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- Herausgeber: Honno Press
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
'This was a place for love, for proposals and weddings, couples and happy families. Our hurting hearts were awkward and out of place.' Grace believed she had the ideal marriage, but after Dan dies, she finds proof he had another family. Kat can't admit that her father was less than perfect. Mother and daughter go to Montenegro to find out the truth. But when they track down Rosa and her son, while Grace is heart-broken, Kat can't help being thrilled to have a brother. Kat is a bullied sous chef in London, and starts helping out 'just for a few days' at Rosa's restaurant, the Café Lompar. Soon both women are torn between their old and new lives, facing impossible choices. Can Kat find what she's looking for? Will Grace let herself trust again? Can a journey that begins with betrayal ever end in joy?
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LOVE AT CAFÉ LOMPAR
Anna and Jacqui Burns
HONNO MODERN FICTION
v
For Carole Cox, Who taught us the importance of love, family and food! vi
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
Grace
It felt like falling without a parachute. Hurtling through a void. That’s the only way I can explain the shock of losing Dan.
He had a heart attack, brutally sudden. I’d been shopping in town and when I got back to my car I saw fourteen missed calls on my phone. Several from Dan’s colleague, Will, and the last five from my daughter, Kat. When I listened to her voicemail, Kat was sobbing and I could only just make out her plea: ‘Call me now.’
Dan had the heart attack at work, and had been rushed to A&E. I didn’t know until I reached the hospital that he’d already died. Kat and I held onto each other, grief overwhelming us. He was just fifty-two.
I was enveloped in kindness at first: cakes and stews donated by well-meaning friends and neighbours; my sister Claire patiently listening to me sob on two a.m. phone calls; cards with poignant messages from his colleagues.
But four months later, most people had moved on. I still got the tilted heads in Waitrose from acquaintances, with a concerned, ‘How’re you keeping?’ Claire, of course, would always be there and Kat wanted to talk about Dan as much as I did. But she lived over a hundred miles away in London, juggling a demanding career with an even more demanding boyfriend. 2
I’d finally tackled Dan’s wardrobe last week and sent his clothes to the charity shop, keeping only the silver cufflinks I’d bought him for our twentieth anniversary and a pair of flannel pyjamas. His smell still lingered on them when I buried my nose in the folds. Today I was really ripping the plaster off. I was going to sort out Dan’s study at the back of the house: clear out his drawers and send his books back to the university.
Soft, buttery morning light filled the room, dancing across the bookshelves, highlighting just how much stuff was in here. The shelves were bursting with everything from American and European politics, history and economics to the thrillers he devoured in his spare time. On the bottom shelves were his DVDs: Dan loved old British sitcoms like Fawlty Towers, Dads’ Army.
The east-facing study looked out at the garden and I stopped to gaze at the lilac delphiniums towering against the stone wall and the blousy pink and white peonies in the farthest bed. The garden was my territory, my escape, but today I mustn’t let it distract me. I had to face my memories.
Dan’s earnestness was what first drew me to him. Well, that and his unruly hair and dark, serious eyes. He was a Heathcliff, intense and passionate. He used to laugh a lot in those early days, and he could make me feel I was the most important person in the room. He was a third-year politics and economics student at Bristol, and I was first-year English literature. We met in the students’ union’s crowded, smoky bar. I had gone with a friend, ignoring the essay I had to hand in the next day on the Romantics.
I ended up sitting next to him, Tears for Fears thumping in the 3background. When his arm brushed against mine, it felt electric. Two years older, he seemed so knowledgeable and sophisticated. His name was Danilo Milovan Lompar and he was from Montenegro, which sounded so wildly, impossibly exotic to me then.
‘A tiny place called Perast in the Bay of Kotor,’ he said, in that precise way I came to know so well. ‘It is very beautiful.’
His family had moved to Britain when Dan was a child, but he still had an aunt there. Dan’s parents had died in an accident just before his A-levels. Outside the bar, he kissed me, his hand in my hair, pulling me towards him. He stayed that night, the next, and barely left from then on.
The phone rang, bringing me back to the present. It was Claire. I pressed speaker phone as I sat in Dan’s office chair, unlocked a desk drawer and began pulling out receipts and letters.
‘Morning, hon,’ Claire trilled. ‘Now before you argue, I’ve booked brunch in Giovanni’s. I’m picking you up at eleven-thirty. I’ve got to get out. The twins are driving me nuts.’ She sighed. ‘Laura is stressing about her mocks and Liam hasn’t a care in the world. They’re chalk and cheese, honestly!’
I picked up a photograph in a silver, heart-shaped frame Dan had kept on his desk: the three of us at Bristol Zoo. Two-year-old Kat clung onto a fluffy giraffe as if her life depended on it. With her other hand, she held Dan’s. She had always been a proper daddy’s girl and I tried not to let it bother me. It really didn’t − I loved them being so close.
