The Little B & B at Cove End

by Linda Mitchelmore

  ‘I think,’ Mae said, ‘none of this would be happening if Dad hadn’t died. He would so hate this – a house full of people. Not being able to, like, relax in his own home. And just for the record, so do I!’

  And then Mae ran from the room.

  ‘I’ll take my offensive stuff up with me, don’t worry!’ she yelled back over her shoulder.

  ‘Mae …’ Cara began, wanting to rush to her. Deciding against it, she flumped back down on the chair.

  Cara’s heart plummeted. No, Mae had got that wrong. It still might have happened because Mark would have been living somewhere else by now if he hadn’t died and she would have had to find a way to earn a living so they could stay at Cove End. She hadn’t expected running a business to be easy, but she hadn’t expected it to be this hard either. It was going to take more of a juggling act to be both mother and landlady than she’d given any thought to.

  She held the cushion to her, smelt the perfume – Victoria Beckham, which Mae always drenched herself in – still in the fabric. Mark had bought her that first bottle and then every birthday afterwards, Cara had bought it for Mae in his memory.

  How had she got it so badly wrong, thinking Mae would welcome a cushion as some sort of substitute for having to share the house with strangers?

  And she hadn’t even asked Mae if she’d got the job at the ice-cream kiosk either. She’d make spaghetti carbonara for supper – Mae’s favourite. A peace offering of sorts for her thoughtlessness.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Well, darling,’ Cara said the next morning when Mae came down to the kitchen for breakfast. ‘That wasn’t so bad was it?’

  It wasn’t ten o’ clock yet and already she’d cooked breakfast for five, done toast for five, made coffee for five, and served it all. Eric, Sheila and Frank had left the breakfast room just as Kate and Andrew had come in. There had been a series of quick hellos and goodbyes in the doorway. If all guests from now on were like this lot, she wouldn’t have much to worry about, would she? She’d have to get her skates on and change all the linen on the bed that was to be Tom Gasson-Smith’s, vacuum and polish, and clean the en suite but it was, thank goodness, another glorious day and everything would soon be dry on the line. Far from being thrown by the extra work the on-spec guests had made for her, Cara was fired up with enthusiasm for her new venture. For life. They could put the bad experience of the Hines behind them once and for all.

  Mae shrugged, which brought Cara right back down to earth.

  ‘The early start didn’t wake you?’

  ‘No,’ Mae said.

  ‘They all seemed to like what I did in the breakfast room anyway.’

  Cara had thought to pick a few flowers – some Zepherine Drouhin roses in bud, the leaves of Lady’s Mantle, which always reminded Cara of water lilies, rather frilly ones, and some ox-eye daisies – to make posies for the breakfast tables. Kate had said she loved the gesture and had got Andrew to take photographs. But now they were all gone and she had one hundred and sixty pounds in cash in her hand. Getting a card machine would be a priority because not everyone would want to pay cash, she knew that. Cara waggled the notes at Mae.

  ‘Good, eh?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Mae said.

  ‘Well it is! If we get fully booked like that throughout the season then we should be able to save a tidy sum to see us through the winter. Maybe something else will come up. A job of some sort I can do.’

  ‘I’ve got one of those,’ Mae said. ‘A job. Not that …’

  ‘Oh, darling, I’m so sorry. I forgot to ask. What with the first guests – well, the first bona fide ones – arriving all at once, and trying to make that cushion cover against the clock, and … well, no excuses, I should have remembered. Tell me about it.’

  Cara was contrite now. Mae was probably beyond irritated that her mother had been so wrapped up in her first foray into being a landlady that she’d forgotten to ask how she’d got on at the job interview. Mae had come down at supper time, but had taken her meal to her room, not giving Cara a chance to ask.

  ‘I got the job. Thursdays and Fridays after school until we break up, then two full days, plus Saturdays. I had a little practice run for half an hour. Dead easy. I got paid as well.’

  ‘How much? I don’t want you being exploited.’

  ‘Seven pounds an hour. Seems okay to me.’

