The Traveller’s Daughter

“Yeah you’ve told me, it’s well weird that.” Yasmin’s voice was muffled, and Kitty pictured her cradling the phone between her chin and shoulder as she undid her laces.

“You didn’t know my mum, she wasn’t weird, just as stubborn as they come and if she made her mind up about something, then that was it, end of story.”

“Still, you don’t believe all that crap about her childhood being uneventful, do you because otherwise why all the secrecy?” Kitty could hear Yasmin unlocking her locker. Probably fishing her bag out of it with her spare hand. Kitty’s mother had been an enigma, unlike Yasmin’s mum with her hard face and dodgy back that got noticeably worse whenever she’d dragged her brood into the local benefits office to sign on for the sickness.

Yasmin’s childhood had been so very different to Kitty’s quiet and civilised upbringing. She’d grown up in a council flat fit to burst with half-brothers and sisters in Hatfield. There hadn’t been much in the way of money, but there was plenty in the way of noise. Their reasons for coming to London were so very different too. Yasmin’s had been to escape that noise for a while. She wanted to make her way in the world far away from the council estate existence she’d always known. Kitty’s had been to put as much distance as she could between herself and her ex, Damien, who lived in a posh Manchester apartment.

Both women had their dreams, though, and this was the common denominator that brought them together and sealed their friendship. Kitty’s was to open her cupcake café, and Yasmin’s was working towards designing her clothing label. One day, she would often say, the High Street stores she loved to browse, fingering the newest fabrics and imagining how she would improve the latest looks, would be stocking her brand. The models would be wearing her signature twist on the rockabilly look as they showed off her designs at London Fashion Week. They would strut their stuff down the catwalk to the tune of her all-time favourite performer, Elvis, after which they would spend their morning tea breaks at Kitty’s gorgeous little café. Slamming the locker door shut before sitting down on the bench, Yasmin asked, “Have you seen it, this photograph I mean?”

“No.”

“Didn’t he attach it?”

“He did, I just haven’t opened it yet.”

“Why the hell not?”

Kitty cringed. “Don’t shout, Yas and I haven’t opened it because I am scared. This is the first real clue to my mother’s past I have ever had.”

“All the more reason you need to open it!”

“I know, I want to, I just can’t seem to make myself do it. I wish you were here with me, and I wish I could bake. Baking always calms me down.”

“Right, Kitty Sorenson, listen to me! Now is not the time to be thinking about cakes.” Yasmin adopted the tone she used with her little brothers and sisters when they were awkward little toads. “You, my girl, are going to hang up this call, and then you are going to count to three, and when you get to number three you are going to open that attachment. Got it?”

“But–”

“No buts. I said got it?”

“Got it.”

“And then when you have done that you are going to forward the picture to me for a sticky beak. Right?”

“Right.”

“Right then, hit the red button.”

Kitty disconnected the call and counted to three.

Chapter 3

A Turkey never voted for an early Christmas – Irish Proverb

Kitty chewed her bottom lip as she stared at the black and white photograph filling the small screen. Her eyes alighted instantly on the young girl pictured, and she barely registered the man next to her. It was like looking at a picture of herself as a teenager and at a stranger both at the same time. The difference being that her go-to outfit at sixteen had been a black T-shirt, denim mini and leggings, her hair had been straightened with almost religious regularity to resemble Jennifer Aniston’s do of the day. This girl in the photo, her mother, albeit a much younger and softer version than any she’d ever known, was dressed in a demure, feminine style.

Her look was that of Audrey Hepburn. Rosa was wearing a white, boat necked dress with puffed sleeves, cinched waist and a full skirt; her shoes were flat sandals. Her blonde hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, and she was sporting a blunt fringe that was sitting just above startlingly thick and dark eyebrows at odds with her fair hair. They were Kitty’s eyebrows, except her mother’s were obviously unfamiliar with tweezers back then, and as for that fringe, she cringed. It suited the times, but the length was one that would have seen her suing Tamsin at ‘Your Style’ who cut her hair whenever it got to the driving her bonkers length.

