The Traveller's Daughter

by Michelle Vernal

  “I run a finely tuned one woman operation, you go and get your head down for a few more hours.”

  Yasmin wasn’t fooled, though. The tiny fatigue lines around the corners of her friend’s mouth gave her away. Kitty was knackered. “Oh bugger it! Sleep is overrated. What do you reckon shall I put on a bit of Elvis to liven us up? Jailhouse Rock should get us both moving.” She grinned and began stuffing pretty cupcake wrappers into the waiting patty cake tin.

  “Would you two keep it down some of us need our beauty sleep!” Shrilled a voice from the depths of the hall.

  “Some of us more than others. It might pay not to blast Elvis as much as you love him, or we’ll both end up in the jailhouse courtesy of ol piggy down the hall there,” Kitty muttered. Yasmin giggled in their mutual conspiracy against Paula.

  “Thanks for doing this Yas, I’m sorry to land it on you.”

  “It’s no biggie all I ask is that when you open your café you let me design the uniform. I think it should be something that’s short and sweet, now should I add the melted butter?”

  “Yes please, and I don’t fancy giving the punters an eyeful every time I bend over to get the cakes out of the oven thank you very much so not too short. Cheers, though Yas for stepping into man the stall for me. I would have hated not opening. You know how long it’s taken me to build up my regulars, and if I am a no show, then they’ll find somewhere else to go and satisfy their sugar craving.”

  “Ah well, it will keep me away from the Oasis sale tomorrow that is a good thing given the state of my finances. Speaking of which, yours will be looking a damned sight healthier after the auction.”

  “Yes.” Kitty didn’t want to think about that because it would mean she was running out of excuses for procrastinating on her café dream. She just wasn’t sure she was ready to take such a big step. Drifting along from day to day with no real responsibilities was suiting her just fine for the moment.

  Kitty startled back to the present as a car horn tooted at another driver’s indiscretion, and she realised she was there. As she pushed open the door of Baintree & Co, a bell jangled announcing her arrival. She stepped inside and shut the door quickly behind her not wanting to let in a blast of cold air. A girl of no more than eighteen shoved something in the drawer of the front desk she was sitting behind. Her phone Kitty was guessing not caring if that was how she wanted to pass a quiet day at work, Mr Baintree might not be so easy going about it, though. She looked up at Kitty guiltily before affecting what she must have thought was her professional face. How she could get her facial muscles to move underneath the layers of powdery foundation slathered on her face was a wonder.

  “I love your shoes - oh my God are they Alexander McQueen’s?” She asked, standing up to peer over the top of her desk and at the same time waving Kitty over to the two-seater couch against the wall. A stack of realty magazines were on the table beside it, and she sat down to await Mr Baintree’s imminent return.

  Kitty crossed her jean clad legs lifting the top one up to allow the girl a closer inspection of her shoe. “I wish, they’re a Spitalfields special.”

  The girl looked at her blankly.

  “Knockoffs.”

  “Oh right.” Disappointed she sat back down and decided this client didn’t look the type to dob her into her boss so she fished her phone back out of the drawer and resumed her frantic texting.

  Kitty’s phone went at that moment, and she answered it knowing it was Yasmin even before she said hello. She was grateful she was not going to have to while away the minutes flicking through the magazines on offer.

  “Okay, so you have to go to France Kitty. I don’t even know why you are thinking about it. That picture was incredible. I googled it and apparently it is quite famous. How could you have not known that you had a famous model mother? It’s called Midsummer Lovers and has been reprinted thousands of time. Gosh, she was beautiful. I can see where you get your looks from and as for the stud muffin she was gawping up at, well I don’t blame her for having such a daft look on her face.” Yasmin lay stretched like a sleek cat on the couch trying to ignore the moans coming from the bedroom down the hallway. “My God Piggy Paula and Slimy Steve are going at it today. It’s disgusting it’s put me right off my Mars bar.”

