Читать книгу The Broncle, a Curious Tale of Adoption and Reunion - Brian Bailie - Страница 4

Mum and Dad never had kids of their own. They’d been married about six years when a young mother offered them her baby for adoption. That was 1960, and he is my big brother, Paul. I know more about Paul’s background than he does, (because when Mum began to go potty with Alzheimer’s she’d just say things that she should’ve kept to herself; she even introduced my sister to Paul’s uncle one afternoon). It’s awkward because it’s really none of my business, and Paul doesn’t want to know, (and realising what I’ve discovered in my story of adoption and reunion he might decide to just let sleeping dogs lie).

I was adopted three years after Paul; I guess Mum and Dad wanted another kid to keep Paul company.

Being adopted is no big deal if you’re adopted in infancy as I was. It’s normal. It’s the only world I know.

Our neighbours had three kids: twin boys, and a girl.

I reckoned that Mum decided to adopt another boy because she liked the idea of having twins. The twins next-door were great buddies who played rough and tumble together, and looked so cute dressed identically. But it didn’t work so well for Paul and me. The three-year age gap didn’t really help with the twin look; it never achieved the same effect. We were more like Kennedy and Khrushchev than Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Sure, we wore the same clothes, but Paul was tall and skinny with dark eyes and straight dark hair; and I was short and fat with blue eyes and mad curly-whirly platinum-blonde hair. And we were never great buddies: rough and tumble meant beating me into submission or screwing Chinese burns on my neck; and playing football was just an excuse to kick a big wet leather ball at my face. It’s fair to say that we hated each other. And this was normal too.

People adopt children for lots of reasons.

I think the most common reason is because it’s a natural human instinct to be a parent.

A certain relation (who shall remain nameless for the sake of family harmony) callously remarked that Mum and Dad adopted us because we were “the essential accessories for a respectable middle-class family.” Accessories? Like a big car? What a nasty thing to say about my mum and dad.

Okay, so being adopted is the only life I know; but having adopted kids was the only way Mum and Dad ever knew, and they loved us wholeheartedly and unconditionally. And looking around and listening to my friends talk about their childhood, I’d say that I was given a heap more love and affection than most natural offspring.

If Mum and Dad wanted to adopt children, they’d have done the normal thing and applied to an adoption agency; but they never did that, because we three were offered to them.

Furthermore, I was given two forenames that meant a lot to Mum and Dad. My first name is Thomas, and this is Dad’s father’s name (it’s one of those family names that alternates with each generation, William, Thomas, William, Thomas, and has done for at least 250 years); and my second name, Brian, is the name of Mum’s favourite uncle. I’m a full family member; I was adopted wholeheartedly, for keeps.

Two years after I was adopted, Mum and Dad adopted my sister, and she is also my full birth-sister, (and she’s the reason why I found out about my birth-family).

Paul has always been forward-looking and ambitious. He faces forward on the train: he sees where he’s going, not where he’s been. He’s never been interested in his birth-family or the circumstances of his adoption. I think he’s got a really healthy attitude towards his adoption: just forget about it; it’s history. He’s moved on, emigrated with his career, and never looked back. He’s now a naturalised Bermudian. And just as we once hated each other in equal measure, we also love each other, as true brothers should, (and I’m not just saying that to get another cheap holiday in Bermuda), (or am I?).

Being female, my sister naturally sees things differently. When Hilary’s body began to change with all the baby-making abilities and hormonal things that go on in a maturing young woman, she began to get really confused about how a mother could give away a helpless little baby that is created and grown in her belly for nine months. I just thought Hilary was getting a bit over-emotional about the whole thing, (you know the way girls are sometimes), but maybe it’s the girls who have it sorted? Boys (especially the stoic Ulster-Scots variety, it seems) are quite good at detaching themselves from emotions like that.

When I unexpectedly saw my birth-mother’s obituary, it was one of those gob-smacking moments of stunned surprise where you need to remind yourself to keep breathing, like scratching off the final winning number on a lottery card, (that’ll be the day).

I really wasn’t searching for online content about my birth-mother. I’d just been searching for the contact details of a couple of relatively well-known businesspeople, and I couldn’t find any mention of them, anywhere. The last thing I expected was a top-of-the-page result for a 78 year-old woman, living (or recently deceased) on the Isle of Man. It was just one of those end-of-afternoon things bored people do.

I stared at my screen in total disbelief, reading it over and over word by word. Dumbstruck….

