Chapter 12 #2
Johnny was silent for a long time, staring out at the beach, now rammed with deck chairs and towels and happy families.
Shaking his head, he blew out a huge sigh and then laughed.
‘And I should know, having seen that exact same thing in action time after time in my job.’ He snorted.
‘And yet I never applied the knowledge to my own family.’ He slapped a palm to his forehead. ‘I’m an idiot.’
Callie put her hand on his. ‘No you’re not,’ she said kindly. ‘You’re just too close to them all to see them as people in their own right.’ She’d said the same repeatedly to her students.
He turned to her and smiled. It took her breath away.
‘It’s true. I’m in my mid-forties and still, even now, react like a child when I’m with my family.
Despite her rallying cry for us all to couple up, go forth and procreate and have careers in something financially lucrative, I suspect Mum would have loved at least one of us to follow in her show biz footsteps; she occasionally makes her disappointment pretty clear.
Becky and Maria never married or had children, so they regard us all as their surrogates; they don’t hold back their opinions.
Thank goodness, despite Sybil’s peculiar ways, she at least shows a genuine appreciation in how we’ve chosen to live our lives. ’
‘Tell me about your sisters.’
He rubbed a thoughtful hand over his chin and Callie could hear the stubble rasp.
‘I suppose, when you think about it, we’ve all gone our own way, quietly defying them on our own terms. Mixed results though.
Kicking back in a passive aggressive way.
Stella hasn’t a creative or showbusiness bone in her body but she’s more like Mum than she realises.
Her wedding to Brian was spectacular. Mum organised for a troupe of actors to sing show tunes from Salad Days.
’ He laughed at Callie’s confusion. ‘It’s a rather twee stage musical which at one point features a Cleopatra style seductress.
Guess who dressed up in a green snake costume and was the star of the show? ’
‘She didn’t!’
‘I can assure you she did. Search out Asphynxia on YouTube for the full horror.’ Johnny’s lips quirked as he allowed Callie a moment to picture the scene.
‘Isabel is a more subdued version of Stella. Lesley is like me; doesn’t have much to do with the family.
We have no idea what she does except it’s something to do with high-end forensic accounting.
Whatever that is. Gets Mum totally exasperated as, despite claiming she wants us all to have financially secure careers, she actually considers anything “officey” dull and dry and anything to do with money distasteful. ’
He shook his head. ‘Total enigma and contradictory to boot, is my mother. Lesley stays in London as much as she can, I think distance is the only thing that keeps her sane but both she and Isabel suffered the same interference in their weddings. If you think my mother can throw a spectacular party, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve attended a Starling daughter’s wedding.
Mum controls everything with military precision and thinly veiled hysteria.
We had ice sculptures at Lesley’s as hers was a December wedding.
It was a mild winter and they melted all over the marquee carpet.
We were an inch deep in water. Oh,’ he said, as a thought occurred.
‘We also had a colour theme at that one. Everyone was instructed, on pain of death, to wear red and green. Mum stood at the entrance of the hotel and turned anyone away who wouldn’t look right on the photographs. ’
Callie gasped. ‘She didn’t actually turn guests away?’
‘Oh she did. Brooks no opposition, does my mother. Most lived near enough to go home, get changed and be back in time for the wedding breakfast but one couple had to drive into town and buy something new. She’s really something and even in her seventies isn’t showing any signs of slowing up.’
Johnny shook his head wearily and then smiled.
‘The only one who is really upfront about ploughing her own furrow is Jess. Maybe she gets away with it because she’s the baby, or perhaps Mum is slowing down after all.
Jess has been with Connor since school. As far as I know, they’d never contemplated marriage, or even getting engaged.
’ He pulled a face. ‘And then one day, out of the blue, they eloped. Mum was apoplectic. She hadn’t been allowed to orchestrate the wedding in her unique style and to her own exacting standards. ’
‘Oh dear,’ Callie murmured, thinking she would have done exactly the same as Jess and Connor.
