Sunshine Over Bluebell Cliff

by Della Galton

  ‘Have you had a good day?’ Adam’s voice broke into her thoughts and she was suddenly aware of the passing countryside, Purbeck stone houses and pubs and the fields bathed in the golden pre-sunset light. It was still only August, but the nights were already closing in.

  ‘Yes I have. Thank you.’ She told him about a couple who had phoned to book the lighthouse for their emerald wedding anniversary in October.

  ‘Emerald – miraculous – fifty-five years of being with the same person.’

  ‘Yes.’ She was surprised he knew.

  ‘My parents were six months off it when my mother died,’ he said.

  ‘Wow. Gosh. I’m sorry to hear that.’

  He glanced at her briefly before returning his attention to the road. ‘My dad was very pleased to have had her that long.’

  ‘That’s a positive way of looking at it. But it must still have been terribly painful.’

  ‘Sometimes life is.’ He slowed for some roadwork traffic lights and while they waited for them to change, which seemed to take forever, his fingers tapped impatiently on the steering wheel.

  ‘Have you ever been married?’ she asked, because she felt as though they had passed through some invisible barrier. She glanced at him. They were close to the red traffic light and she could see the reflection of it on his face.

  ‘I was married very briefly when I was twenty-one. You?’

  ‘No. Not…’ She’d realised just in time that she’d been about to say, yet, and substituted it for the word, ‘…Ever.’ She didn’t want him to think that she was looking for a man, because she really wasn’t. ‘I’m very happy with my own company,’ she qualified.

  ‘We have a lot in common then.’ The atmosphere lightened in the car. She hadn’t even realised it had been tense. ‘As well as gardening, I mean.’ He shot her a glance. Almost flirtatious. ‘Do you actually like gardening?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I do. It’s one of those little-known facts about me. I’m a secret secateurs snipper and I own a pair of green wellingtons.’

  Now he laughed out loud. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said as the lights finally turned to green and he put the Jaguar into gear and pulled smoothly away.

  ‘Well, it’s true,’ Clara told him, slightly needled. ‘I’m going to be self-sufficient one day and grow all my own food. I shall make my own bread from scratch too, instead of just chucking the ingredients into a bread maker.’

  ‘That’s a good dream,’ he said. ‘I just can’t see you in green wellies.’

  Bantering with Adam Greenwood. She would never have predicted that.

  Then he spoilt it by saying, ‘I like gardening because it means I don’t have to speak to any people. I much prefer plants to people.’

  ‘I much prefer people to plants,’ she countered. ‘Most people anyway.’

  ‘Ouch. I take it I’m one of the minority.’

  She decided it might be prudent not to answer that. If they fell out with each other before they even got to their destination, what hope did this business meeting have of success?

  Not to mention the fact that she needed him to give her a lift home.

  The Five Gold Coins was posh. It had a long straight gravel driveway, lined with laurel bushes and trees, which led up to a big tarmac car park and a classy entrance hall which smelled of lilies – there was a vase on the bar – but the place was clearly more restaurant than gastropub.

  A barmaid showed them into a side room that was buzzing with low chatter and led them to one of only two remaining tables on the back wall. She lit a tall red candle, not a tea light in sight, handed them both a leather-clad menu and said she would be back to take their drinks order shortly.

  ‘I’ll have a Diet Coke please,’ Clara said when she reappeared. She would definitely need her wits about her for this.

  ‘The same for me, please. No ice.’ Again he surprised her. She hadn’t imagined he’d be a Diet Coke type of guy.

  She studied their surroundings. It was busy, but the tables were far enough apart for it not to feel packed. It was a strange mix of old and new. Old wooden beams, strung with contemporary tungsten bulbs, a beautiful polished black tile floor and glass tables with mismatched chairs, all of which somehow worked.

  She could smell red wine – someone close by must have just poured some – and the delicious scents of garlic and rosemary were in the air. This definitely wasn’t a burger and chips kind of place. The atmosphere was lovely.

  ‘Good choice,’ she told Adam. ‘Have you been here before?’

