only 17% of her was British which was a terrible disappointment, she was actually more Irish than British, which in all likelihood meant her ancestors were potato farmers
the Scandi element was all right so long as she was Viking, but how to tell? they too might have been potato farmers, Europe West must surely explain her great affinity with beautiful Provence
her African ancestors were probably nomads roaming over the continent killing each other before the British demarcated regions into proper countries and thereby imposed discipline and control
if she was 13% African did it mean one of her parents was 26% African? or was it divided between both of them?
as she didn’t know who her birth parents were, she couldn’t even begin to work out which strand belonged to which one
Penelope Skyped Sarah with the news, it was the early hours in Australia but this was an exceptional moment, Sarah got terribly excited
asked for the link to the site because you, Mum, aren’t making a lot of sense, whether you have a thing for Scandi-Noirs has nothing to do with it
have you been drinking again?
(only a little)
within minutes Sarah was back on Skype saying not only did the website show her ethnic breakdown, it connected her with relatives who’d also done the test, how on earth did you miss this, Mum? okay, deep breath, are you ready for this? you have over a hundred genetic relatives listed on your page starting with fifth to eighth cousins, you’ve got no one under siblings or a grandparent, nor do you have a twin, but something else is showing, Mum, a parent – do you see what this means?
your birth mother or father must have had the test done and they’ve been biologically revealed to be your blood parent
they’ve got their name down as Anonymous25, last logged on two weeks ago in Yorkshire and, wait for it, there’s an email link for you to get in touch with them directly to find out more
Mum, are you listening? you’ve gone really pale, oh God, I’m so sorry you’re so upset, don’t cry, Mummy, it’s completely understandable, of course it is, I understand, I really do, I just wish I could hug you right now, look, I’ll handle it, you go and sober up and we’ll talk later
Sarah emailed someone called Morgan who replied almost immediately that he/she(?) was managing the DNA test for their great-grandmother, Hattie Jackson, in order to find out more about Hattie’s own mother, Grace, who was half Ethiopian, they’d thought, only to discover her genes were spread wider in Africa, which was unexpected
the last thing Morgan was expecting was an email from someone who claimed to be Hattie’s daughter because Hattie only had one daughter called Ada Mae, who lived in Newcastle
Morgan promised Sarah she’d call Hattie right away, and get back
after Hattie had recovered from the shock, she told Morgan she’d given birth to a girl she named Barbara when she was fourteen, who was taken away from her by her father a few days after birth, she had no say in the matter and she never knew where the baby went, the only people who knew about her child were her parents and they’d died so long ago
Hattie had kept it secret all her life, thought of Barbara every day, and couldn’t believe she was alive
Morgan emailed Penelope that her great-grandmother was in shock, she was very old, you must come soon
Penelope replied she was taking the train up the next day
Penelope takes a black cab from the station, she’s usually a meter-watcher, this one can rack up a thousand pounds and it won’t matter a bit
the taxi driver says the journey will take over two hours, he’s African, which isn’t quite what she expected to find so far north she’s practically in Scotland
he makes her feel like she’s back in south London, then she catches herself, it’s not as cut and dried as it was before, he could be a relative, if there’s one thing she’s learned in the past forty-eight hours, anyone can be a relative
by rights, she should fall asleep, she woke up at four a.m. to get the seven from King’s Cross, but she can’t, her brain is completely wired
the car travels deep into the Northumbrian countryside
it’s easy to forget that England is made up of many Englands
all these fields and forests, sheep, hills, comatose villages
she feels like she’s going to the ends of the earth, while simultaneously returning to her beginnings
she’s going back to where she began, inside her mother’s womb
the taxi passes through another deserted village then the car climbs a hill so steep and long she’s worried it won’t make it up
at the top there’s a sign above a high metal arch
Greenfields
founded
1806
by
Captain Linnaeus Rydendale
and his beloved wife
Eudoré
they pull into a yard so thick with mud the taxi has to slow down and trudge its way through, mud splattering on to the windows
it’s like stepping back to pre-civilization
an ancient sagging farmhouse is to her right with a patchwork roof of mismatched tiles and mismatched bricks and vines creeping up it and out of it, looking as if with one hefty push it will all come tumbling down
the yard is otherwise surrounded by barns with doors flapping in the wind
a few chickens and hens are squawking around, a cow’s head is sticking up out of a pen, a goat is tethered to a post, a plough is rusting at the far end with vines growing out of it
everything is falling apart and ruined and running riot
she disembarks from the taxi and pays the fellow the three hundred pounds on the meter, plus a tip, considering he’s practically a sixth cousin or something
the farmhouse door opens and someone steps out into the yard, her hair is a wiry grey and shooting up all over the place
she’s wearing raggedy blue overalls with a cardigan over them, she’s barefoot, in this place? in this mud? in this weather?
she walks towards her, she’s old, bony, looks robust, is tall without being hunched, quite fierce, is this where Penelope gets it from? her imperiousness, as she’s been accused of in the past?
the woman is unmistakably, ambiguously a light brown, the sort of colour that could place her in many countries
this metal-haired wild creature from the bush with the piercingly feral eyes
is her mother
this is she
this is her
who cares about her colour? why on earth did Penelope ever think it mattered?
in this moment she’s feeling something so pure and primal it’s overwhelming
they are mother and daughter and their whole sense of themselves is recalibrating
her mother is now close enough to touch
Penelope had worried she would feel nothing, or that her mother would show no love for her, no feelings, no affection
how wrong she was, both of them are welling up and it’s like the years are swiftly regressing until the lifetimes between them no longer exist
this is not about feeling something or about speaking words
this is about being
together.
Acknowledgements
It’s nearly twenty years since I first started working with Simon Prosser, publishing director of Hamish Hamilton, and I’d like to thank him for being such a great editor of the six books I’ve published with him since. I am so grateful and feel so blessed. I’d also like to thank the team at Penguin who work hard to get my books out into the world, including Hermione Thompson, Sapphire Rees, Hannah Chukwu, Annie Lee, Donna Poppy, Lesley Levene, Amelia Fairney, and all those people who make things happen behind the scenes. A special thanks is due to my agent Karolina Sutton at Curtis Brown. Big thanks also to my readers at various stages of the manuscript: Sharmilla Beezmohun, Claudia Cruttwell, Maggie Gee, Lyn Innes and Roger Robinson. And for checking my patois and pidgin, thanks to Chris Abani, Jackee Holder, Michael Irene and Kechi Nomu. I’d also like to thank Hedgebrook Retreat for Women Writers on Whidbey Island, USA, for my residency there in 2018.