The Paper Bracelet

by Rachael English

Genres: Historical Fiction; Women's Fiction; General Fiction

Synopsis

From the No. 1 bestselling Irish author Rachael English, a warm, page-turning and heartrending novel, inspired by real events and perfect for fans of Maeve Binchy, Cathy Kelly and Kathryn Hughes.

'A true storyteller who keeps you turning the pages' Cathy Kelly

The box held their bracelets. Her heart held their stories...

For almost fifty years, Katie Carroll has kept a box tucked away inside her wardrobe. It dates from her time working as a nurse in a west of Ireland mother and baby home in the 1960s. The box contains a notebook holding the details of the babies and young women she met there. It also holds many of the babies' identity bracelets. Following the death of her husband, Katie makes a decision. The information she possesses could help reunite adopted people with their birth mothers, and she decides to post a message on an internet forum. Soon the replies are rolling in, and Katie finds herself returning many of the bracelets to their original owners. She encounters success and failure, heartbreak and joy. But is she prepared for old secrets to be uncovered in her own life?

Praise for Rachael English:

'A cracking page-turner in the best tradition of Maeve Binchy' Patricia Scanlan

'Beautiful, compelling, and sincere in the way of the very best stories and the best books' Irish Independent

'An evocative read ... powerful ... If you read authors such as Diane Chamberlain, Sheila O'Flanagan or Maeve Binchy then you should also check this out' Between My Lines

'Enchanting, emotional, heartbreaking, ultimately uplifting and just perfect... Rachael English is a wonderful storyteller' Being Anne

Release date: February 27, 2020

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 384

Sample

Then, Patricia

They skulked in the dark like animals, the only illumination coming from the fanlight over the front door. It was safer that way, her father said. You’d never know who might be rambling about. He eased open the door and peered left and right. Stars were splashed across the sky, and a swing-boat moon hung over the street. It was cold for April.

‘I hope there hasn’t been an accident,’ he said.

‘He’ll be here soon,’ replied her mother. ‘Ten o’clock was the time he gave us. It’s only five past.’ She twisted around, her long face creased with irritation. ‘Stand back, Patricia. You don’t want anyone catching sight of you.’

Already they were using her new name, the name she would be known by in Carrigbrack. It was for her own good, they insisted. She’d have more privacy that way. And privacy was vital. One stray word, and a young woman’s life could be damaged beyond repair. She might never find a respectable husband or enjoy a proper family life. Judgement would follow her, and no good man would want to be tarnished by association.

She suspected that using a different name made the situation a little easier for them. It wasn’t their daughter who’d disgraced herself, it was Patricia. Their daughter was dutiful. She sang in the choir and passed every exam. She obeyed the rules. Patricia was a messy imposter.

The secrecy didn’t end there. They’d found a wig and instructed her to wear it. The hair was long and black and smelled of plastic and cigarette smoke.

‘It’s for fear anyone sees you in the car with Father Cusack,’ her mother had explained. ‘We don’t want people asking questions.’

‘Sooner or later someone will enquire after me. What then?’

‘They’ll be told you’re in England.’

‘What about work?’

‘We’ll tell them the same.’

For a time, she had denied the truth. She hadn’t said anything because she hadn’t been able to admit it to herself. Then she’d bargained with God or the universe or whatever was out there. Make it go away, and I’ll change. I promise. When, finally, she’d confessed, time had speeded up. The questions, the looks zipping between her parents, her mother’s weeping, her father’s controlled fury; they’d all blurred together. She regretted not running away. She’d considered getting the bus and boat to London, but she knew no one there, and the few pounds she’d saved wouldn’t have lasted long

‘Where did we go wrong?’ her mother kept asking.

‘We didn’t,’ her father said. ‘Some girls are raised to be no better than tramps, but that was never the case in this house. Her failings are her own.’

