Sunshine Over Bluebell Cliff

by Della Galton

  And now she was back in Adam’s good books.

  She had just got up to go and dig out a pizza from the freezer when her mobile rang again. She thought for a moment there’d been some weird telepathy afoot and Adam was ringing her back, but it was Kate’s mobile number that flashed up. That was odd. It must be some unearthly hour over there. She hoped nothing was wrong as she snatched up the phone.

  ‘Hi Clara. Is this a good time?’ Her boss sounded stressed.

  ‘Yes, it’s fine. Is everything OK?’

  ‘Yes and no.’ There was a pause. ‘I had an accident this afternoon. It was something really stupid. I was changing a light bulb in Mum’s hall and I slipped off the stepladder. I didn’t think I’d done much at first, but then my foot swelled up like a balloon and we ended up in accident and emergency. Unfortunately, it turns out I’ve broken it and they need to operate on my ankle to reset a couple of bones.’

  ‘Oh my God. That sounds serious.’

  ‘It is. Thank goodness for medical insurance. It’ll be fine long term, but it does mean I can’t fly back when we planned. I’m so sorry. Would you like me to get you some more help in? I can arrange a relief manager from the agency.’

  ‘I’m fine at the moment. Phil’s great, so I’m not on my own. Do they know how long it will be before you can fly?’

  ‘They can’t give me a definitive date. It depends how things go. I’ll need to have stitches in for a while and get the healing process underway before they put the plaster cast on. But I will let you know as soon as I possibly can. Thanks so much, Clara.’

  Poor Kate, she thought, when they had finally said their goodbyes and disconnected. She hadn’t been expecting that. But her concern for her boss was threaded through with a frisson of excitement. The Bluebell, as she had reiterated to Kate, was in very safe hands. Nothing else was going to go wrong. She wouldn’t flaming let it.

  11

  It seemed that somebody up there was on Clara’s side because August progressed very smoothly. The sunshine stayed, the temperatures soared into the eighties, and the Bluebell and its lighthouse were at their most fabulous best. By day, the interior of the hotel smelled of suntan lotion and Mr B’s breakfasts, and the exterior smelled of the roses that bloomed in every flowerbed. Butterflies darted around on the buddleia and crops of rapeseed turned rectangles of the surrounding countryside into fields of luminous, almost otherworldly yellow. Beyond the cliffs, the sea sparkled like a sheet of sapphires and everyone walked around in shorts and sunglasses smiling. Even Mr B and Phil Grimshaw were making a special effort to be nice to each other.

  All the staff had been very concerned to hear about Kate’s accident and, much to Clara’s relief, they’d all reacted well to the news that she would be in charge for as long as it took for their boss to get better again.

  The operation had gone well apparently, but it would be two or three weeks before they could risk putting a plaster on – they had to make sure the wound healed first.

  For the second week of August, the Bluebell Cliff hosted a group who had booked in under the name of The Serious Hill Runners. And serious they certainly were.

  Their leader, Malcolm Daley, told Clara that one of the reasons they had chosen the Bluebell was because of the hotel’s proximity to some of the steepest bits of the coast path.

  ‘I’m in training for a record,’ he told Clara when he checked in. ‘I want to break the fastest known time to run the South West Coast Path. At the moment it’s held by Damien Hall. Ten days, fifteen hours and eighteen minutes.’

  ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘That’s going to take some beating. Isn’t it six hundred miles?’

  ‘It’s six hundred and thirty,’ he said proudly and beamed at her from behind thick NHS-style glasses. ‘That’s an average of sixty miles per day. I think I can do sixty-two over this kind of terrain.’

  ‘Good grief, can you?’ Her feet ached at the thought of it. ‘I’d be lucky to do six.’

  ‘I’m not surprised in those heels.’ He peered over the reception desk.

  He was one of the few men she met who she could actually look straight in the eye and this fact alone would have made her warm to him, but he was thoroughly nice too. He was wiry and angular and reminded her a little of a very friendly whippet.

  ‘Another reason we chose you is that this is the place where dreams come true, isn’t it?’ He looked at the brass plaque above the reception desk. ‘So we thought you might bring us luck.’

