Chapter Six

Come with me Dear Reader, far from the heat, dust and dry air of the town of Suoloduro. For we must travel some fifteen hundred kilometres north west, for the next part of our tale takes place in England. We will head for the city of Leicester in the East Midlands where we will find the next character in our tale. Follow me there to the busy road just off the high street. Follow me from the heat of Italy to where the British summer is doing its best.
She had walked the full length of the street three times before she had spotted it. A small brass plaque screwed to the wall next to a dingy doorway. She checked the address in the letter again, ‘Foster, Allen and Partners’. Despite the appearance this was definitely the place. The wind gusted again and turned her umbrella inside out, the driving rain lashed against he face. She stepped quickly across the pavement and in to the doorway trying to find some shelter. She pushed the glass door with her shoulder and attempted to close her umbrella. The door did not open, it appeared to be locked. She struggled to keep her umbrella under control and looked at her watch, she was a few minutes late but the letter had definitely said ten o’clock.
She stood for a moment, the wind and rain lashing at her, she step back hard against the door, trying to flatten herself as much as she could, to get out of the rain. She looked around trying to decide whether to ring the number in the letter from her mobile or to go back to her office and ring from there. It was then that she saw the buzzer; she had been leaning against it and had not noticed it before. She pressed the black button and the speaker made a fuzzy squelching sound. After a moment a moment a distorted female voice crackled out the small speaker, “Yes?”
She lent forward and spoke into the speaker. “I have an appointment with Mr Foster, my name is…”
“Push the door when you hear the buzzer.”
Behind her the door made a vibrating squeaky sound, she leaned back and she felt the door open. Turning round she pushed the door and step in to the small dark hallway. The air was damp and musty and the walls looked as they could do with a good wash. Cautiously she moved to the foot of the stairs, they rose for about fifteen feet and then turned back in themselves. Slowly she started to climb, unsure of where she was going or what to expect.
The banister was sticky to the touch and the carpet stained and threadbare; she decided it was probably safer to walk up the centre of the narrow staircase than risk the danger of touching anything. The walls and woodwork were painted a dirty magnolia colour; the whole place had an abandoned feel to it. She reached the first small landing and found two doors, both of which appeared to locked.
On the wall, by the bottom of the next flight of stairs, was taped a piece of A4 paper, written on it in thick black marker pen was the message ‘Foster, Allen and Partners Top Floor’. She started to climb again, the stairs got darker, the only light coming from a yellow bulb which hung from the ceiling on the small landing at the point where the stairs doubled back on themselves. She began to wish that she had told some one at work where she was going. She passed another pair of doors and found another hand written sign ‘Foster, Allen and Partners keep going’.
She started to climb again and realised she could hear a faint noise coming from the floor above, even though she did not generally believe in such rubbish she crossed her fingers and climbed the next flight quickly, hoping that it would be the last. At the top of the last flight of stairs there was yet another landing, again with two doors. One of the doors was slightly open and appeared to be small and very dirty toilet. The other had yet another hand written sign, ‘Foster, Allen and Partners’.
She moved forward and tapped on the door, a female voice, the same one as on the entry phone she assumed, said some thing that she took to be enter or come in. She turned the handle and pushed open the door. The sight which greeted her was partly what she had expected after the climb up the stair case but it still came as a shock.
She stepped in to a small, dim, airless office. The only source of light came from a window which was set in the sloping roof above a desk that was placed near the back wall. The room was full of filing cabinets and yet every available surface was piled high with stacks of buff folders and manila files. Seated behind the desk, just visible behind the ancient computer monitor and piles of paper work, there sat a blonde haired young woman. She was talking animatedly in to a phone, which she had tucked hard between ear and shoulder, her hands flew backwards and forwards, sometimes attacking the computer keyboard and at others grabbing files, flicking through them and returning to the precarious piles that surrounded her.
The young woman looked up and smiled as she entered the room and then pointed in the direction of a wooden dining room chair that was wedged between two of the filing cabinets. Taking that as a signal that she should take a seat and wait she crossed to the chair and sat.
