Apportionment of Blame (23 page)

“Because of who my father was.”

I waited. Her expression had changed and I could see she was considering something very difficult for her.

“Obviously, then, your father was not the man Mrs Glenn married.”

“No.”

I waited some more.

“He was a German.”

“A German?”

“Yes.”

“That's why you reacted when I mentioned the German cemetery.”

“She took me there.”

“She took you to Brocton? So your father is buried there?”

“Yes.”

I couldn't make this out.

“Excuse my asking, but were you born during the war?”

“Yes.” Her head fell forward.

“But that cemetery is for servicemen. Your father must have been a prisoner of war.”

“No.”

“But how come he's buried there, then? There were no Germans fighting in this country, except the Channel Isles. Ah!”

Another penny dropped.

“Was he a pilot during the Battle of Britain?”

“He was a pilot, but not during the Battle of Britain.”

“What happened?”

“She knew him from before the war.”

“Knew him?”

“Yes. They had met, quite by chance. Then he came to Scotland on a secret mission. I don't know anything about it, but she said he was very brave.”

“What happened to him?”

“He was killed.”

“I'm sorry. That must have been devastating for her.”

We continued to sip at our mugs of tea. I felt the conversation becoming a little easier and the atmosphere rather less tense.

“So how did you find her? Is that why you came to live out here? To be near her?”

“Yes.” Then the flood gates came open, as if it was a relief to share things she had kept trapped inside. It occurred to me that Annie must have felt similarly when they met, as she had never before been able to share anything about her daughter with anyone.

Ilse told me about her adoptive father becoming ill. She went up to Montrose with her brother, and it was during his last few days that Andrew finally told Ilse the story of how she came to be adopted.

Eleanor and Andrew Chambers had lived a difficult life in the George Street area of Aberdeen. Andrew was a fisherman and often away from home, leaving Eleanor to care for their two sons, bearing the ever present threat that her husband might not return from sea.

She longed for a daughter, but the doctor had told her, after the birth of her second son, that no more children would be possible. Whenever she saw little girls playing in the street, or walking with their mothers, the yearning returned, and try as she might she could not let the longing go.

One day, when her husband was at home for a couple of days, she broached the subject of adoption. He listened as patiently as he could, but didn't share her wish for a third child.

“Anyway,” he told her, “no one would consider us for adoption, with me being away at sea. They look for settled families, with mother and father there most of the time.”

“But you could get another job.”

“Another job? Are you mad? If I wasna in a reserved occupation I'd be conscripted straight into the army.”

“But you could work in the docks. That's still a reserved job. Then you could be at home every night and we would be like other families.”

These discussions went on day after day, whenever Andrew was at home, and gradually Eleanor wore down her husband's defences until he agreed to look into the possibility of work in Aberdeen docks.

The move was not easy to arrange, but it was possible, and eventually Eleanor began to get used to having her husband at home every night. It changed her life.

The agreement with Andrew had been that he would change his job, and she would look into the possibility of adopting a little girl. This she did with great enthusiasm, and when she discovered an institution in the city which was always on the lookout for good families, she immediately began to make enquiries and, eventually, applied.

There followed several visits to assess the suitability of the Chambers family. Eleanor worked hard to ensure that the house was always tidy and clean when they came and, although very nervous, she tried her best to give a good impression.

Andrew had agreed to adoption rather grudgingly. He felt that war time was no time to be adding to their burden. What with rationing and the increasingly difficult food shortages, things were hard enough for them anyway, without adding to it.

He blamed the Germans for all the privations of war, and there were days when he felt like joining up, simply to get his own back at the people who were causing so much hardship. But he stuck to his bargain, tried his best to adjust to a life on shore and bit his tongue when the resentment began to overwhelm him.

Their baby daughter arrived when she was only a few days old. Being convinced of Eleanor's previous experience with her two sons, the institution had no qualms about releasing Ilse to her care at such an early age, and arranging for her formal adoption.

Never having had any inkling of this before, Ilse was understandably shocked and asked Andrew why he had waited till now to tell her.

He told her he was never one for emotions and didn't know how to. He said that if his wife had lived, he was sure she would have done the right thing and told Ilse much sooner. There had been times when he felt he should, but he could never find the words, and then she was grown up and it didn't seem to make any difference. She called him Dad, so what did it matter?

In the end he realised that it did matter, and that it was right to set the record straight, so he gave Ilse her birth certificate.

“I looked at my birth certificate,” she said, “but all it showed was my name and the date I was born. So I went to the library and asked some questions. They told me to write to the Registrar General's office, because they would have a copy of the original birth certificate.

“It was all very complicated after that. I thought it would be easy to find my real mother. After all, I'm her daughter, I'm entitled. But they told me I would have to be prepared. I would have to see someone for counselling. It made no sense to me, but I had no choice.”

“Did your full birth certificate give you the information you wanted?”

“It told me I was born in Aberdeen and gave my mother's name, Annie Lamont. But it said father unknown. I suppose that makes me a bastard.”

