her story, bringing the Home and Matron and Peggy, sweet, dear Peggy, back to life in her mind had not been as difficult as she had feared. She had only told it once before, to Norman when they lay in bed in those heady, grief-stricken weeks after Ralph’s funeral. But after that, she had shut the memories of those few months away and only lifted the lid on them from time to time. She had thought about Marnie every day, but the rest of it she had pushed to the back of her mind on purpose. There had been no need to replay that in her head.
They were still sitting on the wall looking out at the dilapidated buildings and overgrown shrubland. Cecily’s back was stiff and sore from staying in one position for so long, but she worried that if she gave any indication of her discomfort the gossamer thread, as fine as a spider’s web, that now linked her to Marnie would be broken.
‘You kept the box,’ Cecily said now, searching for another point of connection between them. ‘The box I made for you to put your little things in when your parents came to collect you. You kept it.’
Marnie shrugged. ‘I only did that to piss them off,’ she said, without making eye contact.
She was hurting; Cecily could see it in her every movement, hear it in each word that she spoke. Whatever had happened to her in the decades since Cecily had given her that final bath and dressed her so carefully in the pink gingham dress had clearly left its mark. She was like a sea urchin, wrapped in a carapace of spiked shell. Cecily assumed that this hard outer casing was protecting something softer inside, but so far she had seen no evidence of that. Her child, left under the auspices of someone else, had grown into a very different person from the one she had imagined, different from her half-sisters. Was this something else for which Cecily should now feel guilty, a new culpability to add to her list? If so, then she was willing to claim it, to take it on as one of her own. She knew that she could have fought harder to keep her baby. Her father had already been half-persuaded. It would have been like pushing at an open door to get him to change his mind. Or she could just have taken the child and run, saving them both a lifetime of regrets and recriminations. She hadn’t done those things at the time, but she would do whatever she could now to make things better.
Marnie stood up, and something closed around her.
‘I need to go,’ she said baldly. ‘I’ll have missed lunch, but I have to be there to prep dinner. Can you find your own way back?’
Before Cecily had a chance to reply one way or another she was gone, her broad shoulders with their backpack moving swiftly away, retreating, escaping.
It was hot, surely more than thirty degrees now, and Cecily felt lightheaded both from the stress of the last few hours and from dehydration. Somewhere not far away she thought she could hear the odd car rumble past and the sounds of glassware clinking. Perhaps there was a bar nearby? She could go and get a drink, collect herself before she went back to the hotel.
Instead of retracing their steps, Cecily set off in the opposite direction towards the sounds of civilisation. The path here was narrower and in places brambles scratched at her ankles, but it soon become obvious that her instincts had been right and she found herself in a small village. There was a church, a shop with dusty inflatable pool toys on its forecourt, and a café. Cecily made for the café and sat down at a table near the edge of the terrace. When the waitress came, a girl barely old enough to hold a tray steady but who spoke remarkably good English, she ordered a large beer and a panini.
She had no idea how the morning had gone as far as Marnie was concerned, no clue as to what she thought or was feeling. She wasn’t even sure what she felt herself, other than an overwhelming bone-tired weariness. She had imagined meeting her firstborn child endlessly over the years since she had let her go. She had supposed that laying eyes on her and explaining her actions would be cathartic, the catalyst for a great outpouring of emotion on both sides, which would release a dam of some kind and allow all the feelings that she had blocked to flood over her.
As it was, all she felt was numb.
She ate the sandwich without registering it and drank the beer greedily and too fast, so it left her feeling woozy and otherworldly. Then she paid the bill and began to walk back, choosing not to cut through the abandoned village but to follow the road – the one, she assumed, that the villagers had rejected – back down to the town. It was mid-afternoon by the time she finally got to the hotel, by which time the back of her neck and her face were also burnt by the sun, not that that was of much concern to her.
She avoided the main reception, slipping quietly down the little path to the side and approaching the staircase to her room that way instead. She wasn’t sure who she was trying to evade – the other guests? Sofia? Marnie? What she knew was that she wanted to be alone, to shower and change, and then she would wait to see what happened next.
When dinnertime came, she made her way down to the dining hall. A long-sleeved blouse and a scarf disguised the worst of her sunburn but she could do nothing about her pink face, the skin stretched tight and shining over her forehead and cheeks. A couple of people let their gazes linger on her and she saw sympathy in their expressions, but no one was impolite enough to comment and so she ate her delicious dinner, made more delicious by the knowledge that her daughter had prepared it, in silence.
There was no sign of Marnie.
