by Emma Jackson
‘I’m getting back inside where it’s warm. If you wanna stay out there freezing your bits off, be my guest, Princess.’
I managed to lift my frozen feet out of the hole I’d sunk into in the snow and make it back to the kitchen. He’d kindly left the door open for me and was crashing about with utensils, throwing them into the sink. He hadn’t even removed his hat or coat yet. As I closed the door, my pulse was tripping in my throat.
‘Henry.’ I had to pause to swallow, to stop my voice from shaking from something that was either anger or nerves. ‘What just happened?’
He paused and gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘I just told you, didn’t I? Talk about short attention span.’
‘So, if I call up the butcher, they’re going to tell me exactly the same story you have?’
‘Of course, they are,’ he said offhandedly but he wouldn’t look at me.
I didn’t answer. What was I supposed to do here? Trust him when my every instinct was telling me not to? Call him out and face a lot of hostility and having to do something radical, like fire him? I couldn’t fire Henry. He’d worked here for ages. He had a little boy. It was two days before Christmas. I did not want to deal with this.
‘Okay,’ I said softly and made to leave the kitchen.
‘Is that what you’re going to do?’ His voice was sharp and he’d spun around to watch me. ‘Are you going to call them and check up on me?’
I faltered. ‘I wasn’t, no.’
‘Okay, good.’
‘Why is it good? If you’ve got nothing to hide?’
The silence in the kitchen stretched out and I pushed my hair back from my face with a groan. I couldn’t ignore this. I couldn’t bury my head in the snow and act like there hadn’t been enough signs to tell me the truth of what was going on. And did I really want to be seen as the idiot who had been lied to, again. ‘God damn it, Henry. Why did you do it?’
‘I haven’t done anything,’ he persisted.
‘You’ve stolen from the hotel, haven’t you? There’s no point carrying on lying now when we both know I can just call up the butcher.’
Henry swore and slammed his fist down on the stainless-steel counter, making me jump. I edged towards the door.
‘Why did you have to poke your nose in? It wasn’t going to hurt anybody. I’d have ordered extra from the butcher today and it would be replaced tomorrow – no one would even know.’
‘But the hotel pays for it. And that’s money that goes towards your wages and everyone else’s too. My mum works her arse off to keep this place afloat.’
‘Oh, please. Don’t give me the holier-than-thou speech. Your mum is sitting pretty, and she doesn’t share the profits with the likes of the staff.’
‘Don’t go there,’ I warned him. ‘This is bad enough already, but you start bad-mouthing my mother, it’s going to turn ugly.’
‘Why? What are you going to do about it?’ He stood up straight, taking up a significant amount of space in his big, dark coat and looking down his nose at me. ‘Your mother acts like the caring, fair-minded employer but when it comes down to it, she looks out for herself and her own first.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘My wife was going to start working here before you came back, and your mum just handed the job over to you. We needed that extra income. What do you need? Nothing – because you’ve got this place to crawl back to whenever you’ve finished play-acting being a grown-up.’
I wrapped my arms back around myself the same way I had outside, but it didn’t help stave off the shivers. I had no idea if what he was telling me was true; it could’ve just been more lies. I doubted my mum would’ve withdrawn an offer of work, just to allow me to step in. But even if it was true, I hadn’t asked her to do that for me. He’d been so high and mighty, looking down on me, and here he was lying and stealing. ‘I think it’s time you left.’
‘You’re firing me? You can’t fire me.’ He curled his lip.
‘I just have.’
‘Just ’cause your mummy’s not here, it doesn’t mean you’re in charge.’
‘Of course it does. It’s all that wonderful nepotism you keep banging on about.’
He glared at me across the kitchen island and I slipped my hand into my pocket, making sure my phone was in there.
‘You’re making a mistake and you’ll regret it.’
It almost made me laugh. It was history repeating itself. Did all men go through these motions when they got caught with their pants on fire? Denial. Righteous indignation. Warnings of regret. Peter must’ve taken the same class in how to belittle and patronise women.
