Open For Business

by Cressisa McLauchlin

  Robin could have done with a lie-in too. She was usually a morning person, and had pictured herself rising at five thirty during the summer to walk on the beach before breakfast, but after dealing with Will she had lain in bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering how long he had set the timer and watched the gently glowing lights above him. She had known that her first guest in Starcross would feel strange; she would care what anyone thought of it, regardless of who that person was. If it had been an old married couple, instead of Tabitha’s nephew, with the broad shoulders and green eyes and that way of being completely present, even in the long, high-ceilinged hall, she would have felt equally anxious. That’s what she told herself as, the cooking finished, she took a pot of Marmite out to Dorothy.

  ‘Thank you,’ Dorothy said, squinting as she turned her face up to the sun. ‘The weather seems to have welcomed our arrival.’

  ‘This is the first properly warm start we’ve had in a while,’ Robin said. ‘It feels like summer is almost here.’

  ‘It always feels closer by the sea, somehow,’ Dorothy said. ‘Probably because summer memories are beaches, sandcastles and ice creams. Down here you get a bigger summer quota than in big cities.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Robin said, picking up an empty juice glass, ‘there’s something lovely about sitting outside a city pub and soaking in the atmosphere and the heat from the tarmac after a long day at work.’ As she said the words, she contemplated whether she still felt that way. She’d loved doing that with Neve and other friends in London, but had it ever come close to being by the sea?

  Dorothy was looking at her closely, her pale eyes unblinking. ‘It’s not the same though, is it?’

  Robin shook her head. ‘No, you’re right, it’s not. I should be promoting Campion Bay, not sending everyone scurrying back home.’

  ‘Nobody wants to leave once they come here,’ Paige said, wiping down the Barkers’ table. ‘Campion Bay ticks all the boxes.’ Robin stared at her for a moment, searching for signs of sarcasm, but couldn’t find any. She’d wanted nothing more than to escape when she was Paige’s age, not because she hated the seaside town, but because she felt there was so much more to explore. Maybe Paige was made from the same mould as Tim, finding everything she wanted in the quaint Dorset town, seeing no need to look further afield for her future.

  ‘Birmingham has its moments,’ Neil chipped in as Robin wove through the tables, ‘but it doesn’t have the views.’

  ‘A sea view is pretty unbeatable,’ Robin admitted. ‘It’s never the same, from one day to the next. Can I get either of you anything else?’

  Neil shook his head. ‘I’m going to have to think hard about lunch at this rate. I couldn’t eat another mouthful. It was delicious, thank you.’

  ‘It’ll keep our energy up round the wildlife park,’ Catriona added.

  ‘Oh, you’ll love it.’ Robin’s thoughts drifted back to the times she’d been there growing up, with her parents and then friends. ‘It’s got a great petting zoo.’

  ‘And monkeys,’ Paige added. ‘Though don’t take your car through that bit, or you’ll lose a wing mirror.’

  ‘I’m heading straight for the penguins,’ Catriona said.

  ‘Too smelly for me, even if they are cute.’ Neil wrinkled his nose and Catriona gave him a playful slap on the arm.

  Robin left them to their excitement, and was stacking plates in the dishwasher as she heard the front door close. She peered down the corridor and saw Will walking towards her, wearing knee-length black shorts and a faded blue T-shirt. He had a red towel looped around his shoulders and Darcy at his feet, which were only half in a pair of battered trainers, his heels pushing them out of shape at the back. ‘Hi,’ he said, giving her a quick smile. ‘Am I too late for breakfast?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Robin saw that his hair was, again, damp. ‘Been for a swim?’

  He nodded. ‘The water’s freezing, but it’s the best way to wake up. And Darcy loves it.’

  Robin laughed. ‘You take your dog swimming with you?’

  Will shrugged. ‘I couldn’t go without her. There aren’t any restrictions, are there? I didn’t see any.’

  Robin shook her head. ‘No, not yet. Campion Bay is dog friendly, but you won’t be able to take her on the main beach from June. You’ve still got a month, though.’

