Love on the Rocks

by Henry, Veronica

  ‘You’ve got to eat, love. Especially if you’re breastfeeding.’

  But Molly wasn’t. It reminded her too much of Joe. After an initial attempt, despite protests from the nurse who told her she was doing so well, she put the baby straight on to a bottle.

  ‘I want to get out of here,’ she said to the nurse who had come to help her.

  ‘I’d stay here for a few days, love. Get some rest, if you can.’

  But Molly couldn’t wait to escape.

  The only consolation was she could get straight back into her jeans. She’d barely put on any weight. It was all Alfie and water. Her skin just felt slightly loose on her tummy, but it all squodged in when she zipped herself up.

  ‘Look at you,’ said the nurse in envy. ‘You’re teeny tiny. How are you getting home?’

  ‘Taxi.’

  The nurse frowned.

  ‘You haven’t got a baby seat.’

  ‘No point,’ said Molly. ‘I won’t be going in a car again after this.’

  ‘I’m not supposed to let you out without a proper baby seat.’

  Molly looked at her impassively.

  ‘Well, I’m not staying here any longer.’

  The nurse’s face screwed up in concern.

  ‘Are you going to be all right, love?’

  Molly shrugged. She wished she’d been given one of the hard-nosed nurses who didn’t seem to have an ounce of sympathy – Molly couldn’t understand why they’d chosen a supposedly caring profession. Care didn’t seem to come into it. But the girl looking after her was going to make her cry if she didn’t stop being nice. Because Molly knew the niceness was going to end here.

  It had been incredibly tough. But she wasn’t the only one doing it, as she found out when she went to the post-natal drop-in classes. There were girls younger than her, girls who were on their second or third, though Molly found she had little in common with them; all they wanted to do was smoke and gossip. But she soon struck up a friendship with an older mum called Skyla. Skyla was ten years older than her, with three kids, and was the most laid-back person Molly had ever met. She was a bit of a hippy, with pink dreadlocks and rainbow-coloured dresses and a pierced eyebrow, but her calm aura was infectious, and she imbued Molly with the strength to cope, giving her endless tips on how to help Alfie settle and how to manage him. Nothing seemed to faze her, and more than anything she clearly adored her children, which was more than Molly could say for any of the other girls she’d met. Skyla had a tiny fisherman’s cottage, painted in bright colours with murals all over the walls, and the kids all slept in a jumble on a big mattress on the floor of her bedroom. And Skyla always seemed to have time for them; she was always doing finger painting or baking flapjacks or building an ant farm, and all the while the baby was plugged into her breast. Molly loved it there and spent more time with Skyla than she did in her own home. One day, she promised herself, she would have a little place like this, a place that smelt of cinnamon and scented candles and was filled with the sound of laughter and music – no television. It was a haven, a place of safety, away from the harsh reality of her grimy flat and her self-centred family who’d never shown her a fraction of the affection she got from Skyla. She, meanwhile, had fallen head over heels with her little boy. She could gaze at him for hours, his tiny hand clamped around one of her fingers, unable to decide which bit of him she loved best – his cupid bow lips, his pronounced eyebrows, his shell-like ears, the dark down on top of his head. Sometimes it all closed in on her and she wanted to break down. He deserved so much better than what she had to offer him. But she had to remain tough. There was, after all, no alternative.

  By the time Alfie was six months old, Molly knew she had to find work. She couldn’t survive on the paltry sum they were supposed to get by on. She struck a deal with Skyla – Molly would look after her kids while she did her aromatherapy massages at the healing centre, and Skyla would look after Alfie in return while Molly went to work.

  Despite herself, she was drawn back to Mariscombe, taking a job as chambermaid at the Mariscombe Hotel. She got at least another pound an hour than she would in any of the tawdry hotels or guesthouses in Tawcombe, and she reasoned that at least she had pleasant surroundings to work in. And in a funny way it made her feel closer to Joe. She knew the hotel was owned by his brother and to her there seemed to be a certain justice that the Thornes were indirectly contributing to the upbringing of the baby they didn’t know existed.

