The little flat seemed very empty at first. Ursula kept apologising.
‘Of course they can only let one of you live in each unit, sweetheart, because of Covid.’
Jade understood that. The student life she had been dreaming of for years had involved sharing a flat with five other people, tripping over each other in the tiny kitchen (which would be irritating but hilarious), stepping around each other’s mess (which would be irritating but just like a family), and competing for the bathroom (which would be irritating but good for their ability to compromise). But none of these desirable irritants was the least bit compatible with social distancing.
‘It’s okay, Ursula. Really,’ she reassured her social worker. ‘I’m just glad to be here.’
Ursula gave her a glance full of understanding, and Jade grinned. She had been insisting for years that if she didn’t get out of the Mackays’ the minute she turned eighteen, she would go mad.
‘No, there’s nothing wrong with them!’ she would explain. It was Ursula’s job, after all, to make sure her foster placement was satisfactory. ‘They’re kind. They feed me a well-balanced diet. They support my academic endeavours. Sort of,’ she would add, for this issue was at the heart of her discontent with the Mackays. ‘But they don’t get it. They think I’m wasting my time on English Literature when I could be doing something ‘useful’ like engineering or accountancy.’
At this point, Ursula would usually point out that many children who lived with their birth parents had similar issues. Jade would try not to bridle. She knew that she was no expert on what life with birth parents was like. But she couldn’t help believing – hoping, for God’s sake – that being part of an actual family would make a difference.
But the Mackays were her lot, for good or ill, and Jade was fair enough to recognise the good. So she took refuge in her (nicely-decorated) room, and studied. That place at uni was her exit card.
And now – despite Covid, despite her cancelled A-levels, despite online lectures, despite the absence of the student life she had been looking forward to – she was here. At last.
Peopling the empty flat would be no problem. This was something that even Ursula didn’t know. Jade had brought a full mental cast of characters with her.
Jade could vaguely remember becoming aware that she seemed to have a space inside her where most people had stories1. It must have been school, she thought, that brought it home to her.
Monday mornings in Reception:
‘Who did something nice over the weekend?’
And there would be stories of visits to grandparents, of Uncle Frank’s roast dinner, of a cousin’s birthday party. Everybody had these stories – everybody but Jade. So in the manner of children everywhere – especially the children at Daisy Lea — she made them up. And as she was a child who loved animals but was never allowed pets at the children’s home, many of her characters were animals.
There was Uncle Winston, the rabbit. He wore glasses and loved gardening.
There was Auntie Jess, the elegant, high-stepping flamingo, always dressed in the latest fashions.
There was Grandma Betty, the kindly, chattering hen, who was always baking for Jade and her cousins.
And there was Jade’s personal favourite, Grandpa Bob, the wise old horse. He could take several of them for rides at the same time.
In bed at night, Jade made up endless stories about her characters. In Monday-morning sharing sessions, she could at last hold her own. The tales of Auntie Jess’s new outfits or Grandma Betty’s recipes grew and grew.
Then, one day when Jade was seven, it all fell apart.
It was one of those Mondays, only this time the teacher – a different teacher, an older class – was talking about Open Evening. Their projects would all be on display and their parents would be invited.
Jade put up her hand. ‘Can I invite my uncle instead?’
The teacher knew Jade’s history. ‘Of course! We’d be glad to have him. And do tell him there’ll be refreshments.’
‘Will there be carrots?’ Jade asked anxiously. ‘He’s a rabbit.’
There was a silence. Even the teacher looked non-plussed. Then there was a storm of laughter.
Jade stood it for about thirty seconds, then bolted. They left her in peace for ten minutes. Then one of the kinder members of the class, clearly deployed by the teacher, tracked her down to the girls’ toilets.
‘Come on back, Jade. Nobody will laugh.’
Jade rearranged her face, unbolted the cubicle door and stepped out. ‘I don’t mind if they laugh at a few silly stories. Of course I don’t really believe them. ’
And she had marched back into the classroom, head held high. But that night, in bed at Daisy Lea, when she had tried to find Uncle Winston and Grandpa Bob for a story, she had encountered only empty space. Her beloved animal family had disappeared.
