The Traveller's Daughter Read online

  It was clear to Kitty now that Rosa had wanted her to come here. She had orchestrated it with Christian, and it was a pilgrimage of sorts. She wanted her to try to put things right in the way she had wanted to do with Tyson for Michael’s memory’s sake. She had been too frightened of the recriminations that might be thrown at her were she to try and so she had left it too long until finally, it was too late. If Kitty could heal those wounds with Jonny then perhaps it would open the way for her to go and meet her aunt and hopefully Paddy too if he were still alive. She understood now why it had been so important to Rosa that Christian be the one to give her the journal. It was here in a way where a part of her mother’s life had ended, but it was also here in this little French town where a new part of Kitty’s life might just begin.

  She slid the wedding band onto the ring finger of her right hand. She knew what she had to do next and pressing her fingers to her mouth she blew a kiss to the empty room before closing the journal. She placed it in her case that was still lying open on the bed next to her knowing as she did so that it wouldn’t be the last time she would read through the little book. It would be something she would carry with her always. So she could pick it up often throughout whatever lay ahead to take comfort from the loving words of her mum and to marvel at her life. It was a treasure and as such she would treasure it, Kitty hauled herself upright it was time to put sentimentality aside, she had things she had to go do.

  As she swung her legs over the side of the bed, she caught sight of her reflection in the oval shaped mirror angled over the heavy art deco style dresser opposite her. Its bevelled edges caught the light, but she was too perturbed by the face staring back at her to notice how pretty it was. Oh dear she grimaced, and her hands flew up to her hair to try and smooth it down. It had still been wet from the shower when she’d phoned Yasmin. She had been in too much of a hurry to settle back on those fat, downy pillows and lose herself in Rosa’s story to bother blow drying it when she’d finished the call. Now she wished she had taken the few minutes to do so. Oh well she sighed, reaching for her handbag and fishing out her makeup purse where she knew a bobble and some hair clips would be, she’d just have to put it up.

  A bit of eyeliner and lippy could work wonders Kitty thought, a few minutes later as she snapped the powder compact shut. She was satisfied that with her makeup repairs done, and her hair pulled up in a loose top knot she was as presentable as she’d ever be. She just hoped her jeans had dried out and pulling them off the rail at the end of the bed she gave them a quick pat down pleased to find they pretty much had. The swelling on her bottom had gone down too, she noticed with relief as she pulled the denim up over her knickers. The antihistamines had worked a treat and the drowsiness she’d felt earlier had worn off. At least the humiliating pharmacy debacle hadn’t been in vain, and she would not have to spend the rest of her days carting around three bottom cheeks.

  Okay all that was left to do she thought, casting her eyes around the room was to find her shoes and she’d be good to go. Now where had she kicked them off in her delight to be able to free her feet at last? After a quick and fruitless search under the bed, she found them over by the window where the floor length muslin drapes were doing their best to hide them from her. Retrieving them she bent down and strapped her feet back in.

  A quick glance at her phone revealed the time to be only just after seven. She had thought it would be later than that but then she’d been in a whole other world for the last few hours and had lost all track of such trivia as time. It was still light outside too she saw heading over to close the shutters. She wasn’t due to meet Damien until half past eight, but she was sure she could amuse herself by exploring the town until then. Picking up her bag, she slung it over her shoulder and opening her bedroom door stepped out into the darkened, deserted hallway.

  The old floorboards creaked as she made her way to the top of the stairs glad someone had, had the foresight to leave the light on in the front entrance below. Otherwise, she’d be taking her life in her hands attempting the stairs not only in a pair of heels, but in the dark too.