Although neither parent was given to displays of affection, Patricia had always assumed they loved her. Their love had shown itself in polished shoes and a new school coat, dinners on the table and drives to the sea. Compared to many parents, their use of the wooden spoon had been sparing. Sometimes they spoke about the sacrifices they’d made. Other girls were forced to leave school at fifteen and earn their keep. She’d been allowed to complete the Leaving Cert. They spoke too about how girls were a constant worry. She remembered fragments of conversation; her mother saying to a neighbour, ‘You’re always nervous with girls. You’re better off with boys. Boys are straightforward.’

After a couple of hours, her father’s rage had eased. He’d left, only to return thirty minutes later with the parish priest. Father Cusack’s white hair was combed into an elaborate arrangement, but it wasn’t thick enough to mask his pink scalp. The lines on his face were deep, like cracks in dried mud. Her parents brought him into the good room, where he sat on the brown sofa and lit a cigarette. He took a pull and exhaled a long curl of smoke. Save for a brief admonishment for the shame she was bringing on a well-respected family, there was no anger. He had the air of a man performing a familiar ritual.

Patricia focused on the strip of green and orange wallpaper that was peeling from the wall behind him. Out on the street, some girls were skipping. In giddy voices they chanted, ‘Cinderella dressed in yella went upstairs to kiss her fella.’

‘Remind me again,’ said Father Cusack, ‘how old are you? Nineteen, is it?’

‘Twenty, Father.’

‘And how many months, do you think?’

‘Four,’ she replied, her voice stronger than she felt. ‘Perhaps five.’

‘The baby’s due in August, then. There’s no chance the father would be willing to marry you, is there?’

‘Oh God, no. That definitely won’t be happening.’

‘Hush,’ said her mam. ‘You’re in no position to be speaking like that.’

‘All I’m doing is telling the truth.’

‘Very well,’ said the priest. ‘I think it would be best if you went out to the kitchen and made us some tea.’

She eavesdropped from the hall. Her parents’ words were easy to make out. They were telling him about Mike. The priest was softly spoken, however, and she caught only snatches of what he had to say. ‘A reliable institution’, she heard, then ‘right from wrong’, followed by ‘surprisingly common’ and ‘tomorrow’.

Outside, the girls had changed their rhyme. ‘Vote, vote, vote for de Valera,’ they sang. ‘Here comes Annie at the door-io.’

Later, Patricia’s mother accompanied Father Cusack to the parochial house. They had a telephone there. He called the home in Carrigbrack and spoke to a woman called Sister Agnes. Her mam came back with instructions.

‘One small suitcase,’ she said. ‘Two nightdresses, a face cloth, a toothbrush. Underwear. Practical shoes. No fripperies, books or make-up.’ The girls wore uniforms, so there was no need for a change of clothes. ‘Not that your own clothes will fit you for much longer,’ she added.

Twenty-four hours later, and they were standing in the grainy light, pretending that everything made sense. The atmosphere was septic, all their rancour and disappointment lingering in the air.

Patricia pressed her fingers against her forehead. ‘What if I decide I want to keep the baby?’

The question prompted another snap of anger from her father. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘we don’t need any foolish talk.’

‘But I’ve heard of girls holding on to their children. It happens in Dublin, apparently. No one here need know.’

‘Don’t mind what they’re doing in Dublin. What’s wrong is wrong. Do you want to kill your mother? Is that it?’

There were a thousand replies she could have given, but there seemed no point. She was flat-on-the-floor exhausted. There was a dull pain around her eyes, a heavy feeling in her chest. She worried too that if they argued, she’d start crying again. Crying would be a mistake.

Presently, they heard the putter of an old Hillman Minx. Her father opened the door just wide enough to confirm the priest’s arrival.

He nodded in her direction. ‘You’d better not keep the man waiting.’

She paused, wondering if they’d give her a kiss or even a hug. She hoped for a sign, no matter how slight, that they would forgive her. Neither parent moved, and eventually she picked up her suitcase.

