The Traveller's Daughter

by Michelle Vernal

  Carrying them over, she sat down next to her friend, and handed her a glass. “Right come on then spill. What happened? And from the start please. I want the uncensored I am your BFF version.”

  Kitty took a large gulp of her drink before filling her friend on everything that had transpired in Dublin.

  Yasmin listened goggle-eyed on the couch sipping away on her wine. She put her glass down to reach over, and hug her friend when she heard how well her meeting with Kit had gone. And how she planned to head back over to Ireland in a fortnight. Where, she would finally sprinkle her mother’s ashes in Tuam at the site her parents and brother were buried, with her aunt in tow.

  “I am so happy that you finally have the answers you wanted. It’s an amazing story. I could see it being made into a movie with uh, hmm let’s see. Maybe Reese Witherspoon playing Rosa, and I am visualising an Orlando Bloom or maybe Jonny Depp type for Michael.” She got up to refill their glasses, and then sat cross-legged opposite Kitty as she told her what had happened with Jonny when she got back to the apartment later that day.

  “So it was good then?”

  “Unbelievable.”

  They both sat silently contemplating that until Kitty said. “But then he told me he wasn’t interested in taking things any further.”

  “What while you were lying there post shag?” Yasmin was outraged.

  “No, he’d gotten dressed, and gone and gotten the takeaway by then. It was while he was scoffing a Tikka Masala.”

  “Oh, that would put you off Indian, and it still sucks big time.”

  “I know,” Kitty mumbled into the dregs of her glass.

  “Right drink up there is nothing else for it. With love lives, or lack of them like ours we have a God given right to get utterly shitfaced while singing along to my 80’s and 90’s power ballads compilation. I need to scream my lungs out to Gun’s and Roses, November Rain. It always helps when I have moved on from the depression stage of playing Elvis’s Love me Tender over and over, and headed into the ‘I am so angry because everything has gone to shit phase’.”

  “Have you got REM’s Everybody Hurts? That’s my ultimate self-pity song.”

  “But of course.”

  Kitty held out her glass for a refill.

  ***

  Paula walked in dragging Steve behind her who Kitty thought, from where she was doing some impressively high kicks on her couch stage with a rolling pin microphone in her hand, looked utterly exhausted. Oh well served him right, she opened her mouth but realised they’d made her lose her place in the song. There was nothing else for it, she’d just have to improvise.

  Paula stood hands on hip; nose curled up as she stared at the two apparitions that were her flatmates, and who had taken over the living room. She shook her head disgustedly as she observed Yasmin, unaware she had an audience. She was lying on the floor writhing as if in pain with an egg beater that she was currently singing into, and twirling round simultaneously. ‘Always’ by Bon Jovi blared out loud enough to rattle the empty bottles of wine lined up on the coffee table.

  Paula, realising neither girl was going to stop their one-woman show mid-song marched over and hit the power button on the stereo. Yasmin sat up looking around to see what had happened. “Don’t do that to lovely Jon when he’s singing Paula. That’s sacrilege, and why are there two of you and two of him.” She pointed past Paula to Steve.

  “Yeah, sacrilege,” Kitty added feeling she should say something.

  Paula’s lips pursed, and for someone both girls knew had nymphomaniac tendencies she was managing to look quite prudish. “I don’t know what you think you are doing. But I have to say it is sad to see women of your age carrying on like this isn’t it Steve?”

  Steve looked like a rabbit caught in headlights as he nodded to appease his girlfriend. “I mean come on you two it is totally inconsiderate. How do you think Steve and I feel walking into this mess and noise?”

  Yasmin snorted and took a swig of wine. She’d given up on the civility of pouring a glass and just glugged from the bottle. “Um first off I wasn’t aware Steve lived here. I thought we rented the room to you. And Paula, you probably feel how I have felt for the last week listening to you two do the wild thing day and night,” she slurred. Kitty bit her lip but was unable to stop a giggle from bubbling forth. She couldn’t help herself, tense situations like this always made her start to her laugh.

