This man’s company website opened with a quote from Oscar Wilde. I was speechless. I’d always loved Wilde, much to the amusement of my mum and dad, and my social media handle was a Wilde quote: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
My partner sent an email asking whether this man had spent time at an army base camp in 1974. When a reply popped into his inbox saying yes he had, I started shaking, then felt brave enough to email him back myself. “I know this may come as a surprise, but I believe you had a relationship with my mum 38 years ago,” I wrote: “She had a baby. Me.” Then asked whether we could meet.
I waited nervously. Would he reply? Would I have siblings? To his credit, he replied to me quickly, admitting it was a shock to hear from me, that the news could have considerable implications for his two existing children, and suggesting we meet early in the new year.
It was going to happen. That 11-year-old little girl who had discovered that her dad wasn’t her dad by accident, was going to finally meet her real father.
How I discovered the truth, aged 11
Back in 1985, I was on the sofa, reading when Mum walked in wearing a fabulous dress. She and Dad were going out, and she said she’d made an extra effort because it was their wedding anniversary.
Squealing in excitement, I asked how long they’d been married, but before my mother could get her words out, Dad replied, “Seven years”. Mum gave him a stern glance as, baffled, I asked how that could be the case if I was 11? And if they’d married when I was four, why wasn’t I a bridesmaid? Dad looked at Mum, heaved a big sigh and said: “Maybe it’s time we tell her.”
Tell me what? Had they picked someone else to be their bridesmaid? My mother sat next to me, held my hand and, with an apologetic smile, said: “I’m sorry love, but Dad isn’t your real father.”
One hundred questions ran through my head. Is that why I was already the same height as Dad at 11, or why I always had my head in a book while he preferred the newspaper? But most of all, I couldn’t believe that there was somebody walking around who looked like me and acted like me, but they had never told me.
Mum explained that she’d had a relationship in 1973, before she’d met Dad in 1976, but they’d never kept in touch. I was absolutely floored, but filed the information way back in the recess of my brain and pretended everything was fine. I wanted to keep everybody happy and my family together.
Nobody really spoke of it again, but every now and again I allowed myself to roll the information around my head. Why had he never tried to make contact? I would watch TV shows and look out for men who could be my father. They were always kind, caring characters with glossy dark hair. Patrick Duffy in Man from Atlantis. Robert Wagner in Hart to Hart.
Fleshing out the father in my head
A few years later, when I left sixth form, I decided to ask Mum to tell me a bit more. Had I done well in certain subjects because my father liked them? Had I inherited my hatred of gherkins and mustard? I was the first person in our very large extended family to go to university. Was that partly his genes?
Finally, I learned some details to flesh out the character I’d built in my head. They’d met near an army base where he had been training to be a pilot. It all sounded terribly romantic, very An Officer and a Gentleman. They were together for around six months, and, when Mum found out she was pregnant, he had proposed, but she felt they were too young and wasn’t sure about the relationship. They went their separate ways.
Of course I was deeply intrigued to find my biological father, but thoughts of how Dad would feel, combined with the hectic whirl of university life, put any search on hold. Besides, if he knew I existed and had never come to find me, he clearly didn’t want me. Why rake it all up for more hurt?
Life went on. I graduated, moved to London, and worked as a journalist. Then, at 26, came the game changer. I had a baby. As a mum to a newborn boy, my parentage was no longer just about me. What traits would my son inherit from his paternal grandfather? What hereditary diseases might be part of our DNA? So, when my son was one, I employed a private investigator. The search was fruitless, so I lost a couple of hundred quid and took it as a sign to stop looking.
Friends Reunited was introduced a few years later, a site that probably changed many lives. I plucked up the courage and typed in his name, discovering a man who was a pilot. Nervous but excited, I messaged him but heard nothing. I tried again the following week, then the profile vanished. That was hint enough.
I didn’t blame or judge this man. He’d never asked to have me, and probably had his own family who knew nothing about me. Sure, a small note would have been nice, but maybe he thought it would open a can of worms. It was all speculation anyway. I carried on with my own life, having another child, a daughter, in 2004.
Meeting at last
Almost a decade passed before my unexpected Google success, and Christmas 2012 couldn’t have gone fast enough. I got back in touch with my father in early January, and he suggested we meet for drinks in London’s Covent Garden, though he only had 45 minutes for drinks, not lunch, as he was meeting a friend afterwards.
I felt despondent. Why wasn’t he as excited as me? After 39 years, was 45 minutes all he could spare? In the end, I had to remind myself it was probably very different for him. He did show he had a sense of humour though – “You’ll know who I am. The slightly overweight, old, bald guy who is on his tablet!” – which was reassuring.
I arrived first and ordered a cocktail. Some meetings call for strong measures, and this was one of them. Sitting alone, facing the moment I’d thought about for so long, was like watching someone else in a film.
When my father walked into the restaurant, I knew immediately it was him. I felt a strange bond, as though we were linked even though we’d never met. He looked a little younger than I’d imagined, and a woollen beanie meant I couldn’t see his bald head. He smiled and walked towards me. So this was my father.
After making pleasantries, he admitted what a shock it had been to hear from me.
“I can imagine,” I replied. “I don’t think you can,” he said. “I didn’t even know you existed,” going on to claim he hadn’t known Mum was pregnant (a fact that she refutes, saying that he even visited me when I was a few weeks old). I don’t really know what to think about that. Maybe he pushed it from his memory.
The meeting went well, the conversation flowing easily, and my father even invited me to stay for another hour when his friend arrived. While he chatted to his friend, I examined him from top to toe, taking in his blue eyes, broad shoulders and high cheekbones that looked so much like mine.
After we parted, I couldn’t help but think how strangely perfunctory it all felt – more like meeting a friend or colleague. We kept in touch sporadically, and met for the second time a few months later, but I don’t think I’d really prepared myself for how un-paternal it would feel.
My father and I haven’t seen each other since. We text now and again, but it’s been 13 years since we last met. It’s odd to think that I have a 30-something half-sister and a half-brother in his late-20s – just a couple of years older than my son – who know nothing about me. I grew up with two brothers and always wanted a sister. Both my brothers have died, so it could be rather wonderful to have other siblings.
My father told me that his mother (my grandma, I guess, though it feels odd to say it) lived in Bedford, the next town to mine, so every time I commuted into London, the train stopped there, and I imagined getting off to find her. She died a couple of years ago though, so I never had the chance.
When I suggested a DNA test, my father refused, saying he didn’t have one for his other children, so why should he for me? Maybe that’s a positive statement, I don’t know. Things haven’t been easy for him. He grew up in a children’s home, so there are demons he must face too.
In all the years I thought about finding my father, one of the reasons I never did was that I didn’t want to be rejected by him again. My fears haven’t exactly been realised, but it’s also not worked out the way I thought it might. To a certain extent, I suppose I craved a benevolent father figure – someone who might advise and offer support, but maybe that ship sailed many decades ago.
