‘I’m not surprised, he really did have quite an odd manner. That was, of course, until he ascertained that I was a Chalmers and he realised... then his tone completely changed,’ she said and relayed more of the story to Nina.
‘Which makes it all the more annoying - the fact that he knew he was being rude in the first place,’ Nina surmised.
‘Exactly. Anyway, I kept my cool and got what I wanted. I was so close to saying something, though. What annoys me is what if I was vulnerable and really needed help? He would be the last person anyone should approach.’
Nina agreed, they arranged to meet for a glass of wine in the pub later and she hung up as the tea and carrot cake arrived.
‘Ahh, thanks so much. I really need this!’ Sallie said as Ellie put the tea and cake on the table.
‘Tough day?’ Ellie said and perched on the arm of the sofa opposite.
‘Oh, nothing major. I’m just another one who has now been on the end of the new doctor - talk about rude!’
‘You and me both. He missed the module in the training on bedside manner.’ Ellie laughed and told her how he’d also been rude to her when she’d taken her daughter in with an ear infection and continued, ‘Don’t worry though, he won’t last long in a town like this, with an attitude like that.’
‘You know, I thought exactly the same. You have to keep the Pretty Beach locals well on your side or you’re toast.’
‘You learnt that quickly, Sallie,’ she said as she got up from the sofa and went to serve a customer.
Just as Sallie was about to take out her phone and check her emails Felicity opened the door to the cafe, and a blustery wind blew through the whole place.
‘Hey, stranger! I haven’t seen you for ages,’ Sallie looked up and exclaimed.
‘Tell me about it! I’ve been to LA again since I last saw you. Anyway, enough of me, how’s it all going?’
‘Sit down. I’ll order you a cup of tea. You won’t believe what we are going to do with the Orangery.’
‘Oh dear, this sounds ominous, will I need something stronger in the tea?’ Felicity laughed, took off her scarf and hat and sat down opposite Sallie who ordered more tea.
Sallie started to tell her about the podcast interview and then the idea for the competition and how it was all slowly starting to come together. It wouldn’t be long until they put it up on social media and started the ball rolling.
‘That’s a brilliant idea. Nothing like a competition to stir up some publicity, and a competition for a surprise wedding, in a beautiful Orangery... that’s gold. Well done, what a fantastic idea.’ Felicity stirred her cup of tea and smiled at Sallie.
‘Yep, I hope so. It would be fabulous if it really went viral, wouldn’t it?’
Chapter 24
Sallie was minutes away from finishing her video call with Loretta on how long it would take her contacts to turn around a dress when her phone pinged with a text from Ben.
I’ve arrived. All good so far. Can I just point out - it’s FREEZING. You’ll love it. BC
Miss you already, send me some pics.
She finished up the call with Loretta and opened up the shared drive with Lucian and started to look at the timelines. She could maybe squeeze in a trip if she got everything to line up on the travel side and everything sorted before she left. She’d had a sneaky little look at Alaska online and decided that if she could make it happen, she would. It looked amazing. She’d rarely been abroad so to be able to go was unbelievable to her.
Pictures started to ping onto her phone as she sat there at the kitchen table in the apartment - beautiful pictures of snowy peaks, the seaplanes parked in the water glistening in the sunshine, rustic timber cabins with little white roofs surrounded by beautiful pine trees. She’d taken one look at all that and decided that maybe she would take Ben up on the offer of a nice Business Class flight after all.
She’d worked out that the fast train to the airport, a flight to the USA and the onward flight to Alaska would be just about doable. She’d even thought ever-so-briefly about a little stop on the way, but had soon realised stopping in Seattle would probably make the whole trip too tiring and too long.
She’d had a few reservations about travelling on her own - not that she was scared, more that she didn’t have any experience of it. Ben had soon put her mind at rest though, telling her that it was no different to getting on the train or bus and when you were in Business Class it was really very comfortable - as long as you could get there on time and follow signs through the airport there wasn’t much else to do. She’d get on in London, transit through Seattle and half a day later, arrive in Alaska with him waiting for her at the airport. He’d told her it was more dangerous getting on a bus in London and when she’d taken on board what he had said, and analysed it for herself she’d had to agree.
Sallie scrolled through his texts and replied.
Just looking at my timeline now. I think I can possibly make it.
His message came straight back.
Wonderful. I know you’ll love it. It’s got your name all over it.
Will it be really expensive though if I leave it until the last minute to decide?
I’m not even going there Sals. Ridiculous, I’m paying. The end.
OK. It does look lovely! I’ll have a look at flights - I had a brief check and looks like the Seattle route is the best.
You don’t need to do that - I’ll get Charlie to do it all
OK, love you. Got to go - video me later. Xxx
Ben sent back a love heart emoji. Sallie put her phone on the table and started to go through the dates more thoroughly. With Lucian being super-efficient and borderline more organized than her, he was making it extremely easy to work with him. She could see that there was a small window, after the initial announcement of the competition and podcast drop, but before they had to decide who the bridal party were. If everything went smoothly she would be able to go.
