‘Well. Underneath adopted, there’s a note of a temporary care order made in the name of Anthony Georgallis…’
‘Yes… that’s my father. He thrust a load of papers in front of me only a week after the birth. I hardly even knew what I was signing, I was still so distraught…’
‘That’s okay. You don’t need to appease yourself to us, or explain. It’s just the more we know, the easier it is when it comes to tracing.’ Megan’s voice was cool, soothing; as if she’d dealt a thousand times before with mothers who held back the harsher, more painful details. ‘Then we’ve got a note of a Court order made some five months later at Highgate Court. That would probably be the next most logical search point.’
Elena felt her trembling start to return. ‘I think I know what it says already.’ She gripped hard at the edge of the telephone table, trying to brace her shaking. ‘I suffered severe depression soon after signing my baby away and made an attempt to take my own life.’ The images were still vivid: the bathroom sliding sideways after she’d taken the pills, her face being slapped hard; but as she tried to focus on her mother above, the bright fluorescent light behind washed away any definition, searing through her eyes like a hot lance. ‘When I recovered, I decided that I just couldn’t live with the same sense of loss and guilt for the rest of my life — I wanted my baby back. But my father said that he’d fight me all the way, and he used the attempted suicide to argue that I was unstable and unfit. I didn’t even bother to show up at court for the final ruling — it was already a foregone conclusion.’
‘I see.’
Despite Megan being battle-hardened and probably having heard every possible story — Elena could swear she heard a faint swallow from the other end.
From downstairs came the muffled tones of Gordon’s voice: speaking to another business client while on the other line she unravelled the secrets of the past she’d long held from him. At the local shops the day before, she’d suddenly panicked that Megan might phone while she was out, Gordon would pick it up and, if the wrong thing was said, the secret would be out straightaway. But if the trace was successful, she’d have to tell him anyway, and the mounting dread of finally having to spill all to Gordon hit her in full force.
When no call had come through the rest of that day, she began almost to wish that there would be no trace found; then at least she would never have to tell Gordon. Their lives would continue as before: happy, albeit for her, incomplete.
‘But that’s not the only thing those Court papers might show.’ Megan’s words were suddenly measured, purposeful. ‘They might show the family who adopted your son.’
Elena felt a sudden tight constriction in her chest. She swallowed hard, as if she hadn’t heard right and that might clear it. She’d been prepared for weeks or even months of searching, and likely even then nothing at the end of it. It was as if someone had casually told her she had a winning lottery ticket in her coat pocket. It just seemed too easy to trust. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Not a hundred percent — but there are strong chances it’s registered there, particularly if the adoption was arranged at the same time. We’ll know soon enough.’
‘How long?’
‘Well, normally it can take anything from a few weeks to a few months. But Terry has his way of speeding things: urgent contact needed because of a serious congenital disorder, rare blood group sharing, things like that. Quite honestly, it’s best not to ask. I just leave it to him as to the best and quickest method to get what he wants. Any luck, he should have something within five or six days, certainly within a week.'
In the end it was only four days before Megan called back with some names: Nicholas and Maria Stephanou, and an address in Canterbury, Kent. Terry was checking it out as they spoke. ‘Twenty-nine years, so probably they’ve moved. But at least it’s a name and a start point for him to track from.’
Suddenly Elena had a new name to mutter under her breath: George Stephanou. Still it didn’t help: no image came to mind for her to cling to. But at least now she felt more alive, full of hope: marked contrast to the doldrums of the past week.
Though later that afternoon she was back again in the doldrums. She’d just left her local corner store after being brought up to date on village goings-on by Mrs Wickens, its shopkeeper of twenty-five years, in her normal shrugging and winking ‘Yar know what I’m saying’ style. Elena’s step was lively, brisk — the air was fresh, the sky bright, she was still smiling from Mrs Wickens’ stories — everything seemed to be going right at last.
Then Nicola Ryall’s dark blue Range Rover drifted by. Lorena was in the back and she saw Elena straightaway. Their eyes locked, and Lorena swivelled quickly around so that she could continue staring back. Her small hand slowly reached out and touched the inside of the back glass, as if she was trying to make invisible contact, and Elena felt a sharp stab of guilt. This past week she’d consumed herself with nothing but her own problems, leaving Lorena all but forgotten. The girl’s last hope probably now gone of ever getting free from Ryall, and Elena hadn’t given her a second thought.
Just before fading from view, Elena thought she saw Lorena silently mouth something. It looked like ‘Help me.’
Georges went back across with Simone’s drink, a Campari and lemon, as the man in the light grey suit with bright floral tied moved away.
‘Who’s he?’ Georges asked Simone.
‘Jaques Delamarle. Local politician, something to do with Cultural Affairs, if I remember right. My father deals with him now and then because of his heavy jazz festival contributions — but he’s known him for years. He’s an old family friend and also knows Lillian: that’s why he’s here.’
‘No political advantage being sought then?’ Georges raised an eyebrow.
‘No. I don’t think my father would dare try it here.’ Simone smiled and took a sip of her drink. They’d both noticed how over the past year Jean-Paul had increasingly courted political favour. ‘If Lillian got even a whiff that he was turning her birthday party into part of his image bolstering campaign, she’d have his head on a plate next to the suckling pig.’ The three-man combo at the end of the room started up again, launching into an upbeat Latin version of ‘Besame Mucho’, and Simone had to raise her voice slightly. ‘He saves all of that for open house days or business and charity functions.’
There were only about ten people dancing — most people seemed keener on eating, drinking and talking for the past hour or so, though invariably Lillian and her new ‘friend’ Max were among the first on the floor. Max was a retired grocer whose expansion plans had peaked at two small Outremont stores and a downtown
Jean-Paul looked on and smiled graciously, but both Simone and Georges could still read the silent disapproval carefully shielded beneath. One of Jean-Paul’s few character flaws. Normally extremely broad-minded with little regard for social or class divides, when it came to his mother his class-consciousness was suddenly extreme. Nobody was good enough for her.
But Georges was more concerned about reading something else beneath Jean-Paul’s smile, after their earlier conversation. It had started out as a standard business update, but then there’d been a couple of questions as to whether everything was okay and ‘did anything else happen while I was away?’ that in retrospect struck him as odd. Not the questions themselves, but the awkward moment’s silence straight after Georges had assured that everything was fine.
Probably he was just getting paranoid; he was still rattled after the session with Chenouda and perhaps it had come through in his voice. He’d sounded strained, concerned. If Jean-Paul had an inside track with the RCMP, then he’d also know the theory Chenouda was pushing about Leduc and now Savard. He’d have been grilling Roman non-stop since he got back, but things between them seemed to be fine; the smiles and body language were easy and relaxed from the couple of times he’d seen them talk so far.
The only thing he was still unsure of was whether the smiles were easy from Jean-Paul to him, whether…
‘I said — so here we are. Stuck in the middle,’ Simone repeated. She looked back towards Jaques Delamarle, then towards Roman and Frank Massenat propped up against the back wall, diving into re-filled platefuls of canapes. ‘Clowns to the left of us… jokers to the right.’ Then her eyebrows knitted slightly. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes, fine. Fine.’ Georges smiled wanly. Jean-Paul’s oddly comical mix at functions: the transition from crime boss to respectable businessman wasn’t fully there yet; the past was still mingling with what Jean-Paul hoped was his future.
