The Way We Never Were - Moving On

Another extract from the book-to-be, from the chapter Moving On
While I was at university the then Labour government set out to change the law to allow relatives to trace. At the time I was infuriated. My opinion then was that I was not some piece of property to be collected at a time of someone else’s choosing. I felt it was unfair for anyone to be able to “Trace” me, even if it were done through a third party, as it seemed a huge and potentially dangerous invasion of privacy. I wrote a letter to Margaret Hodge, the Children’s Minister, setting out my concerns, but she never wrote back. A letter from my own MP explained, rather patronisingly, that everything would of course be dealt with sensitively through a third party, but even that seemed to me to be too much – as I discovered when Lee eventually found me, once that door has been opened, it’s almost impossible to say no. If you never want to be “found”, you shouldn’t be placed in a position where you have to say “No”. In my letter to Mrs Hodge I proposed a different system whereby both the birth relative (mother or father or sibling) could lodge a letter with the agency responsible saying they’d be happy for contact and specifying whether they wanted this to be in person or just by letter et cetera. If the adopted person did the same, then the intermediary could be in touch to explain how this could actually happen. Such a system would also have perhaps meant my own decision not to trace might have been different: I did think about doing so once, but my mum rightly warned that I didn’t know what position my birth mother was in: if she had kids of her own, for example, I could potentially cause tremendous damage by turning up out of the blue, however delicately this was done.

For much of my life, being adopted has been an interesting quirk rather than something that has caused me distress or discomfort. But I’ve always wondered, on and off, about the circumstances of my adoption, worrying that it might have been the result of something terrible – for example, that my mother was raped – or that my mother might not have had a choice in the matter. The Magdalene Sisters came out while I was at university and was a stunning film that had a big impact on me due to my Catholic upbringing, even though I wasn’t Irish and knew that I wouldn’t have come from such cruel beginnings. At 22 I wrote a play called Ducklings, where I wanted to give a sympathetic portrayal of the birth mother. I left adoptive parents out of it altogether, not wanting to upset or implicate my own in any way, and focussed on the (admittedly rather irritating) adopted main character and the lack of relationship she had when she was cajoled into tracing her mother mother. Much of what you read or watch about reunions between long-lost family members is heavy on dramatic impact and told from one extreme or the other: the heart-wrenching first meeting where the protagonists become inseparable, the tearful bear hugs surrounded by dramatic scenery (these people never just meet up in the pub) or the exact opposite, where they find themselves hating one another. I wanted Ducklings to look at the possibility of a third option: that Maria, the mother, was, for want of a better phrase, not all that bothered. Based on the change in law, rather than either the mother or daughter triggering the reunion it is an aunty that first writes to her adopted niece, introducing herself. The daughter then takes it upon herself to go in search of her mother. It was meant to be funny, and succeeded in some ways, I think – it was performed in the studio at the Hampstead Theatre, though nothing ever came of it after that. Interestingly, years later, my lack of reunion with my birth mother and the fact that it was a relative I didn’t know existed that traced me through their own detective work showed it to have been not all that inaccurate.

Extract from “Ducklings”
SUSIE: What did you name me?
MARIA: You didn’t have a name.
SUSIE: Why not?
MARIA: I didn’t even know what sex you were!
SUSIE: But you must’ve thought about it, though? I’ve thought about what names I’d call my children loads of times.
MARIA: And what did you come up with?
SUSIE: I keep changing my mind. I like Paul, for boys. And Maisie for girls.
MARIA: Sounds like a breakfast cereal.
(Pause)
SUSIE: So… you didn’t even think about it?
MARIA: No. You were taken away immediately. Your new parents wanted their own baby, not somebody else’s. (Pause, explaining:) It’s like ducklings. You take a duckling away from its mum and he’s buggered. She’ll not take him back because she doesn’t recognise him any more, but no other duck wants him because he’s not theirs. But if his mum dies, it’s a different story altogether. Another duck’ll take it under her wing and raise him like one of her own. I think it’s ducks do that, but anyway, you see what I mean.
SUSIE: So why did you give me up?
MARIA: You don’t mess about, you, do you?
SUSIE: No, but I was… I mean…
MARIA: What did your parents tell you about why?
SUSIE: Nothing. They said they didn’t know. They swore they didn’t get told anything!
MARIA: Well then they probably didn’t.
SUSIE: Was I a mistake?