Summer Nights at the Moonlight Hotel

by Jane Costello

  I read in Cosmo recently that you should wear underwear that suits your mood – and this is exactly the kind of image I want to give off to Edwin. Not that I think there’s a chance of him seeing these knickers, not today anyway. But I know they’re there, and that’s all that matters.

  When I see Edwin at lunchtime, I head directly towards him, after reassuring Salma Mahmood that I am absolutely 100 per cent certain that the school-mashed potato, no matter how lumpy, is halal.

  ‘Edwin,’ I announce, parking myself next to him and drawing breath.

  He glances up and smiles, examining my tray. ‘Oh, you went for the goulash.’

  I am disproportionately flustered by this statement. ‘Yes. Well, I’ve never had it before and felt like it was about time. Maureen twisted my arm.’

  ‘She might twist your stomach too,’ he smirks.

  I laugh. Then I stop. ‘Edwin,’ I repeat, lowering my voice before delivering a question as fast as I possibly can. ‘Would-you-like-to-go-out-with-me-again?’

  He stops chewing his beef and quickly looks from side to side, before leaning in and whispering decisively: ‘Yes. Very much so.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Of course,’ he replies, which rather prompts the question ‘Then why the hell didn’t you ask me like you said you would?’ – but I decide not to go down this route.

  ‘Um . . . great then!’ I splutter.

  He lowers his knife and fork. ‘Sorry I didn’t get round to asking you, Lauren.’

  ‘Oh, it’s OK,’ I reply, attempting to give the impression that the thought literally hadn’t crossed my mind.

  ‘I’ve been so busy this week. I’ve had something on every evening. And I was kind of . . . working out the best way to broach the subject. I wasn’t sure if you were keen.’

  ‘Edwin,’ I say, locking eyes with him. ‘I’m keen.’

  We burst into a fit of giggles as Margaret, the Head Teacher, walks past with a plateful of cabbage. This is part of a diet she’s embarked on recently in a bid to squeeze into a costume she’s required to wear while playing Daisy in The Great Gatsby – her latest role in the local amateur dramatics group.

  By the time we’ve composed ourselves, it’s just left for Edwin to whisper, ‘I’m keen too.’ Then he holds my gaze and my insides go squishy and I’m so distracted that as I attempt to take a mouthful of goulash, instead of making it between my lips, it slides off my spoon and on to the table, where I’m forced to chase it round the Formica surface with a napkin, attempting to scoop it up.

  ‘When do you fancy going out this time?’ I ask eventually.

  ‘Well, Saturday night would be ideal . . .’

  ‘I agree! And I’m free this weekend!’ I leap in.

  ‘. . . but unfortunately I’ve got a wedding to go to.’

  ‘Oh,’ I reply, deflated.

  ‘It’s Fiona’s brother. He’s getting married to his childhood sweetheart.’

  My heart sinks. ‘Fiona?’

  He nods. ‘I know we’re no longer together, and it’s all ridiculously awkward, but I’d feel awful backing out of the wedding after I’d already responded with a yes.’

  ‘But isn’t that going to be difficult?’

  ‘I wish I could get out of it. But I feel like enough of an absolute arse, having split up with her, without throwing her brother’s wedding invitation back in his face.’

  ‘I see,’ I mumble. ‘Well, there’s always Friday.’

  ‘Hmm. No, I’ve got to travel to Hampshire straight after work – I’m staying there the whole weekend. Sorry, Lauren. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t I go to that salsa class I’ve been promising to come to?’

  I hesitate. It’s not that I don’t want Edwin to come to salsa – I do. It’s just that I hoped for something a little more momentous for our second date, and I at least wanted him all to myself for it. Let’s face it, if Saturday is the Veuve Clicquot of date nights, Tuesday’s a Lambrini. And, more to the point, it’s nearly a week away!

  As quickly as that thought sweeps through my head I dismiss it: if I hold on until next Friday or Saturday, that’ll be a full ten, eleven days.

  ‘That sounds great,’ I reply, taking what I can.

