‘Yes, you’ll be alright my darling.’ Isla smiled at her. They hadn’t been able to figure out Isla’s age - and they’d been too polite to ask - but they reckoned at least sixty-nine, possibly early seventies.
They’d argued about whether they should base their new business on Isla’s expertise.
‘I don’t mean to insult her, but what if she dies on us?’ Will had said.
‘Isla Thomas will out-survive us!’ Charlotte argued. ‘She’s sturdy as anything, that woman and she’s worked in the guest house for years. You heard what she said. I’d rather die on my feet than be a prisoner in an old folks’ home. She wants to do this; we’re doing her a favour by employing her here.’
‘But what if she falls ill and leaves you on your own?’
Will hesitated. ‘Do you think you could cope?’
‘I’m not sure we have any other choice, do we? We have to find a way for me to bring in some money and keep a roof over our heads, and we agreed that this is the best way - for now. And if something does happen, there must be a hundred like her out there, working in guest houses all over Morecambe.’
‘So long as you’re sure?’ Will checked.
‘I’m not certain about anything these days, Will. But we have to try it; we were dying slowly in Bristol. We couldn’t carry on as we were - we couldn’t afford that house.’
When Isla hugged Charlotte, she felt the warmth she’d missed since her mother had died. It wasn’t a feeling a man could give her; it was simply a gesture offered in kindness and concern. It made her feel cherished in a way that the judgement of a father or the expectations of a husband could never offer. Isla Thomas soothed Charlotte; she’d noticed it the moment they met.
‘Everything is ready,’ Isla began. ‘I’ll let myself in for the breakfasts, so you don’t need to get up for me. It’s nice to have some help with the sheets now - I find the double beds difficult. The laundry pick up is at ten o’clock. I’ll be back for evening meals by four o’clock and we’re all done by seven. It’s simple when you get the hang of it. When this place was closed for the year it was on sale, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Do you know, the only time I was ever ill was when I stopped working here. This place is keeping me alive!’
Isla laughed, and Charlotte gave Will a glance, claiming victory for her previous stance.
‘We’ll run on low numbers for at least a month with just the lower bedrooms, then we’ll start to build up the bookings as the rooms on the top level are decorated. That’ll give everybody a chance to get up to speed. Are you sure I’ve got you everything you need from the cash and carry?’ Will asked.
Isla nodded. ‘Yes, relax both of you, we’re all ready to go. All you need to do is check in the guests as they arrive. Charlotte, if you help me with the sheets in the morning, the rest will run like clockwork. How many do we have tomorrow?’
‘Three rooms full tomorrow,’ Charlotte replied. She’d committed the first week’s guests to memory. ‘We have two couples and a single lady with a child. The couple have been here before, apparently. Mr and Mrs Roach. Ring any bells, Isla?’
‘Oh my goodness, they’ve been coming here for years!’ she smiled. ‘They’re a lovely couple - you’ll have no problems with them. What a lovely way to re-open the guest house. It’ll be like launching a new ship.’
Charlotte loved the positivity that Isla brought with her. God knows she needed it. She had the easy simplicity of an older person, something that seemed only to be forged in a post-war Britain and a quality sadly lacking in Charlotte’s generation.
‘I’ll be in first thing tomorrow. You’ll hear me creeping around, but don’t let it bother you. Then I’ll come in a little earlier than I normally would to get ready for the evening meal. You’ve done right to limit the menu at first. Most people visiting Morecambe are happy to eat traditional food. They don’t like anything too fancy.’
Isla touched Charlotte’s arm and moved towards the kitchen door.
‘Have a lovely evening my dears, see you tomorrow!’
They waited as Isla made her way through the entrance hall and out through the back door. Charlotte inspected the purchases from the cash and carry.
‘How was Jenna?’ Will asked. ‘Did you enjoy your afternoon?’
‘I thought she was looking a bit tired,’ Charlotte replied, removing some bags of sugar from one of the boxes and placing them on the worktop. ‘Do we need this much sugar? Most people don’t take it these days. Type 2 diabetes has ruined all our fun.’
