Bedlam & Breakfast at a Devon Seaside Guesthouse

by Sharley Scott

  As we helped them across the road with their suitcases, she glanced back to the Range Rover. “We came down to give ourselves breathing space from him. For the past week I’ve seen that thing sitting outside my workplace. I’ve been having to leave the back way. But how did he know we were here?” For a moment I thought she was accusing me of giving out guest information, but her eyes widened and she clamped her hand to her mouth. “He must know my email password.”

  A tear rolled down her cheek. “It’s too much. I don’t think I can cope with this anymore. I’m sorry he caused you so much bother.”

  I gave her a hug. “Please don’t worry. Just look after yourselves.”.

  As we waved goodbye to Lisa and Matthew, I thought about going around to Shona and Kim’s. I’d taken a bottle of wine to the young couple who lived in the cottages across the road and thanked them for their help, but Kim had snuck away when Jason arrived home and I hadn’t had a chance to thank her. But now my feet ached and my head pounded and zonking out in front of the TV with a glass of wine was all I could manage. I’d thank Kim tomorrow after our check-ins arrived.

  ♦

  Shona answered the door. With the blonde tips almost grown out, her hair looked more like a hedgehog than usual. Two sharp grooves sat between her eyebrows and weariness oozed from her. Putting a finger to her mouth, she ushered me through to their lounge where we found Kim asleep on the sofa, arm dangling so her finger tips curled into the carpet. The room smelled of sweat and sour milk. Kim had a strange grey pallor and her chest whistled as she breathed. Although she’d looked a bit off-colour yesterday, she hadn’t sounded like this. Shona signalled for me to follow her through to the kitchen, where she carefully shut the door, so it didn’t click.

  “I’m really worried about Kim. She’s been grotty for days, really moany, but her cough’s got a lot worse and this morning she could hardly manage doing the breakfasts, let alone the room servicing. She even agreed to have a lie-down. That’s not my Kim. Look at her! She’s so poorly. What should I do?” She gasped the last part as if she’d forgotten to breathe.

  “Have you spoken to the doctor?”

  “She wouldn’t let me. Even after she was sick.”

  That explained the strange smell in the lounge.

  “I don’t think you have much choice. What about that NHS Direct?”

  Shona bit her lip and opened the kitchen door a fraction to gaze at Kim. Without saying a word, she crept into the lounge and carefully lifted the handheld phone from the coffee table. A moment later I heard the stairs creak above the sloped ceiling in the kitchen. She’d gone upstairs so Kim wouldn’t hear.

  I gazed around. Like ours, Shona and Kim’s kitchen had the sign about washing your hands by the hand basin, a fire extinguisher and blanket by the door, as well as a noticeboard pinned with temperature readings. But theirs was in a much better condition with sleek underlit units and matching floor and wall tiles. The expression about polishing turds came to mind each time we scrubbed our kitchen. I couldn’t wait until November when we’d promised to replace it.

  A grim-faced Shona came back five minutes later. “The doctor’s calling back. I hope it doesn’t wake Kim. Although you ringing the doorbell somehow didn’t.”

  As she said that my mobile beeped. I mouthed an apology and turned it to mute before checking the message. Jason. ‘Just shooting down the pub with Mike.’ I glanced at the time. Six o’clock. A bit early.

  Shona put the kettle on. Its hiss echoed round the room. She opened the fridge and the bottles and jars stuffed in the door chinked together. The mugs clunked against the worktop. She turned to me, smiling.

  “Silence isn’t my forte either.”

  At that the phone rang and Shona snatched it from the side and hurried through the utility room into the small courtyard, where we’d tried and failed to catch the mouse. Was it still roaming free in the garden? Shona hadn’t mentioned any further forays, but she was unlikely to advertise the mouse’s extended stay.

  She returned with a worried expression. “They want me to take her to the out-of-hours GP at Berrinton Hospital. What if she won’t go? People think I’m cranky, but she should’ve been born a mule.”

  “Go and fetch the car,” I said. “I’ll wake her.”

  “What about breakfast tomorrow?” Shona said. “If she’s too ill.”

