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a cruelty that exposed the fault lines in who they were and who she was going to be in the world

you are not our daughter in the biological sense, her father told her at lunch on her sixteenth birthday (great timing)

she’d been left in a cot on the steps of a church

they’d waited until she was old enough to understand

she’d been mysteriously deposited without certification, no note, no clues, nothing

they’d tried for their own child for years, failed, found her in an orphanage, it was quite easy to adopt back then, they signed papers, took her home

what they didn’t add, in that moment, was that they loved her, something they’d never told her

what she needed in that moment was a declaration of unconditional love from the people who’d raised her as their own

instead

they carried on as normal, even though tears were streaming down her face

they remained seated on the high-backed chairs in their allotted places around the oval dining table covered with a fringed tablecloth

they unravelled the napkins rolled up in wooden rings with their names etched into them

they ate the lamb chops, minted potatoes and buttered peas they had for Saturday lunch

passing the gravy

passing the pepper

passing the salt

Penelope, unable to dislodge a potato stuck in her throat, left the table without permission, ran choking upstairs to her bedroom where she collapsed in a sobbing heap on her bed, desperately hoping that at least her mother might check up on her, she listened for the pad of slippered feet on the stairs, a tentative knock, the door opening, a pat on her back

a cuddle was too much to hope for

instead

she heard the man she’d thought her father until a short while ago leave the house to play golf with his brother (no longer her uncle), as he did every Saturday afternoon

the woman who used to be her mother would be sitting in front of the fire crocheting white booties for her youngest niece, Linda (no longer Penelope’s baby cousin)

Penelope could hear comedy and laughter playing on the radio downstairs

to them it was a normal Saturday afternoon

Penelope broke down into tears for months afterwards, in private, away from the two people she lived with, who wouldn’t approve of such demonstrative behaviour

away from her school friends who couldn’t be let in on such a shameful secret

she was an orphan

a bastard

unwanted

rejected

now the disparity between them made sense

her parents were not her parents, her birth date was not her birth day

she was not of their blood or history

she kept torturing herself with terrible thoughts

how could her real parents have given her away so heartlessly? discarded on the steps of a church like a sack of rubbish

what if rats had got to her first? or foxes? or a freezing night?

how could they have been so heartless? and just who were they, anyhow? if she didn’t know who they were

how could she know who she was?

there was no paper trail

she was a foundling

anonymous

unidentified

mysterious

later

when Penelope studied herself more closely in her dressing table mirror, it became absurdly clear to her that she looked nothing like Edwin and Margaret, as she would now think of them

Edwin was short, anaemic, blue-eyed and aquiline, features that suited a man whose emotions rarely rose to any occasion, even his occasional bursts of laughter sounded as if he were breaking a self-imposed rule not to enjoy himself

Margaret was even shorter, barely scraping five foot, thinning hair, grey-eyed, grey pallor

according to her wedding photograph she’d once been pretty

now she just looked

washed

out

Penelope, on the other hand, was tall for a girl at almost five-nine, with the full natural pout and hazel eyes that sealed her reputation as a glamorous beauty at school, she wore her curly, strawberry-blonde hair in a style à la Marilyn Monroe, had a ‘light dusting of freckles’ around her nose, and acquired an easily-won suntan in summer, considered très chic because it gave her a St Tropez glow

à la jet set

Penelope decided she would go to college, marry a man who idolized her, become a teacher and have children

all of which would fill the gaping, aching chasm she now carried inside her

the feeling of being

un

moored

un

wanted

un

loved

un

done

a

no

one.

2

Penelope homed in on Giles soon after her identity had been exploded into scattered fragments

she needed someone to put her back together again

he was the eighteen-year-old rugby captain of the boys’ grammar school, and what a catch he was with his Heathcliff looks and championship confidence that swept lesser boys aside

who wouldn’t want to be floating in the orbit of Giles the Great, Tsar Giles, King Giles the 1st of York

as she wrote in her diary

every girl in the school had a crush on him except those who were rumoured to be sapphics

Penelope became obsessed with ensnaring Giles

she lurked at his bus stop every morning in order to accidentally bump into him when he disembarked, daringly slipping into long strides beside him

luckily, conversation came easily between them and she became adept at cutting off other girls who tried to edge their way in, although she loved it when his rugby mates swelled their number and they all swept in a surging wave down the hill

she was the only girl among a group of sports heroes who were so full of a dashing machismo and braggadocio

everyone else was cowed in their presence

moved out of the way

or were elbowed out

by her

she and Giles began to brazenly hold hands, hidden amid the multitudes of their peers in their green and white uniforms

he began to kiss her au revoir when they parted at her school gate, which was thrilling before such an audience

either of those crimes could have got her hauled in front of the headmistress and expelled

what did she care? she was in love, she would have Giles’s babies, she would create her own bloodline, she was engaged at eighteen

meanwhile the other girls in her class, fretting over pimples and puppy fat, were terrified of being left on the shelf

she felt sorry for them, how awful to be fat and ugly and very likely alone for the rest of their lives

whereas she was the golden girl

and to be honest

it suited her

Penelope married Giles soon after she graduated teachers’ training college, he was already working as a civil engineer

it was all pretty perfect, as she’d dreamed, Giles was so caring of her, enquiring as to her welfare, affectionate touches, a stroke on her cheek, a kiss at the nape of her neck, making her feel important, desired

his well-paid job moved them to London, to Camberwell, to a grand house on Camberwell Grove in an otherwise poor area

he gave her a free hand with the decor: William Morris wallpaper, Uniflex dining table and chairs, De Sede Modular Sofa System, padded brown leatherette kitchen walls, orange shag rugs, avocado plastic bathroom

he tolerated her cooking experiments, never complained when the results were too salty or sweet, too burnt or undercooked, too soggy or congealed, too runny or stringy, too crumbly or lumpy, or required a hammer and chisel to break up pastry bases, homemade bread, roasted meat

she fell pregnant with Adam straight away, which delayed going into teaching, but there was plenty of time to build her career

a year later, Sarah wriggled out after a twelve-hour labour

Penelope didn’t mind staying at home with the babies, not when they were newborns, she couldn’t believe the love she felt for her children