  ‘I promise you that we will do our very, very best,’ she said, making a mental note to tell Kate about this conversation. She’d be delighted. ‘And you must promise to tell us if you achieve it. When will you be attempting the record?’

  ‘Not until next May. But if I break it, I will arrange to have the biggest party ever right here in this hotel.’

  ‘We’ll throw in a magnum of champagne – on us,’ Clara said and he nodded his head so enthusiastically that his glasses slid off his nose and clattered on to the reception counter.

  ‘I wear contacts when I run,’ he said, picking them up. ‘These just steam up all the time.’

  She didn’t tell him she’d wondered how he managed. Clara loved moments like these. She loved people, particularly quirky people. It was what made her job worthwhile.

  ‘You must do an awful lot of training. Do you have a sporty day job?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh no, I’m an accountant – freelance, which makes things easier. If my client has a shower on site, I run to work.’

  ‘Wow, that’s very impressive.’

  Later, in the restaurant, when she was chatting to one of the other members of The Serious Hill Runners, she learned that Malcolm Daley had a string of titles under his belt already. He was, apparently, the fastest man ever to run The Big Beast, which was a fourteen-mile sprint up a mountain. He held the current record time for The Tester – the longest off-road race in the UK. Not to mention, having trophies for half-a-dozen endurance races involving covering hundreds of miles at a time.

  She had glanced across to where he sat at a table on the other side of the restaurant, chatting animatedly to another guy, and he’d gone up another notch in her estimation. Not because he was clearly a little powerhouse of a man beneath that unlikely exterior – a regular superman, she imagined him swapping his accountant suit for Lycra – but because he hadn’t even mentioned any of his previous triumphs. She had thought he might have been just another dreamer with stars in his eyes, and it wouldn’t have mattered one bit if he was: dreamers were, after all, the Bluebell’s lifeblood, but it appeared he was a man of substance.

  The runners were a good group to host because after they’d eaten a hearty breakfast, they were off out all day. There was no supplying endless coffee and cake and tea and biscuits, like there was for groups of writers, or clearing up stage make-up spillages and helping out with emergency costume repairs, as there was for actors. And the place didn’t echo with music. Clara liked music as much as the next person, but their music-based guests spent hours practising – and some of them very much needed the practice.

  There was only one other woman staying in the hotel at the same time as the runners. She was an ageing artist called Milly Mills and this was her second visit since Clara had worked there. She came to paint watercolours of the surrounding countryside and to see her sister, Lillian, who lived locally.

  ‘Her house is very small,’ Milly had confided to Clara the first time they had met. ‘Which is why I stay here. And also it’s nice to have some space, don’t you think, dear? We get on well enough, but I don’t want to get under her feet. I do prefer my own company.’

  Much as she liked people, Clara could relate to that. She was like her grandmother in that respect too. It was lovely to have a partner around, but she didn’t need one. If she did ever end up with that smallholding she’d dreamed of buying, she would have been happy there alone.

  Although an Orlando Bloom lookalike – one who wasn’t subject to outbursts of totally unnec
essary stroppiness, that was – would have been quite nice, she had to admit. Hell, where had that thought come from? Maybe it was because this morning Phil had told her that Adam Greenwood had phoned and asked to borrow a couple of kegs of beer. She was relieved he had got through to Phil and not her. She did not want another run-in with anyone from the Manor House. Not that she would have denied the request or been unfriendly, it’s just that they seemed to get their wires crossed on every occasion they spoke, and at the moment there was an entente cordiale, which she was keen to maintain.

  Anyway, Milly had been delighted when she had phoned to book this time and Clara had told her that she’d be sharing with outside enthusiasts, so during the day she’d virtually have the place to herself.

  On the Friday, the penultimate day of the hill runners’ stay, Clara bumped into Milly just as she came into reception carrying an easel at the end of an afternoon’s painting. The white-haired old lady looked slightly stressed.

  ‘Everything OK?’ Clara enquired.

