Clare’s pen was writing, writing, her bobbed hair swinging as she bent over her pad of paper, and it suddenly occurred to me that—leaving the high-powered City of London job aside—I had, in fact, pretty much described my own situation. Single. Little experience with children. Worried. Well done, Beth. Well done.
“And how, in your view, do you think your aunt coped with this situation?”
“She did her very best. Aunt Tilda was like that—thorough in everything. With hindsight, I can see she probably had to make a lot of sacrifices for me. Cut down on her social life and her holidays, that sort of thing. She was interested in archaeology, but she couldn’t drag a young child along on digs. We went a few times when I was a bit older, but . . .”
I had a sudden flashback to a holiday in Scotland volunteering on a dig when I was twelve. How utterly bored I’d been. How sulky, stomping about the place in my Doc Martens while the rain slashed down outside all week long. I doubted whether Tilda would have repeated the experiment had she lived to do so, but in fact, it proved to be the last holiday we had together. Because she died the following year, and I went to live with Richard and Sylvia permanently.
“Tilda sold her house in Hampstead so I could go back to my school in Enfield and my friend’s mum and dad could look after me sometimes.”
Tilda sold her house in Hampstead so I could go back to my school in Enfield . . . The short sentence made it sound so easy. As if Aunt Tilda had put her house on the market right away. But it hadn’t quite happened like that. Well, not at all like that, in fact. At first, Tilda had tried to make things work by moving me in with her in Hampstead, uprooting me from everything familiar and everyone I loved who I hadn’t actually lost. She had her spare bedroom decorated in a way she thought I’d flip out about and enrolled me at her local primary school.
I hated that bedroom because it was so beautiful. It was everything I’d ever wanted in a bedroom. And I felt as if I’d swapped my parents for it. As if maybe, if I destroyed it, they’d come back. I didn’t suppose I really thought they would. After all, I’d been to their funeral, so I’d seen their coffins side by side in front of the altar, and I’d seen Sylvia, Aunt Tilda, and all my parents’ friends crying at the sheer waste and tragedy of their passing. I hadn’t cried myself. I was still frozen, I guess. Numb. The sight of that beautiful, freshly decorated bedroom almost undid me, but not quite. I managed to hang on.
Aunt Tilda took the morning off work to take me to school that first morning. After that I was destined to attend a breakfast club and an after-school club while Tilda travelled to and fro from work. But that first morning, Tilda took the morning off work and laid out my school uniform for me. Then she attempted to tackle my hair. Even though I was nine, my mum had always brushed it. It was long and thick—difficult hair. Reddish auburn, like my dad’s. Aunt Tilda didn’t have a clue what to do with it, so in the end she left it to me to sort out myself, and I tied it back like a horse’s mane.
My feet dragged as we left the house. I did not want to go to any new school, and I kept thinking of my mother’s capable fingers flying over my head as she put my hair in a neat french pleat. Kissing me before I ran across the playground to join my friends.
Aunt Tilda and I were awkward about kissing. It was different when my parents were alive, and we didn’t see Tilda very often. Then, it felt natural for my aunt to kiss me hello and goodbye when she came for a visit. But now I was with her all the time, and there were more opportunities for kissing, but I think we were both painfully aware it would feel as if she were trying to replace my mother if she kissed me good night or, in this case, goodbye. So when we got to the school, Tilda settled for giving me a pat on the shoulder and shot a big false smile in my direction which didn’t quite hide the worry in her eyes.
“Have a good day, Beth. I’ll be here to collect you at three o’clock.”
But she had to collect me well before that because a girl called me Carrot Head at the midmorning break, and I punched her so hard in the face that her nose bled right down her school uniform.
After that, I pretty much refused to go to school, let alone to the after-school club Tilda had arranged for me. And if Tilda ever did manage to get me to school, I caused trouble. I hated them all, the kids in my class, even those brave enough to try to befriend me. They didn’t have a hope in hell of becoming my friend, because they weren’t Rosie.
Aunt Tilda stuck it out for a bit more than a week before I made her cry. The tipping point came when she discovered a great big tear in my bedroom wallpaper. I’d found a minute loose corner and picked at it with my fingernails until I’d managed to free enough from the wall to pull it. The sound as it ripped upwards was so satisfying it made me smile for the first time in a month.
But I didn’t smile as I watched Aunt Tilda cry. I’d expected her to be angry—I’d have been able to cope with that. But she wasn’t angry, just heartbroken. “Oh, Beth,” she said, holding her arms out to me, and when I went into them, it was somehow the permission I needed to cry myself.
That was when Tilda made her big decision to put her house on the market—after I’d put us both through sheer hell. Tilda completely changed her life for me, but the truth was, despite everything she did, I was always happier when I was round at Sylvia and Richard’s house. So no, nothing about that situation was easy enough to describe in one sentence.
But I could hardly spew all that out to Clare Carter, could I? Not without sounding violent or deranged. I hadn’t punched anybody before that day on the Hampstead playground, and I haven’t punched anybody since. But she’d know I was capable of it.
Or would it be a good thing to tell her? So she could see I had empathy for children going through difficult times? I couldn’t tell quite yet. I wasn’t familiar enough with the adoption application game we were playing. Because it did feel like a game—a game of adoption application chess—and a dangerous one at that.
“That must have been very hard for you,” Clare said. “Nowadays a child in the position you found yourself in would probably receive counselling, but I suspect that was in short supply in the 1990s.”
I had absolutely no idea. But I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have been receptive to it if it had been offered.
“You say in your application that your aunt died when you were nearly thirteen?”
“Yes, she had lung cancer.”
“Coming only four years after the death of your parents, that must have been very hard.”
I nodded. “It was, yes.”
“And then I see you went to live permanently with Richard and Sylvia Groves?”
“Yes. Their daughter, Rosie, is my best friend.”
“And how did that work out for you?”
I thought about those years. Richard and Sylvia being their full-on supportive selves. Rosie and I sharing a bedroom and staying awake until late, giggling and gossiping. Me, in mega-crush-on-Mark mode, encountering him on the landing when one of us was on the way to the bathroom. Raucous family meals which everyone did their loving best to make me feel a part of.
“It was fine,” I told Clare inadequately. “I missed Tilda, but I was happy. Richard and Sylvia treated me like a second daughter.”