  ‘That’s good to know, thank you.’ Will looked down at Darcy, who was standing obediently beside him. Robin couldn’t help but smile. They seemed so out of place next to each other, as if Darcy had adopted Will without him having any say in the matter. She could imagine the little dog following him around until he got bored with trying to shoo her away. ‘So, I’ll just …’ He pointed upwards and Robin nodded, trying not to laugh. She heard him tread lightly up the stairs, the patter of Darcy’s paws following closely behind.

  As Robin went back to her work, she wondered if she’d ever get the chance to see Will with dry hair. Then she wondered why she was even thinking about it.

  By the time Will and Darcy came down to breakfast, the other guests had left to start their days, exploring Campion Bay and beyond. Robin had let Paige go home, and was tidying up the last of the crockery.

  ‘Where do I go?’ Will asked, peering into the kitchen. ‘Can Darcy come into the breakfast room, or should I take her back upstairs?’

  ‘Out here.’ Robin dried her hands on a tea towel and led him into the garden. ‘And of course Darcy can come – it’s just me now. Take your pick of the tables and see what you fancy off the menu. Tea or coffee to start?’

  ‘Coffee, please.’ Will sat at the table closest to the kitchen door. He was still wearing the faded blue T-shirt, but the shorts had been replaced by dark jeans that emphasized his long legs, and the trainers exchanged for tan Wrangler boots.

  ‘Does Darcy have dry or wet food?’

  He looked slightly surprised. ‘Dry. But I’ve fed her already, upstairs. I didn’t realize you actually catered for dogs, I thought you just agreed to have her because I didn’t give you a choice.’

  ‘I could easily have said no to both of you.’ Robin said it with a smile, and Will narrowed his eyes as she disappeared inside.

  ‘Coffee coming right up!’

  She cooked her last breakfast for the day: scrambled eggs, Cumberland sausages, grilled tomatoes, local smoked bacon and home-made hash browns, and took a photo of it for the guesthouse Instagram feed before she gave it to Will. She left him to eat and cleaned and wiped down the kitchen, then went outside to offer him more coffee. His plate was clean and he was intent on his phone, Darcy lying a few feet away in a wide patch of sun, her head resting on her paws. Robin noticed with amusement that Eclipse was sitting beyond the French doors looking out at the dog, and that Darcy’s large brown eyes were trained on the kitten, her tail wagging gently.

  ‘More coffee would be great.’ Will put his iPhone in his pocket. ‘I’ve got a long day ahead of me.’

  ‘What are you doing down here? If you don’t mind me asking,’ Robin added hastily.

  ‘I’ve come to clear out Tabitha’s house,’ he said with a sigh, glancing up at the building next door and squinting slightly. His hair had dried in the suntrap of Honeysuckle and Robin saw she had been right; it was a toffee-brown colour with a few natural blond highlights.

  ‘You’ve got to clear out the whole place on your own?’ She took a step closer to the table.

  He shrugged and turned to look at her. ‘There’s nobody else to do it.’

  ‘What will you do with it once you’re done?’

  ‘Sell it, I suppose. I haven’t thought that far ahead.’

  Robin’s stomach clenched as she thought of Mrs Harris’s scorn at the prospect of a modern development on Goldcrest Road. Even if her assumptions of a shopping centre were way off, this was likely to be the easiest negotiation Tim had ever done.

  ‘You’ll sell it?’ She hadn’t meant to sound so stunned, but Will looked at her closely, leaning his elbows on the table.


  ‘I’m going into this blind,’ he said. ‘I know nothing about Campion Bay, about what’s in my aunt’s house and really, I have no clue what I’m going to do. I only know it falls to me, and the longer I leave it the worse things will get. Hence the impressive leak.’

  ‘I’ll get your coffee,’ Robin said quickly. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business.’

  ‘Hey’ – he reached his hand out towards her, palm up – ‘why not make enough coffee for both of us? You can give me a crash course in Campion Bay – if you’ve got time.’

  Robin smiled, relieved that he hadn’t taken offence at her intrusiveness. ‘Give me five minutes.’

  The glass-topped tables were only small, so when she sat down, Robin’s knees, clad in orange skinny jeans, briefly pressed against his before he moved them to the side.

