A Daughter's Choice (6 page)

What did Katherine look like? Did she take after Mick or herself? What had his mother told her about Celia? These were questions she had asked herself over and over again, and each time she came up with the same answers and did not like any of them.

A breeze blew a strand of hair into her mouth as she passed the Ribble bus station and was removed with fingers which still shook nervously when life got too much for her. She had never been able to harden herself against setbacks, heartache and pain, and so had kept herself to herself. After one bad experience she never risked getting involved with a man again. She guessed Rita was a bit that way too, although she had never said it was a man who had caused her to remain in her spinster state. Celia and Rita were not as close as they had been once but remained friendly.

She turned into the road where the Seaview Hotel was situated and hurried up a path flanked with laurel and holly bushes to a large redbrick Victorian building with revolving doors and a recently built sun lounge. She found Rita, now assistant manageress, in Reception.

‘Morning, Cessy,' she said with a smile. ‘What have you done to the weather?'

‘Same as usual,' said Celia. ‘Forgot to pray about it. Do you think it's going to be one of those summers?'

‘Who knows!' Rita handed her the pass keys to the bedrooms. ‘I got soaked the other day in Liverpool. By the way, I've something to tell you when you've finished.'

‘Something nice?'

‘Interesting. But I'll tell you later. Old Henny's on the warpath this morning. Must have lost at bridge last night.' She turned as a woman came downstairs.

Celia hurried away to hang up her coat and found the other cleaner by the broom cupboard. They exchanged hellos but Celia did not waste time listening to her stories about her husband and children that morning but started work. Later in the day she would go to the cafe off Lord Street where she helped in the kitchen around lunchtime. Sometimes, if the Seaview got really busy, she returned later in the day and helped out, peeling vegetables and washing dishes. She even waited at table sometimes, anything to make a bit of extra money, because she had a secret vice.

Celia daydreamed as she made beds and dusted, imagining what she would do if she won the football pools. First she would tell Mrs Henshall what she could do with her job, and secondly she would go in search of Katherine and tell her she never meant to desert her. Her daughter would believe her and Mrs Mcleod would be pleased to see her. She would be welcomed into the bosom of the family and they would all live happily ever after. Then every Saturday she and Katherine would have a good old root around the clothes shops and deck themselves out in the best Paris fashions, and they would certainly go on a cruise –
if
she could win on the pools.

If
Celia won lots and lots of money she would buy her own little bed and breakfast place. It was a dream she and Rita had shared in their early days in Southport. Maybe she might even meet a man and get married. Someone like Mr Pritchard who came to stay at the Seaview with his sister towards the end of summer when the Southport Show was in full swing. He was tall and well-built with a ramrod-straight back from having been a professional soldier. He had served in India in the days of Gandhi and loved to talk about it. She imagined taking tea with him in one of the posher hotels in Southport and dancing to the music of Victor Sylvester at the Floral Hall. Then he would see her home and kiss her. He had a moustache so it might tickle. Celia smiled to herself and hummed as she hoovered.

She finished her stint, returned dusters, polish, vacuum cleaner, dry mop and dustpan to their cupboard, and went in search of Rita. As she handed back the pass keys, she asked, ‘Well, what is it you were going to tell me?'

Rita leant across the desk. ‘What was the name of that hotel you used to work at in Liverpool before the war?'

The question startled Celia and for a moment her mind went blank. Then she pulled herself together. ‘The Arcadia. Why?'

‘I thought it was.' Rita smiled. ‘I was there yesterday! Remember me telling you I was going to visit Beattie who was cook at that vicarage where I worked as a kid? Well, I'd gone early into Liverpool because I had to be back here pretty sharpish in the afternoon. We went shopping and had a cuppa in Reece's, and I'd just said tarrah after we'd seen the Queen Mum when this girl had a fit right there on the pavement in front of me! The woman with her needed a bit of help so I gave her a hand and it turned out she was the owner of the Arcadia! Out of all the boarding houses and hotels she could have belonged to, she belonged there! What d'you think of that for a coincidence?'

