A Daughter's Choice by June Francis

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?’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜Interesting, like you said. What was she like?’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Mcleod. Hers was Kitty … Kitty Mcleod.’
    The lobby seemed to spin and Celia gripped the edge of the desk.
    â€˜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 …’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Are you sure you’re OK?’ said Rita, placing a hand on hers. ‘You don’t look a bit yourself.’
    â€˜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