‘I thought I’d better. It’s not like it goes off. And Isla likes to bake.’
‘Fair enough. Yes, Jenna has had a tough time of it I think. Man trouble. And work problems too. Remember when we first started work, we thought we’d get a job and that would be it until we died? What happened, I wonder? You’re lucky if you stay anywhere for more than three years at a time these days. You’re either made redundant, worn out by the work or you move on because the management is so terrible. I wonder whatever happened to good old-fashioned career progression.’
Will laughed. ‘Speaking of which, I’ve got my teaching timetable at last. It’s not bad either. I’ll be able to help around here on Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons. It looks like they give up on Fridays at the college, so I can be around for weekend check-ins. I do have to be in late on Wednesdays though. All in all, it’s not a bad timetable.’
‘Why were your shoes so muddy?’
Will looked at her, obviously wrong-footed by the change of subject.
‘I take it the cash and carry hasn’t been relocated to a farmyard?’
‘No, no, nothing like that.’
Charlotte could tell he was stalling her.
‘Well, you can’t go leaving them around like that when we have guests. We share our house now, remember, we have to clean up after ourselves. How do you think that’s going to play out in the reviews? Nice sea view but mud all over the entrance hall. Two stars because of the mess.’
‘Yeah, you’re right, I’m sorry, it’s just that I was late for Isla.’
‘You had loads of time to go to the cash and carry. Whatever kept you?’
Charlotte kept pushing, intent on knowing where the mud had come from.
‘Nothing, really. You know how it is. It’s easy to get distracted in the warehouse, there’s so much stuff in there.’
The front door slammed. Moments later it opened again, and Olli’s voice could be heard calling after Lucia.
‘We’re in the kitchen!’ Will shouted.
Olli appeared, his rucksack swung over one shoulder.
‘So how was it?’ Charlotte asked. She felt compelled to ask, but she didn’t really want to hear the answer. If the kids couldn’t settle at the school, she didn’t know what she’d do.
‘Usual nonsense,’ Olli replied. ‘They’re way behind us in English Lit, but I hadn’t got a clue what they were talking about in Physics. I’m sure I’ll catch up. Oh, and there are drugs in the school.’
‘Jesus!’ Will exclaimed. ‘Why can’t they just educate the damn kids? Secondary school life is becoming more and more like prison every day.’
‘What about Lucia?’ Charlotte asked. ‘I take it the slammed door tells us everything we need to know?’
‘She’s had a bad day,’ Olli replied after some time. ‘I don’t think she made any friends and she couldn’t pee all day because there’s a gang of girls who lurk in the toilets taking pictures over the door with their smartphones. And then to top it all, she got hassled outside the school gates by some guy…’
‘What kind of guy? Someone from school?’
‘She wouldn’t tell me. She described him as some old guy. He had faded tattoos, she said. Reckoned he knew her. She told him to get lost. That’s what’s shaken her most, I think.’
Chapter Eleven
Present Day - Morecambe
‘So who was he, this man?’ Charlotte asked, handing Lucia the cornflakes.
They’d decided t
o give her a wide berth the night before, sensing that she was in dire need of decompression time. But Charlotte couldn’t let it lie. There was an uneasy feeling in her stomach that she hadn’t experienced for some years. And it was growing stronger.
Will had walked round to the corner shop. Charlotte insisted he didn’t use one of the large catering bags of milk that they stored in the big kitchen downstairs, so he’d popped out to the newsagent to pick up something a little smaller. Really, Charlotte just wanted him out of the way, to give her a chance to talk in private with her daughter.
‘Just some creep,’ Lucia replied. ‘You always get them at the school gates. I mean, we did at our old school. There were usually some weirdos hanging around at home time.’
‘Why have you never told me this before? Where are the teachers when all this happens?’
