Breakfast at Sadie's

by Lee Weatherly

  BREAKFAST AT SADIE'S

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Lazy Crazy

  Chicken Scratchings

  Perfect Perky Swans

  It's Just Carelessness

  Mucking It Up

  It's a Blonde Thing

  Twenty Per Cent of B&Bs

  Travelling in Style

  A Very Brave Girl

  Isn't That Wonderful of Her?

  Times Change

  The Full English

  Poor Diddums

  Vampira

  Crawling Ants

  The Dancing Duvet Cover

  Our Dream Day

  You're Hired

  But That's Illegal

  Mum's Handbag

  Fun with Learning

  Canary Yellow

  Splurge on the Jam

  Any Time, My Dear

  Scientific Hoovering

  The P Word

  100 Years of Caring

  That's Only Five Per Cent

  Complications

  Cycling in the Pyrenees

  A Very Famous Triptych

  Exactly the Same

  Blinking Hard

  Angel Wishes

  Rate of Fall

  Our Sadie

  Special Offer

  Intensive Bed-Making Class

  Mr Brochu

  The Industrial Revolution

  Take Your Cozzies

  Withered Old Crone

  That Awful Industrial Powder

  The Rain in Spain

  I'd Be Very Low-Key

  Message from the Beach

  Lizard Eyes

  No Offence

  Sort of Déjà-Vuey

  I've Been Practising

  Not Bad, Sherlock

  Locked in Hell

  An Original Feature

  Marcus Knows How to Cross the Street

  I Think You'll Find

  A Real Girly Slumber Party

  Paint the Town Red

  Life in the Real World

  Dad

  Favour to Humanity

  When It's Not Coming Out One End . . .

  Timing

  Food for Thought

  Career Opportunities

  The Wrong Direction

  That's Her Now

  Do Pardon Us

  Tennis Match

  The Full English, Take Two

  When the Living Is Easy

  Not a Hero

  Seeing Things

  It's Also on Powerpoint

  Dad Would Approve

  Also by Lee Weatherly

  Copyright

  For my mother,

  who read Shakespeare to me as bedtime

  stories and fished my own early story

  attempts out of the bin,

  and Moise,

  who, years later, reads his honorary

  daughter's stories with such pride.

  With much love to you both.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks are due to Annick and Bob Hammersley of the Anchorage Guest House, Brixham, who gave me an inside glimpse of the workings of the B&B world, and answered many nosy questions;

  To Dr Nick Lewis, who suggested Guillain-Barré Syndrome;

  And to my husband, for reading every draft, listening patiently to endless writer-angst, and offering calm, constant support. I couldn't do it without you.

  Lazy Crazy

  ‘It's just not good enough, Sadie; you need to apply yourself more.’ Mum frowned as she worked our industrial iron, pressing the creases out of a sheet. The smell of warm cotton filled the room. ‘It's like you don't even try.’

  Thanks so much for that insight, Mum. I took the sheet from her as she pulled it out, and started folding. The hot linen baked my arms.

  ‘Sadie, answer me!’ Hiss, hiss. Steam rose up, flushing her face and curling her short brown hair.

  ‘I do try,’ I said in a monotone.

  ‘Well, you could certainly fool me.’ Mum yanked a bit of duvet cover taut as she closed the iron. Her hand slipped as she was doing it, so that when she opened the iron again there was a massive crease. She huffed out a sigh, and grabbed the spray-bottle of water.

  ‘Three out of ten! Sadie, honestly, that's just being lazy. You can do better than that.’

  Leave me alone! How would you know? But I knew better than to say that. I laid the freshly folded sheet on top of the rest. In the corner of our lounge, the TV was on – one of those brainy quiz shows that people go on to show off how clever they are. Ooh yes, I believe the answer would be the central Amazon basin, Madam.

  Mum went on for ages as she opened and shut the iron. What about my future? What about university? My life would be ruined if I didn't start pulling my socks up. I kept folding sheets and duvet covers like a robot as the words pounded against my skull.

