The Traveller’s Daughter. Michelle Vernal

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