‘Interesting, like you said. What was she like?'

‘Friendly – grateful. Asked me in for a cup of tea. She had a husband … big fella … Scottish … sixtyish.'

Celia went very still. It couldn't be! ‘What was their name?' she stammered.

‘Mcleod. Hers was Kitty … Kitty Mcleod.'

The lobby seemed to spin and Celia gripped the edge of the desk.

‘What's wrong?' Rita's voice was concerned. ‘Did I give you a shock, love?'

Celia took a deep breath. ‘It's OK. It's just that I thought they'd left Liverpool. A neighbour told me they'd left Liverpool!' she wailed. ‘I don't understand …'

‘They must have come back. You told me it was hit by a bomb. They must have just gone away until the repairs were done. You know what it was like in the war. Sometimes it could take months and months for rebuilding to be done.'

‘You're right,' said Celia, although Rita's words did not make her feel any better. Then she remembered Katherine. ‘This girl, what was she like?'

‘Had quite a nice face. Nothing spectacular. Mrs Mcleod mentioned something about her daughter. Do you remember her daughter?'

Her
daughter? Kitty didn't have a daughter! Celia was stunned.

Rita said helpfully, ‘She would only have been a tiddler when you left, wouldn't she? Although come to think of it –'

But Celia had stopped listening. She was thinking:
Her
daughter! Was that how Kitty Mcleod explained my baby away? A child of the Change perhaps? She felt raw inside, as if the older woman had taken away not only her child's identity but Celia's own as a mother. She trembled with unaccustomed fury.

‘Are you sure you're OK?' said Rita, placing a hand on hers. ‘You don't look a bit yourself.'

‘I'm OK.' Celia straightened. Forcing a smile, she said, ‘See you in the morning,' and left.

All day it was as if a storm was going on in her head. Most of her life she had felt a nobody but at least in giving birth to Katherine she'd felt she had achieved something. Every year on her daughter's birthday she had imagined Katherine at a different stage in her life. She had skipped with her to school, bought her clothes and taken her to Wales on the steamer. She had even dreamed up a boy for her first romance. That way Celia had convinced herself that in a vague kind of way she had remained part of Katherine's life. Now she realised she never had been. Kitty Mcleod had taken her over, lock, stock and barrel.

Until that moment Celia had endured a certain amount of guilt for having left her daughter, even though she had been able to blame circumstances for her never having claimed her. She had hoped that Kitty would have explained away her having deserted Katherine as one of those things which happened in wartime. ‘It was sad but your mother Celia went missing. She could have been killed by enemy action …' Hopefully she might have gone on to tell Katherine something nice about her. Now Celia realised it was more than likely that her name had never been mentioned. All these years Mick's mother had been living a lie!

Anger and resentment burned inside her. She felt sick at the thought that she had deceived herself all these years, and became so worked up about the whole thing that she suffered blinding headaches. She was good for nothing and had to drag herself out of bed each morning and somehow struggle through her work. The pain was so bad sometimes she thought she was going mad. She blamed Kitty for everything. Even for not having left a message saying she was not staying in Scotland for good but would be back. Celia convinced herself that Kitty was responsible for Katherine's being an epileptic. Kitty Mcleod deserved to be punished, she told herself. But how? She wanted her to suffer the mental torture she herself had been through.

Celia thought and thought and as she lay on her bed one evening, her insides heaving, scared to move her head in case the terrible pain returned, her eyes fell on an Agatha Christie book by her bedside. Suddenly she had an idea and slowly rose from the bed. Holding her head steady, she went in search of a pair of scissors. When she found them she took a newspaper from the small pile she kept to make up the coal fire and stared at the banner headlines. Then she began to snip out single letters, knowing exactly what she was going to say.

Kitty closed the bedroom door behind her and took an envelope from the pocket of her apron. She withdrew the single sheet of paper with fingers that trembled slightly and read YOU STOLE MY BABY! NOW I'M COMING BACK FOR HER, SO BE WARNED.

