Spin the Bottle

by Monica McInerney

Lainey decided to keep using May’s calendar, feeling guilty enough about everything else she had thrown out. Life did go on. May had used the calendar until she died. There had been a short period of mourning, a few weeks when the calendar was unturned, and now Lainey was in residence and it was back in operation.

  Except it wasn’t in operation yet, was it? Not without any guests. It was a major worry. Not just for her own sanity, but also for the future value of the property. The family would be able to sell it for a much higher price if it was demonstrably a successful business, with existing clients, everything in place. But who would she attract the way things were at the moment? Gardening enthusiasts? Compulsive cleaners? Hermits?

  ‘Stop that worrying,’ she said out loud, cross with herself. Once everything was spruced up a bit, of course she’d be able to get guests. There were plenty of ways of attracting them, after all. Advertisements for a start, of course, in local and national tourism publications, or even a web site, perhaps. And promotional flyers, too. Yes, she could produce some flyers as well. With a nice picture of the B&B on the front, a bit of information about the place, maybe a photo of one or two of the bedrooms. Once that hideous wallpaper was gone. And the carpets replaced. And the curtains taken down…

  Slow down, Lainey, she told herself. Take it in steps. This is just another challenge. Break it down and tackle it bit by bit, day by day. Keep busy. Make lists… and above all, don’t go crazy.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘I’M GOING CRAZY, EVIE,’ Lainey said passionately into the phone several days later. ‘I’ve done so much housework I’m actually dreaming about mop buckets and scouring pads. And I’m stomping around the place, you should see me. Like a bad-tempered child.’ She had hung Hugh’s B&B reward-calendar on the wall and it had taunted her so much she’d had to turn it face in. ‘I just can’t understand it. My aunt didn’t have any guests and she clearly didn’t do any cleaning – what did she do with herself all day?’

  ‘Redraft her will and go shopping for food products, by the sound of things,’ Eva said.

  ‘Very funny.’ It was nice to be able to laugh about it. She’d been getting very worried. Each night she had lain in bed, fiercely concentrating on her mental pictures, distracting herself, imagining exactly what she wanted to happen…

  The doorbell rang. She opened the front door and beamed a welcome at the busload of tourists waiting on the doorstep. ‘Come in, all of you. Make yourselves at home.’

  She showed them to their rooms, happily accepting their compliments about the wonderful smell of bread baking, the beautiful decor, the spectacular views of Tara from the sparkling clean windows.

  ‘Just wait till you try my bacon and eggs in the morning,’ she said. ‘People tell me they are simply out of this world.’

  She used the technique when a client was describing the sort of event they wanted – she’d ask dozens of questions about it until she had a vision of it clear in her head too, could run through it like an imaginary mind-film. She would picture the event from start to finish: the decor, the people arriving, the waiters moving around with trays of drinks and fine food, the speeches or the entertainment happening without a hitch, all the guests talking to each other, the right contacts being made… Positive visualisation, she supposed it was. Imagining something so strongly that you almost willed it to happen.

  Except it didn’t seem to be working here yet. ‘Evie, is there anything I can do for you or Joe while I’m down here? Have you any bread that needs kneading? You could send it down on the morning bus, I could spend the day kneading it and then send it back at teatime.’

  Eva laughed. ‘Could you ever just relax? You’ve been going at full tilt for years. Maybe this is all happening for a reason, to slow you down…’

  ‘If you say anything about me taking up a hobby or stopping to smell the roses, I swear I will… oh, I don’t know, drive up and bulldoze your café down.’

  ‘Well, have you thought about that? Gardening, I mean. Couldn’t you spend the days in the garden? Bring the phone outside so you don’t miss any calls? It would paint a lovely rural picture if any potential guests drove past.’

  ‘The only way potential guests will drive past is if I reroute the main road.’

  ‘Okay. Well, put the gardening in your diary for spring. Come on, you’re the ideas person here. If our positions were reversed, what would you be telling me to do?’

  ‘Fly straight back to Australia and tell your dad to start buying lottery tickets.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t.’

