Chapter 19: Nineteen - The Idea of You

Lucy had watched as Jonah slowly rose from the sofa, waiting for his words of invitation for her to come home to Queen’s Park and having mixed feelings at the prospect. She tried to picture where in the flat she had placed items that she would need to gather up and throw into her overnight bag, remembering her dirty pyjamas behind the bathroom door and her work laptop, still in its case in the hallway. Yet at the same time she was angered by his lack of sympathy, trying to imagine how she would have reacted to a similar level of distress from him. She knew she would have been kinder, and that thought alone made her glad when he had kissed her lightly on the forehead, as one might an ailing relative, and left as quietly as he had arrived. Alone.

Their exchange was that of strangers, and this left her feeling quite numb. This, and his refusal to open up about Camille, left her with a familiar sensation. She had experienced it with previous boyfriends, including Richard: that what she had perceived to be a lifetime relationship was in fact a temporary thing, and the golden, shining future she had seen stretching ahead into the sunset was instead a wrong turn that led to a dead end. She pictured Richard with his face split into a grin as he proudly showed off Dominic Drake. The humiliation at having to make a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and start walking again, on legs weakened by humiliation and heavy with sadness, was far from easy to take. What made it all the harder now was that unlike with any previous beaus, what she felt for Jonah was a deep, all-consuming love, which is why he was the one she had married.

She spent the rest of the day and most of the next night sitting and waiting, for what, she wasn’t sure, but she found herself paralysed with indecision and sadness. Her distress was, however, tinged with a small amount of relief. It felt quite amazing to have shared her secret after all these years. Whatever the outcome with Jonah, it felt good that someone knew about Bella; it helped make her real. She put the television on and stared blankly at soap operas, the news, a movie, anything to help occupy the minutes that ticked by. Before falling asleep, she fired off a text to Camille.

I am here if you need me or if you want to talk. Just say the word and I’ll be there. Take good care of you, Cam. I am thinking about you. Lucy Xx

She woke the next day with a new-found clarity, wanting more than anything to talk to her mum. Reaching for her phone from the bedside table, her heart lifted to see there was a text waiting for her. She hoped it was from Camille. Closer inspection revealed it was from a pizza company local to Queen’s Park, offering a three-for-two deal for the weekend, which she deleted aggressively, angry with them for getting her hopes up.

After showering and stepping into her jeans and a jersey, she grabbed her handbag and jumped into her car. With the radio on, she made her way out of town, passing through the busy streets at a snail’s pace as traffic clogged the arteries of the city, until eventually the car sped up, the air tasted sweeter, the houses were not quite so squashed together and she found herself in the leafy suburbs of Surrey where everything looked a little shinier.

As she turned her car into the quiet cul-de-sac in which she had grown up, she pictured her dad standing in the front garden of a summer’s evening with his shirt sleeves rolled above the elbow, watering his shrubs and pulling any weeds that might mar his perfect borders.

Her heart sank as she recognised Fay and Adam’s car in the driveway. She had been hoping to find her mum alone. She sat in the car, toying with the idea of leaving without going in, wondering if she could execute a speedy three-point turn and disappear. This was beginning to feel like the best idea when her plan was foiled. Her sister spotted her car from the lounge window, robbing her of anonymity as she ran to the front door, flinging it open and smiling broadly.

Lucy took a deep breath and parked the car.

‘Well, what a shocker! Didn’t expect to see you here today! Bagsy not sharing my pudding with you – we only have three. Mum’s bought individual chocolate pots for the grown-ups and there’s no way I’m giving you mine!’

‘You can keep your pudding!’ Despite the heaviness of her heart she was happy to see her sister, who sounded about as far from a grown-up as you could get.

Fay greeted her with a hug. ‘To what do we owe this honour? Are you lost? Have you taken a wrong turn on your way somewhere far more exotic?’

Lucy held her tight and closed her eyes. Her sister had no idea just how much of a wrong turn. ‘Very funny.’ She walked into the house and hung her bag on the banister before making her way into the large kitchen-diner where everyone was congregating.

