24

Ewan had stared into space, chain-smoked five Marlboros and drunk three cans of Carlsberg since Sally had left. In the haze of slight inebriation he envisaged her silhouette still sitting opposite him. Gentle, quietly spoken, unhurried. A perfect nurse. The ministering angel at Marina’s death, and whose hands had been the last to touch the living body of his love. He could think of nothing but those long-fingered, lightly freckled, ringless hands. He felt them resting with cool Madonna-like tenderness on his brow in a pathetic attempt to absorb the spirit of Marina’s departing life. How his heart ached, how numb his spirit, how grateful he’d be for the oblivion of hemlock. He lifted his phone.

‘Liza, I apologise for the lateness of the hour. Is Jacob asleep?’

‘Yes. He had a morphine shot about an hour ago.’

‘How’s he been today?’

‘Not good. Distressed. Rambling. He’s been terribly affected by your sister’s death. I’m so sorry, too. I had no idea you had a sister or that she was ill.’

‘Thank you for your kindness. Should he wake, tell him I love him. I’ll pray you both have an undisturbed night.’

‘It’s all too rare these days.’

‘I’ll speak to you again tomorrow. Goodnight, Liza.’

He climbed the stairs wearily and undressed, reprising Marina’s sweet epitaph that Sally had quoted. ‘She had loved and she had been loved in return.’ Where had he heard that before? His tired mind told him it was something to do with Lolita, or was it someone called Annabel Lee? It was now well past midnight and he was too tired for any more thought. Neither had he the desire to even pretend to pray. He slipped quickly into bed, easing his naked body onto the cotton sheet and pulling the duvet up around his shoulders. He always felt the cold when he got into bed and he shivered for several seconds. ‘Warm me, warm me,’ he’d cried, and she’d thrown her legs around him and gathered him in her arms, and within seconds the air between them was moving and blowing warm like a hairdryer.

He lay flat on his back and placed the palm of his right hand over his penis. It was shrivelled, ice-cold and paralysed. Flamed by their passion it had quickly leapt, but it wasn’t only powerful lovemaking she’d given him. It was the whole wrapped-round experience of being in love. The acrobatics were just a journey to pleasure, but love was the unquantified emotion that superseded bodily craving. Love was something that dyed his soul gold. Not the hard, monetary metal of gold, but the yellow, shining aura she radiated into him. To live again their holidays spent at Jacob’s villa on Capri, high up on a rock face that overlooked a sheer drop of craggy grey cliffs and the dark blue Mediterranean. Two weeks a year filled with long, slow, hand-clasped walks, of stopping every ten paces to kiss her under her large straw hat. Shopping with lazy, time-wasting ease to buy bread, olives, tomatoes, cheese, pasta and local red wine. The evenings spent in dreamy companionship on a garden swing under the stars, while cicadas chirped and the air wafted the scent of lemons and ripe grapes. The nights spent making love to exhaustion and hearing the low hum of her sleeping body.

But then he remembered the rare frustrations of her character that she had no more control over than the weather. From wild flirtatiousness to aggressive, business-like debate that bordered on the quarrelsome. From helpless laughter when watching One Foot in the Grave to painful, purse-lipped sadness. From selfish, demanding passion to the rare bewildering occasions when her emotions were frozen and her body stiffly rejected him. He wanted to overturn the rules, to skip the painful years of his own journeying and reprise the glory of their love affair, but that was deception. The rules remained.

September 1982

Ewan, at twenty-two years old, was still a dedicated priest-in-training and had never wavered from his calling. He rarely mixed with his fellow seminarians and had made no close friends, but he didn’t see this as a failing. He was exactly the person he set out to be; a devoted disciple of God using His goodness as a therapeutic tool to salve the misery of his fellow man, and forgive the sins of the world.

His mother remained in the care of The Sisters of The Rosary, and although she was only in her early fifties, was growing into a frowning, round-shouldered old age. It was now four years since his father’s death, but she still talked to her beloved husband, muttering vague, rambling soliloquies about what he fancied for his tea or chiding him for some minor misdemeanour. Iggy-Piggy had died of natural causes at the grand old age of fifteen, but her hand still dropped to pat his absent head and to tell him he was a good boy.

The pattern of her life was muddled and incoherent, but she spent long periods of medicated stability knitting, baking, and pottering in the small walled garden, whilst telling any audience (either real or imaginary) that she had lots of tasks to complete, and she had to ‘get on.’ But there were also many serious lapses into the black hole of her condition, when her single topic, delivered in short angry blasts, was for Ewan’s plans ‘to get the buggers.’ The nuns took very little notice, thinking that it was just a feature of the delusion she brought up from time to time.