  Kitty doubted this was true she could tell Yasmin was talking with her mouth full. “Why don’t you bang on the door and tell them to keep the noise down. Or, better still run in there with a water pistol all guns a blazing that should dampen their ardour.”

  Yasmin laughed. “Not a bad idea, but it could also put me off sex for life. Maybe that’s it, maybe I am just jealous it's been so long.” She sighed and then brightened. “Did I tell you about the guy who came into Bruno’s for lunch on Thursday? Talk about tall, dark and handsome. Honestly Kitty he was gorgeous, I just about dropped his Spaghetti Amatriciana in his lap I was so busy gawping at him. My luck though he was dining with an equally stunning female companion, but he did leave me a nice big tip, so I suppose that’s something. Where are you now, the Estate Agent’s?”

  Yas was a million miles an hour, Kitty thought with a fond smile. “Yep, I am waiting to hand the key for Edgewater Lane over to the Agent, who should be back in the office any minute and then my friend my work in Wigan is done. I reckon I will make the six o’clock train back to London.”

  “No, you won’t Kitty because you are going to do what this Mr Booba has asked you to do.”

  Kitty frowned looking up at one of the many framed sales and marketing certificates adorning the agencies walls. They didn’t hide the fact the place could do with a paint job and with the daylight robbery commission Baintree & Co commanded on their house sales you’d think they could afford to liven the office bit. Now that she thought about it with the commission Mr Baintree was creaming on the sale of her mother’s house that afternoon the least Texting Queen could do was offer her a coffee. “It’s Beauvau, and I can’t go Yas, I have responsibilities.”

  Yasmin made a snorting sound and Kitty held the phone away from her ear knowing she was about to be on the receiving end of a rant; she was right.

  “You are making piss-poor excuses Kitty Sorenson. You’ve told me that you have spent your whole life wondering who your mum used to be, and now you’ve been given a golden opportunity to begin unravelling the mystery. Not to mention an all expenses trip to this Uzés place in the South of France no less. Abandon ship, go! I can cover your shifts at Bruno’s, and you’ll be back well before next Saturday.”

  Kitty chewed her bottom lip; she was running out of excuses, and it was making her squirm. This Monsieur Beauvau person had said his P.A. would arrange everything. All she had to do was say yes, and the tickets would be there for her to collect at the airport, whichever airport she decided to fly from. A car would pick her up at Marseille Provence Airport to take her on the two hour trip to Uzés. The nephew of the man in the photo had agreed to be there for this anniversary photo shoot Tres Belle magazine was so keen to commission, so it was down to her as to whether it went ahead. She was curious, of course, she was curious as this was a chance to hear about a side of her mother she never imagined existed. She massaged her temples as she wondered why it was her life was never straight-forward.

  At times, she felt like she was driving down a long and never ending road filled with unexpected potholes to send her veering off course. Sometimes it would be nice not to feel like the rug had just been pulled out from under her. It was a feeling she’d first encountered when her father passed away, and her mother had sold Rose Cottage. It hadn’t lessened each and every time her mother had announced she was selling up and moving again either. Then, just when things had settled down Rosa had rung her up one afternoon at the apartment she shared with Damien. She told her the reason she’d lost so much weight of late was that she had pancreatic cancer. The prognosis was not good. The circling shadows Kitty had felt over those last few weeks had suddenly made sense.

  Her first reaction had been to begin frantical
ly googling all the different treatments for the disease that had her mother in its grip. Her hope was that she would spot some miracle cure that the doctors treating her had somehow missed. Even as she did so, she knew she was kidding herself. Realising it was futile she chose instead to cling on to the fact that at least Rosa had, had the chance to meet Damien, the man she was going to marry. She could slip away knowing her daughter would be loved and looked after. Then he had gone and done what he did. Three months later Rosa had died with a stranger holding her hand because knowing her daughter’s heart was shattered she had not wanted to add to her woes.

  These last few months, she’d felt like she was getting her act together, it was still early days in the grieving process, but she had found a modicum of happiness in her new London life. Did she want to delve into the past she knew nothing of? And would the answers as to where her mother came from be answers she needed to know? Her mother hadn’t thought so, and perhaps she’d had very good reasons for this.

