by Emma Jackson
‘You are here – I almost thought I dreamt it.’ I shook my head and pulled off the silk scarf from around my hair. ‘What time is it?’
She removed the pen. ‘Nearly eleven.’
‘Whoa.’
‘I let you sleep. You needed it.’
I really had. I had missed my pyjamas. Getting to sleep in and wear my so-worn-they-were-almost-see-through cotton pyjamas was a luxury I’d been denied for too long. I grabbed a spare mug and joined her at the table, helping myself to a coffee from the pot. ‘So, how’s Grandad? Did you drop him at Auntie Cath’s?’
She closed the lid of her laptop softly and nodded. ‘We managed to make it down to London on Christmas morning but driving in those conditions was exhausting. Cath ended up convincing me to stay to eat before I headed down here.’ She chewed her lip in a very uncharacteristic way. ‘I never would’ve stopped if I’d known you were completely on your own. You should have told me about Henry.’
Of course, she knew. Neeta was in this morning and would’ve filled her in over breakfast.
‘I couldn’t get hold of you,’ I protested feebly.
‘You left me a couple of messages though. Before my phone died. When did it happen?’
I explained when I had caught Henry stealing, trying my best to be as honest as possible. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do. Did I overreact? Should I have waited until you got back before we did anything?’ I leaned my head on my hand, propped up by the table. I was already beginning to feel tired again. Actually, it more like an odd combination of exhaustion and nervous energy. I hadn’t relaxed in days and it was like my body had forgotten how. ‘Was it true you gave his wife’s job to me because I came back to live here?’
Mum took a hair band from her wrist and scraped her hair back into a bun; a sign she needed to think. She got up and set about making me some toast even though I hadn’t asked for any. I waited, trying not to go mad all the while.
‘It’s sort of true.’ She set the toast before me. ‘I had mentioned that we’d need some extra help coming up to Christmas, and he’d suggested her, but then you came home and…well, you know how this place runs without training obviously, in so many aspects. I hadn’t even interviewed her.’
‘You didn’t interview me.’
‘No.’ She sat back down again and frowned into her coffee cup, licking the tip of her finger to wipe off a smudge on the lip of it. ‘I suppose that doesn’t seem fair. But interviewing you would be such a waste of time for everyone.’ She took a sip of coffee. ‘I didn’t realise they were in financial straits. He never should have stolen though. There’s no excusing that.’
‘Why do I feel so bad then?’ I sighed and attempted a bite of toast, even though my stomach reacted like I was trying to make it digest cardboard.
‘It’s always awful having to fire someone. Being an employer is a huge responsibility. You know it’s someone’s livelihood you’re cutting off. But equally, if the profits of the business are continually undermined – by staff stealing or not carrying out their jobs well – then everyone will lose their job because the business will go bust.’
I nodded along. It made complete and utter sense when Mum talked about it that way. I’d even made that argument to Henry in the moment. Still, it had been the day before Christmas Eve. They must have had a miserable time. They must be so worried and stressed. Poor Joseph. If making decisions like that was what being in charge meant, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be. But that discussion needed to happen later. First, I needed to make sure she knew about everything else that had happened.
‘I set light to the kitchen on Christmas Day,’ I blurted out. And then carried on while I still had her attention, like I was ripping a strip of wax off her leg. ‘And the hotel had to be evacuated. And that hotel reviewer…well, he got the full story, no holds barred, God knows what he’s going to write about the place.’ I dragged in a shaky, painful breath. ‘I’ve probably made the hotel go bust. I tried; I swear I did. I’m sorry.’
Mum reached her arm across the table and gripped my hand.
‘Look at me, Beth. Look at me.’ I reluctantly met her eye. ‘I am nothing but proud of you, okay? You kept this place going. The guests were happy. I’ve heard all about the things that happened and how you dealt with them and I don’t care about some reviewer.’