‘This is it, so,’ she said.

Her mother turned away. ‘Please God, we’ll see you later in the year.’

Now, Katie

Katie Carroll sat on the edge of the bed. Every day she sat in the same place and recited the same lines, and every day she walked away again. Was there a specific word, she wondered, for the one task you couldn’t do? A special way of describing how your brain turned to sludge and your limbs refused to function? If not, she ought to invent one.

The bedroom was filled with milky sunlight. Dublin had enjoyed a rare hot summer, and while the temperatures had dipped, the days remained bright. In the near distance, a lawnmower buzzed. On Griffin Road, untidy gardens were taboo.

If there was one job Katie couldn’t tackle, there were a hundred questions she couldn’t answer. Two months on, and they continued to ripple through her head. What will you do now? Is the house too big for you? Would you consider selling? What about moving home?

Margo had been the first to ask about her plans. Others had followed. It was funny how she could ignore the enquiries of friends and acquaintances, yet Margo whittled away at her. There was something about her sister’s tone, its blend of sympathy and condescension, that made Katie want to give an inappropriate answer. To say she was thinking of moving to Thailand or finding a young lover. Of course, she hadn’t said any such thing. She’d mumbled about not being sure and needing more time.

There were moments when she forgot. She’d get irritated by the creaking board at the top of the stairs and think, I’ll get Johnny to fix that. She’d roll over in bed, expecting to inhale his warm, soapy smell. Or she’d wake up, and for one happy minute her mind would be blank.

That was when the truth would find its way in.

People, well-meaning people, maintained her behaviour was normal. ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself,’ they’d say. ‘Honestly, you’re bearing up well. Considering.’ The last word was an acknowledgement of the suddenness of Johnny’s death. From the day of his diagnosis, he’d had four months. Her time as a nurse had taught Katie that no disease was as unfair as cancer. Receive one diagnosis, and a year down the road you could be sitting in Lanzarote swapping hospital stories. Receive another, and you barely had time to say goodbye. She told herself that there was nothing exceptional about her husband’s passing. He’d been seventy-four, not a grand old age, but a decent one. Old enough for his death not to be considered a tragedy.

At the funeral, she’d been restrained. She’d been brought up to be suspicious of showy demonstrations of grief. That had been the way back then. Wasn’t it crazy that a sixty-nine-year-old woman could be influenced by what she’d been told as a child? But she was. Truth to tell, she’d just wanted to be alone. Oh, she knew she shouldn’t be ungrateful. It was wonderful that so many people had made the effort to be there, to say ‘Sorry for your troubles’ and swap soft reminiscences. It had been years since she’d seen some of those who’d travelled from her home village of Danganstown. Others had come from abroad. One of Johnny’s nephews had made the journey from Madrid, and Margo’s daughter, Beth, had arrived from London.

For the following month, Katie had been busy. Friends had swooped in, offering meals and chats and cups of tea. She’d written thank-you notes and attempted to tackle the endless stream of paperwork. But lives moved on. Even close friends had other priorities, other concerns and demands.

Besides, Katie had never been one for relying on others. Early on, she’d learnt it tended to lead to disappointment. For most of her life, Johnny had been enough. He’d said the same about her. Through a mix of accident and design, they’d had a tight circle of friends. She’d always preferred small gatherings to the dazzle and noise of the crowd.

Now, here she was, back in the bedroom, bags at the ready. All she had to do was parcel up Johnny’s best clothes and take them to the Vincent de Paul. She rose from the bed, opened the mahogany wardrobe and removed a pale blue shirt. Instead of stuffing it in a bag, she rubbed its fabric across her face. For some minutes she stood there, rocking on her heels, a familiar burn at the back of her eyes. This was stupid. The clothes were in good condition. There were men who could put them to use. But, as life had taught her, there was a wide gulf between recognising the foolishness of your behaviour and doing something about it.

