On a cold, frosty morning, more than six months before their impromptu end of year picnic, Renée knocked gently and, hearing no answer, slowly opened the door to Juliette’s room. Her eyes took a while to adjust to the half-light, but soon she could make out the melee of clothes and papers and textbooks strewn on the floor, like the wind had got to them, and the lump in the single bed, one cold-looking foot protruding from the pink gingham duvet.
‘Oh, you are there,’ she said. ‘I thought you might have stayed at Stephen’s last night.’
‘No, he tried to get me to,’ said Juliette, turning over and yawning. ‘But I need to do an essay today, so I wanted to get back.’
‘Why didn’t he come too?’ asked Renée. ‘After all, you two are officially joined at the hip these days.’
Juliette looked uncertain for a second, unsure whether Renée was joking or not. It was still only halfway through the first term and she hadn’t quite worked out Renée’s sense of humour. ‘Oh, you know,’ she said, stretching her arms above her head. ‘I hate sleeping in a single bed with him, he’s such a lump, so I sent him home.’
‘Oh, well done,’ said Renée, and she smiled to show she was being kind rather than sarcastic, she knew she could sometimes come across the wrong way.
‘And anyway,’ continued Juliette. ‘I thought it would be nice to spend some time with my flatmates. I feel like we hardly get to see each other any more.’
‘Well, and whose fault is that?’ said Renée, and this time it did come out more harshly than she’d intended: Juliette had the right to have a boyfriend, even if she did lack quality control in picking them. Renée changed the subject.
‘Are you going to the Economics seminar this morning?’ she said. ‘Can I borrow your notes? I’m not going, I need to finish my sodding Psychology assignment.’
‘Sure,’ said Juliette. ‘Although I don’t know why I bother, I never understand a word of it. I don’t think maths is in my genes.’ She stopped and looked lost suddenly, as if she’d forgotten something important. Renée spotted an opening. She sat gingerly on the end of Juliette’s bed and hitched up her black bustier, which Juliette secretly thought was an odd wardrobe choice for a freezing Tuesday morning. Renée picked at her heavy bead necklaces with her black-painted fingernails.
‘Listen, I saw this thing in the Guardian yesterday, there was this article about how to track down your birth mother. I think it’s quite easy.’
‘Renée, please, I told you before, I don’t want to,’ said Juliette. She shifted in the bed and sat up against the pillows, resting her head awkwardly on the bare wall behind. Renée went to speak again but Juliette stopped her. Sometimes she wished she’d never even told Renée that she was adopted. Renée seemed quite obsessed by it somehow, unable to believe that Juliette showed so little interest in the identity of her birth mother. ‘Why should I?’ Juliette had said, on more than one occasion. ‘She obviously didn’t want me, so why bother trying to find out who she was?’ Renée had told Juliette not to be so hard on herself, she didn’t know that her mother hadn’t wanted her, there were all sorts of reasons women had their babies adopted – and anyway, Renée had thought, it was less of an insult to be given up at birth, before her mother had got to know her, than to be left at four years old for a lover in Paris. Now that was a rejection if ever there was one, not that Renée ever voiced the comparison of course.
‘But it might really help you, Juliette,’ Renée said now.
‘Help me with what? Honestly, I’m fine as I am. Please, Renée, she’s my mother, not yours.’
‘Sorry,’ said Renée. Her face flushed a little.
‘I’ll decide if and when I’m ready, thank you very much,’ said Juliette, but she sounded softer now, as if she knew Renée meant well. ‘Look, I know you think there’s one, but I don’t feel like there’s a gap in my life. In fact my life feels quite full enough right now without anyone else getting involved in it.’ She swung her legs out of bed and they were blue-mottled, like a baby’s. Her pink-eared rabbit lay forlornly on the pillow, abandoned. She stood up and tugged at her T-shirt, which had a cartoon dog on its front, pulling it down over her bottom (sending the dog upwards), and then she bent right the way over and shook her hair, so dust and dandruff flew up and danced in the sunshine drenching through the thin curtains.
‘Ugh, I need a cup of tea,’ she said.
‘I’ll make one,’ said Renée, and she fled to the kitchen, which even by student standards was a bit of a dump, especially for the likes of Camilla.
