Recognition
A Short Story by Jeannie van Rompaey
Smashwords Edition
Copyright Jeannie van Rompaey 2012
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Sharon says there’s no way she’s coming with me. ‘It’s something you’ve got to do on your own, Mum.’
‘I don’t feel like going alone.’
‘Then don’t go. Ring her up. Cancel. It’s that simple.’
It’s not simple at all. I can no more lift that phone and tell her I’ve changed my mind than jump out of a plane without a bloody parachute.
Sharon is packing all her hairdressing paraphernalia away in a huge shoulder-bag. She’s just given me the works - colour, wash and blow-dry. The smell of hairspray hangs in the air, mixed with a whiff of the tomato soup I heated up for her. Couldn’t have her going off to her next client with an empty belly.
I grab the economy size bottle of toilet-water from the top of the fridge and squirt it all over me. Can’t risk smelling bad.
‘Do I look OK?’ I ask her.
‘I should bloody well hope so after all my efforts. Who do you think you’re going to meet anyway? The bloody queen?’
That’s the thing. I haven’t a clue who I’m going to meet. ‘She sounded a bit posh on the phone. She might not like me.’
‘Stop running yourself down, Mum. What’s not to like? Got your list of questions to ask her? And tissues in case you start blubbering? Look at it this way. It’s a day out. You’re going to the West End for a change. Better than East Ham. Better than cleaning other people’s houses like what you do every other bloody day. Enjoy!’ and she’s off, her hairdressing kit slung over her shoulder.
I grin at myself in the kitchen mirror and put on a bit more mascara. I blink and it smudges, leaving black blobs under my eyes. Shit. Where are those bloody tissues when I need them? Sharon said my hair needed a bit of volume and back-combed it like crazy. It sticks up on each side of my face. I look like a frightened baboon.
I take a deep breath, sit myself down at the table and pour myself another drop of gin. Dutch courage.
Ever since that phone call, it’s been doing my head in, thinking about this moment. She says her name is Thea, short for Theodora, and that it means a gift from God. The gift bit’s right, but God didn’t give her away. I did. The day she was born. And now, nearly thirty years later, she wants to meet me. She calls me her biological mother. I can’t help wondering what other sort of mother there could be.
Mum said it would ruin my life if I kept the baby, me being only fifteen and all. Straight after she was born, they took it away. Said it was better I didn’t hold it, that I might become too fond….
I take a gulp of the gin. They took her away, they said, so that more suitable people could look after her. Were they more suitable, those other parents? If so, why would she want to meet me? She said she’s spent a lot of time and money trying to find me. I hope she’ll think I’m worth it.
I knock back the rest of the gin, throw on the striped poncho, bought at the market last Saturday, and take one last peek in the mirror. Lovely. The red stripes almost match my hair.
We’re meeting at a posh café off James Street. Her choice. A pub would be better, but she said they do a good lunch and she’s paying. So I didn’t argue.
On the tube, I squeeze myself in between a foreign girl and a man in a suit. They stare straight ahead, lost in a world of their own, like zombies.
I try to think of the questions she’ll ask. She’ll want to know about her dad. There were two or three blokes it could have been. Shit, I can’t tell her that. It might have been that Steve. He was nice. Tall, dark, with a smile to die for. I’ll tell her it was Steve and that he were killed in a motorbike accident - just in case she takes it in her head to try and find him.
She’s sure to ask what she was like as a baby. Truth is, I don’t think I saw her. There might have been a moment when they lifted her up, a red-faced little ball of anger, tiny legs splayed out, the cord trailing from the belly, but I don’t know if that was her or Sharon. Most likely Sharon. She was born angry. I muddle up the two births. Shit, I can’t tell her that either. I’ll tell her she was a beautiful baby and that it broke my heart to give her up.
That last part is true anyhow. After they took her away, I became a zombie, just like them two people either side of me here on the tube. Just sat all day staring into space. Couldn’t speak, couldn’t eat, couldn’t go out. It was grief. That’s what it was. I knew you wasn’t dead, but you was dead to me. Gone. Out of my life for ever. Or so I thought. Until that phone call….
They let me keep our Sharon. Couldn’t have me down in the dumps again, my Mum said. The year after Sharon was born, I had to get rid of one but something went wrong and I couldn’t have no more. Pity. I love kids. Sharon doesn’t want none. Says there’s too many of the little buggers in the world already.
Out of the corner of my eye I see the sign. Bond Street. Shit, I nearly went past it, nearly forgot to get off. I heave myself on to my feet, push past the strap-hangers and make it out just before the doors close. Up the escalator I go and into James Street on the trot. A bit further on, I spot the café where she said to meet.
I pull up short. People skirt around me, more important things on their minds than to wonder why this fat lump has come to a standstill in the middle of the pavement.
What I’m thinking is this. Better to have missed the stop, better to have stayed on the tube, better not to have come at all. What the bloody hell am I doing here? I must be mental. How can I expect her to take to the likes of me?
********
I’m early. I sit at a table outside and order a cappuccino. I have good memories of this place. I used to come here quite often before I had Charlotte. I’d like a cream cake, but know how important first impressions are. I look round. Lots of young people. Nobody old enough to be my mother.
