What Lies Between Us(57)

CHAPTER 48





NINA


TWO YEARS EARLIER


When I hear Mum’s heavy breathing from the other side of her bedroom door, my search for the truth about who I really am and what happened to me begins. You can’t just give a baby away without there being a lengthy paper trail. I need cold, hard, legal, irrefutable proof of what she has done. If she’s been sensible, she’ll have destroyed everything. But knowing what a hoarder she can be, I’m hanging on to the hope that she might have forgotten something.

Using my phone as a torch, I make my way into her room, tiptoeing across the carpet. I feel my way around inside her chest of drawers and wardrobe, though I know it’s unlikely to be that easy. As expected, I find nothing incriminating in there or in the two empty bedrooms, dining-room sideboard or writing bureau in the lounge. When I finish in the kitchen empty-handed, all hope rests on the basement.

I turn on the light switch and make my way down the concrete steps. I can’t recall the last time I had a reason to come down here. It’s a sizeable space and runs the entire length of the ground floor of the house. One of the first things Dad did when we moved here was to get a damp course fitted, electrics installed and the walls plastered. It was going to be ‘his space’, only he never got around to installing the snooker table he always wanted. Now it’s just a dumping ground for our family history and is crammed with clutter. I don’t know where to begin.

It’s been swallowed up by decades of objects and old tables and chairs that Mum hasn’t thrown away. There are abandoned sets of broken garden furniture, two of my old bikes, shelves of half-empty paint cans and a broken tumble drier. Yet there is something strangely comforting about being among so much that reminds me of my childhood. Down here I feel impervious to what upstairs has to throw at me.

I set to work, sifting through dozens of cardboard boxes. They are all unlabelled, so only when I peel off the brown tape and open the flaps do I discover what’s inside. Some are files containing paperwork, but they’re only old bank statements and bills. Others contain Mum’s out-of-fashion clothes, my and her school reports, and old rolls of partially used wallpaper.

A box of my school exercise books sidetracks me, and I remove one at random and flick through it. I stop at an English assignment where my eight-year-old self is asked to write an essay on where I hope I will be at the age of thirty. I smile at my naive ambitions. Back then, all I wanted was to marry George Michael, live together in a house by the seaside and look after sick ponies.

My search risks becoming a trip down memory lane as I stumble across boxes of my old toys too. Barbie and Ken dolls, Sylvanian Families, Beanie Babies and board games all bring back long-lost memories. There’s a three-storey white doll’s house that I used to spend hours playing with. I remove from its kitchen one of the three wooden figures that make up the perfect family; he’s dressed in a small blue suit, carries a briefcase in his hand and I’ve drawn a red smile on his face in felt-tip pen. I realise I’ve been painting on my own smile for most of my adult life.

I wonder why Mum has never thrown any of this away. Perhaps it’s her way of holding on to a past she longs to return to, when she was happily married and mother to a little girl who hadn’t lost her innocence.

It brings a lump to my throat when I stumble across a memory box my dad made for me. Inside are posters and song lyrics from Smash Hits, postcards, birthday cards and other odds and ends. I choose meaningful objects from the other boxes in front of me and add them to the box. I long to remain here in a thirteen-year-old’s world and never leave, but I have a mission.

I’m unaware of the time until I glance at my watch – it’s past 1.30 a.m. and I’ve already been down here for hours. Yet I’m no closer to uncovering the depth of Mum’s lies. Another hour, and yet more boxes pass until there is nothing left to search. I sit on an old wooden stool with my head in my hands, defeated and frustrated by failure. The only place I haven’t looked is outside in the garden shed. But I’m sure I’d have spotted paperwork in there over the years.

I rise to my feet and let out the longest of yawns. I’m shattered, but I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight with so many questions left unanswered. As I return to the staircase, I catch sight of a dustsheet draped over objects in a shaded gap under the stairs. Curious, I pull it aside; underneath are six upright suitcases and Dad’s golf bag. The latter gives me goosebumps. I read the cardboard labels tied with string to the luggage handles. I can just about make out Dad’s writing in the faded ink: his and Mum’s names and address. They also contain flight luggage tags from Spain, France and Germany, all places I’ve never been to but which they must have visited before I was born. Sometimes I forget they had a life before me. All have small padlocks attached, and it doesn’t take much force to snap them open with the heel of my shoe. I lay the first suitcase on the floor, unbuckle the sides and lift the lid.

Inside are scores of empty white-and-red medication boxes. They all appear to be for the same tablets. Each one has a typed name and address label on it; the same four strangers’ names and addresses are repeated over and over again. It takes time, but I examine each of them; the earliest dates back to July 1995 and the most recent is for May 1996. The last few packets are still sealed. The labels reveal they’ve been provided by seven different chemists located in different parts of town.