She continued to soak in the photograph absorbing not the background scene with its hazy stone archway and buildings but rather the look on her mother’s face. She was gazing up at the man next to her with a broad smile on her face obviously laughing at something he had just said. It was the naked longing in her eyes that shocked Kitty, though. His brooding, good looks were half hidden beneath a head full of thick, slightly too long dark curls as he looked down at Rosa. He was dressed in a plain shirt, half tucked into a pair of loose fitting, dark trousers. His sleeves were rolled up and on his feet he had a pair of boots that looked like they had seen better days. Strong worker’s hands gripped the wide, handlebars of an old-fashioned bike, its big wheels denoting its era.

The light surrounding the couple in the picture was dappled by sunshine peeping through the leafy arbour they were wandering beneath. This, their obviously private moment had been captured forever in a photograph that had the title Midsummer Lovers scrawled across the bottom left-hand corner of it. Her mother’s face was positively luminous Kitty realized, unable to tear her eyes away from the picture. “Oh, Mum,” she whispered aloud to the empty room for the second time that afternoon. It struck her then that she had never seen her mother look at her father the way she was looking at this stranger in the photo. Was that kind of blatant adoration the sole domain of the very young, she wondered, knowing that nobody who had ever been hurt or let down would ever be able to love with such an obvious unguardedness. It had been a long time since she had looked at anyone with that kind of heart on your sleeve openness and after Damien, she doubted she ever would again.

“What’s your story, Rosa?” Kitty closed her eyes. It was too much to take in. All these years of not knowing and now this photograph. It was a clue to her mother’s past, and yet at the same time, it told her absolutely nothing. All she knew now, was that at sixteen, she had been so bold as to be in some small town in France with a bloke with whom she was clearly besotted. Did she even want to know the story behind this picture? Her mother obviously had her reasons for never talking about the first nineteen years of her life.

As a child, Kitty had been curious but not bothered about what her mother had done before she’d married and before she had entered her life. For one thing, she simply could not imagine any other existence of importance for Rosa than that of being her mother and her father’s wife. That had changed though when the hormones had come home to roost, and she had begun to resent the secrecy behind Rosa’s past. As a teenager, she’d desperately wanted to know her maternal history. She’d imagined the worst, no matter how many times her mother assured her there were no skeletons hidden away in her closet. Mean Nuns hadn’t reared her in a cold stone convent or anything like that; it was just a past that was not worth revisiting. This vague, hand sweeping reply had not satisfied Kitty in the slightest, but her mother would not be swayed to confide in her nor would her father whom she could normally twist around her little finger. Eventually, she ran out of steam and had to let it go, exhausted from her years of pent-up teenage frustration.

Now as a woman in her early thirties, Kitty’s romantic notions of where her mother had come from had faded to give way to thoughts that perhaps she had been abused as a child. For all Rosa’s vague hand sweeping and bravado when the topic of her childhood was raised, she couldn’t help but think perhaps she had been the daughter of a poor Magdalene girl. Despite what she said, maybe she’d spent her early years slaving in the laundry of an Irish convent. It had happened to others after all. Perhaps this was why she wouldn’t speak of her childhood. She simply did not know, and so she had come to nurture a quiet acceptance that her mother hadn’t just been her mother, she had been a person with a right to privacy. She couldn’t help but think, though, that with Rosa having passed away the rules must now have changed.

A conversation she’d held with Rosa as a child began to run through her head as though she had just pushed play on an old video recorder. The image of them both in the kitchen of Rose Cottage was vivid. She could see in her mind’s eye that the bay window, a focal point of the room, was fogged up with steam from the sink full of dishes before which her mother stood. It blocked her view out to their sprawling garden that as a child had seemed to go on forever. This illusion she knew was due to the low stone wall that encased the bottom of their garden. On the other side of the wall were fields that in summer glowed gold with rapeseed and in winter wore a snowy eiderdown. For the most part, their home with its front garden full of vibrant blooms in the summer and twiggy branches that would tap at the window in winter had been a happy one.

