Sure Thing (6 page)

“Not nothing, love. A whole lot of something. Like you.” Tom has come back alongside, his arm once more casually over my shoulders. “We’ll go for a spin together later if you like.”

I nod, still struck dumb, but already anticipating the thrill of riding my own machine. And what a superb beast it really is—Nathan Darke has done me proud. I remember my manners at last.

“Thank you. Thank you very much. It’s beautiful. A lovely present. So thoughtful, it’s just what I needed.”

Nathan’s smile is warm, friendly. He lifts an excited Rosie up to sit on my new pride and joy. “No problem, least I could do.”

“My presents are inside.” Tom’s voice is low as he murmurs in my ear. “Are you ready for more excitement?”

“More presents? Really?” I realize I sound like an excited little girl, but I can’t help it. I turn and fling my arms around his neck. “God, can this day get any better?”

“I think it probably can, love. Come on.” Tom takes my hand and leads me back into the kitchen, the rest of our entourage trailing behind us.

I’m still clutching the key to my wonderful new quad bike and imagining the fun I’m going to have on it as we all seat ourselves around the kitchen table again. Tom kisses me on the forehead before stepping over to the Aga. Crouching down, he reaches around the side of it, pulling out a large cardboard box. The flaps at the top are open and he peeps inside before lifting the box up and placing it gently on the table in front of me.

“You can have either or both of them,” he says softly. Intrigued, I stand up to peer over the top of the box. And squeal with delight when I see what’s inside.

Two pairs of wide blue eyes stare curiously back at me. Two beautiful kittens, one gray and white, the other coal black, are sitting nervously in the box, and they start to squeak and yowl as soon as they realize there’s daylight out here. The gray and white one, the most daring, stands on its hind legs and tries to scramble out of the box and I reach for it instinctively to haul it out, clutching it to me. Awkwardly, juggling one kitten I reach back, pull the other one out too and sit there, both kittens squirming against my chest. Tears roll down my cheeks. How did he know? How did he ever know what I most wanted? How lonely and empty my cottage had felt?

“Thank you. Thank you,” I whisper the words, overcome by emotion. Thankfully, no one speaks, allowing me the precious moments I need to collect my scattered wits.

Tom crouches in front of me, looking up into my wet gaze. “You’ll be keeping both, then, I guess?”

His lopsided, wonderful smile fills my vision and I lean forward to hug him, burying my face in his shoulder. “Yes, yes please.”

“Good. Do you recognize them? Chloe’s kittens? She hid the other two before I could rescue them and they’ll probably be running wild round my barns for years to come. But I managed to get these two away before she disappeared with them too. They’ve been hand reared since they were about four weeks old—keeping me up at nights—and seem very tame. You should have no trouble domesticating them. The black one’s female, the gray and white is a male. If we talk nice to Dan he’ll probably neuter them for you.”

“Oh, Tom…” It’s all I can manage for now, but it seems to be enough. He gently takes the kittens, handing one to Rosie and the other to Grace before wrapping his arms around me. I hug him, still blinking back tears. Eventually I manage to raise my head enough to look around the room again.

“Oh, God, you must all think I do nothing but cry…”

“There’s nothing wrong with showing how you feel, love”—Grace pats my hand reassuringly—“and I don’t think you’ve done nearly enough of it before. So you’re making up for lost time. You just let it all out.”

“Well, while we’re on this emotional rollercoaster ride, maybe now’s as good a time as any to hit you with our final present.” Tom stands, steps away to his wax jacket hanging on the back of the kitchen door. He pulls out his phone and taps a few buttons before looking back at me. “You ready for this last gift, love? I hope you like this one too. It’s from me and Nathan. A bit unconventional, but seems appropriate for today. I couldn’t work out a way of gift-wrapping it, though.”

Bemused, I stare back at him. “What is it? What do you mean?”

By way of answer he hands me his phone. I glance at the small screen and see it’s an email, dated yesterday, 31st December 2012. Puzzled, I start to scroll down. It’s a message to Nathan, from abroad, which Nathan has forwarded to Tom. The name of the original sender means nothing to me—
Abi Karramin, Avukat
. I recognize the name of the place he’s apparently sent the message from, Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. But what can it have to do with me? I look back at Tom, completely at a loss.

