The Traveller’s Daughter
By
Michelle Vernal
For my sister Rachel for being so brave
Copyright © 2015 Michelle Vernal
All Rights Reserved
No part of this work may be reproduced in any fashion without the express, written consent of the copyright holder.
The Traveller’s Daughter is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed herein are fictitious and are not based on any real persons living or dead.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Alen MacWeeney and his beautiful book Tinker’s No More for providing such a visual insight into the 1960’s world of the Irish Traveller. His referral of Mervyn Ennis meant that I was privileged to read his delightful memoir, Once Upon a Time in Tallaght which inspired some of the stories told in The Traveller’s Daughter. I would also like to thank Vicki Marsdon for her encouragement and invaluable editing pointers that shaped this story into a book I am proud of. The wonderful Irish proverbs I have included throughout this book were provided by Mark’s Quotes.com. Thanks to Tammy Robinson for coming to the rescue and to Lorraine Tipene. Lastly to my lovely Paul and our boys, my writing wouldn’t happen without your ongoing support. Love you guys.
PART 1
Chapter 1
The older the fiddle, the sweeter the tune - Irish Proverb
Rosa’s Journal
Kitty, if you are reading this my darling girl, then we have come full circle. Oh, I’ve sat down so many times and picked up a pen sure that this time I will write my story down for you. You’ll never plough a field by turning it over in your mind though, and I’d always put that pen down again. The problem was that I could never find a place in which to start. The thought of writing down all those words, well it would overwhelm me. So then I would think perhaps it would be better if I just got on a train and came to see you instead.
Yes Rosa old girl, that’s what you should do, I’d tell myself my mind made up. I’d sit you down with a nice, strong cup of tea and give it to you straight. Face to face before it was too late, but then I’d come back to what stopped me writing it all down in the first place. Where should I begin? I think perhaps at last I have realised that therein lies the answer, but I’m not ready, not just yet, and so I’ll digress.
My past was my Pandora’s Box, and while I kept the lid firmly shut on it, I found that I could keep moving forward. Perhaps I shouldn’t have done so but I had my reasons or at least I thought I did. It’s strange the way we humans can twist and turn our actions until they fit inside that box just the way we want them to. I am learning though that this getting older is a funny business and not in a laughing sort of a way either. Its finiteness puts a different perspective on the things we’ve done, and the choices made when one finally stops and looks back at the complicated pattern they’ve weaved throughout life.
I imagine that writing this and getting it off my chest over the next while will be cathartic for me. There’s a nice lady, Sandy something or other who works at the hospice I will go to when it’s time who told me she thought it was a grand idea. She makes a cup of tea the way it should be made, so I trust her judgment. Life is like a cup of tea; it’s all in how you make it.
It was over tea and one of those chocolate biscuits, you know the ones you always loved as a child? Hobnobs, that’s them, that I told her I wasn’t ready to let go. The time wasn’t right, not when I still had things sitting so heavy on my heart. She patted my hand and told me that some people find it easier to write down what needs to be said. It’s easier to be honest with the written word.
She’s a woman of good sense so that’s what I have decided to do because this time I shall just have to get on with it. I don’t have the luxury of procrastination any longer. Sandy’s a kind soul and a brave one too, volunteering the way she does at the hospice, and the next time I popped my head in the door to see her she had this book for me. She knows I love roses, so she chose the cover of it well. I think it makes it look a bit more special like something you might want to keep hold of. She told me I had no excuses to leave anything left unsaid now. That’s another thing about Sandy; she doesn’t mince her words, and she tells you it like it is. I like that about her because what’s the point in someone dressing things up and saying, ‘sure it will all be fine’ when you know full well it won’t be.
Yes, she’s a fine woman, and I am glad she will be there holding my hand when my time comes. She’s promised me that, and I know you will feel it should have been you there with me. I hope when you’ve read all that I have to say though you’ll understand why I couldn’t do that to you. Know this though Kitty, while Sandy will have been of great comfort to me at the end, my thoughts will have been with you. Mother’s hold their children’s hands for just a little while and their hearts forever.
I think it will be the cleansing of a troubled soul that lost its faith a long time ago this business of sitting here putting my story down on paper. I’m hoping that in doing so I will finally be able to let go of the past that has never been very far behind me. For you though my lovely girl, hearing what I have to say might be similar to a child finding out they are adopted years after the event. It might seem like a betrayal of sorts, and perhaps, as I now wonder, you might think that it was an unnecessary secret to have kept from you. I couldn’t go back though, and I knew if I told you where I came from you would want us both to do just that.
Chapter 2
A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse. – Irish Proverb
Kitty
“Oh, Mum who were you?” Kitty Sorenson whispered out loud to the empty room as she stared at the Facebook message blinking back at her from her phone. Only a moment before she had been thinking that she would have to get around to changing her profile picture. The selfie had been posted as all good selfies too often are after a few wines one evening. She’d taken it last year before the proverbial shit had hit the fan. Her grin was huge. She had been happy that day; she thought with a pang conjuring up the carefree feeling of warming up to dance the night away.
