The Traveller’s Daughter
MICHELLE VERNAL

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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2017

Copyright © Michelle Vernal 2017

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be identified as the author of this work

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is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

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Ebook Edition © March 2017 ISBN: 9780008226510

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Part Two

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Part Three

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

For my sister Rachel for being so brave

PART ONE

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. 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. 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 realized 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 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? – 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. Mothers 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. 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 be 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 a champion 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 that 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. 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 had 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 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 Rosa 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; stored in a sealed, nondescript urn from the hospice where she had died. She had met with Sandy, who, as much as she hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself, had 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’s 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 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’s. 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 that her mother 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 as 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 realized, 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 Saturdays? 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 roundabout 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 strained 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 midday, 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.”

“Yas, would you shut up for a minute and let me talk!”

“Alright, alright hang on, one, two, three, clench and release.”

Kitty rolled her eyes; she didn’t want to know what kind of exercise her friend was doing.

“One, two, three, clench and release – all done, thank God. I won’t be able to walk tomorrow after that last lot. Hang on while I grab a drink.”

Kitty held the phone away from her ear but could still hear the glug, glugging noise that followed.

“That’s better. It’s important to keep hydrated with good old H20 you know. Give me one more sec and I’m all yours.”

When she came back on the phone, Kitty couldn’t hear the pounding beat in the background anymore just the sound of running water.

“I’m in the changing room. So come on then, spill.”

“I have just gotten the most out there Facebook message.”

“Delete it; there’re all sorts of weirdo’s in cyberspace. I once had a complete random, some chicken farmer from Devon sent me a friend request. I mean it’s not as though Facebook is a dating app and more to the point I don’t even like eggs.”

Kitty shook her head.

“No, not weird like that. Just listen, this French photographer called Christian something or other French-sounding says that he took a photograph that became quite famous of my mother with her boyfriend. Who, by the way, was not my dad but some guy called Michael, in a French town back in 1965. He reckons Tres Belle, you know the fashion magazine–”

There was a loud squeal, and Kitty held the phone away from her ear. “Oh, I love Tres Belle! Watch this space because one day my designs are going to be all through its pages.”

“I don’t doubt it, but for now the magazine has commissioned this Christian fella to recreate the same scene in the photo he took back in 1965. It was called Midsummer Lovers which is kind of a gross title for a photograph with my mum in it. He wants me to pose for it along with the nephew of mum’s old boyfriend to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the original being taken.”

“What? Repeat all that and slower this time? Much slower.”

Kitty repeated what she had just said, and there was a moment’s silence as Yasmin processed what she’d been told. “Okay, so firstly I’m thinking how did this French guy find you and secondly, what was your mum doing in France in 1965? I thought she was Irish.”

“She was, though she’d spent the best part of her life here so in a way she was more English than Irish. She never lost her accent, though, and she was always saying these mad Irish things like it’s no use boiling your cabbage twice. I have no idea what she was doing in France or who this Michael was either.” Kitty did a quick mental calculation. “She’d have only been about sixteen in 1965. Christ, if I’d swanned off to the Continent with a boyfriend at that age she would have killed me! She never mentioned anything about having spent time in France; my parents were Majorca package holiday devotees.” Kitty frowned, picking a bit of carpet fluff off the dark denim of her jeans. “I’ve told you how Mum’s life prior to meeting Dad was a closed book. Anything before the age of nineteen was a no-go zone that she refused to talk about, no matter how many times I asked her to. She’d just tell me her childhood was uneventful so therefore it was not worth talking about.”

“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.

There were other feelings too, such as knowing instinctively who was on the other end of the phone, or sensing who was at the door without answering it. Silly stuff really, and she had asked Rosa about it once. Kitty had thought at the time that her reaction had been most peculiar but like a lot of things her mother had chosen not to elaborate.

As for the encroaching darkness, these days it didn’t frighten her because it had already brought the worst that could happen with it. She had broken up with Damien and lost her mother all within a year. For the here and now, she was trying so hard just to focus on the positives. So it was lucky that her passion in life was food. Most days the smell of spices wafting up the stairwell was enough to make your eyes water!

She shared waitressing shifts with Yasmin at Bruno’s, a trendy little Italian Eatery on nearby Ashwin Street. Its main claim to fame was that a café just a few doors up had been tipped by Vogue magazine as the coolest place in Britain to dine. Bruno’s was determined to bask in its glory. Kitty didn’t mind. The busier work was, the better, in her opinion because it kept not just her body but her mind busy and she needed all the distraction she could get.

Of course, she didn’t plan on waitressing forever. Once the money from the sale of Edgewater Lane was in her bank account, there would be nothing stopping her from pursuing her dream of opening her very own cupcake café. Nothing stopping her, except for a chronic fear of failure that was.

Kitty wasn’t a trained baker or chef nor did she want to be. She had been there and tried that. It had seen her spend a year living on minimum wage in exchange for being shouted at by a Gordon Ramsey lookalike. The experience had well and truly put her off the idea. She had packed in her apprenticeship in Edinburgh and hot-footed it down to a secretarial job in Manchester, instead deciding it was high time she had a bit of money in her pockets and fun to boot. The decision to move in with her girlfriends in the North’s big smoke and take a position typing in an architect’s firm had been one that her mother had not approved of. Kitty had told her in no uncertain terms though that it was her life, and she would do with it what she wanted.

She was the first to hold her hand up and say that she found it hard to follow instructions, especially if they were barked at her. She found it hard to stick at things too because her feet got itchy, and she felt the need to move on, but despite her change of course she had never stopped loving baking. She had known though that, if she’d seen her apprenticeship through to the end, bit by bit her love for it would have been snuffed out.

Now in a round about way, until she opened her café she had come back to her first love by selling her cakes at the market on Saturday mornings. There was something so intrinsically comforting in the measuring of ingredients, the amounts of which never changed. As for the sweet and tempting result, well that was pure satisfaction. That was why she didn’t mind the early starts on those cold Saturday mornings. Bundled up in her coat with her woolly hat pulled down well over her ears, she would sell her cakes at the Broadway Market in Hackney. All of her cakes were made with love, and Kitty liked to think it was this that made them that little bit extra special.

The unsociable hours she waitressed along with her early Saturday starts suited her just fine. She had Yas for company, and after the disaster that was Damien, well the less time she had on her hands for repeating that epic catastrophe, the better. She was quite happy to whip up her sweet treats at the ungodly time of three o’clock in the morning in readiness for sale at her popular stall. Or at least she was after she’d had a strong cup of coffee. It filled her with a certain pride as she bantered with the punters to know that she was standing in the shadow of the East End’s famous Barrow boys. They had plied their trade with their unique salesman patter.

Her takings supplemented her meagre earnings from Bruno’s enabling her to scrape by, but it certainly wasn’t the money that kept her baking her little cakes. She knew too that the latest fad was to frown upon sugar but hadn’t those sugar free converts ever heard the phrase, ‘everything in moderation’? That was her motto. She’d even heard mutterings that cupcakes were passé and that it was all about the sickly sweet macaron these days, but Kitty wasn’t swayed. In her opinion there was something so marvellous about the look of pleasure on a customer’s face when they bit into one of her cakes, swirled high with a piped frosting finish. It reaffirmed her belief. Sugar might be bad for the waistline, but it was oh-so-good for the soul!

