“I didn’t tell him not to use the loo. Just that he wouldn’t be able to flush it yet.”
Kim brushed tears from her eyes. “The most difficult guests often leave the worst reviews. Don’t worry about it. Anyone who reads it will think he’s plain odd. And anyhow,” she added. “You’ve made it to the start of July before getting your first weird review. It won’t be your last.”
Chapter 11
Uncle Bert sat on the edge of the settee, as if anticipating a speedy getaway. At first, I’d found it disconcerting but, in the two or three visits since I’d met him outside Kim and Shona’s B&B, I’d come to understand that this was one of his many quirks. Even now I found myself scrutinising his expressions or actions for reminders of my mum. He found my gaze off-putting as he’d stutter to a halt mid-sentence and ask if there was anything amiss. I couldn’t help it. Some of his mannerisms were uncannily like hers. It was over twenty years since I’d seen her scratch her chin when deep in thought or when she made that odd he-he-he chuckle, like he did now, just like Muttley from the Wacky Races. My thoughts sped back to when we laughed at Mum for sounding more like the dog than Penelope.
His warm blue eyes – Mum’s eyes – crinkled as he chuckled. He took a sip of tea. “So, we had all these lads leaping onto the scaffold because they thought it were an adder.”
“Was it an adder?” I asked.
He gifted me with another bout of Muttley and shook his head. “The idiots! It were just a grass snake. I told them an adder’s got zig zags but you know these lads, they think they know it all.”
“So, what happened?” I asked.
“Well it disappeared into the woods next door.” His shoulders shook as he laughed. “You should have seen those lads, looking around all afternoon in case it reappeared. I’m sure we lost half an afternoon’s work from them.”
He put his mug on the coffee table and heaved himself up with a grunt. “After the day I’ve had I can tell you that was a welcome cup of tea, love. I best be off now.”
We walked to the door, where a Shona-shaped silhouette appeared through the frosted glass pane. She rang the doorbell twice in quick succession. As I pulled the door open, she stood finger in the air ready to jab the bell again.
“You’ve got to help me,” she said. This sounded ominous.
“Mend a boat engine, deliver more packages to the post office?”
“I’ve got a mouse,” she whispered.
“A mouse! A pet one?”
She mouthed ‘shush’ at me and looked furtively around. Spotting Uncle Bert standing behind me in the hallway, she signalled for me to come outside.
“It’s only Uncle Bert.” I couldn’t help but point to his watch. “You must remember him.”
Blushing, Shona gave Uncle Bert a little wave. “Sorry about that.”
Grabbing my arm, she dragged me onto the driveway between two cars. A spot of butter sat in the corner of her lips and toast crumbs speckled her blouse. Kim must be out or she’d have words with Shona about having late afternoon snacks.
“It’s stuck in the mousetrap. It’s one of those humane things but the mouse isn’t moving. Maybe it’s died from shock.”
“I’m not touching it. What about Kim?”
“She’s out. I can’t wait for her to come back.”
Live and let live might be my motto when it came to creatures but that didn’t mean I wanted to touch them. In the guesthouse I used a glass and card for the spiders but, thankfully, I’d never had to consider what I’d use to extract a mouse from a trap.
“I’m off now, love.” Uncle Bert tried to slide between us.
Uncle Bert! He could handle it. He’d mocked the lads on the building site about a snake, so a mouse must be nothing to him. I blocked his escape.
“Are you in a hurry to go or have you got a minute?”
He gazed at his watch and then looked at me with an air of resignation. “If it’s urgent, I’ve got ten minutes, at most.”
Shona gave us a running commentary as we walked through the guesthouse: Kim had gone out for the afternoon to a course at the library, leaving her with a pile of ironing. Feeling a bit peckish, she’d decided to get some toast when, all of a sudden, she remembered the thing by the back door – she didn’t mention the mouse trap by name in case her guests overheard her – which she’d forgotten to check for almost two whole days, which meant the thing stuck in it may be dead.
“Thing?” Uncle Bert asked.