She sounded nervous on the phone. I’m nervous too. I wonder what exactly I hope to gain from this meeting. At the very least, some sort of closure: face to face with the woman who gave me life. At the most, a miracle: to be able to connect with her, to feel I’ve come home.
The first day of Charlotte’s life: I held her in my arms, looked down at her tiny face and caught sight of a little movement of exasperation, the suggestion of a frown. My exasperation. My frown. A moment of recognition. This was my baby, with my genes, my blood. A terrifying, but exhilarating thought. I suppose what I was feeling was the weight and the joy of being a mother. I thought of my own mother and was filled with a sudden rage. How could any woman abandon the baby she had carried for nine months, given birth to and held in her arms? It was at that moment I determined to track her down and ask her that question.
My coffee is cold. I order a large glass of red wine. The waitress brings it quickly. There’s no curiosity in her automatic smile. In London there are lots of lone people waiting for someone to join them, for someone who might or might not come. I roll the wine round my glass. It glistens in the sunlight like blood.
I think of the only parents I have ever known: Irene and Philip Mitchell. They live in a semi-detached house in Kingston, where every ornament has its place and every word examined for its propriety. Irene never deviates from her daily routine. The washing machine is on first thing every morning, beds made, floors swept, all surfaces wiped down and polished, kitchen and bathrooms disinfected. Windows and mirrors are forced to sparkle with an almost heavenly glow. Philip, a dapper little man with a precisely trimmed moustache, is her ideal husband. Every Saturday morning he washes and polishes the car and mows the lawn in his second best suit. He doesn’t possess any casual clothes. Irene doesn’t believe in them. Banished to his own bathroom, Philip spares Irene any knowledge of his bodily functions. Their bedroom has twin beds.
Into this spotless home I tumbled, with my tangled hair, my big-boned, cumbersome body and loud mouth. My adoptive parents did their best to mould me into their idea of a perfect daughter, while I tried to figure out how best to please them. I was programmed to disappoint them. Irene insisted that I ate the minimum of fatty foods, but I continued to grow. Not just upwards, but outwards. Irene considered my ever-increasing bulk a personal insult to her mothering skills.
They sat me down and presented me with a jigsaw on a tray. A country scene with lots of grass and sky. How I longed to be in that field. Or, if I had to be indoors, to play computer games like other children did; but Irene didn’t approve of computers. No. I had to make do with an old-fashioned jigsaw. I frowned in concentration as I sorted through the pieces and slotted each one into its proper place. I was desperate to complete the picture because it meant so much to them. Only one more piece, but no matter how I turned and twisted it, it would not fit in. It must have been an escapee from another jigsaw. I told Irene there was a bit missing. She looked puzzled. Things did not go missing in her house.
I put my hand in my jacket pocket and clutch the little piece of jigsaw that I’ve kept all these years. It's never found its rightful place.
Another glass of wine arrives, but not my mother. I watch the shoppers pass, with bags from Selfridges. My hands shake as I lift the glass and take another mouthful. Perhaps she’s not coming.
Looking towards Oxford Street, I see a strange phenomenon. A solid, over-sized scarecrow, decked out in a striped poncho, is lodged in the middle of the pavement. The gaudy colours flutter in the breeze. Purple, green, red. It takes me a moment or two for me to realise that the scarecrow is a person. The poncho flaps and quivers, but the woman herself seems glued to the spot. People rush past her with scarcely a glance. I have a vague idea that I should do something to help her.
I run my fingers round the rim of the glass.
Without Irene and Philip I wouldn’t be the educated, independent person I am today. I’m grateful to them for that. They were so proud of me when I got my teaching certificate and my first teaching post. ‘It's made it all worth while,’ Irene said.
After the initial shock of learning that the daughter they had brought up so strictly was to become an unmarried mother, they accepted the situation remarkably well. When I visit them now, they offer me a too sweet sherry in one of their best glasses. I force myself to drink it and place the glass carefully on the coaster provided, still keen to please. If Charlotte comes with me, I keep her amused with a colouring book and make sure she is quiet and well-behaved. We never stay long, not wanting to overstay our welcome. Besides we're both happier in the chaos of our own home.
I glance at my watch. Two middle-aged women sit down at a table near mine. I study their faces, looking for a familiar feature. One of them smiles at me. I smile back, but she looks away and continues chatting to her friend. It’s not my mother. Just one woman acknowledging the presence of another.
Down the street, the woman in the poncho is on the move. She takes a few steps forward. Her hair sticks up, as if she’s had a shock. She veers to the right, to the left, stops again as if to get her balance, and, with a determined effort, sets off again. The poncho seems to have a life of its own. It rides up and inflates itself in a blaze of colour. As she comes nearer, I see black-streaked tears running down her cheeks. Her mouth, somehow at odds with the tears, is fixed in a broad grin. Huge arms reach out from under the poncho and open wide.
It takes me a moment or two to realise that she’s making straight for me and is about to enfold me in a mammoth embrace.
I do not recognise her but, there is no doubt about it, she has recognised me.
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