‘You’ll be fine. For the record I only check on hygiene issues and some of the places I see are palaces, but the food … well, what some people do with bacon and eggs should be a hanging offence!’
Cara laughed. She’d only given him coffee and two digestives from a new packet – he was yet to know whether or not she could cook.
‘But that’s out of your jurisdiction?’
‘Unfortunately, yes.’
He still seemed reluctant to go, his briefcase clutched to him now like a hot water bottle for comfort.
‘But I’m sure you are a veritable Nigella in the kitchen department.’
Goodness! Cara thought, I do believe I’m being flirted with. The year of firsts was long gone. Being flirted with wasn’t one of the issues she’d thought about. She must remember to tell Rosie – she’d get great mileage out of that! And here it was in the guise of the man from the council’s hygiene department. She was so relieved when her telephone rang because it meant she wouldn’t have to comment on the conversation.
‘Right, I’ll be off,’ the man said. ‘I’ll see myself out.’
Cara waved at his retreating figure and picked up the phone.
‘Cove End,’ she said, cheerily, into the mouthpiece.
‘Ah, good.’ A man’s voice with no discernible accent. But deep. Fruity even. Gosh, what was getting into her today – one man had flirted with her and now she was seeing, or hearing, flirts everywhere. ‘First question – is it quiet at Cove End?’
‘Very,’ Cara said. ‘The last road out of the village – well, just a lane really.’
‘Good. Good. With views?’
‘Beautiful views. From all the front-facing rooms you can see down over the hill to the harbour and out to sea as far as the horizon,’ Cara told him, slightly bemused. A woman would have asked about the bedrooms and if there was an en suite and about the food.
‘Great. So do you have a room free with this far-reaching view? Available, um, soon?’
‘Just the one night?’ Cara asked, grateful that she could now offer accommodation complete with a licence to operate.
‘Well, no. More than that. A couple of weeks, possibly more. A month, maybe six weeks would be good, if you can manage it. The thing is, I won’t be able to get to you until ten o’ clock on Saturday evening, at the earliest. Is that too late? You see I’ve got an exhibition on and it might overrun. I’m Tom Gasson-Smith, by the way.’
‘That’s fine. I rarely go to bed before then, so …’
She left the rest of her sentence unsaid – he would know by that she was happy to wait up until he arrived. The guests she had booked in for just the one night the following day would be gone by Saturday evening. She was going to have to keep very accurate records if she was to avoid double-booking rooms if things were always going to happen at this pace.
There was no response and Cara wondered if, perhaps, Tom whoever-he-was – she’d forgotten for a moment – had changed his mind.
‘Er, no problem,’ she said, encouragingly, hoping her voice would stir him into confirming the booking. A long one would be good.
And now she thought about it, she remembered seeing the name Tom something-Smith on the list of artists who would be exhibiting at the art festival, although she’d never heard of him before and had no idea what he painted, or sculpted, or potted – all sorts of artists would be exhibiting, so the flyer had said. So it would seem Tom double-barrelled-whatsit was bona fide. Unlike the Hines. And she also remembered she ought to be down on the harbourside waiting for the bus to take her to Torquay to meet up with Rosie. ‘I’ll book you in, Mr Smith.’
‘Tom Gasson-hyphen-Smith. You might have heard of me.’
‘Of course. You’re here for the art festival. I’ll look forward to seeing you. But I really do have to go now. A bus to catch. Bye for now, Mr Gasson-hyphen-Smith,’ Cara said, and a giggle of sorts escaped that surprised, thrilled and embarrassed her in equal measure. What on earth was she thinking, flirting over the telephone with a complete stranger? But then she heard Tom Gasson-Smith laugh in return and it was a sort of rounded, treacly sort of laugh that made her catch her breath for a second.
‘The feeling’s likewise. Looking forward to meeting you that is, not having a bus to catch.’
And then the line went dead as he obviously replaced the receiver. Such old-fashioned things, landlines. How strange that she and Tom Gasson-Smith should both have been using one.