‘I’m just making a start clearing up Dan’s study and I’m not sure I’ll have time…’ 4
‘Come on, Gracie, it’ll do you good to get out for a bit.’
As she spoke, I rummaged in the drawer, pulling out sheaves of paper, pens without their lids, old notebooks. I’d forgotten how chaotic Dan could be − my task seemed mountainous. I tugged at the drawer, but something was jammed. I half-listened to Claire.
‘I’ve got that wedding at the end of the month. A cousin of Stu’s. Did I tell you?’
‘Hmm,’ I muttered, trying to sound interested. My fingers grasped something wedged in the back of the drawer. I gave a hard tug, the drawer shot forward and the whatever-it-was came away in my hand — an old envelope. ‘Ouch!’
‘Are you OK?’ Claire asked.
‘Sorry, I just broke a nail.’
‘Anyway, I was hoping we could visit the High Street afterwards. I’ll pick you up, OK?’
I mumbled something and Claire rang off.
I turned over the envelope, intrigued. In Dan’s small, sloping handwriting was written: ‘Rosa and Luka’. Nobody I knew. The hairs prickled at the back of my skull as I slid three photographs out of the battered envelope. Something didn’t feel quite right.
The first picture was of a young, attractive woman, all voluptuous curves and long dark hair. Rosa, presumably. She and a younger Dan were standing outside a modest villa, cerise bougainvillea snaking around the entrance. She wore a tight-fitting dress stretched over a noticeable bump. Dan’s dark fringe flopped down his forehead, and his arm rested territorially on the woman’s shoulders.
The second was of Dan and a little boy, about four years old. 5Maybe he was a relative of Dan’s I had forgotten about − they looked so alike. An azure sea shimmered behind them.
The last was a more recent photograph. The boy was at least fifteen and Dan’s hair was beginning to grey. Happiness radiated from them. I hadn’t seen that smile for a long time. At the bottom, someone had written, Dan, Rosa and Luka. Perast. May 2016.
On the back was a message in handwriting I didn’t recognise.
‘A perfect day with my gorgeous man! I love you, darling. Counting down the days until we’re together again. Rosa xxx’
The shock hit me like a punch to my stomach. 6
PART ONE – MONTENEGRO
ONE YEAR LATER8
CHAPTER ONE
Kat
I pushed through the crowded arrivals lounge at Dubrovnik International, heading for my mother. Her new sunhat shone out across the crowds of people in all its yellow glory. If there was a way to stick out more as a tourist, I couldn’t think of one.
‘Ryanair is right when they talk about no frills flying,’ I said, as I joined her at the desk and sniffed my T-shirt. ‘I was sitting so close to the man next to me, I think I’ve caught his B.O.’
Mum sighed, rifling through her hand luggage. Some of its contents spilled out on to the desk.
‘I can’t find it,’ she muttered, stress creasing her brow. ‘I could have sworn it was in here…’
I looked up at the car rental clerk. He gave me a disinterested smile before turning back to his computer.
‘What have we lost?’ I asked, reaching out to hold her bag open for her.
‘They need my driver’s licence, and I can’t effing find it.’ She paused to lift her hair off her neck. ‘It doesn’t help it’s so bloody hot in here.’ I knew stress levels were high when Mum started swearing.
‘Have you looked through your purse?’
‘Of course I have!’ she bit back. 10
‘Why don’t I go through it again? Fresh pair of eyes?’
Mum continued searching through the handbag’s deep pockets, moving crumpled tissues and receipts so worn you could no longer tell where they came from.
I carefully searched her purse, thumbing through shiny cards and more receipts, but no tell-tale pink plastic driver’s licence.
I found a picture of Dad at the back and stopped. A three-year-old me sitting proudly on his lap at the top of a slide he was clearly too big to fit down. Emotion welled up in my throat. I was still so close to tears at any moment. Would this feeling ever pass? A year had gone so quickly.
‘Shit,’ Mum said, looking up. ‘I can’t remember the last time I used it.’
‘And you didn’t check?’ The question came out more angrily that I’d intended.
‘I thought I had it.’ She looked lost. Normally Mum always checked everything — but there was nothing normal about this trip. I needed to remember how hard this was for her.
We heard a groan from the growing queue of tourists behind us and the man at the desk cleared his throat.
‘You can’t hire a car without a licence,’ he helpfully reminded us.
‘I know,’ Mum said between gritted teeth.
‘Let’s just use mine.’ I flicked through my purse for my licence card. We had to pay an extra seventy quid because I was under the age of thirty. I swore under my breath as I handed over my brand new kuna currency. It felt as if we’d been at the car hire desk for hours by the time we were given the keys. 11
‘Do you know I’ve always liked a Nissan Micra?’ Mum said, as we wheeled our suitcases towards the car depot.
