‘You’ll notice Kirk won’t fill you in on my replacement,’ she said quietly. ‘Someone he’s seeing still, as it happens. So it’s up to me. But you’d better prepare yourself for this though. It’s quite a shocker.’
‘Then let’s all discuss that, but nice and sensibly,’ Kate said, sounding relieved that at least things seemed to be cooling down between them a little.
‘Fine by me. But I think you may want to sit back down for what’s coming next. I certainly know I had to.’
Chapter Fifteen
Chloe.
So I’m barely out of one meeting when I’m striding through Reception heading straight into another (banqueting manager, tomorrow night’s scheduled shindig, don’t ask) just as our guests are drifting into dinner.
And so far so good, I’m thinking. All our guests seem to have settled in well and are busy with initial meetings, just before the showstopper of a dinner our head chef’s laid on for later this evening. I allow myself a tiny sigh of relief and am just touching wood that everything continues to run this smoothly, when suddenly my mobile rings.
One quick glance down at the screen is all it takes and my heart rate has instantly shot up into the high nineties. Him. Rob. One of his ‘hi, just checking in with you!’ phone calls which as he and I both know by now, are actually anything but. They’re spot checks, just under a slightly friendlier name, that’s all.
Which is fine and which I completely understand; after all, it’s his money at stake here, isn’t it? It’s just that all this constant micromanaging is making me feel like the guy still doesn’t quite trust me to do the gig and do it right. What in God’s name, I wonder, will it take for him to see that I’ve got everything under control?
I slip into the entrance hallway, where it’s that bit more private, so I can really hear him properly.
‘Chloe, talk to me, how’s it all shaping up?’ is his cut-straight-to-the-chase opener.
‘Rob, hi!’ As always, I somehow manage to over-compensate for how nervy these calls never fail to make me with slightly OTT cheeriness. ‘How’s everything?’
‘More to the point,’ he says, ‘how is your first evening going so far?’
Sounds incredibly busy, whatever corner of the globe he’s calling me from this time. And trust me, with this guy he could literally be anywhere. Zimbabwe, the top of Mount Olympus, you name it. There’s roaring in the background, like engine noise. Way too noisy for a regular car, barring it was a Ferrari Formula One model. We both have to shout to even hear each other.
‘Everything is absolutely perfect!’ I yell over the noise. ‘All of our guests have checked in and everyone seems to be absolutely delighted with their room arrangements. Oh and by the way, the mini flat screen TV’s in the bathrooms went down a bomb too, let me tell you.’
‘They always do in my experience. So no complaints so far?’
‘Are you joking? Absolutely not!’
Only a tiny little white lie, as there was that Jo Hargreaves. But then from the first time I laid eyes on the woman, I just had her down as the kind of guest who absolutely nothing is right for, no matter how well you looked after them. There’s always one, isn’t there? In any hotel I’ve ever worked in, you can take it as read that there’ll be a guest that needs to be handled, and the big challenge for me as GM is to turn their whole experience completely around and send them home a happy camper.
Besides, I remind myself. Jo Hargreaves is here to get divorced. Hardly surprising if she’s not exactly dancing on the ceilings, now is it?
‘Everyone about to have dinner round now, I’m guessing?’ Rob asks, again almost having to shout over the noise around him to be heard.
‘Eh … yeah, yeah, that’s right!’ I tell him. ‘We’ll be serving dinner shortly and then first thing tomorrow morning …’
‘Speak up a bit, will you? The racket going on in the background here is something else.’
Too right, it’s almost deafening me.
‘Rob? Whereabouts are you?’ I have to really shout this time, just so he can hear me.
‘Long, long story. Tell you when I see you. So everything’s okay and our first evening went well? You’re happy with the progress?’
‘Absolutely,’ I tell him confidently. ‘I think I can safely say we’re off to a great start. All of our guests have settled in well, they seem relaxed, comfortable and happy to take the first steps towards getting divorced now. So do you plan on coming over to see how things are running here for yourself?’
No offence, but please say no. We’re all under quite enough pressure here without Rob McFayden breathing down everyone’s back.
‘You know neither the day nor the hour,’ is all he gives me to go on, though. Which let’s face it, could fecking well mean anything.