It felt like a lifetime ago now though she realised. If anyone had told her as she’d twirled to the music that night what lay ahead for her and Damien she would have told them they were bonkers. Nor would she have believed that she would have been sitting here at her mother’s house at 66 Edgewater Lane on this gloomy afternoon. She was waiting to hear from the Estate Agent handling the property’s sale, and the shadows were beginning to stretch long.
The message had pinged its arrival and startled her from her thoughts. She had been wondering how Yasmin was getting on without her at the market. She had assumed the message would be from the agent, Mr Baintree because a quick glance at the time confirmed that the auction should be just about done and dusted by now. She had contacted the firm when her mother’s estate had been wound up. The oily proprietor, the one and the same Mr Baintree had rubbed his hands together at her listing. He had assured her that with its stone’s throw location from the café lifestyle of Wigan Pier the house would fetch a pretty penny. She had raised an eyebrow at that. A stone’s throw if you had an arm on you like an Olympic discus thrower perhaps, but still if that was how he chose to market the property then who was she to interfere?
The two up two down where her mother had lived up until her death five months ago was quite at home in the sea of red brick. It made up the old part of the town of Wigan in the north of England. Rosa had mumbled something about the house being low maintenance and close to the town centre when she’d bought it. Kitty could tell from her tone that she knew full well her daughter wouldn’t like it. Still it wasn’t her that had to live in it, she’d told herself when she’d come to visit. It was
the third house in four years her mother had moved into since Kitty’s father had died. She hadn’t been seeking her daughter’s approval of it though, and she didn’t get it because Kitty had thought this latest house with its modern renovations, characterless.
It hadn’t felt like a house her mother should be in had been her first impression. It didn’t suit her or her ways. Rosa needed a house that was quirky and full of character. A house like Rose Cottage stuffed with books and treasures that made it a home. Okay, so Kitty got that with her illness her mother wanted something low maintenance and close to the shops. Of course when she’d been busy passing judgment on Edgewater Lane she hadn’t known how ill her mum was. Sitting here now though she couldn’t conjure up any real sense of Rosa ever having lived here. It wasn’t just because her mother ever mindful of not making Kitty’s life harder had packed up all her belongings for her in anticipation of this. She’d sent all her worldly goods except for a box of treasured photographs, and her engagement and wedding rings to charity before she’d moved into a local hospice. There, it transpired later she was on good terms with a woman called Sandy who was by her side instead of her only child when she slipped away.
Kitty twisted the rings she now wore on the middle finger of her left hand, an understated gold band and the solitaire diamond engagement ring that shone blue in certain lights. She knew Rosa had done things the way she’d done them because she hadn’t wanted to burden her by telling her she was nearing the end. Not when Kitty had been so desperately trying to pick up the pieces of her life and soldier on down in London. Still, it wasn’t fair leaving her like that without giving her the chance to say goodbye and to tell her that she loved her.
Rosa hadn’t even had a funeral service, choosing instead to be cremated like one of those people with no known family or money. Kitty had collected the ashes after the event, they were stored in a sealed, nondescript urn from the hospice where she had died. The lady she had met with, this Sandy something or other whom her mother had apparently thought so highly of had, as much as she hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself, been very nice. She’d made her a cup of tea and opened a packet of chocolate biscuits. Then resting her hand on Kitty’s she told her that her mother’s death had been a good one. She had slipped away peacefully and free of pain.
Kitty had wanted to scream at her that it couldn’t possibly be a good death because her mother was only sixty-five years old. It was an unfair death that was what it bloody well was. She hadn’t said a word though because there was something so calming and dignified about Sandy with her soft and soothing voice. She could see as she sat opposite her that afternoon with a chocolate biscuit she didn’t want in her hand why her mother had wanted a woman like her by her bedside.
Sandy informed her that just as she’d promised Rosa she would, she had held her mother’s hand until the end. But it should have been me, Kitty said silently removing her hand from beneath this stranger. As if reading her thoughts the older woman had said in that same calming tone that sometimes people didn’t want their loved ones last memory to be of them dying. By not asking her to be with her in her final hours, it didn’t mean her mother loved her any less. Kitty had felt uncomfortable then thinking about her mother confiding in this woman and had put the biscuit back on the plate. She had picked up the urn and clasping it to her chest made her excuses to leave.
It wasn’t fair her mother having kept her impending death from her, not when there was so much unsaid between them, but then she shouldn’t have been surprised. Rosa had spent Kitty’s whole life keeping things from her; she thought, her eyes sweeping the room. It was a soulless space, there was no essence of her mother etched into its walls like there had been at Rose Cottage.
This house lacked the warm, homely feel of the semi-rural property in which she had grown up on the outskirts of Preston. It's headily scented rose garden a riot of colour in summertime had given the cottage its name and Kitty had been heartbroken when her mother decided to sell it shortly after her father’s death. She hadn’t sought her daughter’s approval then either. It still rankled, she realised, feeling simultaneously guilty for the anger that surged even now with her mother gone because if Rosa had held onto the cottage then she wouldn’t feel so alone. Rose Cottage had been her home too. She knew that were she sitting in its cosy, familiar living room instead of this bland space then she would still feel she had a part of her mother and father with her.