The office smelt of stale coffee and even staler cigarette smoke. She looked around in the hope that she might find some clue as to why she had been called here. The young woman but down the phone, looked across, smiled and said, “Mr Allen will see you now.”
“Oh, sorry I’m her to see Mr Foster, my name is…”
“No dear, Mr Foster is dead, has been for several years, but as he’s the senior partner all appointments are arranged through his diary and it is then decided which of the partners will deal with your case.”
“Oh…” she assumed there must be some logic in there somewhere.
“Just knock and enter.” The young woman pointed at a door on the far side of the room, partly concealed by yet another filing cabinet.
She nodded her thanks to the young girl, crossed the room, tapped on the door and pushed it open.
The scene that greeted her was only slightly better than the room she had just left. It was lighter, due to the large window that ran down the furthest wall. It could have been lighter still if the net curtains that hung across them had been clean and not a dirty, light blocking, nicotine yellow. There were fewer piles of paper on the desk and the computer monitor was a flat screen rather than the box that the young woman had sitting on her desk. The man behind the desk was not what she had expected either. He looked as though he was in his late twenties, his straight, mousey brown hair was long and shaggy and he was wearing a combat green t-shirt with the iconic Che Guevara image, beloved by students across the world, printed on the front.
As she entered he looked up from the file in front of him, he stood and offered his hand, “Do come in, take a seat, Cup of tea or coffee?”
She lent forward and shook his outstretched hand, “No, thank you.” She picked up the small pile of manila folders from the seat, handed them to him and sat down.
“Right, okay… down to business,” He placed the files she had just given him on top of a large pile of paperwork on the floor next to him. “First, the formalities, I take it you’ve brought the forms of identification, as requested in the letter.”
“Yes I have, but I’d like to know what all this is about?”
“I’m sorry… legal stuff, I can’t tell you anything until you can prove who you are.”
“Why should I prove who I am, if you’re not willing to tell me what this is all about?”
“I know this all seems very odd, all very cloak and dagger, but unfortunately there are legal hoops we have to jump through before we can go any further. As Julie, my secretary, explained to you on the phone, it is information to your advantage.”
“You don’t look much like a solicitor. You seem a bit young.”
“I can assure you this is not some elaborate con. If I was going to do that I would have made sure I had much better offices. The original Allen of Foster, Allen and Partners, is my uncle but he retired last year, I’d just graduated and decided to try and keep the firm going.
Bit of a one man band at the moment but business is steady and I’m building up a regular client base. Mainly pro bono work at the moment, you know the sort of stuff, legal hassles with dodgy landlords, sorting out issues with loan sharks etc. I ask people to make a donation to the running of the practice, if they can. Occasionally some thing like this comes along,” he tapped the file in front of him, “a bit of paying work that helps to pay the phone bill.”
She had been watching him closely while he spoke and her years of experience told her he was telling the truth, she reached in to her bag and handed over a small pile of documents. He began to go through them, “Good they all seem to check out,” he began to tick things off on a little list which he had on top of the file, “passport, birth certificate, driving license. Excellent, excellent.” He looked up at her, his face now more serious, “and now just a couple of questions, formalities really but we have to go through them. You are Carla Josephine Finchley of…” he opened the file and read the top sheet, “…of Colney Hatch Lane, Muswell Hill, London, N10?”
“Yes… Now what…?”
He held up a finger to silence her, “and your parents are David Peter and Margaret Anne Finchley?”
“They were, they both died in a dolphin swimming accident on holiday last year…”
“Oh I’m so sorry…”
“But they weren’t my biological parents, I was adopted.”
“Oh good.”
“Sorry…?”
“I mean, oh good, you know you were adopted, not, oh good they weren’t your real parents. I don’t mean that…”
She silenced him with a look. He cleared his throat, shuffled some papers and then continued, “What I was trying to say is that I’m pleased you know you were adopted. I’ve been worrying all week about how to break that piece news to you if you didn’t know.”
