It was certainly worth a try. ‘Over there’ was about six miles away inland and Tess persuaded a reluctant Simon to accompany her.
They found a house not dissimilar to their own, minus the sea views, with six letting bedrooms and an elderly owner called Myra, who was tiny with white hair piled on top of her head and beady little eyes.
‘We understand you might have some furniture and kitchen equipment for sale?’ Tess asked tentatively.
‘Sale starts tomorrow, 10 a.m.,’ snapped Myra.
‘Thing is,’ Tess continued, ‘we really can’t make it tomorrow due to domestic problems.’ And that was only half a lie, she thought, because there were bound to be some. ‘And we’re so in need of things for the B&B we’re just setting up at Portmerryn. Annie at the pub said what a lovely place you’d got and that you might have some tips for us.’
Myra pursed her lips but said nothing.
Then Simon stepped forward. ‘We should introduce ourselves. I’m Simon Sparrow and this is my wife, Tess, and we so need the expertise of a professional such as yourself.’ This was Simon the actor playing his part, bestowing on her the kind of disarming smile that had Tess weak at the knees when first they met.
‘Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’ asked Myra, visibly softening.
Simon shrugged. ‘Depends on which soaps you watch and which films you’ve seen,’ he replied airily. ‘The original Poldark perhaps?’
And if you blinked you’d have missed him, Tess thought, trying not to smile.
‘Oh my word, you’re an actor! I knew I’d seen you somewhere before!’ Myra exclaimed. ‘Fancy that now! Well, you’d better come in!’
As they entered a hall similar to their own, Tess was taken aback by the violently patterned carpet and began to wonder if they’d want to buy anything here, recalling Simon’s earlier forecast. ‘It’ll just be a load of old junk,’ he’d said. ‘We should be looking to buy new.’
In fact, it was anything but a load of old junk. There were several pristine divan beds, bedside tables and lamps.
‘I’m not leaving any of that stuff here,’ Myra informed them. ‘It’s all far too big for where I’m going and I’m damned if I’m leaving it for the madam that’s buying this place and giving me no end of grief. I’m not leaving her a bloody thing!’
For all her age and size Tess reckoned that Myra would be no pushover.
‘Trouble is,’ Simon continued in his most impressive thespian tones, ‘I don’t do so much acting these days so we’re trying something completely new and we’re pretty clueless. We need a lovely lady like yourself to give us some advice.’
Myra had plenty of that. She and her husband had run this place for nigh on forty years and they’d just updated everything shortly before he died. She was seventy-seven now, she said, and didn’t fancy soldiering on alone; she’d got her eye on this nice little retirement flat near her sister in Hayle, so all this stuff had to go.
Myra, now completely disarmed, asked, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘If it’s not putting you to too much trouble,’ said Simon.
‘No trouble at all,’ said Myra. ‘Come into the kitchen.’
As Myra filled up the kettle Tess looked around at the pine kitchen units, dated now but immaculate nevertheless. And there was the double-range cooker, gleaming in the morning sun.
‘I’d prefer the cooker went to someone like yourselves,’ Myra said, beaming at Simon, ‘rather than some second-home owner coming down here in their Chelsea tractors. And most of the time they eat out or microwave stuff, so what do they need a cooker like this for? For show, that’s what, Simon!’
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Simon said, sighing dramatically.
‘And will you be needing a coffee machine?’ Myra asked.
‘We have a little one,’ Tess said.
‘I’ve got a big one here,’ Myra said, lifting the cover off a large gleaming Italian machine. ‘Just like they have in Costa!’ she added proudly. ‘And you bet some poncey second-home owner will want that, too; you won’t catch them sticking a spoonful of Nescafé into a mug of boiling water now, will you?’
Myra’s intense dislike of second-home owners could be very much to their advantage, Tess hoped, although money, of course, had not yet been discussed.
‘I’d make you a coffee with it,’ Myra continued, ‘but it’s all cleaned and polished up, see? For the sale tomorrow. But if you fancy buying it, well, I’ll make you one now. Cappuccino, latte, mocha, anything you like.’
‘No, thank you, Myra, tea will be fine,’ Simon replied.
