Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

my father. His name is not Pierre K. King but it is a name like that, in its Frenchified absurdity.
    Then to my relief, I found that he and my mother were divorced quite quickly, and that he died in 2009.

    But I discovered that I have a brother, or at least a half—brother, and had better not be too rude about the dad, who may or may not be my dad.
    What made them give me away? It had to be his fault because I couldn't let it be hers. I had to believe that my mother loved me. That was risky. That could be a fantasy. If I had been wanted why had I become unwanted six weeks later?
    And I wondered if a lot of my negativity towards men in general was tied up with these lost beginnings.
    I don't feel negative about men any more — that was something else that shifted decisively when I was going mad. The men I knew were kind to me, and I found I could rely on them. But my change of heart was more than specific; it was a larger compassion for all the suffering and inadequacies of human beings, male or female.
    But new JW or not — I was very angry with my mother's husband. I wanted to kill him even though he was dead.
    No word from the adoption society. I had to shout at myself before I could call again. Dialing the number makes me pace and it makes me breathless.
    They are all very nice — sorry — they lost my phone number. Oh, and I can't see the file, but my social worker can, providing she gives me no details about the Wintersons, which is an odd rule I think, especially when they are both dead.
    Ria writes to ask for the file, and meanwhile it is my birthday, and meanwhile I have lost track of my mother, because women change their names. Has she married again? Is she alive?
    That worries me. All this effort and perhaps she is dead. I always believed she was dead ... A Mrs W story.
    Susie and I are flying to New York City on my birthday. Susie says, ‘I think you do know how to love.’
    ‘Do I?’
    ‘I don't think you know how to be loved.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Most women can give — we're trained to it — but most women find it hard to receiv ou are generous and you are kind — I wouldn't want to be with you otherwise, no matter how brainy and impressive you are — but our conflicts and our difficulties revolve round love. You don't trust me to love you, do you?’
    No ... I am the wrong crib . . . this will go wrong like all the rest. In my heart of hearts I believe that.
    The love—work that I have to do now is to believe that life will be all right for me. I don't have to be alone. I don't have to fight for everything. I don't have to fight everything. I don't have to run away. I can stay because this is love that is offered, a sane steady stable love.
    ‘And if we have to part,’ says Susie, ‘you will know that you were in a good relationship.’
    You are wanted, do you understand that, Jeanette?
    Ria and I are meeting in Liverpool where she lives. She arrives at my hotel with yet another envelope and I feel that familiar dryness and heart race.
    We get a drink. Out comes another ancient form.
    ‘Well,’ says Ria, ‘full working—class credentials — your dad was a miner! And only five feet two inches tall — look, someone has written that in pencil on the back. He was keen on sport. He was twenty—one.
    Dark hair.’
    And he isn't Pierre K. King! Rejoice!
    I think about my own body. I am only five feet tall exactly — and the genetic rule is that girls are not taller than their fathers, so I have done all I can size—wise.
    I have a strong upper body — the kind bred to crawl in low tunnels and pull carts of coal around and work heavy hand—held kit. I can pick up Susie easily — partly because I go to the gym, but also because my power ratio is in my top half. And I always had a bad chest . . . the miner's inheritance.
    And I am thinking that in 1985, the year that I published Oranges , Margaret Thatcher was smashing the National Union of Mineworkers for ever. Was my dad on the picket lines?
    On the form is my mother's date of birth at last — she's a Sagittarius, and so is my dad.
    The form says Reason for Adoption. My mother has handwriten, Better for Janet to have a mother and a father .
    I know from my dives into the ancestry website that her own father died when she was eight. And I know that she was one of ten children.
    Better for Janet to have a mother and a father.
    So I was Janet — not so far from Jeanette — but Mrs Winterson was the one who Frenchified it.