Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
English portrait and landscape painter. Often commissioned to paint family portraits. Discussion: what do society portraits want to convey? Can we see beyond what’s intended?
(Taken from Calliope Thorne’s teaching notes.)
Callie picked up her wine glass and ran a finger round the rim. ‘Not much to tell.’
‘Oh, come on, Mum, it’s textbook. The candles, the wine.’ Frida spread her hands to indicate the room.
‘The wine went with the food I’d bought, and Johnny lit the candles to keep the midges away.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Frida said disbelievingly. ‘Bet you’d been DTD before I crashed the scene.’
‘DTD?’
‘Doing The Deed.’ Frida made exaggerated kissing noises.
‘Do you have to be so vulgar.’
Her daughter sniggered. ‘Payback for when you walked in on me and Josh Reece. You were furious!’
‘Bit of a difference. I’m an adult. You were seventeen. And Josh Reece was a chancer.’ Callie paused, sucking in a deep breath. ‘I didn’t want you ending up like me. Pregnant at nineteen and alone.’
There was a shocked pause. ‘You regret having me?’ Frida asked in a strangled voice.
Callie put down her glass and gathered her daughter in her arms. ‘Never. That’s not what I meant at all.
You know I’ve never regretted having you for a moment.
You’re the best thing I’ve ever done. Even when you’re annoying the hell out of me.
Like now.’ Kissing the top of her daughter’s head, she released her and added, ‘You must have realised it wasn’t easy at times.
’ She pushed her away a little. ‘There’s not been one moment in one day when I’ve wished anything different but–’
‘But?’
Callie hesitated, choosing her words carefully. ‘It wasn’t always much fun being the solo parent, being the only one responsible for paying the bills, keeping a roof over our heads. I had to grow up very quickly.’
‘And you didn’t have anyone around you,’ Frida said mournfully. ‘I didn’t have grandparents.’
Callie gave her daughter a sharp look. Frida had always accepted their lifestyle as normal.
She’d explained, even when her daughter was little, that her grandparents didn’t want to be friends with them, but they had a different sort of family to other people, family like Donna and Graham who they’d specially chosen.
For a while Donna’s parents had taken Frida under their wing just as they’d done with Callie all those years ago, but they were older now, frailer, and with less energy for those beyond their immediate family.
Callie and Frida helped them out as much as they could, but it was just the occasional Sunday afternoon cup of tea these days.
Frida had never questioned that her father didn’t want to be involved in her life.
At least two of her close school friends had estranged fathers, and one friend had two women as parents, who made no secret of the fact their child was created via a donor, with no father on the scene.
Frida was just another child who came from a background which veered from the accepted norm.
Callie had always emphasised families came in all shapes and sizes and all were valid.
It was unusual for Frida to voice any introspection about their set-up. ‘What’s brought all this on?’
Frida puffed out a short breath. ‘Oh nothing.’ She looked down, her mouth working. ‘I didn’t want to be the thing that held you back, is all.’
Callie gasped. Was this what her daughter was thinking?
‘Oh, darling girl, that’s not happened, has it?
You have never held me back. Not once. Not ever.
I’ve got a great job; we’ve got a nice house to live in.
’ Even as Callie said the words, she wondered if all that was enough for her any longer.
But how could she change anything? Donna was right.
Her dreams were simply that – daydreams. She shook sense into her head; that wasn’t what was important right now.
She stroked a strand of long silky hair back off her daughter’s face. ‘I’ve never once regretted having you.’
‘But you don’t want me to end up the same way?’
Callie bit her lip, regretting her words of earlier.
Again she hesitated and the silence became profound.
She needed to be honest with her daughter about this.
‘If I’m really honest, no. The only thing I’d change, the only thing, I tell you, is that I would have had you slightly later in life, maybe when I’d got my career more established and perhaps when I was in a solid relationship.
If I could choose for you, then that’s what I’d want in your future. ’
‘Have you been lonely, Mum?’ Frida pleated the hem of her cheesecloth smock.
‘Lonely? Me? How could I have been when I had you and Donna and Graham and the girls from choir.’
‘You know what I mean. Did you ever want a bloke around?’
‘Maybe.’ Callie tried for humour. ‘They have their uses at times.’
