‘Have you got time to chat?’
‘Hold on a sec.’
Callie heard voices mumbling in the background, a teenager moaning sulkily and a wail from the toddler, all overridden bythe deep voice of Donna’s husband. A clink of glass on bottle, the glugging of wine and a deep sigh followed.
‘All good,’ Donna said. ‘Graham’s doing the kids tonight to make up for disappearing with his men in Lycra all Saturday. Again. He owes me big time.’
Callie smiled. Perhaps she didn’t need to worry about her friend after all. She had her life sorted.
‘So, what gives, Cal? I have wine and am all ears for the next thirty minutes until Graham pings the Charlie Bigham fish pie.’
‘Do you think I’m influenced by my parents?’
She heard her friend take in a sharp breath. ‘Going right in with the heavy, Cal. What’s brought this on?’
Callie described Grace Grosvenor and how her amazing art career had been cut short by having children. ‘She’s got me thinking. I don’t regret having Frida, how could I?’ She paused and then said what was really worrying her. It came out all in a rush. ‘I’m beginning to think, having Frida so young and fixating on work and keeping a roof over our heads… Well, I’m terrified it’s making me as careful as my parents are. That my life is turning out as mind-numbingly tedious as theirs.’
Donna chuckled. ‘Well, firstly, I don’t think there’s any comparison between you and your parents. Mum always thought there was a bit of a mental health problem going on there. How your parents lived – and still live – isn’t normal, Cal. I don’t think you realised just how abnormal it was until you began coming over to my place.’
Callie gulped some wine, giving herself time to answer. It was rare that Donna was so honest. ‘You don’t know how grateful I am for what you all did for me. How grateful I’ll always be. I don’t think I began properly living until I got to know you and your parents. I thought how my mum and dad lived was totally normal.’
‘Of course you did. But how could you think otherwise? We all of us grow up with what we think as normal because it’s normalfor us.It’s only when we branch out in life, see a bit of the world, that we find out every family has its own eccentricities and other people do things differently. My family are the same. Graham can’t get over some of their quirks.’
‘Just that my family had someextremequirks.’
‘That they did, babe. Just as my poor little Alfie thinks it’s perfectly natural for him to go to bed at the same time as his three-year-old sister just so his old dad and me can have a five-minute breather, a glass of red and a ready meal.’ Donna giggled. ‘Poor old sod. He’ll only find out once he gets to uni how wrong that is.’
Callie giggled. Talking to Donna always set her right. ‘Not sure that’s a quirk, more of a survival tactic. How are the other two?’
‘No problem at all. Like all good teenagers they stay in their rooms, glued to their screens, only emerging for the odd snort and shuffle.’
Callie smiled. She knew Donna was exaggerating.
‘It sounds as if you’re really worried, Cal?’
Callie heard the clink of glass on glass again. Donna must be pouring herself another. ‘I’m beginning to realise how much it’s been nose to the grindstone all my life. All work, no joy, just to actually survive.’
‘But you live as well. You come to choir, go to the theatre. We go out for a drink when we can.’
‘I think I want more than that, Donna.’ Callie chewed her lip. ‘I think,’ she paused and then went on more decisively as the idea took hold, ‘I think I want a change of direction. A new beginning. I’m really terrified I’m going to end up like my parents, sitting on a thirty-year-old sofa which has been preserved with plastic–’
‘If you lived with a messy three-year-old you wouldn’t knock a plastic sofa cover.’
‘I know. I know. That’s not what I meant. Oh, I don’t know what Idomean. I just feel scratchy and unsettled. I want change but I’m terrified to make it happen.’
‘Well, there’s a lot to consider,’ Donna said thoughtfully. ‘Are you talking about giving up teaching?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You can’t do that without thinking through the consequences. Eating is quite important for instance. How are you going to pay the mortgage? And what about Frida? This Grace Grosvenor, she sounds a character, but life was different back in the sixties. And I bet she came from a well-heeled background.’
‘I think she did.’
‘So had the comfort of mummy and daddy’s money to fall back on, not to mention her wealthy husband. And jobs were easier to pick up and drop back then; you knew there was another one in the pipeline. I know Graham’s dad got through about fifteen jobs in his twenties before he settled on one. We’re all a bit more constricted now. Can’t just give up a job cos there’s no guarantee you’ll walk into another one.’
‘Yes.’ Callie tried to keep the defeat from her voice. It was the truth, but she didn’t want to hear it. She couldn’t give up teaching just like that. She had to be realistic.
‘Soz, babe. I lapsed into the speech I give the kids when they moan about their exams. I’m trying not to be the pushy parent but the sort of world they’ll inherit frightens the bejeezus out of me. If you want my opinion, I don’t think for a minute you’ve been damaged by your parents. You’ve coped brilliantly with what life has thrown at you, made of it what you can–’