A ragged little sound squeaked out of my throat and I covered my mouth with my free hand to keep it in, because I did care about the reviewer. Or I had. And now it was over with him before it had even begun. Which was the way it had to be, because I couldn’t get involved with another man who hid the truth from me.
My mum pushed her chair back and came around to hug me.
‘You need some more rest.’ She rested her cheek on the top of my head. ‘I’m sorry you had to deal with so much on your own. Now, I don’t want to see you downstairs for at least another twenty-four hours. Sleep, watch TV, eat chocolate, okay?’
‘Okay.’
I told myself that I wasn’t being pathetic to disappear under my duvet for the remainder of the day because of the following: I needed to recuperate; I deserved a rest after how hard I’d worked recently; it was Boxing Day; I had to catch up on my series binge-watching, and my mum had said I could.
I tried every show available: zombies, billionaires, crooked politicians, Vikings, pirates; I didn’t make it through a single episode without drifting off into a haze of Nick-orientated thoughts and yearnings. I could feel ghost touches on my skin, his fingers in my hair, his voice whispering words in my ear that I thought he’d meant, and that stupid organ in my chest ached. It ached in a way it had no right to for a man I’d only known a few days.
It didn’t help that I wasn’t sure whether he was downstairs somewhere. I didn’t know what day he was due to leave the hotel. I didn’t want to bump into him again, but I equally hated the feeling that I was in hiding as though I was the one who had something to be ashamed of. So, I gave myself Boxing Day, but on the 27th, I made myself get up.
Mum and I already had a present put aside ready for when Ben and Rachel’s baby arrived, so I wrapped it, wrote the card and headed into the village. It was like coming out of hibernation. I’d been in the cocooning heat of the hotel for too long and, despite the snow rapidly melting, the air still stung my cheeks.
Ben and Rachel lived on the far side of the village green, so instead of turning right toward the high street, I followed the loop of road left, until I reached a row of neat little houses facing the school. They couldn’t have lived anywhere more convenient for becoming parents if they tried. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they chose it precisely for that reason, even before they were married. Having such a clear vision for the future must be amazing.
I knocked on their green-painted front door, and waited for them to answer. It was very quiet inside and I really hoped I wasn’t waking them up from much-needed sleep. I was almost ready to turn and disappear when Rachel opened the door with one hand, a tiny little bundle of Babygro and fluffy pale hair, curled on her other hand and resting against her shoulder.
‘Beth.’ Rachel smiled at me. ‘This is a lovely surprise.’
‘Blimey, sorry, I should’ve called you first shouldn’t I? I just came to drop off a present for you – well, for this little one, actually.’
‘Oh, that’s so sweet of you. Er…’ She glanced around the short hallway as though looking for something and then shook her head. ‘Right, hang on. I was going to take Ivy out for a walk. Would you like to join us?’
‘Yeah, of course.’
She disappeared down the hall, stopped, came back, handed me the car key to the small hatchback parked in front of their hedge. Took the present from me, went back down the hallway, stopped again after putting the present down on the stairs, came back again.
‘God, sorry. My brain. Um, could you get the pushchair out of the boot? It’s really easy to put together. I just need to get our stuff and we’ll be right out.’
‘Right o
ut’ turned out to mean a minor Ice Age passing, but since ‘easy’ also translated from Rachel-speak into ‘incomprehensible and dangerous to fingers’, I needed that long to figure out how to how to unfold the chassis of the pram and then attach the carrycot to the top.
She came out laden with an enormous bag, which she stowed under the push chair, and the tiny baby, now roughly twice the size in a white, plush pram suit, with little bunny ears, pulled up over the top of a snug hat. Rachel laid the baby in the carrycot and covered her with a blanket, then fastened the pram cover into place too and we were all set.
‘Right. Ready.’ Rachel sighed. It was probably the most stressed I’d seen her since our GCSE exams. ‘Are you ready to go for a little walk, darling?’ She crooned into the mass of blankets and swaddling.
