slowed my pace. A boy of about five yanked open a battered door hanging by one hinge, and ran out of the yard. He looked from left to right, and then ran leftwards until he was out of sight. I caught my breath, gasped, and stood still. For a moment I hadn’t noticed a second child emerge from the door. But yes, there she was: tiny, elfin; two or perhaps two and a half years old. She stood in the yard doorway looking about her, a finger in her mouth.
‘Wy-yan …?’ she called plaintively.
I guessed the child was calling her brother. Her fair hair was tangled and matted at the back, her face extraordinarily grubby. She wore a stained yellow dress and an equally grimy cardigan, which had once been white. In her hand she held a filthy, one-legged doll by what remained of its hair. I paused and watched her, scarcely breathing. The little girl put the doll on the pavement and squatted down, crooning softly to it. She picked up a paper wrapper from the gutter and smoothed it carefully across her knee. Then she laid it over the doll with great tenderness, muttering something like ‘Dere y’are. Dere y’are, Polly.’
I tiptoed towards the child, holding my breath, longing to linger, but knowing I could not. As I reached her, the child looked up and noticed me. She raised her little face to gaze up at me and give me a startlingly beautiful, radiant smile. I paused and smiled back for a moment, and then, reluctantly forcing myself to turn away, I walked on. My heart was pounding. I had found my Lucy.
I scarcely noticed the journey back to Nottingham. I even forgot to spread my clean handkerchief on the back of the seat behind my head. Somehow I made each connection and boarded the correct trains. Ticket collectors came and went. I must have presented the relevant ticket, though I had no memory of doing so.
One cheery conductor on the Leeds-to-Derby stretch said, ‘Penny for them, duck!’ as he punched my ticket – such a foolish expression. But he shrugged and quickly moved on, disappointed, I suppose, that I had failed to respond in the same spirit. He could have offered me a fortune for them, but I wouldn’t have shared them; my thoughts were all on Lucy. How could such a dreadful place, such a dreadful family, have produced a child of such beauty and perfection? My mind drifted unbidden to my own history.
Could I have been born into just such a slum? Certainly my “birth mother” must have lacked morals. “Unmarried mother”, the adoption agency had written in the sketchy notes Mother had shared with me, when she felt that, at fourteen or so, I was mature enough for such information. Mother had always been open about the adoption. From my earliest memories, I knew I’d been “chosen” and that somehow this made me special. Mother had emphasised that it was unnecessary to share this information about my roots with anyone else. It was just for the two of us. Well, Mother was my real mother in every true sense of the word, wasn’t she?
When thoughts of this “unmarried mother” occasionally surfaced, I shuddered at the image of a slovenly, unkempt woman – such as those I had seen today in abundance on the streets and back lanes of Frainham. I screwed up my eyes tightly and forced myself to concentrate on Mother, neat and decent, her morals intact, and felt I could breathe easily again. Thank goodness I had decided years ago never to attempt to make contact with my birth mother.
Finally, the bus from Derby deposited me and I walked the last half-mile or so home in the dark. As so often happened, sleep did not come easily that night, although I was exhausted, both physically and mentally, from the day. I had had nothing to eat since breakfast, except an egg and cress sandwich hastily bought at Riddlesfield station, of which I could swallow only half. I knew I should eat something when I got home, but the very thought of food was repellent.
I lay back in a soothing hot bath and then fell into bed. My mind spun and my whole being was as tense as a spring with excitement. If it had been possible, I would have returned to that street, that house, the very next day, indeed that very minute. I would have scooped the beautiful child up in my arms and run off with her.
But impulsiveness was not in my nature. I knew it was an impulse that, like so many urges, had to be resisted – and a good thing too. It was vital to concentrate on the longer term. By focusing solely on my immediate longing, the whole future could be jeopardised. Self-control was everything. The final stages were approaching, and that made it all the more important to adhere absolutely to the plan.
* * *
The last day in Nottingham came soon enough. I stood in the chill of the empty house, and spent some minutes listening to the echo of the many years gone by. I checked each room one last time. Here, where we sat comfortably by the fire, Mother with embroidery or knitting on her lap, me with a book, or my stamp album (how I loved those colourful stamps, especially the ones sent by Mother’s friend Maureen from New Zealand, with their bird pictures).
Here, too, where we shared the evening meal together, the table always perfectly laid – not for us a plate on our laps in front of the television. Here my bedroom to which I had loved to retreat during difficult times as a child, for peace and solitude. And here was Mother’s room with its pink carpet and white built-in cupboard. The delicate smell of Mother lingered still, hung softly in the air, like a gentle ghost.
Now was the time for leaving. I locked the front door and went next door to say goodbye to Sylvia Blythe, our elderly neighbour, and leave the key with her for the agents to pick up. I took her two large carrier bags full of the non-perishable remnants from the kitchen cupboards: tins of soup, dried fruit, pots of jam and the like.
‘So kind of you, dear, just like your mother, aren’t you? I can’t believe you won’t be here any more. Not you, nor poor Dorothy.’ Sylvia’s voice broke with a sob. ‘After all these years – oh Alison, I shall miss you terribly.’
‘I’m sure the new neighbours will be nice.’
‘Maybe, but that’s just what they’ll be: new. Dorothy and I were friends for nearly fifty years – fifty years, Alison!’
Tears wound a crooked path down Sylvia’s wrinkled cheek. I held my breath, bent over her armchair and hugged her. I couldn’t help recoiling slightly at the feel of the soft, loose flesh of her face and its powdery smell. Sylvia recalled memories of her friendship with Mother: anecdotes I had heard many times.
When at last I was able to say my final goodbyes and extricate myself, I left by Sylvia’s back door and returned through the side gate to the garden. It was still only half past eleven. I fetched the pushchair and bags from their hiding place in the shed, put on my navy coat and brown wig, checked that no one was about, and departed through the back gate. I left the house I’d lived in for all of my forty-one years without a backwards glance.
There was nothing to guarantee I would be able to take the child that day, or the next, or the one after that, although I hoped, of course. What was vital was that I travelled to Riddlesfield from Nottingham, and never from Newcastle. That connection must never be made.
If the opportunity to take Lucy did not arise that day, I had planned to stay the night in a bed and breakfast in Brayling, an ancient village in a quiet rural area just outside Riddlesfield, and to return again by taxi the following day, and the day after that if necessary.
In the event, there was no need to stay overnight. My plan went miraculously smoothly. The journey seemed much