Now, Kitty yawned as she spied the row of shops at the end of the road she had just turned onto. Baintree & Co.’s office sat in the middle of them with a Cancer Research Shop somewhat aptly, given the reason for her selling her mother’s house, on one side of it. There was a travel agents on the other. Her eyes watered, and her body ached with weariness as she tottered along dragging her case behind her. The couple of hours’ sleep she’d grabbed before her usual ungodly Saturday morning start had been fractured. The temptation to ignore her alarm when it shrilled had been strong. She knew, though, that if she was going to get her cakes baked and iced as well as catch the first train up to Wigan, then she needed to get up and get moving.

It was a nuisance having to go all that way just to sign off the last of the paperwork for the house and to hand the key over but needs must. It was simpler than trying to arrange it all by proxy. So, she’d switched the alarm off and grudgingly thrown on the closest thing to hand, a T-shirt and her jeans before padding through to the bathroom. She washed up and tied her hair back in a tight ponytail. A stray hair in a red velvet Pink Lady cupcake would be a recipe for disaster.

She had only got as far as cracking the eggs into the kitchen aid, her one splurge since she’d begun selling her wares at the market, when Yasmin had appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“You’re mad, Kitty do you know that?” she’d said rubbing her eyes and moving across the tired old lino floor in a swish of pyjama satin. Her practised hand picked up the cup of flour resting on the bench, and she began to tip it slowly into the mixer as Kitty had demonstrated time and time again.

“Three teaspoons of baking powder,” Kitty mumbled, measuring out the first and adding it to the mix before looking up at her friend; Yasmin was as tall as she was short. “I know, but you don’t need to be. Go on back to bed; you’re going to have a busy enough day as it is.” Yas would never cope with the pace of the market if she were on anything other than top form, she thought, turning the speed up on the mixer a fraction.

The first time Kitty had shared a shift with Yasmin she had thought her like an exotic flower with her penchant for 1950s style frocks. She was studying fashion design at a local college and used her wages and tips from Bruno’s to supplement her meagre student allowance. She was willowy with olive-hued skin and bobbed ebony hair that played up her flashing brown eyes. For her part, Yasmin had confided when they knew each better, she’d thought Kitty was like a dainty pixie. She had felt gangly and ginormous next to the petite blonde with the dancing blue eyes offset by unusually dark eyebrows and a big smile.

Opposites attract, though, and once Kitty had gotten used to Yas’s way of going on, it hadn’t taken many snatched coffee breaks for the two women to establish common ground. They were both new arrivals to the city in need of permanent accommodation. Adrift in Britain’s capital, they’d been grateful to find one another, and they had been firm friends ever since.

“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?”

Kitty startled back to the present as a car horn tooted at another driver’s indiscretion, and she realized 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 was on the table beside it, and she sat down to await Mr Baintree’s imminent return.

Kitty crossed her jeans-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 paused then huffed. “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 talked 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 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 up the office bit. “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 straightforward.

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’d 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 frantically 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. Realizing 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.

“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 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 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 realized 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 led 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 hotfoot it back to his pregnant wife in Lebanon. It was unfortunate, but 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 Benefits 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 realized 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’s, who had finally put her phone down, 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 nest 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. At least it had stopped drizzling, she thought, gazing at the late afternoon sky with its patches of blue trying to break through the omnipresent grey.

She’d told that Simone woman that she’d fly from Manchester in the morning, so she needed to find a place to stay for the night. She’d try her luck down past the train station at the bottom of the hill. It made sense to find somewhere near the station because she would be in for an early start to get to the airport in the morning.

The road she set off down was filling up with bag-laden Saturday shoppers rushing to catch their train home. She picked up her pace so as not to feel left out, keeping a tight hold of her case, and that was when she saw him, well actually she felt him before she saw him. She just knew with a sudden sick lurch of her stomach that he was there and looking up she saw she was right. He was walking against the crowd in her direction a bit like Moses parting the red sea. “Shit, shit, shit,” she muttered under her breath, oblivious to the pursed-lipped look a woman herding her teenage daughter who was toting a Dorothy Perkins bag shot her as they strode past. She thought about ducking into the Post Office but knew it was too late; he’d seen her. A split-second later he was standing in front of her with that smile of his that always made her knees go to jelly.

“I don’t believe it. Kitty, wow! Is it you?”

“Hello, Damien.” She paused knowing she should keep walking, but a lifetime of having good manners instilled in her prevented her from doing so. The throngs of people either side of them seemed to vanish as Damien lunged forward, his lips grazing her cheek and leaving her feeling like she’d just been branded.

“Whoa I can’t believe this, it’s so good to see you. What are you doing here? I’ve just had lunch with Sam and thought I’d race up to the WH Smith before they close. The latest Lee Child is out.”

She’d forgotten his younger brother lived in Wigan, but she remembered how much of a Lee Child fan he was. Unbidden, a memory of them both on a wet Saturday afternoon curled up at opposite ends of the couch lost in their books sprang to mind. What had she been reading? She couldn’t remember now and what did it matter? Gosh, he looked good she thought, wishing he had acquired a beer belly, gone bald and been afflicted by a case of adult acne in the last six months. If anything though he looked better than ever. He was dressed for the weekend, and she’d always liked him best when he was casually rumpled. His brown hair was shorter these days, and it suited him. She unconsciously raised a hand to her hair hoping the damp air hadn’t caused the irreparable fringe curl.

“Hey,” he said reaching out and touching her arm. “I was sorry to hear about Rosa. I mean I knew she was sick and everything, but it was very quick in the end wasn’t it?”

She nodded, not meeting his eye and not trusting herself to reply. So he did know then, she had checked the post for a sympathy card from him every day after the hospice had rung to say her mother was gone, but one never came. In the end, she had given him the benefit of the doubt thinking that perhaps he hadn’t heard the news or didn’t know where to find her.

“I heard through one of the old gang, and I was going to send a card but, well to be honest, I wasn’t sure you’d want to receive one from me.” He shrugged. “You look well, I mean despite what’s happened, er you know losing your mum and everything, you still look wonderful. I have to say London obviously suits you.”

Speak Kitty, speak, she willed herself. “Uh yes, it does thank you. I’ve settled in.”

“I heard you had a stall at one of the big markets down there selling your cupcakes. I guess it’s a step in the right direction towards owning your café. Good for you.”

Kitty frowned, he seemed to have heard a lot. “Yes it is thanks, and well, now I’ve got some money behind me thanks to mum there’s no reason I can’t make it a reality.” Too much information, Kitty my girl, don’t tell the bastard anything. She mentally kicked herself before deciding to turn the tables. “How’s everything with you and er–” She realized she didn’t know the name of the girl he had spent three months bonking behind her back. No doubt it had come up in the explosive row they’d had when she had caught him out. It was thanks to a stonker of a headache and the strangest feeling that something was amiss that she had left work early one afternoon. She’d come home and stumbled on them post-coital lying in their bed and had turned and walked straight back out of the flat. Wandering around the Manchester streets, she’d been in complete shock at the collapse of her world as she knew it. It was growing dark when the numbness gave way to anger, and common sense told her it wasn’t a good idea to be walking around unfamiliar streets on her own, so she’d gone home. Damien had been sitting at the dining room table waiting for her, and all hell had let loose. It was hard to believe they were now standing opposite one another on the Wigan pavement exchanging banal pleasantries. She doubted since they were being nice to one another that he’d appreciate her asking how ‘The Bitch’ was as she’d come to think of her either.