“What is it? I don’t understand.”

He takes the phone back from me, scrolls down a bit further. “This, sweetheart, is the address, email and mobile phone number for one Bajram Balci, hotelier and entrepreneur currently living in Manavgat, a small town in the Antalya region in south-west Turkey. Age forty-four, a widower with two daughters aged nineteen and fifteen. Sound like someone you might like to get to know?”

Nothing, nothing could have ever prepared me for this. Beyond words, I take the phone back and stare at the tiny writing on the screen. My father. My father—a real, living, breathing man. A man with a phone number, email and an address. And daughters. My sisters. A family. I have a family. Tom’s just handed me a family.

Speechless, at first I can only stare at the screen, then back at Tom, at Nathan, at all of them as they watch me. At last I find some words. Not especially erudite, but words nonetheless. “But, how did you…? I don’t understand. How did you find him?”

“Nathan found him. He does a lot of business in Turkey, and Abi Kahraman is his solicitor in Ankara. You gave me a lot of information to go on, I thought we’d track him down easily enough. I asked Nathan to use his local contacts, pull strings if he could, and find out where your father lives now, and good old Abi delivered.”

My gaze swings to Nathan, seated nonchalantly at the table with Rosie on his lap. She has my gray and white kitten in her arms and she’s watching me curiously, clearly a little bemused by all this. She’s not alone.

Nathan picks up the story. “Your father’s quite a prominent man in the Antalya region. A successful businessman, well known. It didn’t take Abi long to find out his contact details and email them back to me.”

“But, it’s been a holiday. Solicitors don’t work holidays…”

“They do for their best clients. We wanted this information to give you for your birthday. Well, Tom did. So I asked Abi to pull out all the stops.”

“So, now you can contact him. Let him know about your mother. Let him know where you’re living now. If you like. It’s up to you, love.” Tom’s voice is gentle, not pushing me.

I look back at the small screen, so full of promise and possibility.
Can I? I could, couldn’t I?

Seized with doubt suddenly, I look around the room, a little desperately perhaps as I start to talk myself out of one of the most momentous opportunities I’ve ever had. “What if he doesn’t want to know? I can’t just phone him out of the blue. What would I say? What if he’s too busy, doesn’t want to talk to me?”

“You could always text him. Then if he doesn’t want to answer he doesn’t have to.” Rosie’s suggestion is brilliant in its simplicity.

I could. I really could do that. A text isn’t intrusive, a text isn’t pushy. Yes, I definitely could do that.

Impulsively, before I’ve time to think it through and inevitably lose my courage or manage to talk myself out of it, I reach into my jeans pocket for my own phone. I quickly punch in the mobile number, carefully including the international code for Turkey as set out in the solicitor’s email, then look expectantly around the room for inspiration about what to write.

“Keep it simple, light. Just tell him you’d like to talk, ask if that’s okay. It’s not going to be a total shock to him, he knows all about you.”

I know Tom’s right, so I jot a short message into the box—

Hello, Bajram. I hope you are well. Could we talk? Sharon (your daughter in England)

I hit send before my courage fails me entirely. Ball in his court now.

And as I look around the room full of smiling faces, I know how happiness feels. What belonging feels like. Whatever my father’s response—and in truth he probably won’t answer at all—it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.

My phone pings before I even have time to slide it back into my pocket, indicating the arrival of a text. I freeze, turn the phone over in my palm. The room is hushed suddenly, all waiting to know if it’s from
him
. And what it says. My heart in my mouth, I focus on the seven tiny words on the screen.

Happy birthday, Sharon. I’ll call you. Bajram.

He’s answered! He wants to talk to me too. My father, my half-sisters. I’d known he was out there somewhere but I never, ever considered that I could contact him, initiate a conversation. And that if I did get in touch with him, that my approach would be welcomed.

I put my phone down on the table, staring at it, wondering how long I’ll have to wait to hear from him again. Texting’s easy, no need to plan and prepare for that. Rosie was right, a text isn’t a big deal. It was easy to do and easy for him to respond to. But a phone call—now that’s heavy. That’s much harder. Much more difficult to control, to manage. Eager now to talk, now that the first move has been made, and reciprocated, I’m just starting to wonder if, perhaps, I could make the first move again, maybe I could phone him, when the ringtone starts. It’s quiet at first but gaining strength and volume as I just continue to stare, transfixed.