‘The teachers are usually too busy sorting out the lower years. If they’re not scrapping, they’re screaming as they go down the street. I guess they just assume the older kids can take care of themselves. We call them the short skirts brigade. Well, that’s what we called them at our old school.’
‘And what do they do?’
‘Often they’re older guys with construction jobs and stuff like that. Sometimes they’re dating some of the older girls. But you think how attractive all those young girls are to the old perverts. Some of them can’t resist making leery comments.’
‘What sort of comments?’
‘Just stuff like how gorgeous we look, or what they’d like to do to us if they were younger…’
‘You’re kidding? Please tell me you’re kidding.’
‘No. I just assumed it went with the territory of being a woman. The minute they can’t get thrown into prison as a paedophile, they think you’re fair game.’
‘You were only fifteen when you were at your previous school,’ Charlotte reminded her. ‘And what have I told you about sexism? It’s never acceptable.’
She wondered if all those Spare Rib Magazine issues had been a waste of time. And had the Spice Girls’ career been completely in vain?
‘Was this chap leery with you?’ Charlotte asked after a few moments. ‘Because if he was, I’m going to complain to the school.’
‘Mum, no! I’ve only just got there. If you start causing trouble already, I’ll never find any friends. He didn’t do anything pervy, okay?’
‘But you were clearly upset when you came home last night.’
‘Look, he was just the final straw at the end of a very bad first day, alright? It was just that…’
She stopped short, clearly thinking better of it.
‘What?’ Charlotte asked.
‘He knew my name, that’s all,’ Lucia replied. ‘How did he know my name?’
The door slammed at the bottom of the building. Will was back. She had the time it would take him to run from the bottom stair to their private accommodation at the top of the guest house to communicate with her daughter.
‘Are you certain you’ve never seen him before? And he had tattoos along both of his arms?’
‘Most guys do these days, Mum.’
‘Yes, but they were old, you said. How old was he?’
‘Well, you know. Old. Old like you and dad…’
‘Hey, we’re in the paper!’
Will was out of breath; he’d run up the stairs.
‘I bought two copies; this is definitely one for the scrapbook. Look!’
He laid the two papers flat on the small kitchen table. Lucia moved her cornflakes to make more room. They were on the front page.
Morecambe’s Brand New Dawn? the headline read.
‘Listen to this,’ Will began. ‘The reopening of the Lakes View Guest House on Morecambe’s historic promenade is being hailed as the latest in a series of positive signals heralding the rise of the popular resort.’
‘Ugh, they’ve used a picture of all of us. And you can see my spots!’
‘Well, I did advise you to be in the new picture when Nigel Davies came around, but you refused. He used that old one from last year to show the whole family.’
Lucia grabbed the spare copy and began to scrutinise it more closely.
‘Mum! Dad! I’m going to be a laughing stock in school! Look what it says… Siblings Oliver and Lucia will be an asset for Morecambe’s secondary school. Oliver was head boy at his previous school in Bristol whilst Lucia was their top-performing student at GCSE. I am never going to live this down. I’m going to be a social pariah after this.’
‘I think you’re overreacting just a bit, don’t you?’ Will suggested. ‘Besides, all your school chums are way too cool to read the local newspaper. Only their parents will see this, and they’re bound to be impressed by you and Olli.’
‘Did I hear my name?’ Olli asked, walking into the kitchen, his hair still wet from the shower.
‘Hi Olli, how did you sleep?’ Charlotte asked, eager to take some of the wind out of Lucia’s sails.
‘Bloody seagulls!’ he exclaimed. ‘Can’t anyone else hear them?’ They’re so noisy!’
‘We don’t hear them at our side of the house,’ Will remarked. ‘Did I hear somebody downstairs?’
‘It’ll just be Isla,’ Charlotte replied.
Olli pulled up a chair and for the next five minutes, they huddled around the two newspapers, occasionally laughing at the turn of phrase used by the local reporter.
‘Ooh, look, they talk about how you and dad met!’ Lucia teased. Charlotte figured at least she’d changed the focus from herself.
