The Emma Blackwell story

"But on learning that, you must have known that Emma had a disabled son Harry and he must be your genetic half-brother?"

"I'm not sure I did work that out. I can't remember. I tried so hard to forget that I was adopted. Here comes the waitress."

Their coffee arrived and neither had ordered food.

Lucy said suddenly, "I'll have to seek legal advice about stopping you publishing anything concerning my background. I'll do anything to protect my career as a TV presenter."

Kate was glad this threat had arisen so early in the conversation. It gave her the chance to deal with it while she still had shots to deliver.

"So you are happy to deny the existence of your birth mother?"

"I-I... well no I don't deny it," Lucy said, and dabbed her brow with the napkin.

"Look at me Lucy. I'm a brunette. What is your natural hair coloring?"

"Brunette."

"I have hazel eyes, you have hazel eyes. Emma Blackwell, our birth mother, was a brunette with hazel eyes but don't expect all our half-siblings to have the same coloring."

"But I won't be meeting any of them."

"Why not?"

"I-I..."

"I wish to call a meeting of the eight of us to discuss the manuscript Harry Blackwell sent me only days before he died in his sleep. It's good but needs a lot of work done on it before I can submit it to the publisher."

"Oh god that would ruin my career."

"How's that?"

"I would be shunned because many people regard adopted children as second-rate citizens."

"Is that so? On the other hand we all know Moses was adopted but did you know Aristotle was adopted and here's a good one, so was Marilyn Monroe?"

"Omigod of course, at least I knew about Moses and Marilyn."

"Lucy I'd like you to consider supporting this publication project. You all will be described and the circumstances behind your conceptions but this story is principally about what a remarkable woman Emma Blackwell was, serving as a benevolent mother ship to couples who desperately wanted a child but between them could not produce a pregnancy. Before you reply, let me quote you a piece from Harry's manuscript that I believe is something he must have written down when talking to his mother Emma Blackwell during those months when she was bedridden and in pain and knowing she was slowly dying:

And then, twenty days after last being penetrated by Thomas, Emma was more than sure she'd missed her period.

Emma invited Nellie and Thomas around for dinner than night and there was great joy when the couple learned from Emma there had been 'a lucky strike'.

"My goodness, that sounds so dramatic," said Lucy. "Why did you choose to quote that particular section?"

"That's a good question. They are not the real names but I think they should be and that's why I want this preliminary meeting to begin the process to get signed authorizations to use real names. That little extract I've just quoted you was the how my conception almost forty-one years ago was revealed to my parents."

"Omigod." Lucy choked and rushed around to hug her half-sister. That must have been so wonderful (sob) to have read that, to know it was so much about you and your start in life. It must have been somewhat like that for me. My mom would not tell me saying it was something I didn't need to know and finally I gave up asking."

"Thanks for sharing your thoughts darling," Kate said wiping away Lucy's tears. "Your comments have proven enlightening to me Lucy. It tells me that after the meeting of eight and we all agree to commit without reservation, Stage Two will be a meeting of the eight and their mothers."

"Oh we best have plenty of tissues on hand," Lucy laughed, remaining on Kate's knee. It will be so emotional. Omigod..."

"I know," Kate said. "It was to be my Ace to win you over if that looked doubtful. You should go to your director of programming and seek to be allowed to produce a TV documentary on this with the proviso that it's not promoted until the eve of the launch of the book and it screens on evening prior to the day the book is launched."

"But funding, how will I get funding?"

"Never fear darling. Who did you know in the media who is willing to turn down a good story? Just get it authorized and hope hearts will melt and someone in at your TV station will be able to find a willing principal sponsor. I believe my newspaper company will be willing to chip in."

"Omigod. I'll need to handpick a production team."

"You've recorded our conversation haven't you?"

Lucy turned scarlet.

"It's okay. I accept that was self-protection because you didn't know what this meeting was about. I didn't come down in the last shower and could see you were wearing a broach that concealed a microphone... young women of your age are not big into wearing an imitation flower on their lapels."

"Kate I'm sorry. I can wipe the recording."

"Please don't. Get a transcript made of it and this conversation at this our first meeting can be filmed at a later date."