‘Keep the noise down.’ Fay pointed upstairs. ‘Adam’s just putting Maisie in her cot for a nap.’

‘Oh, Lucy! What a lovely surprise. Have you eaten?’ Her mum looked at the chicken pie on the worktop.

‘I haven’t, but don’t worry. I’m really not hungry. Fay has already broken the news that there are not enough chocolate pots for me.’ She saw the relief spread across her mum’s face.

‘Hiya, trouble!’ Lucy walked over to the table where Rory sat with his tongue poking out of his mouth as he coloured in a picture with his array of pencils. ‘What’s that you’re doing?’ She bobbed down to the level of the tabletop.

‘I’m colouring in this scene from Star Wars,’ he replied without looking up, with a slight impatience to his tone, as if what he was doing was quite obvious and he would prefer not to be disturbed. ‘Is Camille coming here?’ His eyes suddenly brightened at the prospect.

She shook her head. ‘Afraid not, Rory. She’s busy.’

His noisy sigh told her all she needed to know.

Lunch was the diversion she needed. While everyone else eagerly tucked into the pie, Lucy picked at a large bowl of salad and nibbled on a baked potato. The conversation flew back and forth across the table, with Rory telling all in great detail about his new invention for a flying car with stealth capabilities and an ice-cream dispenser.

‘I think there would be a big call for those, Rory.’ Lucy nodded. ‘I would definitely buy one.’

‘Maybe Uncle Jonah can sell them in his posh showrooms, eh?’ Adam winked at his sister-in-law and she smiled, ignoring the flip in her stomach at the very mention of his name. She felt sad that Jonah was so integrated into her family, so loved, and yet his links to them were looking more and more fragile by the day.

It might have been Lucy’s imagination, but it was as if her mum sensed all was not well. It was possible that she noticed the fatigue etched on her daughter’s face, the straining of her neck muscles or the way her fingers strummed the tabletop as she waited for the opportunity to speak to her alone.

Lucy held her gaze a couple of times, her eyes unsmiling.

It was as the three adults dug into their chocolate pots with gusto and Rory was enjoying a less sugary children’s version that a faint bleating came from the worktop.

‘Oh, great timing, Maisie!’ Fay stared at the baby monitor and hurriedly placed the spoonful of dark dessert into her mouth before pulling the spoon out clean and placing it down as she prepared to leave the table.

The time had come.

‘You finish your pud. I’ll go,’ Lucy chirped. ‘Mum, give me a hand?’

‘Oh!’ Jan looked taken aback. Her eyes darted to the busy table that she felt required her presence. ‘Yes, of course. You go and grab her. I’ll be one sec.’

‘Are you sure, sis? She might need changing.’ Fay pulled a face.

‘Of course I’m sure.’ Lucy hurried from the kitchen and up the stairs to her mum’s bedroom, where Maisie’s travel cot had been placed in the corner of the room. The little girl lay pulling at her feet, which were up in the air, and she part whimpered, part chatted. She was a happy little thing.

‘Hello, Maisie! Hello, you gorgeous baby! Look at you – you look so big!’ She reached in and lifted the smiling child into her arms, loving the solidity of her against her chest, inhaling the wonderful fresh scent of a newly woken infant, and ignoring the flash of hurt that this was not her child. ‘How have you been, beautiful girl? How’s things in the world of Maisie, hey? Pretty good I would imagine.’ She kissed her several times on the face, and in response the little girl batted her away with her chubby hands. ‘Right, let’s get your wet bum changed.’ She laid her on the changing mat that had been propped by the side of the bed, and rummaged around among the bags and baby paraphernalia, looking for a nappy.

‘I can’t find anything!’ She laughed at Maisie, who found the whole thing amusing. ‘It’s not funny! I can’t send you down without getting you changed or your mum will know how useless I actually am. And that would never do.’ She lay her palm on Maisie’s tum and bent over to kiss her. She found her irresistible.

