Fully Booked

by Cressida McLaughlin

  ‘Because you’re helping Will. All the spare time that you say you don’t have is because you’re using it to go round to number four.’

  ‘He can’t do it all by himself,’ Robin said defensively.

  ‘No, not a big, strong man in the prime of his life, with all the time in the world. God forbid he should have to deal with a whole house full of grime and clutter. Maybe it’s the doilies he’s finding particularly hard to tackle?’

  Robin turned sideways on the bench, pushing hair out of her face as the wind whipped it in, holding her ice cream out of the way. ‘Isn’t this what you wanted? Trying everything we can to get Will to fall in love with the place and not sell Tabitha’s house? It’s not like I’m the only one who’s been doing it, either. What exactly have you offered Nicolas?’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Molly said, crossing one leg over the other. ‘You’re a one-woman publicity campaign. Though I’m not sure if it’s the wonders of Campion Bay you’re advertising, as opposed to the delights of Robin Brennan.’

  ‘Molly! You—’

  ‘How’s it going in there, anyway?’

  ‘Slowly.’ Robin sighed. Even with the curtains open, Tabitha’s house was dark and dingy, as if the dust had worked its way into the fabric of the building and tainted the air. After spending a couple of hours going solidly through the rooms with Will, boxing up things for the recycling centre or, occasionally, charity shops, Robin found herself having to spend longer than usual in the shower before she felt clean. She had been keen to help Will, to find out more about Tabitha and her house, to recall her childhood memories, but so far – other than getting to know Tabitha’s nephew and Darcy – it had been an adventure in dirt.

  ‘You’re not enjoying it?’ Molly asked. ‘I didn’t think you were afraid of mucking in?’ She tapped Robin’s nails, still chewed to the ends and distinctly manicure-free.

  ‘I’m not, it just feels a bit … morose. Tabitha was estranged from her brother, Will’s father, and I think after her husband died she must have been lonely. I’ve asked Will what happened, why there was a rift between them, but he doesn’t know. His dad refuses to talk about it, and even Tabitha closed up whenever he tried to find out the story behind it. It must have been so hard for her, being cut off from her family like that.’ She thought back to all the times she’d gone over there, playing cards and board games, occasionally baking with the older woman. ‘It’s funny, I can’t remember ever seeing her outside that house – not on the beach or in the shops, or at crazy golf.’

  ‘She was older, though, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Not that old. She was only in her sixties when she died. Maybe there’s a sadness in the house.’ She chewed her cone thoughtfully.

  ‘And being with Will doesn’t make up for that?’ Molly glared at Robin over the top of her Mr Whippy.

  Robin swallowed and dropped her gaze.

  ‘I know I’ve only met him briefly,’ Molly continued, ‘but I’m not stupid. He’s not exactly a punishment on the peepers, is he? And I got the impression he was enjoying staying in your guesthouse a bit more than most people.’

  ‘He’s … very nice,’ Robin said, not taking the bait. ‘And I’m in love with his dog. Darcy. She is the sweetest, kindest, gentlest thing. Her fur is so soft, and she has the most expressive eyes.’

  ‘You’re deflecting. And that’s not a good enough answer. Did Will tell you what happened when Tim went to see the house?’

  Robin shrugged. ‘He said that Tim had looked round, confirmed the house had lots of potential, that it was a beautiful building with original features, and has apparently invited him out for a drink to “discuss things further”. No doubt it’ll be a very manly drink, with lots of backslapping and pints, and all the opportunity in the world for Tim to make his pitch. Ugh.’

  ‘And what does Will think, about Tim?’

  ‘I’m not sure he’s entirely convinced,’ Robin admitted. ‘He called him my “smooth friend”. I don’t think Will’s about to have the wool pulled over his eyes. My only concern is, because going through Tabitha’s things is such a mammoth task, I can see how selling up would seem like the easiest option.’

  ‘But he’s still staying in Starcross and eating your breakfasts, and spending time with you?’

  ‘Yes, Molly. All those things.’

