The Many Colours of Us: The perfect heart-warming debut about love and family

I’ve never had a proper conversation with my mother about her life before I was born. When I was little, her past had been something that seemed glamorous and mysterious, that I was too young to understand. All her old headshots and magazine covers were kept in pink filing boxes at the bottom of the wardrobe in the smallest bedroom at the top of the house that my mother ostentatiously refers to as her office. As a child, I used to go through these boxes in secret, looking in awe at pictures of my mother advertising make-up, modelling on the catwalk, arriving at parties. I never heard any stories about those times, even when I pushed and pushed to be told. My mother just smiled sadly and changed the subject.

These days, of course, it only takes a simple internet search to realise how famous Philadelphia Simmonds was and how quickly she had fallen from grace. In the early 80s nobody was interested in a model with a child. If there wasn’t a husband, then there wasn’t a six-page magazine spread either.

My mother went from being one of the most famous faces on the planet to has-been in one fell swoop and all by the time she was my age.

No amount of internet searching or scouring old newspapers and library records has ever given anything away about who my father was. God knows I’ve searched enough over the years.

My earliest memory is from 1986, my third birthday. It’s summer, twilight, but still warm. I’m wearing a sundress with red dots and I’m barefoot. We are in the garden and there are dozens of people everywhere, inside and out. Philadelphia Simmonds’s parties were legendary, perhaps less so in the 80s than they had been in the 70s but infamous nonetheless.

The air is thick with smoke and laughter and music, so much wonderful music. There is a song playing that I really love and I ask for it to be played again and again while a man with long dark hair and a beard that tickles my cheek spins me round and round. Whenever I think about it I can still smell the faint aroma of spice and turps that surrounded him. He tells me the song is called Penny Lane and I tell him I like the bit about the fire engine best.

And then the memory disappears. I can’t work out what happened to the man with the beard or who he was. Whenever I’ve asked my mother about it she claims she doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

Part of me has always liked to daydream that the Penny Lane guy was my dad and that he had to go away on some secret mission, or something equally romantic. Suddenly today I’m wondering if he was, in fact, my father. If that guy with the long hair and beard was Bruce Baldwin circa 1986. I know absolutely nothing about Bruce Baldwin – I didn’t even recognise the name when my mother first mentioned him, but as Pen said, I’m an absolute philistine when it comes to art. I know that picture of the melting clocks was by Salvador Dalí, but that really is the limit of my knowledge.

If the guy from my third birthday is Bruce Baldwin I’m sure Google Images could let me know quickly. But right now I don’t want to find out, because if that isn’t him then the only thing I’ve held on to from childhood will be a lie.

The practical side of motherhood did not always come easily to Philadelphia Simmonds. While she was always there for kisses, cuddles and games, it was often her long-suffering personal assistant Johnny who was there for the big moments in my life. It was Johnny who bought my first school uniform, who took me to school on my first day, who was there when I opened my GCSE and A Level results. It was Johnny who met me off the train at Kings Cross when I came back from my interview at Cambridge University. He stood on the platform in his little pebble glasses and his perfectly pressed handmade suit bearing a huge bunch of flowers and a big grin. He was the nearest thing I had to a father, even if he did get paid to do it.

So, as I sit down at the kitchen island, my mother’s note in front of me, and pull my phone out of my handbag, it’s Johnny I ring first.

He picks up on the second ring.

‘Hello, sweet girl, I was expecting your call. How are you?’

‘Did you know?’ I ask, even though he must have done.

Johnny pauses for long enough for me to realise he knows exactly what’s going on and is now trying to work out where his loyalties lie. ‘You’ve been to see Edwin then,’ he says. It doesn’t sound like a question.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I demand.

‘I think you already know the answer to that.’

I don’t know what to say and I really don’t want to take my anger out on Johnny, who was just doing his job.

‘Julia,’ he says, interrupting my thoughts.

‘How long have you known?’ I ask.

‘I’ve always known. I couldn’t tell you; I promised your mother I wouldn’t tell you.’

‘And she left it to her lawyer to tell me?’

