by Beth Moran
Hard work I can manage. Emotional breakdowns and deeply personal outbursts I was not equipped to handle.
I dread to think what Nora Sharp would have made of it all. To my utter relief, for reasons I might begin to untangle once I’d had a decent night’s sleep and a glass of wine, the guests had seemed to love it – Simon even commented on how the décor in the bedrooms and the decrepit bathrooms had been the perfect metaphor for his crumbling, neglected real self.
Even better, the ridiculously large tip meant I could pay my team. Becky refused it at first, until we agreed that she’d spend it on a secret Old Side, New Side and No Side night out, somewhere in Nottingham where no one would spot us.
‘That was the most fun I’ve had in ages,’ Becky said, opening the sole remaining bottle of Prosecco.
‘That’s what you call it?’ Daniel asked, who had joined us for a late dinner of leftovers.
‘Compared to farting on about pharmaceuticals to people who mostly just want you to go away and let them get on with saving lives, it was fantastic!’
‘Fun or not, it was a bloomin’ success!’ Alice said. ‘Two thousand pounds each for that!’
‘Charlie would have absolutely loved it,’ I added. ‘Seeing her dream come to life, even if it was completely last minute, chuck-it-all-together and hope for the best…’ I had to stop talking and close my eyes.
‘To Charlie,’ Becky said, holding her glass up.
‘To Charlie.’ We all chinked our glasses in a toast, and for a brief moment it felt as though she was almost sitting here beside us.
‘So, when’s the next one?’ Becky asked, after following our reflective pause with a long drink.
‘Um, never?’ I said, my eyes on Daniel.
He looked at me steadily across the table. ‘Giving up on your dream so quickly? On Charlie’s dream? Is that what your vision pot says?’
‘You would really be up for doing it again?’
Daniel thought about this. When he was thinking a crease appeared between his eyebrows that a stupid, self-sabotaging part of me wanted to stroke until it softened away.
‘With proper planning, some reconfiguration of the farmhouse, sensible activities that people actually want to do… I don’t think anything’s happened in the past two days to make me change my mind.’ The hint of a smile creased at the corners of his mouth. ‘You sort of blew me away, to be honest.’
A flush of bashful pleasure cascaded up my neck and face like a scarlet tidal wave. Becky waggled her eyebrows at me.
‘All three of you did. You were brilliant. We couldn’t have done it without you.’
Ah, right. Of course. All of us blew him away.
‘What d’you mean, “we”?’ Alice asked, tossing her hair over one shoulder. ‘I think your contribution consisted of grumbling, hiding in your study and eating the last of the honey bread.’
On that note, we called it a night.
16
Saturday evening, we got a taxi to a smart hotel with a cosy bar and a fancy cocktail menu in order to spend Becky’s wages. I dug through the mishmash of clothes that I’d brought from my previous life, settling on a pair of jeans and a grey cashmere jumper that cost close to an overnight stay at Damson Farm. Alice had donned a floaty, embroidered dress that showed off her curves, and Becky had worn her usual leggings and a fleece.
‘Oh no! You look really nice!’ she groaned, once we’d shrugged off our coats and prepared to settle on a pair of sofas near the fireplace. ‘Ugh. I knew I’d get it wrong. It was this or a starchy suit that needs tights. And when I handed in my notice I swore I’d never wear tights or court shoes again, unless I was in actual court.’
‘You look…’ I couldn’t say she looked fine. She looked a scruffy mess. Alice grinned, waiting to see what I came up with. ‘Comfortable. Which is surely the most important thing.’
‘Where do you get all these amazing clothes from, anyway?’ Becky asked, once we’d ordered our drinks.
‘I needed them for my last job,’ I mumbled, concentrating on taking a slurp of my Bellini. ‘So, have you all recovered from the retreat fiasco? I still can’t believe they went along with musical statues!’
‘And what was that?’ Alice asked, leaning across the low table.
‘What was what?’ I replied, all breezy as I inspected the menu. ‘Ooh, these nachos look good. Anyone up for a sharing platter?’
‘What was your last job?’ She leaned even further forwards. ‘Where did you live? How did you end up here?’
I looked at my two new friends, at their open, lovely faces, and I could feel the truth clawing at my throat to get out.
But then I imagined how those faces would drop – with disgust, disappointment, dislike. How they’d pretend to understand, nod their heads and smile politely, but they’d realise the kind of person I really was, which was not their kind of person, no matter what side she came from.
And I was so damn lonely. I needed these two.
