Page 10 of Days You Were Mine

But even so, after Carla has left, my mother says, ‘I could tell you liked her,’ and Hannah shakes her head.

‘Yes. But not enough. I can’t imagine leaving Samuel with her. I can’t imagine leaving Samuel full stop.’

And seeing Hannah’s closed-up face, my mother has the good sense to leave it there.

‘You’ll find someone when you’re ready,’ she says. ‘And if you want me to help out to begin with, you only have to say.’

An afternoon at the park, a garlicky roast chicken for supper, an intense evening watching our latest LoveFilm offering,American Beauty, with its opening masturbatory shower scene at which none of us laugh.

Towards the end of the film, my phone pings with an arriving text and I pick it up, idle, scarcely even curious until I see who it is from. ALICE. Name in lights, in red, inferno-esque flames. My heart on the floor. My mother oblivious. My adoptive mother. My real mother, despite the confusing terminology. Guilt I am used to, but this is something else. I feel like a cheat.

Luke, the message reads,shall we have lunch again? It would be so lovely to see you!

Back in our bedroom, I show the message to Hannah and she says, instantaneous reaction, ‘Fantastic, let’s invite her over!’ and then claps her hand over her mouth. Christina, the mother who has brought me up for the past twenty-seven years, lies just feet away in the bedroom next door.

When I was young, the facts of my birth and adoption were rarely mentioned. But I do remember hearing my mother telling one of her friends, ‘Oh, Luke has absolutely no interest in finding his birth mother. He isn’t curious about her at all.’

My story was mapped out for me, carefully drawn and plotted like an Ordnance Survey map. Here you are, Luke, theblueprint for your life, no need to deviate. Questions? Why on earth would you have any of those? On my first day at prep school, my mother said, all nonchalant and casual, ‘By the way, I wouldn’t mention that you’re adopted. People tend to make such a big deal out of it.’

I could read between the lines. Keep your adoption secret, she was saying, and mostly I did. I was biddable back then, and desperate to fit in.

‘Oh God,’ Hannah says, ‘this is so complicated.’ I feel the flat of her hand resting on my thigh. ‘You know you’re going to have to tell her, don’t you?’

What, tell my mother about my mother? Impossible to even consider it.

Christina, I fear, would be totally displaced by the presence of Alice in my life. For within her is the same instinct that festers in me, the same unanswered question. Is the genetic flesh-and-blood connection different? Is it better, deeper, more natural? Deep down, we both suspect that it is.

Hannah’s title has never felt more appropriate. The man with two mothers, that’s me.

Then

Alice

Walking through Soho with Jacob, mind like a snowstorm. I’m relieved he doesn’t try to make conversation as we pick our way through the litter of Berwick Street, polystyrene cartons spilling out the remnants of lunch – flaccid baked potato skins, bits of burger – stallholders calling out to one another as they pack away their crates of apples and oranges and pears. Jacob walks fast, fractionally ahead of me, with his feathered scarf flapping behind him, and I spot the stares as we cross Brewer Street and turn into Wardour. Is it his beauty that makes people look twice, or do they recognise him, this boy, this man I barely know?

He points out Bar Italia. There are tables outside crowded with men wearing suits and drinking coffee from little white cups; all around us the undulating, fast-paced rhythm of Italian.

‘I know this place,’ I say as we walk into the café with its terracotta floor and the vast chrome coffee machine behind the bar. At one end of the long, thin room there is a television, a crowd of customers sitting on stools in front of it, shouting. ‘They come to watch the football.’

‘For the football, the coffee, the chat. It’s a kind of religion.’

At the counter, a man wearing a waiter’s white shirt and bow tie greets Jacob.

‘Hey, Luigi. This is Alice.’

Luigi extends a hand over the top of the counter.

‘Two espressos?’

‘Alice would like a cappuccino,’ Jacob says, and Luigi rolls his eyes.

‘Cappuccino is for breakfast. Espresso now.’

‘She’s never had one. She has to try it.’

‘OK, Alice. But is not good for your digestive system.’ He waggles his finger like a schoolteacher. ‘Milk in the afternoon will make you sick.’

Sitting beside Jacob at the little red and white Formica table, I fight through a wave of self-consciousness. When he looks at me with a small smile, I wonder if he can read my mind.

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