‘Dad would kill you for saying that.’
‘Him and his Audis.’ She gave the first real smile I had seen from her in months.
‘Right, Kat, just remember, deep breaths, no need to rush,’ Mum said, more to soothe herself than me.
The little car juddered to life. Our route had already been planned, printed and highlighted by Mum. I didn’t point out how unnecessary this was with satnav. I knew she’d say, ‘It’s nice to have a printed copy to fall back on.’ The catchphrase of my childhood.
We headed for the roundabout, my foot pressing a little too hard on the accelerator. I was a bit out of practice − I barely needed my licence since moving to London; the restaurant where I worked was only a tube stop away. But it was all coming back to me and driving in London taught you to be aware and ready for anything.
Mum’s foot pumped imaginary brakes as we approached.
‘You don’t need to do that.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ll try not to.’
We looked at the road sign. Zagreb, Hvar and Split, glamorous locations I’d seen on Instagram. We were going in the opposite direction. Montenegro, Kotor and Perast. Equally lovely, I was sure, but we weren’t going for the glamour.
Rosa and Luka.
For a second, I considered turning the other way. A week on the beach in Split. Reading books, dipping our toes in the crystal 12sea, drinking cocktails. I worried for the thousandth time that I wasn’t strong enough to support Mum through this.
The pain of losing Dad had suffocated me, like walking through life with lead shoes on. Finding out he had another woman, another family, was a betrayal I would never have thought possible. My beloved father had kept this massive part of himself hidden from us. Had he felt the same way about them as he did for us? Did he think about Luka every time he hugged me? Questions I could never answer. The wound was still raw.
I looked across the car at Mum, who seemed far away, and wondered if she was thinking the same things.
‘Here we go.’ I pulled out onto the roundabout, after waiting too long for the road to completely clear. I counted my breaths, one, two, three, to keep them steady. All I had to do right now was concentrate on the road. I couldn’t think about what would happen tomorrow. Google maps reckoned it was just an hour and a half to Kotor. I added on another twenty minutes for my snail’s pace driving.
‘I’m proud of you,’ Mum said, patting my knee a little patronisingly as we pulled out on to the open road. I chose not to bite. I felt shackled to the slow lane, as faster cars pulled past.
We turned a corner and suddenly we were a world away from the busy airport.
‘Look at that,’ I breathed. The coastline spread out in front of us, the hyper-blue sea dotted with luxury yachts and bordered by endless sand. ‘It’s a wonder Dad wanted to stay in the UK when this was his home.’ 13
‘Makes a difference from rainy Bath.’ Mum gave me a tight-lipped smile, one I had come to recognise when she was thinking of him.
Small talk had become our comfort blanket since he’d died, muffling anything deeper. I felt we communicated more through what we didn’t say.
Dad and I had had a private language since I was a child. He’d tell me stories of his old best friend, how they’d sneak to the front windows of their homes, across the street from each other, to send secret hand signals when they should have been in bed.
‘Show me,’ I’d asked, enraptured by his imagination. We were a little team, on a covert mission, making signals at the kitchen table behind Mum’s back.
‘Give me your peas,’ he’d sign, knowing I didn’t like them, saving me from another telling off. She could never understand why we giggled so much at dinner time. The memory hurt now as much as it had made me laugh then.
We drove in silence for a while, Mum apologising when she clutched the door handle as another car pulled out in front of us. A sign welcomed us to Montenegro as we crossed the border from Croatia. We’d never been here before. We’d been to Italy more times than I could count on both hands but Dad had always chosen holidays to Italy over his home country. We knew why now, of course.
Thick, lofty trees shaded the road from the insistent sun, beating hard on the roof of our Micra. I could feel my right arm burning through the small driver’s window.
‘You could do with some sun on you,’ Mum said.
I was well aware of my ghostly complexion. My skin hadn’t 14had a hint of a holiday glow for years. Ever since I’d joined the kitchen at Truffles, in fact. Working unsociable hours six days a week didn’t leave me with much time for sunbathing. I slept in until eleven A.M., then headed back to the kitchen, and my annual leave was usually spent researching new recipes for the menu. I’d only been allowed to take this time off because I’d promised I’d send any recipes I could find back to Mark, the head chef. He fancied the sound of Montenegrin fusion dishes.
‘No one else is doing that right now, are they?’ he’d said, always seeking the next new thing. He was obsessed with bettering the restaurant, evolving the menu.
In truth, I was exhausted. I was back in the kitchen exactly a week and a half after Dad died. Mum had been aghast, but it had given me a solid excuse to duck out of funeral arrangements and sorting through his stuff. Any guilt I felt was nothing compared to the grief of losing my best pal, and I could work my feelings out on the appetisers’ section of the Truffles’ menu.
I needed a holiday. So did Mum. We needed this together.