  For just over a year, she had managed. It was exhausting, for when she wasn’t working she was looking after Skyla’s kids, who were a wild but loving bunch. But the extra money meant she could buy things for Alfie she wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise, and make their lives a little more comfortable. And she enjoyed her work. Just as there had been at the campsite, there was a sense of camaraderie amongst the staff at the hotel. And although she never socialized with them, for she always had to rush back home, it was fun eating chocolate biscuits in the staffroom and listening to the torrid details of their private lives. They teased her for not coming out. They thought she was having an affair with a married man, and she let them. It was far easier than hinting at the truth. Not that anyone would work it out now. Joe had been dead for nearly two years; he had become a memory, almost a legend. But Molly wasn’t going to risk anyone putting two and two together.

  She’d been careless, only a few weeks ago. It had been a beautiful spring day, and she was in charge of Sklya’s mob for the whole afternoon. She decided on impulse to take them to the beach. Why should Alfie be deprived of its pleasures, just because of his murky history – a history that was hardly his fault? She made a mound of egg sandwiches and piled them all on to the bus with their various buckets, spades, balls and swimming costumes. Alfie was in seventh heaven, digging concertedly as if for victory and splashing about at the edge of the water. When the inevitable happened and a gang of staff from the hotel spotted her, Molly’s heart clattered in her chest as she smoothly told them she was looking after a friend’s children. When Alfie pottered up, chanting ‘Mu-mu-mu’, she scooped him up, laughing.

  ‘Molly!’ she instructed. ‘Say Molly. Molly Molly Molly.’

  It was only Hannah who looked at her strangely. Of everyone who worked at the hotel, she liked Hannah best. Hannah had confided in her, about wanting a nose job, and Molly sometimes felt guilty that she wasn’t being honest with her in return. Did Hannah suspect something? Hastily, she herded all the children together and gathered up their stuff, ready for the journey home. She couldn’t be sure one of them wouldn’t give something away.

  Later, as the bus wound its way through the lanes back to Tawcombe, she determined not to go to the beach again with Alfie. She wasn’t sure why she’d risked it. But she’d felt drawn there, somehow. She resented being in exile, even if it was a self-imposed exile. But lately she’d felt as if Alfie deserved if not his birthright then at least the pleasure of the surroundings in which he’d been conceived. More and more she hated the fact that he was being brought up in Tawcombe, that his little world consisted of seedy flats and dreary corner shops, apart from the haven of Skyla’s cottage.

  Now even that had been taken away from him. Skyla had told her last week that she was going off round the country over the summer, doing her massage at the alternative festivals, so she wouldn’t be there to help her out. She’d been very sorry; she’d even tried to persuade Molly to come too, but Molly didn’t have the confidence to up sticks and essentially camp for the next three months. And she couldn’t earn a living at a festival – what did she have to offer a load of spaced-out hippies? She had to stay put.

  And she was becoming more and more alienated from her family. Her mother was hard and selfish. Her sister Siobhan was a little more sympathetic, but she had fallen in with a bad crowd, all drink and drugs and motorbikes, which meant Molly didn’t trust her. But she had to rely on their help to keep her job going. It was coming up to peak season; if she started missing shifts at the hotel
she knew she would be out on her ear.

  And now Bruno was back, which for some reason was making her twitchy. After all, he didn’t know her from Adam. For one second that morning, when he’d offered her the job, Molly had been tempted to confide in him. There was something about him that she instinctively trusted. She was tired, so tired, and Alfie didn’t have the life she wanted for him. Far from it. But she knew if she opened her mouth all hell would break loose. There would be any number of denials and accusations. And anyway, how would she prove that Joe was the father? They would think she was pulling a fast one, trying to get money out of them.

  For the first time in her life, Molly was starting to realize the starkness of her plight. Bruno’s job offer that morning had only served to heighten it. There was no way out for her and Alfie. No way out at all.

  11

  Lisa was used to the wiles of women. Hysteria, bitchiness, neuroses and jealousy had competed with each other for supremacy in the world she had, until recently, moved in, and in general she was immune to them. Promotion work inevitably invited comparison, but somehow Lisa always managed to smooth out any rivalries she came across on the circuit. She was too down-to-earth to get involved in petty arguments.