Tom grabs the phone and hits “answer” an instant before it goes to voicemail. He hands the phone back to me, winks. He’s seen, as I saw, that the call is international. My gaze fixed on Tom’s, I raise the phone to my ear.

“Hello?” My tentative greeting is barely audible.

“Good afternoon. Is this Sharon?” The heavily accented, male voice on the other end is strong and steady.

“Yes, yes, I’m Sharon.” I ignore the surprised faces around me. Only Tom, and possibly Nathan, know about my decision to be known as Ashley rather than using my original, ‘real’ name. There would have been no point introducing myself to Bajram as anything other than Sharon.

“Thank you for your text, Sharon.” He pronounced my name with the accent on the last syllable, and I smile, it’s both intimate and remote, as though he knows me, knows of me—which of course he does—but is not accustomed to saying my name. His English is slow but perfect.

Not sure what to say, I just mumble something about being glad he got it, glad he answered.

“Of course I would answer you, my daughter. Particularly on this special day when you are twenty-one. I was just thinking of you, and then you send your message to me. A gift from God.”

Thinking of me? A gift from God? Wow!

With an effort I manage to regain my voice, contribute something to the conversation.

“You knew? You knew it was my birthday today?”
Of course he does, he always sends me cards.

“Yes, Sharon, I know when your birthday is. Susan tells me, she keeps in touch always.”

I note he manages to pronounce my mother’s name correctly. He obviously had it drummed into him years ago during their passionate few months together. And I also realize that he has no idea that she’s gone, that she’s dead. His next question clinches it.

“Is she there? Your mother?”

I pause, take a breath, then, “No, no she isn’t. I’m afraid, I’m sorry, I… My mother died. She died in March, a road accident. I’m sorry—I should have let you know.”

“Sharon, that is bad news. Very bad. I loved your mother, she was—beautiful. As you are, I know from your pictures. We spoke often, Susan and I. She told me all about you, sent me pictures. She gave you my cards, yes? And presents?”

His reaction is more than I might have expected, given that to my knowledge they never saw each other again after my mother returned to the UK before I was born.

“Yes, yes, she did. Thank you.”

“And she had no other children, no?”

“No, just me.”

“And I know your grandparents are dead also. Do you have others? Other family to take care of you?”

“No, no other family.” But as I look around the room I can see I have friends. And for now, that will do fine.

The rest of my twenty-first birthday passed in a sort of heady dream. After a stilted start, I found my father incredibly easy to chat to. He was interested in me, and already knew quite a lot about me. He even knew about baby David, though not my stay at Her Majesty’s pleasure. My mother was clearly in regular contact with him more or less up to her death. Many respectable marriages are less durable than their somewhat unorthodox relationship was, it would seem.

Bajram’s other two daughters, my younger half-sisters, were in the room with him when he phoned me and he suggested putting our conversation on speaker phone for them to join in too. That was my cue to do the same at my end, and soon all eight of us were chatting as if we’d known each other for years. Some of us sort of had.

Bajram soon sussed the relationship between Tom and I, and quizzed him quite closely regarding his prospects and intentions. It was all rather quaint, and to his credit Tom was incredibly polite to my new-found father. He promised to take good care of me when pressed and I daresay he was sincere, although I couldn’t help but wonder if Bajram would have included whips and spanking within that definition. My mother, too, would be turning in her grave if she knew what I was contemplating. And she would be positively spinning if she knew how much I was looking forward to it.

Chapter Five

The party breaks up after an hour or so as Nathan and his household get ready to drift off back to Black Combe, taking Barney with them. Under no illusion that I probably owe my life to that huge mutt, I’m incredibly sorry to see him go. On impulse I kneel in front of him, which puts his eye level a few inches above mine, and fling my arms around his thick, solid neck. I hug him as I did two nights ago, huddled under that wall out on the cold moor. He endures my attentions stoically enough. Then Rosie comes up with another of her brilliant ideas.