by Jill Mansell
Barney, his brown eyes sparkling, said, ‘You know I’d never do that. I love working here.’
‘What’s this about, then?’ Perching on the edge of her desk, Daisy reached for the list of messages left for her by Brenda.
‘Well, I’ve met this girl. And we really like each other. The thing is, she has to leave her flat in Bristol and we really want to be together…’
‘Crikey, I don’t know about that.’ Daisy, who already knew what he was leading up to, pulled a doubtful face. ‘You mean you’d like her to move into your room here? Don’t you think it’d be a bit cramped?’
‘No, no, that’s not what I wanted to ask you,’ Barney exclaimed, moments before realizing he was being teased. ‘Oh, right. Tara’s already told you, hasn’t she?’
‘She may have dropped a couple of subtle hints.’ Daisy’s mouth twitched, because they both knew Tara was a stranger to discretion. ‘The words “Rose Timpson’s cottage” might have been mentioned in passing.’
‘Is it OK?’ Barney was visibly relieved. ‘I mean, you’re sure you don’t mind?’
‘Barney, it’s absolutely fine with me, why would I mind? I’m just wondering how your girlfriend feels about it. Isn’t Brock Cottage a bit grim?’
Actually, grim was an understatement. Marveling at his optimism, Daisy realized she couldn’t imagine how it must feel to love someone so much you wouldn’t mind living in a hovel.
‘It won’t be grim by the time I’ve finished with it.’ Eagerly, Barney said, ‘Bert Connelly’s brother’s coming over this evening with a big van, to clear the place out. And tomorrow’s my day off,’ he reminded Daisy, ‘and Bert’s sending one of his sons over to help me with the cleaning up.’
No longer scared of Bert, Barney now thought he was a wonderful generous man with a heart of gold beneath those baggy brown overalls.
Daisy smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you’ve met someone nice. I’m sure the two of you’ll be very happy.’
‘Actually, there’s three of us.’ Barney swelled with pride. ‘She’s got a baby, a little boy. He’s fantastic.’
Blimey, a single mother. This would give the village gossips something to whisper about. Daisy, about to ask what their names were, was stopped by the phone ringing on her desk.
It was Pam, putting through a transatlantic call from an American organizing a surprise party for his wife at the hotel. Lots of complicated arrangements needed to be finalized. Covering the receiver, Daisy pulled a face and said to Barney, ‘Sorry, bit busy.’
‘No problem, I’ll get back to work. Thanks for everything.’ Barney thought again how lovely she was, how lucky Steven had been to have married her.
‘Good luck with the cottage,’ Daisy whispered. ‘I’ll have to come and see it when it’s finished.’
‘Definitely,’ Barney told her with a grin. ‘You’ll be amazed, I promise.’
***
For the first time in a very long time, Maggie felt her heart flutter with excitement at the sight of someone other than Hector. He was here! At last! Exactly on time and looking reassuringly efficient. Even the way he locked his van and headed up the front path was impressively brisk.
Delighted, Maggie darted away from the living-room window to answer the front door.
‘Hi! Fantastic! Have you got the spare part?’
It was a different repairman today, which could only be good news. Balding and squat, rather like a toad, and wearing an identity tag announcing his name to be Owen Jones, he held up a small polythene bag containing something technical-looking swathed in bubble-wrap.
‘It’s right here, Mrs Donovan, don’t you fret. Soon have you sorted. Bet you thought this day’d never come, eh? Well, don’t you worry yourself. Never fear, Owen’s here!’ Proudly he tapped his laminated ID badge. ‘That’s me, see?’
Maggie, so overcome she could have hugged him, said the only thing applicable under the circumstances.
‘Coffee? Or tea?’
‘Ah, a lady who talks my language.’ Owen beamed as he followed her through to the kitchen. ‘Tea please, three sugars. But it’s only going to take a minute or two to fit this little beauty here. Chances are, I’ll be finished before you’ve even made it.’
‘Owen.’ Joyfully Maggie reached for the kettle. ‘You’re a man who talks my language.’