My first reaction was to tell Hilary. I reached for my mobile phone to send her a text message, but you can’t text a thing like that? So I phoned her mobile number instead.

I should’ve known not to call her mobile number after the last time I had bad news to deliver. When our uncle unexpectedly died, my first reaction was to call his sister’s mobile phone. She was stuck in downtown traffic in the rain; it wasn’t the time or place, and I felt like a complete rat, realising that my aunt was extremely distressed and couldn’t break from what she was doing, trapped and in distress. (I’m still very sorry about that.)

I imagine the ideal setting for telling a loved-one that someone special has died might be an isolated park bench overlooking a calm ocean sunset, tissues in one hand and glass of port in the other. But when I phoned Hilary she was at the check-out at Lidl’s. I could hear the shop assistant beeping barcodes in the background. I’d misjudged the moment, again. I said that I’d something important to tell her, but now wasn’t a good time; however I was on the edge of my seat and just absolutely bursting to tell her, so it didn’t take much curious persuasion for me to fumble out the earth-shattering news that the woman who had given us life had died.

Lidl’s hasn’t been the same for Hilary since then. She now associates bargain packs of Greek dog food with bad news (and so does her dog). But like many things in life, is there ever a right way? (Actually, there is; and mobile phone is the wrong way.)

Hilary and I agreed to send our condolences incognito to our birth-mother’s family; and in our card I asked if I could write to the family again later in the year, and asked what address I should use.

I remember when Dad died, Mum received hundreds of letters and cards from people. This grieving family could’ve been equally inundated with sympathy mail, and my card, from an Irish unknown, could have justifiably been set aside and never even read. And that would’ve been the end of that. But I did get a reply. And my future correspondence was welcomed.

Was 2^nd August a good time to send my letter to this other family?

It had been five months since I’d seen that online obituary and mailed our condolences incognito. And I was going to wait another month to round it off to a respectable six (so I didn’t appear to be carpetbagging), but 2^nd August is a special day. It’s Mum’s birthday. I said to Hilary that sending the letter on Mum’s birthday makes her a small part of it all (that, and the fact that any excuse would do to send my letter sooner than later, because we were both struggling with impatience).

Being adopted is knowing that you belong to two families:

•You’ve got loyal and emotional ties to one family;

•And undeniable blood-ties to another.

In a way, getting in touch with my other family could be seen as turning my back on my adopted family. And I can understand that. I can see how it might look to the extended Bailie family. But I’ve never thought of myself as anything other than a Bailie. Sure, I’ve experienced a couple of awkward moments when a family friend or relation has made a comment about me that they should’ve kept to themselves. I’ve been called a bastard a few times with more emphasis on malice than humour; but a remark that cut me to the bone was made when Hilary and I were favoured in a family will, and an elder relation exclaimed, “But you’re not even blood relations.” I don’t think it was said in a mean-hearted way, maybe the person just saw the biological practicalities of the relationship and the words just slipped out, (or maybe they were genuinely angry and prejudiced). In any case it doesn’t matter (and we evened out the bequests anyway, to avoid any ill will).

I didn’t have anything to do with my conception; I didn’t have any choice about which family adopted me. Everything about my conception, birth and adoption was completely out of my control. So why would people harbour any prejudice against me, (or call me a social accessory); shouldn’t it be my birth-parents who carry the stigma?

It’s a shame, because to me my adopted family is my real family. It’s my birth-family that I feel alienated from.

It would’ve been so easy not to write that letter.

I wondered if their mother (my birth-mother) would’ve been angry that her secret had been exposed. Out of respect for her, I guess I should have just shrugged off her death and forgotten about it all. And kept her death a secret from Hilary. But I don’t like secrets, (when people say they want to share a secret with me, I reply that I don’t want to know; unless your asking me for some confidential advice or something, just keep that secret to yourself). Secrets are unhealthy, and rarely have happy endings. Do I feel like a snitch for exposing my birth-mother’s life-long secret? Yeah, sure I do; ignorance is bliss, apparently. But a bottled-up secret can be corrosive.

My excuse for sending that letter is just that everything fell into place; all the ducks were in a row. You can call it coincidence, fate, or divine intervention.

I don’t believe in luck: I believe that things happen, and it’s your circumstances that make it turn out favourable or unfavourable.

I don’t believe in fate: but I believe in positive thinking.

I don’t think it was God. I know He works in mysterious ways, but really?

My Texan business partners say, “Shit happens.” It’s called Life.