The sun was falling sleepily down the sky by the time we arrived in Kotor. I recognised the walled city from pictures in my guidebook. The impressive facade stretched up to the surrounding mountains. The bay was even more beautiful than I’d expected, and as dramatic as a film set. I thought of the clothes I’d packed. My supermarket shorts and t-shirts weren’t going to be anywhere near glamorous enough, judging by the flocks of tourists strolling around the city walls.
This was a place for love, for proposals and weddings, couples and happy families. Our hurting hearts were awkward and out of place. 15
‘This is it,’ I said, pulling up outside the white-washed villa we’d chosen on Airbnb. Mum leaned across me to take a look.
‘It looks smaller in real life, more … lived-in,’ she said, taking time to choose her words, her eyes scanning the overgrown path, crumbling garden wall and worn doorway.
‘Well, this is it for the next two weeks,’ I countered. ‘Home.’
CHAPTER TWO
Grace
We’d booked too late to get a sea view. The little Airbnb was deeper into the old town than I imagined, up steep, stone steps. There was a tiny terrace at the front, with a small bistro table and two wrought-iron chairs. A wooden sign, ‘Apartman Nina’, hung drunkenly by the front door.
Even after eight o’clock, it was stiflingly hot, and my face felt flushed. I wrestled the cases out of the car and saw Kat on her phone, again! She was always on that bloody phone.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘The owner has sent a code for the front door. Let’s get in. We can sort the cases once we get inside.’
‘Sorry,’ I mumbled.
Kat was always the practical, capable one. Nothing fazed her. She could put together an Ikea table without breaking into a sweat. I watched her frown as she punched in the code to open the key-box. It made me catch my breath, how much she looked like Dan. Her long hair was tied up in a high ponytail, tendrils framing her heart-shaped face, and her intense eyes were almost identical to his. She was tall, with long, slim, athletic legs. Sometimes it was difficult to see anything she had inherited from me. 17
‘Home sweet home,’ she smiled, letting us in.
‘Well, it’s … bijou,’ I tried to make light of it, as we walked through the compact living and kitchen area. The orange kitchen units were tired, and a small table and chairs had been squeezed in next to a grey corner sofa that took up most of the room. We’d be on top of each other for two weeks. ‘It looked a bit brighter in the photographs.’
‘There’s just one bedroom, but I think this is a sofa bed. I’ll sleep here,’ said Kat, flopping onto it. She scanned the booklet left for us on the coffee table. ‘There’s WIFI, thank God.’
‘Let’s get the rest of the stuff from the car, and then we can grab a bite to eat,’ I said, my stomach groaning right on cue.
After a quick shower — a grumbling, spluttering contraption— we set off to explore. Walking towards the lilac and crimson sunset, we headed for the square, wandering through labyrinthine lanes of bustling bars and tavernas lit by tiny fairy lights in fruit gum colours draped in hedges. We chose a small taverna in a street just off the main square and watched the souvenir shop owners pack up their displays and roll up their rainbow-coloured awnings. Exhausted, we shared a bottle of local wine in silence as holiday makers strolled by.
‘What shall we order?’ Kat asked, perusing the menu. ‘Hmm, I think I’ll have sarma. Sauerkraut rolls filled with minced pork and rice, served with mashed potato,’ she read out loud. ‘It sounds delicious.’
‘Grilled tuna salad for me.’ I wanted something familiar. I was too tired to pretend this was a holiday.
‘Ispod sača sounds incredible, and the black seafood risotto. I’m going to have to taste some of these dishes before we go 18home.’ Kat’s eyes lit up. ‘We’re always looking for something different at the restaurant. I promised Mark I’d check out some of the local recipes.’
Music drifted over from one of the bars in the square, cutting through a symphony of cicadas.
‘I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve visited,’ Kat said, sipping her wine.
‘Dad never seemed that keen. He said that he didn’t remember much of the country as they moved to Britain when he was five. Then losing his parents − I just thought it brought back unhappy memories.’ I paused. ‘I guess it makes sense now. I’m seeing everything differently.’ I let out a long breath. ‘Tainted, somehow.’
Kat winced. I knew she still wasn’t prepared to say anything negative about Dan, but it all hurt me so damn much. He had betrayed both of us, not just me.
I went on, ‘He did all those lectures and conferences abroad. Perhaps that’s when he visited them, his—’ I caught my breath. ‘His other family.’ I closed my eyes.
The waiter came over to the table, his eyes fixed on Kat as he laid the plates in front of us.
‘If you need something, you call,’ he said in broken English, smiling at her. He was very handsome, tanned and blue-eyed. He proceeded to pour her some wine, flicking his wavy hair from his face, and then filled my glass as an afterthought.
‘It’s good to see my invisibility cloak is still in working order,’ I said as he left.
Kat smiled at the familiar joke.