“Leanne, her name was Leanne.”

She watched him run his fingers through his hair.

“She was a mistake, Kitty. There’s not a day gone by since you left that I haven’t regretted what I did to you, to us. It just sounds so trite to say I am sorry, but truly I don’t know what else to say because I am.”

He rested his hand on her arm once more, as though frightened she would walk away. Fat chance of that though; her legs were rooted to the spot.

“We broke up a few weeks after you left. I wanted to call you so badly, but after the way I’d treated you I didn’t think you would want to hear from me ever again.”

He looked at her as though expecting her to contradict him. When she didn’t, she could tell by the little boy lost look on his face that he was as thrown by her presence as she was by his.

“I went round to see your friend Gemma once not long after you left. I asked her not to say anything to you, but I needed to know how you were doing.”

Kitty didn’t know, but then she hadn’t heard from Gemma for a few months. Mind you, it was a two-way thing; there was nothing stopping her from having contacted her old pal. How did he think she was doing? You didn’t have to be Einstein to figure out that when your fiancé does the dirty on you it stands to reason you’ll be left feeling like shite.

“She wasn’t exactly pleased to see me and she didn’t want to tell me whereabouts you had moved to. I can’t say I blame her.”

What was she supposed to say to that? She stared up into his familiar blue eyes. For a while after she had arrived in London she had kept seeing him everywhere she went, only for him to vanish when she reached out to touch him. She’d have given anything for him to turn up on her doorstep and tell her that he had made a mistake. She’d missed him so much that any shred of pride or self-respect she’d had left when she’d walked out of the apartment they had shared together for three years would have disintegrated. She didn’t know if she could have forgiven him for what he’d done to her, but she did know she was a long way from being over him. Gemma might have thought she was being a good friend and protecting her, but she should have told her Damien had called round. She should have let her make her mind up as to whether she wanted to see him or not.

“Have you got time for a quick drink?” He raised an eyebrow, and his expression was hopeful.

Kitty became aware of the people rushing past them then. For a moment, there had been no one else on that busy street leading to the train station other than him and her. She knew a ‘quick drink’ was a bad idea, just as she knew it would be anything but. For some reason, even though the word ‘no’ had formed itself on the tip of her tongue, as she opened her traitorous mouth the words, “Okay, a quick one then,” tumbled out unbidden instead and she followed his gaze to the pub across the road. A moment later, he steered her through a break in the traffic and as he opened the tavern’s door a warm glow and the smell of ale greeted them. She followed him inside, barely registering the split-level layout and the low beams that lent the buzzing room an air of cosiness.

“A glass of Sauvignon?” He raised a questioning eyebrow remembering her tipple as he pushed his way through to the crowded bar.

“Hmm, yes please.”

“How about I order while you grab a table?”

Kitty nodded and went to turn away, but he stopped her. She could feel the heat of his hand on her shoulder as with twinkling eyes he asked, “Are you still a prawn cocktail girl?”

Her mouth curled into a small smile at his reference to her favourite crisps. It had been one of those silly couple jokes between them, her love of the prawn cocktail crisp and the fact she’d never share her packet with him. “Of course,” she replied, knowing that her churning stomach wouldn’t let her touch them even if he were to buy a bag.

Leaving him waving a tenner trying to attract the barman, she weaved her way through the tables. There was a soccer match blaring from the television bracketed to the wall at the far end of the room. The pub was heaving, but she managed to spot a table near the loos, empty for obvious reasons. She didn’t care, though; she needed to sit down because she was frightened that if she didn’t her legs might give way.

Leaning her case against the wall, she pulled the chair out and sank gratefully down on the seat before resting her elbows on the table. Lowering her head she massaged her temples, in an attempt to still the throbbing. What are you doing, Kitty? She knew if Yasmin were to walk into the pub right now she’d drag her out by her hair. At the very least she’d tell her she was a bloody fool. She’d be right too. Raising her head, she tucked her hair behind her ears and inhaled slowly. She needed to get out of here before she did something she knew she’d regret and getting to her feet, she slung her handbag back over her shoulder. She had just grabbed the handle of her case intent on leaving when Damien materialized through the group of lads standing in a huddle staring up at the telly.

He stopped in front of her, a drink in each hand. “They sold out of prawn cocktail, but that’s no reason to leave.” He didn’t smile despite his attempt at humour. “Please don’t go, Kitty.” His eyes pleaded. Eyes that were so familiar to her with their flecks of dark blue around the irises, and as she hesitated, she knew she was lost even as she tried to be strong.

“Damien, this isn’t a good idea.”

“I’m so sorry for everything.” He put the drinks down on the table and pulled her chair back out for her. “Please just give me five minutes to talk to you. I miss you. I miss us.”

With every fibre of her being telling her not to, she sat down again and watched warily as he sat down opposite her. “Thank you, I know you have every right to walk away. It’s just that it’s so good to see you. I’ve missed you so bloody much.”

Don’t say that! She picked up her glass taking a large swallow, not wanting to meet his gaze over its rim. To look anywhere other than at him, she put her glass down and fished around in her handbag for her phone. The French women had said she would confirm her travel arrangements within the hour and hoping for the distraction her call would bring, she placed her phone down on the table.

She caught Damien’s raised eyebrow and launched into her reasons for being back in the North and why this time tomorrow she would be in the small Provencal town of Uzés.

When she’d finished, Damien stared at her, his pint glass paused halfway to his mouth.

“That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.” It sounded mental saying it all out loud, and it was all down to her mother and her bloody secrets.

“Life’s never dull when you’re around Kitty, that’s for sure.”

She bit back the retort that it wasn’t exactly dull when he was around either, and for all the wrong reasons but he didn’t miss the look that flashed across her face.

“Believe me, I have had plenty of time to think about what I did, how I ruined everything.”

“Why did you do it?” she asked softly.

“I was scared.” He shrugged.

“Of what? I thought we were doing okay?” She was clutching the stem of her glass so tightly she was surprised it didn’t snap. It was a conversation she’d never expected to have.

“We were. We were better than okay; we were great. I wanted to marry you more than anything, and believe me I have thought about what went wrong. I’ve thought about nothing else, and the only explanation I can come up with is that I was frightened of making that final commitment and Leanne was my subconscious way of sabotaging our relationship.”

Kitty drained her glass, in her opinion, there wasn’t anything subconscious about shagging someone else, you either were or you weren’t, simple. “So you were a commitment-phobe, is that what you are trying to say?”

He had the grace to look sheepish. “It sounds stupid I know, but that’s what it boils down to. You know the crap Sam and I went through with our parents when they split up.”

She nodded, she had known his parents’ ugly divorce had left its scars, but then nobody got through life without accumulating baggage along the way, it was just the way of the world. She’d had to deal with her mother’s past being a closed book all her life. The scenarios she had conjured up to fill in the blanks had been endless. On top of that, she’d found herself orphaned at thirty-one years of age. So yes, she knew better than most that life sucked sometimes, but that didn’t mean you had to go around bonking someone behind your fiancée’s back.