She returned the shirt to the wardrobe. ‘Another day,’ she whispered. ‘Another day, but not yet.’

Katie’s grief was a slippery thing. Much of the time she was crippled by tiredness. She wanted to curl up with her loss and mourn in peace. There were other times when she felt a throbbing anger. She was angry with neighbours for coming out with platitudes about time being a great healer. She was angry with Johnny for leaving her. She’d been happy with their life together; there’d been no need for anything to change. Mostly, though, she was angry with herself. Why hadn’t she spotted that something was wrong? What sort of nurse was she? Why, over the years, had she wasted energy worrying about nonsense? Why hadn’t she made the most of what she’d been given? She would march around the house like a madwoman, wanting to kick and scream. Then it would hit her: maybe what she felt wasn’t anger. Maybe it was guilt.

She’d fret about this until she remembered one of Beth’s favourite phrases: get over yourself. Katie was doing too much thinking. She had to get over herself.

Rather than shutting the wardrobe, she reached into the back and took out a box. Once upon a time, it had contained a pair of cork-heeled sandals. As she recalled, Johnny hadn’t been keen on them. He’d also had mixed feelings about the current contents of the box. ‘Seriously, Kateser,’ he’d said, ‘you shouldn’t go upsetting yourself. Anyway, most of those women are probably dead by now.’

She didn’t believe this was true. Yes, the women would be old, but then again, what was old? Age, she’d discovered, was a complex business. If the news referred to a woman as being sixty-nine, Katie would picture a small lady with white hair, ill-fitting dentures and a wardrobe of Crimplene and tweed. It was an image from her childhood, when anybody over pension age was left to wither in a corner with a blanket on their knees. But that wasn’t how she looked or felt. The knowledge that women of her age were expected to shrivel and fade made her doubly determined not to. Even on her worst days, she put on lipstick and mascara. Two weeks after Johnny’s death, she’d had her blonde highlights refreshed. She liked to think he would have approved.

She sat down again, lifted the lid from the box and sifted through its contents. The notebook and the fragile curls of paper took her back almost fifty years. She’d been twenty-two when she’d started work in Carrigbrack. In those days, most people had said little about what happened there. If they did, they spoke in euphemisms. It was a home for girls who ‘got themselves into trouble’, a place where they could ‘reflect on their failings’ and ‘get back their self-respect’.

The notebook had a mottled brown cover and its pages were crisp with age. She opened it at random. The writing, in fountain pen, was small and precise. 19 October 1971, the entry read. Boy, 6 lb 10 oz. Mother aged 19, from Co. Limerick. Named Goretti. Says she will call her baby Declan. Her boyfriend is in Birmingham, and she wants them both to join him there.

No doubt some of Katie’s memories had been warped by time, but she could still picture the young women and their babies. The ‘fallen women’, as some had insisted on labelling them, as if they were characters from the Bible or a Regency novel. She’d be going about her business when a sound or a smell would return her to another era. To a time of flared trousers and platform boots, black-and-white televisions and Vietnam. A time of calculated cruelty and unexpected kindness. She could still hear lonely sobs echoing through the building. She could smell the disinfectant and boiled dinners; see the spots of damp on the walls; sense the isolation and hopelessness.

She would also recall her own failures.

An outsider might assume that Johnny had forbidden her from doing anything with the bracelets. That wouldn’t be fair. He’d been a protective man but not a controlling one. She’d been held back by her own fears. And yet, no matter how hard she tried to push her memories aside, they continued to seep in. Like her childhood in Danganstown and her marriage to Johnny, Carrigbrack was part of her story. And if that story finished now, it wouldn’t have the ending she wanted.

‘Carrigbrack?’ said Beth with a wrinkle of her nose. ‘Yeah, of course I’ve heard of it. It’s in north Clare, up near the Burren. Wasn’t it a big mother-and-baby home?’