By the time she’d made him his mug of tea Owen was indeed finished. In no time flat he had dismantled the washing machine, attempted to fit the long-awaited spare part, and discovered that it was the wrong spare part. Maggie was still piling in sugar when she realized he was closing the machine back up.
‘Heavens, that was quick!’
‘Sorry, Mrs Donovan, bit of a hitch.’ Owen shook his head, evidently despairing of the incompetence of others. ‘This is the wrong spare part.’
As Maggie stared at him he puffed out his cheeks, looking more toad-like than ever.
‘Owen. Please tell me you’re joking.’
‘Thing is, see, this is the code number that was written on the order form.’ Shuffling over to her, he pointed to the battered sheet of paper in his left hand. ‘But someone made a mistake somewhere along the line. See that four there? Well, it should have been a seven. I can guess how it happened, it’s the way some people have of putting those fancy foreign horizontal lines across ’em, and then the next person copying it out just thinks it’s a four.’
‘So my machine isn’t fixed.’ The mug of hot tea trembled ominously in Maggie’s hand.
‘Look, I’ve said I’m sorry, but it really isn’t anything to do with me. I’ll order another part,’ Owen assured her. ‘And we’ll get back to you as soon as it comes in.’
‘In a fortnight, you mean? That isn’t good enough! I need a washing machine that works.’ Maggie plonked the mug of tea down on the drainer behind her; she was damned if he was getting it in return for doing sod all. ‘I tell you what, you can take this one away with you and wait for the spare part to arrive. In the meantime, your incompetent company can loan me a fully functioning machine. That’s only fair, surely?’
Owen sighed and shook his fat bald head once more. ‘No can do, I’m afraid.’
‘But it’s under guarantee!’
‘We guarantee to fix any faults, yes.’
‘And you haven’t!’ Frazzled, Maggie banged the flat of her hand against the top of the useless machine. ‘You haven’t fixed it!’
‘The guarantee covers parts and labor.’ Owen was no longer chirpy; the smiling woman who had greeted him so joyously at the door had turned into the stroppy customer from hell. ‘If you read your policy,’ he added stiffly, ‘you’ll see that we don’t provide replacement machines, nor are we required by law to—’
‘This is PATHETIC,’ Maggie roared before he could finish. ‘It’s not good enough! You’re going to give me the name and number of your boss so I can ring him up and tell him exactly what I think of his rotten lousy shoddy little company.’
Owen couldn’t scuttle out of the cottage fast enough. When he’d gone, Maggie glared at the scrap of paper upon which she had scrawled his boss’s details. She fantasized about what she would say to him and pictured him cowering in his office, apologizing profusely, and offering her all kinds of extravagant bribes to stop her contacting Watchdog.
Then she came back to reality with a bump. Who was she kidding? Customers who made a nuisance of themselves ended up getting treatment that was worse, not better. Just to teach her a lesson, they’d probably keep her waiting two years for the vital spare part.
It was like customers in a restaurant sending their food back to the kitchen with some complaint or other. All the chef did was spit in it before sending it back out, everyone knew that.
Her toes curling with frustration, Maggie ripped up the scrap of paper and chucked the pieces in the bin. Ranting and raving would do no good at all. She may a
s well bite the bullet and accept—damn and blast—that she’d be washing by hand for a while yet.
Oh Hector, come round and cheer me up. Please.
***
Barney did his best to retain his composure but it was hard not to stare at Paula Penhaligon as she stepped from the car. She smelled fantastic, for a start. Her neat high-heeled shoes were the most expensive-looking he’d ever seen. From the feet up, she was wearing pale stockings, a honey-colored narrow suede skirt, and a chocolate-brown fitted shirt with a kind of creamy stole thing wrapped around her shoulders. Her glossy red hair was worn in the kind of bob shape that looked as though it had been precision cut in a car factory, her makeup was film star flawless, and she was wearing dark glasses. Even though the sun wasn’t out.
Barney wasn’t stupid, he knew he mustn’t point out to her the fact that the sky was currently one vast eiderdown of grey. Wearing sunglasses when it wasn’t sunny was just one of those things celebrities liked to do, pretending that it meant they could walk around incognito.
