Chapter 7
Seven
Italian painter known for his sublime Venetian landscapes. Try to get students to look beyond cliché, chocolate box images, and see how exciting they would have been in eighteenth century.
(Taken from Calliope Thorne’s teaching notes.)
‘Hi.’ Johnny stood in the kitchen. He saluted her with a wine glass. ‘Drink?’
Callie dumped her stuff by the sofa. Why not, Mum?
Frida’s voice in her head said. Muttering something rude to her daughter under her breath, she smiled.
‘Think I need to rehydrate first.’ She observed him with her painter’s eye for detail.
Tense. White about the mouth, shoulders hunched.
Then she eyed the bottle of white, the glass running condensation and her mouth watered.
‘On the other hand, that looks tempting, and I’ve had a frustrating day. ’
He gave a terse nod, collected the bottle and another glass and said, ‘I’ll be in the garden.’
Callie poured herself a glass of water and sipped it thoughtfully. She wondered what had happened to change Johnny from the genial, easy-going man she’d bumped into earlier to the rigid person she’d just encountered.
He’d slumped into one of the blue and white striped deck chairs and was lying back, face up, greedily drinking in the sun. She wondered if he was a man with problems. And here she was, sharing a house with him.
Might be an idea to find out more about this Johnny Starling, Frida.
But her daughter remained stubbornly silent, so Callie slipped out her phone and googled his name.
Something familiar was nagging at her. Didn’t he say he was a travel writer?
Maybe she’d read one of his articles. She didn’t have to hunt too hard.
‘Johnny Starling, journalist,’ came up at the top of the search.
Leaning on her elbows over the kitchen’s breakfast bar, she read on.
‘Highly regarded. Worked for several respected newspapers, BBC foreign correspondent. One of the youngest reporters in Iraq. Went on to report on many global crises. Originally from Devon, now lives in London and is a freelance journalist.’
Callie glanced outside. They’d got that wrong.
Hadn’t Johnny said he lived in Stratford?
Gulping back the water she refilled her glass, wondering how being a journalist had affected him.
It must have, surely? It had got to the stage where she could only watch the news headlines, the rest was too distressing.
She could only imagine what being in the middle of a tragedy and having to report on it would do to you.
Would it harden you, make you remote and unfeeling, or crush you?
Johnny hadn’t seemed tough; in fact he’d come across as kind.
He’d sorted the problem of them sharing, had displayed sensitivity when explaining the en suite bedrooms and locks and he’d left that note about her not worrying about staying up to let him in.
A thoughtful man, then, but one who had witnessed great suffering and had had to make sense of it to share with the rest of the world.
What impact had that had? Was this what was behind his change in mood?
Spying the family pack of Kettle chips still in the welcome basket she poured some into a bowl.
It was habit. She and Frida never shared a bottle of wine unless it was accompanied by salty snacks.
Besides, she might need something to soak up the alcohol.
She still wasn’t sure she’d drunk enough water and drinking wine to assuage a thirst wasn’t wise.
Who needs wise, Mum? Frida’s voice in her head chided. Live a little.
‘Oh, you’re back, are you?’ Callie muttered as she carried her glass of water and the bowl of crisps outside. ‘Shame you can’t text your mother a little more instead of choosing to invade her head.’
Johnny lifted his head and slipped his sunglasses over his eyes. ‘Did you say something?’
‘No. Talking to myself. Bad habit.’ Slipping down into the deck chair next to his, it felt a little close.
Too late now. To get up and move it away would appear rude.
She took a second to enjoy the slide of the sun over her skin and the birdsong.
It was going to be a lovely evening. Aware of the silence between her and Johnny, she said, ‘Crisp?’
He shook his head, gave a tight smile and slid more upright. Holding the two glasses he poured a generous amount for her and topped up his own. Passing hers over, he said, ‘Sorry.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘Being in a grump, as my youngest and wisest sister would say.’
Callie sipped her wine observing him over the rim. His sunglasses made his expression difficult to read. ‘You weren’t a grump at all. And your sister sounds charming.’
He gave a flash of a grin. ‘Best of the bunch. Jess is. She’s an illustrator. Just had a baby.’
‘And that’s the christening you’re here for?’
He nodded.