Myra narrowed her eyes. ‘You haven’t got a place up in London as well, have you?’
Simon sighed dramatically again. ‘I wish! Oh, Myra, we’ve invested every penny in a lovely house very similar to this. But, if you could see the work that needs doing to it! We’re living in a haze of builders’ dust at the moment.’
‘No good for your poor lungs,’ said Myra, gazing adoringly at Simon. ‘You’ve got to take care of a lovely voice like that.’
Never mind me, thought Tess, stirring a sugar lump into the cup of tea Myra had placed in front of her. Tea was served in utilitarian white cups and saucers which she’d presumably used for her guests. In spite of playing gooseberry to the flirtation between Myra and her husband, Tess hoped this would prove to be to their advantage financially, particularly as she’d like a couple of the beds as well, not to mention the coffee machine, depending on the cost.
Myra wasn’t finished yet. ‘Some people come down here to Cornwall with all these fancy ideas about B&Bs, guesthouses and all that, and then find out it’s manic all summer with one- and two-nighters, so you end up washing sheets and towels every five minutes, and then there’s hardly anything at all in the winter.’
‘Well, I must confess we’d hoped to make ours a little bit special,’ Tess admitted, wondering if they should be buying an extra washing machine instead of a coffee machine.
‘Everyone says that,’ Myra said dismissively before turning her attention back to Simon. ‘How many rooms you going to be letting out?’
‘Four,’ said Simon.
‘Only four? I’ve got six up there, and two bathrooms.’
‘Four with en suites,’ Tess pointed out. ‘Or there will be.’
Myra sniffed. ‘If I was doing it all over again I’d go for long-term guests. Make them stay a week or two. Less chance of them taking off with your towels when they get to know you.’
‘We’ll bear that in mind,’ Simon said, grinning at Tess.
But Myra wasn’t finished yet. ‘And that’s not all, Simon. No, siree. I’ve had two women come here looking for a double bed. A double, not two singles! I tell you, my Arthur wouldn’t have let them through the door! He’d have turned in his grave!’
‘Yes, well, Myra, we’ve moved on now,’ Simon said soothingly.
‘We’d better talk about money then,’ Myra said, producing a box of biscuits. They were plainly coming to the crunch in every sense of the word. Tess took a chocolate digestive and Simon a custard cream.
‘And be sure to get a deposit off everyone,’ Myra added, chomping on one of the custard creams. ‘Are you going to be doing dinners?’
‘I think we’ll have to,’ Tess said. ‘Although the pub’s within walking distance their menu’s a bit limited.’
‘It’s a palaver,’ Myra said. ‘And you’ll get blooming vegetarians, and vegans! You won’t want to be having vegans!’
‘Well, I guess they’ll be one of the many groups we won’t be able to discriminate against,’ Simon said, diplomatically, ‘but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Now, let’s talk about money, Myra.’
Myra offered the biscuit tin again. Both Tess and Simon declined politely, while Myra chose a bourbon and dunked it in her tea. There followed a long monologue on how much everything cost, what bargains they’d be getting and remember, she wasn’t a rich woman because there was no company pension for the likes of her
and she’d got a rock-bottom price for her house. This proved to be a prologue to asking for some silly prices for everything.
Simon gave another sigh. ‘I rather fear these second-home owners can probably afford these prices more than we can, Myra. Which is such a shame, but there it is.’
There was a silence while Tess held her breath.
‘Well, maybe I could lower the prices a little,’ Myra said, sighing. ‘More tea?’
‘Oh no, thank you,’ Simon said sadly. ‘We must move on because, if we aren’t buying your lovely things, then I’m afraid we must look elsewhere. There are some bargains online, so we need to start looking,’
Another silence. Then Myra quoted some more down-to-earth prices.
Simon sucked his teeth. ‘If you went a tiny bit lower we could probably manage that, couldn’t we, darling?’ he asked, turning to Tess.
‘Just about,’ agreed Tess.
‘I’ll want cash,’ Myra said, ‘and I’ll want it all collected by this afternoon latest.’ She stood up and peered out the window. ‘That little yellow thing’s no blooming good!’