  Finally she switched the iron off. ‘Sadie, I know you think I'm just nagging at you, love, but you really need to apply yourself more. You're a bright girl; you need to start acting like it.’

  She went into the kitchen to start making tea, and I bolted off to my room, banging the door as hard as I dared. God, she never stopped! She'd go on about my marks if we were crossing the North Pole on dogsleds.

  I threw myself on my bed, trying to ignore the pile of books and papers that crouched on my desk like tarantulas. Yes, right, I just needed to apply myself more. How silly of me not to have figured it out before.

  I heard my Aunt Leona come in, and then a few minutes later the sound of her and Mum talking in the kitchen. I rolled my eyes. Trust her to get out of helping with the ironing. Aunt Leona kept well away from anything resembling work when she stayed with us at our B&B, which thankfully wasn't that often. She thought Brixham was a tourist trap, and only came here when she wanted to do a flounce on her latest boyfriend.

  I rolled over on my back, staring at the ceiling. If I strained my ears, I could just hear the sound of the ocean across the street, whispering against the beach. My room faced out to the side of the house, so I couldn't actually see the water from my window. But when my window was open, like now, I could smell the sea air, and hear the seagulls shrieking to each other. They congregated on top of our house sometimes as if they were having a convention.

  Everyone thought Mum was mad to have kept going with Grace's Place after my dad died. But one thing you can say about Mum, she doesn't give up easily – whether it's running a massive bed and breakfast on her own, or deciding that I'm some sort of genius who should be getting brilliant marks.

  Taking out my mobile phone, I started to text my friend Tara. She wasn't my best friend, just a friend. My best friend was Kate, but she was gone – she and her family moved to Australia last summer. We had emailed for a few months after she left, but it just wasn't the same. We hadn't written to each other in ages now.

  I looked down at the little plastic screen, and my fingers hesitated over the keys. To be honest, I really didn't feel like a hi, how r u, what r u watching on telly conversation just then. I glanced at my schoolbooks again, waiting on the desk.

  Could I do better, if I tried? I bit my lip, thinking about it.

  OK, completely mad idea . . . but what if I wasn't thick? What if I just needed to try harder? My heart quickened as I stared at my books. Maybe . . . maybe Mum was right, and I was just lazy. Maybe what I thought was trying wasn't actually putting any effort in at all. So if I really, really worked at it, harder than I had ever worked before . . .

  Slowly, I clicked the phone shut and got up, opening my maths book. A drawing of a square inside a circle looked up at me. The square has sides of 2.83 centimetres each. Calculate the circle's area.

  I took a deep
breath and sat down at my desk.

  Chicken Scratchings

  ‘Sadie, you're not listening!’ Hannah nudged my arm. The canteen throbbed with shouts and conversations, and the smell of greasy chips hung in the air.

  ‘Hang on.’ I tapped the numbers into my calculator again, and the answer came out the same – nine point two centimetres. Yes! Bubbles of excitement popped in my stomach. On to number six.

  Hannah shook her head and turned back to Alice. ‘Anyway, as I was saying . . . to my friends who actually listen to me . . .’

  I had worked on my maths homework until almost midnight the night before, going over and over it. After a few hours I started to feel like maybe I was understanding it a bit. In fact . . . looking it over now, it seemed pretty much perfect.

  Beside me, Tara slid a paper across to Hannah. ‘Oi, I can't read your writing. Is that a nine or a seven?’

  Hannah broke off, and rolled her eyes. ‘Try learning your numbers, you thickie. It's a nine. You know, nine – it comes after eight.’

  ‘Ta, my dear.’ Tara was already busy copying down the next problem. Hannah never bothered her, no matter how sarky she got. The two of them had been best mates since primary, and Tara had skin as thick as a rhino's anyway.

  Hannah looked at me again. ‘Ooh, look at you, Miss Swot all of a sudden.’

  ‘Just checking my handwriting.’ I put my calculator away and made my voice gravel. ‘ Neatness is important, people! I shan't strain my eyes to make out chicken scratchings, I shall just throw them in the bin!’