"God Kate you are so masterful."

CHAPTER 3

On Kate's first day as working to evolve Harry's manuscript into a publishable book, well hopefully she would succeed in that mission, Kate rose at her normal time and did the normal things she usually did before driving the twenty-three miles to her parking space at the evening newspaper's offices.

She took the customary coffee and oat biscuit to sleepy and jaded-looking Noel, pleased that she'd brought him to the point of exhaustion last night in their very robust bouts of sex, proving to him that a sex-seasoned wife could be right up there with the fitness-focused bimbo that was his company PA.

Noel said groggily, "Good morning, you look a picture this morning. Sex has always suited you. God I feel totally fucked."

"Thanks darling," she said smugly, continuing to throw the occasional endearment his way although knowing the slime ball had a mistress. Well she had decided to continue living with him and she may as well continue with normal patterns because sooner rather than later the infatuated babe would come to her senses and find a guy with a willing dick who was more her own age and handsome to boot.

"I'd forgotten just how good you were at sex."

Shocked at that concession, Kate almost ripped off her clothes and jumped into bed with the jerk.

He tumbled her back to earth by saying, "Why are you dressed like that today. Aren't you going to work?"

She had to remind him she began her three-month sojourn that day and would be straight into it. Of course he showed no interest in that comment, clearly believing she was wasting time and effort and should return to proper writing and editing.

An hour later when the revived Noel after breakfast in bed he gone off cheerfully to his job, Kate began setting up the utility room that hadn't been used since the kids' had left home as her home office. Well it was only fair because Noel had the study as his home office. She called a childhood friend Alf Simpson at Alf's Trading Post who yawned and said "Hi."

"Still thinking at getting that yellow bicycle when you were seven?"

"Huh? Omigod, Kate... Kate..."

"Just Kate will do Tiger. I can understand the memory loss since you will have been masturbating since daylight."

"Bitch," he laughed. "It's a long time since we've conversed, though I often see you driving around in that black sedan, always the cleanest vehicle in the village."

They chatted and at last he remembered her surname had been Mason and was now Scott. Relieved that he had a working brain, Kate asked him if he had a modern business desk for sale

"Yeah three."

"Then pick out the best suitable for a lady and then have your assistants bring it around this morning along with a proper invoice."

"Lady? Oh is your daughter back home?"

"Asshole," she laughed and he chuckled and she imagined Alf stroking one of his red chubby cheeks rather than his penis.

A courier man arrived. "Mrs Scott we have thirty-one cartons for you. Please show me where to stack them."

Oh god, thirty-one cartons she almost wailed. There will be no room for the desk.

"Please stack them against this wall Rufus," she said, recognizing him as the son of one of her mother's friends. "The biggest and heaviest ones of the bottom and rising in rows of next heaviest weight."

"We're not laborers, Brian and I are couriers."

Kate ignored that.

"How are your mother's roses looking this season Rufus?"

The young man grinned and said they were looking great. "I've always thought of you as being sexy and can add being very smart as well. We'll do what you have asked."

"Thanks Rufus. I'll bag some cookies for you and your man-servant or would you prefer a thick ham sandwich?"

"Ham sandwiches and don't spare the mustard Mrs...."

"Rufus you are a new father now. It's best you call me Kate from now on. And how are Claire and dear wee Johnny?"

"Both are bonny. I can't believe you know the name of my wife."

"I'm a newspaper journalist Rufus and remember this place is only a village although residents pompously call it a town. People expect us to know everything."

After the two men departed, already ripping into their thick sandwich, Kate called the Electronics Shop.

"Oh hi Mr Walters. It's Kate Scott."

She lied, "My mother sends her love."

Well Kate was aware Bill Walters and her mom had 'horsed around' in their late teens and Kate had been quite sure her mom hadn't been referring to horse-riding.

Mr Walters replying to that sounded pleased and Kate embarrassed herself by imaging him patting his dick and smiling. God were teenagers really that promiscuous in those days?

Kate said she was after a good quality and reliable computer printer that could also perform as a photocopier and fax machine.

"If you want it for heavy duty you should move into the SOHO class."