‘Anyway Chloe, I really have to go. Just checking that no soon-to-be-exes were overturning tables and stabbing each other in the eyeballs. At least, not to date.’
‘Don’t you worry a bit,’ I laugh a bit pitchily. ‘Things couldn’t be running more smoothly really! Each one of our couples was carefully screened before they got here and it goes without saying, they’re all on the absolute best of terms with each other …’
Suddenly, I’m interrupted by the sound of screeching, coming from right behind the closed Lavender Room door.
‘YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER BASTARD!!! YOU LIED TO ME JUST LIKE YOU LIED TO EVERYONE ELSE, PRACTICALLY FROM DAY ONE!’
‘Dawn, please, I really need you to calm down and listen to me …’
‘NO I BLOODY WELL WILL NOT CALM DOWN! I’M FED UP WITH EVERYONE TELLING ME WHAT I SHOULD AND SHOULDN’T DO! WHY DID YOU DO IT, KIRK? YOU WERE THE ONE WHO INSISTED THAT WE GET MARRIED IN THE FIRST PLACE! WHY PUT ME THROUGH ALL THAT WHEN YOU KNEW ALL ALONG IT WAS NEVER GOING TO MEAN ANYTHING AT ALL TO YOU?’
Oh, holy shit. I recognize both voices instantly. Dawn and Kirk. Missing dinner, still in their mediation session and by the sounds of it, only a heartbeat away from properly gouging each other’s eyes out.
‘Chloe? You still there?’ Rob asks worriedly, dragging me back to the call.
‘Emm … yes …’
‘Marrying you wasn’t just what I wanted then,’ Kirk’s insisting, and not in his usual deep, sonorous, calm voice at all. Right now he sounds heated and intense, which catches me off guard, bearing in mind, this is probably the last man on earth you could ever imagine losing his cool. ‘It’s still what I want, Dawn. The last thing on my mind is to just cut you out of my life. Do you think for one second that I could ever contemplate that?’
‘NO! YOU CAN’T SAY THINGS LIKE THAT TO ME KIRK! YOU DON’T GET TO HAVE THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS!’
Sweet Jesus. They’re actually killing each other. And right now, from the sounds of it, poor Dawn is only a degree away from setting fire to Kirk’s long, swishy ponytail and flinging all his white, flowing Jesus Christ Superstar gear onto a bonfire.
‘Chloe?’ The urgency in Rob’s voice pulls me back to the phone. ‘What was that in the background? Is everything okay there?’
‘’Yes! Perfect! Couldn’t be better. Well, thanks so much for the call, but I’d better get back to work here …’
‘Because that sounded like shouting to me. A whole lot of it.’
‘Nothing to worry about, all under control.’
Next thing, a very flustered looking Chris comes racing down the stairs.
‘Chloe,’ she hisses urgently, ‘you’d better come up here as soon as you can. Room two eleven. We’ve got a problem.’
‘Now what?’ Rob insists down the phone.
‘Absolutely nothing! Few minor emm … teething problems, that’s all! Well, thanks again for phoning and …’
‘… And I’ll see you very soon,’ are his last words to me, before hanging up.
‘SO WHY EVEN BOTHER MARRYING ME IN THE FIRST PLACE KIRK? THAT’S WHAT I’D LIKE TO KNOW! AS WOULD MY WHOLE FAMILY!’
Oh God, now it’s like the entire hallway can hear Dawn Madde
n’s shrieking voice, reverberating round the marble floors at Reception.
‘Don’t tell me that’s Dawn and Kirk?’ Chris asks worriedly.
I nod gravely. ‘And what’s worse is that there’s precious little we can do about it either, remember. No matter how much I’d like to. They’re in a mediation session. You can’t interrupt that, no matter how much you might want to.’
That was drummed into me ad nauseam during orientation for this job. Apparently interrupting a one on one session with any of our counsellors or advisors is akin to barging into a confession box with a video camera, then uploading it onto YouTube.
‘Why do you think I married you, Dawn?’ Kirk is insisting, and for the first time starting to sound heightened and upset, so unlike the usual chilled-out state he’s been wafting round in ever since he first arrived. ‘Because I loved you then, as now! Just because my circumstances have changed, doesn’t mean that’s any different. You know I still worship the sacred feminine!’
