MOTHERS

The last time I saw my mum was just before I was adopted for the first time. I was six. Hayley and I were taken to visit her in this little office in Children’s Services. There was a desk with someone else’s family photos on it, and low chairs to sit on. Our social worker was there too. It wasn’t Carole; it was an old one. I’ve forgotten her name.

I don’t remember very much about the meeting, except it was weird. Hayley and I got shy and didn’t know what to say, and I think my mum got shy too. She gave us presents, I remember that. Hayley got a pink fairy doll’s house, and I got a stupid plastic doll with ringlets. I remember being jealous of Hayley, because her present was so much better, and also a bit suspicious of my doll, because my mum had never given me a present before. Hayley got presents sometimes, but I never did. So I remembered wondering if my doll was really from my mum, or from someone else, and if this person who looked like my mum really was her, or if maybe the doll was a trap. Like, if I didn’t like it, I’d get told off for being ungrateful, and if I liked it, it would get taken off me next time I was bad, or my mum would tell me it was just a joke and the doll wasn’t mine after all. Then she’d give it to Hayley and hit me for playing with Hayley’s toys. So I didn’t know what to do with it and I remember sort of keeping one hand on the box, but not opening it, thinking that that might sort of count as liking and not liking it. Nothing bad happened to me, though. My mum was more interested in playing with Hayley. After she’d given me the doll, she pretty much ignored me.

Mothers are supposed to love you for ever. They’re supposed to look after you, and help you out when you’re in trouble, but my mother wasn’t like that. She was supposed to stay in touch with us after we got adopted, to send us letters and photographs, but she never did. After that meeting, she just disappeared.

I never stopped thinking about her, though. I never stopped wondering where she was, and if she was all right. I know she was a grown-up, but when I lived with her she often wasn’t all right. Often we didn’t have enough to eat, or enough money to pay the electricity people to keep us warm. Sometimes, when she’d drunk too much, she’d get sick. Even after six years, I still felt guilty for having a warm bed and enough to eat, when maybe she didn’t. If I’d known where she lived, I’d have sent her money. If I had any money.

I wondered if she missed me. Perhaps, after she’d gone away, she’d realized that she’d made a mistake and she loved me after all. I wondered if she was sad, all on her own, or if she had other kids now, if I had little brothers and sisters somewhere, and if she loved them. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t got in touch with Social Services, so her new kids wouldn’t get taken off her. Or perhaps she was dead. I hoped she wasn’t dead.

Sometimes, when I was in Bristol, at the swimming baths, or the pantomime, or anywhere with lots of people, I’d start thinking, What if my mum’s here? I’d look at the faces of all the women, trying to see if one of them was her. I’d imagine what would happen if she saw me. Would she be happy? Sad? Sometimes I imagined that she’d give me a big hug and tell me she loved me. Sometimes she’d start shouting at me and calling me evil and telling me she wished I was dead. Sometimes she grabbed me and tried to steal me away. Those were the most frightening imaginings. I still looked for her, though. And all the time I was looking, I still hoped I’d find her.