Unbecoming by Jenny Downham Page B

very young when she had me, so my aunt and uncle looked after me instead. They didn’t have any other children.’
    ‘Of course they didn’t,’ Mary said. ‘It was a marriage of convenience, that’s why.’
    Caroline reddened from ear to ear. Ha! Serve her right. ‘I actually thought they were my parents. No one told me any different.’
    The man wagged his finger again, this time bringing it to rest on his lips. Shut up, that meant! That told her. Treacherous woman.
    ‘And where were you born?’ the man asked.
    Ah, now – that was an easy one. ‘I was born,’ Mary said, with absolute certainty, ‘by the sea.’
    Every day the wincing pain of sharp shells beneath her toes as she made her way to the water’s edge. Every day the knowledge that there was more to life than sweeping and scrubbing and counting pennies, more to the world than her father’s houseand the little town with its twitching curtains and inflexible rules. On the beach was so much water, stretching against the line of the sky. The numb fury of it kept her alive.
    ‘The sea was delicious,’ she said. ‘Looking at the horizon made every day possible.’
    ‘Which part of the country?’
    ‘The wet and salty part.’ Again, the girl laughed and Mary smiled over at her. ‘I’ll take you one day if you like.’
    She meant it too. They could go on the train, take a picnic, kick off their shoes, run to the water, get in a boat. They could light candles and float them on the waves like they did all those years ago after the tragedy with Pat.
    The man behind the desk coughed and shuffled his papers about. ‘Do you know the date today, Mrs Todd?’
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘Do you?’
    He met her gaze, his eyes still twinkling. That was a very good sign. ‘Not without looking at my watch.’
    ‘Exactly! You young people and your gadgets!’
    She was flattering him, she knew. She guessed his age at sixty. The lines on his brow suggested too much worry and the shadows under his eyes hinted at either a love of wine or a capacity to stay up late reading by bad light. A good-looking man though, still had plenty of hair …
    ‘What about your date of birth, Mrs Todd. Could you tell me what that is please?’
    ‘Which one?’
    Confusion crossed his face.
    ‘I’ve had two,’ Mary said, hoping to clarify. ‘The first, there was a terrible storm above the house.’ Boom! She clapped her hands together to show how loud Pat made the thunder whenever she told the story of Mary’s birth. ‘The second, it was night – perfectlyclear, no rain at all. Although, as soon as my father got back from the pub and discovered a baby in his house, the storm clouds gathered – I’ll tell you that for free!’
    The man wrote that down on his sheet of paper.
    ‘It wasn’t his fault,’ she went on. ‘He had such high hopes for me, that was the trouble, and he didn’t know what to do. You can’t lock a mother and baby in the coal hole to punish them, can you? It’s not that sort of misdemeanour. So, after he finished calling me every name under the sun, he stopped talking to me at all. Not a single word. Not ever again. How’s that for stubborn? He had to leave me little notes to communicate.’ She turned to Caroline. ‘You remember those notes?’
    Caroline shook her head. ‘I don’t think the doctor wants to hear about that. He just wants you to answer his questions.’
    The man nodded briefly. ‘Right, I’m going to say three words to you now, Mrs Todd, and I would like you to say them back when I’ve finished. Ready? Here they are … apple, penny, table. Now repeat those words back to me.’
    Ridiculous. ‘Apple, penny, table.’
    ‘Very good. Now, can you tell me what this is please?’ He held up the thing he’d been writing with.
    ‘It’s an instrument for writing.’
    ‘Do you know what it’s called?’
    ‘A writing instrument.’
    ‘How about this?’
    Mary’s stomach churned with the tea and chocolate biscuits she’d been given