  She found Simone and Christian in the kitchen. The table they were seated at was big and rustic, a centrepiece for the farmhouse styling of the utility room. There was a half-empty bottle of red wine alongside the open laptop over which their heads were bent deep in conversation, and they each had a glass of vino in front of them. Simone, she noted was dressed in more casual attire than she had been earlier despite the expression on her face that said she meant business as she pointed at something on the screen. Kitty hovered in the doorway for a moment not wanting to interrupt them and had just decided she’d be best to leave them to it when Christian looked up and saw her standing there. He pushed his glasses down his nose before exclaiming with a genuine delight in his voice that made her stand just a little taller in her mock Alexander McQueen’s. “Kitty, come join us. You have lots you want to talk about oui? I can see it in your belle face.”

  She was tempted to sit down and join them both in a glass of wine wanting nothing more than to hear Christian speak further of his times spent with her mother. She had so much she wanted to share with him. Simone, however, did not look so pleased with the interruption. Kitty was guessing she quite often had to work hard to keep Christian on focus with the task at hand. She didn’t want to be the one who made the other woman’s work drag on late into the evening, and so she stopped herself from taking a step toward the table.

  “No, I won’t, but thank you.” She dragged her eyes away from the bottle of wine. “Where’s Jonny?” The question popped out of her mouth taking her by surprise because she didn’t care where he was.

  Simone shrugged. “He went out earlier. Uzés it is a beautiful town, and I think he is probably making the most of his short stay here and why not?”

  Kitty thought she caught a slight hint of disapproval in her tone and feeling reprimanded she edged backwards out the door. “Hm why not indeed that’s what I plan on doing too.”

  “Christian and I we have already eaten. I would have asked you to join us, but he said you were busy and that I should not interrupt.” She shot him an accusatory look, and it was his turn to shrug. Kitty felt a jolt as she glanced from one to the other realising from the closeness of their chairs and their easy way with each other that theirs was obviously more than just a working relationship.

  She wasn’t shocked. How could she be after what she had learned about her mother and Michael’s relationship? Rosa had only been fifteen when she fell in love with Michael. Okay, so there was only a three year age gap between them nothing like the decades between Simone and Christian. Still Kitty thought, Simone wasn’t the first woman to fall for the charms of an older man nor would she be the last. Besides Christian was such a gentleman she could see how the young woman would fall in love with him, and who was she to judge? Look at the state of her love life. No, each to their own she told herself, realizing Simone was looking at her expectantly. “I uh, I was reading something Christian gave me of my mother’s, and I wasn’t very hungry but thank you, Simone. I’m supposed to be meeting my um, my friend, Damien in town for dinner.” She didn’t want to she realised. She wanted to be by herself to wander the town lost in her mother’s memories as she digested everything she had learned tonight.

  Christian, she thought taking in his expression had made it fairly obvious that afternoon that he hadn’t been enamored of Damien. He hadn’t said or done anything, but she could tell by the subtleties of his body language. The not so subtle frown on his face, as he looked at her now, confirmed that he hadn’t warmed to him. It shouldn’t matter what he thought considering the brief time in which she had known him but for some reason it did, and she felt the need to justify herself. “Like I said earlier, he’s an old friend Christian and it’s only dinner. You two enjoy your evening, and don’t work too hard.” She turned and had only taken a few steps when she heard him call out.

  “Kitty don’t be late oui? It is a big day tomorr
ow.”

  Simone muttered something at him in French, and Kitty was guessing from the inflection in her voice that she was chastising him for telling a grown woman what time she had to be in by. She smiled, it had been a long time since anybody had worried about her curfew and her thoughts flew to her father. What she’d read this evening hadn’t changed how she felt about either of her parents or the choices they’d made. How could it? She reached for the key sitting in the front door lock and turned it, not when their every decision had been made with her in mind. If anything it had helped her understand them better and realise how blessed she’d been to be so loved by them both.

  She opened the door and smiled feeling like a teenager as she shouted back over her shoulder. “I won’t be late, I promise.” Pulling it shut behind her, she stepped down onto the pavement and stood there for a moment. The students were long gone now, and a few lights were beginning to twinkle in the windows of the surrounding apartments and houses. Inside them, Kitty knew people would be setting about their evening chores, and while her world might have just tipped on its axis, for them today would have been a day just like any other.

