Black Diamond Read online

  Bruce was busy and didn’t come. He sent a telegram instead. Alma felt that he’d let her down. He never missed something he really wanted to see.

  All the time everyone had been praising and petting her, she’d been looking at the door or listening for the telephone; hoping for him.

  After that, she didn’t believe that he’d turn up for her birthday.

  *

  The night before her birthday, she had a dream. In the dream she went to visit Bruce in the hospital. She entered a room where he was sitting up in bed, reading. A long tube like a garden hose came out of his chest and plugged in to a machine that stood by the bed. ‘Is it your heart?’ she asked him. And he said, ‘That’s right. The machine replaces what the heart used to do. I’m going to have to be on it for the rest of my life.’ She said, ‘Aren’t I going to see you any more?’ ‘Of course,’ he told her. ‘You can come visit me any time you like.’

  *

  Bruce came home, bringing presents for everyone. They had a party for Alma and the day afterward he drove her up to the city for a weekend of shows and celebration.

  They went to a play, a musical, two movies; to the zoo and the park. And to the adoption agency. She didn’t realize where they were headed until he parked down the street and told her which building it was. He’d made the appointment for her, so everything was fixed. ‘If you don’t take the trouble to find out now,’ he said, ‘you never will – I know you. You’ll just sit around all your life, wondering about what your mother was like and what she’s doing now.’ He reached across her and opened the door. He pushed her until she got out. Then he leaned forward and slammed the door behind her. She moved away, not really knowing where she was going. All she could think of was that he shouldn’t have sprung it on her like that. He should have given her warning. Now that they were there, she supposed that she’d better go in.

  All the way down the sidewalk and up the path to the building, she was nervous. But as soon as she stepped through the doorway, she thought: He’s right. I don’t have to do anything with the information but at least I’ll have it, just to know. And they can’t refuse it to me, because it’s my right.

  She saw a different woman from the one Bruce had described. This one was named Roberts; she was plump-faced and sandy-haired and had a businesslike manner. She asked why Alma wanted to find her parents. Alma said she wasn’t certain that she did.

  ‘When I was younger,’ she explained, ‘I was sure I never even wanted to know about them. But I’ve changed. Now I’m curious. I’d also like to know medical things; every doctor I go to comes up with these questions like: Did my mother have heavy periods? and that kind of thing. The family history. And I do sometimes have the feeling that I’d like to know what my mother looked like. If you’ve got a photograph? And to have her name and maybe address – then, if I ever did want to meet her, I could write to her first. Or maybe I’d never do anything. But I’d have the choice.’

  There was no photograph, and again, as in Bruce’s case, no information about the father, except that he’d been young. The pregnancy had been the outcome of a highschool romance. Both sets of parents had apparently discussed the matter and everyone had agreed that the two young people weren’t old enough to take on the responsibilities of marriage and children; they were still underage and supported by their families.

  ‘How sad,’ Alma said. ‘For all of them.’

  ‘It’s a story we hear a lot,’ Mrs Roberts said, ‘even now. Sometimes it’s like taking a dare, to show their parents they’re grown up. And then they get in too deep and find out it’s really too much for them to handle.’ She passed a piece of paper across the desk.

  Alma took the paper and started to read. Her mother’s name was Rose Ellen Parker. The last address the adoption society had was that of her family’s house in Connecticut. The medical facts appeared to be straightforward and the birth had been without complications. Everything had been completely usual.

  ‘Except,’ Mrs Roberts said, looking down at her papers, ‘that afterwards … but that’s normal, too. There’s a certain amount of time you have to allow. For adjustment.’

  ‘Whose adjustment?’ Alma said.

  ‘Well, everybody’s, actually. The new parents, too.’

  ‘But whose did you mean just now?’

  ‘There’s a note here about subsequent interviews with the girl, Rose. She was unhappy with the situation.’

  ‘She wanted me back?’