‘You’d think, having ruled the roost on every decision in three weddings, Mum would have retired gracefully but Jess caught wind of Mum and The Aunts gleefully discussing how impressive an Arthurian themed wedding, complete with a mock Camelot castle, would be.’
‘That would be something.’ Callie agreed, stifling a giggle. ‘Each to his own. I’ve been to quite a few themed weddings in my time, but none have stretched the concept quite that far.’
‘Mum and Maria love the theatricality of it all and Becky follows on wherever Maria leads. After this conversation, I’ve only just realised how much they miss their showbusiness life. Doesn’t excuse overriding the wishes of everyone else though.’
‘Particularly what the happy couple want.’
‘I completely agree. And, if anything, I think they’ve all got worse as they’ve got older.’
‘They make my family pale into insignificance.’
‘Enough about me. I’ve gone on far too long.’ Johnny broke the shortbread biscuit, which had come with his coffee, into two and gave her half.
‘Thank you,’ Callie said, as she accepted it.
‘So, Calliope. I remember you saying you had a difficult relationship with your family. Have you ever been able to see your parents as people in their own right?’
‘Ah.’ Callie stalled for time and ate the shortbread.
It was sweet and gritty with sugar so she drank what seemed to be her millionth cup of tea that morning.
Her story was dull and colourless in comparison.
It made her feel inadequate. ‘My problem was I saw my parents for exactly who they were. Deeply conservative, rigid in their thinking and view of the world, with a nice side order of racism.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Exactly.’ She paused and then went on. Might as well get the sorry truth out there.
‘My brother and I had a strict timetable. Same food for breakfast every day, same rota of dull meals each week, nourishing but like something from the fifties. “We’ll have no foreign muck like chilli or lasagne in this house,” my mother often said.
Homework four to five, reading until tea, then bed and lights out at eight, without question and no matter how old we got. ’
Johnny frowned. ‘No television?’
‘They didn’t own one. We had to read and that was limited to the classics.
No comics, no felt pens to colour in or draw with.
We were allowed Sunday School every week where we absorbed pictures of a blond blue-eyed Jesus welcoming little children onto his knee and who preached turn the other cheek and forgiveness. ’
‘God,’ Johnny said, appalled.
‘Don’t think God had an awful lot to do with it. Neither did forgiveness. My brother conformed, let it all float over his head, married someone suitable when very young, I think to escape as soon as possible, and then provided them with grandchildren.’
‘And you?’
‘They were delighted when I said I wanted to train as a teacher, a teacher being a good solid respectable job and all that, less so when they found out I wanted to teach art. I mean, art of all things. Not something useful like maths or chemistry.’
‘How did you find out you wanted to be involved in art?’ He was listening intently.
‘Good question when you come from a background as sterile and joyless as I did.’ Callie concentrated on her teacup, turning it round and round.
She had no idea why she was telling him all this but wanted to – needed to let him know who she was.
‘I made a very good friend at primary school. Began spending as much time as I could at her house. I’m still friends with her now.
We go to a rock choir together. Donna. Think she saved my life in some ways.
My parents approved as Donna’s dad was a bank manager and thoroughly “suitable”.
They weren’t suspicious about the amount of time I spent over at her house.
In fact, I think they preferred it when I wasn’t there trying to interrupt their routine. ’
Callie chewed her lip, remembering. ‘Donna had a dog, a daft black spaniel called Coco. She’d give the best cuddles but I had to examine every inch of clothing before I went home.’
‘Why?’
‘My mother thinks dogs are dangerous and infested with germs. If she thought I’d allowed one to jump all over me, she would have banned me from ever going to Donna’s again.
And I was there all the time. I often stayed for tea, think Mum was only too glad to foist the cost of feeding an ever-hungry teenager onto someone.
We ate chicken korma, and fajitas with guacamole and sour cream.
Donna’s mother made gateaux with real fruit and fresh cream.