  We both looked at each other. With Jason and I doing sixteen breakfasts tomorrow, I couldn’t help. What did small B&Bs like ours do with just two owners and no staff if one of us became incapacitated? This was something that often played on my mind, especially since Emily had left. Then I remembered Shona telling me that she and Kim still got on well with the old owners of Jetsam Cottage who lived just up the road.

  “I could help with the rooms, once I’ve done ours, but what about your old owner? Could she come in?”

  Shona’s face brightened. “I’ll give her a quick ring. If Maggie can’t, maybe Jeff can.”

  Shona returned with a smile and a thumbs up, until her gaze dropped to Kim. She snatched her car keys from the side and shot off to retrieve her car. Like us, in addition to their driveway parking, they stumped up for passes across the road. But these luxuries were for the guests and they parked their own car in any free space they could find, usually on the side of Moreton Hill, where only those with the hardiest of handbrakes would park. Not that Shona and Kim’s car was in the best condition, but Shona always said the car in front would stop it rolling too far. I hoped it wouldn’t be ours.

  I headed over to Kim and gently whispered that she needed to get up. Bleary, unfocused eyes met mine, until they flickered shut. I shook her.

  “Kim, you have to get up.”

  Again, she blinked and her lids drooped shut. She let me wrap my arms around her to draw her into a sitting position, where she gazed around blankly. I brushed against her skin. Damp. I touched the back of my hand to her forehead. Too hot. She broke into a coughing fit, but she didn’t seem to have the energy to choke up whatever her body needed to expel. Once she quietened, I helped her up. She leaned heavily on me, rasping as she shuffled out of the room.

  We met Shona in the hallway. She went to take Kim’s arm but I stopped her.

  “She needs shoes.”

  Shona took the stairs two at a time while I stood with Kim by the Buddha statue and the fake trailing ivy. Panting, Shona hurried back, clutching a pair of crocs. They didn’t match Kim’s summer dress, creased after an afternoon on the sofa, but Kim slipped her bare feet into them without an argument.

  After we bundled Kim into the car, I pulled Shona aside. “If you need me to help you when you get back, just call.”

  Pale faced, she gave me a brief nod. Then she clutched my arm. “Thank you. We have our ups-and-downs but I love her.”

  Her eyes welled. The thought of Shona crying shocked me – she must be worried beyond belief – but she forced the tears back with a loud sniff.

  Within seconds they accelerated away, heading at speed past the corridor of houses and B&Bs, until they sailed through the green traffic lights at the top of the road and disappeared round the bend.

  A strip of light alerted me to the open front door, so I headed back into Jetsam Cottage, where I found both the back door and the one to their private quarters open. I locked both and put the landing lights on for the guests in case Shona and Kim didn’t arrive back until after dark.

  As expected, Jason was out. I settled down to read the thriller I’d started the week before, but my mind wouldn’t absorb the words and I kept having to go back to the same passage. Kim’s distress and Shona’s upset troubled me. I hoped they were okay. In the end, I picked up the laptop and played mindless games on Facebook.

  At ten o’clock, I texted Shona but didn’t get a response. At eleven o’clock I headed to bed, putting the mobile phone beside my bedside table in case Shona needed me. Jason hadn’t returned yet. Odd, as he knew we had a busy breakfast service the next day.

  Awakened by a beep,
I opened my eyes to a blue-tinged room. A text from Shona. In my sleepy state the bright screen hurt my eyes, blurring the text. It took me a while to focus on the message which read like a telegram. ‘Kim on a drip. Staying overnight. Pneumonia. I’m coming home. Don’t worry. Maggie is coming at seven.’ Too tired to think, I typed three kisses and pressed send. I turned away from the phone and its brilliant screen and burrowed into the pillow, puzzled to find the bed empty beside me. Shrugging to myself, I let my eyelids droop.

