After the Storm (All I've Ever Needed)(13)

“I know he won’t.”

“He will be upset, but you have to live your life to please yourself, honey.” Her mother squeezed her hand as if willing her to be strong. “If your Stephano is a good man and he treats you well, your father will come around. Just give him time.”

“I hope so.” Natalie wasn’t so sure that time would make a difference.

“Honey, your dad is old fashioned in many ways, but he’s not going to disown you if you don’t date a black man.” Her mother turned so that she was facing Natalie fully. “Just don’t accept anything less from a white man than you’d expect from a black man.”

“Mum, I would never do that!” Natalie protested instinctively.

“I’m glad to hear it. I would be disappointed otherwise.”

***

As she drove back to her flat in Fulham that evening, Natalie thought about her mother’s parting words. Would she be accepting less from Stephano than she would from a black man? Not compared to her relationship with Michael. She hadn’t known about his girlfriend Melissa and even when he told Natalie that she wasn’t good enough to be his main girlfriend, Michael hadn’t given her a choice to end their relationship. With Stephano she would choose to be the other woman, or not.

As usual, the thought of Michael make Natalie grit her teeth unconsciously. It had been a dark period in her life. He had sensed her little insecurities—her shyness, her height, her dark skin and short hair—and fed them until they’d become phobias.

The only person she’d never been shy with was Nathan. She was seventeen months old when he was born and she’d loved him from the time she’d laid eyes on him, looking like one of her dolls come to live. They had shared a bedroom and did everything together until their parents moved to a larger house when she was nine. It was a safer neighborhood and Nathan started to spend more time outdoors playing with friends. At first, missing Nathan, she had spent time cuddled into her father’s side whenever he was home, having him read to her or reading one of her books as he watched the news or sport on TV. He was an innately shy man and though he masked it effectively, she’d recognized the shared trait. But gradually she began spending more and more time in her bedroom which had been painted the soft pink of her choice. She discovered teen romances two summers before she was officially old enough to read them and spent every spare minute in her bedroom reading one after the other. On returning to school the next term, she’d found it difficult to connect with her friends. And as the years went by it became increasingly difficult after each school holiday. By the time she’d left to go to university she’d had no close friends at school.

Her mother was a beautiful, confident woman who couldn’t understand her child’s reticence. She delighted in telling her children how she had ‘hooked’ their father when he had come to Trinidad for carnival one year. She had seen him at a party and decided that she wanted him, so she put some extra movement in her waist as she danced and he had come over and asked her for a dance. Less than a year later he had returned to the island to marry her and bring her back to the UK.

Her father, convinced that Natalie would master her shyness, had constantly told his wife to stop worrying. Her mother had thought differently and though Natalie hadn’t applied for any out-of-London universities, intending to live at home and travel to lectures daily, her mother had insisted that she spend the first year at least living in student halls of residence.

Intellectually Natalie had understood her mother’s actions were motivated only by her concern—she’d thought forcing her daughter to fend for herself in the outside would prepare her for live as an adult—but it had been hard not to feel resentful. She had been unable to sleep at first in a room that was so small it felt as though the walls were closing in on her. When she finally dropped off to sleep she was often rudely awoken by loud noises or laughter coming from adjoining students’ rooms. She’d been too proud to plead with her parents to go back home and after the initial shock of having to fend for herself, she began to really enjoy the freedom of having her own place.

Michael Evans hadn’t been the image of the man she’d imagined would be her first boyfriend, except for the fact that he was unfairly good looking in a way that most vertically-challenged men seemed to be. She had certainly never been attracted to guys who pumped their bodies up, expanding it sideways in an effort to make up for what they thought it lacked lengthways.

Like Natalie, he had been one of the sixteen students in the large undergraduate class starting the four year Master’s program. He’d no interest in her except as a sort of walking encyclopedia and someone to borrow a missed lesson notes from when he slept in late and didn’t make an early morning class, until a group conversation about first-time sex changed everything. Natalie had attempted nonchalance, trying to give the impression that she had no wish to discuss her sex life, but the attempt had failed miserably as she had stammered out the words. Michael had sat up and looked at her as though seeing her for the first time.