Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Poornima Dayal
Contemporary Indian painter best known for her colourful abstracts. Examine art in India, its cultural heritage.
(Taken from Calliope Thorne’s teaching notes.)
Frida snuggled into her mother again. ‘I was so scared you’d be mad. But Sunil was desperate to know if I really was his daughter.’
‘I’m still not sure how I feel. A bit dazed comes close.
’ Callie hugged her daughter more tightly.
‘To be honest, at this precise moment, I’m more relieved than anything that you’re okay and I now know what’s been going on.
I’ve been so worried about you, Fri. Wracking my brain about how I’d failed you, how I could do better as a mother.
I hated how distant we’d become. It didn’t help that I’ve been surrounded by members of the Starling family. ’
Frida raised her head, frowning. ‘Eh?’
‘They all have this uncompromising, all encompassing, you can do anything you put your mind to, middle-class confidence. I don’t think one of them has ever struggled to make the rent or lived on beans on toast and lentils for the week until payday.’
Frida spluttered. ‘Don’t think we’ve ever had to survive on baked beans and lentils, Mum.’
‘Not the point.’
‘Know what you mean, though. I met a few like them at uni. Funded by mummy and daddy and drove Range Rovers. When I told them most of us could only afford to get around by bicycle I was told, “But it’s only Daddy’s second hand Evoque.” They didn’t live in the real world.’
Callie smoothed her daughter’s hair. ‘And I know you don’t think money is always important–’
‘Oh, Mum, don’t take what I said as gospel.
I was shouting my mouth off. I think the same as you.
In order to follow your dreams you’ve got to find ways of funding them.
Turns out Tracey works jobs for three years and then takes six months off for travelling.
She’s not living the life I thought she was.
She also said her travelling days might be over.
Got an arthritic hip, it turns out. Something only the good old NHS can sort.
She isn’t the romantic free spirit I thought she was. ’
‘Tracey’s lovely,’ Callie said in stout defence. ‘She is a free spirit, just one with a dodgy hip. Not something you need to worry about.’
Frida sat up, freeing herself from her mother’s embrace. ‘Or you! You’ve still got time to follow your dreams, even though you’re in your forties.’
Callie smiled at her daughter’s perception of her mother’s great age. ‘Thank you,’ she said gravely. ‘I will endeavour to do so before turning up my toes.’
‘Turning up your what?’
‘Never mind. Come on, tell me about how Sunil found you. So you didn’t go looking for him?’
Frida battered a cushion into submission and lay back against it.
She shook her head. ‘I was getting round to thinking how I could find my dad when everything blew up. It was dead weird, Mum. First, I thought he was an old perv. When I’d come out of work, this bloke would be there, standing on the opposite side of the road, watching me waiting at the bus stop. It really creeped me out.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘Turns out Vivek, his cousin who knew Donna and you at college, has bought up a few businesses in Worcester. He’s a bit of a Dragon’s Den sorta guy. Entrepreneur.’
‘Always was, even at college. Donna always said he’d end up a billionaire or in prison. I can’t wait to fill her in. She had a huge crush on him.’
‘But they didn’t go out, not like you and Dad?’
Callie liked the way Frida dropped the word dad into the conversation. She shook her head. ‘No. We hung out as a foursome, but Vivek was focused on how he was going to make his first million even then.’
Frida pulled a face, making her eyes go huge. ‘He’s made it, and more. He’s got houses in the States, a stonking great country pile in the Cotswolds and an apartment in London. He’s made it big time.’
‘How?’
‘Don’t really understand. Sunil said something about buying businesses and stripping the assets?’ Frida shrugged. ‘Sunil works for him but hasn’t made as much. He’s comfortable, he says, but not rich.’
‘Depends on your definition,’ Callie said dryly.
‘Suppose. Well anyway,’ Frida said, returning to her story, ‘Vivek came into Price’s for a meeting and a look-see.