  ‘It seems okay to me too, darling,’ Cara told her. ’The Paris trip will be coming up …’

  ‘Like pay for my own trip?’ Mae said, looking beyond hurt.

  ‘Of course not. I was thinking you could save some for a bit of spending money.’ Oh God, whatever Cara said, she seemed to be putting her foot further in the muck. ‘I’ll pay for the trip like I promised I would.’

  ‘Right. Okay. Thanks,’ Mae said. ‘Just so it’s clear. I’m going out later. Josh texted at silly o clock to say the forecast is good and our sailing trip is on.’

  She didn’t sound very enthusiastic and Cara wondered if it was all a bit too quick after the ripped frock episode. But Cara knew how it felt to cling to what you know because the thought of casting yourself off, alone, in the hope of finding someone else better suited to you was beyond scary – it was how she’d felt with Mark.

  ‘You don’t have to go just because Josh has asked you, if you don’t want to.’

  Mae sighed theatrically. ‘I want to,’ she said. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ Cara knew how much Mae had loved to sail with Mark, and perhaps she’d agreed to this to get that same feeling of freedom she’d had with her dad out on the water. She thought about asking what Mae was going to be wearing because Mark had sold just about all the sailing gear – even their lifejackets – when he’d sold Mae’s dinghy. ‘What sort of boat has Josh got?’

  ‘Laser.’

  ‘Ah,’ Cara said. She knew lasers were sleeker and faster than Mae’s old vintage Mirror dinghy had been. ‘Well …’

  ‘Don’t even think about trying to put me off going, Mum,’ Mae said. She put her arms behind her back and Cara knew her hands would be linked – Mark had had that same gesture when he’d felt challenged. ‘Please,’ she added in a tiny voice.

  ‘Not for a moment,’ Cara said.

  ‘Good. Well, best get going.’

  Mae was wearing the navy jeggings she wore for cross-country runs at school and a lime green and white striped top that came down over her bottom. Seeing her dressed like that seemed rather alien to Cara now, used to seeing Mae dressed either in school uniform or one of her vintage frocks. But she was glad Mae was dressing for the occasion. If she was surprised Mae was going so soon after breakfast, she did her best to hide it.

  ‘I can read your mind there, Mum,’ Mae said, the beginnings of a smile tweaking up the sides of her mouth. ‘You’re thinking why this early, right?’

  ‘Might have been,’ Cara said, pleased that mother and daughter did still have that connection despite the current problems over the house being turned into a B&B.

  ‘We’re going cove-hopping. Got to catch the tide, you know.’

  ‘Of course.’ Cara knew all about tides and how people could get caught out sometimes if it came in or went out more quickly than they’d expected it to. It had happened to Mark and a sailing buddy from the yacht club a couple of times.

  ‘I can make some sandwiches to take, okay?’

  ‘Of course,’ Cara said again.

  Despite the fact there would be work to do now her guests had gone, Cara felt suddenly bereft; one minute the house was full of people and now she was alone. She’d rather hoped that she and Mae could search the internet for places of interest to add to the Cove End website, and maybe have lunch together outside on the terrace in the sunshine. Just chilling, as common parlance had it. She would find something to do because sitting and fretting was not her way – and Tom Gasson-Smith wasn’t due until ten o’ clock.

  The something to do was sewing, or rather sewing-related. When she’d taken Mae’s ripped frock apart to
reuse some of the material, she’d done it very carefully. She could use the pieces to make a pattern. Her plan was to see if she could find some vintage fabric on the internet that was similar and then make Mae a new frock, using the old one as a template, but a couple of sizes larger because Mae had filled out since Mark had bought her that frock. And while she was on the internet, she’d see if there were any dressmakers in the area. Thanks to the genes Cara had inherited from her great-grandmother, Emma, she was gifted with a needle, something she hadn’t realised until Mae had been born and, unable to find dresses and jackets she liked for her baby daughter that weren’t pink, or twee, or patterned with butterflies, she’d begun to make her own. She had some old black and white photos of Emma in a box in the loft, and in some of them she was standing beside mannequins that showed wonderful wedding dresses of the 1930s, and costumes with dropped waists and fancy collars. Cara could do fancy collars because she’d practised and practised until she’d got them to sit just so. But she didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes if they had a decent dressmaking business going so she’d check first, but dressmaking might be something she could do in the winter months.