  ‘I know we said we wouldn’t do it on a week night again, but we could always go for a sneaky drink or two afterwards, don’t you think?’ And then, out of nowhere, his hand brushes mine, making my insides melt a little.

  I return to the classroom with a spring in my step and call the children to order to begin our lesson about adjectives. I begin by explaining that an adjective is a describing word – and ask the class if they can think of any examples.

  ‘Stinky!’ shouts out Ameira Syed, as the class explodes into laughter.

  Suppressing a smile, I write it on the whiteboard. ‘OK, I’ll give you that one. Any others?’

  ‘Pooey,’ says Michael Martin, followed swiftly by ‘Farty,’ from Jasmine Urqhuart. I become aware that we’re now on a train, and if I don’t halt it soon, it’ll become impossible to control: once a group of five year olds start talking bodily fluids there’s no stopping them.

  ‘Well, none of those are proper words, so let’s try and think of some nicer ones,’ I say. ‘Some describing words, please, children.’

  We have – variously – ‘big’, ‘small’, ‘massive’, ‘gigantic’ and ‘catastrophic’; the latter strikes me as incredibly impressive – until Amber Smith, who came up with it, almost convinces the entire class that it’s a reference to her new kitten.

  As we head out to break, I realise that Tom Goodwin has barely said a word throughout the lesson.

  ‘Are you coming out to play, Tom?’ I ask, as the class heads out to the playground.

  He gives me a long look, then whispers, ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Why not?’ I’m surprised.

  He shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’

  I walk over and sit down on my haunches, my face at his level. ‘Is everything all right, Tom?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he repeats.

  ‘If you’re at all worried about anything, you can come and tell me whenever you want. You know that, don’t you?’

  He nods and looks away. I resolve not to push the issue further and to ask whoever’s on playground duty to keep an eye out for him.

  ‘Why don’t I take you downstairs?’ I say, standing and offering him my hand.

  He reluctantly reaches out for me and pulls himself up.

  And we head down the stairs, his small, warm hand in mine, as I wonder why so many people seem to be having a hard time of it at the moment.

  My interview with Felicia Heng, from St Anne’s Primary School in Yishun, Singapore, takes place at 5.30 a.m. the following morning, via Skype. Having gone to bed early last night, predicting that I’d be groggy at this time in the morning, I actually woke up fully wired at 2 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep. Recognising that by 5.30 a.m. I’d be not so much groggy as catatonic without a little extra help, I swilled back four coffees in quick succession and now feel as though I need a man with a fishing rod to come and hoist me down from the ceiling.

  The Skype meeting is only twenty minutes long, during which my interviewer leans forward, her head looming large on the screen, with concentration etched on her otherwise smooth brow as if she’s playing an intense game of Kerplunk.

  There are points at which I feel it’s going well – really well, actually – but then she reveals what the salary is and I nearly fall off my chair. It’s more than twice what I’m earning now. Putting aside any of the more spurious reasons I’ve got for moving to Singapore, this represents the job opportunity of my life.

  Finally, she sits back in her chair and smiles. ‘I think you’d fit in very well here, Ms Scott. Can I send you a prospectus via email? I’d love you to get a better feel of what we’re all about.’

  ‘That would be wonderful,’ I reply, with a swoop of excitement.

  ‘Any questions?’

  ‘Um . . . when
are you hoping to make your decision about who’s got the job?’

  ‘We’ve shortlisted eleven candidates and they’re all very strong. You’re our first interview, so we’ve got a long way to go yet.’

  I think a lot about the interview throughout the day, partly because I’m not allowed to forget about it – Edwin grills me every moment he sees me. My mum on the other hand is mildly bewildered by the whole thing when I tell her about the possibility of Singapore for the first time that night, when she pops in en route from a trip to source some fencing.

  ‘You sound pretty sold on the idea,’ she says, clearly perplexed.

  ‘Do I?’ I ask. ‘I’m still in two minds, to be honest.’

  ‘I thought you were dying to get to Australia,’ she points out. ‘What about all your Australia scrapbooks from when you were a little girl? All the places you planned to visit?’