Her phone shrilled, and she was grateful for the interruption, but her hand hovered over the phone not wanting to be rude. Damien leaned back into his chair and waved his hand toward it. “You’d better take it.”

The lads who were glued to the match let out a roar and Kitty frowned holding the phone up to her ear. “Can you wait just a moment, please?” she shouted into the mouthpiece before covering it and looking at Damien. “I’m just going to pop into the Ladies. I can’t hear a thing with that lot carrying on.”

Damien nodded, and she felt his eyes on her back like twin laser beams as she walked off. Closing the washroom door, she was grateful for a few moments to compose herself. “Sorry about that I’m in a pub, and it’s very noisy.” She peered into the smeared mirror at her flushed face and dishevelled hair and shook her head. God, she looked a mess.

“Bonjour, Mademoiselle Kitty, it is Simone Cazal, Monsieur Beauvau’s assistant calling you.”

“Hello, Miss Cazal.”

“It is Simone, please.”

“Er okay, then Simone.” Kitty turned away from her reflection and leaned against the sink. She listened as the woman told her that her tickets for a ten a.m. flight would be waiting for her to collect at the Lufthansa desk at Manchester Airport in the morning. She would be there to meet her upon her arrival in Marseille. Her return flight would be booked at the end of the photo shoot. If Kitty was happy to sign the contract upon her arrival and provide her bank account details the sum of five thousand euros would be deposited into her account. It would be a one-off, full and final payment for her participation in the photo shoot.

Kitty just about dropped her phone “Er pardon me, Simone, did you just say five thousand euros?”

“Yes, this amount is not up for negotiation – you are happy with it, oui?”

“Oui, yes thanks.”

Simone said goodbye, reiterating that she would meet Kitty at Marseille Airport in the morning. Kitty barely heard, she was reeling. All that money, just for posing for a picture! She wondered what this Christian Beauvau chap was being paid by Tres Belle if he could afford to pay her that amount. It was dawning on her ever so slowly that this print her mother had featured in all those years ago was indeed a big deal. She turned back to the mirror and smoothed her hair wishing she’d bought her handbag in with her so she could have at least run a comb through it and put a bit of lippy on. She sighed deeply, what an afternoon this was turning out to be. She needed another drink.

Making her way out of the bathroom, she saw that Damien, as though having read her mind, had purchased another glass of wine and a fresh beer sat in front of him. She sat down and took a big swig of her glass. “Oh, I needed that.”

Damien looked at her concerned. “Kitty, listen I was thinking, are you sure this photo thing is all legit? You know you read about this kind of thing in the papers, young women being lured overseas. You might get there and find yourself part of some French slavery ring.”

“I don’t know what papers you read, but it’s a very elaborate con if it isn’t legit, look.” She pulled the photo up on her phone, and Damien took it from her staring at the picture for a moment. “Gosh! Wow, that’s Rosa? Seeing her young like that’s so weird. She’s just like you if you were in the same outfit with a different hairstyle. I wonder if the bloke’s nephew looks anything like him.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know a thing about him.”

“It’s a bit of a creepy idea if you ask me. Do you know anything about the backstory around the photograph?”

“No, and that’s why I have to go. Simone, that’s the photographer’s assistant, just told me they are paying me a one-off fee of five thousand euros for agreeing to pose for the new photograph.”

Damien spluttered into his beer. “How much?”

She repeated herself and Damien morphed before her very eyes into the business mode that befitted his job in the Share Market. “You should get your solicitor to look over any paperwork you are going to sign, you know. I mean, if they are prepared to fly you over to France and pay you that much it is obviously a pretty lucrative job for this Christian Beauvau fellow. There could be a lot more in it for you in the way of royalties. I’d be interested to know if your mother has received hers over the years too. Do you know how much they are paying the bloke’s nephew?”

Kitty felt her back stiffen; there was no way she was giving a penny more to her mum’s solicitors. “No! Stop. Damien, the money will be nice, but that is not what this is about. You know my mother never talked about where she came from, and this is my chance to find out about a side of her that I never knew.”

Damien knew how Rosa’s refusal to talk about her past had eaten away at her. “You’re right. Sorry, it’s the stockbroker in me, I can’t help myself.”

“It’s okay.” She relaxed and sat back in her chair drinking her wine a little too quickly.

“Watch it; you’ll get tipsy.” He smiled. “So where are you staying tonight?”

“I’m not sure. I was going to find a B&B.”

“You can stay at mine; I can drop you at the airport in the morning.”

Kitty’s eyes widened.

“I’ll behave myself I promise, but I can’t leave you to wander around Wigan looking for a Bed and Breakfast. It will be getting dark soon out there. Besides, you’d have to get up at a ridiculous time to get your flight.”

Kitty knew it wouldn’t be dark for at least another hour. There was nothing to stop him offering to drive her around Manchester looking for a B&B if he was worried about the distance from the airport. For some reason, though, she couldn’t summon either the strength or the willpower to contradict him.

Chapter 6
God is good but never dance in a small boat – Irish Proverb

Kitty lay on her side in Damien’s bed with the sheets pulled up under her chin staring at the window. The sheets felt crisp and cool against her bare skin, Egyptian cotton, she guessed, because Damien had always been partial to the finer things in life. It had caused a few arguments between them during their time together with her having a thriftier nature. Opposites were supposed to attract, though, and she had reined him in and he had loosened her up so that they met somewhere in the middle. Egyptian cotton sheets hadn’t featured in that middle ground though because she had won that particular battle. The sheets they’d once shared together had come from Tesco.

There was a gap where the blinds didn’t quite meet the sill. She could tell by the greyish light seeping in under them and the faint shushing sound of cars far below that it was early morning. It must be some time just after five a.m. she guessed before shifting her hip slightly. It was going numb thanks to Damien’s hideously uncomfortable futon. Another post break-up purchase he had said, although he hadn’t worded it quite like that, to help with his back. He’d been in a minor car accident before she’d met him and had suffered from back pain for as long as Kitty had known him. It was beyond her, though, how sleeping on what equated to an oversized rectangular rock could benefit your back but when she’d questioned him on this Damien was adamant it was working wonders on his.

His leg strayed over to her side of the bed; he had obviously gotten used to starfishing, she thought, as he let rip with an ungentlemanly snort. She’d forgotten he always snored when he’d had a few drinks and they’d both had more than a few before they’d wound up skipping the light fandango on the Futon. She hadn’t been complaining it was uncomfortable then, though, she thought ruefully. The sex had been good because they already knew each other’s bodies intimately, so there were none of those embarrassing fumbling, clumsy moments. They were like a well-oiled machine in that respect. As Damien erupted once more, she felt her foot twitch under the sheets. Six months ago she’d have given him a swift kick to startle him into rolling over. Now that he was technically a one-night stand she didn’t feel it appropriate to put the boot in, so to speak. Besides she knew she’d never get back to sleep now, snoring or no snoring.