How dare Celia? How dare she after all this time? There was a definite threat in that ‘BE WARNED' which really got under Kitty's skin despite her anxiety. When she considered how hard she had worked bringing up Katie she could have wiped the floor with Celia, or Miss Turner as she called herself. But of course the woman had been too cowardly to say any of this to her face and instead had waited until she got home.

Kitty read the words for the fourth time, hardly able to believe that the Celia she had known, employed and cared for, could have written them. Not that it was signed. She turned the page over to make sure but the reverse was blank. When she thought how she had lived with all kinds of fear throughout Katie's young life she could have screamed. There had been fear of disease, of accidents, even of gypsies stealing her beloved girl away, but never had she expected to receive a letter like this! She felt annoyed with herself for being so afraid, but telling the truth was one of her house rules. She had always been strict with Katie about the need for honesty, in families and in business, and it was the thought of that which worried her the most now. She herself had lied! She had lied!

Kitty gazed down at the newsprint letters again and it struck her that it was just like one of those anonymous notes one might read about in an Agatha Christie novel. Except it was
not
anonymous so why go to all the bother of cutting letters out of a newspaper and not signing it? What had got into Celia? Had she gone off her head? Yet the Miss Turner she had seen only a few days ago had appeared sane. Were the two women one and the same or not? Surely it couldn't be mere coincidence, the letter arriving so soon after she had been here?

There was a knock and Ben popped his head round the door. ‘One of the guests wants to see you, Ma.'

‘I'll be down in a minute,' she murmured, not looking up.

He came further into the room. ‘Are you OK? You sound a bit funny.'

Kitty looked over her spectacles and realised with a sense of relief that she was not alone in this. There was John and Ben to share it with. ‘I've had an anonymous letter. Having said that, I know who it's from.'

‘Talk sense, Ma.'

‘Have a look.' She handed the letter to him.

Ben sat beside her on the bed and after a few seconds lifted his head. ‘She must be sick. But at least it proves Celia and Miss Turner are one and the same.'

‘That's what I've been thinking. Although Miss Turner appeared quite sane.'

‘I think this letter's working up to blackmail,' he said. ‘The next one could be “GIVE ME SOME MONEY OR I'LL TELL HER YOU'RE NOT HER MOTHER!”'

Kitty stared at him and ice seemed to slither down her spine. ‘I can't believe it … Celia wouldn't! Real people don't do that kind of thing.'

‘Of course they do. Where do you think writers get their ideas from?'

‘It doesn't happen to people like us.'

‘You said that years ago, but you know from personal experience it's not just in films and books that people are evil.'

‘But we're talking about Celia …'

‘She's sick in the head, Ma. She must be, taking on two personalities.' He put an arm round her shoulders and hugged her. ‘Now you're not to worry. I'll find that hotel in Southport and sort her out and this'll pass over.'

‘As long as Katie doesn't get to know. I want her staying here under my roof where she belongs. She could never be happy with
this
Celia,' said Kitty, screwing up the letter and pocketing it.

Nor could Mick, thought Ben, feeling low. He had tried to speak to Sarah but she had cocked her nose in the air and said they had nothing further to say to one another. Mick was still going out with her and Ben was scared stiff where it might end. At the moment, though, his main concern should be his mother and Katie. Abruptly he said, ‘Ma, you could stop all this by telling Katie the truth, you know.'

‘No! And don't you dare! I want her enjoying her life, not worrying about who she is because I didn't give birth to her. You find Celia and warn her off. Tell her I'll have the police on her if she carries on like this.'

And without another word Kitty walked out to deal with the guest awaiting her attention.

If Katie had known what was going on she would not have been enjoying herself at all. Being the daughter of the owner of the Arcadia and heiress apparent was a role she loved to play. That afternoon she was entertaining Eileen, for whom she felt deeply sorry now she knew about the fits, and also a young male guest. They were in a coffee bar and she found it all very exciting, as her parents considered there was something alarming about teenagers meeting together to listen to rowdy music and drink foreign coffee.