  ‘I’ll still visit them one day,’ I protest, because the thought of not doing so is frankly inconceivable. I decide to change the subject. ‘So, how’s Jeremy getting on working for Gill and Jimmy Gavin? Is he a model employee?’

  She takes a sip of her tea. ‘I wouldn’t say Jeremy and farming were meant for each other, put it that way.’

  I snigger. ‘No, he didn’t strike me as the kind who enjoyed getting those beautifully manicured hands dirty.’

  ‘You can talk,’ she says. ‘You’ve lived here all your life and you still treat those fells as if they’re ornaments.’

  ‘Don’t start going on about my sense of adventure again,’ I reply. ‘And as a matter of fact, I go running outside sometimes these days. In all weathers. So I’m not completely immune to the great outdoors. And I’m certainly nothing like Jeremy.’

  ‘I must admit I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite so fond of . . . well, moaning.’

  ‘I take it we’re talking about Jeremy, not me, now?’

  ‘I’m sure he’s a good kid really. Deep down,’ she continues, draining her tea and standing up to give her cup a wash in the sink.

  As she places it down on the draining board, a thought filters into my head. ‘Mum, do you remember the gazebo at the Moonlight Hotel – the one I used to have tea parties in with Dad? What happened to it?’

  She looks at me, mystified as to why anyone would care. ‘No idea. It must have been taken down after he died, but I couldn’t be certain. If it was in anything like the state the rest of the hotel was in, it will have been torn down before it fell down. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I was just thinking about it the other week, that’s all. I was looking at that old photo I keep in my purse – the one of Dad and me.’

  ‘Speaking of the hotel, have you seen what they’re doing to it? There was a big spread in the Westmorland Gazette last week. They’re absolutely gutting the place.’

  ‘I know. God help us,’ I mutter.

  My mum looks surprised. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’

  ‘It’s going to be completely different from how it was,’ I tell her.

  ‘Lauren, it’s been in a state for years. It’s crying out for someone to do something about it. It’s far too old-fashioned,’ she replies.

  ‘It’s meant to be old-fashioned. Old things are.’

  She raises an eyebrow. ‘Speak for yourself.’

  The problem with having a mother like mine – or probably just having a mother per se – is this: no matter how certain you are that they’re wrong, their opinion still manages to burrow its way into your head like one of those South American worms that feed off the human brain.

  Over the next twenty-four hours, the possibility that she might be right about the Moonlight Hotel is something I have to battle with repeatedly. Maybe I am so fixated with my memories of the place that I can’t recognise the need to move on. But the crucial fact is this: those memories are all I’ve got. And without them, without the happy times to think about, I’m forced to remember something that frankly I just can’t stomach, not on a daily basis.

  The horrendous and yet humdrum circumstances of my dad’s death still smother me with a blanket of sadness sometimes, sixteen years after it happened. He’s not the first person to die of cancer and he won’t be the last. But that’s an irrelevance when the disease rips one of the most important people out of your life, far too soon.

  I was on the cusp of taking my GCSEs when my creeping awareness that he wasn’t well came hurtling into vivid focus. The cough had been there for weeks before I really registered it, and only then because mum’s nagging to go to the doctor became too insistent to ignore. In the end, despite his waning appetite and unprecedented tiredness, the thing that made him go to the GP was a pain in his hip. He’d assumed it was a hairline fracture, or an inflamed tendon from wear and tear: a solid, dependable, normal problem. Certainly not a big problem.

  The doctor sent him for tests straight away.

  But in the midst of them, before results were confirmed and scans were scrutinised, I remember us going to my cousin Karen’s engagement party. It was in my Aunt Julie’s house, with a gathering of relatives and friends I vaguely knew, when I looked at him. I mean, really looked at him.

  Instead of being on his feet, organising a game of charades among the little ones, or making the grown-ups laugh with a joke that bordered on the outrageous, he sat in the corner, nursing a drink that he hadn’t touched. It wasn’t just that he was quiet and withdrawn. The thing I remember most is the colour of his skin, the grey tones under his cheekbones.