  ‘I wouldn’t read too much into it. A reaction one month later is one thing. Ten years later might be different. She might feel relieved that she’d done the right thing. You see, it isn’t easy for anyone involved. We just try to do the best with what we’re handed. Our first concern has to be the welfare of the child.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alma said. She was glad, all over again, that she’d been brought up in a complete family, with a mother and father and brother, instead of being raised as the illegitimate burden of a single teenager and her disappointed parents.

  She folded the paper, put it in her purse and shook hands with Mrs Roberts.

  For the short time it took her to walk down the corridor, she continued to feel that something had been settled. But as soon as she stepped out into the sunlight, it seemed to her that nothing had changed.

  She walked to the car and got in. ‘Well,’ she said to Bruce, ‘that’s that.’

  ‘I’m going to buy you a drink,’ he told her. ‘I sure as hell needed one afterwards.’

  They had the drink, and then a second one, and he took her on to another place, where they ate lunch. Alma told him what she’d found out. He asked if they’d given her the name of her father, too.

  ‘The name, but nothing else. James Ridler, Rickman – something like that. I’ve got it here.’

  ‘If they were in the same school, it should be easy to trace them both.’

  ‘Would they tell me if she’d kept on trying to get me back? I mean, for years?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘They should have some organization for adopted people to talk about things with each other. I can’t imagine what it would be like on your own.’

  ‘I’m sure they do. Why not? They’ve got everything else. Just give me the names and addresses and I’ll do the rest.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll find out where she is.’

  ‘Have you found yours?’

  ‘Yes. A couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I wasted a lot of time at the start, beginning at the beginning. Her parents are still alive somewhere up in New England. So’s the doctor in the case, who was married to her mother’s sister. Her father was a different kind of doctor; a bacteriologist. I think it’s safe to assume that the parents hired their in-law to hush up the name or the facts, or both. Unless I’m the outcome of one of those dismal family passions you hear about. But I don’t think so.’

  ‘You could go see them and find out.’

  ‘I could. But there’s no point. I can find out from her. I know where she is. That was the hard part. Joanna Elizabeth. She and her husband started a second-hand car firm, then a garage and a taxi service, then a car showroom. They’ve branched out into horseracing, stud farms, who knows what else. He’s a crook.’

  ‘You can’t know that. Second-hand cars aren’t always a cheat. And horses –’

  ‘He was in jail.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘It’s on the records.’

  ‘What was it for?’

  ‘Rape. Mummy knows some real nice folks.’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t really –’

  ‘Oh, maybe. Anyway, like I said, she got married to this guy a couple of years later.’

  ‘If he didn’t tell her about his past –’

  ‘They’ve got two daughters: Amanda and Diane.’

  ‘What beautiful names.’

  ‘Very snotsy. Somebody’s making up for something they didn’t have.’

  ‘I don’
t see how you get that out of it.’

  ‘What’s wrong with Mary or Jane?’

  ‘Maybe they’re names that were in the family, like ours. How old are the little girls?’

  ‘Seventeen and sixteen.’

  ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘I was a little surprised about that, too.’

  ‘They’re so close to our age. And they’re your sisters, Bruce. Your real sisters.’

  ‘As real as real can be. You think your mother’s married? Or still single? What do you want to bet? Bet you ten bucks she’s got a family.’

  ‘It feels really peculiar to imagine it. I’d always thought about her on her own.’

  ‘Five bucks?’

  ‘Okay. You know, she was just about my age – a few months older. I can’t get over it.’

  ‘Didn’t you expect that, after I’d been to them?’

  ‘It seems to me,’ Alma said, ‘I keep expecting the wrong things, so I’m always caught off balance.’