‘Um, I was a freelance writer. I had a blog, did some features for newspapers. A bit of ghostwriting.’ Strictly all true.
‘Sounds like the kind of job you can do in pyjamas, not cashmere sweaters,’ Becky asked, pushing her glasses up her nose.
‘I had to meet clients. For the ghostwriting. I needed to present a successful image. And, you know, rich celebrities, they’d pass on their cast-offs. I hardly ever had to pay for anything.’
‘Sounds cushy!’ Alice said. ‘Why’d you ditch it and come here?’
‘Oh, you know.’
No, they didn’t know why anyone would give up the seemingly glamorous job of writing and move to a falling down farmhouse.
‘I grew tired of it. Pretending my words were someone else’s. I grew up in the Lakes, and big city life was starting to get to me. A bit like Stephe and co, just because something sounds like living the dream, doesn’t make it your dream.’ I wasn’t sure they were convinced.
‘Bad break-up?’ Alice asked.
I pulled a face. This I could roll with. ‘He was a lying, cheating sack of crap.’
‘Well, why didn’t you say so?’ Alice rolled her eyes. ‘Grew tired of swanking about with celebrities in free clothes!’
We of course had a good laugh about the retreat, going over our strokes of apparent genius along with the moments of utter cringe.
‘So, what’s next?’ Becky asked. ‘How are you going to get Damson Farm up and running for real?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure. All I was meant to be doing was sprucing up the farm before we decided what to do next. But amongst the lack of sleep, the preposterous activities and the stress of knowing we were one tiny misstep from a calamity the whole time, I sort of loved it.’
‘I totally loved it!’ Becky declared. ‘Although, to be fair, it wasn’t my money on the line.’ She took another sip of her gin fizz then, before placing it carefully on the table. ‘If you were looking for a business partner, however, I’d be up for it.’
I was speechless.
‘I’ve got a fair amount of savings lying about just waiting for the right investment. I’m bored, lonely and I think I could bring something of value.’ She paused to tuck a corkscrew curl behind her ear. ‘I think we could work well together, as long as we draw up a proper agreement, make sure expectations and assumptions are all clear from the start.’
I swallowed. Blinked a few times. Shook my head in wonder.
‘I mean, if you want to go it alone, I totally understand, absolutely no offence taken or feelings hurt. You don’t even have to explain, beyond a “thanks, but no thanks”. I’ll still come and help you out as and when, obviously.’
I cleared my throat in a vain attempt to dislodge the chunk of emotions. Blinked a few more times.
‘That sounds incredible.’
Becky’s blank face broke out into her beaming smile again, bright enough to chase away any twinges of trepidation about whether before she invested in our future together, I should perhaps divulge my past
.
New start. New life. New Eleanor.
The past was irrelevant, here, wasn’t it?
‘Well,’ Alice chipped in, once I’d dried my eyes and blown my nose. ‘Last I checked I’ve about thirty-five quid in the bank, but if you need a team member you can pay, instead of them giving you money, I’m all in.’
‘Hurrah, our first employee!’ I chinked Alice’s glass with my now empty one.
‘Who will be hired on a sub-contracted basis, and is therefore not an actual employee who requires national insurance payments!’ Becky added, in an exact mirror of my celebratory tone, adding her glass to the mix.
And there you have it, Old Siders, New Siders, No Siders – Team Damson was born.
Every day the next week, Becky came to the farm. She’d known Daniel forever, and they quickly developed an easy camaraderie that helped settle my nerves about the whole thing. Becky hired a solicitor friend to help us plough through the legal side of our new venture, and it made sense to add Daniel as a director, given that we were using his property. We spent a couple of hours each morning working on the reams of admin, switching to cleaning, painting and sorting in the afternoon. Dotted amongst all this was time spent conducting what Becky deemed the most vital element to any successful business partnership: building trust and establishing a rapport, otherwise known as eating biscuits, savouring long lunches consisting of ‘test menus’ and ‘test cakes’, all accompanied by a steady stream of conversation.
Sometimes Daniel joined us, spooning mushed up carrot into Hope while making the odd suggestion or reeling us back in to reality when our ideas started straying beyond innovative and into downright silly.
I tried to pretend I didn’t love those meetings best of all, but it was growing increasingly difficult. I knew this, because I was also struggling to remember why my growing feelings for Daniel were such a bad idea. He was a good guy. He was honest and forthright, the complete opposite of Marcus. A perfect example of the kind of person I was trying to become. He was a heart-squeezingly devoted dad. We laughed at the same things, were able to talk for ages or, more often, not bother talking at all. Most importantly, I felt completely comfortable with him – apart from those times he looked at me a second too long, or stood beside me to peer into the pan I was stirring, and I caught a whiff of his scent, and shivers ran up my spine that were far from comfortable.