God, she was hungry too she thought, wrapping her arms around her tummy in an attempt to stave off the pangs. Again, she realized that if this had been six months ago, she’d have been in their old apartment, and were she lying wide awake like this she’d have gotten up. She pictured herself tiptoeing into the kitchen the way she’d done hundreds of time when she’d woken up peckish to stuff her face with whatever leftovers she could find lurking in the fridge. This wasn’t her apartment, though, and it didn’t feel right to sneak into the kitchen for a rummage in Damien’s fridge. What if he woke up and busted her sneaking about, he’d think she was snooping around the place or something. No, she’d just have to wait for his alarm to go off. The room got lighter and her tummy rumbled louder. She couldn’t help but think as she rolled away from the window, how had it come to this? Where once she’d shared her life with the man lying flat on his back next to her, now she felt like a prisoner in his futon.

They’d had no dinner the night before, that was the problem. She hadn’t been hungry when they left the pub, enjoying the warm slightly addled feeling from the three glasses of wine she’d ended up downing. It had been such a strange day. She didn’t feel like being sensible, and of course, had she been sober then common sense might have won out. Damien, as though sensing this, had been in far too much of a hurry to get her back to his apartment. He wasn’t going to risk suggesting they stop off for something to eat in case she changed her mind about staying.

She’d sat with her head leaning back on the plush headrest of his new black Audi as he drove them to his apartment. It was another post break-up splurge. He’d looked like a little boy as he told her that not only was it turbocharged – whatever that meant – but the roof was retractable too. She’d refrained from remarking on how useful that would be living in Manchester because not only could you get soaked through to the skin, you also got to breathe in traffic fumes. She shook her head, trying not to listen to him telling her again how much he’d missed her since she’d left, and how sorry he was for what he’d done. It was as though he thought the more he repeated these sentiments, the more chance there was of her saying all is forgiven I’ll come back.

The Bitch, she registered him saying, although he hadn’t used that terminology, had moved to Glasgow after they’d split. She had taken a new job there so Kitty wouldn’t have to worry about ever bumping into her were she to come back. He’d do anything to get her back he stressed as the lights of Greater Manchester twinkled in the distance. Part of Kitty wanted to believe him even as she wondered idly if his version of anything stretched to selling the ridiculous sports car she currently found herself sitting in.

His hand had snaked over to rest on her leg. She could feel the heat of it through the denim fabric of her jeans as he steered them deftly around the achingly familiar streets of Manchester’s trendy Northern Quarter. It was where they’d lived together, enjoying the regeneration it had undergone along with all the other twenty and thirty somethings’ that had gravitated to the area. She’d stared out the window at all the restaurants they’d dined in. They passed by cafés they’d met friends for coffee in, pubs they’d drunk in and clubs they’d gone on to dance the night away in. The streets they were passing were streets they’d once strolled hand in hand down. It was all so comfortingly familiar when everything around her at the moment was so bewildering.

Damien had opted to stay in the Northern Quarter; he told her, driving into the underground car park of an apartment complex. He could have stayed on at their flat had he got someone else in to share, but he didn’t want to do that. The memories were too painful, he said. For you and me both, she’d thought, recalling her mother having uttered the same sentiment when she sold Rose Cottage.

Her phone had rung once as they rode the lift up to his apartment on the fifth floor, and a quick glance at the screen told her that Yasmin was wanting a word. She’d flushed guiltily knowing full well what her friend would have to say to her if she knew what she was about to do. Switching off her phone, she stuffed it as far down in the depths of her handbag as she could manage.

His apartment, although small, was shiny and new, and Kitty had thought, with a glance around, rather impersonal. She’d stopped thinking altogether though when he’d put Adele on. It was their favourite CD, the one they’d always had sex to. She’d sunk into his open arms and raised her mouth to meet his as they began a slow, remembered dance.

The beeping alarm brought her back to the present, signalling it was at last time to rise and shine. Damien stirred for a moment before reaching over with a practised hand to bang the snooze button and snuggling back under the bedding, but Kitty sat up gratefully. Her hand went to her hair, and she sighed, it was mussed beyond redemption. She knew too that her mascara was probably down to her chin by now, and her mouth felt dry and stale. Had Damien been someone new that she had staggered home with last night then she’d have been desperate to get into the bathroom to tidy her act up before he got a good look at her. As it was, she knew the sight of her with her hair standing on end, and the remnants of the previous day’s makeup was one he had been treated to on many occasions. He would not be fazed.

Sensing her eyes on him, he opened his and blinked a couple of times before his mouth curved into a slow, lazy smile. He reached up and stroked her cheek.

“Morning, gorgeous.”

“Gorgeous is a stretch! I’m a fright.”

He grinned. “Well the Robbie William’s ‘Let Me Entertain You’ eye makeup isn’t your best look I agree, but other than that you look pretty darn tasty to me.” He reared up to pull her back down beside him, but she broke free.

“No way, don’t even think about it. I’ve got to get to the airport, and I need to have a shower and tidy myself up. I can’t get off the plane looking like–”

“The wanton woman you are.”

She leaned over and smacked him lightly before swinging her legs over the side of the bed vaguely self-conscious about being naked. She stood up and made her way quickly to the en-suite hearing a wolf whistle from the bed before he called out. “Towels are in the cupboard. Shall I join you?”

“No! Make yourself useful and get some breakfast organized. I am starving,” she called back. Her casual banter belied the tumult of emotions vying to make themselves heard as she locked the door behind her, and leaned her head against it for a moment. She didn’t trust him not to come in, remembering full well that he was a morning man.

A few moments later, she was standing under the jets of water enjoying the feel of the hot needles hitting her skin, sluicing away the morning-after fog. She picked up the bottle of shampoo from the ledge and peered at the label. It was a salon brand she didn’t recognize and opening the lid, she sniffed its contents. Coconut, she thought, envisaging palm trees swaying in the breeze as she squeezed a dollop into the palm of her hand and began massaging it into her scalp. Damien had always been a bit of a metro man when it came to his grooming, and she used to find it amusing that he spent more on his hair products than she did.

Oh God, she thought, letting the water run over her head with her eyes squeezed shut so as not to get shampoo in them, what on earth was she doing here? Did she think she could go back and that they could just pick up as though The Bitch had never happened? Common sense told her that no; it would never work. The part of her that still loved Damien wanted to kick common sense right up the backside, though; forget all about this mad trip to France and unpack her bags.

By the time she emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later with her hair towel dried and a fresh layer of warpaint on her face, she was feeling more composed. She’d dressed once more in her jeans, having packed lightly under the assumption she’d be back in London by now. As she zipped up her case, she made a mental note to wash her smalls by hand when she got to Uzés or she’d be in a bother.

Ready to face the day, she straightened up and prepared to venture forth. Well almost ready, she thought, sniffing the air and catching a whiff of coffee mingling with frying bacon. Good, Damien had taken her literally. Walking through to the small living area, she found him stationed at the hob of the open-plan kitchen with the frying pan in hand. Her stomach did a little dance as he grinned at her, and she pinched her forearm to make sure this whole surreal scene was unfolding.

“Good shower?”

She glanced down at the red welt on her forearm. “Um yes, great shower thanks. Those power shower thingies are amazing. I feel human again, or I will do when you make me a cup of that coffee.” She eyed the fancy looking machine taking up half the bench space. Back when they’d lived together, it had only ever been instant on offer because they’d preferred to go out for coffee. He had certainly gone to town since she’d left. “Do you need a licence to operate that thing?”