Callie put her wine glass on the grass next to her water and slid upwards too, with difficulty.
The wooden ridge across the bottom of the deck chair was digging into the back of her thighs.
‘I know a Jessica Starling. She helped organise the art exhibition. I’ve only spoken to her on the phone but she’s a powerhouse. So she’s your sister?’
‘That’s the one. Jess kept her maiden name much to our mother’s disapproval.’
Callie’s lips thinned. She knew all about disapproving mothers. She watched as a blackbird swooped down, eyeing the crisps. Crunching one up, she threw it for the bird. ‘When is the christening?’
‘It was this morning. I’ve just come from there, although the party was still going strong when I left.’
‘And you didn’t stay?’
‘I was saved by the vicar.’ A grin twitched at the side of his mouth and he gulped wine. ‘In a way.’
Callie looked at him curiously. ‘Was it that bad?’ The blackbird pecked at the crisp fragment, gave her a beady stare and flew off.
‘My family en masse are overpowering. I love my parents, am close to my oldest sister and I love Jess to bits. The trio of aunts just about finished me off. Well, you know what families can be like…’ He let the sentence hang.
‘I don’t, not really. It’s been just me and Frida, that’s my daughter, since forever.’
Johnny twisted in surprise. ‘I’m sorry.’ Taking off his sunglasses, he pushed them into the neck of his shirt.
She shrugged, feeling the wine go to her head.
His sympathy was sincere and it made her want to talk.
It made a change to chat to a real person and not Frida’s disembodied voice in her head, or the art critic Vernon.
‘I’m not. I met Frida’s father when I was at teacher training college.
I got pregnant, he disappeared. My parents paid me off. ’
Johnny choked on his wine. ‘They did what?’
‘Here.’ Callie handed him her glass of water.
She watched as his throat worked as he drank.
He looked very fit with the lean sort of muscle that comes from being naturally active rather than gym workouts.
It came to her in a flash that she liked him.
Liked his easy charm, was intrigued by the underlying tension.
‘Frida’s dad has Indian heritage. My mother is nothing if not racist. When I made it clear I was having my baby, she gave me a large sum of money.
Said it was my inheritance, and I may as well have it.
The subtext being Go away. So I did. They seem perfectly happy with my brother and his wife and their children.
I got myself through teacher training and put down a deposit on a tiny Victorian terrace. And that’s the way it’s been.’
‘Have you seen them since?’
She shook her head. ‘No. At least not on purpose. I saw them shopping in the middle of town once but didn’t feel I had anything to say to them.
Haven’t wanted to keep contact.’ Staring into her wine and enjoying the way the sun refracted through the glass, she remembered coming across her parents in The Shambles in Worcester.
She’d turned a corner pushing Frida in her buggy in front and had stopped abruptly as she’d nearly bumped into a middle-aged couple.
Her mum and dad. Her mother had recoiled in horror, glanced down at the toddler, had tugged on her husband’s arm and yanked him over the road.
It had cemented in Callie that she’d done the right thing.
‘I don’t think Frida has missed out on anything by not having them in her life.
However, they’ve missed out seeing a beautiful, clever, kind girl grow up into a delightful young woman. ’
Johnny remained silent. He passed back the water and grabbed a handful of crisps. Eating them slowly he said, ‘That was an incredibly brave decision.’
‘Thank you. Quite often strangers tell me I made a huge mistake and one which I’ll regret but I haven’t. Frida and I have a good found family around us and, as I say, she’s grown into someone I’m very proud of. I’d rather that than expose her to my mother’s very peculiar brand of morals.’
‘What does she do?’
‘Frida?’ Callie sipped wine before answering. ‘Office admin at the moment. She hasn’t really found her thing yet. Mine was teaching and I slipped into it easily. Frida’s still discovering who she is.’
‘Plenty of time yet. She can’t be very old.’
‘Twenty-three. I wasn’t all that much older when I’d progressed to head of department.’ Callie took another reflective sip, watching a seagull land and go on the hunt for whatever the blackbird had left. ‘But I suppose I was different.’
‘You had to grow up quickly. It must have been hard.’
‘Yeah well,’ Callie said dismissively. ‘You never know what you can do until it’s asked of you.’
Johnny blew out a great sigh. ‘Very true.’