There had followed a period of deep unhappiness. Nobody knew what was the matter; indeed, Jade herself could hardly have said. She only knew that an emptiness that had once been filled was now growing inside her again.
‘It’s as if she’d been newly bereaved,’ she overheard Penny say. Jade did not know what ‘bereaved’ meant, but she was beginning to be interested in words. She looked it up. Then she sat with the dictionary in her hands, staring into the air.
That evening she sought Penny out after tea. ‘Do you have five minutes?’
‘If you help me clear up here,’ said Penny with a laugh.
Jade began to wipe the table. She didn’t mind helping – and it was easier to ask questions if you didn’t have to look at a staff member with their serious face on.
‘Tell me some stories about my mother,’ she said.
There was a moment of stillness from Penny. ‘What sort of stories?’
Jade shrugged. ‘Anything. What she was like. What she did for a job. I don’t even know that.’
‘Well – you’ve still got that picture of her, right?’
Jade nodded.
‘I seem to remember it was taken by the seaside – is that right? And – and think about the way she’s dressed; she must love bright colours. Maybe she had talent as an artist…’ Her voice trailed off.
Jade’s face was angry. ‘You’re making all this up, aren’t you? You don’t really have a clue!’
Penny shook her head slowly. ‘No, love – I don’t.’
‘Does anybody know anything about her?’
Penny said carefully, ‘There is information about your mother that you can access when you’re old enough. For now – ‘
‘I know – I’m the most important person in my story, yadda yadda!’ Jade rushed from the kitchen and up to her room, leaving a trail of slammed doors behind her.
Okay, so it was up to her. She wouldn’t be stupid enough to make up animals this time; that was for little kids. But she had those photographs – one of her mum by the seaside, and one of her mum with somebody who must, she supposed, be her gran. That would do for a start. And now that she was moving in with the Mackays – starting over again with strangers, and even a new social worker – she needed to know something about her own past. She was tired of that empty space inside her.
Jade was careful. She didn’t try to invent people whom she wasn’t sure had been part of her mother’s story. But the pictures gave her lots to work with. There was the whole seaside setting, for example. Jade surfed endlessly for seaside views of northwest England, and she was pretty sure which town the picture had been taken in. Little by little, her mother – Sharon was her name – became a tough girl from a northwestern seaside town that had fallen on hard times.
There hadn’t been too much money when Sharon was growing up, Jade decided. She was raised by her mum on her own. That shirt she was wearing – she’d had to earn the money for it herself, probably serving in a café on the promenade.
Sharon had obviously cared how she looked. As Jade moved into her own teenage years, her mother became someone who had perhaps valued her looks too much, and then found that they couldn’t get you everywhere you wanted to go. Of course, they had got her into a relationship – however fleeting – with Jade’s unknown father. Was that how Sharon had used her looks, in the end? As a way of attracting boys and then using their interest to validate herself?
Jade studied the face of the woman she assumed was her grandmother almost as closely as she studied Sharon’s face. By what name would she, Jade, call her? What sounded right as a term for ‘Grandmother’ in a northwestern seaside town? Gran? Nan? Yes, that was one she’d heard. Nan was clearly a woman who knew her own mind, and would have had some choice words to say to a daughter who had gotten herself ‘in trouble’ while still at school. But she looked as if she might have stood by Sharon as well – even helped to raise the child. So what went wrong?
Her father was more of a challenge. Bit of a lad, probably – someone who thought that unprotected sex with a schoolgirl was all part of a normal Saturday night’s fun. Rather an inglorious part to have played in her life. And so he took up a rather shadowy position at the edge of her mental stage, occasionally drifting into view when Jade was wondering where she had inherited her big feet or her love of pickles.
There was more to go on with her mother. Besides – it was her mother who would have made the decision to give her up. Someday, perhaps, she’d have the answer to the question ‘why’….