He came into the office and gave me these really weird vibes.
Carol said he kept staring at me. Couldn’t look away.
She thought I’d played a blinder and bagged myself a millionaire sugar daddy.
He’s bought out Price’s.’ Frida frowned.
‘Not sure it’ll exist for much longer. Really feel for Carol.
She can’t afford to retire and won’t get her state pension for a while yet. ’
‘That’s rough. I’d like to meet her. We should invite her round when we get home.’
‘That would be well cool. I think you’d get on.’
‘I’m confused. Who was standing in the road watching you? Sunil or Vivek?’
‘Sunil. He hung around once or twice, suppose he had to check me out for himself. Then I began getting these emails from someone called Sunil Patel.’
‘Where had he got your address?’
‘Off Vivek.’
‘Bloody hell, Fri. How?’
‘He’d gone into company records to get my email.’
‘Jeez, Frida, that’s a hell of a data breach.’
Frida nodded. I know. ‘Freaked me out big time. When Vivek had seen me in the office, he couldn’t get over how much I looked like Sunil’s daughters. That’s why he was staring at me so much. Sunil’s got two girls; did you know?’
‘He mentioned he’s got other children.’
‘He’s got a little boy too. He’s only seven.
Anyway, Vivek did a bit of digging, found out my surname, put two and two together and filled Sunil in with the intel.
Me and Sunil got chatting on email. Once I decided he wasn’t a creep and it wasn’t spammy, I began talking to him.
Opened up a bit. He’s always been nice, very respectful.
He said he knew you at uni so I started asking about what it was all like and he mentioned how you and Donna and Vivek hung out as students. ’
Callie let out a horrified breath. ‘God, Fri! What have I taught you about online safety? He could have been anybody.’
‘I’m not stupid. I played it well cool until I was sure he was genuine.
He told me it had been him who’d been checking me out when I left work.
Said he needed to see me for himself and once he did, he was convinced he was my dad.
I look exactly like his oldest. Suppose he could have come over there and then and introduced himself but he wanted to get to know me first. Make sure I was who he thought I was.
I asked around at work who Sunil and Vivek Patel were.
Looked up Sunil on LinkedIn and he checked out. I knew he was the real deal.’
‘So, these emails, they’ve been going on for a while then?’
‘Yeah, since March. Early on, he asked me about my dad and I said I’d never known him, he’d never been on the scene.
Then we chatted a lot about how much fun you all had at uni.
Then, earlier this month, he finally came out with it and said he thought he was my father.
I lost it. I mean, I thought I wanted to find my dad, but the reality was something else.
I’d told him I was coming here with you for a holiday and he said, by pure coincidence, he was going to be with his family in Mudeford and could we meet?
’ Frida screwed her eyes shut. ‘It was all too much. I didn’t know how to tell you, wasn’t sure I was ready to meet him–’
‘So you went off to Ibiza?’
‘Yup. Had a bit of time to think. Bit of distance to process it all. Sunil sent me a really sad message. He’s never once put pressure on me, Mum, he really hasn’t, but it made me realise I might miss the opportunity to meet him and if I didn’t make the effort, I never would.
He’s too nice a man to insist. So I gathered all the confidence I had and flew home.
’ She hesitated. ‘I should tell you, Mum, that he paid for my flight back. The airline wanted silly money just to change the dates.’ She suppressed a grin, an impish look in the grass green eyes.
‘He booked me into first class. Scheduled. It was dead good!’
‘I’m not sure he should be giving you money, Frida, and I wish he’d thought to contact me.’ Callie was beginning to revise her opinion of Sunil. He’d been underhand. ‘Are you sure he’s the nice man you think he is?’
‘It’s okay, I said I’d pay him back,’ Frida said breezily.
‘And I don’t think he had a clue how to navigate this.
’ She shrugged. ‘Neither did I. We were just muddling our way through.’ She paused as a thought occurred.