  ‘There you go then. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Robin asked as a seagull swooped low over them, squawking in an attempt to scare Molly’s cone out of her hand. Molly shoved the whole thing in her mouth in defiance and the seagull drifted off, its cry plaintive.

  ‘Nothing,’ Molly said, standing up and giving her a butter-wouldn’t-melt smile. ‘Best be getting back – I’m doing a pedicure at ten thirty.’

  Robin walked with her friend across the road. They stopped in front of number four, the grey-fronted house between their cream buildings, Robin’s with blue accents to match her guesthouse sign, Molly’s Groom with a View adorned with clean white and bold pink.

  ‘Lights are on,’ Molly said.

  ‘Will’s in there,’ Robin confirmed.

  ‘Have him on find your friends yet?’ Molly waggled her eyebrows.

  Robin’s smile was involuntary. ‘I’m going inside. I’ve got new guests coming today.’ They said their goodbyes and Robin went back to the guesthouse, wondering what Molly had offered Nicolas to get him to make his move on Will.

  She felt unsettled that her friend wasn’t keeping her in the loop, that she could be organising all kinds of charms and tricks to convince Will to stay that she didn’t know about. Molly was nothing if not enthusiastic, and Robin was worried that she’d take it too far, that Will would discover the truth behind the kindness he’d been experiencing – that he was nothing more than a welcome barrier between Tim and number four Goldcrest Road becoming soulless apartments. To Robin, he was already far more than that, but if Molly’s plan was discovered, he was bound to think she was part of it. That, Robin thought, as she picked up the post from the mat, was the last thing she wanted.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Hannigan,’ Robin said to the couple on the doorstep, a battered leather holdall on the porch between them, ‘welcome to the Campion Bay Guesthouse. It’s lovely to have you here.’

  They were a striking couple. Both in their mid-forties, Robin guessed, though Mr Hannigan was already a silver fox, his hair and neatly trimmed beard a mix of steel and white, his eyebrows still dark. His wife was several inches taller than Robin and quite willowy, with long golden hair on the frizzy side of curled. Her eyes were very pale blue, almost grey. The resounding impression that Robin got, regardless of their looks, was that they were happy.

  ‘Jonathan, please,’ he said, as she stood back to let them inside.

  ‘And I’m Emily.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Jonathan and Emily. I’ll get you booked in and then show you to your room.’

  They were booked into Canvas, and while Jonathan seemed in awe of the room, walking slowly round it and examining the paintings, Emily went straight to the window. It was on the second floor, so the view over the sea was spectacular, and Robin smiled as Emily knelt on the window seat and put her hands on the frame. The sun was trying to break out through the clouds, and shards of light cut into the dark grey of the water.

  ‘We live in Shropshire,’ Jonathan explained. ‘Coming to the coast is always a real treat, and it’s our wedding anniversary so we wanted somewhere special.’

  Robin’s heart skipped a beat at the admission they’d picked her guesthouse because it was special. Unless, she thought, they just loved Campion Bay. ‘Congratulations on your anniversary,’ she said, annoyed with herself for not finding it out when they had booked. She would have to put a bottle of sparkling wine in their room retrospectively. ‘How many years?’

  ‘Three,’ Emily said, turning round. ‘This time.’ She gave her husband a wide smile.

  ‘We’re a bit peculiar, you see,’ he
admitted. ‘We’ve been married twice.’

  Robin nodded slowly, wondering when the punchline would come. But then her cogs worked harder, and the significance of Emily’s words made sense. ‘To each other?’ She hadn’t meant to sound so surprised, but the couple laughed.

  ‘Turns out we were soul mates after all,’ Emily said. ‘We were just too young the first time round.’

  ‘Oh, really? So you – you got back together again, after time apart?’

  ‘I discovered that, after seeing a lot of the world, there was nobody else for me.’ Jonathan shrugged. ‘There was no possibility of fighting it. We were meant to be together; it was fate. So, there you go.’

  Robin nodded, her mind whirring. She thought of Starcross, and Neve’s belief in exactly those things. ‘So,’ she said, trying to focus on her guests, ‘you just count the years this time round? How many years would it be if you included the time before?’