Every visit Ewan made had its own unique atmosphere. Sometimes she sat with intense concentration, with wild eyes and a manic stare, loudly talking nonsense. Sometimes she stared out of the window, hunched up in silence, muttering gruffly to herself. Mostly she was coherent, but sometimes she affected a strange anomaly, pulling herself into the body of a chair, her chin on her chest and hiding her face behind a pulled up cardigan. Her voice was barely audible, but if Ewan sat up close to her and held her hand, she would talk in a normal and lucid way.

As he entered her bed-sitting room her face was already concealed behind the fine wool of a pink Pringle cashmere. ‘Hello, Mum.’

‘Hello, son. How are you getting on, then?’

Having very little opportunity to talk to her about his life, Ewan launched into an animated description of the current stage in his training. ‘Working hard, Mum. Father Ronald makes sure of that. My ordination’s only a few months away and I’ve got an audience with the Bishop next week. Historic Preservation have nearly finished renovating Waldringhythe, and we’re going to discuss the possibility of my being appointed Chaplain. I’m enjoying my work with the bereaved, and it’s a strange thing to say but I really enjoy it…’

‘You know what I mean, laddie. I don’t need all that day-to-day stuff. What are you doing about Strathburn?’

Her normal Strathburn outbursts were usually delivered with an abstract meandering and appeased by a quick response that she neither listened to nor understood, but this time she was wholly articulate.

‘You must do something, Ewan. The more years that go by, the less chance you’ll have finding folk who’ll remember.’ She suddenly pulled down her cardigan, revealed her face and looked at him with concentration. ‘He died when he was four.’ Ewan, completely unprepared for a direct reference to her dead child, remained silent. ‘He was such a lovely wee boy. Hazel eyes. More like amber. On the day he became ill he’d been to a kiddies party. Jelly and cake and all the things bairns love, so we just thought he’d over-eaten. Then in the night he went a bit sweaty, so we put it down to the flu or some childhood thing that he’d get over in no time. But a couple of days later he went down with a really high fever. The doctor said it was an infection and gave him penicillin, but he just got worse. He couldn’t eat, he was losing weight and his joints ached so much he cried all the time. Then he broke out in bruises and his gums bled, so the doctor sent him into the Children’s Hospital in Auckland. They did tests, and a few days later they said it was the leukaemia. The most vicious type. They tried all sorts of treatment, but he died six weeks later. I killed him, Ewan.’

‘No, Mum. Of course you didn’t kill him. It wasn’t your fault.’

‘Oh, it was. Those evil bastards poisoned me. These people you talk to. The ones who’ve lost loved ones. When you talk to them, remember me and your dad. We never stopped grieving for him. When we got the gift of you, we still had so much love to give and we transferred it all to you, but we never let him leave us. Please help me, son. It’s not revenge I want. It’s too late for that, but we need to find out the truth.’

Ewan took his mother’s hands. ‘I will do something, Mum, I promise, but let’s pray together and ask God for his blessing.’ Holding her hands he intoned a heartfelt prayer. ‘Jesus, my Lord and my God. The time has come for me to try and reveal the secrets of Strathburn. Please can I ask for your help and approval, that everything I do is solely to bring my mother to peace.’

His mother reached out and patted his head. ‘Your real mother, Ewan. We were sure you were taken away against her will. Whatever her sad circumstances were, she had you for just a wee bit longer than I had my laddie. Five years of memories. Somewhere in the world, God willing, she’s still out there, and I bet not a day goes by when she doesn’t think a wee thought about you. Her Patrick. Do you remember her at all?’

‘Like in a dream, Mum. Scenes that never change. Her name was Molly. She was kind and gentle, and fast moving and funny. I can’t remember her face, but she had long silver-blonde hair that tickled my cheeks when she read to me.’

‘Bless her,’ his mother said. ‘Bless her.’ Ewan found himself crying. Not just a smarting of the eyes and sniffing, but streaming tears that fell down his face and dropped off the end of his nose and chin. ‘If you ever wanted to look for her, you have my blessing you know,’ she added, ‘but no one could have loved you more than us. Now, go to the drawer of my bedside cupboard. I’ve got something for you. It’s not much, but it’s the only little bit of your old life that came with you.’

Ewan withdrew an envelope that contained some flimsy, yellowing sheets of paper.

Medical Report on Child Ref: 6543M D.O.B 1/1/60 (Five years, seven months)

I visited male Child 6543M at St Pius’s Children’s Home on 28 June 1965 in my role as medical officer to the Catholic Children’s Society (Crusade of Rescue).

He is purported to be of Irish-Albanian extraction. He has straight dark hair, is pale-skinned and blue-eyed. Despite the affliction of a unilateral cheiloschisis, he is an extremely attractive child. A cheilostomaplasty was undertaken at the London Clinic at the age of three months by Mr Joseph Taylor, the eminent reconstructive surgeon. The top lip shows a neat, diagonal LH scar, and although there remains an inevitable split to the lip line, the cosmetic result is (as expected) excellent. He is able to eat and breathe normally, his naso-passages are clear and all his milk teeth are present. His voice has a slightly nasal sound, but this should improve with maturity. He has a minor speech problem with pronouncing the letters P and W, but this too will probably improve in time as his jaw grows. Please advise his adoptive parents that he should be seen on a regular basis by a maxo-facial surgeon, an otolaryngologist and an audiologist, as he may need further corrections or specialist dentistry.

