by C. L. Taylor
‘There is, but there aren’t any painkillers in it.’ Nothing’s out of place on the desk. If she looked in the green first aid kit in the bottom drawer she’s already put it away.
‘Yeah.’ She laughs softly. ‘I know that now.’
‘You should have woken me. In fact,’ I gesture up the stairs, ‘I can get you some now if you want.’
‘Do you mind?’ She presses a hand to her belly. ‘I’d really appreciate it.’
‘No problem at all.’
She doesn’t say a word until we reach the stairwell to the guest corridor, then she clears her throat and says, ‘You and Joe seem to be getting on well.’
Her random comment throws me for a second.
‘All the guests are lovely,’ I say vaguely.
Fiona’s breath catches in her throat, as though she’s got something to add, but she doesn’t say another word until we reach my room and I hand her two ibuprofen.
‘Thanks,’ she says without meeting my eyes, then turns on her heel and goes.
In Memoriam
In Memoriam
In loving memory of Mavis Mascull, 1943–2014.
Reunited with her dearest Edward ‘Ted’ Mascull.
Sweet is her memory, dear is her name, deep in our hearts she will always remain.
It’s curious how deceptive appearances can be and yet we still label people based on what we see, hear and assume. What is it they say? It only takes seven seconds to make a first impression. We’d like to think we don’t judge others but we do. Of course we do. Everyone does. It makes life less confusing to fit people into neatly labelled boxes.
So let’s see. What boxes can we slot the inhabitants of the Bay View Hotel into?
– the owner
– the receptionist
– the couple
– the teenager
– the hipster
– the single girl
– the pensioner
– the loner
Did you spot your label in there, Anna? Of course you did! You’re the receptionist. Congratulations. You’re playing your role to a tee – sitting behind the desk, tapping away busily at the laptop, smiling at the guests as they mill around the lobby. You’re courteous, well turned out and eager to help. It’s astonishing really, how well you pretend to be something you’re not.
Have you considered that everyone else might be doing the same thing too?
Chapter 15
Anna
Monday 4th June
Day 3 of the storm
There’s a collective moan from the guests when David walks into the dining room and announces that, due to the weather, today’s hike has been cancelled.
Malcolm pushes his fried breakfast away from him and moves to stand up. ‘Is Gordon still out there?’ He inclines his head towards the lobby. ‘I’d like a word if so.’
David shakes his head. ‘Afraid not. He’s had to drive over to the school. Lightning struck it in the night and he needs to check for damage.’
I raise my eyebrows but I can’t say I’m surprised. The view of the storm from my bedroom window last night was absolutely breathtaking. Lightning ripped through the black sky like scissors tearing through cloth and each boom of thunder made my heart jump in my chest.
‘We’ll go out anyway,’ Malcolm says now. ‘Trevor’s already headed out.’
Melanie, who’s trying and failing to convince Katie to eat her last piece of toast, looks up at her husband. ‘There’s no way I’m taking Katie out in that. She’d get blown off a cliff.’
‘So we leave her behind. As long as she’s got her phone she’s happy.’
Katie rolls her eyes and mutters something under her breath. I can only assume from the look on her face that it’s about the mobile phone signal. It still hasn’t reappeared, although the Wi-Fi’s still going strong.
‘I’m not leaving her here on her own,’ Melanie says. ‘She’s fourteen.’
Malcolm shrugs. ‘Fair enough. I’ll go on my own if you—’
‘Normally,’ David interjects, ‘I’d suggest a trip to the castle or the craft shops but I had a call earlier to say they’ll be closed today because of the weather.’
Christine sits back in her chair, sighing heavily as she crosses her arms over her chest. ‘So we’re stuck in the hotel.’
‘There’s a selection of board games in the lounge.’ I can hear the forced cheeriness in David’s voice. ‘And playing cards, chess, backgammon. We have a selection of DVDs you can borrow if you’d like to watch a film in your room. And of course there are plenty of books.’