‘Mmm. Not as massive as some of the others, but pretty sizeable all the same.’

‘So what were you doing there?’

‘I was a nurse,’ said Katie, trailing a hand along the edge of the shoebox. The two of them were in the kitchen, drinking the milky coffee that Beth had bought from a café near the college in Drumcondra.

A month after Johnny’s funeral, Katie’s niece had returned to Ireland for good. ‘I’d forgotten how much I like Dublin,’ she’d explained. She’d found a job with one of the large internet companies near the docks. Securing an affordable flat was altogether more difficult, and she was staying with old college friends in Stoneybatter. Despite the age gap, Beth and Katie had struck up a rapport. This was helped by the fact that, unlike her mother, Beth had shown no interest in rearranging Katie’s life.

For years, their contact had been infrequent. Katie had rarely returned to her home village. Nevertheless, she’d always been fond of her niece. She’d been a chatty, lively child, full of questions about Katie’s life in Dublin. Margo had seemed exhausted by her. But what mother of six wasn’t perpetually exhausted?

‘Didn’t you have to be a nun to work in a place like Carrigbrack?’ asked Beth.

‘Most of the staff were nuns,’ said Katie, ‘but two or three of us weren’t. We were just . . . well, I suppose you’d say we were helping out. I was newly qualified at the time.’

‘Was nothing else available?’

‘Not much. Getting a job wasn’t easy. And, in the grand scheme of things, Carrigbrack was close to home. Danganstown’s only thirty or forty miles away.’

‘I hear what you’re saying, but didn’t working there make you uncomfortable?’

Katie was beginning to question the wisdom of confiding in Beth. That was the problem with her niece’s generation: everything was black or white, spectacular or unforgivable. They had a certainty about the world – and their place in it – that Katie had never acquired. They were direct, too. There was none of the let’s-pretend-everything’s-fine behaviour of the past. This was, she reckoned, a change for the better. Still, she wasn’t always equipped for Beth’s candour.

‘I didn’t have much choice,’ she said. ‘Mam and Dad heard about the job, and that was that. What I wanted was irrelevant.’

‘How bad was it?’

‘If you mean was there physical punishment, the answer is no. Not officially, at any rate. The regime was harsh, though. The girls were expected to work right up until they went into labour. And conditions were bleak. You couldn’t have called it a happy place.’

Beth shook her head. ‘What gets me is why everybody put up with this carry-on for so long. Did people really think that packing your daughter off to an institution was a good idea?’

Katie attempted to put some order on her thoughts. She didn’t want to be evasive, but neither was she able to give a full answer. Before replying, she took a deep breath. ‘I’ve thought a lot about it, and looking back, it can be hard to tell where misguided ended and cruel began. People were scared. Scared of the Church. Scared of their neighbours. Scared of being seen as less than decent.’

‘But—’

‘I suppose what you’ve got to understand is that for most ordinary people, life was far more limited than it is now. When we were growing up, there was no contraception. You were warned not to have sex before marriage. If you did, and you became pregnant, you were marched up the aisle. If that wasn’t possible, you were sent away and the baby was adopted. That was how it was, and mad as it sounds, most people accepted it.’

‘It sounds mad because it was mad. It was absolutely mental.’

Katie recoiled at the sting in Beth’s voice. Five years in London had stripped most of the Danganstown from her accent, but it was still there around the edges, especially when she became emotional. ‘Mad’ sounded more like ‘mid’, and ‘mental’ came out as ‘mintal’. Katie remembered how, in their early years, Johnny had poked fun at her own country accent. She, in turn, had laughed at his Dublinisms. At ‘banjoed’ and ‘spanner’ and ‘get up the yard’. They’d both marvelled at how such a small country could have so many ways of speaking.

For a while, the two of them sat in silence. On the street, a group of children were enjoying the summer’s last hurrah. Their squeals and hollers crashed through the quiet.