‘What did you tell Adam about our trip?’ I asked. 19
‘Just that we needed to spend some time together, which is true. And that we were going to see where Dad first lived as a child. Again, true.’ Kat looked directly at me. ‘I didn’t tell him all the other stuff. Too awkward, to be honest. A bit raw, too.’
A young couple passed, hand in hand.
‘Adam would understand, but I’m just not ready to share this with anyone yet.’
‘Shall we stay around the bay tomorrow?’ I asked. ‘Perhaps we can visit Perast on Saturday. Find our bearings, relax a bit.’ I wanted some time to pluck up courage first. Or was I just putting it off?
‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Kat. She stopped eating. ‘Do you have any idea where they live?’
‘No, but it’s a tiny place. We’ll find them, I’m sure.’ I gulped some wine. ‘What we’ll do then, I don’t know.’
The sun was streaming through the window the next morning. My legs were twisted around the thin cotton sheet. Half-asleep, I dreamt I was in our bedroom at home and Dan was beside me. I could feel the heat of his body. I reached out, but the movement woke me. The bed was empty.
I lay there. I couldn’t face Kat yet. I could hear her in the other room, chatting to Adam. Her voice was light, singsong. Kat was the only person who could understand how I was feeling, yet somehow we couldn’t reach each other.
When the phone call was over, I wrapped my thin dressing gown around me and went through.
‘Morning, sleepyhead,’ Kat said. ‘Sleep well?’
‘A bit,’ I yawned. 20
‘Well, I beg to differ,’ she laughed. ‘I’d say it was like crunching gears. No, more like a pneumatic drill. The walls were shaking.’
‘Cheeky,’ I grinned. ‘Your dad always said I snored.’
The light moment was gone at the mention of him.
‘I’ve picked up some Danish pastries and coffees from the café on the corner,’ she said, standing. ‘I’ve put them outside. Let’s enjoy our breakfast watching the world go by.’
After eating and dressing, we bought some cheese rolls and bottles of water and hiked up the Ladder of Kotor. I felt we deserved to be sightseers, just for today.
‘It’s only four miles along this winding trail,’ Kat breezed, reading the guidebook.
‘Is that all?’ I asked, sarcastically.
As we followed the trail zigzagging up the mountain, my calves burned and I regretted the Danish pastry, feeling cumbersome and unfit. As we went higher, the ground was rocky and uneven, and my leather sandals were not up to the job. A family with three children swept past us, and the embarrassment gave me a fillip to keep going.
‘The views are spectacular from up here,’ I wheezed.
‘Let’s stop for five minutes.’ Kat paused and sipped her water.
We could look down at the terracotta-roofed villas of the small town and the skiffs and fishing boats bobbing in the horseshoe bay. A huge cruise ship was moving into the harbour, a monolithic city, like a sparkling cathedral at sea. Opposite, cottages and villas clung to the shore and the valleys stretched into the horizon. The cobalt water glittered in the midday sun so brightly I had to shade my eyes. 21
‘It’s beautiful,’ Kat said, snapping shots with her phone, and taking the requisite selfie. ‘Come on, Mum,’ she laughed, slipping an arm over my shoulder. ‘If we go to the right, we’ll come to the Fortress of St Ivan. We can eat lunch there.’
I rallied at the sound of lunch, more interested in that than the fortress, or even the attractive little chapel nearby. I enjoyed the small hiatus before we started back to the town, grateful to be heading downhill.
In the afternoon, we visited Kotor’s famous cat museum, the Museo del Gatto di Cattaro, a small stone town house with photographs of cats littering the walls and newspaper articles about cats in the town. Even for cat lovers, there wasn’t a great deal to see, but it was a welcome respite from the afternoon heat. According to the temperature display on a clock tower, it was 40° and I was wilting.
‘I’m going back to the villa,’ I told Kat. ‘I’ll have a little siesta before tonight.’
‘All right, Mum, I’m going to do some exploring. There are some restaurants along the front and I want to see what seafood they serve. I won’t be long.’
‘Take your time, love.’
I trudged back, vowing to put a plaster on my little toe, which felt blistered. My phone rang as soon as I put the key in the lock at the villa. I picked up, cradling it precariously between my neck and shoulder as the door swung open.
‘Hi, Claire,’ I said, collapsing on the sofa.
‘Hi, hon. How’s it all going? How’s the Airbnb? Liam, look at the bloody mess in this kitchen,’ she bellowed suddenly. ‘Sorry, Gracie, but he’s unbelievable. He made a sandwich for lunch and 22there’s crumbs everywhere. Honestly, how hard is it to clear up after yourself?’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, you were saying?’
‘Everything is fine here. Well, not fine, but we’re coping.’
‘So when are you going to see his family?’
‘Tomorrow, I think, but I’m nervous. What do I say to them? “Hi, we’re Dan’s wife and daughter, his first family. And you must be Rosa, his mistress. Only he didn’t tell me anything about you and Luka. Did you know we existed?”’ I bit my lip.