  *

  After Bruce left, Alma made plans. On the next Saturday she took a bus in to the city, where she bought a pair of shoes with part of her birthday money. Then she went to the library, looked at some books in the dance section for a while and, after that, she walked upstairs. In the alcove off the hall between the coffeeshop and the cafeteria, she found the telephones. She looked through the phone books. Just as Bruce had said, there were societies and clubs for adopted children. In fact, there were several. When she called the number listed under Hotline Trouble, the woman who answered took a while to come up with any information. Alma could hear her turning pages, minute after minute, until finally the voice came back with four phone numbers, saying, ‘Sorry it’s taken so long. We mostly get calls about drugs or suicide or, uh, that kind of thing.’

  Alma looked over her shoulder. The corridor leading to the coffeeshop was empty, so was the hallway outside the cafeteria. She dialed the first number on the list. Her request was not the usual one there, either; most people undoubtedly got in touch with such societies in order to talk about their feelings towards both sets of parents – the real and (as Bruce sometimes put it) the unreal.

  ‘Hello,’ a woman’s voice said.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ Alma answered. ‘Is this Adop –’

  ‘Yeah. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Well, I just wondered. If I tried to find my real mother, do you think …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you think it might upset her?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Some advice line you are, Alma thought. I don’t know.

  ‘Nobody can know that,’ the woman said. ‘So don’t worry about it. Ask yourself how important it is to you, not to her. Okay?’

  ‘Okay. Thanks,’ Alma said. She hung up quickly, before anyone could ask her if she wanted to join the society. She felt altogether less confident than before she’d made the call.

  During the trip home, she changed her mind. She started to think that the woman on the other end of the line had been right: it was up to her.

  *

  Bruce sent her a letter that told her everything he’d been able to discover about her mother. After the adoption, Rose E. Parker had gone to Chicago, where she had trained to be a librarian. She’d also taken some courses at a teachers’ college. For eighteen months she’d lived with an aunt, then she’d found a job teaching in a small country school in Iowa. She’d stayed there for two years, had taken another job in Washington State, and had met her husband: a man named Thomas Shelton, who was an accountant. After the wedding they’d moved to California and had started to buy a house. They had two children, Jerome and Tobias, aged ten and eight. At the moment, Rose had gone back to teaching. Her husband, Thomas, was working for a large accountancy firm.

  Jerome? Alma thought. And Tobias? They sounded like the names of old men with beards. She wondered if either Rose or Thomas had joined some kind of religious sect.

  She sent Bruce a check for five dollars. And she started to think about all of them – Rose, Thomas, Jerome and Tobias – so frequently that it was like being haunted by the present and the future, rather than by the past.

  She began to invent scenes in which she met them. She forced her fantasies to go all different ways: sometimes she’d encounter hostility; once, the mother threw herself at her and demanded that Alma should compensate her for everything else that had gone wrong in her life. In most of her daydreams Alma would remain in hiding. She’d see her mother waiting for a bus or shopping at a supermarket. She’d go up and stand next to her. And that would be enough.

  A month before graduation, she talked to Bess about her other family and about the visit to the adoption agency earlier in the year. She didn’t mention Bruce’s part in the business. If he meant for Bess to know anything, he could tell her himself. Alma never wanted him to feel that she had been disloyal to him over even the smallest thing. He suffered too much already from his obsession about betrayal.

  ‘It’s something I’ve got to settle,’ she said. ‘I don’t need to talk to her, or to know what she’s like or what she thinks, or anything. I just have this sort of craving to see what she looks like. Do you understand?’

  ‘Of course,’ Bess said. ‘It’s only natural.’

  ‘I didn’t say anything before, because I didn’t know how to put it. You know I’m glad you’re both my parents, don’t you?’

  Bess laughed. She said, ‘You do just whatever you want to about it, Alma. The only thing I’d ever worry about is if one of you got hurt.’

  ‘Me and this other woman?’

  ‘You or Bruce. You’re my family.’

  ‘I thought I’d better tell you now, because that’s why I’ll be going all the way to California. That’s where they live.’

  ‘Oh,’ Bess said. ‘That’s a long way. That’s a long way, with both of you gone.’

