‘The turning point came later, much later, when I had children of my own, Scarlet and Liam, and I could see myself and my husband in them. I began to wonder again. Do I look like my parents? What was their story? I became addicted to that programme on TV, you know the one, Long Lost Families, and then it became an obsession, I had to find them. I asked my adopted parents for my birth certificate and it named both parents. My father Jack was easy to trace and I soon found out that he was deceased. Did any of you meet him?’
We all shook our heads. ‘We didn’t, and as Mitch didn’t mention him after a while, we, or at least I, assumed that they’d broken up.’
‘We had no idea that he’d been killed until we saw it on Wikipedia,’ said Ally.
‘Did you know he played in a band?’ I asked.
Lisa nodded. ‘Oh yes. Black Rose. I’ve got all their music and history and some images of him from the Net and old music magazines. I even met one of the former band members, guy named Lou. He told me all about my dad. He didn’t know much about my mother, said he only met her once or twice. My son Liam’s very musical, so I wonder if he got that from his grandfather. I suppose Michelle gave me my second name Rose in memory of Jack and the band Black Rose.’
‘Lisa Rose,’ said Ally.
‘Oh no,’ said Lisa. ‘The name on my birth certificate was Sara Rose. My adopted parents named me Lisa.’
‘Oh …’ I let out a soft moan as the implication hit me and felt sudden tears prick the back of my eyes.
‘You OK?’ Jo asked.
I nodded. ‘I … Remember? Mitch and I promised that if we ever had girls, I’d name mine after her and she’d name hers after me. She kept that promise and I … knew nothing about it. I just … I don’t understand.’
Jo put her hand over mine. ‘I do remember.’
‘From the research I did,’ Lisa said, ‘I gathered that Jack’d died about seven months before I was born.’
‘Before you were born?’ asked Jo. ‘No. We didn’t know that either. So—’
‘This is all a lot to take in,’ said Ally as she took a deep breath.
‘I know. Maybe that’s why she gave me away,’ said Lisa. ‘Couldn’t face being a single mother. Who knows? I’ve imagined every scenario under the sun. After hearing of his death, maybe she couldn’t manage? Went into a decline and got depressed? But … if you were so close, how come none of you knew she was pregnant?’
‘That’s exactly what we’ve been asking ourselves over and over since we discovered she’d had you,’ said Jo.
‘I seem to remember, when she first mentioned him, she was really head over heels,’ said Ally, ‘and we made her promise to bring him to meet us next time we were in Manchester.’
‘But it never happened,’ I said. ‘We thought nothing of it because we all dated men for a short while in those years – we were young, it wasn’t time for settling down. I assumed Mitch moved on from Jack. The next thing we heard, Mitch was in London, living with her sister, working in a hippie shop. That was about the time she got involved with this group, the Rainbow Children and, to be honest, that’s all she ever talked about.’
‘And that’s the last you heard from her?’
‘Not exactly,’ I said. ‘There were phone calls after she’d moved in the commune—’
‘And I visited her once,’ said Ally, ‘but she’d changed. It wasn’t a comfortable meeting. I guess we thought it was a phase, and that when she came through it, she’d be in touch again …’
‘And I got married young, had children, and that took over,’ said Jo.
‘To begin with, I think I was vaguely aware of where she was,’ said Ally, ‘just as I vaguely knew where Sara and Jo were.’
‘London, then Devon, then I seem to remember her saying she was moving back to London, and after that, nothing,’ I said.
‘And she’s not on Facebook or social media now,’ said Jo. ‘We don’t know where to go next.’
‘Has she got other family? Siblings?’
‘One sister, Fi. We’ve been trying to track her down too. We do know that her parents are dead. They moved out to New Zealand in the 1970s.’
‘What were they like?’ Lisa asked.
I glanced at Ally and Jo. ‘She … er … wasn’t close to her dad—’
‘He was a miserable old sod,’ said Jo, and Lisa laughed. ‘He was critical and scary. We rarely used to hang out at her house because there was always an atmosphere.’
‘Her mum was sweet enough,’ said Ally, ‘but very much in her husband’s shadow.’
‘And her sister? Was she close to her?’
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘They were like chalk and cheese. Mitch was such a bright spark; her sister was intense, political—’
‘Not a barrel of laughs,’ said Jo.
‘I’d love to see photos of them too,’ said Lisa. ‘Do you have any that were maybe taken at her house that have her family in them?’
I shook my head. ‘We don’t, but my TV production company have got a couple of agencies working on looking for Mitch. They claim to be able to find anyone anywhere in the world, so maybe they will trace Fi.’
‘What school did you go to?’ asked Lisa.
‘St Mary’s Convent in Manchester,’ said Jo.
‘Have you looked on Facebook for your old school page?’
‘We have. No joy,’ said Jo. ‘It’s a sixth-form college now and all the posts are from