‘I can’t imagine how you’re feeling. I just never thought Dan could be capable of doing something like this, so underhand and hurtful.’
‘You and me both,’ I agreed.
‘What does Kat say?’
‘We’ve hardly spoken about it. We’ll have to, of course. I don’t know, Claire, she idolised him. It’s so damned painful. Perhaps we should never have come here.’
‘About bloody time!’ Claire yelled, not at me. ‘Have you seen the mess of this kitchen? Sorry, Gracie, I’ll phone tomorrow. I’m thinking of you both.’ The phone went dead.
My heart was weighed down with the thought of the next day. Even the Montenegrin version of baklava I’d bought earlier, with sticky raisins and walnuts, didn’t comfort me, the syrupy pastry cloying in my throat. Each second, each minute, brought me closer to this momentous meeting and I had no idea what to expect.
But we’d come all this way, we had to go through with it.
CHAPTER THREE
Kat
The sunset across the bay of Kotor cast an almost pink haze across the town. It was hard to keep in a straight line as I strolled along the sea front. There was simply too much to look at: the city walls, the dramatic mountains and the glittering turquoise sea. If Adam were here, he’d be stopping to snap pictures for Instagram every few metres.
I meandered along between the street stalls selling tourist fridge magnets and cat-printed bags, and the restaurants, where waiters were laying the tables for evening service. They reminded me of Truffles, only here I could enjoy myself. It felt like paradise, as I stopped to inhale the heady Mediterranean cooking scents of garlic, lemon, chilli.
A cat brushed past my legs, all white fur and whiskers, begging for attention. I bent down, my fingertips grazing the length of the small creature’s back. He turned and circled back past my hand.
‘You’re a cutie,’ I said, smiling at his purr.
I’d read about the famous cats of Kotor on the Lonely Planet website, but I didn’t realise quite how many there would be, winding their way down the old town’s streets and alleys, watching the throngs of people walk by. I liked cats and wanted 24to get one at home — a furry friend to stroke after another arduous shift — but Adam was allergic to them.
‘I’ve got no food for you, I’m afraid,’ I whispered to my new friend, but he didn’t seem put off, following me for a few paces along the street, before running on his way.
If I told Mum about him, she’d be back the next day with little morsels of food; she was such a softie. It’s a shame she’d gone back to the villa tonight. She’d claimed a headache from the sun, but I thought it was more likely to be the white wine this afternoon. Still, I had to admit it was nice to have a breather. I don’t think Mum and I had spent this much time together since I was a teenager and it was intense. Seeing the pain Dad had inflicted on her was stifling, like breathing through cotton wool.
‘Looking for somewhere to eat?’
A waiter on the doorstep of a seafront restaurant was beckoning me in.
My instincts were to find somewhere myself, taking the time to study the menus first, but my feet were tired, thanks to a new pair of sandals I’d hastily chosen for this holiday. I could do with a rest, and I had promised to call Adam.
I let the waiter lead me to a table close to the water’s edge. If I slipped my sandals off, I could probably soothe my feet in the Adriatic.
‘Glass of wine to start?’ the waiter asked, a glint in his eye. He was handsome, in a classic European way, all dark curls and toned, tanned skin.
‘Go on then, surprise me,’ I smiled. I was on holiday after all, even if that wasn’t really why we’d come.
‘I know just the thing.’ I’m pretty sure the waiter winked 25before placing the menu down and walking off. The gesture was cheesy, but I surprised myself by smiling back.
It was fun to have some male attention. Adam and I had been together since the first day of catering college. I appreciated having someone who understood the pressures of being a chef, and we shared a love of food so intense, I doubted anyone else could understand. That was the DNA of our relationship, all six years of it. I knew Adam loved me, but sometimes I struggled to think of a meal we’d eaten together where he’d taken more notice of me than the food.
I spent my life around spitting oil and burning hot ovens, alternating between chef’s whites and pyjamas. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’d worn anything else in the last five years. It was nice to feel like a proper woman again in my cotton sundress and curled hair. I felt pretty, almost desirable.
I looked up to see the waiter coming back and felt almost shy. He was boyishly good-looking, although probably not a day over nineteen. Why were Mediterranean men so attractive?
‘Someone like you can’t be alone here, can you?’ He placed the wine down. It was such an old line, I couldn’t help but laugh.
‘No, I’m with my partner, but he’s back at the hotel.’ I don’t know why I said that. I knew this was only a harmless flirtation.
‘Shame,’ he joked.
‘What do you recommend on this menu for someone who wants to try the best food Montenegro has to offer?’ I asked, changing the subject, looking down at the choices in front of me.
