Heartlines Read online

  Dear Susannah,

  Thanks for your quick reply. This is also ridiculously instant but I want to explain re my book. It will take me longer to send a photo as I am actually a technological idiot and will have to seek help as to how to send a photo via email. I have no idea how my story got on the Net and I was not pleased to discover that the publisher – without my permission – had put it on there.

  Two reasons why you were not in it: firstly, I genuinely thought that to include that event without your consent would be a violation of your privacy and perhaps of a desire on your part to keep it unknown; secondly, it was by no means a complete autobiography – more a Christian testimony with a fairly narrow thematic thread. Maybe as a writer you can understand that angle of literary selection? But the first reason was the main one.

  The ‘interesting similarities’ I referred to were just two ‘small’ things, I guess. Two of my daughter Anna’s favourite things were ‘The Enchanted Wood’ and ‘ABBA’. (Also Lady Di!! – but you probably didn’t share that!) And your favourite word ‘discombobulated’ is I believe Tim’s favourite word – which he introduced me to! Freaky?!

  I would like to know about your sibling(s?): older? younger? I gather not also adopted. I will attempt the mission of sending a photo of myself.

  Love, Robin

  Susannah

  I jump on the email and read it. Okay, I kind of get her explanation about the book, but I’m distracted by her confirmation that it’s a Christian testimony – again, it alienates me. But there’s the reference to ABBA, which is always a weak spot, and I soften. Then she mentions Tim, my birth father – I haven’t even thought about him and now it seems we share a word preference? I can’t work out if this is good or bad or something else. Probably discombobulating.

  But now Emma is home from school and we have her fifteenth birthday to prepare for: presents to wrap, a real life to return to.

  Watching our words

  Susannah

  Much later that night, with presents wrapped and a soon-to-be birthday girl asleep, my mind starts charging. I can’t sleep. I toss and turn and so, rather than wake up Oskar, I get up and sit at my desk, reading Robin’s letter again and again. And then I write one back. And this one feels strangely easy to write; I feel like I’m talking to someone I know.

  Email from Susannah to Robin, 11.25pm

  Hi Robin

  Thank you for taking on the mission of a photo – now I see where I may have got my technical ineptitude from – at least you have a generational excuse!

  I’m sorry about reading your book – it now feels like I’ve read someone’s diary rather than a book meant for publication. That must feel weird for you, knowing I read that, perhaps knowing more about your life than you would choose me to know? Sorry if it does. And thank you for explaining – I completely understand.

  There was more weirdness but in a much more amusing way reading that your daughter also loved The Enchanted Wood (the first book I remember really taking me away in my imagination) and ABBA (who I absolutely adored, still do. I plan to have ‘Dancing Queen’ played, slow beat, at my funeral).

  Still on books, and the risk of it sounding like a speed-dating question, I wonder what books you have on your bedside table? I have The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window (which I never finished), Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (I am a baby, baby Buddhist), Three Cups of Tea (about a mountain climber who began building schools in Pakistan), the new Murakami (which I am a little intimidated by) and Cold Comfort Farm (which I just keep there because it makes me laugh). I also have a collection of short stories, largely chosen for their length (the shortest is a paragraph) for the nights I have no attention span.

  To your question, I have two siblings: a brother and sister. My brother is older and my sister is younger. Unsurprisingly, I don’t look like anyone in my family. There is a photo taken of all of us in a city street when I was about ten years old and it looks like I have photo-bombed a lovely family of dark-haired people.

  My brother is seriously academic, but in maths, so no one in the family actually understands anything he does, and hasn’t since about 1980. When we were younger we were often adversaries, as siblings can be, framing and blaming each other as we vied for parental attention. I often felt I needed protection from Duncan and his schemes – like practising his kung fu on me! Yet, when we both went to the same university and college, he became my protector, and while I am pretty sure he didn’t use his latent kung fu skills on anyone, he cleared a path for me, looked after me. One of my favourite photos of the two of us together shows me standing behind him, my head peering over his shoulder. His elbow is raised and it might be a little unclear whether he is shielding or preparing to strike me if it were not for Duncan’s soft face and lovely smile. For someone who broke no rules when he was at home – unhelpful for the child following – he broke quite a few later and we broke some together – just as you should when you are young.

  He now lives in the UK, with his own research lab at Cambridge University. I am still not completely sure what he does but I am proud of him.

  Goodness, I really am babbling now, but I’ll press on – hope you’re still reading!

  My sister is two years younger and was, in turn, often deployed to assist my projects. If I saw Duncan as my enslaver, I of course saw myself as my little sister’s empowerer as I sub-contracted my chores to an ever-obliging Soph. She was also only allowed to be the assistant to my ‘vet’ in the animal practice I established in our cubbyhouse. I was the classic middle child, perhaps, manipulated by the older and manipulating the younger.

  And I of course got to choose which ABBA girl I was (always Frida) as we sung into our hairbrushes, blind cords and at least once, our pet budgerigars, who we would ‘liberate’ in our bedroom despite Dad being highly bird-phobic. Sophie liked Sherbet, I like Skyhooks and she was, still is, a horsey girl while I love my animals to be smaller than me. She lives with her family on the Peninsula so we don’t see each other that often, which is a pity.

