“Flora. Take a seat.” He gestures to the old leather chair in front of his desk and shoves one of the paper stacks aside.
“Mrs Tilney said you wanted to see me?” The chair makes an alarming creak as I sit down.
“I did. It’s about a guest who checked in this morning.”
Of course it is. He’s complained. I knew he looked like a complainer.
I stare at the edge of Barney’s desk, waiting.
He reaches into one of the drawers, pulling out a stapled form and turning the pages to read them. I catch a glimpse of my own handwriting – or at least, my handwriting from a couple of years ago, when I applied for the Saturday job here.
Overthinking things is what I do, but having your boss pull your job application form out of his desk is probably not good.
“There we go – that’s what I thought,” he says, more to himself than to me. “On your form, there’s a section for awards and achievements, and you’ve put winner of regional school history competition.” He lowers the papers and looks at me over the top. “Maybe you could tell me a bit more about that?”
“Umm…”
What is there to say? That my history teacher had cornered me at the end of class one day and told me I should enter – that it was something she thought I’d be interested in, and good at? And I was. Out of all the projects submitted, from all the schools in the whole south-west, mine won. I spent weeks working on it, researching it, drawing little maps, putting together the perfect project on all the places Jane Austen lived in Bath. I remember how much I loved doing it…but maybe that was just a little light mania and I didn’t know it. Maybe every time I’ve thought I’ve been good at something, I’ve actually just been mad. Maybe it was the mad bit of me who won.
Barney takes pity on me and smiles again, dropping the application form on the desk and folding his hands on top of it.
“It’s fine, Flora. You’re not in trouble. Whatever it is you’ve done that you think I know about, I don’t know about it yet.” He pauses, then adds: “Is there anything?”
“No! No, no. I was just…” I shake my head, picking at the edge of a fingernail. “I didn’t want to be in trouble.” I sound like a kid.
“It’s not that at all – as a matter of fact, it’s something you can help me with. Well,” he says, “not me, exactly. A guest.”
I’m not sure I like where this is going.
“We’ve got a new guest, who’s staying with us for a while in room fifteen…”
The long stay. With a sinking feeling, I connect the dots.
This morning’s guy in the lobby who obviously recognized me
+
long-staying guest who is clearly said guy
=
so much for Mira confidently saying he’d forget about me.
“…and he’s doing some kind of research – a personal project. He could use a little help, and I thought with your interest…” Barney picks up the form again and waves it.
“You want me to help a guest with research?”
“I’ve already spoken to Mrs Tilney about it, and she’s cleared your shifts from the rota…”
“You can’t take my shifts!” It comes out in a panicked blurt before I can stop it. I can hear how desperate I sound – but I can’t help it, because if I’m not here, not at the hotel and working and cleaning and busy…what else is there?
Barney leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers together, studying me over the top of them. He does it for a very, very long time, but when he speaks his voice is soft and warm, his Dublin accent stronger than usual.
“I’m not taking your shifts, don’t worry. You’re still down for the same hours and the same pay. You’ll just be doing different work, that’s all.”
“What kind of work?” I focus very, very hard on a red paper clip by his elbow.
“Research, reading, cataloguing. Sorting through papers. Whatever Mr Waverley needs help with.”
“I’m not really a researcher, though. What if I do it wrong?”
“I think you’re underestimating yourself. Besides, I don’t think any of it will be too complicated.”
I open my mouth to say something else, but he shakes his head and continues. “Just think about it. Please. As I was about to say, this could be good for the hotel. A bit of publicity, maybe? We can always do with that, and whatever it is Mr Waverley is looking for, it’s brought him here. You know we have a lot of old papers in the attics, don’t you?”
I do. It’s one of the first things Mrs Tilney told me when I started: the top floor of the hotel is divided in two; one half is storerooms, the other is the old attics. And the old attics are completely off-limits to housekeeping staff because of all the old boxes left in there, dumped after the Second World War. Nobody is ever allowed in the attics. Which was annoying, because after hearing about them, they were the first place I wanted to go.
“He’s going into the attics?”
“No. I’ve arranged to have some of the boxes up there brought down to the library for him – to begin with, at least.”
“Oh.” I don’t even bother hiding my disappointment. For a minute there, this almost sounded like it might be interesting.
“It’s good business, Flora – he’s an important client. His family own the Waverley Hotels group…”
“So he’s not so much a client as the competition?”
Barney laughs. “While he’s staying here, he’s a client. Whatever else he is too. Although,” he adds, “I can tell you, his father Eddie is a grade-A, weaponized arse.” He grins conspiratorially. “Luckily for us, the son doesn’t seem quite so bad.”
Great, I guess?
“So I just…help him sort through papers? That’s all?”
“More or less. I’m sure he’ll explain in person.”
Outside, one of the waiters is sprinting across the drive, his shoes kicking up gravel, his tie clutched in one hand. Realizing he’s in sight of Barney’s window, he slows to an invisible-staff kind of walk…then, blatantly thinking he’s in the clear, speeds up again as he heads for the staff entrance.
Barney chuckles, shaking his head. “Daft fecker thinks I can only see him when he’s dead in front of me.” He stares out of the window for a moment, then turns back to me. “So what do you say?”