Otherwise, his limbs, body and genitalia are all of normal appearance, and he has attained a height consistent with his age. He is a little underweight, but despite this, he presents as strong and healthy. Tonsils and adenoids are not enlarged and his hearing test was normal. Heart and lung functions are sound, and he has no problems with either bowels or bladder. I’m informed there has been no bedwetting, but he has had the odd bad dream. His skin is clear of all dermatological rashes and parasites, as is his hair. He has been fully immunised against diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and poliomyelitis. A Heaf TB test has been done (Negative). He wears spectacles due to a degree of myopia, and I have arranged a formal eye test with an optician to ensure his lenses are correct. Medical notes, sent on from his former GP, state that his attendances at the surgery have been minimal, and only for the usual childhood ailments of fever and upper respiratory viruses. I’m pleased to report that he has no medical conditions that require treatment and I pronounce him to have a clean bill of health.

I’m very impressed with this child. He presented as an extremely polite little boy and seemed well adjusted, despite his previous and current circumstances. He responded very intelligently to my questions and has an excellent vocabulary. His IQ test was subsequently found to be extremely high, corresponding with that of a child of seven years and four months. The Mother Superior tells me he already reads very well and even chooses storybooks in the 7–9 age range. His only negative points are that he seems to have had no experience with organised games or physical activities, and is shy with his peers. Bearing in mind all of the above, I see no reason for him to have a formal psychological assessment. I’m positive he will be an ideal and rewarding child when placed in better circumstances, and I would even recommend that he be placed in an academic environment.

Dr William Randon

MB ChB (Cambridge 1950) MRCGP

After reading the report, Ewan dropped down on his knees to the floor so he could look into his mother’s eyes. ‘Let me give you a hug, Mum. Let me give you my love and Dad’s love and God’s love,’ but as he did so, she stiffened, pulled up her jumper and withdrew into a detached silence.

He returned to his own sparsely furnished room at the Seminary. The single bed was made and the sheets were clean. There were no gaudy posters on the walls and no heaps of clutter. No strewn items of dirty laundry, empty beer cans, half-eaten packets of biscuits or pop music tapes. His study table was stacked with his Bible, prayer books, textbooks, writing pads and a pencil case, with the only personal items displayed being his Madonna and a small framed photograph of his parents with Iggy-Piggy. To anyone else it could have seemed a cage, but on winter evenings a small, hissing gas fire and an Anglepoise lamp created an atmosphere of security. On summer nights, the rays of the sinking sun threw blasts of fiery light onto the walls, filling the room with a comforting warmth. Within this confine, he could honestly say that he was happy.

He sat down to quietly reflect on his strange, rare conversation with his mother. He loved her as his real mother and he thought of her as his real mother, with no feelings of second-best or replacement. His birth mother had also loved him, of that he was quite sure, but what of his father? Had the silver-blonde loved the man, stated as an Albanian, the fish porter that she’d mentioned from time to time? What did he, himself, know of love between a man and a woman? A strange feeling had come over him recently when he’d visited a Falklands widow who, at only twenty-two, was the same age as himself. She sat in pale light, serene and miserable, with a sleeping, flush-faced toddler on her knee; a scene like so many depictions of the Virgin and Child from the brush of Murillo or Botticelli. He’d tried to comfort her with a priestly, theoretical formula, but he suddenly became tongue-tied. He was overcome with a singing in his head, a loud beating of his heart and a pleasure surge in his loins. On leaving her he promised he would come back, but he knew he never would. The sight of her composed face had never left him, and neither had the rush of emotion he felt as he walked away from her small, sparse flat. A feeling that he could scale the top of Big Ben, sing the lead in an opera and dance down the street like Gene Kelly.

It was a romantic notion he had to forget, but he now wanted to think that his real parents were in love and he was created by their love. Whatever the circumstances of his adoption, he knew he wasn’t given away because he wasn’t wanted. He realised now that Molly’s presence in his head had only ever been like scenes from a play, her role like that of a character. Why had he never thought of her as a real person or recognised her emotional part in his life? ‘Somewhere in the world, God willing, she’s still out there, and I bet not a day goes by when she doesn’t think a wee thought about you. Her Patrick.’ His guilt gripped him like a vice and he clasped his hands in prayer again.

‘Dear Heavenly Father. I have asked so much of you already today, but might I ask for your understanding again? I have so many fragmented memories, like pieces of a puzzle that have no hope of fitting together. If I should find the courage to look for my birth mother, please will you support me in my quest and give me the strength to shoulder my findings? ’