  ‘Once or twice.’ He didn’t elaborate and she had made a decision after his comment about preferring plants to people that it would be best to keep this on a business level. Safer by far.

  So, after they had ordered food – sirloin steak, cooked rare with fresh garlic butter for him and sea bream with local sea greens for her, no starters – she led the conversation around to the reason they were here. ‘Thank you for agreeing to this meeting. Have you always worked in the hotel trade?’

  ‘No. I reinvented myself about ten years ago.’ He smiled.

  ‘How long have you worked at the Bluebell?’ he asked and she told him how Kate had employed her in April and how she had still been on her probationary period when Kate had needed to go to Australia.

  ‘So you stepped into her shoes?’

  ‘In more ways than one.’ She explained how she had also ended up looking after Kate’s house and Foxy and how this had meant she could let her house. ‘I’m sure Kate would be pleased if we could help each other out and pass business to each other,’ she added. ‘As long as it’s mutually beneficial.’

  ‘I am totally up for that,’ he said, looking slightly bored. ‘Where did you go to school, Clara?’

  ‘Brancombe High,’ she said, slightly thrown at the twist of the conversation, but seeing no reason not to tell him. ‘I was born in Swanage. So was my mum. Apparently that’s unusual. There are an awful lot of incomers. Or people retiring. It’s that kind of place, isn’t it? Although Gran wasn’t born here. She was born and brought up in Wolverhampton. They moved down for Grandad’s job. He was in the rag trade, he worked for a men’s outfitter. That’s probably too much information,’ she finished, although he didn’t look bored now. He was listening and nodding, his hands steepled in front of him and his index fingers touching his chin. ‘Your turn.’

  ‘I’ve always lived in Dorset too, but not in the Purbecks. Nick and I were brought up on a housing estate in Poole. It was all right though. We didn’t live that far from some nice walks and we could drive to the beach in about twenty minutes. My parents were both office workers. Mum always wanted a B&B, but they never had the cash for it.’

  ‘And did you always want to buy a hotel?’

  ‘No. Funnily enough. That was Nick’s idea. I had a feeling there might be some people involved.’ He shot her a glance. ‘I wasn’t sure I was really cut out to be a “front of house” man.’ He broke off as their food arrived.

  Conversation paused as they ate, returning to details such as, ‘can you pass the salt please’ and ‘would you like a refill’. She was glad she’d ordered fillet of sea bream because it was easy to eat and still chat. It was beautifully cooked. With a butter sauce that rivalled Mr B’s.

  ‘Why did you become the “front of house” man?’ She had to know. He didn’t strike her as the kind of person who would be coerced into something against his will or in fact do anything without a good reason.

  ‘Because Nick couldn’t find anyone else and, of the two of us, he’s by far the best cook.’ He added idly, ‘and because having a seaside hotel was his dream and he’d just been diagnosed with a chronic illness. For a while we thought it was MS. But it turned out to be something a lot less serious, thank God.’

  There it was. She saw the flash of protectiveness in his eyes. And she thought, still waters run deep. For all of his grumpiness and ‘flash in the pan anger’, Adam clearly adored his brother.

  ‘I figured we would
probably be able to find someone to take over from me at some stage. I had a feeling the general public might be involved.’ His smile flashed. ‘I do other things too – like the gardens.’ A beat. ‘And general maintenance, although I have to admit that has taken a bit of a back seat lately. As you probably noticed.’

  She remembered standing on the seaward side of the Manor House and looking up at the peeling paint and the damp patches on the turrets.

  ‘Business isn’t as brisk as we hoped it might be,’ Adam added. ‘We were probably a touch optimistic with bookings. Even hotels with a fantastic location can struggle. Neither of us actually had any experience of running a hotel. Nick was a chef in a restaurant and I—’

  The waitress appeared to collect their plates and leave the dessert menu and Clara thought about how it must have felt to be running a hotel that was struggling and then to discover that less than a mile along the coast another ‘all-singing, all-dancing’ hotel was being opened, complete with its own high-spec lighthouse. That must have been quite a blow.

  ‘You can’t have been too pleased when The Bluebell Cliff appeared,’ she said when the waitress had gone.