“Okay, we’ve established I am who you think I am, now can you tell me what all this is about?”
He closed the file in front of him and sat back in his chair, “How much do you know about your biological mother?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“You never had any urge to track her down, find out who your real family are?”
“My parents are…” she stopped herself, she still found it hard to think of them in the past tense, “were my real family. My biological mother didn’t want me, why go chasing after someone who gave you away. You’re not going to tell me that after all these years she wants to see me?”
“No, I’m afraid not. There is not nice way of putting this,” he lent forward and rested his arms on the desk, he was doing his best to look warm, open and sympathetic just like they had showed him in the workshops, “she died six months ago. I, on behalf of the estate, have been trying to trace you since then.”
Carla sat for a moment unsure of how she felt; she had just lost her mother, again. But this was a mother she didn’t know. This was a mother she had only ever thought about as abandoning her. Now she really had abandoned her. There was no chance to ask why, no chance to find out what she had done so wrong, no chance for, she winced as she thought it, closure. She stared across the desk at the young Mr Allen, she could see he was has as much difficulty dealing with this situation as she was, “Her estate?”
He grabbed at the opportunity to get back to legal matters, “Yes, estate in the legal sense, not the landed gentry’ way,” he flicked through the folder “Though there is some land involved I believe. All the details are in here.” He handed across the manila file, “I think it’s probably best if you take that away and read through it, it pretty much explains everything. If I could just get you to sign here and here,” Carla lent forward and numbly signed her name where he had indicated, “I’m sure you’re bound to have lots of questions. Read through the file and then call back here at, shall we say three’ish, I’ll try and answer what I can and those that I can’t, I’ll set Julie the task of finding out for you.”
She did not remember leaving the office, or the walk down the flights of dark, dirty, narrow stairs. She could not remember stepping out in to the street and feeling the cold hard rain on her face, or the diesel fume filled air filling her lungs. She had no idea how far she had walked or even where, in this grey, sooty city, she was.
She did remember going in to the small tobacconists and buying a packet of cigarette and she did remember lighting the first one. She remembered feeling dizzy from its effect as the smoke filled her lungs for the first since she had stop smoking three years ago. Now she found herself seated on a mock Victorian bench, sheltering from the rain under the portico of, what appeared to be, the local museum and art gallery. She wondered, for a moment, whether she was still in the city centre. The museum was located on a long pedestrianised, tree lined walk and it was hard for her to believe that she was still in the middle of such a busy city. Then over the sound of the wind and rain she heard the familiar sound of traffic.
She lit another cigarette and inhaled, the dry, acrid smoke filled her lungs. She looked at the file which lay unopened on her lap. The name, type on to the white label stuck to the front, read ‘Giuseppina Assunta Fabbroni’.
Was that her? Was that who she really was? Or was that her mother’s name, her biological mother, her real mother. Her mouth filled with a strong metallic taste as the adrenaline coursed around her body. In her chest her heart fluttered and thumped and the acidic bile churning in her stomach made her feel sick. She looked around and saw the A-frame sign with arrow indicating that there was a café inside the museum. Perhaps a strong coffee and a sandwich might make her feel better.
The museum was quiet, bright and warm. She followed the signs, through the various exhibitions, towards the café. She liked museums and art galleries. They reminded her of childhood, the hours spent on her own wandering through the rooms and galleries of the local museum. She was not a lonely child; she just preferred to be alone. This had carried on in to adulthood and now, with the death of her parents she thought she was alone. There was an aunt, her father’s sister, who lived up in Wakefield, but she rarely saw her.
Now, in this folder, there was possibly a whole new family. She had not really thought about her biological since she was a child. She did not in real sense exist for her, but the news of her death had made her real, had put flesh and bone back on to those ghostly childhood nightmares. Now, before she had a chance to get to grips with the fact that she did have a real mother she had yet again gone away, abandoned her.