  Hannah burst out laughing, even though she's heard me imitate the Battleship a hundred times. ‘Sadie, you sound just like her! That's too scary.’ She glanced at my paper. ‘Do you want to check it against mine?’

  I grinned at her, thinking, Hannah, you are going to be soo surprised. ‘No, that's OK.’

  She raised her feathery brown eyebrows. ‘You sure? You could get a good mark for a change.’

  Oh, thanks. I felt like telling her off, but instead I pursed my mouth up like a toddler, and gave her a big-eyed look. ‘Ooh, but me wouldn't know what to do with a big mark. Me can only count up to five so far.’

  ‘Really? That high?’ Hannah laughed and turned back to Alice, leaning on her elbow as the two of them chatted. I shoved away my irritation, and looked over my homework again.

  It still seemed perfect. A perfect paper. I was actually looking forward to maths for a change.

  Perfect Perky Swans

  Except wouldn't you know it, the Battleship chose that day to be off ill, and of course the supply teacher didn't have a clue and just gave us a study hour. Which meant that everyone passed notes and talked, and my maths homework stayed in my folder.

  Never mind, I told myself. Monday. They'll see on Monday.

  After school, I went straight home as usual to help out with our B&B, even though most people, ones who had a life, actually got to do something interesting instead. I threatened once to report Mum to the authorities for child labour, but she just pulled a sour face and said that a nice restful spell in prison would be a holiday compared to her usual existence.

  I moved around the dining room, making up the place settings. A pile of fresh serviettes was slung over my arm, and a basket of silverware rattled at my side. I worked more slowly than usual, lost in a lovely warm daydream. Sadie, the one everyone turned to for help with their homework. The one no one laughed at in class any more, because she always got the right answers. I smiled to myself as I placed forks and knives on the tables.

  Our dining room has eight round tables, one for each of the guest bedrooms upstairs. Each table has a frilly white cloth, and a little vase with fresh flowers in it. The ceiling's painted pale blue, to match the view of the ocean outside. That was my dad's idea.

  Swipe the mat clean – the special ones that Mum bought, with the picture of Old Brixham on them – then fold the serviette in the swan shape that Dad liked so much. Fork, knife, spoon. Make sure they're gleaming.

  It was really no surprise that I didn't have a life outside school. Especially once Kate moved away, abandoning me to the serviettes. She used to help me with the dining room, and we'd have a laugh doing it. Wars with the serviette swans, pecking each other with their cloth bills. Now it was just me, and you couldn't do that on your own without being very sad.

  ‘Oh, he just won't stop!’ Aunt Leona appeared in the doorway, waving her mobile. ‘Listen to this: Where are you? Have you broken up with me? What about our holiday? Desperate to hear your voice!’ She groaned and threw the phone onto the sideboard. It clinked against the clean coffee cups.

  ‘ As if I'd feel like going to the Canaries with him now – I just want to be left alone!’

  ‘So don't go.’ I rubbed a bit of jam off a salt cellar with my cloth.

  ‘Well, I don't plan to! That's what I'm doing here.’

  ‘Well, good. So . . . no problem, right?’ I moved on to the next table, swiping the mats clean.

  Aunt Leona glared at me and went over to the bay window, leaning a bony hip against the sill and looking pointedly out at the ocean. She hated it when you told her there was no problem. She loved problems, so long as she got to star in them.

  Aunt Leona was Mum's younger sister. Much younger; she was only twenty-one. You could still tell they were sisters, though. She had the same narrow face and wavy brown hair as Mum, except that hers reached down to her waist, and she sometimes wore loads of little plaits through it. Mum always wore her hair too short, and it stuck up all over the place. She'd spend ages going at it with a wet brush and a hairdryer, only for it to start sticking up again about an hour later.