‘The nappies are in the side pocket.’ Her mum’s voice drifted from behind her.

‘Oh, thanks.’

Her mum bent down and reached for a nappy, passing it to her.

She decided to cut to the chase. ‘Jonah and I have had a massive row.’

‘Oh no, I am sorry to hear that, Lucy. I did think it was strange that you pitched up here unannounced and alone. You are of course welcome anytime, but that kind of spontaneity is not really you.’

‘I guess not.’ She ran the wet wipe over Maisie’s soft skin and reached for the talcum powder.

‘Well, I do hope you get it resolved quickly. He’s a good man and he’s good for you. Nothing is worth falling out over, not really,’ she remarked.

‘I told him about Bella.’

At the sound of the name, which neither of them had spoken aloud in over twenty years, her mum seemed to sway a little. She took a step towards the bed, sitting sharply on the edge, as if to stop herself from falling.

‘You did?’ Her voice was a whisper.

‘Yes.’ Lucy nodded. She let this fact permeate for a second or two before speaking again, waiting for a response from her mum that didn’t come. ‘He knows, and so does Camille, and so I suspect will others over a period of time. People like having secrets or, more specifically, they like telling secrets.’ She nodded at this universal truth.

‘I thought you had put it behind you, after all this time . . .’ Her mum’s voice was shaky.

‘Put it behind me?’ Lucy laughed a little louder than she had intended. ‘I had a baby, a little girl, just like Maisie here, and she was beautiful. And you took her from me when she was three days old and it ripped my heart in two and it has never healed, not properly. How could I possibly put that behind me?’ It felt surreal after all these years to finally be able to voice the words that had hovered in her throat on so many occasions. She watched her mum’s mouth twist.

‘I didn’t take her from you.’ Her mum’s eyes filled with tears. ‘You were sixteen. It was for the best.’

‘The best for whom?’ she asked, rhetorically, as her own tears matched her mum’s. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t know if it was the best for Bella, who has grown up thinking that I didn’t want her. And certainly not the best for me, who has ached every single day for my daughter, not knowing where she lives, how she is, who brought her up or even if she is still alive!’ Her tears fell fast, and Maisie, alerted by the change in atmosphere, began to cry. Lucy picked her up from the changing mat and cradled her into her shoulder. ‘Shh . . . it’s okay, little one, don’t cry, my darling,’ she cooed, while her fat tears slipped into Maisie’s fine cap of blonde hair.

‘You were just a little girl, Lucy, and your dad had just died. It was a terrible time for us all.’ Her mum reached up her sleeve for her handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes before blowing her nose. ‘I spoke to the social workers and the doctors. They said it was likely you wouldn’t have been able to cope. They said it was in the baby’s best interest and I agreed. They said the baby—’

‘Stop calling her “the baby”. Her name is Bella, Bella May! That’s the name of your eldest granddaughter. Bella May!’

‘I know! I know her name and I see her little face all the time, and if you think that was an easy decision for me, then you are wrong, but I could only think about you, my daughter, my little girl, and what I thought was best. I didn’t want that one mistake to ruin your life.’ Her mum reached for a wet wipe from the dispenser on the bed and blotted at her eyes and nose.

‘I was sixteen, Mum, and I was old enough to get pregnant, and that one mistake, as you call it, did ruin my life, but not because I brought a child into the world, but because my choices were taken away from me!’

‘You have no idea, Lucy, no idea at all what it was like. I was hanging on by a thread. I was trying to make things the best they could be for Fay, who had just lost her dad too, money was tight, I was grieving and then that happened to you.’ She shook her head, her voice tight with distress, as her tears fell. ‘I couldn’t see any other way. The social worker who interviewed you said you were a very young sixteen-year-old, and you were. She said you were vulnerable, fragile. You weren’t worldly, you wouldn’t have had the first idea about the pressures and stresses of raising a child, and I didn’t want you to have to find out. I thought I could restore your childhood and leave you free to have a life, a good life, and you have!’