She found the café, more by following the smell than the signs and bought a cup of strong coffee. She gave the food a wide berth, pre-packed sandwiches and muffins in cellophane wrappers was not what she was hoping for. London had spoilt her; freshly prepared food had obviously not reached the provinces. She found a quiet table in the corner of the brightly lit room and sat down, placing the still unopened file on the table in front of her.
She stared at the name again, ‘Giuseppina Assunta Fabbroni’. Yesterday afternoon she had known exactly who she was, she was Carla Josephine Finchley, the sign on the door of her office at The Home Office said so, her driving licence said so, her birth certificate and passport said so, and even her travel pass said so. She had left her home, in north London, yesterday afternoon and caught the train up here and when she had stepped off the train and booked in to the hotel she had been Carla Josephine Finchley. when she had gone down to breakfast, this morning, the waiter had called her Miss Finchley. When she had entered the offices of Foster, Allen and partners, she had been Carla Josephine Finchley. But now?
She added three packets of sugar to the coffee and stirred around the dark liquid, slowly. She looked around the café; it was surprisingly empty for a rainy day. There was a young man, in his early twenties Carla guessed, reading a large, glossy, hardback book and making notes on a small pad. Over by the window there was a elderly couple, drinking tea and sharing a large piece of chocolate cake, they spoke in hushed tones and would laugh occasionally and try to feed each other spoonfuls of the cake. How could life carry on as normal when her world was falling apart? She knew how, she was a psychologist; this was all a matter of perspective.
She took a quick mental stock of here life. She had been alone, and then the Finchley’s had adopted her. They had died and she was alone again. Now her real mum, this unknown mum had died and she may not actually be alone. There may be a family out there. But where? The name looked Spanish? Italian? South American. She took a drink of the coffee and wished that she had decided to do this in a pub instead, a large whisky would have been helpful right now, even though she could not stand the stuff her dad had always made her have a whisky in times of stress or shock.
She ran her hand over the front of the file and the quickly, as though she was ripping a plaster off a particularly hairy piece of skin, she pulled it open.
The top piece of paper was a letter from the Office of the Crown giving instructions to Messer’s Foster, Allen and Partners to proceed with a search for any living relatives who may have a claim on the estate of ‘Giuseppina Assunta Fabbroni’. It detailed her last known address and the contact address’s of her executors.
Carla breathed a sigh of relief and took another drink of coffee, she was not this ‘Giuseppina’, that was her mother. That did not answer the question of who she was and why she had been put up for adoption. She began to read.
The story contained in the file was, in its own way, a sad tale, of a young girl sent many miles from her home in Italy, to earn money to send back to her family. Who had found herself alone in England in the early sixties and who, in nineteen sixty seven, had given birth to a girl. Alone, and catholic, she had put the child up for adoption rather than face the scorn and shame it would bring upon her family name.
As sad as it was, Carla could not forgive the woman who had abandoned her. Who had forced her to spend the first four years of her life in a catholic orphanage until she was adopted by a couple, a couple considered to old to adopt a baby, but who could have a toddler. A woman who had allowed her to live for over thirty years thinking she one thing and then had appeared from nowhere, from the grave, to tell she was some one else.
She read and re-read the file, hoping that it would suddenly make sense. But it did not. She had started the day as Carla Josephine Finchley and was ending it as Carlotta Giuseppina Fabbroni. Did she feel any different? She was not sure. She was still thirty seven years old, she still lived in Muswell Hill, she still worked for the Home Office, and she was still unmarried. But now it appeared she was Italian and that somewhere out there, there was a family. A family that may or may not know that she existed and who, given the circumstances may not want to know her.
She leafed through the sheaves of papers; there was talk of bank accounts and life insurance policies and mention of land, something to do with a family farm. She needed to think and she needed another cigarette. She looked out through the far window, the rain had stopped and it looked as though the sun was trying to break through. She gathered up the papers, closed the file and shoved it in to her bag.