“Tracey at school said that her mum was an air hostess before she met Mr Hennessy. Her plane used to stop in places like Disneyland,” Kitty said this from where she was sitting up at the table; school bag abandoned at her feet while she waited for the toaster to pop. Her mother was dressed casually; her glasses pushed up on the top of her head which meant she had been studying, again. She was always doing some course; textbooks would be strewn across the kitchen table and swept away as Kitty flung the back door open home from school.

“It’s a gift to be able to learn, Kitty,” she’d say, stacking the thick tomes on the sideboard.

Kitty thought that was a dumb thing to say because the last thing she would do when she was finally old enough to leave school was more homework. And besides, her mum never actually did anything with all that stuff she was learning about.

“That’s nice for Mrs Hennessy I bet she enjoyed meeting Mickey and Minnie.” Rosa’s tongue in cheek reply came as she plunged her hands into the hot water and began to scrub at the dishes left over from breakfast and lunch. She had meant to tackle them well before Kitty got home. She’d gotten side-tracked again by picking up the book she was in the middle of and before she’d known it she’d heard the familiar sound of the front door banging shut. It announced her daughter’s arrival home for the day. Her answer sailed right over the top of nine-year-old Kitty’s head. She was intent on retrieving the freshly browned bread from the toaster and slathering it in butter. “You know madam if you ate properly at lunchtime you wouldn’t be so hungry when you get home. It’s no wonder you pick at your dinner when you’re stuffing yourself full of toast at this time of the day.”

“But I’m hungry after school not at school.” Kitty had replied perfectly logically in her opinion, her chest puffing up self-righteously as she added, “And Tracey doesn’t have to sit at the table until she’s cleaned her plate up. If she doesn’t like something, her mummy says she can give it to the dog. I’d rather play with my friends than eat a yucky old school dinner any day.” Her bottom lip jutted out; the conversation was not going the way she’d planned. She had thought that by telling her mother what Mrs Hennessy used to do her mum might have decided to tell her what it was she had done before she married her dad. She did not want to be reminded of the stinky stuff that had been plopped on her plate at lunch time. Or the unfair way in which she was never allowed to leave anything on her dinner plate, not even peas, and she hated peas, thank you very much.

Sitting there staring at her mother’s back as she bit into her toast, butter dribbling down her chin, her eyes widened as a thought popped into her head. Maybe she had been a princess once upon a time. She was pretty enough to have been one when she took her glasses off and brushed her hair properly.

Maybe, her evil stepmother the Queen had been mean to her, but then daddy had rescued her, and the stepmother had been so angry that she waved her wand and cast a spell. Just like in Sleeping Beauty, and if her mother ever spoke of having once been a princess she’d fall asleep for a hundred years! Her mother dried her hands and left the dishes to drain. She sat down at the table with the cup of tea she’d abandoned on hearing her daughter come in. Kitty wondered if it was normal behaviour for princesses to dunk biscuits in their tea.

“Your friends aren’t going anywhere Kitty, and you need to eat the meal provided at school if you’re to be able to pay attention in your afternoon lessons. Sure, how can you expect that poor brain of yours to concentrate on learning when it’s being distracted by your rumbling tummy? As the old cock crows, the young cock learns.”

Kitty frowned; she hated it when her mum spoke in riddles. She looked at the soggy biscuit she was about to pop in her mouth, it was only a plain old digestive, not the chocolate ones she liked. Still, she wondered what her chances of both toast and a biscuit before dinner were. “It was only boring old maths this afternoon,” she answered, deciding the odds probably weren’t very good. She wished, as she finished her toast, that next time her mother did the shopping she would buy some of that yummy chocolate spread stuff. Tracey said she got to have that on her toast every single morning. As she chewed, she began to ponder how she could swing the conversation back round to where she wanted it to be when her mother interrupted her plotting.

“It’s not boring old maths and boring is a word that only boring people use. Maths is very interesting when you pay attention because we use it for all sorts of everyday reasons.”

Kitty had raised a sceptical eyebrow at her the way she had seen Tracey do to Mrs Chalmers this morning when the teacher had informed her class that dolphins sleep with one eye open. It had been such a cool thing to do but then that was because Tracey was so cool. She paused in her chewing to send up a silent prayer that she would be invited to the social event of the school year, Tracey’s tenth birthday. She’d given Tracey her best Strawberry Shortcake Rubber, so she was confident that guaranteed her an invite.