‘Well, to be honest, I wasn’t happy about that. I begged her not to go to New York. I begged her to tell you herself.’

I know as well as anyone that if my mother has her mind set on something wild horses aren’t going to change it.

‘Do you want me to come over?’ he asks.

I sigh. ‘No. I think I need a bit of time alone to get my head around all this. And apparently there’s a lot of legal stuff to go through.’

‘You take all the time you need,’ he replies. ‘You know where I am if you need me.’ He always has been way too understanding with both me and Mum.

‘And, Johnny,’ I say before he hangs up, ‘tell Mum to come home.’

I sit in the kitchen with my phone in my hand – wondering what to do with myself to avoid thinking about what I found out this morning – when it suddenly starts ringing. Alec’s name flashes up on the screen.

‘Hey, you,’ I answer.

‘Julia, where are you?’ Alec, my boyfriend of the last decade is an academic at Cambridge University and muddles through life in a sort of hurried bemusement. He clearly wasn’t listening last night when I told him where I’d be today.

‘In London – I told you. I had to see that solicitor.’

‘But your phone has been off all morning. I need to talk to you. When are you coming home?’

I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. I’d been expecting Mum to be here and had taken a few days off work to see her. I’m sure I told Alec this yesterday, but after ten years together he still doesn’t listen.

‘I don’t…’ I begin, but Alec butts in as usual.

‘Look I’m free tomorrow evening. Have dinner with me, will you?’

I pause, thinking. Now my mother is across the Atlantic, I don’t have to be anywhere in particular until my next meeting at Jones & Cartwright at the end of the week. I may as well go back to Cambridge. Back home.

‘Julia,’ he says impatiently.

‘Yes, sorry! Tomorrow’s fine. Shall I meet you at the college?’

‘Yes, about eight. See you then.’ And he rings off.

It isn’t until he’s gone that I realise he didn’t even ask me what the solicitor wanted.

6th June 1986

My dearest daughter,

Today I held you in my arms for the first time since the day you were born three years ago. You didn’t know who I was and something tells me it will be a long time before you do, but it was a joy to be with you on your special day.

I don’t know much about children – I haven’t ever had the chance to learn – and I don’t know how much you will remember about today, but I will carry it with me for the rest of my life.

Today marks sixty days of sobriety for me, which is the longest stretch in a long, long time. I think that’s why your mother let me see you. I’m staying clean this time, my darling girl, just for you and the hope that if I do, I will get to see you more and more.

There were so many people at the party that I’m sure you won’t remember me. All your mother’s friends were there. I can’t keep up any more with who lives at the house and who doesn’t. I only had eyes for you anyway.

Do you remember dancing with me? Perhaps you do, perhaps you don’t. You said my beard tickled. We danced to Penny Lane by the Beatles; you asked for it to be played three times. You loved the bit about the fire engine.

You fell asleep before the sun set, exhausted from the excitement, the presents, the music and too much sugar. Somebody, probably Johnny, carried you to bed and the party went on late into the night. It may have gone on until dawn for all I know. Once you were no longer there I wasn’t interested in the temptations of a Campden Hill Road party, not like I used to be.

I tried to talk to Delph. I tried to ask her to let me see you. I asked if I could take you out sometime, just to the park or something. I said I would never tell you who I was but she was adamant. There was nothing I could do.

But I will always love you.

Happy Birthday, Princess.

I hope we will see each other again soon.

Your Father

Chapter 3

‘You couldn’t make it up!’ Graeme exclaims in astonishment, as he reaches over for another cupcake. I’m sitting opposite him and Pen, my two best friends, trying to tell them about Edwin Jones’s news.

‘And it’s a damn sight better than that elephant’s foot,’ Pen interjects.

Pen and I have been friends for years. We live together in Cambridge and Graeme often comes along for the ride. We all used to work in this café together. I was still a student at the time and am several years younger than both of them. I met Pen the summer before my final year at university. I hadn’t wanted to go back to London that summer; I couldn’t face three months living with my mother, and Pen was looking to rent out the spare bedroom of the house she’d recently inherited from her grandmother.