‘OH PISS OFF KIRK AND STOP PATRONIZING ME! DO YOU KNOW WHAT A GOBSHITE YOU SOUND LIKE WHEN YOU START SPOUTING CRAP ABOUT THE SACRED FEMININE?’
‘I do not believe this,’ I hiss over to Chris, shaking my head. ‘I thought of all the couples staying with us, this pair would be the last to cause trouble. The husband, Kirk? Big gentle giant of a fella, wouldn’t hurt a fly!’
And as for Dawn, right from our very first meeting, she was kind of my secret favourite round here. So young and frail and frightened, all I wanted to do was hold her hand and tell her it would all somehow work itself out. Though now I’m not so sure.
He’s had an affair, she’d told me earlier. An ongoing one and now he’d someone special in his life that he’d absolutely no intention of giving up, married or not. So to be perfectly honest, were I in poor Dawn’s shoes, I think right now I’d be yelling far worse at him.
‘You think that’s bad?’ says Chris. ‘Wait till you see what’s waiting for you upstairs.’
There’s damn all I can do for Dawn and Kirk now, so I make a mental note to try and get a private chat in with Dawn whenever I can get her alone, as Chris and I grab the lift and shoot up to the second floor. And this time it’s a man’s voice doing most of the roaring; I can hear him loud and clear the minute the lift doors slide open. Jeez, we should give serious consideration to re-naming this place ‘Screechy Towers’.
Together, Chris and I race down a corridor, turn it at the bottom and there he is. Dave Evans, husband of Miss High and Mighty Jo Hargreaves, hammering at her bedroom door so violently that he’s threatening to do himself an injury.
‘FOR FECK’S SAKE JO!! WILL YOU JUST LISTEN TO ME!!!’
‘Piss off! Just leave me alone,’ comes her voice from behind the door, thankfully sounding a bit calmer than him, and at least not turning this into another full-on screaming match.
‘It was just a stupid, throwaway remark, Jo, that was all! Lucy didn’t mean it, she didn’t set out to hurt you,’ Dave yells at the locked door, and as he’s so chubby and stocky, the wallop he gives the door almost makes it shake. He looks sharply up as he hears us approach. And I’m not messing, I swear I can smell the stench of booze off him from approximately ten paces away.
‘Evening Mr Evans,’ I smile as brightly as I can. ‘Everything alright here? Can I possibly help you with anything?’
We’re trained to deal with potential situations like this and let’s just say in my experience, belligerent guests tend to cool the head a bit when treated with firm politeness.
‘Oh shit,’ he says, ignoring the question and going back to thumping on the door. ‘JO? FOR GOD’S SAKE, OPEN UP! SECURITY ARE HERE AND THEY LOOK LIKE THEY’RE ABOUT TO CART ME OUTTA HERE!’
‘Good!’ comes her muffled reply. ‘The sooner the better.’
‘Except,’ he says, suddenly speaking conversationally in that dry way he has, ‘naturally, with this being the five-star establishment that it is, security in question is actually an extremely hot blonde and her trusty sidekick.’
And with that Dave turns to face Chris and I full on, speaking nice and calmly now. Only the fact that he’s swaying slightly on his feet betrays that he’s blind drunk.
‘Evening, ladies,’ he slurs at us. ‘As you can see, I’m doing nothing more than trying to have a private conversation with my beautiful, soon-to-be-ex wife. Was I making a bit of a rumpus? Other guests unable to hear their in-room tellies over my banging? Mortified apologies.’
He throws a fake, flourish-y theatrical bow and a rush of relief washes over me. If nothing else, at least the guy seems to be making it easy for us. When a guest has let’s just say, over-indulged, you never know what way things could go.
‘That’s quite all right, Mr Evans,’ I tell him firmly, ‘but just to say you’re both missing dinner. May we escort you back downstairs to the dining room?’
There’s a long drawn out, weary sigh while Dave slumps down on the ground with his back against the door and stretches two hairy legs out on the carpet, looking utterly defeated.
‘No, no I don’t think so,’ he eventually says. ‘And there won’t be any need for the handcuffs or the armed escort either, ladies. I’ll come quietly. Wasting my time here and frankly, the thought of dinner would only choke me. I doubt very much that fancy truffles and posh petit fours would do me much good this evening, the way I’m feeling. But thanks for asking all the same.’