The wait between sending that letter and receiving a reply made the days pass very slowly. I didn’t know if I should expect a reply, but Hilary continued to pester me every day, twice a day, asking if anything had come in the mail from the Isle of Man.

And then I received a letter: a short, slightly incredulous, carefully worded reply that acknowledged my letter in a friendly enough manner, but asked for some proof before he shocked his siblings with my accusations.

I hadn’t thought about proof. But it seemed an obvious, prudent and perfectly reasonable thing to ask for.

Hilary and I dug out copies of original birth certificates, and made photocopies. But we knew that the indisputable proof were the letters that their mother had sent to Hilary about fifteen years earlier. Hilary tore her house apart looking for them. (Any monkey with a computer can Photoshop changes to a copy of a birth certificate, but the letters to Hilary from their mother would be the absolutely unquestionable, undeniable proof.)

I think Hilary destroyed those letters when she had to break contact with her birth-mother. She kept the photographs, but got rid of the letters. She was really hurt when she realised that her birth-mother didn’t want to communicate with her anymore, so I don’t blame her if she did destroy the letters. I don’t suppose she ever thought they’d come in handy.

I’ve got an old canoe. It’s one of those homemade things, just a bunch of sticks covered in canvas, with an open top. My Claire and I, and our youngest son, Bowen, were squashed into this thing, paddling about in the sea on a lovely August Sunday afternoon. But not content to risk our lives in this antique death-trap on a shallow bay, we had taken to the notorious tidal rapids of Strangford Lough, and crossed the turbulent current where it’s nearly 200 feet deep to make a dash for the placid waters of Castleward Bay on the other side.

It was a cracker day, and there’s nowhere like it. We broke out our picnic on the isolated headland facing Audley’s Castle, and relaxed into the thick springy tufts of sea pink and couch grass to eat our lunch. It was a perfectly warm and peaceful, beautiful summer’s day.

Claire lay down with her nose in another novel while Bowen and I slipped back into the canoe and glided effortlessly into the honey-still waters of the bay to hunt for jellyfish. And then my phone rang. (I know what you’re thinking, it used to be that you’d go places like this to get away from distractions like telephones, but my mobile phone sealed in a freezer-bag would be indispensable if that old canoe finally collapsed on us.)

Hilary was phoning me. And she was so excited she could hardy get the words out. She’d had a phone call, from one of them.

I’d never heard Hilary so animated and exhilarated.

“They phoned. Our other brother, Graham phoned. And the first thing he said to me was, Welcome.” She was almost crying with joy. I think she’d given up any hope of contact fifteen years ago when she broke contact with our birth-mother, and she’d been trying so hard to subdue any real hope of a reply to my letter to avoid another anticlimax. So all of a sudden she’d kind of, popped.

“You’ve got to phone him.”

“I’m in a canoe, on Strangford Lough.”

“You’ve got to phone him. I told him you would.”

“uuuh,……………. okay.” I wet my finger and wrote his number on the warm canvas body of the canoe.

“It’s starting to dry and disappear. Got to hang up before it’s gone. I’ll call you back.”

A beautiful brown and orange Lion’s Mane jellyfish pulsated below us in slow motion, too big for Bowen’s net. If I was to make this potentially life-changing phone call anywhere, sure wasn’t this just the perfect place to do it.

I keyed in the numbers, checked them carefully against the salty numbers fading on the canoe, and I cautiously pressed the ‘Call’ button.

I watched the display, waiting for it to tell me when I was connected.

What was I going to say? What was I going to say? What the blue bloody blazes am I doing?

‘Connected’ Dang.

What was I doing? And why was I doing it? I still haven’t really figured that out.

Why did I send the letter? I think I did it for Hilary. Sure I’m curious, but I think it’s because Hilary believes she needs a connection to this other reality. Is that putting it too strong? (Maybe not strong enough.) She says it’s because they’re our natural birth-family, as if it’s our right, and their right to know. I dunno; but at that moment in time it didn’t feel right, or very natural.

I’ve always been very comfortable as a Bailie. And I’ve no intention of switching family loyalties, or adopting new ones. (Oh, that’s an odd thought: Adopting my birth-family.) I am Brian Bailie. I was an Adair for maybe the first nine months of my existence in some Belfast hospital nursery, or wherever (I don’t remember any of it). I may be their half-brother-half-uncle. But I’m not one of them, and I don’t yet know if I’ll ever want to be. Of course I’m related by blood, (almost full-strength), but I feel like they’re foreigners.

