The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea (3 page)

Almost all of these had to do with the disintegration of his family, an apparently unstoppable sequence of events which began with the premature death of his mother Eilidh from cancer when he was 17 (an age that had seemed grown-up until he kissed her cold forehead). It continued with his father’s twin absences. The first was psychological – following his mother’s funeral, James McGill suffered a mental collapse. The second was physical and appeared to have no limit of time. For the last eleven years his father had worked abroad, teaching at charity-run schools for orphans. After moving from country to country, he settled in Mozambique where he had set up home with a Swazi woman 12 years his junior and her three children. Even before Cal knew of and welcomed the arrangement, he had grown to understand why his father lived as he did, never returning to Edinburgh. To McGill senior, the city and the house in Newington were places of bitter memories, of loss, where his wife and lover had died, where he had suffered a break-down and might again if he ventured back. In the letter he sent to Cal telling him about the sale (including the contents) to Harry and Annabel, he indicated as much.

Wasn’t it time for Cal and him to leave it behind, for it to provide for the future instead of preserving the past, memories which had been happy once but which had become distressing? Cal replied with resignation and restraint. He asked if he could have his mother’s books and six pieces of furniture and thanked his father for his ‘very generous’ division of the money. Cal received £227,000, a quarter of the sale price. He would use it to buy a cottage ‘somewhere off the beaten track by the sea; probably without a road or neighbours, not a notion that will surprise you I imagine.’

What he’d felt was something more emotional
but he hadn’t written it. What would have been
the point? The sale had been agreed. It was irrevocable. ‘
For the first time in my life,’ he might have
said, ‘there’s nowhere on a map I can stick
a pin and say “this is where I belong”. Even
though I haven’t been living in the house, it
has always been
there
. It has always been home.’ It
was what he thought.

Nothing else had been as dependable, he might have added. Not his mother. Not his father.

He turned out the store-room light, closed the door and sat at his table, waiting for his computer to warm up, glancing at the shelves which displayed his collection of 346 artefacts from beach combing. After drinking some more coffee, he logged on to his email and found he had 17 unread messages. Most appeared to be inquiries from potential clients, more fathers and mothers, husbands or wives wanting him to guide them towards the bodies of their drowned and missing children or lovers. He read the first six. Their tone of desperation was as moving as it was familiar, the burden of expectation too much for him in his present state of mind. He replied with sympathy as well as regrets. He cited pressure of work – ‘the disadvantage of being a one-man operation’. He hoped to be ‘in a position to take on new cases in a week or two’. He’d be in contact as soon as he could. Then he listened again to the phone message he’d received from Duncan Boyd. ‘Neptune Boyd speaking – visit anytime you want.’ Cal had seen a King Neptune Scroll so he understood the reference. He rang back but it went to answer.

‘I’ll be passing in a few days and I’ll call in. Look forward to meeting you.’

He shut down his computer, slid his laptop into his backpack and locked the office door. He had to get away, somewhere wild, where the roaring of the sea obliterated everything else.

Dawn. The gale barged into
Cal’s pickup as if dislodging it was the only
purpose for barrelling over hundreds of miles of ocean. Like
a thug who wasn’t getting his own way, the
wind shoved, pushed, threatened and howled. A gust thumped against
the front passenger door; another bounced off the cab. The
vehicle rocked and shuddered from the ferocity of the assault.
Cal opened his window wide enough to slide out his
hand. When it was wet with salt and spray, he
rubbed it against his face. Zipping his jacket and pulling
tight the draw-string on his hood, he experienced excitement
as well as melancholy. Was this how it was going
to be, he wondered as he opened his door, holding
it tight to stop the squall ripping it from its
hinges. Would he always be alone and in a storm
walking some remote coast?

Anna sat cross-legged under the table putting varnish on her nails; red alternating with black for her toes, glitter pink for her fingers. Her mother had asked her to keep out of the way while she made the bedsit ‘half-way presentable’. But the more Violet brushed, wiped and dusted, the more hopeless the prospect seemed to be. At least that was the gist of her exasperated commentary as she went from bed to chest of drawers, to chair, to cupboard. Everything Violet touched or noticed had this wrong with it, or that needing mending or replacing. Her worries about the impression their impending visitor would take away with him extended to her daughter.