“Don’t give me that look, young lady, you’re not a teenager yet, and it’s true you know, you need maths for all sorts of things like telling the time and handling money. A penny gets another penny. Sure, when you work out how much of your pocket money you are going to save and how much you are going to put aside for sweets you’re doing maths.”

Kitty scowled. “I knew you would mention saving.” Her mother was big on drumming the importance of saving into her. It was right up there with the importance of paying attention in class because both, she told her daughter regularly, would allow her to be independent when she was older.

“Alright then here’s another example, you need maths to be able to bake.”

“No you don’t, you just use that measuring thingy for the sugar and an egg. Oh and usually you add some flour too.”

“Okay, Little Miss I Know Everything, when you have finished your toast how about you and I make some of those cupcakes your daddy is so fond of? Then you will see what I am talking about.”

“Can I lick the bowl?”

“I suppose so, though you’ll never eat your dinner.”

“I will if it’s something yummy.”

Having washed her hands, Kitty donned an oversized pinny that her mother wrapped around her waist twice before standing on tiptoes to stare at the open cookbook. That was the afternoon she learnt how to read a recipe as she made her first batch of cupcakes. Her mother oversaw the proceedings watching as she followed the instructions to cream the carefully measured butter, sugar and vanilla until it was light and fluffy before cracking an egg into the mix. She’d turned the handle on the old fashioned beater until her arm felt like it was going to drop off and was relieved when her mother said it was time to measure the flour and baking powder out. Sifting was much easier than beating, she’d decided, tapping the side of the sieve until it was empty and a mountain of white sat on top of the wet mix. Tired of standing on tippy-toes, she’d pulled a chair in from the dining table and kneeled up on it. She’d watched with her chin resting on her clasped hands, elbows on the bench as her mother demonstrated how to fold the dry ingredients into the batter adding a bit of milk as she went.

“See it needs to be a dropping consistency like this.”

Kitty was transfixed as the mixture plopped back into the bowl. She was hoping there would be plenty left in it for her to scrape up with her finger once the cakes were in the oven. It was time her mother said to spoon the mixture into the paper cases lining the patty tin.

“Too much in that one Kitty, three-quarters full. Aha!” she clapped her hands. “There do you see what I mean? That was a fraction right there.”

At nine years of age, Kitty was not too old to concede that her mother was right, and she decided tomorrow she would try not to drift off when Mrs Chalmers made them chant their times tables. Fifteen minutes later when she donned the oven gloves and pulled the plump cakes from the oven, she puffed up with pride. She couldn’t wait until her daddy got home from work so she could tell him she had baked the cakes all by herself. “Can I taste test one, please?”

“I suppose so, sure as a rule of thumb a good cook should always taste what she makes. Food is a good workhorse.”

Kitty couldn’t believe her luck. She peeled the paper off a little hot cake and leaving half the mix stuck to the wrapper, popped it in her mouth. That was the moment that her life-long love of baking had been born.

The thing with baking was that at the fundamental core of a good batch of anything there was the need for a reliable recipe. Despite this, and no matter how measured and precise her ingredients were, now and then something would go wrong with the mix, and her cakes wouldn’t rise. It was the same with life Kitty thought as her eyes refocused on the photograph this Christian Beauvau person had attached to his message. For the most part, each day ticked along much like the one before but now and then something would be tossed into the mix and it would test her ability to rise to the occasion.

She shivered, the house had that unlived in temperature that seeps through to your bones she thought as her phone beeped another text’s arrival. Closing the photograph, a quick glance revealed the message to be from Mr Baintree, her stomach flip-flopped and despite her nerves at what he might have to tell her, she was glad of the distraction. Crossing her fingers and hoping it was good news she scrolled down and breathed a sigh of relief, the auction had closed four thousand pounds above reserve! He finished his message by saying he would meet her back at his office in an hour. Kitty’s face broke into a grin; it had not been a wasted journey. She was buoyed by the news and decided she’d rather wait in the agency’s warm reception area than sitting here freezing.