  ‘Understatement,’ Adam said, meeting her eyes briefly before glancing back down at the dessert menu. ‘Are you tempted?’

  She read the words crème brûlée and chocolate fudge brownie – two of her favourite things – twice before saying, ‘Yes, but I probably shouldn’t.’

  ‘I probably shouldn’t do lots of things, but I do. Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said, “I can resist everything but temptation”? That’s me.’

  He appraised her face. Was that look in his eyes, admiration? It wasn’t the first time she’d seen it tonight. Flirtatious Orlando? Surely not.

  She struggled with herself but only briefly. ‘I’m with Oscar.’

  ‘Good.’ He shut his menu. ‘I can’t resist chocolate fudge brownies and they do a spectacular one in here.’

  ‘Fantabulous’. She realised she was using one of his made-up words. They must be getting on well. ‘Then count me in.’

  Her FunFit buzzed on her wrist:

  Time for a sharp stroll.

  She ignored it.

  The chocolate fudge brownies were a melt-in-your-mouth sensation. Definitely worth giving up biscuits for another week. Even the coffee, which came with tiny home-made petits fours, was excellent.

  By the time they finally paid the bill – they split it straight down the middle – Clara was feeling full of warmth and bonhomie. She wasn’t sure how much of a business meeting this evening had really been, but she had enjoyed herself immensely. Adam had been at his most charming best. He’d been witty, kind, thoughtful, considerate, perceptive, a brilliant listener.

  Whoa, girl – it sounds as though you might fancy the guy, warned her ‘be careful of men’ radar.

  I don’t, she told it, as they went to the main entrance and discovered it had just started to rain. A haze of fine spray was visible in the shafts of light that slanted down from the outside lighting and she could smell the scent of summer rain hitting hot tarmac.

  ‘I’ll get the car,’ Adam said. ‘No sense in both of us getting wet.’ He headed off; his jacket pulled up over his head.

  A few minutes later, he drew up beside her and she climbed into the Jaguar, feeling like a lady of the manor as they set off again down the long drive.

  Raindrops sparkled like stars on the windscreen There was something very safe, very cosy about being driven through the night while the weather battered the roof of the car and rampaged across the dark fields and woodlands on both sides of the road.

  They chatted some more on the way home. Clara told Adam about her stint working at the hotel in Bath.

  ‘Not that I ever want to work out of this area again,’ she said. ‘Bath was lovely, but I’m a Dorset girl through and through.’

  ‘I have an affinity with the place too,’ he said. ‘It’s a beautiful county. Nick and I both love it.’

  ‘Is he not married then either?’

  ‘No. Although he is in a long-term relationship. He and Alice have never quite got round to tying the knot. They both value their independence too much and she doesn’t fancy living in a hotel.’

  He didn’t mention being in a relationship himself and Clara decided that it was none of her business whether he was or he wasn’t.

  For a few minutes, they drove in an easy and companionable silence.

  ‘So what was it that you did before you went into business with your brother?’ she asked him when they were almost back at hers. ‘I don’t think you ever said.’

  ‘I worked for a social media company, would you believe? Not that my job involved me being particularly social – on the contrary, I spent most of my time hunched over a desk typing code into a computer.’ He grimaced at the memory. ‘Great money and good hours and I didn’t have to speak to anyone either, which was a bonus. But I’d had enough of it by the time I jacked it in.’

  ‘I bet. Who did you work for?’

  ‘YouTube.’

  Clara was glad they were almost back. She didn’t know why his words had given her such a jolt. Maybe the mention of YouTube would always jolt her. It certainly didn’t mean anything. So what if he had worked at YouTube. So what if he went in The Anchor. So what if he and his brother had a very good reason to try and discredit the Bluebell. None of that meant they had actually had anything to do with the creation of that video. She couldn’t believe he had done it. She decided, once again, to put it out of her mind. She’d end up as paranoid as Mr B if she wasn’t careful.

  14

  The rain continued on and off for the next couple of days: a little blip in an otherwise perfect summer. Everyone agreed it was just what the gardens needed. That it would save there being a hosepipe ban and all the other clichés.

