‘What on earth’s happened?’
Nina looked blankly at Marjorie.
Robert draped the towel around her.
‘Nina?’
‘Leave her,’ Robert instructed.
‘Robert?’ She didn’t understand.
‘Go to your room,’ he told his daughter.
She began to move slowly, walking stiffly, her face still expressionless.
‘But she’s hurt.’
‘Let her go.’
‘What on earth has happened?’
‘She’s had a bloody good hiding, that’s what. Knock some sense into her. And not before time.’
She stared at him incredulous, felt the hairs on her arms prickle.
He gave a short humourless laugh and shook his head. ‘She’s had it coming, Marjorie. There are limits. Should have done it years ago.’ He went inside.
She moved, balanced against the little archway to the side of the door. Traditionally a shrine to the Virgin Mary.
She looked up at the sky but in place of the stars she saw only the brutal damage that Robert had done. It was wrong. No matter how far Nina had pushed him, to do that… break her face, beat her up. She covered her mouth with her hand. She felt sick. She closed her eyes and prayed: Sweet mother of God, help me. Oh, God, help me.
Nina
Life was a mix of work and waiting. She’d got taken on by British Home Stores at the Arndale Centre. She knew her parents were disappointed. They had wanted her to get more qualifications. ‘I’ve five O levels,’ she told them.
‘Well, why stop now?’ Robert Underwood demanded. ‘You’re a bright enough girl, if you’d only apply yourself…’
‘I don’t want to. I’ve had enough of all that.’
‘You could even go to art school,’ he said in desperation. He’d always regarded her success in art as an amusing but essentially irrelevant achievement.
‘I’m not going back, I’m going to get a job.’
‘You’re cutting your nose off to spite your face!’ he shouted.
‘You don’t even listen. You never try to see my side of things!’ She had slammed out of the room. Silence clouded the days that followed. Cold disapproval. She comforted herself with the thought that she would save once she was working and she would get enough to put a little deposit down on something. And before long she’d have a place of her own and he’d have to eat his words.
But saving hadn’t been easy, she didn’t know where all the money went. She gave Marjorie some for her bed and board and she bought quite a lot of clothes from work, where they got staff discount. She got the chance to move into window dressing after her first three months. A chance to use her eye for colour and design.
On her eighteenth birthday she wrote again for her birth certificate. It took almost six weeks for it to come after she had returned the fee and the application form. Nina had stopped watching the post quite so avidly. It was Stephen who brought it into the kitchen, where Marjorie was clearing up the breakfast post and Nina about to leave for work. It was a training day.
‘Official letter for Nina.’ Stephen waved the brown envelope.
She snatched it from him. She saw the postmark and her stomach swooped.
‘Who’s it from?’ Marjorie asked.
‘Work, something to do with the tax office. I’ll be late, better go.’
She didn’t dare open the letter on the bus, she needed to do it in private. She was eager to know what it said but also frightened. It was like opening a Pandora’s box.
She tried to pay attention as they went through the forthcoming season’s plans, stock returns and health and safety but her mind darted back to the envelope all the time. She waited until after tea at home to go up to her room and open the letter. She used her nail file to slit it open. She drew out the certificate and unfolded it. Pink paper, the headings all in red ink. Her eyes flew across the columns. Megan Driscoll… Collyhurst… Claire. She forced herself to stop and read it slowly. When and where born – Twenty-fourth May 1960, Withington Hospital, Nell Lane, Withington. Name, if any – Claire. She had looked up Claire and it meant clear or bright, a nice name. Sex – girl. Name and surname of father – just a dash across the page. Name, surname and maiden surname of mother – Megan Agnes Driscoll (factory worker), 14 Livesey Street, Collyhurst. An address, a proper address. Some places put down the mother and baby home, she’d read, but this was her real address. She couldn’t sit still, she jumped up and walked slowly about, continuing to read. Occupation of father – another line struck through the column. Signature, description and residence of informant – Megan Driscoll, mother, 14 Livesey Street, Collyhurst. When registered – Twentieth June 1960. Signature of registrar – D.H. Coombes, Registrar. And at the edge of the page, D.H.Coombes had written Adopted and signed it.
There was nothing about how old Megan had been. She scanned it again to make sure. Megan Agnes Driscoll. And the address. With that she had some place to start from. She read and reread the piece of paper. Megan, wasn’t that a Welsh name? But Driscoll sounded Irish. There were loads of Irish in Manchester. Collyhurst was just out of town. She had passed through there on the way to Leeds on the coach. It was a run-down area, lots of slums. She thought they’d knocked quite a bit of it down.
She could look it up in the A-Z, see if it was still there. She wanted to go there now. Daft. She told herself to calm down, sit down. Her ears were buzzing with the excitement and her heart felt like it was too big. That’d be great, wouldn’t it? Have a heart attack and die before she could trace her. Marjorie and Robert finding her, the certificate clutched in her hand. Wracked with remorse for never understanding her.
She pulled out her portfolio from under the bed, brushed off the fluff and dust and untied the ribbon. She got out her folder and looked again at the notes she’d made from the books and from the phone call with the social worker. She could use this now to write to the adoption agency, the Catholic children’s place, and to ask them for her adoption records. But she’d be expected to have counselling from someone before she was given them. She might as well see what they had. There was nothing to stop her seeing if the house was still there in the meantime.
She went the following Saturday. Collyhurst was awful. Even worse on foot. She felt out of place and some boys had called out at her, made dirty suggestions which made her feel frightened. There was no 14 Livesey Street. The whole lot had been flattened. There was just a big patch of waste land and, beyond the railway bridge which crossed the street, there was a primary school and a scrap yard.
She had passed some shops a few minutes down the main road with a newsagents amongst them. She retraced her steps and went in. She had practised a story, which she trotted out to the woman behind the counter and the customer she was chatting to. Nina said she had moved away and lost touch with relatives who had lived on Livesey Street. When had they knocked the houses down?
‘Be a good few years now,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘You could try asking at the Housing. Some people went out to Wythenshawe. What were they called, love?’
‘Driscoll.’
Recognition lit the woman’s face. ‘Anthony Driscoll. They had a stall on Tib Street for years. Don’t think they’ve got it now though.’
Would that be Megan’s father? Nina’s grandfather.
‘And Grey Mare Lane,’ the other woman piped up.
‘I couldn’t swear to it but I think they moved out to Wythenshawe when they did the clearance. Try the Housing, they should know.’
Nina nodded and left.
It was cold and she struggled against the wind as she walked back along Oldham Street to Piccadilly Gardens. People waited at the bus stops, many of them poorly dressed and carrying bulging shopping bags. Nina was aware of her neat, new clothes – one of the perks of working at the shop. A couple of tramps were begging and Nina gave them some change. The wind seemed to howl down the street, lifting litter and dust and blowing over a sandwich board outside one of the shops.