Cath Staincliffe - Trio

‘We have six hundred…’

‘You failed him!’ Her voice rose and she pointed at the man. ‘And it’s a bloody disgrace.’

She walked to the door, trembling all over. She could feel a sheen of sweat on her forehead.

Mr Brookes cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry you feel…’ His tone was languid, cool, he chose his words with care.

‘Oh, don’t bother! Save your breath.’

She walked out.

Brendan followed her, his eyes flicking to her and away several times as if he was worried she might start in on him next.

In the car she put her head in her hands. ‘It’s like waiting for an accident to happen. Like those dreams you have where the brakes don’t work or the steering wheel comes off in your hands. It’s driving me up the wall, Brendan. If I only knew why he was like that, what makes him so unhappy he’s got to get into all this bother. The next time he’s caught it’s a detention centre and that’ll just make it worse – schools for crime, they are.’

‘Megan, you said in there, we’ve done our best. And we have. We haven’t slung him out or let him down, have we?

She shook her head, pressed her lips together as her eyes smarted.

‘But it’s not enough,’ she whispered. ‘Why couldn’t we make him happy?’

‘Come here.’ He put his arm round her, pulled her closer. ‘It’ll be all right.’

Oh, Brendan, she thought, no, it won’t.

Nina

She had no idea how to go about tracing her mother. She went to Didsbury library and looked for books. There were two on adoption; she flicked through them quickly; there were lots of different people’s stories about what had happened to them. She didn’t want to read all that, just find out how to get started. At the back of one she found a list of places and she copied them down but she didn’t understand how it all fitted together.

Maybe she could try Central Library, they should have more books and maybe something directly about how to trace someone. She hadn’t been to Central Library for yonks. She’d joined once when her art teacher had got on to them all to use it for a project on the cubists and the impressionists. She still had her tickets.

She told Marjorie she was going to town.

‘Take this -’ Marjorie opened her purse – ‘in case you see something you like.’

‘Thanks.’ She felt awkward. If Marjorie had any inkling of where she was really going… The thought made her stomach clutch, a cold, rolling feeling as though the tide had come in. But if she refused the money how could she explain? She nodded and pushed the money into the back pocket of her jeans.

The library sat on the corner of Oxford Road and Mosely Street. A circular building, white stone with a domed roof and columns that made her think of postcards from foreign holidays. She went up in the cramped lift to the social sciences section. There were several books on adoption. She skimmed through and selected a handful and took them to a table to look at. She had brought pen and paper with her. Some of them used charts and tables to show the paths you could try to find someone – there were lots of different possibilities, but finding out if your birth mother was married was important because the name would change. Was she married? Had she had any more children? She felt dizzy when she tried to imagine that. She shut the book and opened another. It talked mainly about the need for counselling at every stage and said that counselling was mandatory for getting records. There were other places you could try too, like electoral rolls if you knew where they lived. One paragraph said the mother sometimes sent a note to the agency so if the child came looking they could find her. Imagine that.

She made notes but it all seemed to be a tangle and there were places that sounded the same but had different addresses so she wrote both down. By the time she had finished she felt overwhelmed. She put the books back and got the lift down to the cafe for a drink and a smoke.

The cafe was so gloomy, a real dive. She wondered whether they made it look like that on purpose so people wouldn’t use it much. There weren’t that many seats and the staff acted like they’d rather slit your throats than serve you drinks.

She smoked hungrily and washed away the parched feeling with swigs of coffee. She was just finishing when Tracy Metcalfe, who’d been in her class at school, swam into view.

‘Hiya, Nina. Fancy seeing you here. What you doing?’

Nina held herself still. Tracy had a gob like the Mersey Tunnel and was reputed to have done it when she was just thirteen. Tracy was a greaser with an eye for weaklings. Nina was no pushover but you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Tracy Metcalfe. And what the hell was she doing at Central Library?

‘Having a ciggie. What about you?’ Nina tried to erase any sign of panic from her eyes.

‘That’d be telling!’ Tracy winked, swung her leather shopper off her arm.

Nina grinned.

Tracy sat down.

‘I’ve got to get my bus,’ Nina said.

Tracy nodded. She rooted in her bag for Number Six and Zippo lighter. ‘Tara!’ She clicked the lighter and sucked hard, flung her throat back in a gesture of pleasure.

Nina fled.

Back home she went slowly upstairs and put her notes in among her art folder. She was confident no one would rummage through that. Her mother was hoovering the dining room. Nina put the kettle on. Stephen came in the back door, saw the gas was on.

‘Make me one.’

‘Make your own,’ she said.

‘Nina.’

‘Well, when did you last make some?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘Not for me you didn’t.’

‘You are so childish.’

‘Fuck off!’ she said. And saw his shock. He never swore. He looked at her but he didn’t even look mad just sorry for her or something. He shook his head and walked out. Making allowances.

She hated that. Hated him. She didn’t need his fucking pity. She stood there, her arms locked across her body, her back rigid with tension. She’d show him, she’d show them all. Her real family, they’d be different. They wouldn’t pity her or feel disappointed in her. They’d understand. Well, it would probably just be her real mother but they’d be able to talk to each other. She’d be accepted for what she was, not what she was expected to be in someone’s boring little mind.

The kettle began to whistle and she turned off the gas. Her mother came in rolling the hoover. ‘I’d love a cuppa, Nina.’ She pushed the pantry door open and put the hoover away.

Nina poured water into the pot and swilled it round, went to open the caddy.

‘How was town? Did you get anything?’

‘No.’ her skin prickled and her breath caught in her throat. ‘No, I didn’t see anything.’

The following day she tried to make sense of the notes but she wasn’t sure which place to start with.

‘Ring Social Services,’ Chloe said when she told her. ‘They’ll know.’

She found the number in the phone book but it was another two days before she got the house to herself and a chance to use the phone. It was engaged at first, then she got passed on to a different department.

At last she spoke to someone who could deal with her. The woman asked her if she had her original birth certificate.

‘No.’ Mum and Dad might have it but she couldn’t ask them.

‘Do you know what your name at birth was?’

‘Yes.’ Claire Driscoll.

‘Good. If you know your name you can buy a copy of your original birth certificate. I’ll tell you where to write. When you’ve done that it will give you information about your birth mother and where she was living when you were born. Then, if you wish to, you can apply to see your adoption records – they are usually kept by the agency who arranged the adoption. But those aren’t automatically handed over, you have to see a social worker before you get them. We make sure everyone has that basic counselling before they have access to their records. A lot of people find it very helpful.