Charlotte and Will met as students at Sandy Beaches Holiday Camp in 1984 and they’ve been happy campers ever since.
‘Are you really that old?’ Lucia asked. ‘They didn’t even have mobile phones then, did they?’
‘I don’t recall seeing my first mobile phone until the nineties,’ Will remarked. ‘And in those days, we only had a black and white TV, that’s if we even had one at all. We didn’t have a TV at the holiday camp. They were only available in some of the bars and social areas.’
‘I can’t believe things were so primitive back then,’ Lucia teased. ‘You two really are dinosaurs. How can you even stay with the same person that long? Aren’t you completely bored with each other?’
Charlotte was relieved when Will used that as his cue to leave the table and clean his teeth.
‘Better get a move on,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure of the bus times. They seem regular enough, but I’d better leave a bit earlier for the first week. Just in case.’
Olli’s cornflakes barely touched the sides. He was away in minutes, leaving Lucia still nursing a cup of tea. Charlotte picked up the paper and studied some wording just below the banner on the front page.
‘You know that chap last night? He probably just recognised you from the paper. This says Early Edition on the top. I bet he just recognised you from the front page. Anybody can see it; they don’t even have to buy the paper. I’m sure that’s all it was.’
‘Yeah, probably,’ Lucia replied, not sounding entirely convinced.
Charlotte was barely convincing herself. She heard more movement downstairs.
‘You finish getting ready for school, Lucia. I’m just going to go downstairs and say hello to Mrs Thomas. It’s going to take some getting used to, having other people letting themselves in and out of our house.’
Charlotte gave Lucia a kiss on the head, which she greeted with the obligatory look of disgust and a thorough wipe with her hands. She made her way down the stairs, along the carpeted corridor, and into the kitchen.
‘Isla? Isla? Are you here?’ she asked.
She looked around the kitchen, as if Mrs Thomas were a mouse and might have been hiding in the corner, then she darted into the dining room. It was immaculately set up and ready to receive the first guests later that day. The red-checked tablecloths and the perfectly arranged cutlery looked fresh and welcoming. Charlotte was pleased with it.
Next, she made her way back along the corridor to the lounge a
rea. There was still no sign of Isla.
‘Will - have you seen Isla this morning?’
‘No, but I thought I heard somebody moving around downstairs, that must have been her.’ he said to her, running down the staircase two steps at a time.
‘Gotta go, I don’t want to be late on my first day!’
He hesitated a moment, then gave Charlotte a kiss and was out of the door a moment later.
Olli and Lucia followed him, bags thrown over shoulders and phones in hand.
‘I’m sure it will be better today, darling,’ Charlotte tried to reassure her daughter.
‘I doubt it,’ said Lucia, darting to the side to avoid any body contact which might have been heading her way.
Olli accepted a kiss. She knew they hated it, but it didn’t feel right not trying.
Charlotte paused a moment, unsettled by what Lucia had told her at the kitchen table. She was tempted to call the head teacher there and then, to complain about not taking better care of their wards at the school gate. No, she understood what Lucia had said: it was too early in the day to be causing trouble at a new school. She had something else in mind. She’d drive up to the school later and wait in the car at a safe distance, and watch her kids leaving at home time. They wouldn’t know she was there, but she just wanted to be sure. She had to be certain. It was that feeling in her stomach again; she couldn’t shake it.
Isla Thomas walked through the doorway. She was wearing a headscarf but had given up on her umbrella.
‘Good morning Charlotte, and how are you today?’ She smiled as she stepped inside.
‘Did you just nip outside, Isla? We thought you were here earlier.’
‘No my dear, I decided I’d come in a little later this morning and give you all some time to get yourselves organised in your routine. This is the first time I’ve stepped through this door since I saw you last night.’
Chapter Twelve
1984 - Sandy Beaches Holiday Camp
Will was regretting inviting Abi along to meet up with the others for drinks. He sensed the tension the moment they arrived.
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