  Paula turned a beetroot colour and turned on her heel. “Come on Steve lets go to your place. We don’t have to listen to their crap.” Steve scurried after her, and Yasmin yelled after them. “Yeah, and we don’t have to listen to you two shag. Oh and Steve what’s your secret? Come on what’s the magic potion? Share the love!” Kitty and Yasmin collapsed in a heap of giggles on the floor as they heard the front door slam shut.

  ***

  There was not much giggling the next day when Kitty awoke feeling as if her brain had shrunk to the size of a pea. She was certain that instead of lying prone in her bed, she must be sailing on especially stormy seas for all the lurching her stomach was doing. She ventured forth from her room around ten o’clock in search of water and pain relief. She found Yasmin curled up on the couch with a bowl to hand. Spying her partner in crime she groaned. “I reckon the cheese was off. Its food poisoning, it has to be.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at college?” Kitty asked wincing as a sharp pain zig-zagged its way across her forehead. She opened a cupboard in search of the first aid kit. She knew she had thought about putting one together but wasn’t sure whether it was one of those things she’d meant to do but hadn’t gotten around to doing.

  “Stop banging the cupboards, my head hurts. I’m too sick to go in today. I phoned Bruno’s as well and left a message to say that I have food poisoning. I said I would be a liability.”

  Kitty’s hand closed around a box of paracetamol. Thank goodness she thought, opening it and popping a couple of tablets out before knocking them back with a glass of water. “Self-inflicted alcohol poisoning more like.”

  “Don’t say that word.”

  “What word?”

  “Alcohol, I never want to hear that word again.”

  Kitty mooched through to the lounge, and sat down next to Yasmin. “Come on give me some of that blanket.” Curling up under it she flicked the television on, and settled back to watch Dr Phil before quickly changing the channel upon hearing him announce that today they were addressing the serious topic of alcohol abuse. “I wish I could phone the Minimarket on the corner and get them to deliver us an icy pole each.”

  “Oh yeah, lemonade flavoured!”

  The two girls lay on the couch for the rest of the morning each intermittently dozing, and dreaming of lemonade ice blocks. It was the knock on the door that stirred them into life as their puffy eyes met across the couch, silently asking each other. “Who on earth could that be?”

  The knock sounded again. Yasmin was the first to rally herself, getting up off the couch, and tightening the belt of her dressing gown before staggering down the hall to open the door. Kitty got up too. She was hungry, which was a good sign, and she thought some toast might help settle her stomach. It was only when the toaster popped that she remembered Yasmin, and realised she’d been gone awhile. She could hear the murmur of voices down the hall, and wondered if she had been cornered by some zealous member of a religious organisation. She was debating poking her head round the kitchen door to see who it was her friend was talking to when she heard the door close. A moment later Yas reappeared clutching a big bouquet of red roses, and looking decidedly perkier than she had done earlier.

  “Oh wow! They’re gorgeous. Who are they for?” Kitty asked before chomping into her toast.

  “Me! Mario just delivered them and guess what?”

  “What?” Kitty asked spitting toast crumbs everywhere.

  “He asked me out.”

  “What Mario? As in grumpy, ideas above his station Mario from Bruno’s?”

  “He’s not
grumpy, and he is the boss’s cousin, so he’s entitled to think big. It shows he is ambitious, and actually he’s rather cute. We are going to go to the movies on his next day off.”

  “Go you!” Kitty smiled at her friend’s abrupt change of heart where Bruno’s maître de was concerned.

  “He apologised for being short with me lately. He said it was because he didn’t like the look of Carlos but felt that it wasn’t his place to say anything. Then he realised the reason he didn’t like the look of him was because he was jealous.”

  “Oh, Yas I’d say let’s have a celebratory drink but –”

  “Don’t even go there!”