  Robin, does that give you an idea?

  Best

  Susannah

  I read it through. I seem to have shared rather a lot rather quickly but it feels okay. I email it through to Maddy and go back to bed and, finally, sleep.

  Susannah, 3 September

  It is Emma’s fifteenth birthday. Family tradition dictates that she is woken by family carrying a tray bearing a lit candle, a Swedish flag and her presents. She is also subjected to the less than harmonious voices of her family singing ‘Happy Birthday’. Although tradition also dictates that the birthday person be asleep and woken to this lovely family gesture they never are – the excitement of the presents being too much – but Emma dutifully goes through the motions of pretending to rouse on our entry. I love my kids’ birthdays: I love seeing their faces as they unwrap their presents, as they read my annual ‘Mum letter’ (which, apparently, is too emotional) and I love the hug I give and get.

  It is with a happy heart that I drive the kids to school after Emma’s birthday ritual and then return to my desk – and an email from Maddy.

  Email from Maddy to Susannah, 9.10am

  Good morning Susannah,

  I really enjoyed reading your letter, and your sense of humour. Thanks for letting me take a peep at it. I feel you have offered more in the letter, but the tone and pace continues to be measured. I think that’s what you want.

  I’ll wait for your green light before I send this letter off.

  Email from Susannah to Maddy, 9.17 am

  Morning Maddy

  Thanks again and glad you think it’s okay – I suppose you have to put yourself, your personality, out there a little if you want to progress a connection. Can feel a bit exposing but nothing ventured …

  Please send it off.

  ‘If you want to progress a connection.’ Where did that come from? Is that me saying that? Is that what I want to do? I didn’t think that until I wrote it, but maybe it is. What hap
pened to just finishing things up better?

  And now Maddy, working part-time, is not back in the office until Wednesday. Why am I so edgy about having to wait?

  Increasingly I am getting the feeling that I am not in control of what’s happening.

  Robin, 4 September

  What a generous, warm and amusing letter! She’s so easy to connect with. I love her wry sense of humour. But the second paragraph – it’s very apologetic. Full of fear of offending, of being disapproved of, for doing, saying – being – wrong. (It’s not hard to understand why – poor little thing!)

  What will I say about bedside books? I know what would be safe and ‘in tune’, but I have to tell the truth. I know the Bible is not exactly going to help her feel connected to me, and that a born-again Christian is often regarded as a bit of weirdo, but I have to declare my colours from the beginning; it just gets harder later. I am not planning to be a closet Christian, so I have to show who I am, for better or worse. It’s no good her getting to know a false me.

  I have to say, though, when Susannah says she’s a baby, baby Buddhist I feel that old, familiar twinge of fear regarding my children: Oh, no! They must know Jesus. What if they don’t? I’m fully aware this is my insecurity – a weak place in my trust in God, and very counterproductive to His workings. Lighten up, Robin! Perhaps go with ‘Cheers’, instead of ‘Love’ for a change.

  Discombobulated

  Susannah, Monday, 8 September

  No email from Robin in the morning. Nor in the afternoon. Finally I ring FIND: Maddy is not in the office today. There won’t be an email.

  My heart, inexplicably, sinks and I feel really disappointed.

  Susannah, Tuesday, 9 September

  I ring FIND at 9am; if there’s a problem I want to be on it early. Maddy is not in today either and I wonder if she is okay (I ask, they don’t divulge; policy I guess) but then I feel panicked, weirdly deprived and a little desperate. I channel my energy into stalking the FIND office – there must be someone I can speak to. And, finally, it seems there is: I speak to Maddy’s manager and ask if she can access Maddy’s email.

  But what is this, what am I doing? Why do I care so much? I don’t know but I calm down when an email arrives forwarding a letter – and photo – from Robin that she had written on the weekend. Something in me quietens when I realise she had actually responded quickly.

  Email from Robin to Susannah, 11.40am

  Hi Susannah,

  I am writing this believing by faith that my daughter, Marian, will be able to attach the two photos I got her to take of me yesterday. I did choose the ones I considered flattering so the reality of wrinkles, sagging neck, bad teeth, etc. has been minimised (vanity dies hard!). Also, I look like a blonde because I am transitioning to my natural grey, but I was a brunette originally.

  Something else I need to clear up about my book: Marian says all she could find online was the last chapter ‘Metamorphosis’. Is that all you read or did you somehow access the whole thing? If you didn’t, I would rather you read it all. I could send you a copy. Even if you have read it all, I would be happy to give you one – personally signed of course! Perhaps it will show you what you may have been spared by your adoption – I mean all the chaos and turmoil.

  In regards to other reading, I have to admit I am not at all au fait with new writers. Much of my reading does tend to be Christianity-related and I guess my main bedside book is the Bible. However, I love a good novel – but hard to find. I must read Cold Comfort Farm. I loved the ‘classics’: Dickens, Jane Austen, etc. – especially George Eliot; Daniel Deronda is a favourite. I also really like the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. As you see, very much past writers! On a light side I have enjoyed Clive James. Recently, first via op shop and then library, I discovered books by Rosamunde Pilcher (The Shell Seekers and Coming Home) which I really enjoyed; they suited me in a comfortable way. I’m sure there are many great novels out there – I just don’t know which they are.