  At the bottom of the street despite the early evening dusk beginning to settle in, she could see a circular low-walled, fountain. A cherub’s urn tipped water into the stagnant water pooling at its feet. Her mother had sat on that very wall she realised with a start. It was where she had waited for Michael while he helped unload the fruit and vegetables when they first arrived in Uzés. She remembered it from earlier too, and knew that if she turned right when she reached it, then it would take her back to the main road where the shops were. She could easily find her way about from there. First things first, she was going to follow in her mum’s footsteps and perch on that wall for a moment or two listening to the trickling water just as Rosa had done fifty years earlier.

  Kitty’s heels clacked down the narrow pavement, and she was all too aware of its ankle twistingly high kerbside as she tottered toward the bottom of the hill. She made it in one piece and sat down on the wall seeing that the grocery store although closed for the day was still there across the street. Closing her eyes, she tried to conjure up a feeling of her mother as she listened to the tinkling water from the cherub’s urn. She frowned, to her ears it sounded very much like someone doing an illicit wee and her eyes popped open. She did not need to be reminded of her wasp debacle thank you very much, and casting the cherub a disparaging look she stood up, and carried on her way.

  Street lights were beginning to come on for the night as she wondered whether Damien had found somewhere to stay, sure that there would be plenty of rooms for rent. As the rows of shops and cafés came into her line of sight, she told herself that it wasn’t her problem where he slept. It had been his choice to come here. The deserted buildings that earlier in the day had been bustling with trade were stretched out ahead of her on either side of the tree-lined road. Kitty paused for a moment thinking how very different it looked now that she was picturing the scene through her sixteen-year-old mother’s eyes.

  The patisserie too was closed she noticed, and crossing the road she walked toward it. Its frontage pulled her in like a magnet to steel despite the fact its colourful macaron montage of earlier was gone from the window, and the display cabinets sat disappointingly empty. She stood there at the window her nose almost but not quite pressed to the glass as she gazed in at the darkened depths. She could imagine the hustle and bustle that would be going on in a few short hours. While the townsfolk and tourists were still sleeping the artisan bakers would be getting their wares ready for the day.

  That would be her one day soon she thought, feeling a frisson of excitement. She would be out the back of her café whipping up her cupcakes in its kitchen in anticipation of the brusque day’s trade to follow.

  Kitty inhaled fancying she could smell the buttery emotive scent of rising cakes. Even though she wasn’t inside the shop with her sleeves rolled up folding a mix or spooning it into the tins she would have lined up ready and waiting she still felt the familiar glow settle over her. It was the glow that came with the sense of wellbeing she always got from the act of making something with her two hands that brought happiness to others and made them smile.

  It was a bit like the rush an adrenalin junkie might get from a base jump, only much safer, or sex, she thought sighing contentedly. When she got home, she would introduce new flavours and expand her repertoire she decided. She pictured herself looking a bit like a mad scientist as she poured a bit of this and a bit of that into the mixing bowl. She was deeply engrossed as to whether cinnamon would work on its own or if it would need a companion like perhaps coffee that she never saw the man materialise behind her in the reflection of the glass.

  “Are you feeling a bit peckish or something? Because you’d be better off heading down to one of the restaurants in the square if you are.” He pointed to the sign on the door. “They’re shut in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  Kitty jumped, and her hand flew up to her chest instinctively protecting her heart. She had been so lost in thought she hadn’t heard anyone approaching, and swinging round she looked up into Jonny Donohue’s amused face.

  “Oh God I was miles away! You gave me a right fright.” She saw that those dark eyes of his that had glowered at her earlier were glittering with a suppressed mirth, but still she took a step away from him not prepared to trust his sudden shift of mood.

  He didn’t seem to notice. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist. You looked like you were lost in a dream about éclairs or whatever those little biscuit things they had on display in the window today were.”