  Chapter 31

  Neither give cherries to a pig nor advice to a fool – Irish Proverb

  Kitty shivered despite being wrapped up in her coat. The weather had cooled noticeably in the two weeks since she had last stood on Irish soil, and although the sky was ominously grey it didn’t match her mood. She was standing in the churchyard in Tuam beside the graves of her family members. Kit was arranging flowers, sharing them out on the three graves marked with their Celtic Crosses while murmuring away softly to each of them. Paddy was pulling the odd weed that had sprouted around the mossy headstones.

  At Kitty’s feet was Rosa’s urn. When her aunt and uncle were ready they would do what they had come here to do. That was to scatter Rosa’s ashes so that she could, as she had requested in her journal, fly free in Ireland once more.

  So much had happened in those last two weeks too Kitty thought, rubbing her hands together to warm them up. Once she had shaken off the hangover from hell, she had decided that life was too short to procrastinate or to wallow. Yes, she had cold feet when it came to taking that final step and signing on the dotted line for a premises in which to open her café but she decided, that was only natural. It was a big step, and as Jonny had said to her, she was a big girl. It was time she moved forward with her life. She wanted to make her mother proud, and so pushing all thoughts of Jonny aside she had gotten busy. It had been just the ticket.

  In between her shifts at Bruno’s, and baking up a storm for her market stall she had been checking out possible sites for her café. So far the only one that was a contender was currently being used as a burger bar. It had potential though. That’s if you used a bit of forward vision when looking at the greasy walls, and managed to get past the smell of onions! She was going to go back for a second viewing next Saturday when she finished up at the market, and was determined to make up her mind one way or the other then.

  Kitty knew she would be sad to shut up shop on her market stall but who knew? Maybe her faithful regulars would come and see her in her café when she got it up and running. If she went with the burger bar location though, it would mean a journey on the Underground, and that might be a bit much to expect from even the most loyal customer for the sake of a cupcake.

  It had been so lovely to see the familiar faces on Saturday, and she had been pleased to hear that her little old Chocolate Dream lady’s sister was doing much better. She was on a new medication, and it was helping her arthritis no end she’d said. Kitty put the two cakes in a box and told her that they were on the house.

  She smiled to herself too recalling how the young Justin Bieber look-a-like had appeared looking down in the mouth as he requested a Pink Lady cupcake. She’d raised an eyebrow asking. “What? No Vanilla Kisses today?” To which he’d shaken his head and said no, his girlfriend had broken up with him in the week. She’d handed him his box, and told him his cake was on the house too. She would have felt quite sad for him if she hadn’t seen his eyes light up as a young girl swayed past in tight jeans and a puffer jacket. Ah, the fickleness of young love she’d thought, watching him wander after the girl, tap her on the shoulder and hand her the box in which she had just put his free cupcake!

  Perhaps the nicest thing that had happened over the fortnight was Paula announcing she was moving in with Steve. She had stated that they felt that they needed their space. No scratch that she thought, the nicest thing was the way in which life seemed to be working out for Yasmin. She had been on four dates all in quick succession with Mario, which was a record for her. She was smitten, and it was lovely to see. Kitty was happy for her friend; she was. But being back in Ireland was a harsh reminder that the man she wanted more than she’d ever wanted any man, didn’t want her. She wouldn’t go there though, not today because today was about Rosa.

  Kit had picked her up at Dublin Airport earlier that morning as arranged. She’d enveloped her in a bosomy, perfumed hug before exclaiming how happy she was to see her again. The rest of the family couldn’t wait to meet her too, she’d added. Kitty was to stay with them tonight in Wicklow, and where she’d sleep she had no idea. She was sure it was all in hand though. She had bought a stack of family photo albums with her as she’d promised Kit she would. They would pore over them together later. Her aunt had kept up a fast pace of chatter for the two and a half hours it had taken them to drive down to Tuam, and Kitty had sat back in her seat soaking it all up. She loved the feeling of being part of Kit’s family with all their trivial dramas, and although she had yet to meet them in the flesh she already felt she knew them all.