Cara replaced the receiver and stood still for a moment. She was on the way to making money. For a split second she wondered just how famous Tom Gasson-Smith was. It would probably give her a brownie point or two if she were able to talk about his landscapes or his abstracts or whatever – a diving-off point for a conversation between them because she’d got the feeling Tom Gasson-Smith was happy to chat. But how was she going to find out who he was, and what he painted? Mae, who might have helped her, had had her laptop stolen, and the police hadn’t yet returned Mark’s computer, not that she wanted it back. But if she was going to be running a B&B business, she’d need to get online soon and have some sort of website prepared – although with the expense of all that, maybe not just yet.
Cara made a decision. She’d give Tom Gasson-Smith one of the bedrooms with a dormer window that provided views out to sea and also north and south should he want them. She didn’t know a lot about art, apart from knowing she liked what she liked, but she knew that light from different directions made a difference to how things looked. When she got back from seeing Rosie, she’d make sure that room was as comfortable as it could be for what she hoped would be a long, and lucratively pleasing, stay.
‘Mae! Hey!’
Mae turned at the sound of her school friend, Abby’s, voice. She lifted a hand in greeting but didn’t really want to stop and chat. They both had the afternoon off school for study leave before exams – Mathematics and English literature – in a couple of weeks’ time, but it was obvious neither of them was studying. Not that it would matter much to Mae because she’d inherited her father’s aptitude for maths – a subject you either got or you didn’t was what her dad had said when he was alive – and her mother brought her back books from the library on a regular basis, so she’d read more than most.
‘Escaped study leave, then?’ Mae said. ‘Like me.’
‘Yeah,’ Abby said, hurrying to fall in step with Mae.
Mae wished she hadn’t spoken now, just waved and moved on. Abby would only want to boast about something she’d just been bought, or was about to be bought, and how much it all cost. Mae was sick at the thought of the price of things.
‘Where’re you going?’ Abby asked.
‘Around,’ Mae said. ‘You?’
‘Just escaping my mother!’ Abby let out a loud sigh. ‘As well as the home study, obviously!’
‘You and me both, then,’ Mae said.
Her mother only let her go out with Josh at weekends. On Saturdays they often went to the Boathouse because there was usually live music of some sort. Tribute bands mostly. On Sundays it depended on the weather. If it was fine, they’d go somewhere they could be sure of a bit of privacy for a necking session, but if it was wet they had to hole up in a café or something because the Boathouse was full of people having Sunday lunches – such an OAP thing to be doing. She knew there was no point in trying to see Josh today because he was working two villages away and besides, her mother would kill her if she did. But she hadn’t wanted to stay in the house on her own seeing as her mother was going to Torquay to see Rosie. She wouldn’t have minded going actually … there had to be charity shops in Torquay she could trawl for something interesting to wear but two’s company, three’s a crowd and all that, and her mum and Rosie would only have bored her to death with their conversation. Mae had told a porkie when her mum had asked why she was going out when she was supposed to be on home study and said she was going to get the bus into Churston to do a bit of research at the library.
‘Where’d yo
u tell your mother you were going?’ Abby asked.
‘Library. Research.’ She wanted to be shot of Abby’s company now because she was wanted to catch the information office to see if they knew about any part-time jobs going in the area – anywhere she didn’t need transport to get there.
‘I guess it’s a bit different for you now,’ Abby said, ‘I heard you aren’t online at the moment. What with your dad dying and that, I expect your mum is less than cheerful these days.’
I’m not exactly over the moon about it myself either. She wondered how Abby knew about her being unable to access the internet at the moment but decided not to ask. It was probably common knowledge at school anyway.
‘Mum’s not so bad. It’s just that she’s full of the B&B business she’s starting and I so do not want a house full of strangers cluttering up the bathrooms and stuff.’
‘Nah,’ Abby said. ‘Could be some hot hunk coming to stay, though!’
It was no secret that Abby had done it with at least three different boys in their class.
‘Not looking,’ Mae said.
‘You still seeing Josh Maynard?’
‘Of course.’