Outside the air was cool and fresh, the wind had dropped and so she slipped off her heavy rain coat and draped it over her arm. Perhaps this was a good sign, a omen. She lit a cigarette and began to walk along the tree lined avenue. The buildings, like the museum, were mainly Victorian houses and she guessed that at one time it had been a quite residential area just off the city centre. Most of the buildings had now been converted to offices and looking through the windows she played her usual game of people watching, trying to decide what the firm inside did and who the people were just from the brief glance she got as she walked by.
She had no idea in which direction the city centre was and so she just started walking, in the hope that she would find a main road and possibly a sign. After a few hundred yards she saw her second omen of the day. This was not good, she hated being superstitious. There, in front of her, stood a large and imposing church, its fine stone work dulled and dirtied by the years of pollution it had had to endure. She knew instinctively, without even looking at the sign, that it was a catholic church.
She had been raised in the catholic faith by her parents. As a child they had attended mass every Sunday. She had been confirmed at the age of twelve; she still had, on the mantle piece at home, the photograph of herself in the long white dress and veil, her parents standing proudly by her side. As was the way with teenagers, she had drifted away from the church, and her relationship to it now could be described as cold at best.
She surprised herself when she realised she was walking up the wide stone steps and entering the vestibule. She almost went in to shock when, on entering the nave, she spotted the cross above the Alter, genuflected and made the sign of the cross. Then she saw what she knew had drawn her here. She walked down the side aisle to a small chapel, just to the right of the Alter, and lit a candle. She stood for a moment watching the flame flicker and dance and then unconsciously she lit a second candle. She turned and started to walk back up the side aisle, then she stopped and sat in a pew, four rows back from the front. She pulled the file from her bag and held it on here lap.
She had no idea how long she had been sitting there, or even what she had been thinking about. Here mind had raced form one thing to the next. Ideas and images crossed over, mixed together, separated and found new thoughts to join.
She became aware that some one had sat next to her. She glanced furtively to the right, not sure if she wanted this person to know she was aware of their presence. She was surprised to find herself looking at a young monk. He himself seemed to be in deep contemplation, staring straight ahead at the crucified figure of Christ above the Alter. Without taking his eyes of the cross he leaned slightly towards her and said out of the corner of his mouth, “Worry can be a terrible thing, especially when you keep it bottled up.” His voice was soft and well educated.
Carla turned her head to face him, “What makes you think I am worrying about some thing.”
He turned in the pew to face her, “The fact that you’ve been sat there for half an hour, staring straight ahead. I wouldn’t have troubled you usually, we like people to come and talk to us when they’re ready, but I was worried.”
“Why, do I have the look of a suicide victim or something.” She regretted saying it as soon as the words left her mouth, they were harsh and sarcastic.
“No. It’s just that if there is anything important in that folder, it’s not going to be readable in a moment.”
Carla looked down at her lap. The file was slowly concertinaing in her grip. She always thought that she was a logically minded, rational person, who could control her emotions and yet despite her efforts her body always gave her away. Her assistant, at work, said that he could tell whether she was in bad mood even when she had her back to him.
The young monk slide along the pew, closer to her, “Is it bad new?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not plucked up the courage to read it yet, then?”
“No I’ve read it, several times. I’m just not sure if it’s good or bad news.” She smoothed the folder out, “What’s your name Father?”
“It’s Brother, Brother Dominic.”
“Dominic?” She turned back to face him, “Were you christened Dominic?”
“No, it is the name I chose when I entered the order.”
“You get to choose your name.”
“Well, yes. You have to choose it from a list, but yes you get to choose.”
“How important do you think a name is?”
“To us, quite important. It symbolises the start of our new life. Many of us choose a name that reflects the characteristics that we feel are important. Some choose on the basis of who influenced them.”
“A new life, I don’t know if I want a new life, I’m quite happy with the old one.”
“When is the Wedding?”
“Wedding? Oh good grief no. This is… This is… I’m not who I thought I was.”
“Who did you think you where?”
“I thought I was Carla Josephine Finchley, but it turns out that I’m Carlotta Giuseppina Fabbroni.”