“What Shona was talking about outside,” I said.
“I weren’t listening,” he said.
The smell of damp hit us before we’d even stepped from the utility room. Shona’s tiny yard had the feel of a prison cell, due to the huge retaining wall which towered to the first floor of the property. I hadn’t been out here before. Our yard was larger and also less oppressive, thanks in part to Jason’s recent coat of limewash, whereas Shona’s wall was buried beneath a dark-green paste of algae, which also carpeted the concrete floor. A dozen steps led to a small garden surrounded by a high stone wall, where an assortment of lilies, lupins and other cottage garden flowers jostled for space in the raised flower beds. In the centre, Kim and Shona had crammed a patio table and four chairs.
None of this could be seen from her yard below but I’d gazed at her garden many a time when cleaning the rear guest bedroom windows. Often, I’d wished the previous owners of Flotsam Guesthouse had cared for our patch. Instead self-seeding valerian jutted from the crevices of our stone wall, fighting oxalis and dandelions for control of the few concrete-lined flower beds.
What would I do if I had a whole day in which to turn our garden from pigsville to paradise, but our spare time and money had to be spent on improving the guest rooms. Jason had just finished the ensuite in room six and the new furniture we’d ordered to replace the old melamine bits in room four had arrived this morning. The oak bedside tables with dovetail joints and an open-style wardrobe had made a huge difference to the room’s look and feel. I hadn’t been sad to see Jason smashing up the old stuff before hauling it off to the tip. With a start, I realised he’d been gone ages, probably via Mike’s for a pint at the pub.
“So here it is.” Shona pointed to a small plastic box that sat outside the utility room door. “Do you think it’s alive, Bert?”
“Eh?” Uncle Bert backed away to be corralled by the wall. “Oh no, I’m not touching that. I don’t do mice.”
“Well someone has to, or it’ll die,” Shona said.
The narrow box didn’t have any air holes, a bit odd for a so-called humane trap. Shona was right. If the mouse wasn’t already dead, it wouldn’t last long in that horrible coffin-thing. With Bert planted by the wall and Shona standing there, arms folded, I had no choice.
“Fetch me a bucket and something to put on top and I’ll do it.”
The sound of toppling cans and a heavy clanking came from inside and moments later Shona appeared with a mop bucket and a lump of melamine. I guessed it was a cupboard shelf from the utility room, as it was decorated with half a dozen rust-coloured rings where old cans and aerosols had sat for years.
“We need something heavy, so this should do.”
I caught Uncle Bert shaking his head. Like me he probably wondered why she needed the dead weight of a shelf to contain a mouse. Carefully, I lowered the mouse trap into the bucket and heaved the ridiculous shelf on top.
“You’ll have to hold it, so I can put my arm in,” I told her. “Somehow I’ve got to get the lid up on that thing.”
Shona turned to Uncle Bert, but he crossed his arms and slunk further into the shadows. Sighing, she edged towards the bucket and, like a weightlifter readying herself, she opened and clenched her fists before tentatively grasping the edges of the shelf.
“Slowly!” I hissed as she slid the shelf out. “Not too far or else the mouse might jump out.”
“Yeah, like it’s a bionic mouse,” she tittered but she watched me warily as I eased my arm through the gap.
It’s terrible to admit but when my fingers touched the lid I half-hoped the mouse would be dead or at least unconscious. What if it bit me or scrabbled up my arm and leapt into my face? Ridiculous I know, but the vibes radiating from Uncle Bert and Shona made me more nervous.
I flicked the lid open and yanked my arm clear, leaving Shona to shift the shelf back in one fluid move. She smiled and dusted her hands together. Job done. Except with the shelf stuck over the bucket, we had no idea whether the mouse was alive or dead. It must have dawned on her too as she groaned.
“Who’s brave enough to check it?”
“I’ve really got to go, love,” Uncle Bert said. “I’ll let myself out.”
I grinned at him. “Next time we’ll only call you when we’ve got snakes.”
“Snakes?” Shona said as he slipped past. Her face whitened. “Have you got them next door?”