  “Macarons, and I am not sure whether I like them or not. They’re awfully sweet you know.” Kitty hoped she wasn’t that obvious, and her hand strayed to her mouth to make sure she hadn’t been drooling.

  He looked amused by her discomfiture. “So a penny for them then?”

  She felt like she should tell him to mind his own business after what he had said to her that afternoon. She should turn on her heel and storm off leaving him to stare after her with an expression of admiration at her strength of character. That would be better than the current look on his face that said he was doing his best not to laugh at her. Still, she mused she’d rather that than the surly man she had encountered earlier, and she owed it to her mother to try and soften his stance where she and his uncle were concerned. He appeared to be holding out an olive branch, and after what she had read that evening she knew she had to reach out and take it. “I was fantasising if you must know.”

  “Oh yeah,” he raised an eyebrow. “Does it involve whipped cream then?”

  “What? No!” She wished she’d walked off when she had the chance. Where on earth had that choice of word come from? I mean fantasising for goodness sake! What was she running on? It was his fault he had her all flustered. “What I meant was I am going to open my own shop in the not so distant future. And I was thinking about all the different flavours and colours of the cakes I will have in my front window when I do so. Whenever I feel stressed out, I bake and if I can’t bake then, I think about it in some shape or form. It makes me feel better.”

  “You’re a baker then?”

  “No, not quite I mean yes I do bake, I love to bake but I never qualified as such. I used to work as a secretary but for now I am waitressing and on the weekends I sell my cupcakes at the local market in London where I live. I’ve come into a bit of money recently and what with the money from doing the recreation photo tomorrow I’ve got nothing stopping me from going into business on my own.”

  “You’re a girl with big plans then.”

  “I guess so yes, but thinking about how I am going to go about it is as far as I have gotten with those big plans.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  Something in his reply annoyed her. “As soon as I get home I will be putting a proper business plan together.” How she was going to set about doing that she did not have the foggiest, but it sounded like something that someone
who was going to open their own café would do. “So what about you then what do you do?” She could picture him sticking to the old traditions her mother had described so vividly in her journal. He would live in a wagon, no modern caravan in a campground for him, and a sturdy old Piebald would still pull it. Yes, she decided looking at him in his faded jeans and loosely tucked in shirt. She could see him tugging on a set of reins in the masterful way her mother had described Michael as being able to handle a horse. She didn’t think he would be married; her eyes strayed down to his hands that were thrust into his pockets so no clues there.

  “I’m a builder.”

  Oh, she hadn’t expected that. She didn’t know what she had expected him to say. Not that he was a Tinker certainly, but she had envisaged him in his angst against the world not working in a steady trade. He’d be far too busy travelling the countryside foraging for his fruit n veg and picking up the odd bit of farm hand work here and there.

  “And I live in an apartment in Dublin.”

  “Oh, I thought –”

  “I know what you thought I can see it on your face. You thought I’d live in a gypsy wagon, and cook my meals over a campfire while whittling away at a nice piece of tin, singing songs about people dying.”

  “No of course I didn’t think that.” Her cheeks flamed because that’s exactly what she had thought.

  His mouth curved at the corner in a way that told her he didn’t believe her. “It’s alright you’re right in a way because I grew up in a Travellers camp in Ballyfermot, but there wasn’t much romance about it. It was a hard life. He wasn’t a happy man my da, and he made sure the rest of us suffered for it too. I left as soon as I got my builder’s apprenticeship and had money of my own coming in.”

  Cherry Orchard had been in Ballyfermot, and she wondered if that was where he grew up or if it had disbanded and they had set up elsewhere by the time he was born. She wanted to ask after his da and gran, but instead her mouth formed the word. “Oh.” She hadn’t realised until then how much she was hoping he was still part of the community her mother had once been part of. She’d thought that he might somehow open the way for her to meet the members of her family who were still alive. “Do you still see them, the Travellers then?”