The café was always looking for new waiting staff, even clumsy hopeless ones like me, so the job came with the room. After I graduated I moved into Pen’s house and the waitressing job full-time. I don’t think she realises how grateful I am to her. She helped me find some independence when I needed it most.

Pen and Graeme run the place these days, whereas I have moved on to the headier heights of paralegal work at one of the big law firms in the centre of Cambridge. I’ve worked my way up from office junior over the last eight years. After university I’d been intending to go to law school and working at the office was supposed to give me some experience. I hadn’t intended to stay there for eight years.

When I worked here the café was one of those ‘Olde Worlde’ tearooms that historic cities love so much. You know the type: scones and cream and white lacy aprons. It had been there for as long as anyone could remember. Just after I left the owner died and the café was bought out by an American, who turned it into a 1950s’ diner, complete with neon signage, old-fashioned jukeboxes, and huge milkshakes.

Cambridge is divided into people who love it and people who think it’s the worst thing to have happened to the city in 800 years. There was so much correspondence about it in the local paper when it first opened that the editor had to call an end to any more letters on the subject. I’m mostly glad I don’t have to work here any more; I’m far too tall for the vintage uniforms.

Creamadelica, as it’s now called, has become one of the busiest cafés in town over the last few years and the three of us are squeezed into one of the hot-pink, faux-leather booths during a lull in service.

‘All my life I’ve wondered who my father was and now it turns out he’s dead and everyone has heard of him but me.’

‘Had you really never heard of Bruce Baldwin?’ Graeme asks.

I shake my head. Somehow this famous Turner-prize-winning artist has passed me by. I wonder how this has happened. It seems Bruce Baldwin was famous enough that even people who weren’t that into art have heard of him, like that guy who pickled a cow when I was a kid. Sometimes I feel as though so much has passed me by.

I realise Graeme is waxing lyrical about my father. Turns out he’s something of an art buff.

‘He held one final exhibition last autumn. He knew he was dying by then I suppose, so he had this big installation at the Tate Modern. Do you really not remember me talking about it, Julia?’

I shake my head again. Graeme talks a lot about a lot of different things. It’s mostly impossible to keep up with him. I notice Pen is staring out of the window; she finds it hard to keep up with him too.

‘I went along because rumour had it that it was his last exhibition. God, it was just wonderful. He left all his work to the Tate, right?’

I realise he’s asking me a question. ‘Everything that isn’t privately owned, yes,’ I reply, trying to remember what Edwin had told me. ‘It’s all in my name now, which is rather mind-boggling, but it lives at the Tate.’

Graeme nods and carries on and I realise that he’s quite passionate about Bruce Baldwin’s work. Pen and I exchange a glance. Who knew?

‘He’d created these huge, larger than life abstract paintings of kids on their own. Not lost or anything, just ignored or lonely. It was incredibly haunting. He called it…’ He stops mid-flow, which is very unlike him.

‘What?’ I say, realising they are both looking at me and my untouched cupcake.

His voice is quieter now, less animated. ‘It was called Lost Daughters.’

I feel like the air has been knocked out of me. I can hear Pen and Graeme talking but it’s as though they are under water. I haven’t had any time to think about any of this. When I’d got back to Cambridge at lunchtime I’d hardly had time to unpack my bag before meeting up with Pen and Graeme at the café.

I keep feeling waves of grief and anger and confusion, most of them directed at my mother, some of them at Johnny. And every now and then there’s another feeling, like the very beginnings of butterflies, whenever I let my mind drift back to Edwin Jones.

‘Julia,’ Pen is trying to get my attention. ‘I’ve got to get back to work. Are you going to be OK?’

‘Yes…’ I force a smile ‘…of course. I should get going myself I guess. I’m meant to be having dinner with Alec tonight.’

Pen smiles at me vaguely. I have a feeling she’s not really listening.

As I get up to leave Graeme squeezes my hand. ‘You know where we are if you need us?’

I nod.

‘And, Julia?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I eat your cupcake?’