Quickly flicking back to Christian Beauvau’s message, she forwarded it through to Yasmin adding the good news regarding the house’s sale. Let Yas mull it over, she decided. She’d talk to her later about what she should do. Stuffing her phone back in her bag, she got to her feet. As she picked up her wheelie case and walked down the hallway, she realized she had never managed to swing that long ago conversation with her mother back around to what it was she used to do.

Chapter 4

A trout in the pot is better than a salmon in the sea – Irish Proverb

Kitty shut the front door of the house that no longer belonged to her mother, locking it before stuffing the key in her jacket pocket. She glanced up at the grey sky with a frown. She wished she’d packed a waterproof jacket instead of the lightweight belted one she was wearing. Stealing herself against the steady drizzle, she didn’t look back as she set off down the road toward the offices of Baintree & Co.

Her feet were clad in her usual choice of thoroughly unsuitable heels, and she stepped around the freshly formed puddles. She momentarily wished she had a bit more sense when it came to footwear but ever since she’d had a say in the matter, she’d always opted for pretty over practical. Still, she comforted herself, at least she didn’t have far to walk, and as she tottered down the empty footpath, her mind drifted back over how she’d come to be here.

The letter had arrived from the firm of solicitors, whom her mother had been with for as long as Kitty could remember, four weeks ago. In her opinion, Rosa had single-handedly kept them in business these last few years with her conveyancing, not to mention her final bit of business, dying. It held no surprises, apart from what she thought was an odd request on her mother’s part, that Kitty keep her ashes for at least six months before scattering them. Apart from that, her affairs had all been in order.

Rosa’s will was quite straightforward with no beneficiaries other than Kitty, and so the house at Edgewater Lane was hers to do with as she wished. She hadn’t bothered to glance at the statement attached, knowing the firm’s bill had been paid from her mother’s bank account. The account was now closed, and the balance was to be transferred to her account. It was the formality and finality of the letter that made her eyes burn with threatened tears. She’d sat there for an age in the dip of the old couch in the London flat she shared with Yasmin and Paula feeling utterly lost.

She and Yasmin had only let the room to Paula for two reasons. Number one, being that the third bedroom was a box room so small that no one else had been keen to take it upon viewing it. The second reason was the smell; not everybody could stomach the permanent smell of curry that hovered in the air thanks to the flat’s upstairs location over a Bangladeshi takeaway.

Their flat was located in the East End near the old Spitalfields Market and Brick Lane, which was known these days as London’s Curry Capital and had long been nicknamed Bangla Town. Kitty loved the little pocket of East London she had run away to just on a year ago, determined to put as much distance between herself and Damien as she could manage. You could almost smell the history seeping from the bricks; that’s if you managed to block the smell of curry!

She liked to imagine the drama that had been played out on the streets as she wandered around them and to know she was now part of that thread work made her feel special. Sometimes she’d pause down bustling Brick Lane and imagine she could hear the call of the Costermongers’ selling their fruit and veg. Once she had gotten herself in a right stew hot footing it home as she conjured up the darker side of the East End’s infamous past, Jack the Ripper. She could sense a shadow lurking behind her and had picked up her pace so that she’d been puffing by the time she burst in through the front door of her flat.

“What’s up with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Yasmin had stated as Kitty locked the door behind her before swinging round to face her friend, wild-eyed.

“Nothing, I’ve got an overactive imagination that’s all, my mum always said so, but I think I might need a drink.” She filled Yasmin in on her journey home, deciding not to add that she genuinely had sensed a darkness that had spooked her. She got these little feelings from time to time, like when things had come to a head with Damien. She had felt something coming. When she sat back night after night over the following weeks torturing herself by examining every tiny detail of their breakup, there had been no warning signs, though. Nothing apart from the strangest sense of darkness and impending trouble. It had been there during her mother’s final days too, although at the time she hadn’t known she was dying. She’d found out after the event. A fat lot of good it was having a sixth sense when she had no idea what it meant.