“Bert had one at work.” When the front door clanked shut, I added, “He was telling me that he was the only one on the building site not scared of this snake. But I’ve a feeling it’s because he was at the top of the scaffold the whole time.”
She chuckled. “I’ve got to release this somewhere. Maybe we should take it to his work. Then again, I don’t want it to become snake food. Not after all this effort.”
Gazing at me, she added, “So, who’s going to do this?”
Not only did she expect me to check on the mouse, but I had no doubt I’d be co-opted into driving to some remote location to release it. Jason would come back to find an ironing pile the size of Mount Vesuvius. At least he couldn’t blow his top, not after he’d disappeared goodness knows where.
I decided to turn the tables. “I’ll lift the shelf and you check on it.”
She gave me a dubious look but knelt down while I lifted the top just a crack.
“I can’t see,” she said. “It’s too dark. Lift it a bit more, but not too much. That thing better not jump at me.”
As I inched the shelf higher, Shona screamed and fell backwards, her foot smashing into the bucket which shot from beneath the shelf and toppled over. I’d kept hold of the shelf, but its unsupported weight took me by surprise and it slipped from my grip to smash side-down on the ground. A blur of brown darted from the upturned bucket and bounded up the dozen steps each ten times its size. It paused at the top, its huge black eyes taking in its ruined prison and jailers below. Then it fled.
“For fricks’ sake!” Shona said. “I don’t know which is worse, Kim killing me when she finds out I let it go or not being able to go in the garden again knowing it’s there.”
I regretted giving her a hand up when she left my palm smeared in green gloop. While she staggered into the utility room to clean her algae-coated hands and jeans, I tidied the area. Back inside, I pointed to the droppings scattered at the bottom of the bucket. “It left you a calling card.”
“Flippin’ mice,” she said. “I hate them.”
♦
Later that evening, I retrieved the laptop from under a mound of paperwork. It may have been a fortnight since she sent me to the post office with that sex toy, but I’d finally had an idea for pay-back. ‘Fake furry mouse’ I typed and scrolled through pages of joke mice until I found something much better: a rat which popped out when the box was opened. If it looked as life-like as it did on the screen, it would be perfect.
I paid and typed in the address details for Jetsam Cottage and sat back grinning.
“What are you up to?” Jason slurred. He’d spent the past two hours snoring on the settee after finally coming home after an afternoon down the pub with Mike.
“Just arranging my own special package for Shona,” I said.
A few days later I got the text I’d been waiting for. ‘You cow!’ it read. ‘Not only did you freak me out. You’ve just set Kim off moaning as I had to confess about the mouse’.
In return I sent a ‘crying with laughter’ emoticon, because I was.
Chapter 12
Jason came into the day room where I sat with Daphne and Gloria who were staying again for a few days. I’d been thrilled to receive their booking email, as I’d wondered if they’d be too embarrassed to return. As I folded their registration form, I reminded them about breakfast times and a few standard house rules. I didn’t mention the midnight stair Olympics but, with sheepish grins, they volunteered to go straight to bed without hurdling across the landing. Although I’d promised myself I wouldn’t embarrass them by saying anything, I couldn’t help but tell them what Emily had thought they’d been getting up to. Emily! I missed my beloved daughter so much.
“She thought we were doing that?” Daphne blushed but her eyes sparkled with amusement. She wore the same stripy top from when she’d stayed before, but today she’d paired it with a pair of linen trousers and deck shoes.
I smiled at her. “She had no idea who it was. Just that there was a thumping noise.”
Gloria twirled a strand of hair between her fingers. Her silver bob carried a warm tinge the colour of heather. Unusual but very pretty. “It’s been so long since I’ve done that, I’ve probably forgotten the basics.”
Jason leaned against the doorway, chuckling and shaking his head. “Now isn’t the best time to offer to take you to your bedroom, so I’ll just take your bags and let Katie do the honours.”
Laughing, Gloria popped her pen into her handbag and clipped it shut. She pushed herself to her feet and ran her hands down her A-line skirt to smooth out the creases.