*

Alec is a lecturer in economics and in the middle of writing a very important book. It’s thought he’ll get professorship next academic year and be the youngest professor the Faculty of Economics has ever had. He’s something of a genius in European macroeconomics, lectures all over the world and is constantly busy.

While Alec is away at college dinners, giving lectures, flying off to other universities all over the world and Pen and Graeme are busy at the café, I am often left to my own devices. I go to yoga twice a week, even though I’ve still got to convince myself I love it, I joined a book group, even though no-one was ever interested in reading the books I suggested.

It’s unusual, then, for Alec and me to see each other during the week. If I’m honest, we’ve been seeing less and less of each other over the last few years. While other people my age are getting married, buying houses and having babies, my life seems to have come to a bit of a standstill and my relationship seems to be going backwards.

I know that’s my fault. I know that Alec wanted to get a house together years ago, but I always had an excuse. He said we didn’t have to get married, but I was scared. Just like I was too scared to go to law school. I’ve been feeling for a while I need to make changes and now I’ve turned thirty it’s time I implemented them.

And then like a punch in the gut I remember. The change has happened. It happened yesterday morning in a wood-panelled office in Mayfair. I found out who my father was. I found out that I am, to all intents and purposes, a millionaire.

I take a few breaths, trying to ward off the impending panic. This is what I’ve been waiting for all these years and I have no idea what to do with it.

Although that hideous office job can go for a start.

Alec has this habit of appearing suddenly from nowhere and after ten years he still surprises me. Tonight, as I wait for him outside Trinity College, he’s there suddenly, interrupting my thoughts.

‘Let’s go to the Pickerel,’ he says, nodding towards the pub we’ve been going to since we were students. I’m surprised, as he usually wants to eat somewhere fancier than the pub. He holds my hand as we walk down Bridge Street but doesn’t really say anything. I know this mood. Something’s happened but he doesn’t know how to tell me what it is.

He buys me a glass of Malbec and himself a pint and we find a table. It’s busy in here and hot. It’s been another scorching day.

‘I’ve been offered a new position,’ he says, without preamble, without looking at me.

I knew it.

‘I’m really pleased for you,’ I say, reaching out for his hand and realising that I really am. He’s waited years for this.

He looks away from me, ever so slightly.

‘It’s in America. Harvard. I can’t not take this, Julia. It’s the chance of a lifetime.’

‘Of course you can’t not take it. Harvard! That’s amazing.’ I wasn’t expecting this. I’m trying very hard to be excited and not to sulk because he never told me he was even thinking about Harvard.

He takes another swig of his pint and finally meets my eye.

I suddenly realise what this means.

He puts his pint down and sighs. He takes both my hands in his.

‘Julia.’ He says my name quietly, tenderly. ‘There’s no easy way to say this but I think it’s time we went our separate ways.’

I stare at him. I can feel tears burning the backs of my eyes and I don’t know why. I can’t pretend I wasn’t expecting this eventually.

‘Julia, we’ve been dancing around each other for a decade now. We don’t even live together. I have no idea where you want this to go but we can’t stand still for ever. You can’t stand still for ever.’

‘You know why though,’ I say quietly, blinking to stop the tears coming. ‘You know why I don’t want to get married.’

‘And I always said we didn’t have to,’ he says. ‘But you will never talk about the future. You won’t move in with me and you won’t even consider the idea of a family.’ I can hear resentment in his voice as he forces himself to stop.

I shake my head. Look away from him. I want to tell him that things aren’t standing still any more. I want to tell him who my father is but the words won’t come.

‘Julia, you are one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. And although you might not believe this, I do love you. Part of me probably always will, but I’m setting you free. Go, find out what it is you do want, because I don’t for a moment believe it’s me.’

I still don’t say anything.

‘What happened to us?’ he asks quietly.

I stand up suddenly, pulling my hands away from his.

‘Julia, what are you doing?’ he asks, staring at me.

‘I’m going home,’ I say. ‘Why make this harder than it already is?’

‘Julia, please sit down. Let’s have a meal together, for old time’s sake at least.’

