Trio - [90]

She stepped away and turned to look in the mirror. It was a nice mirror, oval with a dark frame. She’d take it if Aunt Sally didn’t want it.

She rang her aunt and explained what she was hoping to do. Asked if they would come and see if there was anything they’d like. ‘I’m going to get one of those charities to take most of it, for the homeless or whatever.’

‘Well, I can come tonight.’

‘There’s no rush.’

‘You can stay with us, Pam, we’ve plenty of room.’

‘Thanks, but it feels fine here. I’d like to be here.’

‘Come and have tea with us, then.’

‘Yes. Tomorrow or Wednesday?’

‘Wednesday’s good. Ed has his craft club tomorrow, so we generally have a fish supper.’

‘Right.’ She didn’t quite catch the logic but it didn’t matter. She had heard that Ed’s health wasn’t good, he was becoming very absent-minded, losing track. Sally took him to various clubs for the stimulation – and to give herself a break.

‘So, we could come down in the morning, if you like?’

‘Fine, see you then.’

She rang off. Considered her list. There was a mini-market at the end of the road. They should have most of the stuff she needed and they might have some boxes. She could get something for her tea too.

By the time Aunt Sally and Uncle Ed arrived the following morning Pamela had assembled a pile of objects she wanted to keep in one corner of the lounge. After a little hesitation Sally soon gathered a pile of her own. They offered to help her fill bags and wrap china but she encouraged them to leave. She was more comfortable doing it on her own. She saw them out, promising to be at their house for five the following day.

She went up to her mother’s room. All Lilian’s clothes needed packing up. Pamela would never wear any of them – the patterned jumpers and blouses and skirts were a world away from the power suits she wore to work or the plain cotton leisurewear she wore when sailing or relaxing. She began to fill bin liners. The first armful of jumpers still smelling of her mother’s perfume and cosmetics. She emptied the drawers and then began on the wardrobe. She slipped dresses and suits off hangers and folded them up. Some brought back memories: the silk skirt she had treated her mother to when they went to Paris, the stupid jacket that she had bought in Lisbon and hardly ever worn. Her old camel car-coat, worn round the cuffs but so comfy she had insisted on keeping it. Pamela had once tried to find a replacement but there was nothing exactly that length.

In one of the compartments at the bottom of the wardrobe she found a slim cardboard box, rectangular with a pattern of faded roses on it. She opened it expecting a chiffon scarf or kid-leather gloves. But inside were a batch of papers.

She sat on the edge of the bed, surrounded by half-full bin liners, to examine them. A letter from a Sister Monica wishing them every happiness. She shrugged, her mother had friends connected with the Church but she didn’t know the name. A scrap of paper with Sat – 10.30 – Girl scrawled on it. Her mother’s writing. And a birth certificate belonging to someone called Marion, mother’s name Joan Hawes. The same birthday as hers. She felt a rush of confusion. Had she had a twin? Don’t be stupid, different mothers. Why had Lilian got someone else’s birth certificate? She looked again and as comprehension dawned she felt a wave of confusion and horror. Oh, my God, the truth slapped at her, it’s me!

‘Why didn’t she tell me?’ Pamela, still pale with shock and sick with the upset, demanded of her aunt. She had driven straight round there.

‘I don’t know. I don’t think she ever set out to keep it from you. When you were very small I remember she and Peter talking about explaining to you when you were older. Then, with your father dying.’

Except he wasn’t even my father, she thought bitterly.

‘It must have got harder as time went on,’ Sally said.

‘You knew. Who else?’

‘Just close family.’

‘I can’t believe it!’ Her face stretched with indignation, her indigo eyes glinted. ‘You should have told me, she should have. I’m almost thirty-one years old. Can you imagine what it’s like to suddenly find it’s all been a sham?’

Sally looked worried, her brow creased. She caught her lip between her teeth. ‘She was a mother to you, that wasn’t a sham.’

‘But she let me go through my whole life thinking I was theirs, and I wasn’t.’

‘You were all she wanted. She’d been to hell and back before they got you.’

‘What do you mean?’

Her aunt sighed. ‘She lost three babies, miscarriages. The last was very late on.’

‘Oh, God!’ Pamela put her face in her hands.

‘They said if she fell pregnant again it could kill her.’

‘Tell me about it, everything you can remember, please, all of it.’

Joan

The clinic was crowded and far too hot. Joan craved some fresh air but was worried that if she left she might miss her name being called. There were women of every age, shape, size and colour. All here to see Mr Pickford. She no longer pretended to read the magazine on her lap but rested her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, imagining the bay, the way it looked, not yesterday with a summer blue sky and white caps on the waves, but on a calm November day, a sea fret curling from the water, the gulls arced like nail marks in the sky. Visualisation, they called it in the support group. It was supposed to help in the healing process; a calm place to take yourself. Along with raw food and aromatherapy and the more toxic treatments that Mr Pickford provided. But was she healing, or dying?