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“If I live through this embarrassment, I might get to explain,” she whispered in response, wishing the ground would open and swallow the both of them.
Later, when she and her mum were walking around the gardens, her mother took the opportunity to quiz her some more.
“He’s quite something,” her mum commented. “And you say he’s local to Raven’s Landing?”
“Yes, very much local.”
“How did you really meet? Your father might have fallen for it, but I didn’t believe that story about looking for directions, not for a minute.”
How the hell was she going to get around this one? “Actually Celeste thought we might get on well together.”
“Your friend matchmade for you, how cute. And if she knew your grandmother, you knew you could trust her when she made you a match.”
Sunny nodded, but couldn’t help wondering what she’d think if she knew the full story.
“He’s a real gentleman. That’s why I fell in love with your dad. You can’t beat a bit of old-world charm.”
“What about your father, was he charming?” Sunny asked, taking the opportunity. “You don’t talk about him.”
“Oh, he was charming, very much so, but in a different way. He had a skill for making people come around to his way of thinking.”
“And what was that? You’ve never really said.”
“He had an esoteric view of the world, as well as being grounded.” Her mother studied her for a moment. “A lot like yourself, Sunny—both feet on the ground, head in the sky, able to look around and see potential everywhere.”
Sunny studied her mum’s profile, made even more elegant by her tight, corn-plaited hair. “Tell me more.”
“There isn’t a lot more to tell. He disappeared when I was about eleven years old. He hadn’t always lived in an urban community, and that was difficult for him.”
Sunny nodded. She knew this wasn’t easy for her mum. He’d vanished on one of his nomadic tracks. She knew her mother felt deserted as a child, but Sunny couldn’t help wondering if he’d been lost in time, or followed his own magic out of necessity.
“He’d just take off to commune with the natural world whenever he took the fancy. He said he wanted to live in an urban community, in order that his kids could go to a school and get an education. That was the plus side for him, but it was still really important for him to head off into the barren lands and commune. I guess it was some sort of throwback to his upbringing.”
“Do you know what he did out there?”
“Not really. He talked about connecting with our beginnings, said it was important to him to get back to the earth. Apparently he took me with him on one of his wanderings when I was small, but I wasn’t built for it the way he was and I was dehydrated when he got me home, so your grandmother forbade it. I was the oldest. I think he hoped...?
??
Her voice trailed off, and they walked in silence for a while.
“He always called me his little Sahrawiya, an Arabic saying. It means desert dweller. I must have been a big disappointment to him. I loved city life, things like school and the souk, and I wanted to train as a nurse from a very young age.”
“Do you remember it at all, the desert trip with him?”
She shook her head. “Too young. I do recall he used to come back really energized, like when your dad and I get back from the Glastonbury Festival.”
There was a distant look in her eye, and Sunny figured she’d stimulated some long-buried questions.
They weaved in between the apple trees in the orchard as they chatted. It was a warm summer’s day, and yet Sunny kept feeling a chill.
“Your grandmother insisted he had another woman out there,” her mum added.
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
“No, but my mum never got to grips with his nomadic tendency. She’d been born and bred in Marrakech though. She’d never lived the kind of nomadic life he and his people had.” She paused, looking at Sunny with curiosity. “You’ve never shown this kind of interest before.”
“That was an error on my part, I think. I should’ve wondered before now.”