Lucy tried to imagine arriving back from the hospital, walking into her childhood home with a baby in her arms, and strangely she couldn’t.

She thought of Camille and her tone became calmer. ‘I was probably more worldly than you thought, and I have had a life full of holes. Bella-shaped holes that get bigger with every day that passes.’

‘How, Lucy? How would you have cared her for? Paid for her? How would it have happened?’ Jan pushed.

‘I . . . I don’t know,’ she admitted. The words of her conversation with Camille came flooding back. ‘A baby will change your whole future. It will become your future, taking the space of any thoughts or ideas you might currently have. It doesn’t mean you can’t have the things you have planned for, but it means they will undoubtedly be harder to achieve, and it means you can’t put yourself first. That’s before you even consider the practicalities, like how you can earn a living and where you might live . . . This will change every aspect of your life.’

‘No. I don’t know either, love.’ Her mum’s voice was soft. ‘If money had been no object and we had had the space, we could have considered it, but things were terrible for me, for us all. You were already frail, broken over your dad, and I can’t imagine how much worse it would have been if you’d had to leave school and get a job and care for a child.’ She shook her head.

Lucy opened her mouth, but had no response. She pictured Camille, and for the first time saw a life with her own child that wasn’t happy and carefree; instead she saw poverty and struggle, and it sent a shiver along her limbs.

Lucy gently rocked Maisie, who had stopped crying. The sound of the creak of a floorboard in the hallway caused both her and her mum to turn their heads. Fay crept into the room with tears streaming down her face. She calmly walked over to the baby monitor that was set on the sideboard and turned it off before making her way over to Lucy. She placed her arms around her and held her tight, while they sobbed. Her mum leapt up and held both her girls, as the three generations stood locked together, united by a common sadness. Lucy cried loudly, ‘I miss my dad!’

Fay pulled away and spoke to her big sister. ‘I miss him too, and for the record I have never thought you were useless. I have always, always, thought you were absolutely brilliant.’

* * *

Fay and Adam went home, leaving Lucy and her mum sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table.

‘I love you, Lucy,’ Jan began.

Lucy felt lighter, relieved and hopeful. ‘I love you too.’

‘Well that’s a very good start.’ Her mum swiped the pad of her index finger under both eyes and sniffed. ‘You have always been fascinating to me, Lucy. I find it incredible that this little baby I had is such a strong, capable, clever woman.’

She felt her heart twist at the compliment that left her feeling a little light-headed. To hear these words from the woman she had felt closed off from for so many years was the most wonderful gift imaginable.

‘But you weren’t always this way.’ Jan shook her head. ‘You were a daddy’s girl when you were little, clinging to him and waiting for him to come home, and when he walked into a room you lit up. It was wonderful for me to see two of the people I loved most in the world feel that way about each other.’

Lucy felt the creep of tears at the memory of her beloved dad and how safe he had made her feel. She pictured him poking his head around her bedroom door. She would make out that she was asleep and he would whisper into the darkness, ‘Sleep tight, Lucy. Have the sweetest of dreams’. How she wished she had not feigned sleep, but had instead leapt out of bed and held him tight, asking him question after question, getting to know him better and making sure he knew just how much she loved him. She hadn’t known her time with him was about to be cut short. She thought she had all the time in the world to chat to her daddy.

Her mum continued: ‘And when he died, part of me died too, and Fay was openly devastated, but you . . .’ She paused. ‘You seemed to clam up like a little nut. Everything about you was muted. You didn’t smile so much, you didn’t talk as much . . . it was like you weren’t really present and I didn’t know what to do for the best, didn’t know how to handle it. I was in the middle of my own grief, which didn’t help. We lived in a fog.’

‘I remember that time. I kept thinking I would wake up and Dad would be in his chair or in the garden. I hoped I would wake up.’

‘I know.’ Her mum clasped her hands on the tabletop.