Ben had told her it was super comfortable on the plane, there was internet access so she would still be in contact with Lucian if she needed to, and when she wanted to go to sleep all she would have to do was push the button and the seat would magically transform into a bed.
As she thought about that, going to sleep in a bed on a plane, she’d thought to herself how very different Ben’s life had been to hers, and that he didn’t bat an eyelid at his fortune. He was used to having what he wanted, when he wanted and although he worked really hard there was no doubt that he was also afforded the luxury of making decisions when a lot of the really hard ones had already been made for him by another generation in another life.
His privilege was something he just had, and although he moved between different worlds and did it very well, he didn’t, and wouldn’t, ever know the realities of how other people lived their lives.
Sallie thought about some of the things she had experienced in her life and realised that he just hadn’t had anywhere near the same - he’d grown up surrounded by wealth, good education, a loving family, beautiful homes and siblings who really seemed to care about him too.
Compared to her, he could almost be from another planet.
Chapter 25
Sallie trudged up the lane past Juliette’s cottage turned right and opened the gate to the Orangery. The snowfall had blanketed the whole of the driveway, the roof of the Orangery and the little shed down the side in white. The icy snow crunched underneath her feet and bitterly cold air stung the end of her fingers and occasional flurries of snow landed on her coat.
She walked down the side of the Orangery, her boots leaving footprints in the snow, moved a fallen down branch off the path and pulled open the beautiful old vintage door at the back. Stepping in the warmth hit her, the snow melted off her boots and slid down onto the floor and the scent of the ferns and herbs hit her nostrils.
The combination of the snow outside, the evergreen plants and the citrus trees inside amalgamated to a wonderful, botanical scent - it was like Christmas had enveloped the whole of the
Orangery.
Sallie took her slippers out of her basket, yanked off her boots, pulled her thick socks up over her jeans and put her boots on the mat by the door. First things first - her job for the day was to make the ‘gin room’ a reality. The vision of it had been sitting in her head since she’d first viewed the place with Shane Pence the estate agent.
The long, narrow room running behind the main room to be christened ‘The Gin Room at the Orangery’ looked completely different from the first time she and Shane had walked in, when they had been overpowered by the heat and the old musty smell of the space and had sat down on the decrepit cast-iron table and chairs, looking around in wonder.
Back then, the room had been covered in layers and layers of cobwebs, five rusty old industrial pendant lights with broken fittings had hung through the centre and ferns and herbs poked up through mounds of weeds and stinging nettles.
Since that day, she’d pulled every weed out, the lights had been cleaned of rust, the fans underneath them fixed and the electrician, after a bit of a battle, had got the globes working again. She’d painted the old sleepers refreshing the beds with a wash of stain, all the old bricks were painted in antique white and she and Ben had scrubbed the slate floor tile that ran through the middle on their knees with a small wire brush until it was like new.
She’d collected two more similar cast-iron tables to the one they’d found in there already which she had cleaned, restored and painted white.
Down the far end, using two of the old potting tables, Ben had made a bar. With no budget for the bar area they'd scoured around the grounds and found a pile of old fruit boxes in the tumbledown shed which Sallie had cleaned up, and Ben had used them to make open shelving on the wall behind. After an astronomical quote from a tiler, Ben had taken a crash course in subway tiling on YouTube, Sallie had sourced the cheapest tiles she could find on the internet and Ben had tiled the whole of the bar area on his own with his laptop playing tiling tutorials on the side and quite a lot of swearing. The result was stunning.
Now, though, it needed dressing up - she had a deadline to get The Gin Room finished, styled, photographed and up on social media before the competition was announced. She looked at the open shelving, opened the box on the floor from Jeddos with the delivery of gin and started to add all the different shaped bottles to the shelves. Jeddo had helped her comb through small boutique gin brands from independent distillers and chosen a few others with pretty, interesting looking bottles. Interspersed between the gin she placed vintage bottles she’d collected from car boot sales and the Italian jam jars she’d found that had belonged to Lucia’s grandfather.
On either end of the bar Sallie filled large, rustic preserving jars with dried herbs she’d collected from the beds outside and all along the bar displayed interesting things she'd found around the place - large shells from the beach, coloured pieces of sea glass, interesting little pieces of driftwood and dried seed pods.
She stood on top of the bar underneath the hanging baskets overhead planted with masses of trailing plants, and lined up a long row of vintage jam jars, placed old-fashioned ice buckets and tongs in the middle of the bar and stacked a huge pile of small, antique silver platters on the left to use as little trays for drinks.
After a few hours, an aching back and surrounded by herbs, she’d turned on the old lights stood back and there it was the Gin Room had finally come to light - the long lines of gin glinted in the light, the bursts of green popped against the white subway tiles, the fans whirred gently overhead and the old fruit crates behind gave it all a rustic almost homely feel.
Chapter 26
Sallie pulled the French quilt over her legs, clicked her mousepad and scrolled through endless shows on Netflix looking for something to watch; she was tired from all the work getting ready for the competition and needed something to watch to switch off and zone out - she’d spent the day getting the decorations sorted and trying to source a vintage sleigh to use as decor for the wedding.