I leaned over to get my first proper look at the baby and saw a small face, almost invisible lashes around her blue eyes and a little round chin. Pretty much like every newborn, except there was a look of Rachel about her.
‘Hi.’ I smiled at her but obviously she didn’t do much back. She was only a few days old. ‘She’s lovely,’ I told Rachel as we started walking slowly alongside the green. Rachel just nodded, because of course her child was lovely. ‘It’s so weird that she was inside your body a week ago,’ I commented, without really thinking about it.
Luckily Rachel laughed. ‘I know. It doesn’t seem real. Like, I thought I knew her, she was in my tummy wriggling around and making herself known, but now she’s really here and she’s a proper person. It’s crazy.’
We were both quiet for a moment as we absorbed the surreal nature of this everyday phenomena. Babies, life, weird.
‘So, you went with Ivy? It’s cute.’
‘Well, Holly or Evie seemed a bit obvious for a Christmas baby.’
‘You could’ve called her Noelle – that would’ve worked with the Christmas theme too.’
‘Oh, Noelle. What a phenomenal woman. I don’t know what I would’ve done without her.’
‘I’m so pleased she was staying at the hotel and you decided to come up that night.’
‘It was fate.’
‘I suppose.’ I smiled, even though I wasn’t sure things were written in the stars at all. There was good luck and there was bad luck and you just kind of did the best you could with what you got.
And something about that thought resonated with me. I’d been struggling so much recently between how Peter had treated me and the things Henry had said to me, making me think I was some kind of layabout, expecting others to take care of me. But it wasn’t true. My mother had supported me to get my degree, like most parents tried to, and then Peter had said he could be the main breadwinner – I hadn’t asked him to – and as for Henry’s accusations of nepotism, they weren’t right either. The reason my mum had given me a job at the hotel was because I’d been working there since I was a teenager. And if she really did want me to take on a managerial role permanently, it wasn’t like I’d sitting back with my feet up taking credit and a big salary for other people’s efforts. Managing that hotel, the way my mum – and I – felt guests deserved was a dedicated job. The question now was whether I really wanted to give up on teaching music to do that.
If I thought Rachel might have noticed I’d been quiet for a long time, one glance at her besotted face, staring at her newborn, alleviated my concern. She was in a glorious little bubble, completely falling in love with her daughter, and probably couldn’t have cared less if I’d been abducted by aliens. It was sort of beautiful.
‘Noelle said you were pretty amazing too. What were her words: “a trouper” I think it was.’
‘Oh God bless her. There was no time to be anything but a trouper, I guess. This little lady was coming whether I was ready for her or not.’ She paused at the corner of the green and tucked the baby’s blanket in. Ivy was fast asleep already. ‘Do you have Noelle’s address or email, so I can get something to her to thank her?’
‘Oh, sure. No problem. She did give me her contact details, so I’ll just check with her it’s okay before I pass them on. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you.’
‘Thank you too, Beth. You really took charge of us all. It was so obvious you’re a teacher. You put on this voice and all the hapless men fell into line. It was brilliant.’
I laughed at the thought. All the men really had been hapless.
‘If you’re still living here when Ivy’s big enough, we’ll be sending her straight up to you for her music tutoring. You know, if she wants to play an instrument. I don’t want to be one of those pushy parents—’
And off she went into a monologue about what she wanted to do for the brand-new shiny person she was responsible for. We finished our walk around the green and said goodbye at her front door.
I took a slow walk up the hill, still thinking about good luck and bad luck, not really looking where I was going, and my boot connected with something in the snow. I looked down at the slush and there it was. My phone, at the edge of the path. I didn’t know if that counted as good or bad luck considering it was wrecked and I’d need a new handset, but there it was. I must’ve lost it when Nick and I were pushing the wheelbarrow up the hill on Christmas Eve. I dug it out and slipped it into my pocket, wondering whether he was going to put that part in his blog. I hadn’t looked it up since I found out it was him. It would be strange – not to mention painful – to hear the words on the screen, judging our hotel, in his voice.