“Well, in a manner of speaking, but that sort of thing doesn't matter so much these days.”

She looked at me.

“Perhaps.”

She didn't sound convinced.

“Did the counselling help?”

“It made me realise that I was running a risk.”

“What sort of risk?”

“Well, for a start, my mother might not want to see me. I don't know what I would have done if she hadn't. They kept asking if I still wanted to find her. I don't know how many times I told them. In the end they told me that some sort of agency would look for my mother. It took quite a long time.”

“That must have been nerve wracking for you.”

“In the end, I didn't know what would happen; whether I would find her or not. Then I had a letter from the agency saying they had found my mother and that she was prepared to see me. They gave me her new name, Annie Glenn, and her address. Then it was up to me.”

She took a sip of her tea and I just waited. I was getting quite good at that.

Ilse said it was difficult, meeting her mother for the first time, but that Annie was really pleased to see her. She had written and been invited to visit.

“I went out on the train from London to meet her. She was so glad to see me. I couldn't quite believe it.

“She said she thought she'd never see me again. How she could still remember my face when I was born, and how she felt when I was taken away.

“I wanted to ask her why she gave me away in the first place, but it was too soon and she told me all about that later on. We got on really well. I couldn't believe it. She was lovely.

“On my way back home I decided to move nearer to her, so we could meet more often and more easily. We wanted to get to know each other after so long. I thought it was going to be really difficult. But it was easy.”

“You must have been so excited,” I suggested, rather feebly.

“She took me up to Scotland and showed me where she used to live. It was a farm, not far from Glasgow. She described how my father came down by parachute and landed in her back yard.”

“And she had no idea he was coming?”

“No. He was supposed to have flown back to Germany after his mission, but something happened to the plane and he had to jump out.”

“So it was pure chance that he happened to land where he did.”

“Oh yes. It was like a love story.”

Her expression changed.

“My mother said she always had mixed feelings about it all. She felt that if he hadn't landed on her farm, he might still be alive. But she said that once she found me again, she realised that if he hadn't landed there, I would not be here.”

She smiled a very embarrassed smile and I realised that compliments like that must have been rare in her life.

“I'm glad you found her and were able to spend some time with her before she died. Unfortunately I never met her, but her daughter-in-law speaks very highly of her. I get the impression she was a very special lady.”

She nodded.

“She took me to see my father's grave.”

“That explains your reaction when I mentioned it.”

She almost smiled at me, but her natural reserve was strong.

“I am so embarrassed about the money,” she said.

“It was quite natural for your mother to leave everything to her only living child. You have heard about her sons, I suppose.”

“Yes. She told me all that. But it's not as if I'm hard up or anything.”

“I am sure the Hetheringtons will understand when I explain the situation. They had no idea your mother had another child.”

“I never thought about her leaving me anything. It was never mentioned.”

“She clearly changed her will when she got to know you.

It's a real compliment to you that she wanted you to have everything.”

“I know, but I don't really want it. I don't know what to do with it.”

“Well, it's legally yours to do with as you please.”

“I shall have to think about that.”

“Why don't you ask the solicitor for some advice? He knows all the details of the case. I'm sure he will advise on what is possible.”

We finished our second cups of tea and I began to feel a little easing in the atmosphere.

“Were you happy with your adopted family? It's none of my business, I know, but I would like to think they looked after you well.”

“My mother died when I was small.”

“Oh, that must have been terrible.”

“It was. There were three of us. They already had the two boys before they adopted me.”

“It must have been hard for your father.”

“Yes. He told me what happened. He said the Germans had targeted Aberdeen's shipyard and harbour. Apparently the east coast of Scotland was in easy reach of the Luftwaffe's aircraft from their bases in Norway. He said the beach area was strafed a number of times by machine gun fire. There were anti-aircraft guns on the esplanade and where Dad worked was more like a war zone.

“A lot of families in the city built air raid shelters in their gardens, and there were large concrete public shelters too. They called it the Aberdeen blitz and it was on the night of the heaviest bombing that Mum was killed.

“Dad said he never understood how Mum was the only one killed. His experiences at the docks had made him really angry at the Germans and this gradually increased to hatred. He said he did all he could to insist that his family took all precautions at all times.

“My brother told me that Dad used to say: ‘I'll not let the bloody Bosch destroy my family. Make sure, as soon as the siren sounds, you get to that shelter'.”

“And we did, although I can't remember anything about it. I was too small. But apparently we all went with neighbours and friends to a nearby school to take shelter.

“Dad said I was crying a lot, and Mum realised I had lost the piece of towel I always had clamped in my mouth. My comforter, I suppose.

“Anyway Mum rushed out to find it. And that's when the bomb fell.

“From then on, Dad's fury at what the Germans had done knew no bounds. He swore vengeance, but knew there was nothing he could do. I suppose that made him frustrated as well as angry. It was now down to him to raise a family of three, and the realisation of how difficult this would be only made his anger even worse.”