  Thanks for all the info on your siblings – very interesting and amusingly conveyed!

  Cheers for now,

  Robin

  I stare at the photo. She’s real, she exists now. She’s no longer a concept, and this is what she looks like. Does she look like me? Do I look like her? I don’t think so. Does she look nice? Yes. I think so, nice smile. What do I think about this? I have absolutely no idea.

  I read her letter. And then I read it again. What do I make of it? She’s a brunette and a Christian, and hard-core Christian it would seem. It’s pretty much all she reads. Not sure which one – the hair colour or the Christianity – is more discombobulating. Neither is anything I can relate to. Or want to? And what does she mean I was ‘spared’? Is she happy for that? Don’t we all have bad stuff happen to us? Was hers a lot worse than others? And ‘Cheers for now’? What’s that about? She’s gone all casual – why? Losing interest maybe? Already? Have I said something that jarred with her? My poor, over-thinking mind begins to race again and my heart is pounding. Do I reply? Where does this go next?

  I’m not sure but I do feel I need to clear up about the book, so I shoot back a short email:

  Email from Susannah to Robin, 11.53pm

  Hi Robin

  Many thanks for the photo; it helps make the hitherto conceptual real, if also a little bit discombobulating. Not sure why, I may just discombobulate easily, hence it being my favourite word …

  However, a quick reply to answer your question about your book – I did read the whole book. Copies of all books published are lodged with both the State and National Libraries so, feeling slightly stealthy, I read it at the State Library.

  I think everyone’s lives have their serve of chaos and turmoil, don’t you?

  All best

  Susannah

  ‘Hitherto conceptual real.’ When was the last time I said ‘hitherto’? Have I ever said ‘hitherto’? Anyway, it’s a little too try-hardily expressed, but it’s true – she wasn’t real before, but now she is. And at least I’ve confessed/revealed/just mentioned I was discombobulated – I have to be honest, don’t I?

  Robin, 10 September

  Hmm … what’s gone wrong? I don’t like this short note – it’s terse and formal. Practical, efficient, but very cool.

  What has offended her? What did I say wrong in my last letter? She does say she was discombobulated by it.

  That last line: ‘I think everyone’s lives have their serve of chaos and turmoil, don’t you?’ actually sounds hostile. Or am I reading things into it?

  Rereading my letter, looking for clues, all I can think of is that maybe I sound too flippant and too removed from her. I mention my daughter Marian twice in the space of two paragraphs; is that insensitive, like, ‘This is my real family’? Then my comment about the chaos and turmoil – better you weren’t there – now does strike me as glib and potentially hurtful, shutting her out.

  Oh no! Throw in the photo of me and the Bible and she’d be feeling less and less like she has any part in my world.

  I am convinced now that this is the problem: I gave the impression that I didn’t really care and this was perhaps seemingly confirmed by my ill-timed decision to change my sign-off from ‘love’ to ‘cheers’.

  Oh dear, you have to be so careful. How can I fix this, or make it better?

  I sit down to write back to Susannah, but I find it really hard. I am trying to make up for what I fear she has perceived as a cold and uncaring tone in my last letter, but it’s not coming out right. I draft a reply and decide to run it past my sister, Susan, before I send it. I ring her and ask for her thoughts. What does she get from Susannah’s short note? Am I being paranoid?

  Susan tends to think I’m not and that I do have to reassure Susannah; but my draft is a bit weird – sort of suddenly ‘over the top’. I don’t want to appear unhinged!

  So, I modify and moderate, and hope this version is all right. Email communication can certainly be tricky.

  One thing is for sure
: I’ll abandon ‘cheers’ and go back to ‘love’.

  Susannah, 11 September

  Email from Robin to Susannah, 4.22pm

  Hi again Susannah,

  I know what you mean by the fact of actually seeing a photo being discombobulating; I felt the same when I saw photos of you. I stared at them trying to compute the quite massive fact that this elegant, competent, mature woman was my daughter!

  You used the phrase ‘significant strangers’. This is true but for me the stranger factor is no match for the weight of the significance – and anyway, just from our short history of email exchanges, I already feel an ease of connection and that we are ‘on the same wavelength’. (Hopefully you do too!) Then there’s the deeper level of the heart significance, which is very real for me. I am very grateful that we are in contact. I do find it exciting I have to admit!

  Remember, feel free to ask any question that you want.

  Love, Robin

  I jump on Robin’s letter the moment the email arrives. I read it. I read it again. And, then, quite simply, I go mental. Something in me goes off the rails. My heart jumps up and hits me over the head. And I have no idea why.

  Losing it

  Susannah

  I read Robin’s letter over and over again, trying to work out what she has said that has me so spun out – and why I care.

  ‘My daughter’, ‘ease of connection’, ‘same wavelength’, ‘heart significance’. Is that it? She is making connections. And then what’s with the ‘Remember’? Is she telling me what to do? I thought I was leading this operation!