Scotland. Dad was a librarian until he retired, and Mum worked for one of the local law practices. I had the loveliest upbringing any child could have been given, and during all that time, I never thought of my natural mother. I did well at school, and when I left, I went to teacher training college in Edinburgh. I qualified when I was twenty-two, and got a job back in Peeblesshire. It was round about that time that the law was changed, and adopted children were given the right to know who their natural parents were. I suppose I might have done something about it then: I thought about it, I admit, but somehow I felt that it would seem disloyal to Mum and Dad. Then I met a man.’ She smiled shyly, and sipped her coffee as if to cover her embarrassment.
‘His name was Felix Friend,’ she continued. ‘I was at an end-of-term night out in Peebles Hydro with the school staff, and he was there. We got talking. He told me that he was from Kuala Lumpur, that he worked for an oil company, that he was in Scotland for a conference, and that he was taking some holiday time once his business was over. I thought he was charming, so when he asked me out I accepted without a second thought. Two weeks later, when he asked me to marry him, I accepted just as quickly. That’s where I’ve been for the second half of my life, living in Malaysia.’
‘So what brought you back to Scotland?’
‘Felix died last year.’
‘Ah, I’m sorry to hear that. He couldn’t have been very old.’
‘He was twelve years older than me, but you’re right, it was most unexpected. He was a very neat, trim man; he was never overweight, played golf, and swam a lot, yet it didn’t stop him having an aneurism and dropping in his tracks.’ A look of pain came into her eyes, and stayed there. ‘But I’m sorry,’ she continued, ‘I’m distracting you. Now Felix isn’t . . . isn’t there any more, I can come back to Scotland for longer periods. Up till now, a month’s the longest I’ve managed. I’m here now because of Zandra, my daughter: she’s the reason I’m looking for my mother.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Twenty-two. I have two children, Zandra and Felix junior; they’re twins.’
‘And she’s decided that she needs to know who she is? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yes, but it’s more than a whim. She’s just become engaged to an American she met at university in Utah, in the United States. He’s a Mormon, and they, apparently, are very big on ancestry.’
‘They’re also fairly big on polygamy, are they not?’
‘Hah! Not any more, I’m glad to say. But she is serious about her need to know who her natural grandparents are.’
‘That’s understandable, I suppose,’ said Proud. ‘What progress have you made? And where does Adolf Bothwell come into this?’
‘Adolf?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll get to that. Go on, please.’ He picked up a biscuit.
‘Okay, I began by going to Barnardo’s and asking them what material they held on me. They told me that my file still existed, but that, believe it or not, the law required me to have counselling before they could let me see it. I know that Britain’s become a nanny state, but that’s ridiculous.’
‘There are reasons. It can be very traumatic for some people.’
‘Lowest common denominator, you mean?’
‘No, I mean for the natural parents. Your mother, for example, may believe that you have no means of tracing her, for that was the case when you were adopted. Many people in her situation still don’t appreciate that the law has been changed. Think of the shock for them when a middle-aged person arrives on their doorstep.’
‘And says, “Hello, Mum”? I suppose so. I hadn’t thought of it from that angle. How very self-centred I’ve become. In any case, I had the counselling, and I got to see my file, which included my birth certificate. That’s when I hired the genealogist.’
‘What did that turn up, apart from your grandparents?’
‘I found that I have an aunt: her name is Magdalene, and she’s three years older than my mother. She lives in Forres, she’s married to a man named Sandy Gates, and she has two sons, a granddaughter and two grandsons. There was a third grandson, but he was killed in Iraq a couple of years ago.’
‘Did your search reveal all this?’
‘Not all of it: my budget ran out before he got to the grandchildren, but what he gave me was enough. I checked the local telephone directory against the address shown on the report, and found that they still live there. So I phoned them: Sandy answered. I didn’t tell him who I was straight away. I asked if I could speak to his wife, and I asked whether she was in good health, as what I had to tell her would come as a big surprise. He laughed and said that she was out getting coal for the fire, and that she’d speak to me when she’d washed her hands. Now I’ve met her, I don’t think he was joking. She came on the line: I told her what my birth name was, and that I thought she was my aunt.’
‘How did she react?’ asked Proud, intrigued.
‘There was nothing for a second or two. At first I thought she’d hung up, until she said, “My, my; you’re Annabelle’s wee girl. I’ve always fretted about what happened to you.” I asked her if she knew where my mother was. She told me that as far as she knew she was dead, but that she couldn’t swear to it. Then she invited me to visit her. I wasn’t really expecting that; the fact is, I wasn’t sure she’d speak to me at all. I drove up next day, in my dad’s car. It was much further than I thought, away up in Morayshire. I left early, but didn’t get there until about four in the afternoon.’
‘You must have felt very strange, seeing her.’
‘Did I ever! It was like looking at a little old version of myself, paler-skinned, perhaps, although Aunt Magda is nut-brown from the sun. I was determined to be completely composed when I saw her, but I couldn’t manage it. I cried a little and so did she. Poor Sandy didn’t know where to look.’
‘I know the feeling,’ Proud murmured sincerely.
‘Once we’d composed ourselves, she sat me down and gave me a cup of tea. Then I told her my story, all about my life, and how it had turned out. Finally I told her why I needed to find my mother. “I see,” she said, and then she added what struck me at the time as the strangest thing. “Do you want to know about your birth, and why you were adopted?” I realised at that moment that such a thought had never entered my head. I had come to Scotland for my daughter’s sake, not for my own: I had long since stopped thinking about how I had come to be in Barnardo’s.’ Her hand shook slightly as she picked up her coffee. ‘But I said, “Yes,” all the same. It’s a sad story, but far from unique. Genes must mean something, for my mother, like me, was a teacher. She did her training in Aberdeen, but she had a different approach to the social side. Aunt Magda described her as “a bit of a girl”, with that knowing smile people of her age are so good at. She must have been indeed, for in the summer she completed her training course, she came back home to Fochabers looking, as my aunt put it, “rather out of shape”.’
‘Pregnant?’
‘About five months, to judge from the date on my birth certificate. Now remember, Sir James, this was back in the fifties, a few years before the permissive society. My grandparents went ballistic. They threw her out, and told her that if she ever wanted to set foot in their house again, it would be without me. Aunt Magda wasn’t long married herself, and she was pregnant too, but still she took her in. When I was born . . . in those days, with no job, and no money, my mother simply couldn’t afford to keep me. Poor Magda, she said that she and Sandy wanted to bring me up as their own, but they were young and they just couldn’t afford it. On top of that, there was the question of my colour. They weren’t worried for themselves, you understand, but for me. They were afraid I’d face a lifetime of sniggering and finger-pointing. It was bad enough being illegitimate in those days, even without . . .’
‘I imagine so.’
‘And that was that. The decision was made, and Sandy got in touch with Barnardo’s: when I was less than three months old I was taken in. I was looked after in a place in North Berwick, called Glasclune. I can still remember it, just little bits: it overlooked the sea, and we could see the ships go by from our dormitories, and the lighthouses, on the Bass Rock and all along the coast. The other kids were all right: we were really well taken care of, but we all knew we were different, and that made us all a bit sad.’
‘Your mother never came to see you?’ asked Proud.
‘No. I grew up thinking that my parents were dead. Mum and Dad knew differently: they were told my background when they adopted me, but they didn’t tell me until they thought I was old enough to handle it emotionally.’