‘When you’ve finished with him, pass him my way,’ Abby said. ‘I could probably teach him a thing or two!’
It was Mae’s turn to sigh heavily. She was so over this conversation. Her mother, her now-dead dad, and Josh were not up as topics for conversation.
‘Got to go,’ Mae said.
And off she hurried. Alone again. Would the ache around her heart after losing her dad ever go?
On the way to the information office, Mae paused to look in shop windows to see if any of them were advertising vacant positions. None were. She pushed open the door and walked up to the desk.
‘Hi,’ she said, plastering on a smile she didn’t really feel. She didn’t recognise the man behind the desk. ‘I’m Mae Howard and I live up the top of the hill.’ She turned and waved an arm in the general direction. ‘I need a job I can do for a few hours after school and one day at the weekend. I’ll be able to do more hours when school breaks up, but I need something now. Do you know if there’s anything going?’
‘Hi, Mae Howard,’ the man said. ‘I don’t keep that sort of information here, I’m afraid. I’m more for places of entertainment and accommodation, churches, that sort of thing. Sorry.’
‘Oh, right,’ Mae said, feeling stupid that she’d come to the wrong place looking for work but how was she to know – she’d never been out looking for a job before. And now a stupid, stupid blush was spreading up the sides of her neck so the man would know how stupid she felt.
‘Look,’ he said, kindly. ‘My girls all got jobs in catering of some sort in the school holidays – cafés and that. They did chambermaiding for a bit as well – always a call for that around here in the hotels and the B&B trade. Does that help?’
Not really, Mae wanted to say, because hadn’t she just come here from a B&B place … not home any more, but a business? Having people in the house would change things. Her mum would put on her posh voice and fall over herself to make sure the guests were comfortable and had enough coffee and stuff. And what if she and her mum had one of their spats? No doubt her mum would give her a look that said, Don’t you dare start that now, there are people here. They don’t want to hear our disagreements!
‘Yeah, great,’ Mae said, her heart heavy.
And then her heart skipped a bit – would she be expected to do all the chambermaiding stuff for free at home? Would her mum expect her to serve breakfast and make tea and coffee when guests arrived? And would she have to strip beds and load the washing machine, and put her book away when she’d finished reading instead of leaving it open over the arm of a couch, which she usually did? Well, she wasn’t going to ask in case it put ideas in her mum’s head.
The bell on the door clanged then and someone else came in. Her cue to go.
‘Thanks, you know, for your help,’ Mae said to the man behind the desk.
‘Good luck then, Mae Howard,’ he said, before turning his attention to the new arrivals with a welcoming grin.
Mae stepped out into the street. Where next? She’d try the ice-cream kiosk on the quay, see if that was open. The day was sunny enough for ice-cream so it should be.
‘Well, no one can say I’m not trying to get a job,’ Mae grumbled at a seagull picking at the leftovers of a polystyrene takeaway box on the harbour wall. ‘Now the flipping ice-cream kiosk is closed. Oh …’ She’d just noticed a handwritten sign stuck on the window. She rushed over.
‘WEEKEND HELP NEEDED. WOULD SUIT STUDENT. JULY START. SATURDAYS AND SUNDAYS. MIDDAY – 4 PM. RING 528421’
‘That’s me, then,’ Mae said out loud as she logged the details in her phone. ‘I’m a student.’ She’d ring later. It was still June so no rush really. Not that she wanted to work Saturdays and Sundays because that would mean both days were out for seeing Josh instead of just the one, but it was a start. If she got the job.
What now? Her mum would still be with Rosie and what a flipping secret her mum had made about what they were going to Torquay for. ‘Oh, just a girlie outing,’ her mum had said when she’d asked, but Mae didn’t believe a word – she hadn’t been able to hold Mae’s gaze while she said it. ‘Things to chat about. You know Rosie, always some man drama or other going on. You wouldn’t want to listen to all that!’ Oh yeah … Mae hadn’t even asked if she could go along but it was pretty obvious her mum didn’t want her to know what she was doing.