  “Kitty?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “If you don’t go to France, I will and I will pretend that I am you, and I will get to the bottom of the mystery of who Rosa Sorenson once was.”

  “You can’t do that Nancy Drew because for one thing you look nothing like my mother, Monsieur Beauvau would know you weren’t me straight away.”

  “You underestimate my powers of sneakiness. I’ve already thought of how I’ll get round the fact that you are five foot two, blonde, fair-skinned and petite, and I am five foot nine, brunette, olive skinned and big boned. I will tell Mr Boobo that Rosa had it off with a Lebanese man and that he buggered off back to Lebanon never to be seen or heard from again as my dad did. The elements of truth will give my cover an air of authenticity. And, my friend, I will get to have a lovely little break in the South of France all expenses paid while getting to the bottom of whether your mother has been in witness protection all these years. Or, whether she has a second secret family or if she is a member of the Royal family who abdicated for the love of a common man. Or maybe her family were notorious gangsters and for your protection she kept you hidden from them all these years, or-”

  “Enough Yas! He’s already seen my picture on Facebook duh.” Nothing she was saying wasn’t anything Kitty herself hadn’t wondered about over the years. “It’s far more likely she fell out with her parents over this man in the photo with her and being a teenage rebel she took off to France with him. End of story.”

  “Oh but it’s not the end of the story is it? Rosa’s story hasn’t even begun Kitty, and I mean it if you don't go, then I will. You’ve got a chance to put some of the pieces of your family history together, something I’ll never have, so don’t you dare let this opportunity pass you by because you’re scared. Not knowing and wondering is a lot scarier my friend.”

  Kitty knew Yas’s past rankled but until that moment she hadn’t realised just how much. Her mother Gina had always been so blasé about her daughter’s background telling her an abbreviated version of events roughly along the lines of her having met Yas’s dad at the local markets. He’d been selling shoes, nice sparkly ones she said and as he handed her, her change he’d asked her out. They’d gone out a couple of times to the local pub, and he was a bit of a sweet-talker, so one thing lead to another. To cut a long story short she’d gotten pregnant, announced this to him, and his response had been to pack his bags and hot foot it back to his pregnant wife in Lebanon. It was unfortunate but them’s the breaks and men can be assholes, was how she’d usually finish her story with a shrug of her careworn shoulders. Gina had thought the name Yasmin was a nod to her eldest child’s Middle Eastern birthright. Plus she had been a huge fan of Duran Duran in her younger days and that Simon Le Bon, who she'd always thought was a bit of alright, was married to a Yasmin. Yas had once confided in Kitty that Gina thought she was cultural when she ordered a kebab at the local takeaway.

  Gina wasn’t put off by one bad experience, though. She went on to move in with a salt of the earth; truck driver called Barry with whom she had the rest of her brood in quick succession. Sadly, Barry found the chaos of having four children under six years old too much to come home to when he parked his truck up after his weeks of driving up and down the country. So, deciding he wanted a more peaceful life he had headed off on his run one day and never bothered to come back. All further correspondence between Yas’s mum and Barry had been through the Benefit’s Office. Both her father and Barry’s treatment of her mother had left Yasmin with an understandable mistrust of the male species, and so she tended to be a bit of a three date wonder. Kitty despaired at times because a couple of those dates had been worth going on a fourth. Then again with her poor judgment of the male character she was in no position to go on at her friend.

  A mental picture of Damien popped up unbidden, and she gave him a good shove telling herself to concentrate her energies on problem present, not problem past. Strangely enough though, she realised that thinking of Damien had just made her mind up for her. He had hedged his bets and kept a secret from her. A big, hurtful secret that had ended their four-year-long romance and left her feeling like a dog that had been kicked. He was the reason she’d packed in her job and packed her bags to scurry off to London with her tail between her legs. It was a time when she should have been with her mother, but she had needed to put physical miles between herself and the hurt.