"What's that?" asked the editor who was supposed to know everything.

"SOHO stands for small office/home office and that class of all-in-one printer is more expensive but the output is of higher quality and the equipment in it is more robust. I can bring in the model I have in mind for you in if you wish."

"Thanks with delivery soonest please and I guess being my mother's daughter I qualify for trade discount?"

"Is this a commercial project you'll be working on?"

"Yes."

"Well since you are your mother's daughter, as you so quaintly put it, "I'll knock 20% off retail price."

"Oh Mr Walters, you are such a darling."

He laughed. "You mom could handle guys like you obviously can do when she was young."

"Goodbye and thanks Mr Walters. I trust Margaret is well"

"You know the name of my wife?"

"Yes Mr Walters. Don't you?"

They laughed as he said apart from a touch of arthritis in her right knee Margaret was fine.

Kate called her mom and invited her over for coffee and said they needed to talk. "I'm home, not at the office."

"Oh are you sick?"

"Mom," Kate said painfully, "You know I'm never ill."

"Yes well that's a lie for a start. I can come now."

Kate, thinking she was so supremely efficient, suddenly had quite a shock: The envelope of the eight names and other details. She couldn't believe she'd placed that valuable, at least to her, document into her handbag when receiving it and had forgotten about it.

Oh how careless in inefficient she was, she groaned to herself and found it in the handbag she remembered having on that day she'd visited the lawyer's office.

Hands shaking, she unfolded the list and read the names and occupations and for the moment assumed the occupations and other details would be up to date, the list reading from the eldest down:

Kate Scott (nee Mason), newspaper associate editor

Anthony Kennedy, public accountant

Alf Simpson, secondhand dealer

Kathleen Mellow (nee Armstrong), physician

Penny Laughton, child psychology consultant

John Bishop, computer programmer

Alan Ryan, hospital admissions clerk

Lucy Lawrence, TV presenter

Kate was gob smacked. She knew of them all and the five oldest below her had been at high school when she was still there. She though oh god, where to start?

* * *

Help for Kate came from an unexpected quarter, her own mother.

Helen arrived just as two guys arrived delivering the desk. She said hi to her daughter, asked where the desk was going, and then took over, directing the men not to knock other furniture or to scrape the painted walls.

Despite the distraction of Helen, the guys managed to get the desk into position, and left after handing Kate the invoice and they almost ran from the house.

Kate sighed. She knew her mom could be such a pain but at least she'd probably deliver the fullest and most accurate account of the decision to try to allow Emma Blackwell to carry her husband's child, at least that making it half hers and Tom's child post adoption.

"What are all these boxes littering this room?" Helen asked. "Should I call a courier to take them to the dump?"

"No thank you mother. They are on loan to me on trust. They contain all of the papers Emma and Harry left behind when they died."

Kate saw him mom's light switch on.

"Omigod, twenty boxes of stuff. What a valuable resource for you if you wish to improve Harry's unedited draft biography of his mother's life."

"Yes mom and I've taken off three months from the newspaper to rewrite Harry's bio. It will take me weeks sorting just to sort what's relevant and what's not."

"Well if you wish I can take charge of that while you begin other research. It doesn't surprise me you have taken time off work to work on this project; you've never been one to do things by half. I call my old club together."

"What club? You don't belong to any clubs outside of your hard of hearing club and book club. Oh you mean your book club?"

"No dear. I mean the club that Emma Blackwell formed after three of her surrogate births and knowing more couples would be lining up. When the club finally folded nine years ago I was still inaugural convener and all eight mothers of Emma's mothering by proxy births were club members."

Helen looked at her daughter who was gaping like a beached fish.

"What is it dear, I do hope you're not about to vomit?"

When Kate had calmed she hugged her mom and asked why she hadn't been told of the existence of such a club.

"Well darling, you just think back. You weren't told of Emma's involvement in your birth until you were twenty and thereafter you didn't like hearing any reference to the fact that you had been adopted."

"The whole fucking world is a conspiracy even if some of it is benign," Kate muttered, only to be told her mother preferred not hearing that F-word.