  ‘Seven,’ Emily said. ‘Nobody’s ever asked us that before. What would seven be, in terms of material?’

  ‘Copper or wool,’ Robin said without hesitation. ‘I used to run an events company,’ she explained, when Emily gave her a questioning look, ‘organising special days for people. Lots of them were anniversaries, so I got to know those traditions very well.’

  ‘That sounds like an amazing job. Very creative.’

  ‘Quite like this place.’ Jonathan gestured at the painting-adorned walls.

  ‘I loved it,’ Robin said. ‘There was always a new challenge, fun and unusual things to investigate. But then, it’s pretty varied running a guesthouse, too.’

  ‘Not just endless rounds of washing and cleaning?’

  ‘Well, there’s that. But no, there’s a bit of time for other things.’ Robin wondered how Will was getting on next door, and thought she would have time to pop in on her way back from buying Jonathan and Emily a bottle of wine. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she added, ‘but if you need anything, you know where I am.’

  As she hurried down the stairs, she considered whether it was possible to go back to an old flame after a less than happy parting and years of living separate lives. If there were still feelings, the residue of love or even fresh lust, could it work? Emily and Jonathan were making it look like it could, but Robin couldn’t imagine that things wouldn’t be strained, that they wouldn’t have both moved too far in different directions.

  ‘You didn’t have to,’ Will said, as Robin walked in to Tabitha’s front room and found him on one of the green sofas with a large photo album on his lap.

  ‘What?’ she asked, sitting next to him.

  He pointed at the gold foil bottle-top sticking out of her carrier bag. ‘I’ve not made much progress today, so I’m not sure we should be celebrating.’

  ‘It’s for some guests,’ she said, her eyes fixing on the album. ‘It’s their wedding anniversary. What’s this?’

  ‘I found it in the bureau over there.’ Will pointed to a tall, dark-wood writing bureau in the corner of the room. Robin thought it gave the impression of being backed up against the wall, as tall and thin as possible, as if using the shadows to hide from someone.

  ‘Pictures of your aunt?’ she asked softly, sensing that the photographs mattered; that he was affected by them. It hadn’t been many days since he’d appeared at her front door, but already she knew that when he was trying to keep emotions in check he went very still, as if by doing that he could prevent anything escaping.

  ‘And Dad,’ he said. ‘Seeing both of them together is … unusual.’

  Not upsetting or depressing or even wonderful – just unusual. She resisted the urge to squeeze his arm. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked instead. It was the blandest of questions, warranting an answer of ‘fine’, but she didn’t feel she could go too deep unless he instigated it.

  He turned to face her, and she could see his jaw working. The sweet smell was there again, the one she’d noticed on first meeting him, and she’d since discovered that he had a seemingly endless supply of rhubarb-and-custard sweets. Perhaps they were a stress reliever – she hadn’t yet found the courage to ask.

  ‘I’m all right,’ he said, smiling at her.

  ‘But …?’ She tried to hold his gaze but found that she couldn’t, so worried at a non-existent mark on her black trousers instead.

  ‘I don’t know, I guess I hadn’t expected to find all this stuff. I don’t know why I hadn’t – obviously, it was going to be here – but I approached it as a task to work through, like clearing out one of the storerooms at Downe Hall. I thought I’d find some vaguely interesting things, but I hadn’t counted on being dragged back into the family history. Maybe it would be different if it had been happy, between … y’know.’ He rubbed his cheeks.

  Robin could see that the emotions were trying to escape. He seemed frustrated, angry, even, though she wasn’t sure who with. ‘Your dad and Tabitha? You wish they hadn’t been estranged?’

  He looked directly at her, his green eyes piercing. ‘I wish someone had told me why. I still wish they would. Dad refuses to talk about it, and whenever I broached the subject with Tabitha she’d always say it was up to my father to tell me. Mum just shakes her head, even though she was the one who put me in touch with my aunt when I was old enough. She doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t want to appear disloyal. I think she must have sent Tabitha this – let me show you.’ He began flipping through the album and Robin held her breath, wondering what he was about to show her.