‘Maybe he didn’t want to risk you stopping him seeing me?
Suppose he didn’t know how you’d turned out like either. ’
‘I suppose.’ Callie wasn’t sure she had the moral high ground. After all, she’d ended up lying by omission to him about his daughter. ‘It’s all so complicated.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Frida replied, warmly. ‘So we arranged for him to come over. Meet me, then you.’ She blew out an enormous breath. ‘I know I’ve not been telling you the truth about a lot of things but it was okay wasn’t it? You meeting him like that?’
‘I don’t know, Frida.’ Callie sighed and reached for her now cold tea.
‘I’m still getting my head around all of this.
If we think it’s complicated now, it’s going to be even more so in the future.
If you want a relationship with Sunil, I won’t stop you but I’m warning you, it won’t always be easy-happy-families. ’
Frida bit her lip. ‘Yeah, I know it might be tricky and I won’t do anything you don’t want me to, I promise.’ She gave her mother a mischievous look. ‘But don’t families come in all shapes and sizes, including blended ones?’
Callie spluttered through her tea. It may be all right after all.
It seemed her daughter had a wise head on her shoulders.
Grimacing at the cold tea, she put the mug down.
‘If I’m honest, I’m just relieved that you seem okay.
I’ve been so worried about you, baby girl.
All sorts of things have been going through my head. I knew something wasn’t right.’
‘I’m sorry, Mum. I just couldn’t get it all straight in my own head enough to talk to you about it, and you’ve been so busy at school.’
‘Some warning about Sunil coming over might have been good. I must look a right mess.’
‘You look beautiful, Mum. You always do.’ Frida’s nose wrinkled. ‘You don’t… you haven’t still got feelings for him? I mean, he’s happily married from what he’s said.’
‘No.’ Callie ruffled her daughter’s hair. ‘I don’t have feelings for him. It all happened a very long time ago and anything I felt for Sunil has gone. But I have my pride, you know. He looks exactly the same and I walked in dripping from the rain and covered in paint.’
Frida snorted. ‘Bit of an exaggeration.’
‘Just making a point. I was considered a bit of a babe at college,’ Callie said airily. ‘No one likes being reminded they’ve got older.’
‘You’re still a babe. Johnny thinks so.’
‘Does he? How do you know?’
Frida tapped the side of her nose. ‘I have eyes.’
Callie laughed. ‘Oh it’s so good to have my daughter back again, even in this dramatic fashion.’ She waggled a warning finger. ‘Don’t ever pull a trick like that on your old mother again, will you?’
‘No chance. Mum, can I ask you something?’
‘Anything.’
‘Sunil’s wife knows all about this – me – and wants to meet me at some point and they’re going to let me get to know their children eventually. How do you feel about me spending time with them?’
‘How do you feel?’ Callie asked, with a catch in her voice.
‘I’m dead excited, to be honest. You know what I said about feeling as if part of me was missing?
I think finding out about Sunil and his family and his culture will…
’ Frida flailed for the right words. ‘Oh I don’t know, complete me.
’ She pulled a face again. ‘Sounds naff when I say it out loud but that’s how it feels. ’
Callie bit back the tears. She couldn’t deny Frida this but, just as she’d got her daughter back, it felt as if she was losing her all over again.
She was growing up, expanding her horizons.
It was only natural but it was still painful.
Stifling the loneliness which speared through her, she said, ‘Of course you must spend time with them, if that’s what you all want.
It’s only natural. As I said, I won’t stand in your way. ’
‘Thanks, Mum. Just think, I’ve been an only child all my life and now I have a dad, a stepmother and three siblings. It’s wild.’ Frida’s lovely green eyes went huge at the thought.
Perhaps it would all be all right. Callie prayed it would. She’d rather die than have her daughter hurt. Then she glanced at her watch and jumped to her feet. ‘Jeez. Have you seen the time? We’ve got an awards ceremony to get ourselves to!’