‘And try not to call me Violet,’ she said. Anna had a habit of calling her mother Violet unless she was cross or upset. Then she became Mummy.

‘And
try
to call me Violet,’ Anna repeated in the opposite.

‘And remember to smile.’

‘And remember
not
to smile.’

Anna peered out from below the fringe of table cloth as Violet removed jumpers and yesterday’s underwear from the chair and shoved them under the bed.

‘And if he speaks to you make sure you answer him politely.’

‘
And if he speaks to you make sure you
don’t
answer him politely.’

Violet stopped what she was doing and gave her daughter an anguished look. ‘Anna, love, it’s serious. Mr Anwar will be here soon.’

‘Mr Anwar will . . .
not
. . . be here soon.’ Anna began laughing and kicked out her legs knocking over one of the bottles of varnish. It made a little puddle of pink on the bare wood floor.

‘Oh Anna, look what you’ve done.’ Violet snatched a dirty cloth and ran to her daughter, wiping the spill with one hand and grabbing at the leaking bottle with another. ‘Why are you so naughty?’

As she
rubbed at the floor, she noticed a pink stain on
her jeans where she’d knelt. Anna saw it too
and pre-empted another scolding by sobbing and emitting little
gasps of misery. Soon her cheeks were streaked and her
nose was running. Violet regarded the wreckage of her daughter
and blamed herself. She’d been tense all morning. It
was bound to end with someone in tears. She wrapped
the varnish bottle in the cloth to prevent it spilling
again and placed it out of harm’s way on
the mantelpiece beside her birthday cards before crouching beside Anna
. ‘Come here,’ she said, pulling on the girl’s arm
. Mother and daughter leaned into each other. Violet kissed Anna
’s forehead, stroked away the wetness squeezing from her eyes
and brushed back her dark curly hair. She held Anna
’s hands and blew on her nails to dry them
. ‘Friends?’ Violet offered.

‘I suppose,’ Anna replied, pulling away to return to her lair under the table just as the door bell sounded. Violet wanted to hug her daughter again, to be certain her crossness had been forgiven, but she couldn’t let Mr Anwar see the room like this. What would he think? That she was a bad mother too?

She gathered up the other bottles of varnish and hid them in a drawer in the kitchen alcove along with a dirty pan from the sink. On her the way to the door she diverted by the bed and turned-over the duvet to conceal the rip in the cover. She paused to wonder whether the balloon tied to the bed-head should be removed. The legend ‘Happy Birthday’ had been reduced by deflation to a meaningless jumble of letters, ‘Hppitda’. The bell sounded again, this time two rings and Violet left the balloon. She checked herself in the small mirror to the right of the door before glancing back at Anna whose cheeks and nose were smudged from crying. Violet found a tissue in her pocket and ran to her with it. ‘Quickly, your face.’

Anna passed the tissue carelessly across her mouth before throwing it behind her. Violet was half way to the door when she turned back to her daughter. ‘And remember to smile.’

‘And remember
not
to smile.’

Violet made a last despairing inspection of the barely furnished room with its high ceiling and plaster cracks. None of it was as she wanted it to be.

She pressed the entry buzzer, straightened her jersey and combed her fingers through her hair, a habit from when she wore it long. By the time she heard her visitor’s footfall on the last flight of stairs she was shaking with nerves. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door.

Mr Anwar it turned out was a small man, balding, with a long face on which perched wire-rimmed glasses. He wore a navy blue jacket, white shirt, and charcoal trousers which were too long for him. ‘Miss Wells?’ He offered a hand. Violet took it briefly, detaching as soon as it was polite in case he felt her agitation.

‘Come in, please,’ she said.

After closing the door, she introduced Mr Anwar to Anna, and Anna (
bless
her
) did exactly as Violet had asked. She smiled and said, ‘Hello, how are you?’