‘No. You made the mistake, which you are now regretting.’
He studied me, his jaw set, and then scrubbed a hand down his face and swore. ‘Really? Two days before Christmas? You heartless bitch.’
I flinched once at the word and then once again as he strode out the back door and slammed it behind him.
The kitchen stared back at me, empty and alien; littered with apparatus and equipment that I usually just passed by without a second thought. Now I was aware that I had no clue about what most of it was, or did, or how to use it. What had I done?
I was still shaking; the soggy material of my blouse and tights icy. I needed to get changed. I needed something else as well: a stiff drink or a cigarette or something. A comforting word from my mum, although I’m not sure she would’ve wanted to comfort me under the circumstances. There was a hotel full of guests and no chef.
No. I had done the right thing. She couldn’t possibly have wanted me to keep him on when he’d stolen from her. Maybe she’d even want to press charges? Should I be calling the police and reporting it?
But I couldn’t face that. The damage had been done; there was no need to drag it out any further. If Mum felt differently when she got back, she could deal with it but that was enough unpleasantness for me.
I’d had enough.
My feet stung; cold toes jarred by the heavy impact as I took every other step up to the flat at twice my normal speed. I needed get changed and make a call to my mum to tell her what had happened. As soon as I was through the door, I kicked off my shoes, peeled off my tights and took off my blouse, wrapping myself up in the fleecy throw from the back of the sofa.
When I tried to call my mum it rang twice and then cut off suddenly, like she’d switched it to silent or its battery had died. I hoped that wasn’t something else I needed to worry about.
Maybe retreating to my lonely tower hadn’t been the best idea after all. I perched on the edge of our sofa, squinting at our Christmas tree. There was this nagging feeling that I should be doing something about ‘the incident’ but what was there to do if I wasn’t going to call the police? The weirdest thing was that it didn’t feel real. Like, because I hadn’t told anyone about it, officially it hadn’t happened. Maybe I was in shock?
I drew the soft blanket closer around me and slid off the edge of the sofa, wrapping my arms around my bent legs and resting my head against the seat of my father’s armchair. The cracked leather was cool against my cheek. What if I just stayed here? What was the worst that would happen?
The guests would wonder where their meals were and go elsewhere to find sustenance. They might get pissed off enough to leave, demanding refunds beforehand, but they couldn’t get a refund if there was no one there to give it to them. Would they resort to stealing furniture as recompense? Unlikely. Most hotel guests were tempted by towels – the odd one by cutlery – but they would draw the line at sofas and paintings surely?
A vision of Julius Mundey throwing a chair at the locked china cabinet and Olive and Matilda, the spinster sisters, doing runs to their vintage VW Beetle from the bar with bottles of Scotch filled my head.
I laughed. It sounded insane in the quiet of my flat. A garbled, choking noise.
My phone chimed with a text message and I peered down at the screen askance, keeping my cheek firmly against Dad’s chair.
; Mum: Sorry, Beth, I’ve lost my phone charger and walking out to the shops to get some food. Just have enough battery for this. Will try to call from Grandad’s landline when I get back. The snow was probably a blessing in disguise as he’s still very sore. He says he’s okay to go to Cath’s though, once the snow clears. Hope all is okay. I’m sure you’re doing a grand job,
so grateful to have you there. Xxx
I let the phone disappear back inside the blanket and squeezed my eyes shut, turning my face further into the leather cushion.
No, Mum, I wanted to call her up and scream, everything is not okay and your faith in me is completely misplaced. My mere presence at the hotel has prompted your chef to steal and now I’ve fired him and there’s only me and one cleaner to run the whole place. Help me!!!
Okay, I was feeling ginormously sorry for myself but that was forgivable given the circumstances, right?