Damien left the sizzling pan and fetched a mug down from the shelf overhead. “It brews a mean espresso, and you won’t be making snide remarks when you taste it.”

He was right, she thought, taking a sip from the mug he’d slid down the countertop towards her a moment later. Licking the froth from her upper lip, she watched him from underneath her eyelashes as he dished up the bacon and eggs. A strong sensedéjà vu assailed her; they had played this scene out so many times before. Damien had loved his Sunday fry-ups. It was like they had hit the rewind button and everything was the way it had been. Then, as she glanced around and realized she was in an unfamiliar flat surrounded by things she didn’t recognize, the hurt began to seep in around the edges again.

Damien pushed her plate towards her and came round to sit on the bar stool next to where she was perched at the breakfast bar. “I meant every word I said to you last night, Kitty. You know that, don’t you?”

Kitty picked up her knife and fork not wanting to meet his gaze. “I know you did.”

“Will you promise me you’ll think about coming back? Please.”

“I will.” Her voice cracked. “I promise.” As he laid his hand on hers and gave it a gentle squeeze, she wanted to cry. Thank goodness she was leaving today, she needed to put some distance between them so she could think clearly.

He let go of her hand. “Right, well tuck in, and then I suppose we’d better get you to the airport.” He picked up a toast triangle and dunked it in his egg. “I have to say, though, Kitty, I don’t feel entirely comfortable with this whole France scenario.”

“It will be fine,” she muttered, hearing her mother’s voice telling her not to talk with her mouth full but being too famished to care as she shovelled in a forkful of bacon. “Don’t worry.”

In record time she’d cleaned her plate and with caffeine coursing through her veins and a full belly she felt much improved. Damien announced he’d better go shower and so seeking distraction from dwelling on the night before, she began stacking the dishwasher as he disappeared back into his bedroom. Popping her mug in the rack, she remembered Yasmin’s call last night and felt guilty at not only having ignored it but at switching her phone off too. Setting the dishwasher to run, she went and fished her mobile out of her bag and a moment later her inbox filled with missed calls and texts from her friend. She’d better ring her, she thought, flopping down on the couch with a heavy sigh. Staring out the window at the adjacent high-rise, she took a deep breath knowing she was in for a rightly deserved drilling. Yasmin answered after two rings.

“Thank God, Kitty! I was worried about you. I imagined all sorts of things and none of them were good.” The relief in her voice flooded down the line.

“I’m fine, Yas. I am so sorry! I know I should have called you back and let you know where I was staying last night.”

“Yeah you should have and what’s with switching your phone off? What were you up to? I have hardly slept a wink. It didn’t help that Piggy and Slimy were at it all night again. Honestly, I thought the headboard was going to come through the flipping wall at one point.”

Kitty shuddered watching the morning light play on the glass panels of the building opposite. “Oh poor you, nobody deserves that.”

“I know! It was horrific and it’s quite possible that I might have been scarred for life. If I were religious last night’s antics would have been enough to convince me to join a convent, but I am not and couldn’t possibly be with Mr Amatriciana on the loose. I can’t stop thinking about him by the way; it’s a shame he’s taken. Never mind all that, though, did you find yourself a nice B&B in the end?”

“Um no. I stayed at an old friend’s place actually. I bumped into uh, her in Wigan, and she invited me back to her new flat for a bit of a catch-up. That’s why I turned my phone off because we were so, um, busy chatting.” Kitty studied a fingernail. She eyed its chipped polish with distaste. Her story sounded perfectly plausible, and it was almost true, she’d just swapped genders and left out all the juicy details.

Yasmin wasn’t buying it, though. “Kitty, I don’t need to be one of those FBI behavioural analyst’s like off the telly to tell that you are lying. It’s in the funny pitch of your voice.”

Kitty had never been a very good liar. She reckoned it was the pressure of having been an only child because it was very hard not to tell the truth when it was always two big people against one little person.

“Whatever, now spill, what have you been up to?”

Kitty squirmed in the leather seat. “You’re not going to like it.”

Two minutes later she held the phone away from her ear as her friend launched into a tirade that mostly involved her repeatedly yelling, “How could you be so stupid? After the way he hurt you!”

It was pretty much what she’d expected Yasmin to say. She’d watched her mother get burnt time and time again. The experience meant she was of the firm belief that once a cheater always a cheater, so there wasn’t very much Kitty could say to dissuade her from her point of view. There was no point adding fuel to her friend’s fire either by telling her Damien wanted her back and that he had promised he would never stray again. Part of her wanted to believe him because part of her wanted desperately to return to this world that had once been hers. There was another voice whispering in the background of emotions, though, telling her that she couldn’t go back. She was carving a new life of sorts for herself in London. She had her dreams to follow and they were within her grasp now thanks to the sale of Edgewater Lane. But would those dreams be hollow if she didn’t have him by her side?

He had never been enthused about the idea of her opening her café. He’d felt she would be better sticking to the safe option of working nine to five for a guaranteed wage. It was ironic given the gamble of his stockbroking work. But then he used to say he was gambling other people’s money not his own, so it was different. He had never understood that to her baking wasn’t just a hobby and something she enjoyed doing at the weekend. It was her passion, and she wanted to turn that passion into a job. She wanted to spend her days doing what she loved, not tapping away at a computer. Perhaps he might feel differently now she had some money behind her. That same little voice whispered that it really shouldn’t matter to her how he felt.

Oh, she thought, as she bit what was left of her thumbnail down to the quick, she was glad she would be sitting on a plane in just under two hours. She needed to get away from Damien and even Yasmin so she could think about what it was she wanted.

Damien appeared in the living room doorway looking decidedly delish in a fitted V-neck sweater and jeans with his hair still wet from the shower. At the sight of him, Kitty was almost tempted to hang up the phone and tell him that she wanted to start again, but something stopped her. Instead, she cut her friend off mid-sentence. “Listen, Yas, I have to get to the airport, my flight leaves at half-nine. I promise I will phone you when I get the chance from Uzés.”

She hung up on her friend who was still in mid-rant.

Chapter 7
As you ramble through life, whatever be your goal; Keep your eye on the doughnut, and not upon the hole – Irish Proverb

Kitty scanned the arrivals hall of Marseille Airport and spotted a little girl jumping up and down holding onto a piece of cardboard with the words Mademoiselle Sorenson printed boldly in black across it. As she weaved her way through the crowd, wheelie-case trundling along behind her, she realized the little girl wasn’t a child after all. Rather, she was a tiny woman who looked to be around her age too. She took a deep breath; she couldn’t quite believe she was here on French soil. Her free hand strayed unconsciously to her stomach and rested there for a moment; it was a bundle of knots.

“Er hello, I’m Kitty,” she ventured stepping into the woman’s line of sight.

The petite figure lowered her cardboard, and her bold red-lipsticked mouth twitched into a tight smile. Her glossy brunette hair was slicked back into a bun, and she was wearing a white trouser suit with the kind of killer heels that would have some women stalking along like an ostrich. Kitty adored them instantly and felt a stab of kinship at the sight of them. She could also sense from the woman’s stance that she meant business and would see an in-depth conversation as to where she had found such gorgeous footwear as a frivolous waste of her time. The hand she held out in greeting was dainty and smooth, free of rings, her nails perfect half-moons painted in a clear, shiny polish. Her whole demeanour oozed with an understated professionalism and Kitty realized she was one of those rare species of women that could wear all white and not get a mark on it.