‘Someone told me a tree came down last night and took out one of the sheds.’ Joe, who’s spent most of the conversation staring out of the window, turns to look at David. ‘I’ve done a bit of general labouring. I’m happy to help.’
‘Aye.’ David nods. ‘We took a fair bit of damage in the night, especially in the garden. A few roof tiles have come loose too. You’re very welcome to help but do be careful. I’m not sure my insurance covers storm damage to guests.’
Joe glances at me. ‘Maybe Anna can show me what needs doing.’
‘But I’ve got to—’
‘No, no,’ David says, laying a heavy hand on my shoulder. ‘You show Mr Armstrong the garden. I’ll do the dishwasher. You can do the rooms when you come back.’
As he turns to go back into the kitchen a small smile plucks at his lips.
As we step out of the front door I turn to say something to Joe but it’s so windy I can barely breathe, never mind speak. Instead I gesture for him to follow me. As we reach the corner I pause and point across the grounds and the rolling fields to the cliff top and the sea beyond it. It looks like a series of rolling mountains, granite grey, with foam cutting through like white quartz veins.
‘It’s amazing!’ Joe shouts, holding a hand over his eyes to shield his face from the sleeting rain. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’
‘Makes you feel alive, doesn’t it?’
He shakes his head in awe. ‘And you get to live here!’
He’s right of course. I am ridiculously lucky to live here. Even on a day like this when I can barely take one step in front of the other without being shoved by the wind against the hard brick of the hotel.
‘The power of the sea,’ Joe breathes, utterly transfixed. ‘It’s beautiful and terrifying, all at the same time.’
I subtly watch him as he continues to stare out to sea. He looks like some kind of Hipster Action Hero with his tight black jeans, his hands in his pockets, the hood of his khaki coat up over his head and his damp beard poking out. All he needs is a craft ale in one hand and the image would be complete. It’s not a look I’ve ever found particularly attractive but there’s something about Joe that I like. He’s not pretentious for one. I’ve overheard him talking to several of the other guests and he’s always friendly and interested in both them and their lives. Then there’s the fact that, beneath his bushy brows, he’s got ridiculously sexy eyes.
Joe glances as me, as though sensing me watching, and I look away, embarrassed at being caught.
‘Why’d you leave?’ he asks.
‘Sorry?’
‘London, that’s where you’re from, isn’t it?’
‘Um … I’m actually from Reading but I lived in London for five years.’
He waits for me to continue. There’s an intensity behind his gaze that makes me feel, not uncomfortable exactly, but as though he’s looking into me, rather than at me.
‘I … um … I was in a car accident. It made me re-evaluate what I want from life.’
He raises his eyebrows, not in surprise but recognition as though I just said something he can relate to.
‘You?’ I venture.
He shrugs. ‘I just fancied some fresh air.’
That makes us both laugh and I gesture for him to follow me to the back of the hotel.
‘Over there!’ I shout, pointing across the garden where a willow is lying across what used to
be the gardening shed. The brick walls have survived but there’s not much left of the roof.
I turn to check if Joe’s seen it too, but as I twist to look at him he lunges at me, arms outstretched, and shoves me hard. There’s a loud cracking sound, like a plate being thrown at the ground, and all the air is knocked from my lungs as I fall onto the wet grass and Joe lands on top of me. I lie still, too stunned to speak, then he rolls away and stares up at the sky, arms spread wide.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he breathes as he twists onto his side to look at me. ‘Are you okay?’
I stare at him in shock. ‘What the fuck? Why would you—’
I’m silenced by his outstretched arm. He’s pointing at the path that runs around the house. It’s strewn with the sharp shards of broken roof tiles, dozens and dozens of them.
‘They came down like a guillotine!’ he says. ‘Just slid straight off the roof. I wouldn’t have spotted them if I’d been standing right next to you. We’d have both been brained.’
‘Thank you.’ I scramble to my feet, my jeans, hands and the side of my face caked in mud. ‘You … God … you probably just saved my life.’
He shrugs good-naturedly. ‘You’d have done the same for me. You still up for going to check out that tree or do you want to go back inside?’