Or was I just being a selfish, spoiled brat again, expecting my mum to come along and sort out the mess I’d got myself into. Peter, Henry…for all their obnoxiousness and lying, were they even wrong about me? Mum was looking after her dad who’d just got out of hospital and all I could think about was how I needed her back because I didn’t want the hassle of extra responsibility for the hotel.
I’d always had a love/hate relationship with the place. Losing Dad so soon after moving in, and the extra burden that had placed on Mum to make it a success, had made it feel like it was an inescapable dependent, a little brother or sister that never grew up and took all the attention away from me. Always demanding, always taking, and I had never been able to find it in my heart to help her with it, the way she needed me to – the way Dad always had, even when the cancer spread and the treatment seemed to make it worse. He was always there to tell her she was doing a good job, making the right choice – or that she needed to relax and let someone else handle something – to take whatever he could off her plate.
Their relationship had been part of the reason I’d been so seduced by Peter when he first strode into my life, telling me it’d be his honour to support me to follow my dream and teach music – that money didn’t matter. I hadn’t realised what a rare thing it was that my parents had, until things began to unravel with Peter. My parents had been something else.
But she’d lost him and who was there for her to lean on like that? What support had she had? Lydia, her best friend, but she also had her own business to run. Auntie Cath, but she had her own family in London and then she did so much of the caring for Nanna when she got sick too. But Mum always kept going. And all she’d wanted from me before she went to see Grandad was my reassurance and I hadn’t even been able to give that to her because of all the voices in my head telling me I was a screw-up.
But she never told me that. Hers was the voice telling me I could do this, and I was ignoring it in favour of Peter and Henry’s and my own self-doubt?
No. I may not be sure of how I was going to sort out my life, but I could damn well figure out a way to sort this hotel out for a few days while she was away. I wouldn’t tell her about Henry. She didn’t need that extra worry.
And I was not going to give him, or Peter, or even the behemoth of need that was the hotel, the satisfaction of making me have a nervous breakdown. Okay, I was curled up in the foetal position on my living room floor, but it was just a time-out.
I lifted my head and took a deep breath. Time to run through another scenario. What was the worst that could happen if I tried to sort this mess out?
I might fail to deliver the service the guests expected, and they might leave, demanding refunds and making complaints. The hotel might get a bad review by the mysterious Hotel Hopper and lose business…but then again, it might not. Not if I tried. At the very least, I knew what the guests expected and roughly how to go about providing it. It might not be perfect; they might shout at me and call me incompetent but that wasn’t anything new and I’d had worse moments.
I hoisted myself up from the floor. Yes, I’d definitely had worse moments.
It was time to get serious about running this hotel. Freshly dressed and make-up reapplied, as I pounded down the stairs, I swore I could almost hear an Aretha Franklin soundtrack in the background.
There was a big notebook my mum normally carried around with her like a colostomy bag for her brain. It was full of all her plans and phone numbers and God knows what else. If I could find that, it might have some of the answers I needed. Preferably there was a section called ‘what to do in case of employee theft, blizzard and flu epidemic’.
Rooting through all the drawers and shelves in the office, I came up empty, so next I tried the front desk. Nothing there either. Or nothing useful anyway.
The grandfather clock that stood in the lobby, showed hands ticking dangerously close to the lunch hour. I grabbed the phone and dialled Neeta’s mobile number.
‘I can’t really chat, treacle,’ she said as soon as she heard me say hello, ‘I’m on my hands-free but the roads are awful – I’m skidding more than driving.’
She sounded unnaturally stressed and I really didn’t want to be responsible for her having an accident, so I decided to be blunt. ‘Can you answer me two questions?’
‘Yeah, if you’re quick. The traffic is going to start moving again in a minute.’
‘Can you come in today?’
‘No. I’m on the M25 and it’s going to take me until Christmas to get home at this rate. Is Henry off sick too?’
I didn’t want to waste precious minutes going into that with her, so I just ignored the question. ‘What do I do about lunch and this buffet-mince-pie thing this evening?’