  So Lisa was surprised to find that she had a deep-rooted dislike combined with an instinctive mistrust of Victoria. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was George’s wife. It was the way she carried herself, the look she had in her eye, the way she courted attention. Everything was considered; everything was done for effect, from the way she crossed her legs to the way she pushed her hair back from her eyes to the languid way she spoke, as if she could barely be bothered to communicate. Lisa was observant and she sensed that every one of Victoria’s moves was carefully planned and rehearsed. There was nothing spontaneous about her behaviour. Which, despite all George’s reassurances that he was immune, made Lisa very cautious indeed.

  Besides which, she made Lisa feel very self-conscious about her own shortcomings. Lisa had never been neurotic about her weight, but next to Victoria she felt cumbersome rather than curvaceous. And every time she spoke she was conscious of her bumpkin accent. She felt certain she’d heard Victoria mock her, muttering ‘ooh-aar’ behind her back, though she couldn’t prove it. To top it all, Victoria’s achingly hip designer wardrobe made her feel a total frump.

  Lisa wasn’t used to feeling insecure. She told herself to get a grip as she got out of bed a couple of days after Victoria’s arrival. Resisting the urge to shower, wash her hair and put on full make-up, she defiantly pulled on her scruffy old tracksuit to go down to the village for bread and croissants, tying her curls in a loose ponytail and plonking a baseball cap on top of her head. She wasn’t going to pretend for anyone.

  Ten minutes later, as she pushed open the door to the bakery, the delicious scent of yeasty, warm bread enveloped her and her mouth watered. She joined the queue, scanned the counter anxiously and was relieved to see there was one almond croissant left: this had become her morning treat over the past week.

  Then she watched in horror as the woman behind the counter picked up the object of her desire with a pair of tongs and slid it into a paper bag.

  ‘I’m sorry, love.’ She smiled sympathetically at Lisa as she handed it to the customer in front. ‘Last one. You should get me to put one aside for you. We only ever do half a dozen.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Lisa bravely.

  The man turned and Lisa found a pair of dark grey eyes looking into hers.

  ‘Never let it be said that I’ve deprived a girl of her breakfast.’ His voice was deep; from two paces away Lisa could feel it resonate through her body. He held the bag out to her solemnly.

  ‘Please – don’t worry.’ Lisa held up her hand to reject his offer, smiling awkwardly. ‘I’m sure I don’t need the calories.’

  The man ran his gaze over her, as if to appraise her body mass index. She in turn took in his black curls, his broad shoulders, his thick brows. He was dressed in khaki chinos and a rumpled white linen shirt. Then he smiled and it was like the sun coming out over the sea on a cloudy day.

  ‘I insist,’ he pronounced. ‘I’ll have a pain au chocolat instead.’

  Lisa took the bag reluctantly.

  ‘Thank you.’

  The assistant duly served him with a replacement pain au chocolat and as he left the bakery with his purchase he gave Lisa the faintest wink, leaving behind nothing but a lingering trace of cologne that cut through the smell of fresh bread.

  ‘Gorgeous, isn’t he?’ sighed the woman behind the counter. ‘He could knead my dough any day.’

  ‘Lovely,’ agreed Lisa, slightly flustered by the encounter. ‘Um, I’d better have six croissants as well. For the others.’

  ‘Bigger than your usual order, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Lisa meaningfully. ‘We seem to have quite a houseful all of a sudden.’

  As she walked back up the hill, she mused that there was nothing like an act of chivalry to brighten one’s day. She wondered who the man was, whether he was local or just passing through. He certainly stood out; he wasn’t particularly tall, but he had a certain presence. Usually, if someone winked at her, she felt slightly repelled, but somehow from him it had been perfectly acceptable behaviour, not lecherous or overly familiar.

  Whoever he was, the encounter had certainly boosted her confidence, and she felt more than ready for Victoria and her skinny little arse.

