I know it seems sudden, looking back, but it felt as if Dominic was the boyfriend I’d been waiting all my life to meet. For one thing I knew exactly what he did, unlike Anthony, who had never explained his ‘actuary job’ in a way I fully understood, possibly because he still secretly wanted to be an asset manager. Dominic was funny, extremely knowledgeable about the food and drinks industry, a terrible gossip, and good-looking in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on until I saw Pirates of the Caribbean, and realized he was one of the few men in London who could genuinely be described as ‘swashbuckling’. Four months and many meals later, during which he actually listened to my thoughts about food (something Ant had hated because ‘you sound like you’re still at work’) I’d moved my electric toothbrush into Dominic’s garden flat in Kensington, which he shared with his collection of unopened review-copy cookbooks and an unused exercise bike.
We’d been living together for two years now, and I’d progressed to a chest of drawers of clothes and a shelf of the bathroom cabinet not taken up by indigestion remedies. Ours wasn’t a traditional relationship, given our weird working hours meant we didn’t spend much ‘supermarket and DIY’ time together, but Dominic had put my coffee choices on his Nespresso coffee pod delivery reorder, and I’d made a list of all his family birthdays and anniversaries so he could send cards before his mother told him to. We had the same taste in Chilean wine and American comedy shows, and neither made the other feel bad about late working nights or long lie-ins. And we made each other laugh. What more could you ask? as I often said to Helen.
All in all, I felt that Dominic and I were ready to take the next step and make things official. Not by getting married – Dominic thought weddings were just an excuse for couples to go on a shopping dash round the homewares departments of John Lewis, and I wasn’t in a hurry to do it again – but by buying somewhere together. Our own place, to relax and cook and have people over for dinner – something we’d never been able to do, because Dominic hadn’t seen the point in renting a flat with an adequate kitchen when he ate out for every meal but breakfast. The lease on his flat was up just after Christmas, and we’d talked seriously about pooling our resources which were just enough to buy something small in roughly the same area. Dominic was all for it – it was, he said, a smart move in the current market. That, for me, was a sign that he saw an active future in our relationship, much more so than if he’d just drifted into proposing like Anthony had.
Besides, let’s face it, a joint mortgage is for twenty-five years. And unlike a marriage, you can get insurance to cover yourself if one party decides to bail out.
*
On Wednesday night I pushed open the door to the newest gastropub laying itself open to Dom’s razor-sharp assessment, with a sheaf of estate agents’ details tucked into my bag. I’d downloaded the particulars of some flats that were more or less on the outskirts of the areas Dominic would consider living in, while being just about inside our budget. According to my notebook, this was the two hundredth meal out we’d eaten together, and it felt like an auspicious moment to start moving on to the next phase in our relationship.
The property details were tucked into my own food notebook, a leather-bound sketchpad with my initials on that Dominic had given me for Christmas. Well, not my initials, exactly. My nom-de-plume’s initials. BC.
Like most food writers’ partners, I featured in the column. I was Betty, short for Betty Confetti, Dominic’s nickname for me on account of the weddings that dominated my working day. I almost recognized myself: Betty was a hearty eater who cracked the occasional dry joke, although Dominic had an annoying habit of attributing Betty’s best dry jokes to himself in the editing of the column, something I forgave in return for all the free meals.
Tonight’s gastropub was in Kensington, round the corner from our flat, a newly refurbished former spit-and-sawdust boozer called the Loom, which I thought was pretty appropriate since the fashionably rustic staff loomed over you within thirty seconds of arriving, even before you’d got your coat off.
‘Ooh, nice. Like that,’ said Dominic when I muttered this observation to him after the waiter showed me to the table. He was already drinking wine and laughing at his own Twitter feed. ‘Mind if I …?’ He made a scribbling gesture.
‘Feel free.’ I reached for the bottle, an excellent claret from about two-thirds down the list. Helen marked it up for a lot more in the restaurant.