Mr Anwar bent to get a better look at the child. ‘Your daughter?’ He turned to Violet.

Violet nodded. She’d grown accustomed to the question. ‘Anna’s father is from North Africa,’ she said, explaining the honey-brown colour of Anna’s skin. It was all she said: nothing about him deserting her during the pregnancy – she’d heard he’d gone back to Morocco; nothing about the guilt which nagged at her; bringing a child into the world without a father, repeating the cycle.

‘Anna is a pretty name for a pretty girl.’ Mr Anwar addressed the compliment to Violet but he meant it for the child. Violet saw the vomit face that Anna pulled, but she didn’t mind. In fact she wanted to embrace her daughter. In that short exchange Anna had won over Mr Anwar. Violet could tell by his expression of amused indulgence.

‘And how old is she?’

‘I’m four and a quarter,’ Anna replied with an indignant note of protest that the question was not directed at her.

‘Lovely age, when they’re like that,’ Mr Anwar said. ‘A handful I’m sure, but delightful.’

‘Most of the time she is,’ Violet replied before offering Mr Anwar a cup of tea, remembering too late the milk in the fridge was past its sell-by. ‘Do you mind black?’

‘No, not at all; in fact, I prefer it black, thank you.’

She had begun to like Mr Anwar
and his courteous ways. As she put the tea bags
into the mugs, she indicated the arm chair. ‘Please sit
down, Mr Anwar.’ He hesitated as it was the only
chair in the room but Violet reassured him that it
was ‘fine, really’. She would sit on the end of
the bed.

Mr Anwar bowed his head, a gesture simultaneously of obedience and thanks, and perched on the edge of the chair. After Violet brought over the mugs of tea, handing one to him, handle first, she said, ‘You have something to tell me about my mother.’

‘I have, Miss Wells.’

He placed his mug on the floor between his shoes – slip-ons; grey, unassuming and unfashionable like their owner – and brought a white envelope from an inside pocket. ‘I hope you didn’t mind me contacting Mr Wells . . . I gathered from him that you’re not in regular touch . . . that all he has is your email address.’

‘It’s all right.’

Mr Anwar appeared anxious to reassure Violet there had been no breach of confidentiality. ‘I asked him to pass on my details to you: name, phone number and email address. He didn’t ask why. Nothing else passed between us.’ He paused. ‘This address . . .’ he looked around the room, ‘. . . will remain confidential, of course.’ While Mr Anwar was talking, Violet watched his forefinger stroking the edge of the envelope.

‘We don’t have much to do with each other . . .’ Violet said apologetically. She glanced up wondering if she needed to explain why she’d drifted apart from her adoptive parents, how they’d never really got on. Mr Anwar read her uncertainty and attempted to put her at ease by bowing his head, letting her know there was no need for her to say more. Violet took a sip of tea. Mr Anwar did likewise and returned his mug to the floor before holding up the envelope. ‘This,’ he said, ‘arrived at our office in Inverness last week.’

Violet stared but said nothing.

‘You know what happened after you were born?’

‘My parents . . .’ Violet said, ‘my adoptive parents told me.’

‘Well, that makes it easier.’ His expression was kindly and understanding. ‘For both of us.’

He waited again, glancing at Violet. ‘Usually we wouldn’t pass on anonymous correspondence, but considering your circumstances, your special circumstances . . .’ With that he offered Violet the envelope, holding it in his left hand, stretching across the gap between the chair and the bed. For a while she did nothing. She looked from the envelope to Mr Anwar before taking it from him in both hands.

‘My suggestion,’ he said, ‘would be for you to open it and then we can talk?’ His speech was slow and considered, as if he understood the importance of the next few minutes, and the speed at which they should be taken. Such things were best not rushed his tone seemed to suggest.

‘Is there a name?’

He nodded. Violet placed the envelope in her lap, rubbed the corners between her fingers and thumbs, and stared at it. Her face showed the hurt of all those years. ‘Do you have children, Mr Anwar?’

The question caught him off guard. ‘A son . . . yes, a son . . .’

‘Could you have done that to him?’