As though she was on some sort of automatic pilot, Mae walked down the slope into the harbour. When the tide was out, as it was now, there was a little beach of light terracotta-coloured sand, studded with a few small shells. How many times had she and her dad launched the dinghy from this slope, and then pulled it out of the water again afterwards? Loads.
She pulled off her ballet pumps and stepped down onto the sand. Who could resist a bit of pristine, virgin sand? Mae always thought it was almost magical to be the first person to step on the beach after the tide had gone out when there were no footprints and no scuffy patches where dogs had been digging for imaginary bones or something. Abby and the other girls at school would probably consider her a saddo for even thinking that, but they thought that anyway, making snide comments when they thought she couldn’t hear about her fifties frocks and the fact she wore ballet pumps instead of Converse trainers or whatever was in fashion at the time. Not that she cared – why be like everyone else? Her dad getting killed had made her different from all her friends anyway so what difference did a vintage frock and a pair of ballet pumps make?
Mae stood there remembering … or trying to. How had her dad’s voice sounded? What was his aftershave like? How much taller than her would he be now if he were still alive, or would she be almost the same height?
The sand was firm but damp and Mae’s feet began to sink down into it, as though it was sucking her down. Little worms of cold, coarse sand were pushing up between her toes – at least that was the same as when she’d been on this same little beach with her dad after a day’s sailing.
‘A job, Dad,’ she whispered, expecting there to be a heavy weight around her heart and a lump in her chest that would bring tears to her eyes thinking about her dad, but there wasn’t. She felt calm for the first time in a while. Maybe it was because she’d made her own decision about not wanting to be in the house all the time if it was going to be a stupid B&B, and she’d started to do something about it. She hoped she’d get the ice-cream kiosk job. Everyone would be in a good mood buying ice cream, wouldn’t they?
‘I’m going to get a job, Dad. What do you think of that?’
Chapter Eight
It was Rosie who was late arriving in Torquay. Despite the fact that Cara had had to run all the way down the hill after taking the phone call from Tom Gasson-Smith, and wave like mad at the bus to get the driver to wait before pulling out because he’d already had his indicator going, she’d been on time.
/> ‘You’re late,’ Cara said, a little pleat of lines forming crossly between her eyes as Rosie arrived, cheeks pink from running from wherever it was she’d parked her car.
‘And I’m pleased to see you, too!’ Rosie rebuked her. ‘Car park was full actually, so I’ve had to park halfway up the hill to Babbacombe. Coffee first? Something sugary to sweeten you up?’
‘Sorry. I’m being a grump, aren’t I?’
‘Just a bit.’
‘Good news or bad news first?
‘Bad. Get it out of the way.’
‘I’m not VAT-registered and I’ve fibbed a bit and told the man from the hygiene department at the council who came around to snoop in every crevice looking for rats and bugs, that I’m looking into it.’
‘Ah. I’ll give you a crash course. But not now. Good news?’
‘I’ve actually passed the hygiene test. And I’ve got some bookings – three people coming tomorrow night and then a longer one arriving on Saturday. Quite late he said, because he’s an artist and has some sort of exhibition to be at. He’s coming early for the festival.’
‘Who?’
‘Tom Gasson-Smith. He didn’t sound best pleased when I called him plain Mr Smith.’
‘You are joking! Tom Gasson-Smith?’
‘Oh, do you know him? He said I might know his name but I don’t. Only that it’s on the flyer for the festival.’
‘Sometimes, Cara Howard, I despair of you. You were the purchaser of original paintings – none of this print stuff for you, not even limited-edition ones – and you’ve not heard of Tom Gasson-Smith. Tut-tut.’
What was Rosie going on about? Why couldn’t she just spit it out?
‘Should I have? I certainly never bought anything with his name in the corner. I buy paintings I like, not to own some sort of status symbol – you know, collecting the right artist and all that. Maybe he paints stuff I don’t like much.’
‘He’s all over the glossy mags at the moment. You know, the ones that come with the Sunday papers, that sort of thing. Supplements.’
The Little B & B at Cove End Page 8