Little by little, Jade got to know the students in the other units. It was farcically easy to get away with breaking Covid restrictions, but it was easier to follow them than deal with Nan’s voice in her head, saying, ‘Your mother broke the rules – and look what happened to her.’ Instead she followed a suggestion made by Mrs. Mackay, of all people, who insisted on bringing food over once a fortnight.
‘Take this travelling mug, love. Then you can meet another student outside for coffee and each bring your own. That’s what people are doing these days.’
Sheila Mackay turned out to be right, and Jade began, tentatively, to build herself a social life. It was fraught, though, with the usual pitfalls, the worst of which was fielding conventional getting-to-know-you questions:
‘Where do you come from?’
‘Was that your mum you were having coffee with just now?’
‘Did either of your parents go to this university?’
‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’
To which the answers were: Don’t know. Not exactly…. Don’t know. Don’t know. No wonder, Jade often thought wryly, that as a child she had made up stories about relatives. Even rabbits and horses were more straightforward than the truth.
Jade realised with a start one day that she’d never been asked so many of these questions before.
‘Why now?’ she complained to Ursula over Skype.
‘Think about it, Jade,’ said Ursula between bites of her sandwich. They had taken to eating lunch online. ‘When was the last time you moved to a school where nobody knew anything about you?’
This was true. Jade sighed. ‘So what do I do? Wear a sign? Product of care system. No personal information available?’
Ursula laughed. ‘That’s perhaps a bit over the top – but a modest dose of the truth might not be such a bad idea.’
‘But – there’s always this …awkward moment when they think they’ve offended me or something. It’s like – a chapter of manners that doesn’t get taught in normal families.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ agreed Ursula. ‘But once you get over that, I think you’ll find that nobody will use your history against you. You are dealing with young adults now, you know.’
Jade had noticed this. She took an experimental breath, and then another, and found that it felt…safe… to let go of just a bit of the tension that had been with her for longer than she could remember.
The next time a new acquaintance appeared while Sheila Mackay was dropping off food, she called the girl over.
‘Hi Sarah,’ she said. ‘This is Sheila, my foster mum. Sheila, this is Sarah. She’s in my Victorian Poetry lecture.’
Sarah, who had impeccable manners, didn’t bat an eyelash. But the next time they met for coffee, Jade took one look at her new friend and burst out laughing.
‘You have ill-suppressed curiosity written all over you!’
Sarah flushed. ‘I’m sorry – it’s none of my business – ‘
Jade grinned evilly. ‘It’s fine – really. Actually I’m trying a new approach, but I had no idea it would be this much fun.’
‘And it was fun,’ Jade told Ursula afterwards. ‘It was fun watching her try so politely not to pry, and it was fun to drop bits of information and watch her react, and it was kind of fun to be so … interesting.’ She stopped, then laughed. ‘Now you get to say your next bit – about how it’s not just being the abandoned child of an unknown teenage mother that makes me interesting!’
‘You know me too well,’ complained Ursula. Jade grinned.
To Sarah, over their next coffee, she merely said, ‘My people come from northwest England. One of those seaside towns.’ At which point Sarah – or subsequently Rachel, or Luke, or Ewan – would say ‘Not Blackpool, I hope!’ And everybody would laugh – and one more detail was added to the portrait in Jade’s head of her relatives: they came from a place other people made fun of. Well, that was fine. It probably made them tougher.
But the isolation was beginning to tell on Jade. She began to feel that this was some kind of test – of her more than most. For the rest of the scattered students on campus, this would all go away someday – post-vaccine, presumably. For her, it would always be part of her life, and she’d better prove she could deal with it.
‘But Christmas, Jade!’ protested Ursula for the fourth time. ‘Nobody should be alone at Christmas!
Jade merely shrugged. She’s managed to fend off the protests of the Mackays; Ursula’s should be a piece of cake.
‘They’re vulnerable,’ she said. ‘Bob’s diabetes. Sheila’s blood pressure. I’d rather not risk it.’
Ursula shot her the most piercing glance that was possible over Skype. ‘That’s not your real reason. Or at least, not your whole reason.’
Jade grinned slightly. ‘Guilty as charged. But – I think I need to do this. Don’t bug me, okay, Ursula? This is supposed to be my choice now – remember?’