  ‘Not entirely, dear. I’ve got a slight problem with my car. Nothing too major, I don’t think, and I’m in the RAC so they’ll come out and see to it. But I’m meeting Lillian this evening for dinner, so I don’t want to call them just yet.’

  ‘But in the meantime you need transport to get to her?’ Clara guessed.

  ‘I can call you a taxi,’ Zoe said from behind reception. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To somewhere called The Anchor? We’re meeting at six-thirty, so not right away. Lillian must already be out and about. She isn’t answering the home phone and she refuses to carry a mobile. Says she doesn’t need one.’

  ‘I can drop you off at The Anchor on my way home,’ Clara offered. ‘No need for a taxi.’

  ‘Could you, dear? I am grateful, thank you. Lillian will be fine to bring me back again afterwards. I will need to go and freshen up first, if that’s OK?’

  ‘Perfect timing,’ Clara said and so it was that three-quarters of an hour later she opened the door of her Mini Cooper for Milly, who got in with only slightly less agility than Foxy, who’d leapt into her basket in the back just before her. Clara left the back windows open when it was hot and Foxy had a habit of resting her nose against the window jamb as they drove.

  ‘What a pretty little car,’ Milly said. ‘I wouldn’t mind one of these myself. Might be more reliable than my old Austin now.’

  She was good company on the short drive. Today she’d been painting Durdle Door, which was a natural limestone arch of rock on the Jurassic coast near Lulworth.

  ‘That place sure attracts the tourists,’ she said. ‘Not to mention the armchair artists, all of whom think they’re experts and want to tell you how it’s done. I had this old chap today who came over twice – once on his way down the cliff path and again on his way up – “you want a touch more charcoal in the stone, dear”.’ Her Dorset accent was perfect. ‘I always say thank you and then ignore them.’

  Clara agreed this was a good tactic as she pulled into the car park of The Anchor.

  ‘That’s odd, her car isn’t here.’ Milly glanced around the half-empty car park. ‘She has a silver Volvo. Unless she’s changed it and not told me. Oh dear. I do hope she’s OK.’

  ‘We’re a few minutes early. I’ll come in with you – just until she arrives. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.’

  ‘That’s extremely kind of you, dear. Are you sure I’m not holding you up?’

  ‘Positive,’ Clara said. ‘I’m going to have to bring Foxy with me, though. It’s too hot to leave her in the car.’

  She got out and went round to open the door for the old lady, glancing across at the outside patio as she did so. It was barely a month ago that she’d sat there with Will, yet it seemed like another lifetime. There was another young couple sitting there today. They were holding hands and looking intently into each other’s eyes.

  Inside the bar, that was shadowed and cool in comparison to the August day outside, a barman, whom she recognised as a friend of Mr B’s, directed them to the table that Lillian had booked and then Milly went off to powder her nose. Clara toyed with the idea of ordering a pot of coffee. She could chat to Steve the barman for a bit if Lillian did turn up and if she didn’t – and there had been some kind of mix-up – she would take Milly back to the Bluebell herself. It wasn’t as if she had a packed Friday evening’s entertainment.

  Making a decision, she left Foxy’s rope lead looped around the table leg and went up to order coffee. A couple more people had just come in, including a family, and Steve was now serving someone else. Slowly she became aware of the woman who was standing beside her. It was the scent that caught her attention first: something flowery but also exotic – and oddly familiar. Where had she smelled that before?

  She turned to look at exactly the same moment the other woman did the same thing and they met each other’s eyes. Oh goodness, it was Anastasia Williams.

  She was beautifully made up, as she had been before, and she was carrying a gorgeous dark green Ted Baker bag – a top-of-the-range one that had just come out. Clara had seen it in the department store in Poole and coveted it briefly before spending all her spare cash on birthday presents for Gran and Rosanna. There was obviously good money in dating then!

  ‘Hang on, don’t tell me,’ Anastasia said. ‘I know we’ve met before. I never forget a face.’

  ‘People are always mistaking me for someone else,’ Clara said swiftly. ‘I have one of those faces.’

  ‘No. We’ve definitely met. It’s my line of work, you see.’