There wasn’t anything we could do about the tree or the shed. The tree was too wet and heavy to lift and Joe figured we’d only cause more damage to the brickwork if we tried to drag it off. There was no way of getting into the shed to save the lawnmower, strimmer, hedge trimmer and other electrical equipment from the rain, so we abandoned it and went back to the house. While Joe went to tell David the bad news I headed up to my room to shower. I was just about to come back down the staff stairs when I heard voices from the stairwell next to the guest corridor. Malcolm and Melanie Ward were having a conversation just below me. I paused, out of sight, not wanting to interrupt.
‘She’s completely shut down,’ I heard Melanie say.
‘It’s understandable. She’s been through a lot.’
‘I’ve tried to talk to her about it but she changes the subject each time I mention her dad.’
Dad? I’d assumed Malcolm was Katie’s father.
‘She misses him. Just give her time.’
‘Yes, but…’ Melanie fell silent as I shifted my weight from one leg to the other and the floorboard creaked in protest.
Malcolm cleared his throat. ‘Let’s go and see where she is.’
I waited at the top of the stairs until their footsteps receded, then went down to the guest floor and headed for the cleaning cupboard at the end of the corridor. Whatever was going on with Melanie, Malcolm and Katie, I told myself as I pulled out the mop and bucket, it wasn’t my concern. ‘It’s none of my business,’ I reminded myself as I unlocked the couple’s room and stared around the small space at their things.
The lobby is empty as I drag the black sacks of rubbish down the stairs but I can hear the guests chatting and laughing in the lounge and smell the warm, hearty scent of David’s steak and ale stew drifting through the hotel. With all the rooms apart from Trevor’s cleaned and changed, I hang the spare master key on the rack behind reception then haul the rubbish out of the front door and round to the back of the hotel where the bins are kept. I give the back wall a wide berth, keeping my eyes fixed on the roof. It’s scary, thinking what could have happened if Joe hadn’t pushed me out of the way.
I stifle a yawn as I throw the black sacks into the bin. I need to get more sleep. David hasn’t picked up on my tiredness yet but it’s only a matter of time. I’m going to start making mistakes if I’m not careful. Already today, when I was servicing the rooms, I couldn’t remember if I’d changed Fiona’s bed or not. It wasn’t until I pulled back the duvet and saw how tightly the sheet had been tucked in that I realised I had.
I’ll get a coffee, then have a power nap after lunch, I tell myself as I walk back to the front of the hotel. But the moment I open the door David, standing by the reception desk with Trevor Morgan, calls my name.
‘Could I have a quick word, Anna?’
‘Sure.’ My stomach tightens as I approach the desk. David’s not smiling. Neither is Trevor. I gesture at my sopping wet coat. ‘I’ll just get out of my wet things.’
‘You serviced the rooms this morning, didn’t you?’ David says as I peel off my coat and hang it on the peg then slip my feet out of my boots and pull on my work shoes.
‘Yes. I finished the last one about …’ I glance at my watch. ‘Twenty minutes ago. Is there a problem?’
‘You went into my room,’ Trevor says. ‘And I told David that I didn’t want it cleaned.’ His hair is slicked back and his fleece is a darker shade of blue on the shoulders, as though the rain soaked through his coat. I didn’t hear him come back from his walk. He must have returned while I was round the back, doing the bins.
I look from Trevor, his small, beady eyes dark and intense behind his glasses, to David. He flashes his eyebrows at me; a gesture of sympathy rather than surprise. He thinks Trevor’s making a fuss about nothing.
‘I didn’t clean your room,’ I say. ‘I didn’t even go in.’
‘Then who folded up my towels?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Someone came into my room and folded up the towels I left hanging over the shower rail.’
‘I don’t know how that happened but it wasn’t me. As I said, I didn’t go into your room.’
David shrugs his shoulders as though to say it wasn’t him either.
‘You took something of mine.’ Trevor holds a hand out towards me. ‘I’d like it back.’