She had just wanted Mr Baintree to call and tell her the deal was done. To her mind once the proceeds of the sale were sitting in her bank account this final phase of winding up her mother’s affairs would be complete. Then she could begin to figure out how she was going to move forward now that she was officially orphaned. She’d heard it said somewhere at some time that when you lost both your parents you truly knew what it was to feel grown up. Kitty sighed for the umpteenth time that afternoon; she didn’t feel grown up just awfully alone.
Now she squeezed her eyes shut hoping that when she opened them she’d find that she had just suffered a bizarre hallucinatory episode. One brought on by her early morning start. She would find that the message was in fact just a nice, normal chatty one from Yasmin.
She had been desperate to know how Yas’s morning had gone at the Broadway Market. Had she sold out of cakes like Kitty did most Saturday’s? Had the sweet Justin Bieber look-a-like with the bit of fluff on his chin managed to win his girlfriend back with her favourite Vanilla Kisses Cupcake that he had bought for her last week? He’d promised he would come back and tell her how he had gotten on as she had placed the cake in one of the pretty pink boxes she’d picked up for a steal from the Pound Shop. What about the lovely old dear who always bought two of Kitty’s favourite Chocolate Dream cupcakes? One for her and one for her older sister who was riddled with arthritis. It was their Saturday afternoon treat. How was she doing? She would have liked to have known because the damp weather they’d had these last few mornings wouldn’t be doing the sister’s bones any good. Had she been there she would have given the old dear her cakes on the house this week.
Instead, she had gotten this, a message from someone claiming to be a French photographer called, Christian Beauvau. What he was asking of her just didn’t make sense she thought reading through his message once more. She ignored the paper clip attachment at the bottom of it tossing her phone to one side as though it had scalded her. She didn’t know how many minutes passed as she sat in the ever increasing murk of the room. There were no sounds other than the rain hitting the glass and the swish of tyres through puddles on the slick road outside.
Oh stop being ridiculous Kitty, she told herself mustering up the courage to read through the message one more time. She picked up her phone and scrolled down not knowing why she was surprised that the words were still the same as they had been the first and second times she’d skimmed over them. It still didn’t make any sense, and she wondered if perhaps it were some elaborate hoax. Was this Christian person a fraudster who instead of being from Paris as he’d stated in his message, was really from some obscure African country? Perhaps he was trying to wheedle confidential information out of her in a very round-about way so he could raid her bank account? If that were the case he’d be best to wait until tomorrow when there’d hopefully be some money in it, she thought chewing her thumbnail.
Tiny flakes of the Coral Sunrise polish she had pinched off Yasmin settled on her tongue, and she thought of how her friend had told her off for this bad habit just the other day. She’d threatened to buy some of that awful smelly stuff to paint her nails like you did to stop children sucking their thumbs. Wiping the orange flakes on the back of her hand she was glad neither of her flatmates was present to tell her off. Mind you Piggy Paula with her unsavoury habits was hardly in a position to judge. Yasmin, however, would know what she should do about this strange request, she’d ring her she decided feeling pleased she was taking some affirmative action as she hit speed dial.
“Kitty? I am at the gym what
do you want?” A breathy voice yelled upon answering after a few short rings.
In the background, Kitty could hear the fast beat of an old nineties song. She recognized the dance hit, ‘What is Love?’ The lyrics ran through her mind as she shouted, “Yas you need to stop doing squats or rolling around on a Swiss ball or whatever it is you are doing. Pay attention to what I am going to tell you okay?” Only Yas would have a pocket for her phone in amongst all her Lycra sports gear she thought. Mind you only Yasmin was enough of a gym bunny to go and do a workout after the crazy time she’d risen that morning.
“Okay chill out Kitty.” Her breath was coming in short, rapid bursts. “I know it must be weird being at your mum’s old house for the last time but do you remember those yoga poses I showed you? Well, you need to go and salute the sun or get into the downward dog pose or something because it will calm you down.”
“There is no bloody sun it’s drizzling and it’s not that –”
Yasmin was on a roll, though. “Well you don’t need to stress about things here because the morning sped by and yes your regulars did miss you. A young lad bought two Vanilla Kisses and said to tell you he’s back on with his girl. He reckons whatever your secret ingredient is it’s better than oysters. He had a right swagger in his step.”
Kitty frowned; she hoped her cakes weren’t encouraging underage shenanigans he only looked to be sixteen. “Good, that’s great, but Yas listen –”
“And I’d sold out completely by mid-day, so I packed up and came to the gym. I needed to after all that icing I licked off the spoon this morning. I knew if I went back to the flat I’d go straight to sleep and not wake up until the wee hours of Sunday morning. That’s if Paula didn’t decide to draw her blinds and shut the bedroom door for another of her Saturday afternoon sessions with that slimy little git, Steve she’s been seeing.” There was a gagging sound down the phone. “Yuck the thought of it.”
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