Being adopted is just like being married. It’s a legally binding arrangement where a person becomes a full member of another family, in name, in loyalty, inheritance and everything. You never hear about an adopted person getting divorced from their family. It works. It’s an ancient accepted way of family life that even makes the headlines in the Bible, (notably Moses, and Jesus). So I’m in pretty good company.

Drifting in the serene silky peacefulness of Castleward Bay, my heart was pounding like I’d just been wrestling that damned bull again. “Hello. Graham? Brian here. Hilary’s brother.”

His soft voice replied, “Welcome.” same as he’d begun with Hilary.

Welcome.

Thinking back, at the time that word was a good choice; it was nice and familiar and welcoming. But thinking about it now, it makes me feel like a long-lost relation returning to the family, seeking acceptance. That’s definitely not what I was after. I’m no prodigal son. I’m not returning; exploring, perhaps.

We chatted easily, like old friends.

It was surreal.

There was a strange and immediate familiarity, a true connection.

To be sure, Graham did most of the talking. He spoke about growing up near the Mournes, moving to Newcastle, boarding schools, and moving to the Isle of Man, and aunts and uncles, and his mother and father, and his grandfather.

Strange, because although he was talking about places and people significant to my very existence, it meant very little to me at the time; my mind was focussed on the significance of the phone call, not its content. It was like listening to a stranger talk about their life. (I get that a lot. Either I look like I’m interested, look like I can help, or look like I’ve got sucker written across my head. Or perhaps it’s because I’m a listener, and everyone wants someone to listen.)

Graham was phoning me from his home in Bournemouth. He was the only surviving sibling not living on the Isle of Man. Ewan (his brother whom I’d sent my letter to) presumably couldn’t contain himself long enough to wait for Hilary’s missing correspondence with their mother, and had shown my letter to his brother and sisters on the island, and then read it over the phone to Graham.

I’d put my full name on the letter, and my full address, so it didn’t take a lot of investigation to find my phone number, or Hilary’s. But Graham was the one who grasped the nettle and phoned. He’d tried me first (but I was out, paddling about), so without hesitation he’d phoned Hilary. Why wait, I suppose?

There was just one question I needed to ask.

I’ve always had a fear that my birth-mother was dominated by her father-in-law. I wanted them to be lovers; I wanted to be the unexpected result of a loving respect for each other. I knew I was a mistake, but I didn’t want to be the consequence of abuse. That would trouble me. It would trouble me to think that the man who fathered me was cruel and had forced his vulnerable and desperate daughter-in-law to have sex.

Graham assured me that the relationship between his mother and grandfather was a very special one, a loving and caring and respectful relationship. And he went on to say that my letter had made sense of a lot of things for him.

Graham spoke until my phone battery died. I paddled back across the bay to find Claire and tell her what had just happened.

My Claire reads too many novels, sometimes two a week, sometimes one a day if it’s particularly gruesome. Now she was witnessing a real-life drama, so she was wide-eyed and buzzing with excitement when I told her who I’d been talking to on the phone. Of course, she wanted to know everything. And of course (being a man), I could only remember enough of the conversation to make her livid with curiosity, and irritated that I could be so vague about something so dramatic. But Graham’s conversation just seemed unreal to me, like I was having a daydream. And he’d talked so long and told me so much that I couldn’t sort it all out in my head to tell Claire anything other than snippets and headlines. I said I’d phone Hilary when we got home, she’d remember, Hilary would’ve taken notes.

The tide was now running fast and full outside the safety of the bay. We’d have to cross a lot of turbulence to get back to the peninsula side of the lough. And once we’d started across the narrows I realised I hadn’t planned our route very well. We were well away from the whirlpool (that beastie would’ve swallowed us up and spat us out in bits), but I didn’t realise how fast the tide was shifting until we were deep into 9-knots of boiling water. We paddled through great bulges of smooth turbulence where the water is forced up by underwater rock formations, and our little canoe spun this way and that like a crazy compass needle, nearly tipping us out time and again.

“Just keep low and paddle hard. Don’t try to correct our course. Just keep paddling.”

Bowen was enjoying the ride. Claire was scared, but she remained calm so as not to panic Bowen. I’d have enjoyed it if I was on my own, but I knew that Claire was going to give me a serious case of earache and a paddle-shaped face if we all ended up swimming for it.

There was no going back on the course of events I’d started by sending that letter. Whether I was riding an angry bull, riding the tidal rapids, or writing to my birth-family, I knew there was no going back. I’d started something I was going to have to see through, and whatever they might be, I was going to have to live with the consequences.