And Ursula, who knew the rules, was forced to accept her decision.
Sheila brought over her Christmas dinner, ready for the microwave. Bob actually donned the ancient Santa suit, which no longer quite met round his middle, and brought her the traditional stocking and presents. All of which touched Jade deeply, because nobody could accuse the Mackays of doing this for the money any longer. But the rest of the day she spent alone.
Or not quite alone. In the shadowy flat, she spun story after story about her family’s Christmases. Sharon, she was sure, would have loved Christmas. She and her mum would have made shortbread. Jade felt a sudden passionate longing for even one traditional family recipe. Other kids had them… And they would have gone together for a tree. Would they have put lights on the tree? Classy, white lights, or multi-coloured ones that flashed on and off? Jade had a horrible feeling it would have been the latter.
At three o’clock she sat down and watched the Queen’s message. The Mackays had always done this, and Jade had usually ended up joining them, mostly as an excuse to leave the washing-up. But she had to admit that the dwindling, white-haired woman on the television usually had more sensible things to say than did most politicians. If only she wouldn’t talk quite so much about her family….
When the brief programme was over, the rest of the day loomed suddenly and dreadfully empty in front of Jade. Now what? She and Mrs. Mackay had usually done a jigsaw, and then they had watched the Alistair Sim version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ until it was time for bed. Jade could mark the years of her maturity by how far into the story she had been allowed to stay up. But she didn’t have the film in her flat – didn’t even have a television – and besides, wasn’t this Christmas supposed to be about doing it on her own? Grimly, Jade trawled through her Netflix account for a film that she thought Nan and Sharon might have chosen. She ended up sitting through two James Bond movies. At 9:00 she went to bed.
She had done it. She had done Christmas on her own, with only her own family for company. And it had been fine. Really. What was all the fuss about Christmas, anyway? It was just a day like any other.
After Christmas, nobody came back to the campus except a skeleton staff. The students were all ordered to stay home, as the Kent variant of Covid 19 raged through the country. As usual, Lockdown had come too late.
But for once, Jade’s ‘special status’ worked in her favour, as Ursula ironically told her. Nobody could kick her out of her flat because they weren’t allowed to make her homeless. It was an eerie existence, and Jade half-unconsciously began to fill up the corners of her unknown narrative with new characters from her past.
It was a relief to come back from a shopping trip, in which she had been accompanied only by the sound of her own footsteps, to a space that was peopled more and more fully with her familiars. Uncle Jack, Sharon’s brother. Liked motorcycles. Auntie Eva, Sharon’s older sister, with whom she’d always fought. Eva’s somewhat bratty children, whom Nan adored but whom Sharon endlessly criticised behind her sister’s back. It was far less lonely in her flat now. One of her cousins was always up to something, and often she found herself laughing out loud at Sharon’s reactions.
And then came the call. When Ursula’s face appeared on Jade’s screen, Jade was startled. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Sorry,’ said Ursula. ‘Just – lots on my mind. Actually, lots to do with you on my mind.’
Jade’s heart began to beat faster.
Ursula visibly took a breath. ‘Jade – you know that when you used to ask about your mum, I told you that there was information you could access when you were eighteen?’
Jade nodded.
‘So when you turned eighteen, I was waiting for you to ask. But you didn’t – so I didn’t push it. I hope I wasn’t wrong to … to let it be.’
Jade shook her head. She was not about to explain to Ursula that by the age of eighteen she had mental versions of her family with which she was quite content. She waited.
‘Jade – I had a call from your mother last week.’ Ursula paused. ‘She wants to meet you.’
Jade sat frozen to her armchair.
‘You know it’s up to you whether you see her or not,’ Ursula said gently. ‘You can take as much time as you like deciding.’
Jade took a whole week.
She spent it with her mental family. But in the Limbo between the people in her head and the real mother now looming emphatically in her present, she could not get her bearings. At the end of the week she gave up.
‘Gotta know, haven’t I?’ she texted Ursula. ‘Can you set up a meeting?’
The phone rang seconds later.