  ‘All right, let me think – am I allowed to suggest powerful medication?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Excess alcohol?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Hypnosis?’

  ‘Lainey…’

  ‘I know. Don’t worry, I’m sure this is just culture shock. Stopping-full-time-work shock. Doing-too-much-housework shock. You’re right – what I’ll do is use this quiet time to really hone my washing and clothes-pegging skills. Do you know poor old May didn’t even have a clothes dryer? If I ever actually get any guests, I’m going to have to take their sheets into the laundromat in town.’

  ‘How on earth did May manage on her own through the years?’

  How did any B&B operator manage? Lainey wondered. It was like being in charge of a two-storey brick baby. ‘Maybe she never washed them, just did that old trick of turning them around the other way.’

  ‘Oh, Lainey. She wouldn’t have done that, would she? Imagine that, sleeping in someone else’s sheets.’

  ‘I bet that’s the real reason she didn’t get any guests. Word got round about the recycled bed linen.’ Lainey laughed at her own gloomy tone. ‘Eva, thanks a million, you’ve cheered me up again. You are the best friend a girl could have and when this is over I am going to take you and Joseph for the biggest, most expensive meal of your lives. Fly you to Monte Carlo for the weekend. Buy you matching his and hers sports cars. Hire Moby for a personal gig for you both. Send you on a world cruise or a –’ She stopped as she heard the beep of another call coming in on Eva’s line. ‘Sounds like you’re in demand. I’d better let you go.’

  ‘That’s a shame, I was enjoying your list of thankyous. It’ll be Joe ringing to say he’s finished at college. We’re heading out to meet some people tonight. And Lainey, I love that you’re here. Do you know that? Even if you hate it.’

  ‘Hate it? I’m having the time of my life, really. And I love being near you, too. Have a great night and give Joe my love.’

  Lucky Evie, out with Joe and some other living human beings, Lainey thought as she hung up. She seemed to be existing only on phone conversations at the moment, unless she counted the grunting gardener and the three words she’d exchanged with the boy in the supermarket. In a normal day in Melbourne she’d talk to scores of people, from her colleagues, to her friends and family, to clients, to venue managers, caterers, sound technicians, costume hirers, lighting specialists, singers, actors and other entertainers, waitresses…

  That was it, of course. She wasn’t feeling this way because of Adam, she was just lonely – simple, run-of-the-mill lonely. Perhaps Eva was right, she should use this time to expand her life, develop a new interest. It must have been years since she’d had a hobby – unless running to keep fit counted, though that was more personal maintenance than hobbying. There wasn’t time for anything else any more. Any spare time she had – or any of her friends had, in fact – was spent exercising or catching up on sleep, not collecting porcelain figurines or birdwatching or watching Star Wars videos or spending the weekend dressed as medieval princesses and jousting with hay bales made up to look like horses. Rex was her interest, her little cat-love, but she could hardly classify him as her hobby, could she? He’d be appalled at the idea.

  The phone rang the next morning just as she was on her way outside to tell the chickens there was still no rush with the eggs. It was Mr Fogarty’s secretary Deirdre. ‘Miss Byrne, we wanted to arrange a time for you
to collect your aunt’s papers.’

  ‘What papers?’ Surely there couldn’t be more. She’d left the office that first day with a wheelbarrow full as it was, between the will and the various codicils and explanatory booklets and circulars. She’d put them all straight into the kitchen drawer when she got home, glad to see the back of them for the time being.

  ‘The ones we collected when we began clearing out her house after she died.’

  ‘Oh, I see. No problem. I’ll come in right now.’ Good, she thought. Not only would she get to speak to some more human beings – she could put off cleaning the oven for another day.

  There were five large folders waiting for her by the reception desk and no sign of the secretary. She heard a little rustle and turned around. ‘Oh, Mr Fogarty. How are you?’

  ‘Lainey, hello. You’ve come to collect your aunt’s papers, I see. That’s good. They’ve been taking up rather a lot of room these past few weeks.’

  They both looked over at the pile of folders. ‘There seems to be rather a lot of them,’ Lainey said.