“I’m Simone Cazal, Monsieur Beauvau’s Assistant, we spoke on the phone. I am so pleased you have come, and I welcome you to France.”

Jeez, for a little girl Simone sure had a grip and a half on her, Kitty thought, wishing she’d let go of her hand. Her English thankfully was much better than Kitty’s non-existent French. As she released her hand, she was relieved to be able to cross the language barrier off her mental ‘why this trip was madness’ list.

“The car, it is outside.” With that, she gave a come, come wave of her hand before turning and gliding in the direction of the nearest exit.

She was so elegant, so…what was the word she was looking for? So French! That was it, Kitty thought, watching her in awe before tottering along after her. Not even her beloved Alexander McQueen wannabes could stop her feeling like an unglamorous Heffalump clad in jeans in the presence of such effortless style. Not for the first time, she cursed the impromptu nature of this trip and wished she’d had the time to head back to London to pack a wardrobe suitable for a trip to France. Instead, she was stuck with the bare necessities she’d stuffed into her wheelie-case when she’d headed up to Wigan. Oh well, there was no point worrying about it now, she decided. As the glass doors slid open, she blinked at the bright blue sky that greeted her.

The car, a sleek Peugeot, pulled up with precision timing as Kitty nearly collided into the back of Simone who had come to a sudden kerbside halt. She barely had time to enjoy the balmy Marseille breeze before a stocky man with a shock of silver hair, dressed in a dark suit got out of the car. With a nod in Simone’s direction, he made his way around to the rear of the car to open the boot then turning his attention to Kitty, he muttered something guttural at her. She smiled blankly back at him in that I haven’t a clue what you just said, but I guess it was something along the lines of give me your bag way as he retrieved her case from her. He placed it in the trunk and closing the boot made his way around to the passenger door. He opened it for Simone. She gave a brief nod of thanks before sliding into the seat and reaching for her seat belt. She was obviously used to being driven around, Kitty thought, as he opened the back door for her, and she ducked into the car mindful of not doing something dumb like bang her head. She smiled up at him. “Gracias.”

A flicker of amusement flashed across his craggy, clean-shaven features before he closed the door, and she felt her cheeks flame. He’s French, Kitty, you idiot, not Spanish! she told herself as she buckled in. Settling back in her seat, she decided that from now on her best course of action was not to speak unless spoken to. It was a shame because she had hundreds of questions she’d like to ask Simone about her mother and Midsummer Lovers, but she supposed they could wait until she got to Uzés.

The chauffeur got in and turning to Simone fired something off in French. It elicited both a tsking sound and an annoyed expression from her before he started the engine. He pulled away to navigate his way deftly out of the airport. Simone angled her head toward the back seat and Kitty leaned forward to hear what she had to say.

“We will have to take the scenic route because there has been an accident on the motorway and the traffic it is very bad. It is most annoying because it means I will have to ring Christian and tell him we will be delayed.” She pursed her lips. “Our schedule is very tight. He won’t be happy.” As she turned away to make the call, Kitty heard her make more of the tut-tutting sounds. She doubted the people involved in the accident were very happy either.

She kept her opinion to herself, though, offering up somewhat lamely. “Oh dear, that’s a shame.” Simone wasn’t listening, and Kitty looked out the window. She was secretly pleased with the turn of events in so much as the scenic route around Provence’s back roads sounded much more exciting than a featureless trip down a motorway.

She’d only ever been to France once before, and that was for a long weekend in Paris with Damien. It had not been long enough by far. She closed her eyes for a moment recalling how they had left their hotel room in the Latin Quarter to explore the famous area’s winding, cobbled lanes. Damien had set a pace that was far too fast for her liking. She had thought, as she paused to press her nose to the window of a patisserie, that surely Paris was a city in which to meander? The patisserie had the most gorgeous array of glossy baby fruit tarts, macarons, éclairs of all colours and flavours as well as other delectable treats that she had ever had the good fortune to lay her eyes upon. How she had wished she could bypass the young girls serving behind the counter and head straight through to the kitchen to watch the artisan bakers’ at work. Damien had pulled her away before she could get a foot in the door, though, eager to get to the Louvre and tick off another sight on his Paris in three days list.

She opened her eyes again; Simone had begun talking into her mobile, and as the car passed over a speed bump, Kitty felt an uncomfortable sensation. Oh bugger it, she should have gone to the loo while she had the chance. She glanced back over her shoulder at the airport terminal watching until it disappeared from view.

That would teach her for indulging in yet another cup of coffee followed up by a glass of pinot gris all before ten o’clock just because she could. It wasn’t every day she found herself on a business class flight to France. As she’d sipped on the fruity wine and stretched her legs out, she’d told herself she deserved it. What had happened to her in the last twenty-four hours was enough to drive any girl to drink. And she didn’t need much of a nudge when it came to a glass of vino at the best of times!

Now, she watched as the urban scenery of terracotta roof tiles gave way to leafy tree lined roads. The shades of green forming an arbour over the car were soft, almost as though they’d been brushed with silver. She sat forward in her seat eagerly as she spied the open fields beyond the trees. They were filled with sunflowers beginning to take a cautious peek at the world. The rolling hills in the background were smattered with medieval villages and she wished she had time to go and explore their charms. She wondered if her mother had passed down this road with her boyfriend all those years ago and looked out at the same views she was now soaking up. It was a scene that surely, apart from the tar sealing of the roads, would not have changed in the last few hundred years let alone fifty.

She glanced at Simone, toying with the idea of asking her for more information about the history of the photograph that had brought her here. Simone had put her phone away, but her head was now bent as she tapped away with urgent fingers at her iPad. Not wanting to interrupt her, Kitty settled back into her seat trying not to think about the fact that actually, she really did need to go to the loo. She crossed her legs. It was no small feat in the back of a Peugeot, and she jiggled her foot to distract herself, but as the car hit a pothole, she realized she had reached the point of no return.

“Um excuse me, Simone.” She leaned forward and tapped her on her shoulder.

“Oui.” Her tone was curt as she looked up from whatever it was she was doing and twisted round in her seat to see what Kitty wanted.

“Er, is there any chance we could stop at a restroom please?”

Simone’s expression was blank.

“Um, loo er, you know, toilet?” A bog, a crapper she mentally added, desperation making her crass.

“Er oui, toilette?”

Yes, wee, wee, wee! Kitty nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, toilette please.”

“Non, sorry.” Simone turned back to her iPad and began swiping at the screen again.

Kitty was having none of it and she tapped her on the shoulder again. “The thing is Simone I really, really need to go.”

She paused mid-swipe but didn’t bother to look around this time. “In France, Mademoiselle Kitty we do many things well. Amour oui, cuisine oui, histoire oui, public toilettes non.”

“But I won’t make it to Uzés. I have to go now!”

The desperation in her tone must have gotten through to Simone because she leaned across and said something unintelligible to the chauffeur before turning her attention to Kitty.

“I have asked Pierre to stop up there.” She waved her hand in front of her and Kitty peered through the gap in the seats. At the sight of the shops ahead, she found religion. “Thank you, Lord,” she whispered silently.