‘And then I started talking to Scott and he didn’t know about Dad and so there wasn’t the pressure of having to talk about him or have him ask me if I was okay. He made me feel happy, made me feel good, took my mind off things. I had never really kissed a boy before him, not properly, and yet I was uninhibited like I was someone else. I think I wanted to be someone else.’

‘I can understand that,’ her mum whispered.

‘When I found out I was pregnant’ – Lucy stopped speaking and looked up at the ceiling – ‘I could not believe it. I didn’t think for a second that it would happen to me. Having sex with Scott and actually having a baby seemed about a million miles away from each other.’

‘It often does,’ her mum confirmed.

‘But then once I understood what was happening to me, I looked forward to becoming a mum, couldn’t wait to get my hands on that little baby.’

‘Weren’t you afraid? Because I was.’

‘Not really, Mum. Only about giving birth, but not afterwards. I thought it would be lovely.’

Jan placed her fingers over her lips and took a deep breath. ‘I was so, so scared for you. I could only see struggle ahead, for us all. I was certainly battling the onset of depression. I was lonely without your dad. I still am.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I was figuring out how to pay the mortgage without your dad’s income, wondering how to get a job and what kind of job I could get. I was desperately worried for you and Fay and how it was all affecting you both, trying to keep things as normal as possible, trying not to let my fears become infectious, and then you told me you were pregnant.’ She shook her head. ‘It felt like the final straw.’

Lucy thought about the impact Camille’s news had had on Jonah, whose life was on an even keel; she could only imagine what it must have felt like for her mum, whose life had been crumbling.

‘I never really thought about what it must have been like for you,’ she admitted.

‘Oh, Lucy, it wasn’t me I was worried about. Things were tough, yes, but my only concern was what this would mean for your life. All the things you were capable of would be curtailed because your life would have been one of struggle, and when you are struggling and things are tough all choices go out of the window; you don’t have that luxury and you can’t plan. Life becomes about meeting your immediate needs, doing what you must, unable to think further ahead than the now. I didn’t think that level of struggle would have been fair on you or Bella.’ Her lip wobbled as she spoke the baby’s name. ‘That wasn’t a life I wanted for you.’

Lucy nodded, beginning to understand, and she recalled many of Camille’s outbursts that seemed to have little reason to them. Had she been the same?

* * *

It had been a day that Lucy would never forget. A day of openness and a day of healing. Later she settled back into the bed in her childhood room, where memories lined the walls. She thought about Scott, the bookish boy she had loved, and wondered how his life had turned out. Was he happy, fulfilled, a father again?

Did he have the right to know, as she believed Dex did?

Her mum knocked on the door and entered. She sat down in the chair in which Lucy had studied for her exams.

‘How are you feeling?’ Jan asked.

Lucy looked up at her. ‘I’m okay. Drained, but I feel a bit better, Mum. Just to be able to talk about her is a good thing, I think.’

Jan looked into her lap. ‘I tried to talk about her soon afterwards.’

‘I don’t remember that,’ she confessed. ‘In my mind it was like I was forbidden from mentioning her.’

‘No, it wasn’t like that, not at all, but I understand that you might not remember things that accurately. You were so zipped up, hurting and withdrawn, and I didn’t know how to get through to you. I will never forget the look you gave me when I sat you down and tried to ask you how you were feeling. It was one of pure hatred, and I understood, but I never wanted you to look at me like that again, and I thought I was taking your lead by staying silent about it and burying what happened.’

‘Burying Bella.’

‘Yes. I suppose so. I thought it was easier than bringing up the subject, opening up the wound again and again. I figured what you wanted was to put it behind you, and the more years that passed without her being mentioned, the more it seemed that it was for the best. I honestly didn’t know how to start.’ Her mum shook her head from side to side, as if even the memory of that time was painful.

‘You told me not to tell anyone. You made me promise to keep it a secret,’ Lucy reminded her.

‘Yes, because you were at school! And they would have ripped you to shreds. You would have become that girl, the one who got into trouble, the one who had a baby, and you were already so fragile, paper thin, grieving for your dad, and I didn’t know how much more you could take. I was afraid for you, Lucy, and I only ever wanted to keep you safe.’