  And, although we knew nothing at all then, not officially, I knew. I knew just by looking at him, that the life was being sucked out of him, and that realisation came crashing down so hard on my shoulders I had to leave the room so no one could see me crying.

  The diagnosis came less than a week later, and with one sentence everything changed: Stage 4 lung cancer. It became a question of when, not if. It had spread like wildfire. His body, once so strong and big, was riddled with it; it had crawled into every corner of him.

  I hadn’t known anyone who’d died before. Unlike Emily, whose brother was killed in a car crash when he was a teenager, I’d gone through life blithely untouched by grief.

  The whole thing unfolded so fast and hard it was like being repeatedly punched in the stomach. Within nine weeks my powerhouse of a dad was lying in a hospice, skeletal and occasionally delirious from the medication, or the cancer, or probably both. It had reached his brain, infecting his thoughts, his ability to speak. Sometimes he didn’t even recognise me.

  Nine weeks. That’s all it took.

  My exams came and went and I didn’t turn up for half of them. Though on his better days, he was cross with me about that, even right at the end. I liked it when he was: I liked him having a go at me for fucking up my English Lit exam because it was the first bit of fight I’d seen in ages and it gave me hope.

  Hope that proved short-lived.

  The day of that conversation, after he told me he loved me and made me swear I’d re-sit, his hand tightened briefly around mine and he whispered something to me that no daughter ever wants to hear their Dad admit.

  ‘Lauren, I’m scared.’

  He left us that night, in my mum’s arms.

  And I sat at the end of the bed and felt my world silently implode.

  Chapter 27

  Cate has seen Will twice since she first became aware that her photo was on that website. And for the few hours they spent together on Thursday night, she says she almost forgot about the picture.

  Then yesterday morning, as she rolled over in bed and checked her emails, the first one that loaded at the top of her inbox was some woman – yes, another woman! – calling her a whore. Which just goes to show that female solidarity isn’t exactly alive and well in all quarters.

  Will, she’s certain, knows something’s wrong.

  It wouldn’t take a genius, given that until now they spent every waking moment together and now – on a Saturday night – she’s at home with me, watching When Harry Met Sally.
Which strikes me as the only way to deal with a crisis you’re powerless to stop: with romantic comedy of the finest order. The problem is, Cate spends the whole film crying, and I don’t just mean at the bits she’s meant to.

  ‘Do you want a chocolate?’ I offer.

  She shakes her head. ‘I might have one later,’ she says, although I doubt it: she must have lost a stone in the last week. ‘It was lovely of you to bring them. Shall we go and get some wine?’

  ‘Why not? We can have a walk to the seven eleven – it’s a lovely evening,’ I suggest, deciding that encouraging her slide into alcoholism is a better option than her hurtling towards agoraphobia.

  We pull on our sweaters and head down the steps of her flat, out into the dying rays of evening sunshine. It’s one of those perfect late-May evenings when Ambleside is bathed in a golden light and full of people returning from a day on the fells with tired legs and bright eyes.

  ‘I wonder how Emily and Joe got on in Ullswater today? They were going up Gowbarrow,’ Cate tells me.

  ‘More fools them,’ I mutter, as we start walking down the hill.

  ‘So tell me: why on earth is Edwin going to a wedding with his ex-girlfriend?’ she asks. ‘That’s weird.’

  ‘He’s just trying to be a nice guy,’ I reply, wondering why I’m defending him when ‘weird’ was the first thing I thought of too. ‘You know what it’s like when you’ve been together with someone for a long time. It’s not just them you split up from. It’s their family and friends too. And sometimes they’re nicer than the person themselves.’

  ‘If you say so,’ she sighs.

  ‘Well, I must admit I was a bit shocked myself, but—’

  Then I become aware that she’s no longer next to me and look back to find her immobile. I follow her gaze and see who she’s looking at: Robby.

  Cate’s ex-boyfriend walks towards us with the most stupid expression on his face: part-amusement, part-swagger. ‘Well, look who it is.’