It had been bitterly cold, it was dark early and the potbelly stoves were full of wood and roaring with heat. She’d been so busy with it all, it had stopped her from missing Ben but when she sat down at night it felt strange to not have him with her.
She checked the time and then checked the time in Alaska - she still hadn’t got her head around the different time zones. It was mid-morning there - Ben would be up, sorting out the planes and starting out on the schedule. She might just catch him in his coffee break. She tried video calling him but he didn’t pick up and the time in the left-hand corner showed that the last time he had checked in was when they had spoken that morning.
She suddenly missed him - after years of being alone, coping on her own and having no one to turn to, he had, almost overnight, become her rock. The debrief at the end of the day, someone to wake up beside in the morning, just having him caring about how she was and what she did had become something she relied on, something she loved.
She pulled off the quilt, put on her slippers and as she was pouring a little nip of hazelnut liqueur into her hot chocolate her message app notification started to buzz.
‘Hey beautiful, how are you?’ There he was, her gorgeous pilot of a husband, in a different timezone, dashing in his Pretty Beach pilot’s uniform.
‘Hello! I was just this minute thinking about you. I’m good - just getting everything ready for the Orangery. I’m missing having you here to bounce ideas off. Well, not just that I’m just missing you all round really.’ She smiled into the screen of the phone.
‘Well, it’s morning here and I’m just about to have my coffee and sit down - it’s all go! So, do you think you’ll get it all done? We are needing you jetted over here so we can practise baby making this month.’ He winked through the phone screen and chuckled.
‘I think so - just waiting on Phia and then we can book the flights.’ Sallie replied, laughing as he put his hands together as if saying a prayer.
‘I really hope it works out - you’ll absolutely love it here, it’s so you.’
‘Tell me what it’s like then. Have you been exploring?’ She asked, propping her phone up on a cushion and pulling the French quilt back up over her legs.
‘I’ve not had a lot of time, but the main street is full of little timber-clad shops, the bar is right out of a cosy mystery series and the local characters... well, let’s just say it’s all just as you would imagine and like those pictures we found online - only in real life.’
‘It sounds divine,’ Sallie replied, smiling down the phone at her handsome husband.
‘It is - just say the word and I’ll get Charlie to book the tickets. I really want you to make it Sals, I love you so much and it will be wonderful to be here with you.’
‘Me too - okay, I’ll let you know as soon as I know. Rightio, I’m going to call it a night, I’m ready for bed. It’s been so cold here.’
‘I know, I have to get back too,’ he lifted his coffee cup up and blew her a kiss, ‘Speak in the morning, love you, night.’
‘Love you too, night.’ Sallie replied, closing the app and walking over to the kitchen. She put her mug in the dishwasher, checked the doors downstairs were locked, and went and got into bed.
As she snuggled down under the duvet she made a decision that she was going to make Alaska happen.
Chapter 27
Sallie didn’t know how to feel - nervous or scared or what. She pulled her coat around her, picked up the coffee tray from Holly and waved over her shoulder as she said goodbye. She walked along the laneway, the air crisp, a morning mist all over Pretty Beach and up the hill to the church in the distance. She held onto the coffee and blew onto her fingers cursing leaving her gloves at home.
The outside of Lucian’s house was sparkling with frost, his scooter draped in a protective cover on the tiny driveway and as she walked up the path his little black cat sat in the window looking out at as if to say ‘who are you and what are you doing in my house?’ She balanced the coffees and
knocked on the door and a minute or so later it opened.
‘Darling! How are you? Exciting!’ Lucian took the coffees and ushered her into his tiny little sitting room.
‘I don’t know about excitement - I’m wondering if we have both lost the plot!’ She replied, her voice shaking.
‘Lost the plot! Darling, this is going to be fabulous. You mark my words.’ Lucian replied, bouncing around and stepping into the kitchen.
‘I hope so, with the work you’ve put in...’ she trailed off and followed him into the kitchen.
Lucian had been a workhorse - any reservations that Ben had felt about Sallie working with him were wrong. Lucian had a ferocious attention to detail, put in more effort than anyone she’d worked with before and was very bright. It was a formidable combination and the more they’d worked together, the more she had realised that the success of Where the Heck is Pretty Beach? was certainly no accident.
It had worked out that they had been quite the perfect partnership - Lucian’s technology skills were second to none, his project management excellent and her creative eye and ability to make something from nothing had meant everything on his spreadsheet was done and done well.
Everything so far had gone to plan, with the odd hiccup here and there but they were now ready to launch and she’d arrived at his house to record the episode where they announced the competition for a bride and groom to get married at the Orangery. It was going to be broadcast alongside a big social media push, would be open worldwide and they were hoping the publicity and interest would be enough to justify all their hard work and costs.
It made Sallie nervous though and the more she’d thought about it the more nervous she’d got. It was such a huge undertaking; the broadcast would be downloaded by millions of listeners and reach to far-flung corners of the globe yet it was just the two of them in a tiny little room with a couple of microphones and an app - it gave the whole thing an aura that it all wasn’t quite real.
Winter at Pretty Beach Page 9