‘Of course I can, sweetheart,’ said Ursula. ‘Somewhere neutral? You’re allowed to meet one other person for a walk now….’
‘No,’ said Jade firmly. ‘On Skype, okay? After that I’ll decide whether… about meeting her in person.’
‘Up to you,’ agreed Ursula. ‘And Jade – I hope you know you can talk to me about all this. Whenever.’
Jade nodded. She was afraid she was going to cry – but if she started now, she thought she probably wouldn’t stop in time for the meeting with her mother.
That was Sunday. On Monday, Jade got a text from Ursula: Invite sent. Will keep you posted.
Tuesday passed. Then Wednesday. Ursula texted again: I’m getting cross with her now. How dare she keep you waiting like this?
Jade grinned. Then she texted back: ‘A social worker must at all times refrain from passing judgements on client children’s families.’
Guilty as charged, texted Ursula.
On Thursday, Ursula rang. ‘Can you do tomorrow at 3?’ she asked.
Jade’s heart began to pound. She kept her voice light. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Send me her Skype address and I’ll send her an invitation.’
‘Sure. And Jade – ‘
‘What?’
‘Just – I mean, if it would help – let me know how it goes.’
If it would help whom, thought Jade as she hung up. If Sharon-who-was-really-Nicole turned out to be someone she clicked with, she wouldn’t need to talk about it. If it went horribly wrong, she might not want to talk about it. Either way, though, Jade knew that Ursula would be frantic with anxiety at three o’clock tomorrow.
‘I’ll do my best.’ That was all she could promise.
That evening, there almost seemed to be a hum in the flat, like voices trying to be noticed. Jade ignored it. She could not talk to her family now. Not until she knew – knew how real they were. She tidied the flat, then scrubbed any surface that looked as if it could handle scrubbing. Nan would be pleased – Jade went to bed early, plugged in her earphones and listened to music while she lay there not sleeping.
Fortunately Jade had a full morning of lectures the next day. They ended at twelve, and she promptly began all over again to listen to the lecture recordings. She certainly hadn’t taken much in the first time.
At half-past two she changed her clothes. Then changed again. She stared at her reflection unhappily. How was she supposed to know what her mother would approve of? She ended up back in the same things she had worn all morning. Her mother could take her as she was.
At ten to three, she made a cup of coffee. At five to three, she sat down at her computer. At 2:58, she broke down and clicked on her mother’s skype address.
The face that appeared on her screen was recognisably Sharon. Or rather, Nicole. The woman fiddled with something on her computer, failing at first to make her voice heard. The delay gave Jade time to stiffen her spine and fix something on her face that might be taken for a smile.
‘Hello?’ Nicole’s voice crackled suddenly.
Jade opened her mouth, and tried out the word she had never used outside her own head.
‘Hi, Mum.’
The woman on the screen laughed awkwardly. ‘Never thought I’d hear anyone say that to me.’
Questions started to go off like firecrackers in Jade’s head. Too soon too soon – oh, what the hell –
‘What do your other children call you? That is –’ She stopped, her heart pounding. Brothers. Sisters.
Nicole laughs. ‘No other children. Not really the maternal type, me. As you ought to know.’
Jade smiled bravely. ‘Well, you were pretty young to find yourself with a baby …. What about my Nan? Did she help you look after me?’
The woman on the screen snorted. ‘Her! Not a maternal bone in her body. Threw me out before you were even born.’
Inside Jade’s head, things were cracking and breaking.
‘Did you have a brother or sister who could help you?’
‘Naw. Just me and me mam – the old cow.’
More sounds of shattering. Jade could not ask any more questions. Except the one –
‘Why – why now? Why did you want to see me now, after so long?’
The woman called Nicole preened a little. ‘Got me a new feller. He’s got his papers to take me to Australia. We’ll be off as soon as travel restrictions are lifted – and I’m never coming back. So I thought – you know, have one look at the kid before you go. And now’ – she looked at Jade admiringly – ‘just see how nice you turned out! University and all!’
Jade smiled shakily.
‘You didn’t get your brains from me, that’s for sure,’ added Nicole, and chuckled.