We watched Friends and The Vicar of Dibley and toasted marshmallows on the fire.
No hysterics if we accidentally made a mark on the carpet.
Best of all, Donna’s mum was a stationery sales rep so there was an endless supply of notepads, paper, pens.
I couldn’t take them home, so I had a special drawer there to keep stuff in.
I’d spend hours just doodling cartoon figures. ’
Callie was lost in the moment, picturing herself and Donna with orange Fanta, complete with red and white striped paper straws, and Club Biscuits as they sat at the dining room table, surrounded by sheets of scribbled on paper.
This time it was Johnny’s turn to comfort Callie.
He reached for her hand and held it. It brought her back to the present.
To the vivid blue sky and the keening gulls, the excited squeals of children as they skidded past on the slippery sandy concrete.
Her parents had never taken them to the beach.
At the time she accepted their reason that it was too far away but now she knew they’d consider a trip to the seaside as impossibly frivolous.
What purpose would a day by the sea have other than pleasure?
And pleasure was something so deeply alien to them as to be incomprehensible.
She lifted her face to the sun, risking yet more freckles and not caring.
‘I mean, I wasn’t neglected,’ she went on.
‘I was fed, had a bed and a roof over my head. No love though. No cuddles or affection. It was a very dull, rigid existence. Dreary. Going to Donna’s was like going from black and white to pure bright technicolour. ’
She glanced at him. ‘I discovered what life could really be like and, as soon as I was able, made the decision to get away. I also decided, if I were ever to have children, I wouldn’t bring them up as they had me.
I’ve tried my best with Frida but accept I’ve probably spoiled her as a result.
’ She flicked him a humorous glance. ‘Your family suffers from an excess of everything; mine,’ she shrugged, ‘from an excess of nothing.’
Johnny squeezed her hand. ‘I remember you saying you’re no longer in touch.’
Callie shook her head. ‘No, although I hear from my brother occasionally. Apparently, Mum and Dad still don’t have a TV or central heating, don’t take any holidays, despise and ignore their neighbours because they have Pakistani heritage.
Are happy to live as if it’s still 1947.
Sam lets them get on with it, plays the dutiful son while he’s there and then goes home to his wife and children.
They’re worth a fortune, my parents, but they scrimp and save like misers. ’
She tried to make sense of it. ‘I mean, what’s the point?
’ She sucked in a breath, appalled. ‘I’m so sorry.
I had no intention of letting all that out.
I haven’t thought about them for a long time, so it all spilled out.
I’m having a good life, making the most of any opportunity,’ she added, determinedly. ‘I made sure they didn’t stop me.’
Johnny was silent for a long time; she could sense him thinking. He held her hand tightly and she could see his mouth working.
‘I don’t know what to say, Calliope, except to admire how you’ve got on with life and shaken their influence off.’
‘There’s really not a lot to say. I’m sorry I blurted it all out.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Once I’d started talking, I couldn’t stop. Quite cathartic actually.’
He blew out a breath. ‘Yours make mine seem harmless by comparison. Don’t know what I’ve got to complain about. Families, eh?’ He straightened. ‘They manage to mess you up one way or another.’
‘Yup. Maybe it’s our destiny to fight against them?’ She laughed again, feeling lighter somehow. Everyone in her life already knew her history and it was no longer an issue. She rarely shared it with anyone new, didn’t see the point.
Her life was so busy she seldom gave any thought to her strange upbringing – and it had been strange, she hadn’t realised just how odd until moving out of their sphere of influence.
She’d come to terms with being non-contact with her parents and low contact with her brother and didn’t feel she missed out on much.
She’d determinedly filled her life with her found family.
‘You know what we need?’ Johnny squared his shoulders, suddenly decisive.
‘I couldn’t manage any more tea. I am completely and utterly rehydrated.’
‘Do you fancy doing something completely daft and stupid? Will your hangover allow?’
Callie turned over his hand and caressed the fleshy part at the base of his thumb. ‘What hangover?’