“I think…”
I think what? That I don’t exactly have much of a choice; that if this is what I’m being told to do, it’s what I have to do. Barney’s been pretty good about, well, me and I don’t want to make a fuss so…mostly I think that I should just keep quiet and nod, and deal with all this later.
I take a deep breath. “When do you need me?”
“You’ll do it? Great. I knew I could rely on you, Flora.” He taps his knuckles lightly on his desk – then he’s out of his chair, striding around the desk and across the office to open the door. “Nine o’clock tomorrow should do it, in the library. I’m sure you’ll be an enormous help to him.” He pauses to usher me over the threshold, then adds: “And a great asset to the hotel.”
And with a smile, he gently closes the door.
By the time Barney has finished with me, Mira’s already cleaned another room. I catch up with her halfway along the first floor, wiping dried toothpaste out of a sink.
“What was that?” she asks, barely even looking round when I walk in.
“Barney wants me to help a guest with a project.”
“What project? What guest?”
“The one who was asking directions in the village.”
She looks at me blankly.
“Keep up. The guy who checked in this morning? What is with you today?”
With perfect timing, she yawns. “I was up late. Studying.”
“Studying?” I did not expect that. “Studying what?”
Mira waves a hand vaguely at the mirror, but just for a second her eyes widen. “Nothing, nothing. A course.” She gives the gleaming sink tap one more brisk rub with a cloth. “You look like
bad news. It’s a bad thing, helping him?”
“I think I might have been a bit rude to him. But then he did nearly run me over…”
Mira’s eyes meet mine in the mirror. “In his defence, you were in the middle of the road.”
“Please don’t take his side – this is grim enough already. He’s doing some research about…I don’t actually know. But Barney says he’s asked for help, and I got volunteered. I’ll tell you more tomorrow – when I figure out what I’ve been signed up for. Other than having to sit in the library with a total stranger who thinks I’m…oh god, who even knows what he thinks.” I’m not sure I want to know anything else about him at all, actually. I know his name, and that’s probably as close to him as I want to get, thanks.
The same uneasy feeling stays with me through the rest of my shift, and all the way back out of the staff entrance that afternoon. The idea of having to spend time with a stranger, doing…whatever it is he’s trying to do…makes my teeth jangle and the inside of my skin itch. It’s not what I’m here for. I tip my head back and stare upwards.
“It’s not part of the deal!” I tell the empty sky – but it doesn’t answer, so I carry on heading home. Unlike most of the other staff, I don’t have to walk all the way back down into the village or down the long, sweeping drive to the bus stop – because Felix’s house is part of the Hopwood Home estate, right in the middle of the hotel grounds. So I get to cross the gardens around the old hedge maze, then take the little bridge over the end of the lake and wander out through the deer park…and there, at the end of an avenue of chestnut trees, is Charlie and Felix’s cottage. Home. It’s ridiculously pretty, considering it’s just an old gardener’s cottage. It was a bit tatty and run-down when Felix took it over five years ago, but apparently he went through the whole house with a hammer and a crowbar and just…ripped everything out. By the time my brother moved in with him, there were floors and occasionally working plumbing, but it was Charlie who fixed the chaos Felix had made – even down to the rambling roses and the honeysuckle he planted either side of the front door. They climb up the walls and around the windows, and when my bedroom window’s open in the summer, the scent of flowers drifts in on the warm air. It was Charlie who made it home.
Felix is already in when I kick the door shut behind me, his feet up on the table in front of the unlit stove.
He glances up from the tool catalogue he’s reading, and grins at me. “D’you reckon I can convince Barney we need a new trailer for the estate?”
Before I met Felix, if anyone had asked me to describe the kind of guy my brother would fall for, I probably would have described someone a lot like Barney, with his combed-back hair and his suits. Despite being our boss, he’s only a year older than Charlie – they’re actually pretty good friends. But then one day I came home from school and it was like someone had lit a lamp inside my brother, and he told me he’d met someone. The One. Which turned out to be Felix, with his questionable taste in T-shirts, arms covered in tattoos, his eyebrow ring and hair that looks like he’s been through seven hedges backwards in a high wind…And as soon as I met him, I realized the thought of Charlie being with anyone else was just impossible.
I shake my head and drop onto the sofa beside him.
“How was your shift?” he asks.
“It was.”
He waits for more, then – realizing that was the entire sentence – peers at me. “Charlie told me about the bus.”
“I’m fine. It’s not that.”
The catalogue drops to the floor with a thump and Felix folds his arms across his chest, fixing me with an expectant look.
I hold out as long as I can, but there’s just something about Felix’s face that makes him impossible to ignore. “Barney’s told me I’ve got to help this guest,” I mumble, picking up the single ancient scatter cushion that lives wedged in the corner of the sofa and turning it over and over on my lap. “He’s got some historical research project and apparently because I put my history prize on my job application, I’m supposed to be useful.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad. Makes a change from cleaning rooms, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, but…”
“But what?”
“I don’t know him!”
“You don’t need to know him! Besides, if he was that awful, Barney wouldn’t ask you to help him out.”
