It was the first Saturday morning we’d spent together in ages and I’d been surprised, but grateful, that he’d offered to help me out with Mum’s things. ‘I can’t imagine getting rid of all traces of you if you died,’ I said.
His face relaxed into a smile. ‘I’ll take some of her books down to the car.’ He reached for my hand just as I stepped away and so he scratched his elbow instead. ‘Do you want some coffee?’
‘Please.’ On a sigh, I turned back to the muddle I’d made, while Greg picked up a box of paperbacks and padded downstairs.
I crossed to the bed and picked up a heavy black coat, holding it to my face. It didn’t smell of anything. I couldn’t ever remember Mum wearing it. She hadn’t thrown anything away for years and most of her clothes looked dated, the lengths and collars all wrong, the fabrics faded from washing.
As I folded the coat, ready to add to a bag stuffed with skirts and sweaters, I felt a crackle of paper in one of the pockets. Digging my hand inside, I touched something soft and pulled out a yellowing receipt. The print was worn, but I could make out the words Annie’s Tea Room, and the date: nearly twenty-eight years ago. She’d bought a cup of tea and a buttered scone, which had cost £1. She must have been there on her own, and I wondered if it had been during a trip to York to visit Aunt Tess.
I crumpled the receipt into the pocket of my jeans and thrust the coat in the bag, anxious to get the job over with, but as I turned my attention to a pile of shoes a burst of childish laughter caught my attention.
I moved to the window and looked out to see Dad pushing Maisie on the swing that used to be mine at the bottom of the garden. She was kicking her sturdy legs, her dark curls dancing around her face, eyes wide with delight.
I pressed my forehead to the glass, clouding it with my breath. Maisie looked so like Greg, my own freckled skin and straight fair hair having passed her by. At the age of three, there was already something of Mum in her smile and clear calm gaze.
I pushed open the window to let the warm June breeze flow in, bringing with it a layered mix of scents from the garden. Mum used to love sitting out there with her easel, painting. Neither of my parents had been keen on gardening, but before he died my grandfather had taken care of things, and since then a local gardener had kept it in shape.
It was good to see Dad, if not smiling, at least looking less tense. He hadn’t coped well with Mum’s death just after Christmas, six months ago. He was angry that she’d been taken too soon – which of course she had.
Sometimes he seemed angry with me too. I’d catch him watching me, grey eyes narrowed like a sniper’s, and wondered if I reminded him of her – though I looked more like him than Mum. I’d asked him once what was wrong and he dropped his gaze and said curtly, ‘Isn’t it obvious? I’ve lost the best thing that ever happened to me,’ which had left me wondering where I stood in his affections.
I glanced sideways at a silver-framed photo of them on the windowsill; Mum, an elegant figure in an A-line denim skirt and flowery blouse, smiling with friendly reserve, and Dad in his rimless glasses, an old wool jacket over a checked shirt, looking every inch the college lecturer he was. I’d taken the picture with a new camera on my sixteenth birthday, and they looked relaxed and happy.
Dad had been strong during Mum’s illness, but since her death seemed half the man he’d been. The double chin he’d developed over the years had vanished and his clothes hung off his lanky frame. Even his reddish hair looked thin and lifeless and he’d grown a straggly beard that aged him. Worse, he’d applied for early retirement from the university, and spent most of his days either walking Charlie, his old spaniel, or slumped in an armchair in front of the television.
Eyes stinging, I turned back to the job I’d begun two hours ago. At least the wardrobe was empty now, apart from Dad’s few clothes. They looked lonely, taking up barely any space.
As I went to close the door, my eye was drawn to a shoebox I’d missed on the floor of the wardrobe, at the back. I bent to retrieve it, impatiently pushing my hair back, and carried it to the bed. I sat on the floral duvet, wondering whether Mum had kept her wedding shoes in the box. It was a nice cream one, with a silver band around it, and a picture on the side of some strappy, open-toed shoes in her size.
Hoping for a glimpse of a younger mother on her wedding day, I removed the lid and peered inside, hit by a musty smell. There weren’t any shoes, but my initial disappointment gave way to an unexpected burst of excitement as I delved inside and drew out a faded Polaroid photograph. It was of Mum, cradling a newborn baby wrapped in a lacy white shawl. She looked different than in other photos I’d seen of her with me when I was a baby. She was wide-eyed, her black hair a wild mass of tangled curls around her heart-shaped face. I couldn’t make out what she was wearing. It looked like a nightdress, and she was sitting on a bed that could have been anywhere.
Why wasn’t the photo in the album with all the others? Why shove it in a shoebox? I flipped the photo over and read the words scrawled on the back in blue ink.
Colleen.
My heart gave a thud.
Colleen?
So, the baby wasn’t me.
I looked closer, but there were no discerning features, apart from a swirl of fair hair. Could it be Aunt Tess’s baby, Mum’s niece? But her name was Rosa, after their mother.
I plucked out a tiny wristband, almost identical to the one I’d kept after leaving hospital with Maisie. Only this one had Colleen Brody written on it, along with a date of birth: five years before I was born.
I felt as if someone had squeezed all the breath out of my lungs.
A vision of Mum, just before she died, swam into my head. She’d started apologising to Dad and me, her eyes cloudy from the morphine. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she kept saying, clutching at our hands, blinking too much, as if she was trying to bring us into focus. ‘I should have fought harder. I’m so sorry. Forgive me, please forgive me.’ We’d assumed she was talking about the cancer that had fatally spread.
‘Oh my God.’ Forcing myself to breathe, I dug out a square, dog-eared envelope addressed to Anna Harrison. Mum’s maiden name. The address on the front was my grandparents’ house in Hampshire, where she’d grown up.
The letter was crumpled, and soft with use, and the writing was tiny and sloping – almost impossible to decipher. The word Reagan leapt out. A man’s name. Irish? My eyes jumped to the address at the top of the page. Cork, Ireland. Underneath, were the words:
Anna, I thought you should have Celia’s new address. She doesn’t want any contact right now, but might change her mind. We did the right thing, you know. She’ll have a good home with a mother who loves her. I’ve been abroad more or less since you left and will be returning to America at the weekend. Hope all’s well and that you’re on your way to becoming a famous artist! Reagan. PS: The baby’s well.
The words slammed into me like a punch. I stood up, my thoughts simmering and darting, and finally grasped the only possible conclusion – the one I’d suspected the second I saw the picture of a mum I barely recognised, holding a baby that wasn’t me.
‘Ella, what is it?’ Greg manifested in front of me, coffee slopping out of the mug he was holding onto the cream carpet. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ I managed, knowing how crazy I must look, standing there clutching a wristband and a letter in one hand, and waving a photograph with the other. ‘Oh, Greg,’ I spluttered, laughing and crying at the same time. ‘You’ll never guess what.’
His look of bemusement