  Okay, so Rosa hadn’t lied to her the way Damien had but still she had kept a secret. No matter that she’d done her best to be a mother who was present and loving, her past had always been the thing lying unsaid between them.

  Kitty liked that term the Americans used, a milk and cookies mom, it summed Rosa up. She had been there after school with afternoon tea waiting ready to listen to her daughter talk about her day. She had helped with homework and watched all Kitty’s ballet practices despite it being obvious fairly early on in the piece that with her two left feet she would not be the next Anna Pavlova. She’d taught her how to bake and by doing so instilled a passion in her daughter but still she had not shared her past with her.

  Rosa could never show her the courtesy of confiding in her as to where she came from. She didn’t trust her to be able to handle whatever it was she was refusing to speak of not even when she was dying. Maybe, Kitty thought if she had she might not have been left on her own. Well, she was sick of it. This time she resolved as she sat in the pokey reception area, she wouldn’t wait to find out the hard way. Not the way she had with Damien by ignoring the encroaching darkness until it could no longer be ignored. This time she would learn the truth her way. She would go.

  “You win Yas. I am not having you masquerading as my mother’s half Lebanese love child. I’ll go.”

  Chapter 5

  It’s easy to halve the potato where there is love – Irish Proverb

  It had all been surprisingly easy once Kitty had made her mind up. Sitting in Baintree & Co.’s that afternoon she’d disconnected her call to Yasmin and rang the number Christian Beauvau had provided before she got cold feet. A woman called Simone Cazal had answered. Introducing herself as his P.A. she’d told Kitty that Monsieur Beauvau would be very pleased to hear she was coming. If she left matters in her hands, she would organize everything. She’d ended the call by telling her she would phone back within the hour to give Kitty her flight details and to discuss payment.

  Payment? She hadn’t even thought about that. As Kitty hung up she caught Texting Queen, who had finally put her phone down’s curious gaze, and the butterflies set in. Was she doing the right thing? What if she was opening a can of worms she had no business opening?

  There had been no more time to dwell on it though because with a blast of cold air Mr Baintree himself opened the door. He stood in front of her in his greatcoat that in Kitty’s opinion was a bit over the top given they were in April. She tried not to focus on his hair and concentrated instead on what he was saying, but her eyes had kept straying upwards. It was like a grey bird’s nes
t she concluded. It even had a little hollow in the middle for the eggs. She managed to drag her eyes away from his hair as he informed her in his plummy tones that the finances would soon be on hand and that her solicitors would take care of his company’s commission. Clapping his hands together, he added that all that was left for her to do to complete the sale was to give him the house keys.

  She thanked him for a job well done and handed over the keys without ceremony, not feeling much of anything because she couldn’t say that she was sad to see the house go. The thought of her impending trip to France was filling her mind, and there wasn’t room for practical thoughts like the fact that she was now in a position financially to make her café a reality. She’d shelve all thoughts of running her own business until she was able to give them her full attention. She quashed the little voice that taunted, excuses, excuses at her. Shaking the hand, Mr Baintree was proffering she said goodbye to him and the Texting Queen, who was now industriously shifting papers around on her desk.

  Kitty shivered as she left the warmth of the office, the temperature had dropped another degree in the time she had been sitting in the toasty reception area. She made her way the short distance to Wigan’s town square, her wheelie case banging over the cobbles behind her. It dawned on her then that she didn’t have anywhere to go and so she flopped down onto one of the square’s surrounding benches. A bountiful, hanging basket dangled from the lamp post under which she was sitting and glancing up to admire the riotous colours she spied a manky pigeon perched on top of it. Not liking the look in its beady eye and having no wish to be bombed she scooted along to the far end of the bench. She’d never seen how having a bird poop on you could be seen as good luck especially when you didn’t have ease of access to a washing machine. Doing up a couple of buttons on her jacket she wished once again that she had brought a warmer jacket, Spring it might be but it was still a ways off from Summer. At least it had stopped drizzling though she thought, gazing at the late afternoon sky with its patches of blue trying to break through the omnipresent grey.