‘I’m sorry, Katie,’ said Beth. ‘I was wrong to snap at you. I do appreciate you telling me this. I just find it all so grim, y’know?’

Katie leant over and tapped her niece’s wrist. ‘You’re fine, pet. I won’t put a gloss on it. Grim’s the right word.’

‘So what’s the story with the box?’

‘Ah. Well, when I was working in Carrigbrack, I decided I ought to record the births in some way.’ She stopped to remove the lid and take out the notebook. ‘New babies were a non-event. Celebration was forbidden, and no one was allowed to make a fuss. The mothers were told to reflect on the sin that had brought them there. “The more pain you suffer, the better,” one of the nuns, Sister Sabina, used to say. Anyway, I knew what would happen. In most cases, the mother would be given a few weeks, perhaps a few months, with her baby, and then – whoosh – the child would be whipped away.’

‘And the mother wouldn’t be entitled to any information about where they’d gone?’

‘That’s right. In a way, the longer a baby stayed, the worse it was. Even though the girls were told not to form an attachment, many of them did.’

Katie paused, and an image drifted in. An image of a frightened young woman who’d been able to keep her boy for five months. She’d wanted to hold on to him. She’d been adamant she could cope. One dank Friday afternoon, he’d been taken away. Later, when she’d accepted that she would never get him back, she’d stretched out on the floor and howled with misery.

It was just one image. One story in an ocean of stories. But it never went away.

Katie was surprised to realise that her eyes were wet. ‘Sorry, love,’ she said. ‘There’s no call for me to get maudlin. That’s not what this is about.’

‘I don’t blame you,’ said Beth. ‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like. So . . .’

‘You’re wondering about the notebook? Well, I decided to keep a record of the births – a few details about the mothers and their babies. And I also kept these.’ She reached into the box and plucked out two paper bracelets. ‘The babies were given identity bands. As you can see, they’re not like the high-tech things they have in hospitals nowadays; just bits of paper with the name of the mother and her baby and so on.’ She handed over one of the bracelets.

‘Boy. Eugene,’ read Beth. ‘Fifth of January 1972. Seven pounds two ounces. Mother: Loretta.’

‘Loretta wouldn’t have been her real name,’ said Katie. ‘They were all given different names in the home. And I can tell you, they used to get a right talking-to if they didn’t use them.’

‘Presumably Eugene’s name was changed after he was adopted,’ said Beth, running a finger over the tiny lettering.

‘I’d say so. The Lord only knows where the little chap ended up.’

‘But wherever he is, he’d probably love to have this. It might even help him find his birth mother.’

‘If that’s what he wants. Or maybe he already has. Remember, he’s forty-six now. And I guess Loretta’s nearly seventy.’

Beth’s round blue eyes were suspiciously misty. Along with her small mouth and narrow nose, she’d inherited those eyes from her mother’s side of the family. But while Katie and Margo had been cursed with flat faces, Beth had been blessed with her father’s delicate cheekbones. At twenty-eight, she was a remoulded version of her mother. ‘How many bracelets have you got?’ she asked.

‘Forty-seven. I was in Carrigbrack for a year and a bit, long enough to see the births of more than fifty children. There were three stillbirths, and three others died when they were very young. Oh, and I missed a couple of bracelets. Obviously, we weren’t supposed to hold on to them. If my stash had been found, I’d have been in serious trouble.’

As she spoke about the babies who’d died, Katie noticed Beth’s mouth tighten. Although the number was higher than it should have been, she’d tried to console herself with the knowledge that other homes had been worse. That being said, practices in Carrigbrack had made a mockery of her training. There had been unnecessary suffering, and she had contributed to it.

‘And you’ve kept the bracelets all this time?’ asked Beth.

‘To be fair, it wasn’t as though I was looking at them every day of the week. I just couldn’t bring myself to get rid of them.’