  Mr Fogarty nodded solemnly. ‘Yes, she was a prodigious letter writer.’

  ‘Prodigious? Is that another word for bad?’

  ‘No, plentiful. Letter writing was quite a hobby of hers, I believe.’

  ‘Did she leave any instructions about who should read them, whether they should go to anyone in particular?’

  ‘No, nothing at all. Perhaps she had plans for them at a later date, but her death took her by surprise as much as it took the rest of us.’

  For some reason Lainey found that funny. ‘Yes, I suppose it did.’ She pinched the back of her hand to stop herself from laughing. ‘Did she have any close friends, Mr Fogarty, who might prefer to look through them? I feel I’m prying slightly.’

  ‘Close friends? No, I don’t suppose we would be able to stretch a point as far as that.’

  ‘So it’s up to me what I want to do with them?’

  ‘It is, I’m afraid. Your father might like to see them, perhaps. Or there is a paper recycling collection bin at the shopping centre, if you decide that’s the best option. From the brief glance I had, they seemed to be a mixture of the personal and the not very important.’

  ‘So you’ve seen them all yourself?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve even received a few of them in my day. Good afternoon, Lainey.’

  There was a van parked outside the B&B when she arrived back. A young man was standing on the doorstep holding an enormous bunch of flowers. He glanced down at a clipboard in his hand as she walked towards him. ‘Lainey Byrne?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘These are for you. Sign here, please.’

  They were from Adam. She read the note. Thinking of you and your bed-and-breakfasts and missing you in my bed. Love, Adam

  ‘That’s your boyfriend, is it? He rang a month ago and ordered these, said they had to be delivered to you sometime this week. You’ve got a romantic one there, love.’

  She’d barely shut the door behind her before she burst into tears.

  She was still lying on the couch in the living room, the cushion damp under her cheek, when the phone rang. It was nearly dark outside. She sat up, tried to pull herself together and reached for the phone. ‘Green Gables B&B, Lainey speaking. Can I help you?’

  ‘Lainey? You sound all choked up. Have you got that asthma back? You’re going to have to go back to the doctor if that’s the case.’

  It was her mother. She sat more upright, blinked hard several times, determined not to start with the tears again, not to sound upset. ‘I’m fine, Ma. It must be the line.’ She cleared her throat. ‘How are things with you all?’

  ‘Oh, no change here. How are things there, more to the point? We’re dying to find out if you’ve had Hilly Robson and Noah Geddes staying with you yet.’

  An easy subject. Lainey leapt at it. ‘Ma, that’s very hip of you. How do you even know about them?’ The Australian actress had apparently started an affair with Noah the bad-boy English singer. The Irish Sunday papers had been full of the gossip that the two were apparently on holiday together somewhere in Europe. The racier paper had set up a hotline for readers to call if they spotted the pair anywhere in Ireland.

  ‘Oh, they’re all over the papers here too. Scandalous, isn’t it? Why don’t they leave the poor things alone? I was reading about them in all the magazines as well.’

  Lainey was pleased at the excuse to laugh. ‘That’s why they don’t leave them alone, Ma, because people like you enjoy reading about them in the magazines so you keep buying the magazines so the magazines keep running stories about them.’

  ‘Oh, stop that. You’re sounding like Hugh. I can’t make a comment about a newspaper or a TV show without him lecturing me about the sociological impact of modern media on today’s society. Really, why couldn’t he have decided to study plumbing or dentistry or something useful?’

  ‘He’s a fine one to talk, mister paparazzi-in-training himself. And how are the others going?’

  ‘Oh, fine. Declan’s happy at the school, Brendan’s working all the hours God sends, as usual.’

  ‘And Rosie? Worn out watching daytime TV, I suppose?’

  ‘Elaine, don’t be catty. Just because she hasn’t taken the career path you have doesn’t mean she’s not as busy. It’s no picnic looking after two young babies, you know. The four of you had me up the walls half the time. Many’s the time I would cheerfully have sold you to the gypsies.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I know she’s busy. I’m just in a mean mood. And Dad?’

