Frida sprang up. ‘But I never asked you to do that. I wanted you, wanted your time. I would have been happy with beans on toast every night if it meant you had more time for me.’
Furious tears constricted Callie’s throat. ‘I was working, Frida. I was working for you. If I didn’t work how do you think the mortgage would be paid? How would we have fitted that new boiler we had to have last winter? Where would your expensive trainers come from? Your salary from Price’s doesn’t run to all the designer gear you say you have to have.’ She clutched herchest in actual pain. ‘Don’t you think I battled every day, every single day, with the guilt I felt about putting you in nursery, into after school clubs, so I could work? Having dreams is all very well but sometimes life doesn’t work out the way you want. I don’t want to stamp on your dreams, Frida, I really don’t, I just think we need to discuss this, consider it more carefully.’
‘Yourlife didn’t work out the way you wanted, you mean.’ Frida was yelling and crying now, slapping her hips in agitation. ‘But I’ve got dreams and when else am I going to pursue them if not now, when I’m young enough not to have too many responsibilities?Youwere trapped but I’m not. I’m free to do what I want and what I want is to go to uni and study journalism!’
Frida flung open the bedroom door and thumped downstairs. The front door slammed, making the cottage vibrate. Callie winced. Then she began to shake. She’d never seen Frida like this, not even in the so-called difficult teenage years. She’d always thought she and her daughter could talk through anything. Covering her face with her hands, she began to rock.
What had just happened? It was spoiled brat behaviour and Frida wasn’t like that. Had never been like that. Was she being influenced by others? By Leah in Ibiza? Was she finally breaking away from her mother, and could only do this by wounding? The comments about money Callie could dismiss as being from someone young and inexperienced, but it was the anguish that Frida expressed about not having enough of her time when growing up that really speared. Surely, when she’d calmed down, she’d see that what Callie had had to do was inescapable. She hadn’t a choice.
Callie found a tissue and wiped her eyes. Rising on trembling legs, she went to the window and stared sightlessly out. She had had choices. She could have not gone through with thepregnancy, as had been her first plan. She’d never told Frida that she’d considered a termination – how could she? Only Donna knew the whole situation.
Maybe she should have continued living with her parents? It might have been easier. She doubted they would have been as dramatic as to actually throw her out. They would, however, have found a million other ways to niggle, to get at her, to damage Frida and all with a vile racist subtext. Frida would have grown up believing herself to be a lesser creature, a stain on their dull, penny-pinching lives.
Instead, she’d taken their money and escaped. At the time she’d thought she was better off without them. But she’d robbed her child of family, of grandparents. Instead, she left her precious child in the care of strangers. Would Frida have been happier being looked after by her grandmother? Would she have felt less neglected? In some ways it would have been far easier for Callie, knowing Frida was with family. Childcare had been a constant battle in her life. She knew it was for Donna too. An endless juggling of timing, finding the right setting, not to mention the cost. But, unlike Donna, Callie had no one else to share the load. Had she stayed with her parents she would have had childcare on tap. But at what cost to her daughter and her own mental health? No, she couldn’t have inflicted on her daughter the childhood she’d endured. She just hoped, when Frida had calmed down, she would see that.
Hugging her arms, a vision of her mother’s disapproving thin lipped expression rose. When she’d explained she was going to take a degree and teach art there had been an appalling argument. It had been about money.
‘Get a job,’ her mother had screeched. ‘A nine-to-five job which pays. You’ll get nowhere teaching art. People don’t want art, you silly girl. Where’s this idea come from? Folk want televisions and fridges. They want something useful. Not somedaft thing to hang on a wall. If you have to go off and get some degree or other, get one in something which pays; accounting or business studies.’
And, with a sickening jolt, Callie realised she had just given the same argument to Frida. She’d crushed her daughter’s hopes and ambitions by concentrating on money. She’d turned into her mother.
Twenty-Seven
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON 21ST AUGUST
Pablo Picasso 1881–1973
Charismatic and influential Spanish artist. Long career with many notable works including Guernica – depiction of the bombing of the city during Spanish Civil War. Skim over his treatment of women but discuss if we can separate genius from behaviour. Can students think of any contemporary examples?
(Taken from Calliope Thorne’s teaching notes.)
For the next few days Sea Haven House existed in a state of silent unease.
Johnny, having tried to talk to Callie and being rebuffed, spent little time in the cottage. She’d heard him having long conversations on his phone in his room. They’d sounded intimate. Maybe he was trying his charms on another woman?
Frida left at first light, ate at the café and came home smelling of the pub late at night. Refusing to talk to Callie, she kept her eyes to the floor and her back turned in the big double bed.
The weather remained warm but there was a horrible dry wind which made everyone bad-tempered and irritable. Austin Ruddick, having come across Callie painting in the public gardens, stopped to fill her in on his granddaughter’s recovery and to warn her there was a storm coming. Judging from the mood in Sea Haven House, Callie thought gloomily, the storm was already here and showed no sign of passing.
The first fat drops of rain fell as she made her way back to the cottage. It was the night of the awards ceremony at the Art School and she needed to get ready. She had little enthusiasm as she jogged down God Almighty Hill from the gardens trying to protect her painting gear from the rain. As she passed Sandy Vistas the evening of the Starlings’ lovely party seemed an entire existence ago. Callie wondered if Dorrie and Sid were even still in Lullbury Bay. For a tiny moment she’d enjoyed being swept up in their eccentric, chaotic, theatricality. Loving the feeling of being, in however peripheral a way, part of a family.
‘It was all make-believe,’ she murmured, hurrying past. ‘Do the awards ceremony, get out of Dodge and get yourself back to real life.’
She dropped her stuff by the front door and eased off her shoes. Hearing voices coming from the kitchen diner she emitted a groan. That was all she needed. Frida, or possibly Johnny, had friends round. Putting the thought of a hot mug of tea to one side she made to go upstairs for a shower. As her foot landed on the first tread the old wooden stair creaked.
‘That you, Mum? We’re in here.’
Callie went through, heart lifting that her daughter seemed to be speaking to her again. And then stopped dead. Sitting on one of the sand-coloured sofas, mug in hand, was a man she’d thought she’d left in the past. The distant past.
Sunil.
She sank back against the kitchen cupboard, her legs so weak she didn’t think they’d hold her weight.
‘Come and sit down, Mum. I’ll get you a brew.’ Frida leaped up, took her mother by the arm and guided her gently to the sofa opposite Sunil’s. ‘You’re as white as a sheet.’
Callie collapsed onto the sofa still unable to speak.
‘Callie, it’s been a while.’