‘In that case, may we offer you something from our room service menu?’ I ask politely, bending down on my hunkers to look him in the eye. Something to eat, is my reasoning, is by far the best way to sober him up a bit.
‘Most kind of you,’ he smiles at me sardonically, running his fingers through thick, unruly hair, so now it stands on end, a bit like he’s just been electrocuted. ‘But if it’s all the same, I’ll pass. I’ll be far happier spending the rest of this miserable night staring at the four walls and who knows? Maybe dreaming up ingenious new ways to try and get my wife to actually listen to me for a fecking change.’
He hammers his fist into the door one more time and instantly we all hear Jo’s voice loud and clear, ‘Do that one more time, Evans, and I’m calling security! You have been warned!’
Chris and I shoot a look at each other and in a flash, we both know exactly what to do.
‘Let’s get you back on your feet again,’ I say, linking his arm and helping to haul him back up. Chris grabs the other and we eventually manage to hoist his dead weight up into a vertical position.
‘I think I may just … emm … have a little lie down now,’ Dave slurs, head lolling a little.
‘Great idea.’
‘Or at least it would be, if I could only remember where my room was.’
‘I’d be delighted to show you, it’s not that far,’ Chris says obligingly as she leads him down the corridor and round a corner, him ambling alongside her, unsteady on his feet.
‘Gimme two secs,’ I mouth silently at her, ‘I’ll be right after you.’
I wait till they’re both well out of the way, then tap gently on Jo’s bedroom door.
‘Miss Hargreaves? It’s Chloe here. Could I have a quick word?’
Long pause. Then her slightly muffled reply, ‘One second, please.’
A minute later Jo opens the door and I almost get a fright when I see the state the woman’s in. She’s in her dressing gown, blotchy-faced and with eyes roaring red, like she’s been up here crying for the longest time. Looking a million miles from the neatly groomed, be-suited power ball that landed in on top of us a few hours ago, and who’s done nothing but moan and gripe at staff ever since.
Because Jo looks so small and defeated right now, for the first time since she got here, I’m actually starting to feel a bit sorry for her.
‘Oh, it’s you Chloe. Good, I’m glad you’re here,’ she says, motioning for me to come inside. ‘I wanted to speak to you anyway.’ I follow after her and spot her laptop open on the bed, surrounded by snotty Kleenex, almost as though she’s bee
n reading something online and having a good bawl about it at the same time. She notices me seeing it though, and instantly snaps it shut.
‘Just making sure you were alright,’ I smile. ‘And of course, if there’s anything at all that I can do for you –’
‘There is,’ she says, in a wobbly little voice. ‘The thing is … I know I can rely on you to disregard Dave’s little performance just now. Because believe me, that’s all it was. A performance. He’s quite good at that. In fact,’ she adds bitterly, ‘it was how he got me to marry him in the first place. Just kept on mortifying and haranguing me in public, until I eventually said yes.’
I say nothing. But I can so well imagine the scene playing out.
‘And there’s something else,’ she goes on. ‘We had an appointment with a divorce lawyer earlier, Sam Davenport. And Dave never showed up for it.’
‘That’s not a problem. I can reschedule that for you, if you’d like?’
‘If you would, thanks. Though not for this evening. Right now, I’m just not in a place where I can …’ she breaks off here and suddenly looks so wounded, that I almost want to give the woman a hug and tell her it’ll all be okay.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, voice cracking just the smallest bit. ‘I’m just … well, I’m not really feeling myself this weather.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I tell her gently. ‘Believe me, we’ve all been there. And it’ll all be over soon and everything will be just fine. Please trust me.’
‘Bless you for that,’ she says, looking at me with eyes starting to tear up again. ‘I just wish it – this – wasn’t so bloody difficult. I had no idea. I thought he’d make it easy for me. I thought it was the least he could do, all things given.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Because,’ she sighs, slumping down defeatedly onto the edge of the bed now. ‘I know right well what everyone thinks when they look at Dave and me. They all assume that I’m only trying to shove him out of my life, because I’m not … well, let’s just say because I’m not quite myself at the moment. And everyone jumps to the conclusion that Dave is the wronged party here and that none of this is his doing, it’s all just one hundred per cent me, as usual. The big bad she-wolf.’
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