‘Oh dear. That bad?’ He lifted his head from his notes as I topped up my glass and drank deeply. ‘What happened today? Aren’t you still basking in the glory of the Atkinson nuptials? Didn’t that put a big star on your chart, getting an MP in the house?’
‘It did. But only for about an hour, until Laurence suddenly remembered that we had the auditors coming in next week, so I’ve spent all today prepping every department and trying to get hold of the accountant….’ I tried not to think about the undisguised panic on Dino the bar manager’s face. ‘They didn’t take it very well in the bar. There’ll have to be another gin amnesty.’
‘And is Laurence paying you to be the unofficial hotel manager?’
‘Of course not. He’s barely paying me to be the events manager.’
‘And he still hasn’t advertised the post?’
‘No. We’re all sharing the stress for the foreseeable future.’
Dominic prodded at the dish of complimentary feta-stuffed olives with the tip of his butter knife. ‘I appreciate that Laurence likes to run that hotel like a sort of gentleman’s hobby, but you don’t have to put up with it. The way I see it, you’ve got three choices. You can stay and carry on being taken advantage of. You can get a better job somewhere else – which shouldn’t be hard. Or you can go in there and make him take you seriously. Time for some tough talking, Rosie.’
Dominic was a firm believer in tough talking; he got his agent to do it for him all the time.
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning …’ Dominic pointed his knife at me, then waved it around. ‘Just tell that floppy-haired ageing lothario that he should give you the hotel manager’s job. Why not? You’re propping up the profits with all the events you run. Show him those spreadsheets you’re always working on. Blind him with figures. You know what happens when you wave figures under Laurence’s nose. He gets those little black dots in front of his eyes.’
‘Well …’
‘Well nothing.’ Job done, Dominic examined the menu. ‘Paul’s been in that rehab place for months. The guy’s not coming back and Laurence is hoping none of you’ll notice. Put it to him in a way he can’t refuse, Rosie – it’s your great gift, bending people painlessly to your will. If you’re not bossing brides around that hotel, you’re nagging me about my cholesterol or taking the rest of the building to task for not keeping the communal areas free of pizza leaflets. Tell him what you want. Let him negotiate.’
‘Laurence doesn’t negotiate,’ I said. ‘Caroline used to do all that. Every time I try to ask Laurence for anything he pretends to have an angina attack.’
‘So don’t let him!’
The bread arrived in a bird’s nest made from raffia, with the butter in the shape of an egg. It was pale yellow, and speckled prettily with black and white pepper. Dominic peered at a seeded roll, sliced it open like a surgeon, and jotted something down in his black notebook. On the other side of the room, a harassed manager suddenly slapped his forehead and started waving his arms around in our direction, and I tried to pretend I hadn’t seen.
‘I could ask Caroline if—’ I began, but Dominic stopped me.
‘There’s your problem in a nutshell,’ he said, stuffing some bread into his mouth. ‘You’re being done up like a kipper by the outrageous way Laurence pretends to run that place like one big happy family. And you’re bloody Cinderella. And Caroline is just as bad …’
‘Caroline is more like a mentor than a boss,’ I began, but Dominic was on one of his favourite high horses and enjoying a good gallop.
‘�
�� she’s got you running errands for her in London, not to mention getting you to take an unhealthy interest in your boss’s love life, while he’s laying a paternal guilt trip on you the whole time. He’s not your dad. He’s your employer. And I don’t see any of his actual family slopping out the loos and peeling potatoes, do you?’
I wished I hadn’t told Dom about the loo thing. It was only once. When the cleaners were all sick. ‘Well, no, but neither of his sons is in the business—’
‘Both his wives were.’ Dom raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘That Ellie managed to negotiate herself a massive salary increase and fewer hours. Zero hours, in fact.’
I didn’t want to get onto the topic of Ellie. That was a whole other kettle of fish. Gemma, who had started working in reception at the same time, couldn’t even say Ellie’s name without her face going into a sort of lemon-sucking spasm of repressed emotions.