‘I think I was already that girl, Mum. I was already broken.’

‘Oh, Lucy.’ Jan ran her fingers over her face. ‘I want you to know that I only ever did what I thought was best. I went with the professional opinion, I read their reports, and maybe, looking back, if I hadn’t been so wrapped up in my own grief, I might have acted differently, but I couldn’t and I didn’t and I am sorry.’ She bowed her head then, crying yet more of the tears that seemed to be constantly hovering near the surface.

Lucy let her hand creep over the floral chintz duvet and rest on the back of her mum’s. ‘It’s okay, Mum. It wasn’t your fault. It was a horrible situation that has left its mark on me, but it wasn’t your fault, just like it wasn’t mine. It was just how it was.’

Her mum bowed her head. ‘You have no idea how long I have waited to hear you say that.’

They sat in quiet contemplation for some time.

‘There is something that I have been thinking about for a while now.’ Jan swallowed her nerves.

‘What?’

‘I’m sure you know already, but there are these agencies you can apply to, both as a parent who has placed a child for adoption and as a child who has been adopted, once they reach eighteen. Both can register an interest to be found. Thousands of people are reunited in that way. I’ve read about it.’

Lucy looked up with eyes full of sorrow. ‘How could I, Mum? How could I look her in the eye and tell her that I was fit and young and healthy but I gave her away? Do you think she would understand that I had very few choices?’

‘I don’t know, darling,’ Jan answered in earnest. ‘But you would find a way. And I know that with Jonah by your side, you can do anything.’

‘But he’s not by my side. He’s barely talking to me and things between us are horrible.’ She sniffed.

‘Don’t give up, Lucy, and don’t close down or run away. Talk to each other. You two have such a special thing.’

‘Maybe.’ Lucy wasn’t so sure. ‘Camille is pregnant.’

‘She is?’

‘Yes, she’s having a baby, a little boy.’

‘Oh my word.’

She watched as her mum sat back, digesting this new piece of information.

‘Well, if anyone can guide that girl in her time of need, it’s you, Lucy. You better than anyone know what she is going through. And Fay is right, you are absolutely brilliant.’

Her mum’s words were like music, sweet and welcome in her mind, and though she knew it would be a while before they could sweep away all the memories of hurt and things said that couldn’t be unsaid, this was definitely a wonderful start. Lucy looked at her mum and felt lighter, as if a large chunk of the boulder she hauled around in her gut had been chipped away.

‘And you should never ever forget the joy you brought to the door of the couple who adopted her. A woman who couldn’t conceive and would not have had a daughter were it not for you.’

A woman like me . . . She let the thought bob to the surface of her mind.

She lay back on the pillow and pictured again the woman who had become Bella’s mum, imagining the moment the woman was handed the swaddled child.

I bet she cried. I bet she held her to her and kissed her little face . . .

* * *

Leaving the hospital without you was the most horrific thing that I have ever had to do and, I am certain, ever will have to do. They told me you were going into temporary foster care; I think they were worried I might change my mind. Oh, if only I had known that I could! I felt empty, hollowed out, and that’s a feeling that has stayed with me. You went from foster care to your adoptive family when you were just three weeks old and I knew very little about them other than how happy they were, this married couple, to be given such a gift. My mum said once that I must have seemed like an angel to them and I know I would feel the same if someone gifted me a child. At the time, however, I remember placing my head on the pillow and feeling wave after wave of anger, because you weren’t a gift, not from me. In my mind you had been stolen, and that was something very different. It was weeks later that someone from the court came to see me and explained that now you were six weeks old, the formal adoption process could begin. My mum sat by my side, scared, I guess, that I might say or do the wrong thing. I signed the document and I could barely see the dotted line through my tears. And I’m crying now and the feeling is as fresh today as it was then. By my own hand, I denied my heart and I signed you away, my Bella May.