Not that Paula Penhaligon could go unnoticed anywhere. She might be knocking on a bit now—nearly fifty, Barney guessed—but she was still pretty stunning for her age.
Daisy had been waylaid on the phone, so Barney smiled his warm smile and said, ‘Mrs Penhaligon, welcome to Colworth Manor.’
‘Why, thank you.’ In return, Paula Penhaligon fluttered her narrow fingers in the direction of the boot. ‘My cases are in there, if you wouldn’t mind—oops.’ As she turned, her ivory cashmere wrap slipped from her shoulders. Like lightning, Barney reached out and caught it before it hit the wet gravel.
‘I say, well held.’ Paula Penhaligon removed her dark glasses in order to gaze at him with admiration. ‘I like this hotel already.’
Her eyes were heavily made up, but there was no mistaking the marks beneath them, faint yellowish bruises just visible through the concealer. With a jolt, Barney remembered that she was currently going through a traumatic divorce. By the look of it, she’d been physically assaulted. Shocked, he realized that her husband must have beaten her up.
‘And your name is?’
‘Um… Barney. Barney Usher.’
‘Excellent reflexes,’ Paula Penhaligon remarked with a playful twitch of her lips. ‘Well done.’
Lost for words, Barney wondered how he was supposed to respond to this. Thankfully, Daisy appeared and took over, freeing him to lift the cases out of the boot. Paula Penhaligon had certainly brought a mountain of luggage with her. Then again, if she was fleeing an abusive husband, maybe these cases contained everything she owned.
‘Darling Lionel recommended your hotel to me,’ Barney heard her telling Daisy. ‘Now, I don’t want any kind of special treatment, I’m just here to relax and recharge my batteries. Any inquiries from the press are to be referred directly to my agent.’
Barney felt sorry for the poor woman. She didn’t want anyone knowing she was a battered wife.
‘Don’t you worry,’ Daisy assured Paula Penhaligon with a grin. ‘If you don’t want special treatment, you’ve come to the right place. We’re equally horrible to all our guests.’
Chapter 28
‘Quick, get downstairs,’ Tara bellowed, sticking her head round the door of the staff sitting room and making Barney jump. ‘Paula Penhaligon’s husband’s just turned up with a shotgun, he’s going berserk in reception, threatening to blow her brains out!’
Barney leapt instinctively to his feet, his eyes wide with horror. God, this was terrible.
‘What?’ He stared at Tara, bewildered, as she stood there in the doorway barring his exit. How could she even think of laughing at a time like this?
Oh.
‘Barney, you are so sweet.’ Tara was by this time doubled up with laughter. ‘Just the sweetest thing ever. You really would have gone rushing down to save her, wouldn’t you!’
Caught out again. Twice in one day. He’d be the laughing stock of the hotel when this got out.
‘Next time you tell me there’s a madman with a shotgun downstairs, I’ll just stay here and finish my sandwiches,’ Barney said mildly. ‘And when he shoots you, you’ll be sorry.’
‘I know, I know. But Rocky told me what you’d told him and I couldn’t resist it.’ Wiping her eyes, Tara went on, ‘I’ve just been up to Paula Penhaligon’s suite. You big dingbat, she hasn’t been beaten up.’
‘She has.’ Barney nodded vigorously. ‘I saw her in daylight. Her eyes were all bruised and swollen.’
‘But mysteriously wrinkle-free,’ Tara finished for him. ‘Barney, she’s had a face-lift. That’s why she’s come down here, dummy. To recuperate.’
‘A face-lift?’ Barney was both shocked and relieved. At least it meant Paula Penhaligon wasn’t being beaten up. It still seemed strange to him, though, that anyone would willingly choose to undergo surgery just to improve their looks.
‘She’s forty-eight and back on the market. It’s something to give the old confidence a boost. She’s after a new man.’ Tara winked. ‘You never know, a pretty boy like you could be right up her street.’
‘You’re not going to catch me out a third time,’ said Barney. Abruptly another thought struck him. ‘And you won’t tell Daisy about the shotgun thing, will you? I don’t want her thinking I’m completely stupid.’
Tara watched him silently pleading with her. What a sweetie; he was genuinely worried.