‘I don’t want to marry Laurence,’ I said, heavily. ‘I just want him to consider me for the manager’s job.’
‘Then he can’t treat you like a member of the family and an employee. Don’t mistake his dependence on you for appreciation. He’s taking you for granted, Rosie.’
I sighed and reached for the bread basket. As usual, Dom had gone straight to the heart of the problem, like a guilt-seeking missile. He’d had lots of therapy, and consequently felt no hesitation about telling people what they were really thinking.
I knew Laurence took people for granted. It was one of the reasons Caroline had finally had enough and left him. And he hadn’t learned his lesson: he still took it for granted that she’d be prepared to sort his life out from a safe distance now.
‘To be honest with you,’ I said, ‘I think both Caroline and Laurence are hurt that no one in the family does really care about the hotel. Neither Joe nor Alec ever shows any interest in the place, and it’s been in the family for years.’
Dominic paused in his bread dissection. ‘Which one’s the hippie, and which one’s the psycho?’
‘Joe’s the hippie.’ I corrected myself: ‘No, he’s not a hippie. He’s a traveller. He runs a boutique travel service in America.’ I tried to remember exactly how Caroline had described it. ‘Planning wilderness experiences in the desert and spiritual discovery retreats and that sort of thing.’
‘He bums around arranging adventure holidays for rich kids on their gap years, so he can pretend his hasn’t finished yet. How old is he?’
‘Um …’ I did some mental calculations. ‘About twenty-eight?’
‘Twenty-eight? I’d been writing a column for four years by then!’
‘And I’d been working at the hotel on and off for nearly twelve,’ I pointed out. I was thirty. Dominic was thirty-five, but when it suited him he liked to talk as if he was at least fifty-five.
‘And where’s the psycho?’ he went on.
‘If you mean Alec, he’s living with Caroline in Oxfordshire. And—’ I don’t even know why I was bothering to add this, since random and enthusiastic loathing of people was one of Dominic’s favourite hobbies, ‘Alec isn’t a psycho, he left the army because he’d had enough of the moving around.’
He made a delighted scoffing noise. ‘That’s what Caroline told you. You don’t leave the army because you’re tired of moving around. That’s like someone packing in international football because he was bored of sports massages.’
I started to disagree, and realized I couldn’t. To be honest, Alec was a bit volatile. Good-looking and very charming, like his parents, with a shock of red hair, but … energetic was probably the kindest way to describe him.
‘I think Laurence should count himself lucky neither of those two idiots wants to get involved with the family business,’ observed Dom. ‘If I were him, I’d be working quite hard to keep them as far away as possible. You don’t want your guests being ambushed in the bar, or subjected to shamanistic healing rituals in the foyer.’
I hadn’t seen Alec or Joe for years, but going by the occasional asides from Caroline it was hard to imagine either of them behind the front desk. ‘But it’s been in the family for so long. And it’s not just a hotel. Laurence loves the Bonneville. I love the Bonneville. It’s …’
I was about to say, ‘It’s more than just a hotel – it’s a piece of history,’ but I stopped myself just as Dominic’s eyes widened in warning. He didn’t subscribe to my ideas about the Bonneville having its own personality. He thought Helen’s poaching a decent chef for the restaurant was the key to turning the place around. But then he would.
‘It’s a unique hotel in London,’ I said instead. ‘And it has possibilities.’
Dom buttered his roll vigorously. ‘Then even better. If neither of the sons is interested in his precious hotel, Laurence should be taking more care to encourage the one competent member of his staff who is,’ he said. ‘He should make you manager by the end of the year. And if he doesn’t, you need to think about leaving and finding an employer who will recognize your talents.’
Yes, I thought, staring at the strange collection of matted fleece stuck in gold frames on the wall behind Dom’s head. (He always got the seat that faced out into the room.) I could do this. A pay rise, a better job title … I deserved it. I just had to make a list and it would happen.