  It seemed just moments later that the front door slammed, shaking the building and shocking me from sleep. A drunken guest? Jason would know better than to make a noise. I leaped from the bed and padded across the carpet to unhook my dressing gown from the back of the door. The stairs thumped, not an orderly pattern but a thud and a pause, followed by several thuds and a loud creak, as if someone had fallen against the bannister. My arms snagged through the dressing gown sleeves and my fingers trembled as I knotted the belt. I hated the idea of confronting a loud guest on my own, especially after yesterday’s episode with that drunken man, James. The landing floorboards groaned. I took a deep breath and yanked the door open. Jason crashed to his knees, arm outstretched.

  “Ouch,” he slurred in a belligerent tone. “What did you do that for?”

  I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth, the only way to fight the bubbling torrent of anger. If we didn’t have guests, I would have spewed fury. What was he thinking getting into such a state? We were in the middle of our busiest period and look at him crawling across the carpet like a baby. After a few failed attempts, he clambered onto the bed, rucking up the duvet. I left him to it while I padded downstairs to turn off the hallway light. I returned, slinking into bed to find his dead weight pinning the duvet under him. If we lived anywhere but a guesthouse, I’d be shouting at him while I tugged the duvet free. But all I could do was pray he hadn’t woken our guests – especially lovely John and Agnes in the room nearest ours – and go to the laundry cupboard to fetch a spare sheet.

  ♦

  The morning alarm went off and I rolled out of bed, eyes stinging with tiredness after a night spent elbowing Jason to silence his snores. As I tugged my trousers on, I noticed a receipt lying on the floor. He’d withdrawn sixty pounds last night! After he said we didn’t have enough money to go for a meal.

  Jason arrived in the kitchen seconds before the first guests came into the breakfast room. On tortoise speed – his sickly face looked like one too – he messed up orders, blamed the frying pan for overcooked eggs, sent out almost raw tomatoes, bounced the scrambled eggs onto the plates and, somehow, burned the baked bean pan. I maintained an icy silence: if words could kill, he’d have been murdered in the most savage way possible. He wasn’t being let off though. There would be a ‘discussion’, but now wasn’t the time. Not unless we wanted an audience.

  After breakfast, I sent a text to Shona and received hers by return. ‘Maggie great help. Waiting to hear about Kim.’

  My hare-like efforts to race around the guestrooms were thwarted by Jason’s lack of coordination. The morning echoed to the chink of glass and the clatter of dropped spoons.

  “For goodness sake, hurry up!” I moaned, when I found him on his hands and knees stretching to reach a loo roll which had rolled beneath a bed. “I need to get round Shona’s.”

  He knelt clutching his head. “Don’t shout!”

  We didn’t get finished until two o’clock, when I swapped my cleaning clothes for the ones I’d worn that morning. They reeked of greasy food, thanks to the breakfast service being undertaken without the hob’s extractor fan being switched on, but I couldn’t waste more time changing again.

  Jason met me in the kitchen clutching two plates, one with his usual ham sandwich, and the other my favourite, tuna mayonnaise. Buttering-me up wouldn’t work.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out.”

  “But, your lunch!”

  “We’ll talk later.”

  I slammed the door, almost as hard as he’d done the previous night, safe in the knowledge our guests were out.

  ♦

  Maggie bustled around the kitchen as she emptied the dishwasher. A short, plump woman, she had a lifetime of crow’s feet formed by her ready smile. While I put the kettle on, she fetched the antibacterial spray from the utility room to give the cupboard doors a wipe. It seemed odd seeing a stranger so familiar with everything at Jetsam Cottage, but she’d lived here for eight years. She and Jeff had put in this lovely kitchen a year before they sold.

  “So, you’re one of the new people from next door,” she said. Unusually for a B&Ber in Torringham she had a Devon accent. Most of the other B&Bers had come from the North, Midlands and South East of England.

  It unnerved me that she would have known Flotsam’s old owners, Maureen and Jim. How did she feel about Jason and me, considering what they’d told people about us? When I didn’t respond with anything other than a brief nod, she ploughed on.

  “I hear you get on well with the girls.” She draped the cloth over the side of the tap. “We hardly spoke to Jim or Maureen but they seemed a nice enough couple. Jim wasn’t one for handiwork, not like my Jeff, but that was their choice. I see you’ve been doing a fair bit of work.”