  The morning sped by, Cara pleased to be unable to find any local dressmakers on the internet. She also managed to find a site selling both vintage patterns and fabric – all at very reasonable prices – so she bought six yards of fabric and two patterns. It felt good planning for the future at last, after a couple of years just floating in the here and now but not really knowing where she was going.

  And then, on a whim, Cara decided to google Tom Gasson-Smith. Well! If the photos that came up when she clicked on ‘image’ were of him then, wow! A slightly older version of Aidan Turner perhaps? Cara wondered if there was a very lucky Mrs Gasson-Smith somewhere. There were rather a lot of photos of his art work – as Rosie had told her, mostly figurative – which to Cara’s untrained eye did look very professional in their execution. Tasteful too. A giggle bubbled its way up into Cara’s throat, wondering if Larracombe was ready for Tom Gasson-Smith and his art.

  ‘Cove End Guest House/Larracombe,’ Cara said out loud as she typed it into the search box, and was startled when a link popped up immediately. She clicked on it and there was her hallway with the highly polished parquet, and her chandelier. And there was the terrace with Kate sitting at the patio table, a glass in her hand, and there was the bedroom she’d let to Kate and Andrew, Kate leaning against the windowsill admiring the view. Five stars. Kate and Andrew had given her five stars and they must have done it before leaving earlier, or en route to wherever it was they were going next. What a great start to her venture.

  Cara still had the rest of the day to fill until Mae got back and Tom Gasson-Smith arrived. She walked all over the house, checking bedrooms, straightening towels in the bathrooms, re-doing the posy of flowers on Tom’s bedside table. Then she did one for Mae. And herself. Yes, it all looked good, and all by her own efforts.

  By four o’ clock all the laundry had dried, been ironed, and put away. Time, then, to chill. Cara searched out the book Rosie had bought her for her birthday back in April that she hadn’t even opened yet. She took it out onto the terrace and sat down to read. The sun was warm on her shoulders, but she was in no danger of getting sunburnt. Things couldn’t get better – life was beginning to taste very sweet again.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘It’s a bit tight,’ Mae said as she fastened the locks on her buoyancy aid. She’d tried putting a waterproof jacket underneath it, but there hadn’t been room. ‘And what is this wetsuit like!’

  ‘Um, tight would sum it up nicely,’ Josh said.

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ Mae said. ‘I meant the ankle cuffs are halfway up my calves. You’d never get any of the girls in my class rigged up like this!’

  The second the words were out of her mouth she knew she ought not to have said that – about the girls in her class. It would only serve to remind Josh he was going out with a schoolgirl – it showed up the age difference.

  ‘You’re not any of the girls,’ Josh said. ‘I’ve gone past only seeing what you look like. And actually you look fine to me. With or without the fancy frock you usually wear. Sorry, you know, for what happened the other night. That frock …’

  ‘Forget the frock. It’s past tense now anyway. Mum made me a big cushion for my room from the fabric.’

  ‘Cool,’ Josh said.

  ‘Which is more than I feel in this already,’ Mae said.

  They hadn’t been able to set off as early as Josh had hoped because he’d read the tide tables wrongly. They’d had to spend the morning mooching about the harbour, drinking coffee and eating pizza for lunch. Josh had said he fancied a pint, but Mae said there was no way she was going out in a boat with him if he’d had a drink, and he’d laughed and called her the hooch police.

  It was four o’clock now – or so it said on the clock of St Peter’s church tower. But they were on their way at last, now the tide was right. Mae’s tummy was a tangle of excited knots just thinking about it. They’d be able to get a good three or four hours sailing in before they’d have to turn back. They wouldn’t be able to do as much cove-hopping as they’d hoped because they’d need to get back before dark, but that wouldn’t be for ages yet.