Frida twisted round to her. ‘Then why didn’t you? I wouldn’t have minded, honest.’
Callie laughed. ‘There was Shane,’ she said, referencing a man she’d become close to in her thirties.
‘Shane Trent? What, Mr Trent from school? No way. I never knew that! Go, Mum, he was dead gorg.’ She pouted, her nose wrinkling. ‘Apart from the fact he was a maths teacher.’
‘Yeah well, no one’s perfect. We got quite close but, oh I don’t know…
then I thought about how I’d introduce him to you, when would be the right time, what would happen if you got attached to him and our relationship didn’t pan out.
Not to mention we work together. It would have been beyond awkward.
Finally decided it was all too much hassle so stayed just friends. ’
‘And then he married Miss Spinks from the science department,’ Frida said, dolefully, draining her wine in one gulp. ‘The whole of the sixth form was heartbroken.’ She pointed the glass at her mother. ‘Get you, though, going out with the school hottie.’
‘I didn’t go out with him as such.’ Callie couldn’t quite keep the wistfulness from her voice as she pictured Shane’s wedding day, a high summer celebration in a classic country hotel with Nadia Spinks looking breathtaking in white tulle and orange blossom.
‘It was a nice day, I seem to recall.’ She and Shane hadn’t progressed beyond a few drinks in the pub where they’d shared the stresses of the job, but she’d liked him.
‘Poor Mum.’
‘Poor Mum nothing,’ Callie replied robustly. ‘There’s more to life than having a man in it, you know!’
‘But this Johnny bloke, this Johnny Farthing?’
‘Johnny Starling.’
‘You like him?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do. He’s lovely.’
‘Sex on legs more like.’
Callie giggled. ‘If you say so.’
‘And you don’t work with him,’ Frida pointed out.
‘This is true.’
‘Could be a holiday fling.’
‘Or just sex?’ Callie said innocently, knowing it would wind Frida up.
‘Muuuum! That’s gross.’ Frida put two fingers to her mouth. ‘Don’t make me vom.’
Callie laughed again. ‘We haven’t got beyond the kissing stage. We haven’t talked about what “this” is, if it’s anything. We’ve just enjoyed each other’s company.’
‘Drunk a lot of wine!’
‘Went to the theatre, entered a sandcastle competition, oh and I’ve met his family.’
‘You’ve what?’ Frida was aghast. ‘Not wasting much time.’
‘Only because they’re staying in town for a christening. I was invited to a barbeque. They’re a bit mad but great fun and I really like Johnny’s youngest sister.’
‘Gawd. How many’s he got?’
‘Four. And he has three rather alarming aunts.’
Frida laughed out loud. ‘Bit different to our set up then.’
‘Families come in all shapes and sizes,’ she reminded Frida, ‘including the found sort.’
‘Including the found sort,’ Frida parroted back the expected answer. ‘And, don’t get me wrong, I love having Donna and Graham and their kids around. It’s just–’
‘It’s just what, love?’
‘Oh nothing. So tell me all about this Johnny bloke, then. What does he do? Where does he come from? Has he got any money?’
Again, Callie accepted the deflection in subject matter. Instead, she filled her daughter in on everything she knew about Johnny.
By the time she’d finished, the third wine bottle was empty and the candles had burned down low.
When one puttered out with a hiss sending up a whisper of acrid smoke, Callie stretched.
‘Time for bed. It’s late, kiddo. You’re going to have to share with me, I’m afraid. This place has only got two bedrooms.’
Frida rose with a grumble. ‘Better get together with Mr Silver Fox as soon as, then, so I can have a bed to myself.’
‘Cheeky mare,’ her mother responded, as she collected the bottles and glasses and put them by the sink.
‘For that you can wash this lot up in the morning.’ Switching off the lights with a yawn she led Frida along the hall to the stairs before stopping abruptly.
‘Oh, I thought you’d brought your case in?
Don’t say you left it outside in the garden, Frida! ’
‘Give up on the panicking, Mum. I left it here at the bottom.’ Taking the steep cottage stairs two at a time with enviable ease, she called down. ‘It’s here. I suppose Johnny must have brought it up.’
As Callie trudged up the stairs at a more sedate pace, she smiled to herself. Johnny Starling really was the nicest man.