  Mrs Byrne’s voice lowered. ‘Up and down like a department store lift. He’s spent the last few days in bed, hardly come out at all, with your cat snoring away beside him, if you don’t mind. We had a bit of a talk about things last night, as it happens.’

  Oh, her poor father, Lainey thought. Her mother’s ‘bit of a talk’ was usually more like ‘a bit of a lecture’.

  ‘I’ve asked him to get out of the house and –’

  ‘Ma, you can’t do that. Where’s he going to go?’

  ‘Lainey, don’t interrupt me please, or of course you’ll jump to conclusions. I’ve asked him to at least try and get out of the house once a week, even if it’s just for a short trip in the car. I’m worried he’s spending too much time in that room. I looked it up on the Internet, and all the medical sites say it’s not good for him, lying there thinking about his own problems all the time. The thing to do is try and get him interested in the outside world a bit more, encourage him.’

  Lainey was relieved. Her mother didn’t sound as though she was about to abandon her father, not if she was doing things like websurfing for solutions. ‘So where are you going to take him?’

  ‘We haven’t agreed on that yet. And it’s only short trips, anyway. He can’t cope sitting up for long. But it might take his mind off waiting to hear from the creatures from the black lagoon.’

  ‘The who?’

  ‘The creatures from the black lagoon. That’s what Hugh’s started calling the insurance people. Apt, don’t you think? So tell me, you and Adam are burning the phone lines between you, I suppose? Oh, here’s your father now. Gerry, it’s Lainey. Will you have a word?’

  Her father came on the line. After giving him a thorough rundown on the meteorological conditions over Ireland the previous week, including mention of isobars, cloud formations and weather pressure systems, she remembered the folders of May’s letters she’d collected from Mr Fogarty. She switched from weather girl mode and told her father about them. ‘So would you like me to ship them back to you in Melbourne?’

  ‘Ship them to me? Why? What would I want with any of them, Lainey?’

  ‘She was your sister. Aren’t you interested in her life, in what she was up to?’

  ‘Not to that extent. She wouldn’t like me to have known too much about her, I don’t think. No, keep them there, by all means.’

  ‘Would it be all right if I looked at them?’ She was dying of cu
riosity. Even if the letters only turned out to be rants against various tourism associations, she’d learn something about her aunt. And it was something to do other than housework…

  ‘Of course you can.’

  She’d save them up, she decided. Keep them as a treat, a reward for when she’d passed the one month point.

  As she said goodbye and hung up soon after, she had a sudden urge to call Adam, to tell him the latest, have him make her laugh like he usually did. She blamed the flowers for putting the idea into her head, the tears for wearing away at her resolve, for making her doubt her own mind. She couldn’t ring him, could she? She had finished it between them. And today’s tears were just an accumulation of things. Her life had changed so much in the past few weeks, of course she had to let off a bit of steam, relieve some emotional pressure.

  She stopped her fingers from dialling his number, but her thoughts went through with it. She pictured his phone ringing, on the cupboard by the kitchen, by the open-plan living room which led onto the balcony overlooking the river and the trees. She pictured him lying on the couch, the lean, lanky body in faded jeans and an old T-shirt, flicking through recipe books or travel books on France and Italy, picking up ideas for his cooking…

  Then she blinked and the image disappeared. She insisted on it.

  It wasn’t until the middle of the night, as she lay in bed unable to sleep, that something occurred to her. Why hadn’t Adam cancelled the flower delivery?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THREE DAYS LATER, the wind was howling, the rain spitting, the rose bushes and the small shrubs in the garden tossing and bending against the storm. Inside, Lainey put down the phone and gave an excited shriek. Guests! Company! Two of them – walking, talking, paying customers.

  When she’d picked up the phone and was asked if she had any vacancies, she’d thought at first it was Eva speaking in a funny accent. Then she’d realised the call was authentic. At last. A reason to make the beds. A reason to set up the breakfast room and to light all the open fires. A reason to live. They’d booked for just the one night, but after she’d bombarded them with all she knew about the area, filled them up with delicious authentic Irish breakfast food, why, they were bound to want to stay a few more nights. A week even. She couldn’t wait.