Simon balked visibly at her description of his precious Stag. After a minute he said, ‘Jed’s got a van he said we could borrow. So, if we came back with the van and the cash at about three o’clock, how would that be?’
‘That would be fine,’ said Myra.
‘She’s not too keen on vegetarians,’ Simon remarked as they drove home.
Tess giggled. ‘Even less keen on vegans!’
‘But I think her pet hate has to be second-home owners!’
‘Just as well she’s packing up,’ Tess remarked, ‘And at least we’re getting some great bargains out of it.’
‘Thanks to my irrepressible charm,’ said Simon. They both laughed as the yellow car navigated the twists and bends of the lane, bordered by clumps of early primroses, which took them back to the two-lane road leading to Portmerryn.
6
ABSENCE MAKES THE NIGHT SEEM LONGER
They drove home via the pub. Tess wondered how they could possibly fit two double divans, two bedside tables, the range cooker and the coffee machine into Jed’s dilapidated old van.
‘Might ’ave to tie somethin’ on the roof, I s’pose,’ said Jed, stroking his chin. ‘Better take Gideon with us; ’e’s strong as an ox. ’Elp carry everythin’.’
‘That’s very kind,’ said Simon as Gideon appeared wearing a pink T-shirt and nodding enthusiastically.
‘Be glad to help,’ he said. They hadn’t heard him speak before. And Tess, seeing him properly for the first time, noted what a good-looking man he was.
And so that afternoon Simon, Jed and Gideon set off to collect the new purchases, with a stop en route to withdraw the cash for Myra. Tess, in the meantime, wondered where the items could best be stored until such time as upstairs was ready. The sitting room – at present piled high with boxes – was the largest area able to be sealed off from the ever-infiltrating dust. The range cooker would, of course, have to be placed somewhere close to the kitchen for the time being, probably in the so-called boot room although this was due to have a toilet installed in it eventually. It was like a three-dimensional chess board, trying to work out where the next move should be.
At the moment there was a gaping hole in the kitchen wall which would be the doorway to one of the two rooms at the back, designated to be the new dining room, with sea views. The original dining room, opposite the kitchen on the other side of the main door, was to become their bedroom, much to Simon’s disgust.
‘I don’t like sleeping downstairs,’ he’d wailed, ‘and we won’t have our lovely views!’
‘The lovely views are for our visitors, Simon,’ Tess had insisted patiently. ‘They’re going to be paying a lot of money to look at the sea, which is how we hope to make our living.’
For all Simon’s laidback nature and his undoubted charm, there was also an almost childlike petulance about him, particularly when he didn’t get his own way. The trouble was that he usually did get his own way because he was good at winning people over, Myra being the latest example. He’d won Tess over in exactly the same manner, more or less proposing to her within minutes of their meeting. He came across as exciting and one hundred per cent different from the succession of weird men she’d met on the online dating site.
* * *
When Simon, Jed and Gideon arrived back with the van and their acquisitions, it was Gideon who wielded the sack-barrow and did most of the heavy lifting. It was late afternoon before they’d finished and everything had been carried safely inside.
‘Would you like a drink, guys?’ Tess asked. ‘Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?’
Gideon looked at his dad, who shook his head. ‘We’ve got to be getting back,’ he said, and smiled broadly when Simon pressed a £20 note into each of their hands, saying, ‘Thank you for all your hard work.’
Jed was pleased. ‘Any time you need a bit of help,’ he said. Then, indicating Gideon, he added, ‘’E can help you with any heavy lifting and that, can’t you, Gideon?’
Gideon nodded, smiling and blushing. And Tess realised then that Gideon was shy.
* * *
Ron the Roofer and Joe, his apprentice, were the first to finish. The work lasted three weeks off and on, and more often off than on. ‘Too windy’, ‘Too wet’, ‘Too something-or-other…’ But now Ron promised that the damp wouldn’t get in and grudgingly admitted that ‘the roof ain’t as bad as I thought it would be’ which, translated, probably meant that there hadn’t been much wrong with the roof in the first place.
Pong, with his endless repertoire of jokes and witticisms, and his son, Pip, had put in the pipework around the walls, and were waiting for the builders to finish off the doors.