  To her surprise, Kit had arranged for them to meet Paddy in the warmth of the pub. It was the same pub where she had sat with him and Rosa all those years ago while their parents had mourned Joe. Her brother was living, she informed Kitty parking the car out the front of the pub, not far away in a camp on the outskirts of Galway. It had been awhile since brother and sister had caught up she stated, and this today was timely, and it was proper.

  Paddy had been nursing a pint when Kitty walked into the quaint room behind his little sister. Its beamed ceiling was low, and its walls were soaked with beer and memories. She’d have known him even without Kit tottering straight over to his table in a pair of heels that made hers look positively sensible by comparison. Now she knew where she got her penchant for high heeled shoes from! Kitty listened as his sister told him off for being on the ale this time of day before embracing him. He looked, Kitty thought just like Kit but without the fake tan and bling. Instead, he had stubble and a pot belly not to mention two missing front teeth – a legacy from his fight with Martin Donohue all those years ago, she realised. When he spied Kitty hanging back shyly, his ruddy features had paled, and he’d blinked a couple of times before looking down at his pint as though that were responsible for her standing there.

  Kit rested her hand on his heavily tattooed forearm. “It’s alright Paddy. This is our Rosa’s Kitty.”

  “Aye, I can see that now. Sit down, lass. I’ve waited a long time to meet you so I have.”

  They’d shared a drink together in the pub, and Kitty had listened to the stories Paddy told them. They were stories about when they were younger, happy times together when Joe and Rosa were still with them both.

  “You’re just like her you know?” Paddy said fixing his bloodshot eyes on her.

  Kitty smiled. “Yes.”

  “I miss them all you know?”

  “I can see that Paddy.”

  Kit had got up then, and pulled her top down. It had managed to inch its way halfway up her midriff. She’d shrugged back into her faux fur jacket with a brusque. “Right we’re not here to get all maudlin. That’s not what our Rosa would have wanted. Come on Paddy, up and at it. Let’s go and do what we came here to do.”

  They’d linked arms the three of them. As they made the short walk down a well-worn path to the churchyard, Kitty had known in that way she sometimes did, that no matter what the future held for her these two people would be in her life from now on. They weren’t perfect but then neither was she, and that was what being part of a family was all about. You didn’t get to pick them, they just were, and the mistakes of the past would not be revisited in the future. They would be there for her, and she would always be a part of this big rambunctious family her mother had always loved so dearly. She smiled at her unwitting usage of the word her
mother had so loved to drop.

  Kit had pushed open the rusty churchyard gate, and it squeaked its protest at letting them into the small cemetery. The graves were laid out behind the old stone building, and she led them over to where Kathleen, Bernie and Joe had all been laid to rest.

  Kitty had crouched down, and run her fingers over the inscriptions of the names of her family members. She would never meet them but thanks to the legacy her mother had left her by writing her journal she felt she had known them. Through Rosa’s written words bringing her story to life it was as if Kathleen, Bernie and Joe had been a part of Kitty’s life too. It was a wonderful gift to have been left.

  She felt Paddy’s strong arm encircle her shoulders. “They would have loved you so they would.” She’d blinked back tears as she heard him mutter. “I’ll try to do better Mammy for you, Joe, Rosa and Da. I promise.”

  Kit stood up then, and spying Kitty huddled in her coat lost in her memories startled her back to the present. “It’s time to send Rosa on her way my girl before we all fecking freeze to death ourselves, and join her.”

  “I think Mum would like it if we all did it together,” Kitty said picking up the urn. She removed its seal as her uncle and aunt came to stand on either side of her. The three of them wrapped their hands around it, and on the count of three shook it hard. They stood huddled together, Rosa was floating free back in Ireland just as she had wanted to.

  “Bye, Mum. I love you,” Kitty said letting herself cry then. She felt the comforting solidity of her family standing on either side of her as they murmured their final goodbyes to a sister they’d both lost a long time ago.