‘Everything okay out here?’ Christine Cuttle pokes her head out of the lounge, her expression pure nosiness. ‘I heard raised voices and wondered if—’
‘Everything’s fine, Christine. Thank you.’ David gestures for her to go back inside.
No one says a word until the lounge door clicks closed. Then I look back at Trevor.
‘What’s been taken from your room?’
‘Something of mine. From my bedside table.’
‘What was it?’
‘You know what it was.’
‘I really don’t.’ I look at David again, horrified that I’ve been accused of stealing. ‘I swear to God, I haven’t been in your room or taken anything.’
‘As I said to you earlier, Mr Morgan,’ David says, his tone decidedly more calm and measured than mine, ‘perhaps whatever you’ve lost has slipped down the side of the bed. If you could tell us what it is that’s gone missing maybe we could help you look.’
Trevor glares at him, his eyes dark, angry slits in his thick, doughy face. ‘I don’t want anyone in my room. Not you, not her, not anyone. What I want is for my belongings to be returned.’
I feel sick with worry. Stealing from guests is a sackable offence and I’m on a three-month probation. If David takes Trevor seriously I could be on the next ferry home.
‘I told you,’ I start. ‘I haven’t been in your—’
David stops me with a sharp wave of his hand. When he touches his fingers to his lips I swallow down my protest and stare at the floor.
‘I’m sorry some of your belongings have gone missing, Mr Morgan,’ David says steadily, ‘but I have no reason to believe Anna ignored my request not to enter your room. I also don’t believe that she took your belongings. Anna’s new but I trust her and if she says she didn’t take your things then I take her at her word.’
All the tension in my chest vanishes and I breathe out steadily. He believes me. Thank God. I glance up at Trevor. He’s staring down at David, his eyes steely and cold. David doesn’t look away. Instead he forces a smile and says, ‘If there’s anything else I can help you with, do please let me know. Otherwise I’ll see you in the dining room for lunch. It’ll be served in half an hour.’
Trevor continues to stare at him for a few more beats, then he turns on his heel and stomps up the stairs.
‘Anna,’ David
says as Trevor’s footsteps fade away, and it’s all I can do not to throw my arms around him and kiss him on his rough, red cheek.
Instead I say, ‘I genuinely didn’t go into his room.’
‘I know.’ He beckons me closer and lowers his voice. ‘But I think someone else might have done.’
Chapter 16
Mohammed
Mohammed stares at the ceiling and counts the number of tiles as the doctor talks to his parents. It’s the same speech Dr Newman delivered to him a couple of days earlier. The words wash over him: T6 incomplete injury, damage to the thoracic nerves in the back, a total hospital stay of three to nine months, hard to say exactly how long, possibly up to two years until full potential is reached, suspected paraplegia, a form of paralysis in which function is substantially impeded from the waist down.
He hears his mother’s small gasp of pain and the low rumble of his father’s voice as he throws question after question at the doctor. A single tear dribbles from the corner of Mohammed’s eye.
‘It’s okay, darling.’ His mother bends over him and, using the sleeve of her cardigan, gently dabs at his face.
He feels like a child again. No, not a child. A child would be able to run away and hide. He feels like an amoeba or a living corpse. A brain trapped in a body that won’t respond no matter how much he screams at it to do his bidding.
The hands are the worst. Not his, theirs, the nurses’, the doctors’, his parents’. He was never that keen on being touched before the accident; he shied away from hugs and cringed at arm squeezes, handshakes and backslaps. Now, he’s forever being touched or wiped or moved or stroked and he can’t do anything about it. He has to lie there and take it because, apparently, he’s supposed to be grateful that he’s alive. Grateful? Another tear escapes and winds its way into his hairline. He’s going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He’s never going to walk or run or cycle or ski ever again.
‘Please don’t cry, Mo.’ His mother wipes the tear away, then moves her hand to his hair. She strokes and strokes and strokes it as though he’s a dog but he doesn’t object because he knows the simple action is comforting her, at least.