Bedlam & Breakfast at a Devon Seaside Guesthouse

by Sharley Scott

  While an incongruous couple in height and mannerisms, they both had the same stubborn streak and were more than capable of standing their ground, which balanced out any guilt I felt for standing as far back as possible.

  They rapped the knocker and pressed the bell, but no one answered. When Shona cupped her hands against the bay window to gaze inside, I went over. There was no sound of drilling or banging, just the waft of fresh paint.

  “They’re out.” She glanced at her watch. Two o’clock. Sighing, she propped herself against one of the scaffolding poles. “We’ve got a three thirty check-in. If only we could get the keys to the van.”

  Kim grabbed her arm and pointed to the bay window. “Look!”

  The window appeared shut but then I spotted the slight gap. Maybe the builders had found it open when they left for lunch but, rather than go back inside, they’d pushed it to. Just like we’d done at the guesthouse the other day when we spotted the open breakfast room window as we left to pick up the fruit and veg order. Stupid, but if someone had broken in they wouldn’t have been leaving with anything but packets of cereal as we kept the internal door locked.

  Kim tucked her fingers under the window and pulled it open. Ignoring our outcry, she stepped onto the window ledge and hauled herself up, curling her long leg over the edge. Then she gave us a grin and a thumbs up and, in one fluid movement, ducked inside.

  “Flippin’ heck!” Shona darted down the pathway. She looked both ways, before shooting back to rap on the door.

  “Is someone coming?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Not yet.” She swiped her hand through her hedgehog hair. “But what if someone’s inside? Why on earth did I let her go?”

  Tapping a finger on her chin, she surveyed the building. “Here, give us a leg up.”

  Through the bay window I could make out paint pots and dust sheets but nothing beyond the open door. While we hadn’t heard anything, silence wasn’t always golden. For all we knew Kim could have come across someone who’d stayed behind for a snooze. A dozen movie scenes reeled through my mind: a man leaping from behind to cover a woman’s mouth, an intruder walking through a door to be smashed on the back of the head by a hammer or, more likely, the police being called. Kim shouldn’t have gone in there. We had to get her out.

  In for a penny, in for a pound. Against my better judgement I clasped my hands to help Shona up, grunting in discomfort, not just from her weight but the red Devon mud which caked her boot and squelched in my palm.

  My fingers throbbed as though they would snap in two. “Hurry up!”

  She hefted herself clear, leaving me to examine my aching, muddy hands. A ‘psst’ brought my attention back to find her dangling over the lip of the window frame, her legs outside, her body inside. Even when she stretched as far as she could, her arms didn’t reach the window sill below. She wriggled forward, more of her inside than out, but the sill was a good two foot away. If she fell she’d make a right racket and probably break her neck too. I grabbed her legs.

  “Let go!” she hissed.

  Just then the front door rattled open and Kim stepped out, clutching something gold and black to her chest. She gazed at us in surprise.

  “Shona, what are you doing?”

  Kim shoved the items in her pockets and we both took a leg to drag Shona out, each tug matched by a groan of pain.

  Back at the car, Kim threw what was clearly a wallet and gold watch onto the back seat. She hadn’t gone in with them, so they must be stolen.

  “You’re not taking them, are you?”

  “Don’t worry, it’ll all become clear. Have you got a pen and paper?”

  While I reached into the glove box, she scanned the road. As she scribbled a note on the bonnet of my car, Shona stood with her top pulled up examining her wounds – a series of red-rimmed vertical scratches on her abdomen.

  “What are you writing?”

  “A ransom note,” Kim told me.

  As she pinned the note beneath the hippy van’s windscreen wipers, she treated us to her fabulous throaty laugh.

  ♦

  I’d become a boomerang. With every bang of a car door or raised voice, I leapt up and raced to the breakfast room window to check whether the men had arrived next door for the exchange of goods. Jason hadn’t arrived back yet, but it might be best if he wasn’t there when the men came. If anything went wrong, no doubt Jason would end up in the middle of it. It was all very well Kim writing the note to say she’d found the items in the guesthouse and had come to switch them for an undamaged duvet set but what if she’d taken someone else’s belongings? Someone who had never set foot in Jetsam Cottage.