‘Well, you are on the coast.’ He swept his hand around as if I 26hadn’t noticed the scenery. ‘So you must have the best seafood dish we have: buzara. It’s prawns, shellfish, all the little fishes, cooked in white wine in a pot. Very delicious.’
I tried not to smile at ‘little fishes’; it was charming. Buzara sounded perfect for a lazy evening in late May. I knew I’d been drawn here for a reason.
Dad had never talked much about Montenegrin food. Although I’d often asked what kind of meals he’d had growing up in Kotor and Perast, he dismissed the cuisine simply as similar to Italian or Greek cooking. In fact, he never seemed to give concrete details about this place. I wondered now if that was all part of the cover-up.
I pushed the thought of Rosa and Luka away before it could cloud my good mood. Today was for exploring, getting to know the place Dad had called home for the early part of his childhood. And I needed to call Adam. I’d spoken to him that morning to catch up, but the connection hadn’t been great. Now it rang for a while before he answered, his smiling face coming up on FaceTime.
‘There’s my little runaway,’ he said, as my face showed in the top corner of the phone screen. I rolled my eyes. Adam was having a dig at how quickly we’d booked this trip again.
When Mum first found the pictures, we didn’t know what to do. I’d got to Bath as quickly as I could, luckily my only day off that week. We’d sat in silence around the kitchen table, dumbfounded, the pictures spread out in front of us. The man we knew and adored with his arms wrapped around someone else, gazing at her in wonder. My mind couldn’t process it. I tried suggesting other explanations − relatives, friends − but neither 27of us believed that. Why keep them a secret? I could do nothing but stare at the face of my brother, the same giveaway dark lashes and set of our faces. These two strangers didn’t seem real, but at the same time, the pain was searing.
I’d spent the next few months searching the internet for various combinations of ‘Rosa’, ‘Luka’ and ‘Perast’, afraid of what I would find, but nothing came up. Mum went through Dad’s bank statements and found monthly payments to an account she hadn’t seen before. Clearly, he’d been supporting them. Dad was on good money as a university professor, but keeping two families? Mum had her own bank account. She’d run a garden nursery business when I was very small and had sold it for a good profit. She only worked part-time now. How had he managed to hide all this from her, from us, for years? I would never ever have believed him capable of it.
With time, our hunt for information lost momentum. Work got so busy and I buried my feelings inside. Mum left me a voicemail one day that said, ‘Let’s just … forget about this. We don’t really know the truth. We need to let it go for our own sanity.’ It seemed like the best option. There was nothing like denial for an aching heart.
But it would not go away. I had a brother. I turned up at Mum’s, one day in April, to tell her what I knew we had to do.
‘We have to go to Montenegro,’ she said, taking the words out of my mouth.
We knew we had to find Rosa and Luka, and we had to do it before we could chicken out. We didn’t discuss what would happen once we met them, didn’t think about it, so we couldn’t change our minds again. 28
I went straight home, telling Adam we’d booked flights to Dubrovnik and the little Airbnb in Kotor for two weeks. I said we wanted to get closer to Dad and see where he was born.
I intended to tell him about the other family, I really did, but the day we made our discovery changed me forever. I was a new person with a secret etched in her like a ravine on a mountain side. When I began to tell Adam how Mum was coping, he’d nodded and started talking about his current job, problems with the event he was catering. After that, somehow, I just couldn’t tell him. I didn’t want to admit, ‘My dad was having an affair.’
‘Hey, stranger, look where I am.’ I flipped my phone camera around, dodging the other tables and showing him the water’s edge and surrounding landscape.
‘Don’t make me jealous, Kat! Look where I am.’ He turned his phone around, showing me the bins that lined the little yard outside his test kitchen at work. I laughed. I must have caught him slipping out for a cigarette. He confirmed my suspicions, the lit end hanging casually from his mouth when the camera focused back on him.
I always got on at him to quit smoking, hating the way the smell permeated every fabric we owned. Mostly, he agreed to try, but on a bad day he’d sometimes say, ‘Don’t be so prissy, Kat. You started before me in college.’
I chose not to comment on the smoking today. I didn’t want to ruin the serenity I felt here.
We chatted about the upcoming wedding he’d been trialling dishes for. He told me about the bride sending back plate after plate and huffed about choosey customers. I only half-listened, half-watching the waiter walk a group of four young women to 29the table next to me, all bare-legged and long-haired. They were lapping up his cheesy lines and giggling like girls in a school playground.
I told Adam about the cat museum and the little one that had followed me earlier.
‘Don’t be on at us to get a cat again, darling, you know I can’t. Now if you said a dog…’
‘We don’t have time to look after a dog. I wish we did. It would be cruel.’ We’d had this conversation a hundred times.
‘All right, all right,’ he said good-naturedly. I heard someone call Adam off-camera. He looked back at me, the camera blurring the stubble on his jawline. I remembered the days I used to kiss along that jaw, the tickle of the hairs against my skin. That felt a whole lifetime away now, another country, another couple, unburdened by this secret between us.