Going back to her school days, Katie had always been embarrassingly organised. She’d been the child who did her homework so that others could copy it. Throughout her career, she’d valued detail, record-keeping, lists. Odd as it might have seemed to others, she could never have thrown away her box of names.

Beth handed back one bracelet and took another. ‘Girl. Jacqueline. Tenth of November 1971. Six pounds four ounces. Mother: Hanora Culligan,’ she read.

‘I remember her. Bless her, she was only fourteen, and a young fourteen at that. Christine was her real name. She called herself Chrissie. She’d been raped by a neighbour.’

‘Jesus.’ Beth swiped at a tear. ‘The poor girl. I hope life turned out well for her, though she must have been totally screwed up by the time she left Carrigbrack.’

‘But you never know, do you? I’m amazed by what people can survive. Maybe she marched out and never looked back.’

‘Do you really believe that?’

‘I’m not sure. It’s what I’d like to think, though.’

‘It’d be great to find out.’

‘It would,’ said Katie, in a low voice. The more they spoke, they more convinced she became. Yes, there were risks. Some of the stories were likely to be upsetting. She might be drawn into contact with people she’d rather forget. Plus, she had only a hazy idea of how to go about this. What she did know was that if she could help someone to unlock a door, that was what she should do. She smiled at Beth. ‘Like you say, the men and women born in the home might appreciate some information about where their story began.’

‘Except . . .’ Beth hesitated.

‘Go on.’

‘Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a brilliant idea, but I was wondering if this is the right time. Look at the two of us. We’re all teary just looking at pieces of paper. I can hear Mam giving out. “Are you mad?” she’ll say. “Bringing all that hassle on yourself, and Katie’s husband not long in his grave.”’

‘We’d better not tell her, then.’

‘That’s cool with me, but what about my question?’

‘There doesn’t have to be hassle. And as far as the timing’s concerned . . . as much as I always hated those clichés about death, it turns out they’re true. When someone close to you dies, you begin to measure your own time. If I don’t do this now, there’s a danger I’ll regret it. Some of those involved mightn’t have many years left. Besides, it’s not as though I can go hunting down women and harassing them. I’ll put an ad in the paper, and if anyone gets in touch, I’ll talk to them.’

‘The new job doesn’t start for a couple of weeks,’ said Beth. ‘I can give you a dig-out if you like.’

‘Thanks, love. I’d really like that.’

‘And if people do contact you, what then?’

‘I’ll pass on what I have, and that’ll be it. Believe me,’ said Katie, ‘I’ve no intention of getting involved in anybody’s life.’

Katie

According to Beth, an online adoption forum was what they needed. They could put up a post to let people know about the bracelets. At the bottom, they’d include a dedicated email address. If anyone wanted more information, they could send a message.

Katie wasn’t convinced. ‘Don’t look at me like I’m some sort of behind-the-times old woman,’ she said. ‘I’ve a feeling the folks we want to reach are more likely to see an ad in the paper.’

‘In the short term, maybe so. Only it would disappear after a day. A post on an adoption message board would be there indefinitely. I promise you more people would get to hear about it. They’d be the right people too. If you put an ad in the paper, there’s a danger the rest of the family will come across it. And from what you were saying yesterday, you’d rather do this on the down-low. Am I right?’

‘It’s not as though I’d put my name in the paper. I’d call myself “Carrigbrack Nurse” or some such.’

‘All the same, if Mam saw the dates, she’d guess it was you. There’s far less chance of her spotting a message board post.’

‘Hmm. Show me this forum you’re talking about, so I can see whether it’s suitable.’

Beth laughed. ‘You’re a hard woman to please.’

They were back in Katie’s kitchen in Drumcondra. Apart from the occasional student house, Griffin Road was a street of tidy red-brick homes where the railings shone, the roses were pruned, and the bins were left out – and taken in – on the correct day. Katie and Johnny had bought number 89 in the mid 1970s. Now, youngsters would laugh at how sm