  As I bundled another load of towels into the washing machine the distant church bells chimed. Four o’clock. Most workmen finished around now. But Kim said these had to pack up ready to move onto Plymouth, which meant they wouldn’t be here for another half hour to forty-five minutes at least. Back in the lounge I folded a heap of dry towels into piles. I’d kept the sound on the TV low, even though it meant straining to hear it above the churning machines in the utility room.

  Above it all echoed the unmistakable sound of raised voices. With a thudding heart I raced outside to find several of our guests on the driveway watching the commotion next door. Two men stood on the doorstep to Jetsam Cottage, while behind them sat a van, but not the hippy van.

  “You just can’t come and take stuff. It’s stealing.” The older man shouted.

  People with necks that red usually had severe sunburn, but it was more likely anger in his case. The way he shook his fist at Shona suggested he was heading towards a heart attack.

  “Where’s our flaming duvet? Your guys took it.” Shona bellowed back, while Kim stood beside her, arms folded, a serene smile in place. If the row had escalated to this level so quickly, I dreaded to think what could happen next.

  Hesitantly, I made my way round to Jetsam Cottage, my shoes crunching on their gravel drive.

  Shona spotted me. “You tell ‘em, Katie.”

  What could I say? If these men had nothing to do with the stolen duvet, we’d be in dire trouble for taking their belongings, no matter how much Kim and Shona argued otherwise.

  Pointing at me, the lad hollered, “It’s no good bringing her into it. You’ve already said you’ve got my dad’s stuff.”

  The older man swung round, mouth open as if he held an invisible loudspeaker ready to blast me out. A strange expression crossed his face, while a vague feeling of familiarity nibbled at me. Had we come across each other in a local shop or something?

  Our eyes met. Oh my goodness! His were the same deep blue of someone I’d loved very much.

  “Katie?” He scratched his head. “It looks like you, but w-what are you doing here?”

  His gentleness contrasted with the buzz of anger in the air. I waded through my memories, until the past swam into place. Uncle Bert! He’d left Derbyshire for a new life after his wife died years ago. They’d been childless so he must have remarried. Tears pricked my eyes. It was him! After all these years. The last time I’d seen him had been – oh! – at my poor mum’s funeral.

  “It is, isn’t it!” His rough hands grasped my arms. For the first time in years I gazed into my mum’s – Bert’s – eyes. He smiled proudly.

  “My, you look just like your mum. Well, I never! Callum, come here and meet your cousin.”

  I stood shamefaced as he paraded me before Callum. We’d stolen his wallet and watch. What must he think of us?

  “Can Bert have his things back?” I asked Shona. Without saying a word she disappeared, coming back out to gently place the items in his outstretched palms. She made no mention of the duvet, although she must have been burning to ask.

  “I’m sorry about your things but those workmen took my friends’ expensive bedding,” I said. “It’s no excuse, I know.”

  Bert turned to Shona and Kim. “I know those lads’ boss. You’ll get your stuff back, I’ll make sure of that. Just don’t be
taking mine again.”

  We needed to get away before Shona got a chance to open her plus-size mouth. “Fancy a cuppa,” I said to Uncle Bert and Callum. “And a catch up. I’m just next door.”

  As the three of us walked back to Flotsam Guesthouse, past the guests still planted on our drive, Jason came around the corner surprised to see so many people outside. His t-shirt bore unthinkable stains.

  “Did you get my message about stopping on to help Mike with his roof too,” he said.

  “I’ve been a tad busy. This is my Uncle Bert, by the way, and Callum, his son.”

  Confused, Jason glanced from Bert to myself, but he shook both their hands. While ushering Bert and Callum into the guesthouse, I spotted one of the guests – a quiet, gentle man midway through his four-day stay – take Jason aside, so I directed my visitors towards the lounge and rushed back.

  “As I said, I just thought you should know,” the guest said.