  I don't look like either of them. I'm tall and blonde, like my dad was. He used to call me his farm girl. I guess he meant that I looked like I should be outdoors, or something. Hopefully he didn't mean that I actually looked like I should be out milking the cows. On the other hand, Kate said once that I looked like a Swedish tennis player, which is far cooler than the farm girl thing.

  ‘Though three weeks in the Canaries would still be better than here, even with Ron the Loser,’ continued Aunt Leona, scowling out the window. ‘It's July! Where's the sun?’

  I folded a serviette. ‘Do you fancy helping me with this, to take your mind off it?’

  She gave me a look. ‘No, not really. I'm meant to be on holiday, aren't I?’

  ‘Yes, but there's only a few tables left. Then after that, you could help me with the laundry.’ I said it really innocently, like she might actually say, Wow, what a great idea! Let me at that laundry, I can hardly wait!

  She sniffed, and pushed herself up from the windowsill. ‘I'm going for a walk to clear my head a bit. It's very stressful, you know, all this with Ron – you wouldn't understand, you're too young.’

  And off she went, in a swirl of brown hair. I finished up the tables and dumped the silverware basket on the sideboard. It was a massive antique one, with scrollwork on the sides, and lots of little niches and drawers. Dad bought it at auction for practically nothing, and then spent almost a year sanding it down and fixing it up in his spare time.

  I glanced around the room, making sure that it looked OK, or else I'd have Mum jumping all over me. Were the white tablecloths straight? The serviette swans all standing to attention? The silverware so gleaming that you could see yourself upside down in the spoons?

  Yes, it was all fine. Perfect perky swans. And now on to my other fun chores.

  But for a moment I just stood there, leaning against the sideboard and looking out of the window. You could see right across the broad curve of the bay, clear to the other side of Brixham, where pastel houses climbed up the hill. When the sun was shining, there was sometimes a reflection of the water dancing on the ceiling, like wavery diamonds. It was probably fun to eat in here, like being on a boat.

  The dining room was only for our guests, though. Mum and I ate in our flat, which looked out to the car park.

  It's Just Carelessness

  Th
e faint sound of splintering glass shattered through the air, bringing me back to planet earth. ‘Oh, damn,’ said Mum's voice.

  I shoved the spare serviettes in a drawer in the sideboard and went down the corridor, pushing open the swinging door that lead to our flat. There were no antiques in here; it was all seventies swirling carpet and faded furniture. I found Mum in the kitchen, squatting on the floor with the dustpan and brush.

  ‘Don't come in, there's glass everywhere,’ she snapped when she saw me.

  ‘What happened?’ I propped a shoulder against the doorpost.

  ‘Oh, I don't know . . . I was putting the dishes away, and a glass just slipped out of my hand, somehow.’ Her face wore a tight scowl as she dumped tinkling shards of glass into the bin. ‘That's the third one this week; I must be going senile.’

  Glancing over at our dining table I saw that she had her ledger out, and bank statements spread across everything. She did her accounts once a month, and it put her in a bad mood for days.

  Mum sighed as she stood up. ‘I desperately need a cup of tea. How about you?’

  If I'd said no, I'd have had to start folding sheets and doing the ironing. I nodded, and Mum filled two mugs with steaming water from our industrial water heater. It was hooked up to the boiler, so there was hot water all the time.

  ‘There, that's better.’ Mum sat down at the dining table, pushing the pile of bank statements aside. She glanced up at me. ‘Did Leona help you with the dining room?’

  Was she serious? I shook my head, blowing on my tea. ‘No. Why would she do that?’

  ‘Well, she said she was going to.’

  ‘What, to get out of helping with the dishes?’

  Mum frowned, but couldn't actually deny it. ‘Well, she's having a hard time at the moment; all this stuff with Ron . . .’

  I shrugged. When was Aunt Leona not having a hard time? But I didn't say it. Mum had a blind spot the size of an ocean liner about Aunt Leona. At least she lived in London, and only graced us with her presence a couple of times a year.

  ‘Anyway, how did you do in school today?’ asked Mum, shoving her short brown hair back. It stuck up like an owl's tufts.