‘Apparently, the bride wants to try the beef with a different sauce this time.’
‘Knock ’em dead,’ I smiled, although we’d been talking barely minutes. ‘I love you.’
‘You too.’ He clicked off.
I looked out to a passing boat, carrying buckets of fish and a team of men. I wondered if they hung up on their wives and girlfriends with a casual ‘you too’.
I was being sensitive. I looked up to see my buzara arriving, brought by an older, slightly wearier waiter. The smell was delicious, summery and light. He asked how long I was staying in Montenegro and what I planned to do.
‘Perast is very beautiful. You must go to Rocco’s while you’re there — best homemade baklava in the bay of Kotor.’ 30
I agreed to try it. I wondered if Dad had ever been to Rocco’s. Was that where he met Rosa and Luka? Would we be able to find them?
Did we actually want to?
CHAPTER FOUR
Grace
I had another restless night, which didn’t surprise me. My stomach fluttered with nerves. The more I thought about the day ahead, the more I realised what a stupid idea it had been to come here. What could Kat and I possibly gain? Did Rosa and Luka know about us? Did they even know Dan had died? If they didn’t, how could we tell them? I couldn’t face it. And yet a small part of me wanted to hurt this woman, who had caused me so much pain.
I was bloody angry. I kept going over everything Dan had hidden from me for so long. He had spent about three months a year out of the country. Work related, he told me. It was part of the pattern of our married life.
He was a well-respected politics and economics professor and gave conferences and lectures in Britain and abroad. If I was honest, I basked in his success. I was proud to tell people what he did. He earned a good salary and we had a gorgeous limestone house in Bath. It was a mess when we first bought it, almost falling down, but we were young and blithely optimistic and we’d done a lot of the work on it ourselves in the early days. God, it was hard, but those times were some of the happiest of our marriage. When he became more successful, I had to get 32used to him travelling for work. I never even questioned it. I convinced myself, and others, that it was part of the reason our marriage worked so well.
‘Do you miss him?’ Claire asked me once, when we went to see a film in town and had a meal in Ask Italian afterwards.
‘Only when a light bulb has blown,’ I said, smiling, as I twirled pasta around my fork. ‘Seriously, it’s exciting when he comes home. It keeps a little spark between us.’
‘I’m not sure how I’d feel if Stu was away so much. I’m not sure I’d trust him.’
‘You would,’ I insisted. ‘I trust Dan. He’s never given me any reason not to. And he’s always so darned pleased to get home.’
Claire laughed, ‘Well, he certainly brings a smile to your face when he does. You’ve got a good one there.’
I sipped my wine. I’d only admit it to myself, but I felt a bit smug. Stuart was in IT and I saw Claire’s eyes glaze over whenever he spoke about his work, even more so when he talked about his various ailments. Dan could be morose at times, distracted, but he was exciting, fascinating. People admired him. He’d even appeared on Question Time once. And some of that glory rubbed off on me.
But did I ever really know him at all? That was the hardest question. If he hadn’t died, would I have ever found out about Rosa and Luka? Had he ever considered telling me?
What about Rosa? She’d had Dan for just three months each year. Snatched moments in time. Was that enough for her? Where did she think he was the rest of the time? How could you be close to someone when you saw them for just a fraction of the year? Didn’t she mind having to share him? I couldn’t 33imagine her knowing about us, yet at the same time, I had a funny feeling she did.
The questions wouldn’t stop and each one tore me apart.
I crept out of bed. It was only 5.30. Stumbling around the living room, I tried not to disturb Kat. She was sleeping with her back towards the kitchen, and I could hear her rhythmic breathing. I was relieved. She deserved a break. She worked so hard at the restaurant and this had taken an emotional toll on her as well as me.
I made myself a cup of coffee and, wrapping my dressing gown around me, went outside and sat on the tiny terrace. Streaks of light shone between the buildings and I could hear a dog barking in the distance. The town was just stirring awake, its bones creaking slowly to life. A small delivery van stopped outside the bar on the corner and the driver left some boxes outside, bottles tinkling as he placed them down on the cobbled street. I could hear his radio playing softly, the music strange and unfamiliar.
I thought back over last night’s phone call with Sylvie. She was the manager of the charity I worked for, Project Child UK. We raised money for children from deprived backgrounds, giving them opportunities to go to summer camps around Britain and collecting money for toys and books for birthdays.
I was passionate about it. I remember when Kat was in infant school and I saw other children with thin, grubby coats too short at the sleeves. It made me feel guilty that Kat had so much.
My work was mainly arranging events and phoning businesses, pleading for donations. I worked there just two days a week and the money was abysmal, but after I’d given up the garden nursery, I felt at a bit of a loss at home. 34