‘I just want it all to be finished,’ Tess sighed.
‘Dreckly,’ said Simon.
* * *
It was now late October, the shops in Wadebridge and Truro already brimming with Christmas trees and baubles. And even Pearly had stuck up a bit of tinsel. Tess didn’t think there was much hope getting the house finished before March at the earliest, but knew they had to be up and running before the first hordes of tourists descended on the South-West.
Cosy and compact as the caravan might be, Tess was very much looking forward to being back in the house to decorate, hang curtains and buy any necessary furniture. Then they’d take photos, sort out a website and hope to get some bookings. And money! Because everything was costing far more than they originally anticipated. Over and Above was certainly living up to its name. They hadn’t planned on buying Windsor Castle, of course, and, just to add to the expense, even Simon now admitted that the Stag was not a practical machine for potholed lanes and for transporting bags of cement. They needed something newer and sturdier.
‘Someone will pay a lot of money for this,’ Simon insisted, patting its yellow bodywork. ‘It’s a classic, you know.’
Tess had thought fondly of dear David, the man who’d been her soulmate for some years after her divorce from her first husband and father of her children, Gerry. David had had a business selling classic cars. Unfortunately, he and his E-type Jaguar had come to one hairpin bend too many. Tess had been heartbroken. It all seemed a very long time ago now.
‘I’ll take it to Plymouth or somewhere,’ Simon continued, ‘because no one round here would be likely to buy it and, anyway, I couldn’t bear to see anyone else driving it around.’ His voice wobbled; he loved that car.
Tess put her arm round him. ‘I know it’s hard, darling, but we really need to do it.’
The problem was solved in an unexpected fashion when Simon got a call from his agent in London. ‘I know you’re semi-retired, old chap, but we’ve had this amazing offer of a commercial and some voice-overs and wondered if you’d be interested? It would mean you coming up to town, of course, but it would be well worth it financially. But the beard will have to come off.’
‘They’ve made me an offer I can’t refuse,
’ Simon said, stroking his beard, ‘even though I’ve got to shave this off.’
‘Let’s face it, we can’t refuse any offer,’ Tess said. ‘And that damned thing was giving me a rash!’
‘I’ll have to fly up or something,’ Simon said, ‘because you’ll need the car while I’m away.’
‘Or you could get a train or a bus,’ said Tess, thinking of the expense.
Simon sighed dramatically. ‘The trains are always being cancelled; it’s on the news every night. And who needs to sit five or six hours on a bus?’
Tess thought for a moment. ‘I could manage without the car for a few days if you’d prefer to drive.’
‘Could you really?’
‘I’ll stock up on everything I need before you go, and I can always walk down to Pearly’s if I run out of something.’
‘That is so lovely of you, darling!’ Simon kissed her with gusto. ‘I should only be gone a couple of days.’
And, as the yellow Stag disappeared in a cloud of dust down the drive, Tess thought how good it would be to have a couple of days on her own, with minimum cooking and lots of sewing. It wasn’t until Pong and Pip knocked off to go home at five o’clock that it hit her. Here she was, on her own, one woman isolated on the side of a cliff, in a wobbly caravan, a large empty house opposite and a long, dark night looming ahead. She’d never been nervous about being on her own before because there were always people around, close neighbours. And there had been street lights and the comforting sound of traffic in the distance. But now it was only six o’clock and already almost dark, deathly silent, no street lights, no traffic, no neighbours. Just the howling of the wind and the rustling of the branches. Tess hoped they were branches, these unidentifiable noises, and not mice. Or rats! Or worse, prowlers!
As she locked herself into Windsor Castle she thought fondly of her cottage in Temple Terrace, up in leafy Surrey. She’d wept when she sold it to move in with Simon. And then she thought about Orla. They’d lived next door to each other during Orla’s marriage to Gavin and hers to Gerry. Then Tess, divorced, and Orla, widowed, had remained friends and set up their boutique where Tess slaved to make large outfits for large ladies and Orla did the selling. (‘That woman could sell a sunlamp in the Sahara,’ her daughter had once quipped.)
The Golden Oldies Guesthouse (ARC) Page 5