Back in my bedroom in my trusty PJs again, I swapped my SIM card into an old handset, put the snow-logged one in a bag of rice in the airing cupboard just in case and then fired off a quick email to Noelle, giving her my number. She called me before I could even get my legs under the duvet.
‘Hey there, stranger, I’m so pleased you emailed me. I hated that I didn’t get to say goodbye. Plus, I am stuck waiting at Heathrow for my flight outta here and I am bored. How are you? Recovered from Christmas yet?’
I grinned and reassured her I was fine. It was surprisingly comforting to talk to Noelle again. Sometimes people say they want to stay in touch and give you every indication that they’re genuine and yet you never hear from them again. Noelle had meant it.
We chatted about her flight delay and the obligations she was facing when she got home, from her family and her deadline. I told her how Rachel wanted her contact details so she could send her something as a thank you and what they’d called the baby. And then the conversation wound around to her ‘investigation’ about the mysterious blogger.
‘I figured out who the Hotel Hopper is. D’you wanna know?’
I folded my legs underneath me and smoothed the duvet over them. I didn’t need to say anything. She was going to tell me anyway.
‘It was totally like an Agatha Christie mystery because – get this – it was two people, not one, that we were looking for. June and Jane.’
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Huh?’
‘I know. The mother and daughter. I can’t believe I didn’t suss it out sooner. They were always taking photos and typing away on their phones. And then, at the Christmas party, June or was it Jane – I dunno, I never got them straight in my head – one of them anyway, was taking photos of the guests, but also getting their permission to post them online.’
‘Oh God.’ I remembered her pulling me into a photo before I went upstairs to see Nick. ‘Are you sure, Noelle?’ My voice was faint, and I wet my lips.
‘Yeah. I started chatting to her, once I suspected, and got the conversation onto other holidays and places they’d been, and they married up with the research I’d done on the hotels reviewed over the last few months on the blog.’
My chest rose and fell sharply. ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake.’
‘Why? What’s wrong?’
‘Did you tell Stephen about the Hotel Hopper and how we were trying to work out who they were?’
‘Yeah. It’s a funny story actually. When we were with Ben and Rachel, the Dictaphone fell out of my bra
, so I kind of had to explain why it was there. I’ve probably got some very funny stuff on there with him panicking. Could be used for blackmail purposes at a later date.’ She laughed. ‘But I’m confused. What does that have to do with who you thought it was?’
I lay back on my bed, covering my eyes with my hand.
‘Stephen told me it was Nick.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, on Christmas Day. He made a comment about Nick putting the party in his blog. That it’d be a good angle or something.’
‘That’s…weird.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you believed him?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered. Of course, I’d believed him. If Peter, my fiancé, had managed to pull the wool over my eyes for a year, then why wouldn’t I believe that Nick could do the same when he was basically a stranger? Plus, Noelle had pointed out how perfectly it fit Nick’s job, seeing as he was constantly staying in hotels…even though I knew from what he said that they were just layovers. The airline was unlikely to put him up in plush five stars, was it? Maybe. I didn’t know what airline he flew for or how they treated their pilots. I didn’t know any of that because I hadn’t asked. Why hadn’t I asked? Because I’d been rushing into things with him blindly like I always did.
‘What happened? Didn’t you talk to him about it?’
‘Yes. Sort of. We argued. He denied it. I didn’t believe him and he left…’
‘Oh, Beth. You didn’t explain that Stephen had told you?’
‘I…don’t think so. No. No – I didn’t.’ I pinched the bridge of my nose hard. ‘What have I done?’ My voice hitched; my throat thick with tears I was determined not to shed.
‘Jeez. Beth. You want the truth, or you want me to make you feel better?’
‘The two are mutually exclusive?’
‘I gotta hunch they are.’
I swore. I knew what the truth was without her telling me. I’d jumped to conclusions and pushed him away, not twenty-four hours after he’d made himself vulnerable to me. I had to tell him I was sorry for thinking the worst.