The Adoption by Anne Berry Read Free Book Online Page A

bouquets of silk flowers, buckets and spades, satin scarves, velvet bonnets, straw hats, tooled belts, tiaras and jewels. Painted and glass eyes followed me from under fringed lashes. I counted tiny shoes with silver and brass buckles, and boots with laces fine as embroidery thread.
    I directed Papa’s gaze behind the counter, flapping my hand excitedly in the direction of a doll propped at a far end of a low shelf. I must have her. She had skin of light peach porcelain, crimped hair of the finest gold and a pair of glass eyes, sky blue and iridescent. And I could glimpse pearl-white teeth, minute as rice grains between parted smiling sugar-pink lips. The shopkeeper lifted her down for me to touch her silky dress. He said her name was Francesca. But when I unwrapped my present on Christmas morning after church, it was not Francesca I discovered but an inferior cloth doll with a printed face and straggly wool hair. Her dress had not even been properly hemmed.
    Now Merfyn is offering me an opportunity to pick again. Surely this time with Papa at rest no one can prevent me from having my Francesca. But still a doubt nags. What about the things you can’t see, the things the doctors can’t detect, the qualities that are inbred, the character traits that might emerge gradually? What if the birth parents are simpletons? Or immoral? The unwise union of a thief and a murderer say? What if the infant is the fruit of an alcoholic father? Imagine this! Now here really is a dilemma. Some of the brethren in our temperance group believe that alcoholism, a proclivity for drink, can be inherited, passed on from a mother or a father to their child. Or am I being paranoid? It is training that counts. Any taint of evil can soon be eradicated. It is a bit like buying a length of fabric. It doesn’t matter what the design is, because you can make it up into any style you like.
    I conjecture that there must be lots of wartime babies needing homes, an entire catalogue of them. Some, very probably, have been fathered by American soldiers. I grimace envisioning them armed with silk stockings, cigarettes, chocolates and their bold brash Yankee charm. Many gullible young women will have had their heads turned by easy promises and rare luxuries. Few possess my moral backbone. Ambrose’s Big Band is kicking off with ‘Memphis Blues’ as I return to my seat. Merfyn’s eagle eyes spy me interestedly through his large lenses. A measure of Yankee blood? After all, didn’t we sail over there on the
Mayflower
? Weren’t they English through and through when they set out?
    ‘I suppose we could give it a try,’ I agree slowly, taking up my knitting again. ‘Or at least make some preliminary inquiries without committing ourselves.’ Merfyn leans across to me and pats my leg approvingly through the wool of my skirt. ‘I’d have to see the baby first, of course, decide if I like the look of it.’
    ‘That goes without saying,’ Merfyn concurs. I hear the enamel of my husband’s teeth scrape on the stem of his pipe and he puffs contentedly for a few seconds. Then, ‘We’d do it all properly,’ he adds. ‘Officially.’ Hmm …
officially
– I like that. It has the ring of a money-back guarantee. My husband’s attention vacillates and he returns to his paper, flapping the pages with a rustle.
    ‘I think I’d like a girl,’ I say after a gap. I might try to get hold of some pink wool next.

Chapter 5
    Bethan, 1947
    THE NIGHT BEFORE the Germans came I had a scary dream about them. I saw them far off at the other end of a newly ploughed field running towards me. They were both carrying guns and shouting. I wanted to escape so badly, but my feet were planted in the ground, really planted, as if there were roots coming out of my boots going deep down into the soil. It was a glorious day. Spring and the great greenness coming up. Birdsong, the distant treetops visible over swell of the ground, like sphagnum moss. I kept pulling and pulling, but I