  Oh crap. How embarrassing. She could see Milly had just come out of the Ladies’ on the other side of the room and was heading back to the table where Foxy was waiting patiently. She had also just heard the pub door opening behind her and she felt the swoosh of air as someone entered. Hopefully that would be Lillian and she could make a rapid exit.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ Anastasia said in a voice almost loud enough to rival the Chair of the WI. ‘You work for Clara King. You’re the gardener. You had the mildew problem behind the shed. And the very friendly dog. Do you remember? I gave you my card for Miss King.’ Her face cleared. She was obviously extremely pleased with herself for recalling the events so clearly.

  Clara could feel her face burning. Everyone in range was looking interested. Milly, who’d realised she wasn’t at their table but up at the bar, was now waving at her from across the room. Even Steve had leaned in for a listen. Was he smirking?

  ‘I’m Anastasia Williams, remember? I don’t think I ever caught your name.’

  ‘Um no,’ Clara said. ‘But I’m afraid I’m in a terrible hurry.’ She glanced at her FunFit, which said, right on cue for once, Time for a sharp stroll. ‘So sorry,’ and she spun round towards the exit of the pub, hoping to see another little old lady, who looked a bit like Milly.

  But it wasn’t an old lady who had just walked in. It was Adam Greenwood. What the hell was he doing here? He was dressed casually, jeans and a pale T-shirt, and he was standing right behind her. He must have heard every word of that conversation.

  He was smiling too. That made a change!

  ‘Clara King’s gardener, hey?’ His voice was caramel smooth.

  Don’t give me away. She pleaded with her eyes

  ‘Hi, Adam,’ Anastasia said.

  What? They knew each other? Yes, they clearly did because Adam was now bending to kiss Anastasia’s cheek.

  Clara took advantage of the distraction to make her escape and, ten seconds later, she was out in the heat of the car park again. Breathing heavily, she looked around her. She was going to have to go back in. She couldn’t just abandon Milly. But then. to her intense relief, she saw a silver Volvo pull in through the entrance.

  Someone up there must still be on her side, after all. She would just have to explain to Lillian that she’d had an urgent phone call or something and get her to pass this on to Milly. Taking a deep breath, she hurried across to speak to the old lady as she got out of
her car.

  It was only when she was about to make her escape for the second time that she remembered she’d left Foxy inside tied to the table. Shit, she was going to have to go back in and get her. Maybe she could sneak in and out without anyone noticing

  Feeling like a burglar going back to the scene of the crime, Clara pushed open the heavy door of The Anchor once more and hesitated to let her eyes readjust to the dim interior of the pub. Before she’d had the chance to properly do this, there was an almighty crash that sounded like breaking glass and crockery on floor tiles, followed by a yelp. What the hell?

  Oh God – it was Foxy. Clearly tired of waiting, she’d upturned the table when she’d seen her mistress reappear and now she was heading towards her, lead trailing and tail wagging frantically. She appeared to have a red serviette stuck to her front paw and her snout looked as though it had been dipped in something white – it must be sugar. It was all over her head too. Foxy loved sugar and wasn’t averse to stealing it from the bowl if she thought no one was looking.

  Fortunately, Milly was up at the bar with her sister and hadn’t been sitting at the table, so she wasn’t involved in the chaos. But so much for a subtle getaway, Clara couldn’t have made more of an entrance if she’d tried. Every single person in the bar was now looking in her direction, including a family with two children who were laughing loudly as Clara bent to make a grab for the lead.

  ‘Is that a fox, Mummy?’ one of them asked.

  ‘It’s a very naughty dog, darling.’

  ‘Why has it only got three legs?’

  ‘I don’t know. Be quiet.’

  To make matters worse, Adam and Anastasia were sitting at a table close to the door and so had a ringside seat. Anastasia was open-mouthed and Adam was clearly trying not to laugh. Amused Orlando! How flaming embarrassing was this! Clara’s face was on fire – she must be lighting up the room like a beacon.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said to Steve, hauling Foxy towards her. ‘I’ll cover the cost of the damage obviously.’