And then I just had to organize three weddings a month for the next six months on top of all my other work, and talk seriously to Laurence about promotion. I wasn’t sure which was the taller order.
‘Rosie! Is there a problem with the bread?’
I looked down at my plate. My roll was crumbled into bits. I’d been shredding it without realizing, and now it lay in a sad heap of organic flax and nut flakes.
Dom grinned. I could almost hear the words clicking across the screen in his brain: ‘The bread roll wasn’t so much a bread roll as a collection of stale crumbs huddling together in the bread basket for warmth …’
‘Was it a bit dry?’ he enquired.
I managed a smile. ‘The bread was so dry that it could have hosted its own topical news quiz. Said Betty.’
‘Very good. You should have your own column. Do you want me to look into it?’ Dominic’s brown eyes twinkled above the dark softness of his new beard. Helen thought the new beard was a sackable offence, but I liked it. He was carrying it off surprisingly well, even if it was now a very short step in my imagination to buckled boots and a sword. We were a proper power couple, me and Dom, I thought with a tingle. Betty and Dom. The king and queen of the London restaurant scene.
‘No, I don’t think I can eat enough,’ I said airily. ‘And who would make up the jokes for your column? Although maybe Betty could write about cocktails somewhere?’
Helen and I could do a brilliant cocktail column …
‘You know, I’m not sure I should be encouraging you to work even more hours than you already do,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘I don’t see you enough as it is.’ We both ignored the ominous creak from the table. Well, I did. Who knew what mental notes Dominic was making about the furniture.
‘No, actually,’ I said quickly, ‘I think you’re right. I should go for the promotion sooner rather than later. Because it would be very handy to have some extra money for a deposit, wouldn’t it?’
Dominic wasn’t listening. A wicked smile was spreading across his face. The one that made me think of pirates and cutlasses. I pressed on, because this was actually all fitting together nicely.
‘I’ve been looking at flats …’
‘Have you?’ he murmured.
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the waiter hovering by the table, beaming nervously and brandishing a notepad. ‘Ready to order, guys?’
I stopped myself. Later. I didn’t want to rush this conversation. I’d bring up the details over pudding. Dom was always happier over pudding.
‘Do you know what you want?’ he asked me, more for the waiter’s benefit than mine, because we both knew what I’d be having. I had all the dishes Dom didn’t like – squiddy things, vegetarian opti
ons, cream sauces, warm puddings – fortunately all the dishes I’d have picked anyway. We were a good team like that.
I glanced at the menu, which appeared to have been written in crayon by the chef during a power cut. There was a fine line between rustic and crusty when it came to gastropubs.
‘I’ll have the squid to start, followed by the artichoke and quail’s egg risotto.’
‘Great choice,’ said the waiter with an obsequious nod.
‘We’ll be the judge of that,’ muttered Dominic. ‘And I’ll have the potted shrimps, and the rabbit rillettes, followed by the steak and kidney pudding, and the skate. And can we have some, ah, spinach, please. And whatever squeezed potatoes might be. I’ll just have mine affectionately cuddled, if that’s all right.’
The waiter glanced over his shoulder at the manager and the chef, both of whom were standing by the door to the kitchen. They waved their arms at him, saw me looking, and pretended they were examining a light fitting.
‘So,’ said Dom when the waiter was gone, leaning forward again and giving me a tantalizing waft of his aftershave, ‘what does Betty think about the décor? Has it all been stolen from a barn in Wiltshire, do you reckon? Or an abandoned Victorian school?’
I looked down, trying not to smile. Even after two hundred dinners, the novelty of being part of Dom’s weekly column hadn’t worn off. Moments like this made me almost glad things hadn’t worked out with Anthony. With Dominic, I felt as if I was a proper grown-up, with an exciting social life, right in the heart of where everything was happening in London.
We discussed the décor for a bit, the food arrived, we ate it and joked about the reclaimed plates; then over coffee, I seized the moment and got the flat details out of my bag.
The Honeymoon Hotel Page 3
