Hi @bellou61. Thank you for joining the contest! You have received some great feedback so far. I will add mine.

You have chosen a great concept to work with. I think you need to play it out and give us the full resolution in the end. What is it they learn about their past?

But to back up a bit, as recommended by others, you could tighten up the opening and the narrative to ensure you have the available word count toward the end. I also recommend that you replace some of the narrative with action and dialog, instead of telling so much of the story in summary form. There's a great article in our catalog of fiction writing tips that can help you with this, called Action, Dialog and Narrative: The Dynamic Trio.

Additionally, there are some typos and other issues throughout to fix in your final draft:

they had made their life here, given their children ‘British’ Names and ‘fitted in’.

The past tense of “fit” is actually “fit,” not “fitted”. If that sounds awkward, could write it as “and made sure they fit in.”

There are a few places where you used ALL CAPS for emphasis. It's not necessary, but if you do want to emphasize something in dialog, a better method is italics, which you can create with asterisks on each side. In the following, the period should be a question mark inside the quotation marks:

“We’re clearly Indian,” said Linda “but where exactly FROM”.

Likewise, the period should be inside the quotes at the end of this:

“We’re here now and you were born here. You’re British. It’s a long way away”.

There are several places where you unnecessarily place words in single quotes. There is no reason to do that, as it suggests some interpretation or point of view on these words that is never explained. For example:

and marrying ‘white’ boys

They had enjoyed ‘good’ lives.

‘Speaking nicely’ was the number one requirement in their household.

They would be met by ‘cousins’ at the airport.

The story is told in past tense, so "spend" in this paragraph must be "spent":

Both married boys from the building society where they worked together, had a boy and a girl each and enjoyed the comforts of a modern home in Solihull and the two families spend a lot of time together.

I also recommend breaking up the sentence above into two or three shorter sentences.

The story is primarily told in omniscient perspective, which means we don't see the events of the story through any particular character's point of view. To be consistent in this narrative style, you will need to omit expressions that indicate thoughts or feelings of any of the characters. For example, in the following, "sadly" does not work:

Just the three of them now; Christine’s husband Phillip sadly died two years before, so it was just Christine, Linda, and Linda’s husband Paul.

I think in the above sentence you can also omit the leading phrase before the semi-colon as that very idea is stated another way later in the sentence.

Also note that your story would likely be stronger and more impactful if you chose to tell it in third person from the point of view of either Linda or Christine. (I nominate Christine! I'll share why later.) Then we would experience the thoughts and feelings around the story's conflict more fully. It's completely up to you, of course. But I find that omniscient perspective is very difficult to do well, and I personally find stories told from one protagonist's point of view to be much richer. I think we readers feel more.

The following has some awkwardness you might want to edit:

“Mum mentioned a waterfall once she had seen when she was a child”, said Linda when they were there, but that was where it had stopped.

Maybe "she had seen once"? The comma needs to go inside the quotation mark. And I recommend making the last phrase its own sentence.

In the following I don't really understand the second sentence (and it's not a complete sentence):

Known as Sherry and Jay King to their friends they spent time playing tennis and having ‘a few friends around for drinks’. The former activity mostly merging into the latter.

Here, the word "decided" should be "decidedly."

In the following, I'm not sure what Midland's life is. It's written as a possessive, so it's the life of Midland. I've never heard that term, but maybe it's common in another culture. (Also Grandchildren's would not be capitalized as it is not a proper noun.)

With marriage and Midlands’s life this had tempered, and Christine found herself having to correct her Grandchildren’s grammar at times.

At this point, you move into Christine's point of view, and out of omniscient perspective.

There seemed no reason to upset the applecart by seeking an unknown identity which had obviously been rejected by their parents many years ago as they sought a new world and a new life.

This is not a bad thing. It's just not consistent with the story. I recommend you convert your story to her point of view throughout, as this portion of the story is told really well as her story.

You have some punctuation issues here:

“Grandma “, said Michael ‘Can I talk to you?’.

The comma must go inside the quotation mark. There's a period missing after Michael, and there's an extraneous period after the question.

This is the most delightful moment in your whole story:

Christine looked up from her crochet hoping this wouldn’t be about the birds and the bees. Her friend Pauline said these were the most difficult questions and took a bit of ducking and diving.

See how much more powerful your writing is when it's told from one character's viewpoint?

Extra period:

“What is it darling?”.

This expression is kind of odd. It's not clear why Christine says "not exactly a long time ago":

“Not exactly a long time ago but we are from here. From England.”

Your story suddenly becomes interesting when you get into the DNA test, the action of Christine collecting her spit and waiting for the results, and the fact that this portion of the story is told in her viewpoint. At last, there is a mix of dialog, action and narrative that keeps us interested. The front-end of the story could be tightened up and written in this style to great effect!

Punctuation issues:

“How exciting!”, said Linda. “Let’s go and meet them!”.

There should not be a comma after the quote with the exclamation point, and there should not be a period at the end.

In the following "had got" must be changed to "had gotten."

She had got them passports, visas and even vaccinations.

There are a few issues with the following:

Never having travelled abroad before Linda and Christine enjoyed the flight from Heathrow with all the flights meals and entertainment. Getting off the plan at Chennai two men approached them before they had even gone through customs and passed a note to Christine.

You need a comma after "before," and after "flights." The word "plan" should be "plane." And the sentence starting with "Getting off the plane at Chennai, two men approached them," doesn't work because it indicates that it is the two men getting off the plane. It would have to be changed to "When Linda and Christine got off the plane" or "When the ladies got off the plane."

Oh my, this is SO long. I got started and then decided to go ahead and be thorough. I'm sure you probably wrote it pretty fast, and intended to make improvements in the final draft, but I wanted to be sure to give you as much support in doing so as possible.

I do hope this is helpful. Good luck in the contest!