I can’t. I can’t sit here opposite him pretending to have a nice evening and knowing that everything has changed. I open my mouth to say something. I should tell Alec about Edwin, about Bruce Baldwin, but I still seem incapable of forming a sentence.

‘I can’t…’ I hear myself saying.

‘Julia?’

In my hurry to get out of the pub I knock the table. Alec’s pint glass and my red wine tip over, spilling into his lap. For a moment I think I should stay and help.

‘I can’t,’ I say quietly to myself again. I turn around and walk out of the pub. Leave him covered in beer and wine. Alec is fairly well known in Cambridge; plenty of people will help him.

Chapter 4

I’m up early the next morning, long before Pen stirs. I pull on my running gear and creep out without waking her. I lock the door behind me and start a few half-hearted stretches.

It’s another uncharacteristically warm June morning; I love mornings like this, before anyone else is about, when the sky is still hazy from the night before. I watch the cows munching the grass on Midsummer Common and pretend to myself that this is the reason that I stay here, in the smallest room in Pen’s tiny run-down house, because the Common is so beautiful, and because I can see the River Cam from my bedroom window.

This morning the sun glints off the roofs of the houseboats. It was on one of those houseboats, the one with the blue roof, on an equally balmy and unseasonably warm June day, that I first met Alec. I’d just moved into Pen’s house for the summer and I dragged her along to a party that I’d heard was happening down by the river.

It was typical of Pen, being Cambridge born and bred, that despite it being a university party she knew nearly everyone there and it was she who first introduced me to Alec. He was sitting on that blue roof, rolling a spliff, his glasses sliding down his nose, his hair in his eyes. After very informal introductions, Pen drifted off into the twilight. Alec Chisholm was in the final year of his PhD at Trinity and I fell in love with him pretty much at first sight.

He’d swept me off my feet that night. I thought I was one of the lucky ones, someone who’d met the love of their lives at university and would never have to worry about all that dating nonsense. That didn’t work out quite as planned.

Alec had been my biggest cheerleader in the beginning. I hadn’t fitted in at Cambridge at all. Everyone loved the fact I was Philadelphia Simmonds’s illegitimate daughter but I didn’t really bond with anyone until I met Alec. But being with him meant that I was accepted into circles I hadn’t been before, making my final year at Cambridge a lot easier than the first two.

Over the years though, the bond that held us together has ebbed away. We went from being inseparable to a vague weekend companionship and it happened so slowly that neither of us had really acknowledged it until last night. Alec asked what happened to us. I hadn’t answered because last night I didn’t know. But this morning I do. I hadn’t been able to be the person Alec needed me to be. I tried, but there’s only so long we can pretend to be somebody we’re not.

Different people own that houseboat these days but that blue roof will always remind me of Alec. Maybe seeing it every day once he’s gone away will give me the impetus to leave Cambridge once and for all. Right now I don’t feel much impetus to do anything at all.

Except run.

*

Six sweaty miles later and I’m back at the house. Pen is up, sitting in the living room, lost in a world of her own.

‘Penny for them,’ I say.

‘Hmmm?’ She hadn’t realised I was there.

‘Are you OK?’ I ask, realising she had been unusually quiet yesterday as well.

‘Yes, yes, I’m fine.’ She shakes herself, jumping up from the window seat. ‘Tea?’

I nod, slumping down onto the sofa.

She looks at me and I burst into tears.

Pen makes tea as I try to tell her about last night while sniffing and wiping my eyes.

‘Did you tell him about Monday?’ she asks.

‘What happened on Monday?’

‘The lawyer. Bruce Baldwin. The inflated bank balance.’ Pen spells it out, rather incredulous that I seem to have forgotten.

‘Oh. No, I didn’t really get a chance.’

‘Probably for the best,’ she says sensibly. ‘And he’s right, you know.’

‘What?’

‘Look, Julia, I don’t mean to be a bitch or anything…’ (this means she is about to be a bitch) ‘…but Blind Freddie could have seen this one coming.’

Blind Freddie often makes an appearance when Pen is in a certain frame of mind. Once he steps on to the stage there is no point arguing. He is almost always inevitably right.