‘No. No, I couldn’t.’ He shook his head to reinforce the point. Violet was struck by the emphatic nature of his response. Mr Anwar added as a softener. ‘But not everyone’s circumstances are the same. Who knows what was going through your mother’s head, what trouble she was in? Perhaps she thought she couldn’t look after you.’

A pulse pushed at Violet’s neck. ‘I’ve wanted this so much . . . and now I don’t know.’ She closed and opened her eyes. ‘What would you do Mr Anwar?’

He sighed, considering his reply. ‘I’d take my time.’

‘But would you read it?’

‘I think I would, yes.’

‘Even though it changes everything.’

Mr Anwar nodded a number of times. Neither spoke for a minute. Then Violet put the envelope on the arm of Mr Anwar’s chair and crossed to the other side of the room, as far away from it as she could be. ‘What will happen if I don’t?’

‘It’ll be kept for you. When . . . if . . . you change your mind, you’ll be able to read it.’

Violet brought her hands in front of her face, as in prayer. Why was she being like this? Didn’t she spend part of every day or night thinking about her mother, even now, after all this time?

Mr Anwar let his attention stray momentarily to Anna who was hugging one of the table legs, staring at the envelope, as if her grandmother might suddenly emerge from it, genie-like. He smiled at her and Violet asked, ‘If I open it will I have to do anything about it . . . afterwards?’

‘Go to see her, you mean?’

‘Yes . . .’

Mr Anwar hesitated before replying, forming the answer silently to be sure of his delivery. ‘I don’t know if this makes things easier for you . . . or more difficult.’ He let Violet prepare herself, delaying a beat before continuing. ‘I made a preliminary check to ascertain whether this letter had come from the woman named in the letter . . . to be sure it wasn’t your birth mother’s way of trying to initiate contact with you. Sometimes it happens in cases like these.’

‘Was it?’

‘No. No, it wasn’t.’ Mr Anwar shook his head. ‘I’m sorry Miss Wells. The woman who is named in this letter isn’t alive. She died the day after you were abandoned at the hospital.’

Violet heard it without moving. What transfixed her was not the news of her mother’s death, but that she hadn’t sensed it, not once, not in all the years of searching for her, of imagining their reunion with such daily regularity that any doubt about it ever happening had gone from her. Not
if
, but
when
: a longed-for moment. ‘Oh, she’s dead,’ was all she managed to say after the first shock had passed. Then, a few seconds later, ‘I didn’t know.’ As if she should have done. As if it was a daughter’s duty.

‘Gosh.’ It was not a word she normally used – it seemed to come from childhood. Ever since she could remember she had felt a living and visceral connection to her absent mother. It had driven Violet to hunt every street, every crowd, certain that her mother would have been doing the same, always on the look-out, always wondering, ‘Is this one her?’ Sometimes it was simply the way a woman walked, the colour of her hair – the same brown colour, or the style. At others it wouldn’t be anything specific, just a feeling, an inexplicable and sudden sensation of affinity. Or, a certain age: someone in their late thirties or early forties, who would have been a teenager when Violet was born, who couldn’t have coped, someone too young to understand what she had done deserting a baby like that, someone who hadn’t known better. The constancy of her searching hadn’t been affected by her living in Glasgow, about 250 kilometres from the hospital where she had been abandoned. As often as once a week, she’d see someone who had something familiar about her. Usually it happened when Violet hadn’t even been conscious of looking. She’d lost count of the number of women she’d followed. Some she’d even engaged in conversation, asking directions, anything to detain them for long enough so she could have a sense of them. After each disappointment Violet had lain awake as Anna slept.
One day. One
day it will happen.

How could she have been so wrong?

In the middle of this rush of memories, regrets and recriminations, Mr Anwar dropped another bombshell. He apologised for it but in his judgement it was better she heard it now than find out for herself later. ‘According to the records, she took her own life . . .’

Violet gasped and crouched with her back to wall, rocking backwards and forwards.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Wells.’ Mr Anwar moved further to the edge of the chair, as if preparing to spring to Violet’s side should she require support.