Alone in her room, Juliette moved through one hundred and eighty degrees to stand up straight, and behind the shimmering auburn curls there were fat sparkling tears forming at the very edges of her eyes – although of course they were gone by the time her friend returned.
‘D’you ever wonder what she’s like?’ asked Renée. It was a week or so later and she was lying curled up at the bottom of Juliette’s bed, as had become her wont, the edge of the duvet folded over her feet against the winter cold. Juliette was still in the bed, even though it was nearly midday and she should have been at a Psychology lecture, and she was propped up against the wall with a mug of sweet milky tea under her chin. A deluge of clothes lay flung across the floor, and it was impossible to tell whether they were clean – just tried on and carelessly rejected – or actually in need of washing.
‘Yes, sometimes, I suppose,’ said Juliette. She seemed in a more reflective mood than usual, happy to talk about it for a change. ‘It’s just very weird, knowing that there’s someone out there who gave birth to me and then …’ She stopped.
Renée couldn’t help herself. ‘Have you thought any more about tracking her down?’
‘Oh, no, what would my mum and dad say? I’m sure they’d think of it as some kind of betrayal.’
‘I’m sure they wouldn’t,’ said Renée. She thought again of her own mother then, who’d done the same thing in effect, had relinquished her too, although it had taken her a few more years to do it. Maybe that’s why she and Juliette were so close – they both had ‘abandonment issues’, and it was weird how that had never occurred to her before. They were similar in so many ways, it was uncanny.
‘What do you think she looks like?’
‘How would I know?’ said Juliette, but she didn’t say it crossly as such, more as a matter of fact, which Renée took as encouragement.
‘She must have been beautiful,’ she said. ‘Look at that hair she’s given you.’
‘Shush,’ said Juliette. ‘I hate my hair.’ And she did, although she had tumbling corkscrew curls the colour of ginger biscuits that people always stared at, because combined with her dark lashes and deep-green eyes she was just so unimaginably stunning.
‘Maybe she was a film star,’ Renée continued. ‘Maybe she was Chantelle Dauphin, she’s about the right age. Yes, you look just like her. Maybe she was over here filming when you were conceived, and then she thought she’d have you adopted by an English couple.’
‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Juliette, and although she tried to smile Renée knew she’d gone too far now. She shifted a little on the narrow bed, away from Juliette’s foot, which had been poking her in the ribs, and as her head hit the wall the pain was concrete, unpleasant.
‘Why don’t you at least think about it, Juliette,’ she said gently. ‘I’m sure it would do you some good – maybe it’s the not knowing that upsets you …’ Juliette didn’t answer, but Renée saw a spark of acknowledgement in her friend’s eyes. ‘And I’d be happy to help you if you liked – it’d be far easier than doing it on your own.’
‘I don’t know, Renée, I’ll have to consider it,’ said Juliette. ‘And even if I did do it – which I’m ninety-nine per cent certain I won’t by the way! – even then I’d only do so if you agreed to us going to Paris next summer.’ She paused, and her own tone became softer. ‘Surely it would be good for you to see her, Renée, she is your mother after all.’ Renée almost recoiled from the word. ‘And … and we could go shopping,’ Juliette continued, flustered. ‘Drink cafés au lait, hang out in the Louvre, chatting up French boys – just so we could practise our French, of course. It would be amazing.’
Renée’s face hardened under her bleach-tinged fringe, which Juliette secretly thought looked odd against the black of the rest of her hair. She’d preferred it when it was all one colour.
‘We’ll see,’ said Renée. ‘But I’ve told you what she’s like – even if she did offer to put us up she’d probably charge us for breakfast.’
‘Well, please will you think about it?’ said Juliette. ‘We wanted to go inter-railing anyway, it would be mad not to start in Paris, and it might even go better with your mother than you think.’
‘I don’t know about that – you haven’t met my mother,’ said Renée, and her tone wasn’t quite as jokey as she intended.
‘I haven’t even met my own,’ her friend replied, and Renée wasn’t sure how to respond to that, Juliette had seemed so vulnerable before – but then Juliette started to giggle, and as she did so she slopped her tea onto the duvet and kicked her feet in mock-rage, sending Renée sprawling off the single bed, onto the blue-striped nylon carpet.