  ‘You don’t seem too happy that I might sell the house,’ he said, after Robin had added milk to both mugs.

  Robin kept her eyes focused on the table. ‘It’s not up to me,’ she said. ‘It surprised me, that’s all. Tabitha has owned the house as far back as I can remember, and then, after she died, it’s just stayed empty.’ She glanced at him but his gaze was steady, no flicker of emotion at the mention of his aunt’s death. ‘I hadn’t thought about what happens next,’ she added, pushing her coffee shop discussion with Tim from her mind.

  ‘You and me both.’ Will rested his elbows on the table. ‘I’ve known about the house – that it would fall to me – ever since her will was read, but this is the first chance I’ve had to come down here and take a look at it.’

  ‘What do you do, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  He pressed his lips together, seeming to weigh something up before he answered. ‘I work – worked – at a historic house, in Kent.’

  ‘Doing what? It – you don’t own it, do you?’

  Will shook his head, giving her a rueful smile. ‘No, nothing like that. I do a bit of everything – help to manage the estate, odd jobs, pitching in as a tour guide. It’s not a large house, not English Heritage or National Trust, but it’s open to the public so there’s always work to keep on top of.’

  Robin tried to imagine him wearing a Barbour jacket and Hunter wellies, striding across a manicured lawn with a lurcher at his feet. She couldn’t do it, and not least because when she tried to picture it, the lurcher was immediately replaced with Darcy, scurrying to try and keep up with Will’s long strides, unprepared to let him out of her sight. ‘But you said worked. You’ve quit?’

  Will sighed, his chin dropping to his chest. ‘It’s obviously not something I can do freelance. I’ve known for a while that I’d need to come and sort out Tabitha’s house and it – it was suddenly the right time.’

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘I did. No two days were the same, always a new challenge, always meeting new people. Being a guide is fun, as long as the guests are vaguely interested. You can measure your success by how many of them are still maintaining eye-contact at the end of the tour.’

  ‘Did you make things up?’ Robin took a sip of her coffee but it was too hot, and she spluttered, spilling some over her hand. She put her mug on the table and sucked at the scald.

  ‘Here,’ Will said, pressing a paper napkin into her free hand. ‘Are you OK?’

  Robin nodded, stopped sucking the injury like a small child and wiped at it with the napkin.

  ‘Make things up?’ he asked. ‘You mean on the tours?’

  ‘You know, embellish the stories, add a few more juicy details.’

  Will shook his head slowly. ‘I can’t believe you’d even ask that. Of course not. People come to find out about the history of the house, not hear some sensation-filled fabrication.’

  Robin felt a flush of shame, but she could see that he was amused by the suggestion. She took another, tentative sip of her coffee. ‘At least your love of old buildings will help you today,’ she said softly.

  Will winced, lines forming at the edges of his eyes. ‘Clearing out an empty house isn’t quite the same thing.’

  ‘So do you know how long you’ll be down here? Will you have to find another job, or can you focus on next door?’ Robin knew that she was firing too many questions at him, that it was none of her business, but she had such a strong desire to know. Now he was sitting at her table, he could give her more insight into Tabitha and into her house, which suddenly seemed the object of so many people’s attention.

  Will leaned down to stroke the top of Darcy’s head. ‘I have no idea how long it’ll take, but if it stretches into months, if I’m making slow progress, then I’ll have to start looking for something round here. I knew I’d need space away from everything to make a proper start. I didn’t want the pressure of employers waiting for me, however reasonable they were about it.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ she said quietly. She watched him sip his coffee, drawn to his forearms, tanned and with a dusting of pale brown hair. It looked like he spent a lot of time outside, and Robin could picture him leading a group of awed tourists across a beautiful garden, an impressive stately home behind them – it fitted much better than the Barbour and the wellies, though Darcy was still in place, trotting loyally alongside. He had the presence to be a tour guide. She could see him commanding everyone, holding their attention with his green eyes. Especially, she thought wryly, the females of the party.

  ‘Have you run the guesthouse for long?’ Will asked, startling her out of her reverie.