Pierre indicated left and pulled into the car park coming to a halt in front of a patisserie. A quick sweep of the block confirmed to Kitty that this was her best shot for a loo. The hairdressers at the end of the block was shut, and she didn’t rate her chances of the furniture shop having a public amenity. She flung the back door of the car open half expecting Simone to clap her hands and say. “Chop, chop we haven’t got all day.” She didn’t say a word, though, as Kitty knock-kneed headed in the direction of the patisserie. Pushing open the door she saw that there were no other customers in there. Her mind automatically registered that the glass-fronted cabinet held a delicious array of baguettes stuffed full of savoury goodies and cream filled cakes. She wondered what would happen to all that gorgeous food at the close of business which going by the ghost town outside wouldn’t be far off. Stop thinking about food, Kitty she admonished, arranging her features into a smile, and concentrate on the job at hand.

“Une toilette, merci?” she asked the woman behind the counter who was wielding a broom, hoping her pitiful attempt at French would soften her austere features. Her hair was stretched tightly back and knotted into an unflattering bun. Kitty knew she had read somewhere that the French appreciate tourists making an attempt at speaking their language.

“Non.” She didn’t stop in her sweeping shaking her head vigorously to emphasise her point.

Not one single hair on the woman’s head had moved out of place during this exchange much to Kitty’s fascination. Her panic, though, was making her feel nasty and she wanted to shout back at the women. “Oh go and eat some cake you skinny old cow.” But she didn’t fancy getting smacked with the broom, so instead, she bit back the retort and hobbled out of the shop.

Pierre was leaning against the car smoking, and Simone was still sitting in the passenger seat doing whatever it was she was doing on her iPad. It was no good, Kitty thought; she had to go. There was no way she could be bounced around in the back of that car for the duration of the trip to Uzés even if it were only half an hour up the road. Her eyes strayed over to the scrub filled lot beside the patisserie, and she made her mind up. There was nothing else for it; she’d just have to hope she could find a particularly leafy dandelion to hide behind.

Squatting down and knowing full well she was delusional if she thought she was hidden from view, the relief a split second later was immense. When she’d finally finished and done a little jiggle, she began the task of trying to pull her knickers and jeans back up without actually standing up. Her thigh muscles were getting the best workout of their lives. The job was almost done when she registered an intense burning sensation in the right cheek of her bottom. As her hand automatically flew around to pat the spot she almost lost her balance. “Calm down, Kitty,” she muttered, steadying herself. The sight of her rolling around on the ground with both her undergarments and jeans sailing at half-mast would not be a good one. Twisting her head back over her shoulder, she was just in time to spy a self-satisfied wasp buzzing toward a little mound on the ground. It was only a short distance from where she was crouched. She realized with some dismay that she’d just squatted beside a wasp nest, been stung for her effort and that it bloody well hurt!

With one last herculean effort, Kitty eased her pants up over her stinging cheek. As she stood up and glanced back at the little mound, she saw a cluster of the wasp’s humming little buddies emerging. The bastard had told them lunch was served she thought, charging back across the lot toward the car. She ignored the woman in the patisserie window who was busy wagging a finger at her and shouted at Pierre to get back in the car. She couldn’t see his expression as he ground his cigarette out, so intent was she on reaching the sanctity of the back seat. It was with huge relief that a moment later she flung the door open and threw herself into the seat. She slammed the door shut before she could be swarmed.

Simone turned to look at her and raising one eyebrow asked. “Better?”

And so it was that thirty minutes later Kitty arrived in the beautiful, historic town of Uzés with a rapidly swelling derriere and a dwindling sense of pride.

Chapter 8
Marry a mountain girl and you marry the whole mountain – Irish Proverb

“I am Christian Beauvau,” a man with an impressive head of silver hair swept back from his face and knotted at the nape of his neck in a low ponytail said. He pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. Dark glasses covered his eyes and he was sporting a dodgy tan. It made his teeth that were bared in a wolfish smile appear almost neon in their Hollywood whiteness. His suit, Kitty noticed, was white like Simone’s, but unlike hers, his had a tell-tale red wine stain on the lapel. The stain’s culprit was in the half drunk wine glass on the table he had gotten up from. It stood next to a little dish filled with olives and an empty bowl of mussel shells. To her surprise, he placed his beringed hands on either side of her face and studied her for a moment before exclaiming, “Tu es tres belle! You are beautiful just like your maman. It is such a treat for me to feast my eyes upon Rosa’s daughter at last.” His breath smelt garlicky, but it wasn’t unpleasant she thought, as he released her face and waved for her to sit down in the empty seat opposite him.

Thanking him for the effusive compliments, she sat down gingerly. She wished she’d had time to pick up some antihistamine cream. She’d spotted a pharmacy’s green cross blinking amongst the other shops on the shaded main road as they’d driven through the busy town. She hadn’t dared ask Simone to get Pierre to stop the car again, though, not after the wasp debacle and so had missed her chance. Instead, she’d sat with her nose pressed to the window and gazed at the crowded pavement cafés and pretty shop frontages sheltering beneath their red awnings. She’d tried to imagine her mother as a young girl wandering amongst them. All the while, she kept her hands tightly clasped as she resisted the urge to stick her hand down the back of her pants and scratch the sting. The sensation of which had recently moved from the burning pain phase into the intense itching stage.

Pierre had navigated his way expertly around the ring road surrounding the town before pulling in to park in the gravelled grounds of a Cathedral. Its spire, Kitty thought, resembled the Leaning Tower of Pisa rearing up lopsidedly against the bright blue sky. As she got out and pushed the car door shut behind her, she spied an old woman sat on a cushion in the shade of the Cathedral’s grand entranceway. Kitty stared over at her with open curiosity. She was plump and swarthy with grey hair peeking out from under a headscarf. Her skirt was voluminous and black. It was bunched around a stout set of legs she’d crossed at the ankles. Kitty watched for a moment as a group clad in standard-issue cargo pants and comfortable walking shoes with cameras dangling from their necks – to reinforce the fact they were tourists – approached the entrance.

The Gypsy woman picked a bowl up from the ground next to where she was sitting and shook it at them. Kitty saw the spark of hope that had flared in her eyes at their approach die as they ignored her and disappeared inside the realms of the Cathedral. How very Christian of them, she thought, feeling a surge of anger. How dare they treat the poor woman as though she were invisible! She opened her handbag, rifling in it until she produced her purse. Unzipping it, she gazed at its contents in dismay. She’d not had time to change any money into Euro’s, and pound coins would be of no use to the Romany woman. She felt a tap on her shoulder; Pierre had gotten out of the car. She watched as he thrust his hand into his pants pocket to produce a few shiny coins that he held out for her.

“Merci.” Kitty grinned, getting it right this time.

He nodded and slid back behind the driver’s wheel beside Simone, who was finishing a phone call. Kitty strode over to where the woman was sitting and dropped the coins into her bowl; she was rewarded with a toothless grin. She smiled back at her and was about to turn away when something in the old woman’s nut brown eyes made her hesitate. She beckoned for Kitty to come down to her level. So, for the second time that day, Kitty found herself squatting down as she let her take hold of her hand.

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