“Wouldn’t he?” I rub at a worn patch on the edge of the cushion. “Anyway, he’s people, and I don’t do people,” I add.
“Mmm.” He gives me a long and meaningful look.
“Look, I don’t want to talk about it. Happy anniversary, by the way.” I lever myself off the sofa and head for the shower. As if today’s not been rubbish enough, I’ve got to go back in later and do the turn-down shift tonight too.
Felix’s voice bounces up the narrow stairs: “You should give this thing a chance. You never know – you might actually enjoy it!”
I close the bathroom door and lean against it. Then I crank the shower up as hot as it will go and step into the stream of water, letting it pour over me and wash other people’s dust and dirt away and down the drain.
Shower done, I hop across the landing and into my room. The mid-afternoon sunlight floods in, filling it with warmth and making the posters pinned up on the white walls glow orange. Sometimes, I wonder if they’re really “me” any more. I put them up out of habit when I moved in, because I felt like I should – the giant Grand Budapest Hotel poster that Mira thinks is so funny (I guess it kind of is given the hotel thing) and the blow-up of Teleman’s Brilliant Sanity artwork that I got at one of their gigs at the Thekla in Bristol. But maybe they’re just relics of where I was, who I used to be.
Looking out of my window, I can just make out the roof of Hopwood Home through the trees of the deer park and gardens. It’s peaceful. It’s familiar. It’s safe and it’s stable.
I know where I am now, and that’s all I need.
Knock-knock-knock.
Pause.
I already wish I hadn’t agreed to do the turn-downs. The hotel at night is different – there are too many people drifting through the lobby or wafting gently up and down the stairs. Too many eyes not to catch, too many polite and semi-invisible smiles to make.
Today has apparently been full of bad choices – and all of them have conspired to drop me outside room fifteen.
Knock-knock-knock.
Pause.
Just keep it together. Pretend everything’s normal. Pretend you’re normal.
“Good evening? Housekeeping?”
Pause.
Knock-knock-knock.
“Housekeeping? Turn-down service?”
There’s a scraping sound from the other side of the door, then something like papers shuffling…then footsteps. “Just a minute…” The door cracks open, and a familiar face peers around it at me.
“Sorry to disturb you. Did you want the turn-down service this evening?”
Beyond him, the room is an explosion of paper. Even through the narrow gap between the door and the frame, I can see sheets of it covering every flat surface. Desk, bed, chair, floor. Everywhere. There are little Post-it notes stuck to the walls.
“Turn-down service?” He frowns, staring at me. There’s a flicker of something behind his eyes.
“Fresh towels? Turn down the corner of the sheets?” I lift the arm holding the towels a little, trying to keep my own eyes fixed on a spot in the middle of the doorknob. “Some guests say they find it welcoming.”
“I know what a turn-down service is, thanks. And I think I can manage to get into bed without you making it welcoming…” He stops suddenly and his eyes widen as he mentally plays back what he just said, getting redder with every passing second. “Oh. God. No. That didn’t…I didn’t mean…That came out…” He stops again and sighs. “I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head, trying to keep a straight face. “Right. You don’t need the turn-down.” I go to walk away but something stops me. I turn back t
o face him. “Do you want the chocolate anyway?” I rummage in my pocket and pull out what I’m relatively sure is a chocolate and not a soap – because they do look pretty similar, whatever Mrs Tilney says – holding it out to him. “Here.”
“Oh. Thanks. Thank you.” He takes it. “And…you know. Sorry. Again.”
“No problem. Goodnight.” I want to go. I do. But I…can’t.
The door doesn’t close. I can hear it creaking, like he’s leaning on it, waiting for something. “This morning – it was you, wasn’t it? In the village.”
“Me? Oh. Yes.”
A pause. “Thanks. For the directions.” Another pause. “Look, I’m sorry – I should have…” He sighs and bites his lip.
There’s an awkward silence and then: “By the way, I’m Hal. Henry. Hal – Hal Waverley.” He smiles, and it changes everything about him. His face, which was long and almost too angular, brightens and warms.
“Flora,” I say in return. “Welcome to Hopwood Home. Have a good night.” I step back from the door, but as it starts to close I glance back over my shoulder and, in the narrowing gap, I see him thoughtfully turning the square of chocolate over in his fingers.
The latch clicks.
Goodnight.
The Hopwood Home hotel library is supposed to look just as it would have done when this place was a house. There’s a polished wooden floor scattered with antique rugs, a handful of enormous sofas and armchairs upholstered in velvet and leather, a big stone fireplace with an open grate and a row of French windows opening onto the terrace and gardens at the side of the hotel. There are lamps everywhere: little ones with old-fashioned glass shades on side tables, wood and brass floor lamps in the corners, and a row of old library lamps down the centre of the huge, dark, burnished oak table that fills the middle of the room. And – of course – there are the bookcases. They line the walls, stretching up to the ceiling, heavy shelves groaning with books. Some of those are antiques, covered in cracked red leather, some are newer, and some, tucked carefully behind the door and mostly out of sight, are the books left behind by guests.
The Pieces of Ourselves Page 3