“A rose by any other name… What makes you, you?”
She thought for a moment, this was the type of question she usually asked, it felt odd to be on the receiving end, “Well, my work, my beliefs, my friends…”
“Your family…?”
“That’s the problem. This morning I woke up with no family, my parents died last year and apart from an old aunt there is no one else, but now,” she held up the file as though the very act of waving it about would explain everything.
“You’ve been tracing your family tree?”
“Oh god no, sorry Father… Brother. It’s complicated.”
“Try me; I’m a surprisingly good listener.”
She told him the tale, the abandonment, the adoption, the death of her parents, the coming to terms with being alone in the world. Then she explained about the arrival of the solicitor’s letter, the discovery this morning that her real mother had also died and that far from being alone, there was probably a large family out there.
“And you can’t decide whether this is good or bad news?” he said as her story came to an end.
“Over the past year I have come to accept that there was just me, Carla Finchley, but now… but now I find there is this other woman, this other me, this Carlotta Fabbroni who has grandparents, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, cousins and a farm somewhere in Italy.”
“Why does that thought scare you so much?”
“It doesn’t scare me,” she began to smooth the file on her lap again; “I’m just a bit shocked. You have to admit it’s a bit confusing.”
He watched as she pummelled the file in front her in to submission, “And scary, what if they don’t want to know Carla Fabbroni? What if they don’t like Carla Finchley? What if they abandon you as well?”
The tears exploded suddenly. She had felt them building since she had left the solicitors, but she had manage to hold them back, to control them. She hated crying, it was weak, when you cried you made yourself vulnerable to attack. It was something that could be used against you. Brother Dominic reached under his scapular and produced a small packet of tissues he handed them to her, “This is an opportunity, a marvellous opportunity. God has given you a chance to meet a family you never knew existed, to become part of that family, remember, ‘In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future’.”
She wiped at her eyes and blew her nose, “Corinthians?”
“No, Alex Haley.”
“The guy who wrote Roots?”
“Yes, I’m reading his biography, I couldn’t think of anything appropriate from the Bible.”
Carla smiled and wiped her nose again, “So the Bible doesn’t have the answer to everything then?”
“Oh it does, I just couldn’t think of one off the top of my head. Give me ten minutes and I’ll find you one if you want me to.”
“No, your okay,” she smiled and laughed quietly, “I’ll stick with the Alex Haley.”
“Look at it this way. If you don’t contact these people you’ll never know how they feel about you, but that’s the easy option and you don’t strike me as someone who likes to take the easy option.”
“No. if there’s an easy way and a hard way, I’ll take the hard way every time. Nothing easy is ever worth achieving.”
“Would you like me to sit and pray with you for a while?”
“No, I don’t, err… well… I don’t really know why I came in here, I’m not…”
“You were looking for guidance. For some one to confirm that you had made the right choice. You knew what your answer would be even before you asked the question.”
Carla looked back down at the file, she noticed the time on her watch, “How far away from the centre of town, am I?”
“You’re in it, just walk back up that way,” he pointed behind him, “and you’ll find yourself back on the main road.”
“Thanks Father… Brother Dominic.” She stood up started to leave, “Thanks again.”
“I’ll say a prayer for you.”
“If you feel you must.”
Outside the summer had plucked up the courage to put in an appearance and she walk back to the office of Foster, Allen and partners with a plan of action in her head and a good feeling deep down in her heart.
On the train, back down to London that evening, she once again read through the file. There had been an address in Southend-on-Sea and she had left instructions with Mr Allen to make contact with the Ricardo Fabbroni named in the documents. She did know whether he was an uncle, a cousin or even a brother, but at least it was a start and at least, she hope, he would speak English.
So Dear Reader, we will leave Carla Finchley or Carlotta Fabbroni, travelling back to her home in Muswell Hill. A woman orphaned twice in the space of one year. Tomorrow will bring a new day and perhaps the start of a new chapter in her life.