Jade tried to remember what she had thought she might get out of this encounter.
‘Do you – I mean, you could let me have your address, once you get settled –’
The woman shook her head. ‘Don’t think so, chuck. Clean break, yeah? Best thing all round.’
There were more words said, but afterwards Jade could not remember any of them. And before she knew it, the screen was blank.
Jade sat there in the gathering winter dusk until she grew stiff with cold. Her phone rang several times, but she hardly heard it. Finally, at about six o’clock, she got slowly up, made herself a hot-water bottle and got into bed. She lay shivering until gradually the bed warmed up.
Jade did not sleep that night. She was trying not to disturb the fragile shards in her mind. If she just left them alone, surely something could be saved from the wreckage. But when the February dawn gradually reached through the window to pry open her eyelids, she knew that it was too late. All her familiars were gone. They had been nothing but mist, and the reality of Nicole had burned them away to nothing.
For the next two days, Jade walked. She attended no lecture. As soon as she had dragged herself out of bed in the morning, she put on warm clothes and walked until long past dark. Then she dropped, exhausted, into bed, only to get up and do it all again the next day.
The third day, as she was heading back to her flat at noon for a sandwich, she saw a familiar shape huddled near the door of her building. She rolled her eyes, but kept walking towards the door. It was astonishing, really, that Ursula had managed to stay away this long.
Ursula saw her. ‘Jade! Thank God! I couldn’t get hold of you – I was so worried –’ She ground to a halt and stood looking at Jade, reading the history of the last few days in her face. She put her hand to her mouth.
‘Don’t!’ Jade said. ‘Don’t start!’ She dragged a gloved hand across her eyes and took a shaky breath. ‘Look – stay here for a few minutes. I’ll go up and make us both a sandwich, and then we can go somewhere and talk.’
In the clean, cold air at the top of a nearby hill, Jade talked and Ursula listened. It seemed to take a long time to explain about one very short conversation…
‘So you see,’ said Jade, taking a bite of her neglected sandwich, ‘I feel as if I’ve lost a whole family.’ She hadn’t exactly told Ursula everything about her gallery of characters, but Ursula was no fool. ‘And I know more or less the same about my mother as I did before I met her: nothing. Or at least – almost nothing. Just – I know where she grew up.’
‘Did she tell you?’
‘No – but her accent did. She’s definitely from the Northwest.’
‘You’re quite right,’ said Ursula. ‘It’s in the notes.’ And she told Jade the name of the town where her mother was born. In a detached sort of way, Jade was pleased to find that she’d guessed right.
She grimaced. ‘Wow – feels strange to smile.’
Ursula reached across and squeezed her hand. ‘You’ve got plenty of smiles ahead of you.’
‘I know – but – some things need to change.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as – as soon as I’m allowed, I’m going to take up Sheila’s offer of staying the night there once a week.’
‘That’s great, Jade.’
‘Plus – I’m changing my major.’
‘You’re what?’
‘Changing my major. To history.’
‘But why? I thought it was English literature that you loved?’
‘It is. But – I love it for the stories. It’s all about the stories, isn’t it? History, too – only history’s about everybody’s story. I want to do local history. That way I can learn what life was like for people like my mum’s family. I can get to know my people – even if I never get to meet them. And I can help other people like me do the same.’ She ground to a halt, unsure whether she was even making sense.
But Ursula was smiling. ‘You, my girl, are going to be fine,’ she said. ‘And – you’re not alone, Jade.’
Jade gave a little smile. ‘I know – I do, really.’ She got to her feet. ‘Come on – let’s walk. It’s freezing up here.’
They gathered up sandwich wrappers and flasks, and turned to go down the hill. But Jade paused for a moment. She looked away to the south, where in a few weeks or months a plane carrying her mother would lift off for Australia, trailing behind it the tatters of Jade’s long-cherished family. Then she turned and looked to the west, towards the seaside by which her mother had been born. A tough place. A place where people had to have grit to survive. There would be enough true stories there to keep her going for the rest of her life.
She set off down the hill, in search of her people.
