The Traveller’s Daughter - Michelle Vernal

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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

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