  Bruno walked back through the hotel car park, wiping pastry crumbs from his lips and feeling a curious desire to break into a whistle. It was funny, he thought, how he could be oblivious to the legions of attractive women who sauntered scantily clad through Mariscombe every day, then suddenly have his eye caught by someone out of the blue. The girl in the bakery had been undeniably pretty, but there was more to her than mere good looks – she had something that set her apart. A twinkle in her eye, a ready smile… Bruno wasn’t sure what it was, exactly. But the encounter had definitely lightened his mood.

  He went through the revolving door and into reception, where a team of workmen were painstakingly renovating the gloomy panelled woodwork as unobtrusively as possible. Hannah was behind the desk, busy printing out the next day’s arrivals. She was his next target. And to be honest, once he’d finished with her that was about it. Apart from Frank, Molly and Hannah, the rest of the staff were total slackers. But he reminded himself that he had to be positive.

  ‘Hannah,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you about something. Come into my office.’

  Hannah was his protégée. Bruno thought she was probably management material, but not yet. She didn’t have enough experience. He did, however, have another plan which would make the most of her talents. Something he thought she would enjoy…

  ‘Wedding coordinator?’

  Hannah gawped at Bruno, completely baffled. He spread some sheets of paper out in front of her, statistics and articles he’d garnered from magazines and from the Internet.

  ‘The average spend on a wedding these days is eighteen grand, apparently,’ he explained. ‘I think we deserve a slice of that. We’ve got the location, we’ve got the facilities. I’ve applied for a licence to hold ceremonies here already – I’m told there’s no reason why we shouldn’t get one.’

  ‘Wow.’ Hannah looked impressed. ‘That’s such a great idea. I don’t know why someone didn’t think of it before.’

  ‘Perhaps because it might involve hard work?’ replied Bruno drily. ‘I think the whole philosophy of this place has been to get away with as little effort as possible.’

  ‘You’re so right,’ she agreed.

  ‘I want you to start working out some packages and put a brochure together. Obviously getting the price right is key. But we can do different levels. From a simple beach barbie wedding right through to getting a helicopter for the happy couple to go away in.’ He laid out some brochures on the table. ‘Here’s some examples I got from other hotels with similar facilities to ours. Use t
hese as a guide. And I suggest you get together with Frank.’

  ‘What?’ He saw her blush red almost instantaneously.

  ‘Talk through menus with him. And table plans. Decide how many guests we can accommodate comfortably. Maybe we could supplement the space with a marquee – we could easily put one on the lawns beyond the terrace.’

  Hannah managed to recover herself. She nodded.

  ‘Maybe we could do hen and stag packages too. Not tacky ones…’ she added hastily. ‘Surf and spa weekends. For the boys and girls together.’

  ‘Nice one.’ Bruno was pleased. He’d instinctively thought Hannah was the girl for the job, and it seemed he was right. ‘I can’t pay you any extra for this straightaway. But you’ll get a generous commission on any weddings that get booked. So the sooner you can get it up and running, the better.’

  *

  When she got back to The Rocks, Lisa found George in the kitchen with Victoria, who was wearing a U2 tour T-shirt and not a lot else.

  ‘Bloody hell! I wondered where that had gone!’ George was saying, clearly delighted to see this treasured possession again.

  ‘It got muddled up with my stuff when I left.’ Victoria smiled. ‘I use it to sleep in, when decency is called for.’

  As it only just covered her bottom, Lisa didn’t think it counted as decent, but she wasn’t going to say anything. To her, it just symbolized Victoria’s desperation for point-scoring. If she thought her reminders of their past life together were subtle, she was wrong. To Lisa, they were the signs of a desperate woman.

  George, meanwhile, did his absolute very best not to peep under the grey marl to see what sort of knickers Victoria had on. She spent more on lingerie than most women’s annual clothing budget. He made his way determinedly over to the cafetière.

  ‘So what are your moves today?’ he enquired. ‘Obviously we’ve got rather a lot to be getting on with…’

  ‘Oh, quite. I shan’t get in your way. I… need to sort out a lawyer, I guess. And maybe… legal aid?’