Luckily, Neeta was too distracted to care. ‘Most of it’s ready. I prepped a lot of it last night and I left a list for Henry in the kitchen. It’s not hard, honey, you can do it. Okay, we’re moving again, I’ve got to go. I’ll be in tomorrow morning.’
Thank God for small mercies – she would be in tomorrow. I only had to cope with two meals. I could do that surely?
‘Okay. Take care, have a safe journey.’ I hung up and went into the kitchen.
It still felt cold in there, which was all wrong for a kitchen. The list was right there on the counter and I hadn’t realised how much tension was in my body until I read it, with the menu for the day, the food selections Neeta had already prepped, and the ones Henry had to do, which he’d been ticking off down one side.
I rummaged through the cupboards and fridge, noting where the platters were and then ran back out to type up a simplified menu for lunch. I could handle heating soup and making simple sandwiches, but I didn’t have a clue about what was in most of the salads, so the guests were just going to have to go without. Who would want a salad on a snowy day anyway?
With the abbreviated menu tacked up to the dining room door, I recalled that I’d been in the middle of cleaning when I’d had the forethought to go down to the kitchen. Part of me really wished I hadn’t bothered. I didn’t have time to help Elise out now; I had to get ready for lunch, but that gave me an idea.
Taking the back staircase, I hurried up to the second floor and searched for the cleaning cart and an open door. Elise was in number eight and – if I hadn’t remembered anyway – the scent of eucalyptus would’ve given it away: it was Nick’s room.
And it wasn’t weird or creepy at all that I knew what he smelt like.
I tried not to look around with too much interest and since he didn’t really have anything out in his room that demonstrated he was inhabiting it, it wasn’t too hard. In fact, it could have been vacant but for his backpack and a small suitcase lined up by the wall. Where had that come from?
Urgh – focus, Beth, it really isn’t important.
Elise glanced up at me but carried right on removing the bed sheets, wasting no time. Maybe my sense of urgency was infectious or maybe she was just always this efficient and I’d never really noticed. At this rate, she would be finished turning the rooms over before I even walked back downstairs. Suddenly
, she was my absolute favourite person and I was hoping in a minute I’d be hers.
‘How do you fancy doing some overtime today, Elise?’ She straightened and gave me a dubious look, but I gave her my most winning smile. ‘I’ll pay you double-bubble – in cash – for the whole day.’
Her eyes lit up, but she chewed her lip. ‘I can’t do the whole day, my daughter—’
‘Whatever you can do. Mainly, I need you here to help me with lunch. I’ll still pay you double for the whole day. You deserve a Christmas bonus; you’ve been working so hard.’
‘Your mother does give us a Christmas bonus.’
Not a big enough one according to Henry, but then I didn’t know what he was paid, or how big his bills were, or—
I shook my head; I couldn’t get distracted with any of my guilt about that right now.
‘Sure – but everyone gets that – and I don’t see everyone here at the moment, do you?’
She nodded a little and tugged the top sheet of the bed tighter. I did my best not to think about Nick sleeping in it, or what he wore when he did so.
‘If you need to get your daughter and bring her here, that’s fine with me.’
‘No. That’s okay, she is with my mother-in-law again, but I can’t leave her too long.’ She smoothed the cover once more and then nodded again a little more assertively. ‘I can stay until after lunch though.’
‘Brilliant.’ I came very close to clapping my hands together. ‘So. Do you know anything about either waitressing or cooking?’
Chapter Nine
I barely had a moment to think during the lunch service. In contrast to the previous evening, when most of the guests had been in the village, none of them had ventured out far and everyone wanted something to eat.
The snow was falling so heavily now that I couldn’t see anything out of the window. Elise took over the service in the dining room and I spent the whole time in the kitchen warming up dozens of bowls of chicken, onion and minestrone soups and trying my best not to char the tuna mayonnaise paninis.