‘You were ready to defend one of our guests from a madman with a gun,’ she marveled. ‘Daisy would be impressed.’
‘Please don’t say anything.’
Taking pity on him, Tara relented. ‘OK, I promise. In exchange for one little thing.’
‘What little thing?’ Barney was wary of her now, but sadly not wary enough to guard the remains of his lunch.
‘Yum, tuna and mayonnaise, my favorite.’ Whisking the last sandwich from his plate, she took a huge bite.
Barney pointed to the bottles of anti-rejection medication on the coffee table in front of him. ‘I crushed up my tablets and mixed them in with the tuna.’
Oh God, how awful. Horrified, Tara began to splutter and choke. She spat half the mouthful messily into her cupped hand.
‘Not really,’ said Barney with an angelic grin.
***
Hector’s favorite walk in the hotel’s grounds was the wooded path along the riverbank. The snowdrops and crocuses were poking their way through the ground. Soon, the hazel bushes would dance with catkins and the bluebells would be making an appearance. By April they would cover the lower reaches of the hill with a blue haze and creamy white blossom would sprout on the hawthorn bushes overhanging the river. Heaving a sigh of absolute contentment, Hector thought how right he’d been to buy this place. How anyone could choose to live in a filthy city was genuinely beyond him.
In the pocket of his Barbour, his mobile phone rang. Just once.
Looking at the screen, he smiled. This was the system he and Maggie had evolved. If it wasn’t a good moment, he would leave it at that and she would understand. If the coast was clear, he’d call her back.
Since the coast couldn’t be much clearer than it was now, he pressed out her number. For security reasons, it wasn’t even logged in the phone’s memory.
‘Hi.’ Maggie sounded both harassed and relieved. ‘You won’t believe the rotten morning I’ve had.’
Hector smiled. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘Let’s just say if you turn on the evening news and hear that a big bomb’s gone off at the HQ of Carver’s Superstore, you’ll know who planted it.’
‘I’ve told you already—’
‘And I’ve told you, you’re not buying me another one. Anyway, I’ve just finished a mountain of hand-washing,’ Maggie went on, ‘and Tara won’t be home before five. I just wondered what you were doing.’
Hector hesitated. Maggie was clearly
in need of cheering up and he’d like to see her but, being brutally honest here, he wasn’t in the mood right now for sex. This morning’s round of golf with Josh had left him with a painful twinge in his back. And, their arrangement being as it was, it wouldn’t seem right to pay Maggie a visit and not sleep with her. He would feel as if he were short-changing her. She might be offended. Once a business relationship was established, it made sense to keep to the rules.
‘Actually, I’m pretty tied up.’ Hector spoke with regret, twisting his body from side to side to double-check that twinge. Ouch, still there. ‘But tomorrow afternoon should be OK,’ he added with confidence. His back would definitely be better by then.
‘Tomorrow?’ He heard the disappointment in Maggie’s voice and for a moment felt emotionally torn. But that was stupid, Hector reminded himself. Theirs wasn’t an emotional relationship.
He cleared his throat. ‘Say around two o’clock?’
‘The thing is, an Australian couple are dropping by at some stage to pick up their cushions. They weren’t able to give me an exact time.’ Maggie sounded frustrated. ‘If they’re here at one o’clock, fine. But they might not turn up till four.’
‘OK, OK.’ Hector’s tone was soothing. ‘Don’t worry about it. Fingers crossed, they’ll be early. As soon as the coast’s clear, give me a ring.’ As he said it, he heard the sound of bushes rustling ahead. ‘Look, I have to go. I’ll speak to you tomorrow. Bye.’
The phone was switched off and back in his pocket in an instant. In a village like Colworth you could never be too careful; one slip and their shameful secret would be out.
Hector knew it shouldn’t be shameful, but somehow it was.
The bushes rustled again as whoever it was made their way along the narrow, overgrown path towards him. The next moment, he heard someone gasp and let out a muted cry.
Don’t say he’d stumbled across a couple indulging in alfresco sex? Surely not. It was February—far too cold for such foolhardy behavior.
God, thought Hector, I’m getting old.