* * *

A date to suit all seven other woman to attend an emergency meeting of the former Emma Club was called at a day and time to suit and it was held the following Sunday afternoon. When everyone was seated Helen said she'd call her daughter to explain what the meeting was about.

"Kate!" yelled Helen.

Kate recognized most of the women and called them by name and said hi and introduced herself to the three other she'd never met.

Kate delivered her short presentation.

"If anyone of don't wish to participate, I suggest you leave now."

Pamela Laurence rose and looked apologetic.

"Mrs Laurence I have won over Lucy one hundred percent, the only one I've approached so far. Lucy is probably right now trying to seek her TV station's commitment to allow her to make a documentary about this publishing project. She says early discussion appear most promising. Some of the TV executives are eager to proceed, knowing there is some community bias against adopted children."

"What will happen if I withdraw?"

"Lucy raised that possibility with me and said she was in, whether or not you were in."

Pamela Laurence said, "Well since Lucy is in, I'm in. I had only been indicating withdrawal to protect her. Never have I been ashamed to have adopted my husband's child and I continued my friendly and frequent association with Emma Blackwell until just days before her death. I arrange a roster of care-givers for Harry to relieve the residential care-giver as well you know Helen."

"Indeed," Helen said, and led the clapping.

Only Irene Armstrong appeared less than enthusiastic with her applause.

"Everyone please listen carefully," Kate said. "I suggest you allow me to approach your child first. I possess all the facts about this project including how it will be handled and why I'm doing it and then I will reveal I am your child's genetic half-sister and believe that ought to entice them to commit to this project, perhaps with them thinking if I have the guts to commit then why not them."

"My feeling is the launch of the story about this project in the Evening News, followed by the screening of the TV documentary, hopefully that same evening, and the launch of the book next day, ought to create a huge lift in understanding of the trauma that faces the parents of adopted children and of the adopted children and the fact we all appear to be no different to the children of parents who fully birthed their own children."

Discussion on that followed and it appeared there was no objection to Kate announcing the project to each adoptee. Although Kate didn't say it, if one or more of the mothers chose to break the news to her adopted child, then so be it.

She then left, hoping the mothers would continue the discussion. It was best to have any issues emerge early.

The weeks went by quickly. The TV station committed to the doco with Lucy being appointed producer and being given a veteran director to be in charge of filming. Members of the Emma Club had 7-day a week roster with two women working the morning 3-hour shift and two in the afternoon sorting material that appeared to have relevance to Emma's background and her life and to the birth of the children.

A virtual goldmine was discovered, a box three-quarters full of good quality photos and in another carton the diaries of Emma Blackwell and her son.

"Eureka!" shouted one of the research team and that brought Kate running.

Tension was high as the first few photos were flipped over and it became clear all had caption details written in pencil on the reverse side.

"Omigod," Kate shrieked in glee, sending the neighbor's dog into a barking frenzy.

Twenty-six days after the sorting started, it was complete and all the relevant material market with ID tags and recorded and grouped in folders.

Kate spent two or three hours away for several days, formally interviewing her seven half-siblings including Lucy.

"God you are capable of getting water out of stone," Lucy said. "I'd prepared myself for this interview but you pushed me on, making me remember thing I'd had stored in the back of my mind. That was an amazing experience. You are an amazing interviewer."

"It's my job darling. Perhaps you'll now better appreciate your team who feed you what you read on TV."

"I'm sure it will. Please come to dinner on Saturday night with your husband. Dad wants to meet you and mom wishes to talk to you further."

"Sure but my husband Noel is away at a conference this weekend. I was invited but was too busy to go."

"Then bring you lover."

"Cheeky bitch," Kate said and they laughed and Lucy said sorry to pry but it was worth a try.

On Friday evening the eight half-siblings met for the first time and Lucy's camera team was present at the venue, Kate's home.

Kate was convinced she'd won them all over and they had been informed two TV camera crews would be present. As each person arrived they were filmed and all appeared comfortable with that.

A buffet dinner with wine then followed, Kate's mom assisting to serve, and that was filmed. The film crew then went to the kitchen where Helen served them food and wine and beer was on the table.