  ‘Nearly twenty-four hours,’ Robin said, laughing at Will’s confused expression. ‘It reopened officially yesterday, with me at the helm. My mum and dad ran it for years, but they’ve moved to France and … well, now it’s my turn.’

  ‘Wow.’ Will’s eyebrows went skywards. ‘So this morning was your first time cooking everyone breakfast? You look like you’ve barely broken a sweat.’

  ‘I helped Mum and Dad out over the years, so I was more prepared than someone starting from scratch, and I’ve got my friend’s daughter working with me. Your breakfast is actually an Instagram star.’ She took out her phone and showed him.

  ‘That’s an accolade I never thought I’d get – devourer of a famous breakfast.’

  ‘You’d better remember this moment,’ she grinned.

  ‘Pretty sure I will,’ he said quietly, and her smile faltered under the weight of his stare. ‘Unflappable even when I turned up at midnight on your first day. But it must have been much more of a disruption than I imagined. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Stop apologizing. I had a room, I was still awake, and you didn’t put me out at all. Though I can’t claim to have been entirely unflappable.’

  Now it was Will’s turn to grin. ‘Maybe not. The room is great. Very calming. The pinprick lights especially. Did you know that if you stare at them for too long it looks like they’re twinkling?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘But maybe that suggests it’s not a good idea? I don’t want you suing me for eye damage. I haven’t actually spent much time in there, it was the last one we finished and it went right up to the wire. What did you think it was going to be like – when I told you my rooms were unique? You didn’t want to say last night.’

  Will held her gaze, his fingers drumming on the glass tabletop. ‘Honestly?’

  Robin nodded.

  ‘I was imagining, y’know, red satin sheets and a heart-shaped bed, maybe some fluffy handcuffs.’

  Robin gasped. ‘Handcuffs?’ she squealed, and then, remembering how small the garden was, lowered her voice. ‘Is that the impression I gave, answering the door to you last night?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Will said, a gleam of amusement in his eyes. ‘But you looked so panicked when I asked about a room, and then you said they were “unique” in this mysterious voice and then stood outside the door for so long, as if you didn’t want me to go in. What was I supposed to think?’

  ‘Well, now I know which direction your mind wanders, I’ll be more careful.’ She sho
ok her head scornfully, but a smile was threatening. She could see how she had come across as over-concerned, perhaps even a little bit unhinged.

  ‘Hey,’ Will laughed. ‘Come on. I was glad to be proved wrong. It would have been too much, on top of the late drive down from London, Tabitha’s house and the leak, to then be offered a different kind of service when you let me in. I slept like a baby, and I’m looking forward to using that telescope to check out the real stars later, if you’re happy for me to stay another night?’

  ‘Of course,’ Robin said. ‘I have no bookings in that room immediately, so stay as long as you need to. Though, I should remind you that Bear Grylls would have any leak fixed within twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Will said, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head, ‘but I’m not under as much pressure as he usually is. And now I’ve got this cosy guesthouse bedroom to stay in, with fantastic cooked breakfasts every morning, I’m wondering if maybe the leak will turn out to be really difficult to repair.’

  His face lit up with a lazy, easy grin, his eyes catching hers and holding on, and Robin felt her cheeks bunch into a smile. She wondered if, maybe, she wanted the leak to take a long time to fix as well.

  ‘So what happens now, Bear?’

  Will dropped his arms, running a hand through his short hair and leaving it tufty like an unruly hedgehog. ‘Now I have to stop sitting in the sunshine chatting to you, and go and see what Tabitha’s house looks like in daylight. I can’t say it’s the most appealing prospect.’

  ‘Well.’ Robin stood and picked up the empty mugs and the milk jug. ‘This is not a service I was planning to offer, but I’m not going anywhere today, so if you need a refreshment break I’ll do you tea or coffee, maybe even lunch if you’d like it.’

  ‘You will?’ He stood too, bending briefly and holding his hand out towards Darcy, who got slowly up and padded after him, obedient as ever. ‘That would be beyond generous.’

  ‘It’s only until you get a kettle set up in the house.’