  I kept my expression neutral. “Bits and pieces.”

  She chortled. “There’s an understatement if I ever heard one. Shona said you’ve done a right load of work on the place. I ’eard they weren’t happy about the sale but that’s not my business. Thing is, you’d have to be daft to take sides when you don’t know the full story. Right, let’s have that cuppa and see what else needs sorting.”

  Over a cup of tea in the lounge, she told me that she’d made Shona go back to the hospital as soon as the breakfast service finished. “It only took me a few hours to whizz round the rooms.” She’d forgotten to ask for Shona’s mobile number, so would I be so kind as to see how Kim was getting on.

  Of course, I would! A few moments later, a text came through. ‘Kim better but still poorly. Staying in another night. Is Maggie okay?’ I relayed the message to Maggie who looked concerned.

  “How long can you help out? I asked.

  “I’m here for as long as those poor lovelies need me.” Her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “Although I won’t pretend I’m not glad to have sold up. It’s blessed hard work.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. “Are you sure you don’t need me to do anything? I’ve no reason to get back anytime soon.”

  “Well, if you’re offering, I’d love a hand with the ironing. My back could do with a rest.”

  As I slid from the stool to head through to the lounge, I smiled at her. “The more the merrier.”

  I’d do anything – even six hours of ironing – if it kept me away from Jason.

  Chapter 15

  Without a row to clear the air – difficult with a houseful of guests – Jason and I grated along for the next few days, chafing at each other’s misdeeds. His drunken state had been annoying and he should have been more considerate around the guests, but the money rankled more. I couldn’t explain why I felt so hurt, not even to myself, so I let the pile of petty annoyances become an unsurmountable mountain. After Jason sauntered into the lounge one evening and turned the TV over without checking whether I was watching the News, I’d had enough. I slammed down the iron, told him to get on with it and stomped out of the guesthouse.

  Once outside, I regretted my haste. When I’d popped round to Jetsam Cottage earlier that afternoon, Kim had been in bed asleep and – although Maggie had been helping her with the guesthouse – Shona had been exhausted. She needed an early night.

  With nowhere else to go, I headed into Torringham. People wandered in and out of brightly lit convenience stores but further down the street had a desolate air, with a few souls strolling by or browsing through estate agent or gift shop windows. But, as I rounded the corner into the inner harbour, I stepped into another world. One which bustled with people strolling
along arm-in-arm or lazing outside the pubs and restaurants. Children skidded to a halt with cries of ‘Perlease!’ by the doors to the ice cream parlour. Of course, the summer holidays had started. We didn’t accommodate children, so I hadn’t realised.

  With the tide out, a dozen boats littered the harbour bed. I leaned against the metal railings enjoying the warm breeze buffeting my face. Two men in shorts, t-shirts and matching yellow wellies, inspected the twin keels of one of the small yachts, while gulls strutted between the boats and pecked at flattened strands of seaweed. Behind me a motorbike thrummed as it weaved past the holidaymakers who ambled across the road, laughing and calling to each other. A Babylon of British accents passed by, with the exception of the quartet who strolled along clutching their cameras. German. Fab! I loved listening to all the different dialects and languages. What had made this group chose to come to Torringham? Not the peace and quiet, that’s for sure. Above the cacophony, bursts of hammering reverberated from one of the trawlers on the other side of the harbour, amplified by the natural bowl that rose in layers of colourful cottages.

  The smell of fish and chips wafted from a nearby restaurant and my stomach rumbled. I fingered the tenner in the pocket of my jeans. Should I succumb? The idea of sitting by the harbour, filling myself with delicious stodge and watching the world go by was irresistible.

  My mind made up, I headed over to the Fish Bar, when I heard someone call ‘Katie’. It couldn’t be for me. I still didn’t know many people in Torringham. But with the next shout I recognised Laura’s voice. She sat across the road on a table outside The Anchor’s Rest with two other women, her lovely dog, Bessie, panting at her feet. I went over to say hello.

  “This is Katie,” Laura said to the two women, who both wore dark sunglasses and easy smiles. “She was with me when, ahem.” She blushed. “I had to be rescued.”