  “Is this right?” Jason said to me. He looked worried rather than cross. “Those men caused a scene next door.”

  “Yes, but no, but yes,” I stuttered. “It was a misunderstanding. Look, I’ll explain later.”

  I turned to our guest. “It wasn’t his fault. Believe me, he’s a lovely man.”

  The guest’s expression said otherwise, while Jason’s puzzled look told me I had a lot of explaining to do. That wouldn’t be an easy conversation, especially as I’d been the get-away driver, but it wouldn’t be right to leave Uncle Bert’s reputation stained by my actions. Strange how something so wonderful as meeting Mum’s brother had started with the theft of a duvet set. We’d been lucky this time but, lesson learned, there wouldn’t be any more ill-considered trips with Shona and Kim. Although it would be difficult, I had to learn to say ‘no’.

  Chapter 4

  We had a day off! Thanks to Jason spotting the gap in the calendar and closing it out a few weeks before. As he pointed out, there wasn’t another free period until the beginning of October, so we had to make the most of it. Somehow, Emily had wangled a day off from her hotel receptionist job, so the three of us agreed to head to Exeter to buy towels for the guesthouse and possibly a few bits to update my summer wardrobe.

  During the winter months, when we’d been scouting for guesthouses, we’d stayed overnight in Exeter as I’d wanted to see the bustling Christmas market by the Cathedral. My tummy had rumbled as a variety of food smells wafted in the air and I’d succumbed to a homemade gingerbread man, laughing at Emily’s indignation as I bit off his head. As the crisp light of afternoon transformed into a purple and apricot dusk, we’d wandered beneath the twinkling Christmas lights until, footsore and weighed down with shopping bags which bit into our fingers and bumped against our shins, we voted to go back to the B&B. That’s when we’d found ourselves in a small café down a side street, where we tucked into the best hot chocolate ever.

  Sadly, I doubted we’d find the café again. This time we took a torturous route in, bumper-to-bumper with cars as we headed over the River Exe and along a never-ending road which curved around the shopping area, rather than leading directly to it. Finally, we arrived at a roundabout with a sign giving a choice of car parks and Jason swung the car to the left. He smiled victoriously at me, until Emily chirped from the back seat.

  “Next time can we just use the sat-nav?”

  She had a point. Exeter had once been Isca, a Roman city, so surely there must be some straight roads, yet somehow Jason had managed to miss them all. Even the car park was one of those where you turned the steering wheel to the left and just kept going until finally we reached the roof and found a free space. Skin tight from an hour in a stuffy car, I stepped out thankful for the light breeze. The lift spilled us into a back street which led to the shopping precinct. Jason took the lead, his hand warm in mine, while Emily sauntered alongside us, gazing through shop windows and, no doubt, planning her shopping spree.

  We’d agree the first stop would be Cathedral Green where we’d get some lunch and meander back through the shops. In contrast to winter and the hustle of the Christmas market, the Cathedral stood sedate in the centre of a lawn intersected by paths and dotted with office workers, visitors and students. A couple lazed on the squat wall which enclosed the Green. Behind it sat brick and stone Regency buildings, another smaller church and a lovely black and white building, where we relaxed under the shade of an umbrella, drinking coffee and watching the world go by.

  Suddenly, Emily yelped and jumped up, splashing her coffee over the table. “I don’t believe it!”

  She shot off, leaving myself and Jason shrugging in bemusement as she sprinted across the lawn, waving madly. On reaching a group of young people, she dropped to her knees and stayed there for the next twenty minutes. With her friends’ backs to us, I watched her laugh and shake the hair from her face with carefree flicks. More relaxed than we’d seen her for a while.

  “She looks cheerful.”

  Jason squeezed my knee. “Friends from work, perhaps?”

  My chair scraped as I shuffled round closer to Jason. It also meant I could spy on her without cricking my neck. Until now, Emily had come in from work morose and uncommunicative but if she was making friends it could only be a good thing. Jason rested his arm on my shoulders and we basked in the warmth of each other, enjoying our daughter’s happiness.