  ‘No doubt the Young Farmers will be pleased too,’ Zoe said to Clara one afternoon when they were both in reception. Clara was checking out their latest TripAdvisor reviews on her phone prior to one of their weekly team meetings. ‘Crops need plenty of rain, don’t they? Farmers like rain.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Clara said distractedly. ‘Did you see that review that said Mr B made the best watercress soup in Dorset, if not the entire South of England?’

  ‘He probably put it on there himself,’ Zoe said. ‘He’s got at least four email accounts.’

  ‘No, he did not!’ Mr B appeared in reception on cue and shot Zoe an irritated look. ‘I do NOT need to make up reviews about the quality of my cooking, which is first class, and I do NOT have four email accounts. I have seven.’

  ‘Why do you need seven email accounts?’ Clara asked.

  ‘Smoke and mirrors.’ He waved a vague hand. ‘It keeps people on their toes. Stops them being able to find out your true identity.’

  Ellie May walked past them with a tray of glasses en route to the restaurant. ‘What I’d like to know,’ she said, pausing, ‘is why we all have to call him Mr B in the first place. What’s wrong with Mr Brown?’

  ‘My surname is NOT Brown.’ He sounded rattled.

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘Yes, what is it?’ Zoe repeated.

  ‘It’s classified information, that’s what it is.’

  ‘Well, how about your first name then?’ Ellie May persisted. ‘Why can’t we call you by that? Jakob says people who don’t want anyone to know their names must have something to hide – something politically sensitive.’

  ‘Jakob is misinformed,’ Mr B snapped.

  Zoe and Ellie May exchanged a look that Clara didn’t miss. She was well aware that Phil Grimshaw had opened a sweepstake and was taking bets on what either of Mr B’s names might be. She had decided to turn a blind eye for now. Maybe that had been naïve of her.

  ‘There’s a review here that mentions you, Zoe,’ she said to divert them before the discussion got heated. ‘It says, and I quote, “The Bluebell Cliff’s receptionist is charming and helpful and nothing was too much trouble.”’


  ‘They were probably talking about Keith,’ Mr B countered with a sly look at Zoe.

  ‘No, they weren’t. They said “she” not “he” further on. Anyway, good work, everyone. The last four reviews we have are all five-star ones.’ Clara added it to the notes she’d made for the imminent team meeting.

  ‘Talking of farmers,’ Zoe said when Mr B and Ellie May had disappeared again. ‘Well, we were earlier…’ She blushed.

  ‘Yes…’ Clara prompted. ‘Is everything OK, Zoe?’

  ‘It is, but…’ A beat. ‘…I was just wondering what Young Farmers actually means. As in, how young are they? Are they young as in my age, say early twenties…? Or…’

  ‘Or are they OAPs of thirty plus like me?’

  ‘Yes, I mean no – not that you’re an OAP or anything.’ There was a pink tinge on her fair skin.

  ‘Phew.’ Clara reached for a biscuit. Her self-imposed ban hadn’t lasted very long. ‘In order to join the Young Farmers, you have to be between ten and twenty-six. You also don’t need to be an actual farmer to join. You just need to have a love of the countryside and rural life. Does that help?’

  Zoe was now bright red. ‘How do you know all that stuff?’

  ‘I looked on their website. There’s this thing called Google.’

  ‘Why didn’t I think of that? Doh. OK, so just to get this clear, what we’re saying is that on Friday night there will a whole heap of fit hotties coming in here for a meal?’

  ‘Yes. Did you want to hang around after your shift and help Keith out? I’m not sure if that warrants paying you overtime.’

  ‘I’d be happy to help Keith. No overtime necessary.’ Zoe looked thrilled.

  ‘Talking of Google. Do you know anything about how YouTube works?’ Clara held her breath. She’d been trying to put it out of her mind, but she hadn’t quite succeeded. She hadn’t said anything about Adam’s former job, but the key staff, which included Keith, Mr B, Zoe and Phil Grimshaw, knew she’d gone out with him to discuss a new level of co-operation between the hotels.