  * * *

  After his June exams Bruce asked the college authorities to let him take the next year off, and to be readmitted as a sophomore on his return. He described the need for such a long break as ‘family affairs’. They allowed him the time because he was one of their best students.

  He moved to Kentucky. In the summer he started work on a newspaper. He also hired himself out as a gardener.

  He saw them. He saw him first – the husband: Raymond. That was a week after he’d flimflammed his way into the newspaper office.

  He was supposed to be covering a local fair, for which he had a photographer named Wilbur Spinks in tow. Wilbur wanted to get some shots of horses. And since Bruce was always asking, ‘Who’s that?’ or, ‘Tell me about such-and-such,’ Wilbur told him, unasked, ‘Those two over there are Harold Judd and Ray Baxter. Harold’s president of the downtown bank.’

  ‘I recognize him,’ Bruce said.

  ‘And Ray’s a real good man to know if you ever want a car. He’s got a lot of businesses: stables, electrical supplies. He just bought the old Tropic Club last year – The Tropic Night. It used to be a kind of nightclub. Big business back in prohibition days. Now it’s all wired up for disco stuff.’

  Bruce took a long look at the husband. Baxter was standing with his jacket slung over one shoulder and his shirtsleeves rolled up. He wore a pair of lightly tinted glasses against the sun. His hair was black and gray, his body thickset but not fat. He had the appearance of a man who took good care of himself, but he also seemed like someone who hadn’t been born with the expensive jacket and sunglasses and the generally easy air of comfort. He looked tough. You wouldn’t want to get into a fight with a man like that.

  The wife came later: Joanna Elizabeth. Bruce was writing out a deposit slip at the bank. He heard one of the cashiers say, ‘Mrs Baxter.’ He looked up, seeing her distinctly in three-quarter profile and hearing her voice, although not clearly enough to distinguish the words.

  She was as glamorous as a moviestar or a television actress: honey-blonde, slim, in a pale knitted suit and strappy, high-heeled shoes. Her face was hard, pr
etty and bored. She had her sunglasses in one hand, gesticulating with them. The stones in her rings flashed as she moved her hand. She looked young and sexy, and as if she intended to give that impression. The shoulder-length hair had been artificially streaked, her make-up applied in order to attract. The lines of her figure were easily followed through the material of the clothes she wore. You’d never have thought she had two grown daughters. He looked and looked, as if caught in a ball of fire, consumed by the power of his own eyesight. He would have known she was the one, even if he hadn’t heard someone speak her name. Not two, he thought: three. She’s had three children.

  *

  Alma took two training courses over the summer: teaching and librarianship. While she was studying, she met a man named Ernest Allgood. She told him that she’d just been in a play called The Importance of Being Earnest. He said: Yes, he had the perfect name for a villain.

  He was in his early thirties, divorced, and had a daughter. The wife had remarried. They’d separated within three years. He told Alma that he still liked his wife; she was a nice girl. The trouble was that they’d both been too young for marriage.

  Alma was lonely. She missed Bruce all the time. Now that school was over, she felt as if she’d parted from her parents too, even though she still lived with them. Ernest was easy-going and jovial. She didn’t want to lose his company, but there was no way of explaining to him that she just needed a friend. He wanted to sleep with her.

  He kept her laughing and made her feel comfortable, and one evening got a couple of drinks into her and took her to his place. She kept saying, ‘Don’t get me pregnant,’ and he kept repeating, ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to get you pregnant.’ She thought afterwards that she’d probably known – before going home with him – how the evening would turn out, otherwise she’d have told him that she didn’t want to see him any more.

  She went back to Dr Morse and asked all about birth control. This time she could talk. She even thought of asking how many women, who got pregnant, wanted to. But it was no use asking a thing like that. In any case, she now believed the answer to be unconnected to medical fact: it was a matter of opinion. All people had their opinions. And sometimes they had other people’s on loan, either temporarily or because that was the only way they could acquire any of their own. There were lots of things you couldn’t find out by asking other people.