  When she returned, her eyes sparkled and she wore a glow we’d not seen since she’d been in a relationship the previous year. Sadly, that hadn’t ended well.

  “Friends?” Jason blithely tossed the remark, but his expectant look told me he too longed for her to tell us about her lovely work colleagues and her plans for an evening out with them.

  In silence, she watched her friends walk off in the opposite direction before she plumped herself back down in the chair. As she swung one leg over the other, her foot knocked the table, spilling my coffee into the huge saucer.

  “Oops. Sorry.” She untangled her feet, planting both soles on the ground. “That was Belle and Adam from work. Do you remember them? They’re on a day’s training course with only an hour for lunch. How random that I bumped into them.”

  Jason’s frown mirrored my own. The names were familiar but I couldn’t place them among the few colleagues she’d mentioned. Sifting through memories, my optimism dissipated. They were from her old job, the one she’d left to move to Torringham. I’d never met Belle or Adam but they’d featured in her Facebook photos. Smiling young people out on the town, clutching Prosecco or gin concoctions. Emily’s favourite tipples. Not that she got much chance to go out partying now, unless a trip to the pub with Jason and I counted.

  “A long way to come for the day,” Jason said.

  “Adam’s such an idiot. He ticked the Exeter box on the form instead of Coventry and couldn’t change it. Belle’s not impressed as they left at five this morning.” Grinning, she bounced the chair round to face me. “It’s so lovely to see them again. We had the most amazing catch-up.”

  Smiling, I squeezed her arm. It was wonderful to see her bubbling in delight but I wished she had local friends to get enthusiastic about. It was tough being a young person in a new town, too old for college, too young for interest groups other than sports and Emily could never be classed as a sporty type. More than once, I’d wondered how I could help her develop a social life, but it wasn’t in my gift to do so. We’d encouraged both her and Lucy, her step-sister, to come down but Lucy, being that bit older, had been unconvinced by our tales of a wonderful life in Devon. Emily had reluctantly agreed to come, more worried about being left behind than eager for a new start. Although Lucy and I had our challenges, at least if she’d joined us, they could have gone out together.

  We decided to stay for lunch, enjoying the view and the gentle hubbub, while Emily chatted about her friends and reminisced about the daft things they’d done at work, the hilarious parties and strange boyfriends. Jason and I didn’t manage to get a word in, but we didn’t mind. Emily said more in an hour than she se
emed to have done since we’d moved down and it was a joy to hear.

  Like flicking through a family photo album, her stories created different memories for each of us and I remembered with a pang the lovely friends we’d left behind. Seeing them each day on Facebook made me forget that two hundred miles stretched between us, especially when we’d been so busy at the guesthouse. But, unlike Emily, we had the luxury of open-hearted friends here such as Shona and Kim, who took an interest in Emily too. But the day couldn’t come soon enough when she’d arrive home babbling in excitement about her new friends.

  When we left, we linked arms and the three of us strode together – in size order, with me at one end and Jason at the other – until we were forced apart by the mass of shoppers in the High Street. Later, like Christmas, we stumbled back to the car, tripping over heavy shopping bags. Sadly, this time mine and Jason’s were filled with towels for the guesthouse rather than presents but Emily had done well with a bargain pair of trainers and a gorgeous summer cocktail dress. My heart ached as she’d held it aloft, wistfully debating the wisdom of spending money on something she’d never get to wear unless she took a trip back home.

  Home. I didn’t correct her.

  “Or a nice meal out with us?” But I’d thrown crumbs in comparison to a night out with young, fun-loving friends.

  As we got back into the car, Emily sighed. “If only we hadn’t moved. I mean it’s pretty down here, but I do miss everyone.”

  ♦

  A few nights later, there was a tap on the bedroom door and a hissed “Mum!”. Emily’s voice! Something serious must have happened for her to knock at midnight. Half-asleep, I switched on the bedside lamp and stumbled out of bed. Beside me, Jason jerked upright, blinking.

  “Hold on!” I whispered. Buzzing with anxiety, I pulled the door open and blinked at the brightness of the landing light.