“Lead the way.”
With Gloria and Daphne tucked in their room and no other check-ins, we had a free afternoon. After finishing a few necessary jobs, we headed into the warmth of a beautiful July day. Sunglasses on, sunscreen lathered and water in hand, I linked my arm through Jason’s, although this gave me a lop-sided feel with Jason being taller. We meandered along side-by-side, with the gentle breeze on our faces and the cries of the gulls above.
“I’m so glad we didn’t ask Shona and Kim. We haven’t spent an afternoon out alone in ages.”
When Jason didn’t respond, I nudged him. “Don’t you agree?”
“I should have said.” He cleared his throat. “Mike called earlier and mentioned going out, so I invited him and Josie to join us.”
My mood darkened. Silly, I know, but it was a rare treat for the both of us to have leisure time alone. Worse, what if it was like the last time I’d bumped into Josie? She’d bought a new camera, so I’d asked her how she found it. Great or okay would have sufficed. Instead she all but recited the technical manual, outlining its improved performance and the latest features, engulfing me with acronyms and initials. I had no idea what she was talking about.
Apart from her detailed interest in camera mechanics Josie was a lovely person, but I wanted to spend the afternoon walking with Jason. I’d even harboured secret hopes of ending up at a cosy restaurant, especially after one of the guests had made me drool when he’d told me about the amazing meal he’d had the previous evening: local mussels in cream followed by the freshest bass and a superb bottle of wine.
“I wish you’d told me. Now I’ll have her rabbiting on about her photography, while you two talk about cars.”
I sounded petulant but so what? I didn’t feel reasonable. If I’d been a child, I would have vented my frustration by stamping my feet or squealing in fury.
“Her photography’s good.”
“It’s great but I don’t understand about this lens or that, or this shot, or care that she stood at Shadwell Point for four hours to capture a bat pic. Just show me the pic of the bat – not fifty pics each taken a second apart – and don’t give me a minute-by-minute rundown on how you got it.”
Jason frowned. “You’re being a bit mean.”
He was missing the point. I wanted to spend this valuable leisure time with him, not them. I yanked my arm from his. “You listen to her then. And he’s no better. Anything with an engine.”
We continued in silence, using the need to get around clusters o
f sightseers as an excuse to move further from each other. We were on different sides of the street by the time we reached Josie and Mike at the harbourside shellfish stall. The aroma of crab hung in the air. Not a smell I savoured. Forcing a smile, I headed over, dismayed to see a bulky camera dangling from around her neck. Strange how everything electronic seemed to have diminished in size except for professional cameras.
Beside the stall a man forked jellied eels from a small white pot, slurping noisily. With his bare arm, he wiped the oily film from his lips, leaving a slimy trail on his skin. Behind him, an elderly man sat on a bench, his back to us as he watched the boats in the harbour, his dog taut on its lead as it vacuumed chips from the pavement.
Hands shaken we paired, Mike and Jason in the lead while Josie and I traipsed behind, skirting the family groups crabbing by the harbour wall as we headed towards the Lord Mountfield pub. Josie fingered her camera as she chatted.
“I’ve brought it as I heard there’s a pod of dolphins in the area. A friend texted from Shadwell Point as they might be heading this way. If they do, I hope you won’t mind if I shoot off. I’d love to get some good pics.”
Dolphins? I’d love to see them in the open sea. Some of our guests had seen them but I’d not been lucky enough. Without thinking, I found myself saying, “Could I join you?”
She gave me a warm smile, which made me feel like a traitor for being so mean earlier. “Of course!”
As usual the pub was packed with people enjoying views of the marina and the bay beyond. The one free bench was littered with finished beer glasses, the gaps between the boards crammed with empty crisp packets. Jason took a few empties when he went in to order our drinks and I pushed the rest to the side of the table. When Josie disappeared off to the loo, Mike decided he would check if Jason needed a hand.
Bedlam & Breakfast at a Devon Seaside Guesthouse Page 9