  ‘Hello? Anyone here?’ Molly’s voice broke through the quiet, and Robin jumped. When she caught Molly’s eye, her friend gave her a quick, gleeful grin. ‘Don’t you look cosy?’

  Will slipped the album behind him on the sofa. Robin’s heart sank.

  ‘Hi, Molly,’ Will said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good thanks, Will. This looks like hard work.’

  ‘We’re getting there.’

  ‘Well then, this is bound to perk you up.’ She gave them a beauty-technician grade-A smile, and waggled a piece of paper, the print green and yellow like the décor of Taverna on the Bay. ‘I bumped into Stefano on your doorstep. He was on his way to give you this. Dinner for two, eh? And with twenty per cent off, too. It sounds like just the thing.’ She handed Robin the voucher, gave her a distinctly unsubtle wink and then left, the dust dancing behind her like a ticker-tape parade.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Dinner with Will, just the two of us. What’s that about?’ Robin asked Eclipse as she rifled through her wardrobe, rejecting dresses and tops, pulling out a maxi dress in navy and orange oriental patterns and then sliding it back on the rack. ‘It was so out of the blue, Nicolas accosting Will on the doorstep, so how did Molly do it, huh? Offer them both free haircuts for life?’

  Eclipse was sitting in the middle of the bed, licking his paw with an intent focus. Robin left her wardrobe and sat next to the kitten, stroking his still-fluffy fur. She couldn’t deny that she had fallen hard for Darcy, but she had to remind herself that she had an impossibly cute pet of her own, and couldn’t ignore him. ‘I’m sorry about the other day,’ she said, as the kitten jumped on to her lap and burrowed his face into her jumper, ‘but I do think you could be friends. That is, if tonight isn’t a disaster. It feels too much like a date. I don’t know why Molly thought this was a good idea.’

  Robin was sure that Molly was behind the latest act of kindness, the unexpected invite from Stefano and Nicolas to have a discounted dinner at Taverna on the Bay, the Greek restaurant at number one Goldcrest Road. Had she thought that leaving her and Will to it was a good idea, because Robin – in her position as guesthouse owner and next-door neighbour – knew Will better than anyone else in Campion Bay? Or did Molly have a caveat to her plan that involved a bit of matchmaking?

  Robin’s stomach churned, and she reminded herself that on a basic level it would give them a break from running a guesthouse and sorting through a dead relative’s house. Robin knew from experience that it was almost impossible to have a
bad night at the Taverna, where Nicolas and his father, Stefano, welcomed all their guests with laid-back charm and simple, mouth-watering food. And it would give her another opportunity to find out more about her unexpected guest without anything getting in the way.

  She finally selected a short grey dress with a keyhole neckline, and accompanied it with a plum cardigan and low, patent heels, hoping the outfit struck the right note for dinner out two doors away from her house. As she was applying mascara, she heard the familiar footsteps descending the stairs. She grabbed her handbag and opened the door into the hall, waiting for Eclipse to jump off the bed and follow her out. Will was standing on the bottom step wearing a shirt in a dark, inky blue, the colour of the deepest sea on a sunny day. He gave her a wide smile, his eyes even more intense than usual, as if given an extra depth by the sea-like fabric.

  ‘Hi.’ Robin returned the smile, her stomach flipping in appreciation.

  He rested his elbow on the newel-post. ‘You look great.’

  ‘You too,’ she said, lamely.

  ‘You mean I look clean? It makes a change. Your drench shower has been a lifesaver. The plumbing at Downe Hall hadn’t exactly reached twenty-first-century standards; I’m sure some of the dust set up home in my hair.’

  ‘I aim to please,’ Robin said, picturing Will standing under the shower in Starcross’s en suite, water running off him in rivulets. ‘Right,’ she said shrilly, ‘shall we get going? Let me just …’ She scribbled a note on the miniature whiteboard pinned on the door into Sea Shanty, telling her guests she was out for the evening but to call if any of them needed her.

  They stepped out into the spring dusk. It was warm, but with a lingering crispness that reminded Robin summer hadn’t yet arrived.

  ‘Is Darcy going to be OK without you?’ she asked, as they made their way past Maggie’s house at number two.