  It was a hot day, and getting hotter still. Wriggling into the wetsuit had made her body temperature climb even higher. She’d cool down once they were out on the water though.

  Mae glanced back at the clock on St Peter’s tower. Her dad was buried there.

  First trip without you, Dad.

  For Mae everything was a first at the moment. The first open evening at her school when he hadn’t been there to be proud as anything that Mae was good at maths as he had been. The first time she’d come home from school knowing he wouldn’t be coming in from work, going up on the computer in the spare room for hours. All the other firsts – her birthday and Christmas. And not being able to tell him she had a boyfriend, although he’d probably have been less than pleased to know who it was. She bit her lip to stop her thoughts manifesting themselves as tears.

  ‘In you jump,’ Josh said, steadying the boat so Mae could step from the quay into it. ‘We could sail around to Seal Cove. Are you up for that?’

  ‘And drop anchor and swim to the beach? I love doing that.’

  ‘Me too. We should be able to do a couple of coves if we watch the tide and make good headway. Sorry about the mess up with the tide tables.’

  Josh loosened the mooring rope and dropped gently into the boat, pushing them away from the harbour wall in one swift movement.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Mae said. Just being with Josh today had been good, what with her mother forgetting to ask about the job and everything, and being so thrilled that the house had been full of people – like they and their needs were more important than she was.

  ‘I’ve got biscuits and coke in my dry bag by way of compensation. No wine this time, though. Honest.’

  Josh grinned at her. He was being kind and his kindness was overwhelming Mae a bit.

  ‘Thanks for coming round to see Mum. Apologising about me having to walk back because of the drink, and that.’

  ‘No worries. Right, grab the tiller a moment, I’ll just sort the sails a bit.’

  Mae did as she was told, excited to be sailing again because she’d always loved it. And yet her life had been going so wrong lately, and she was anxious, too.

  ‘The wind won’t get up, will it?’ she asked. There seemed to be a bit of a breeze now they were out of the shelter of the harbour at last.

  ‘Nah,’ Josh said.

  And then the old thrill of sailing, being as one with the boat and the sea, came back for Mae. She hadn’t forgotten a thing since she’d sailed with her dad. Josh didn’t have to remind her to duck under the boom, she just knew she had to. She knew when to flick the tiller to port, or to starboard. She knew when to lean with the boat and when it was best to maintain her position.

  ‘This is gre
at!’ she called out to Josh. She was just so happy in that moment, enjoying the sound of water slapping on the hull, and gulls screeching overhead, and breathing in that salty smell, almost metallic as it hit the back of her nose.

  Berry Head seemed to be swarming with people and dogs enjoying the sunshine although they looked like toy figures from where Mae was, a hundred feet or so below them and zipping along now. Someone waved and Mae waved back. She often wondered why people did that – waved to sailors. People did it with trains as well. There was a heritage line running along the coast and try as she might not to wave back when passengers waved at her, she never could resist. Ah, there was the train now, steam pluming from the funnel. Mae closed her eyes for a moment and she could have sworn she heard the clack of wheels on the rails.

  ‘Crystal Cove for a first stop alright with you?’ Josh asked. ‘Seal Cove after if we’ve got time?’

  ‘Very alright,’ Mae said. She knew that with the tide the way it was, the path down from the headland would be covered in water. Anyone in the cove would have to stay there until the tide receded a bit – there were big notices up on the headland and down in the cove reminding people of the dangers, and the tide times, which were changed weekly. With luck no one would be in the cove at the moment. It would just be her and Josh, and they could get back to how they’d been before the wine in the car incident, and her ripped frock, and well … they hadn’t kissed since and she hoped that would be rectified soon. Mae liked kissing. Or liked the way Josh kissed, having only ever been kissed at school discos against her will by a couple of boys in her class when Mr Rutherford dimmed the lights and they took advantage of a quick lunge for her lips which had been, like, yuk. Bailey hadn’t tried to kiss her – not once. She was glad of that now – it made her a virgin kisser if she discounted the school disco gropes.