I was rapidly starting to want to know everything about this man. I loved every second spent discovering who he was, who he had been – and, in the spirit of the lifestyle regeneration retreat, who he wanted to be. But the deeper we went, the more I wanted him to like me, the more important it became to keep the colossal shadow in my past hidden. Because the more I knew him, the more I knew that he wouldn’t like what he found there. I was stuck, and it was distinctly uncomfortable.
I also suspected that at times he could sense that I was keeping something from him. Only, unlike Becky and Alice, he was patient, and gentle about it. At a loss of what else to do, I decided to simply enjoy his patience and his gentleness for as long as he’d let me.
17
One of the most important changes we needed to address was the bathrooms. Daniel had agreed that he would move into Charlie’s room once we’d found the courage to sort through all her things and then redecorate. The storage space next to it could be adapted into a bedroom for Hope at some point, too. We spent a good while going over our options for the first floor, eventually agreeing to see if it was possible to convert the box room into a bathroom that could then have interconnecting doors to the two smaller bedrooms. It wasn’t ideal, but as Becky kept reminding me, this was a retreat house, not a hotel or even a B & B, and we wouldn’t be charging anything close to £2,000.
That gave us four bedrooms, with space for up to eight guests. If we managed to make a success of it (‘What do you mean, “if”?’ Becky retorted), then there were a couple of falling down outbuildings that were begging for a renovation. One thing at a time, however, as Daniel kept reminding us. Or, to be more realistic, about 300 things at any one time.
But we were getting them done. Damson Farm was being transformed.
I contacted Luke Winter and asked if he could provide a quote for completing the bedroom and bathroom plans. Two weeks into our new project, he came over to take a look and see what he could do.
Becky let him in, while I hovered in the background eagerly awaiting her life-long unrequited love.
‘Becky.’ He nodded, face unsmiling but what I hoped was the hint of warmth in his eyes.
‘Um, hi Luke!’
Oh my goodness. Becky was close to spontaneous combustion.
Which might have explained why she then simply stood there, clinging onto the door, not saying anything else or making space for him to come in.
‘Hi Luke!’ I offered, over her shoulder, hoping that would be enough to kick-start her into doing something. Nope. I eventually resorted to firmly tugging her back out of the way. ‘Come in. I’m Eleanor.’
‘Yes.’ He nodded. Of course he already knew that, along with everyone else wondering about what was going on up at the farm.
‘Shall we get straight to it?’
Another nod.
‘Becky, did you want to show Luke the first floor while I put the kettle on?’
‘Um.’ Becky glanced back at me, face afire, eyes golf balls of panic.
‘Tea or coffee?’ I asked Luke.
‘Either.’
‘Great. How do you have it?’
‘However it comes.’
Wow. If he was this unfussy about his girlfriends, Becky would have no problem.
Becky was still frozen. Luke stood a couple of metres away, gripping a toolbox with both hands while examining a brown patch on the ceiling.
I decided to leave them to figure it out.
One way or another, they made it up the stairs. I found Becky standing on the landing, eyes transfixed on Luke as he measured a wall in the box room, his T-shirt riding high enough to reveal a strip of smooth, tanned skin.
I handed her a mug of tea, which, when Luke turned around to take the other drink, she then slopped all over herself. I resisted the urge to comment on how she’d made the effort to wear a pair of nice jeans and a snazzy blouse, instead taking the mug off her and shooing her into the bathroom. She was still in there when Luke left, with the promise of a quote to follow.
‘You can come out of hiding now!’ I called, my voice bubbling with laughter. She waited another minute before strolling out of the bathroom as if she’d been in there for a mere minute, rather than nearly twenty.
‘I’ll make myself a fresh drink, then we can get this landing carpet up, see what’s underneath.’
As if. I followed her downstairs and as soon as we were in the kitchen, Daniel came and joined us, poking his nose into Hope’s pram to check she was still sleeping.
‘So, how’d it go?’ he asked, grinning.
‘Luke thinks it’s totally doable. He’ll send us a quote in a couple of days, but probably won’t have time to do the work for a few weeks.’
‘And?’ He nodded at Becky, who had her back to us, watching the kettle as if a non-watched pot never boils, rather than the other way around.
‘She tipped tea all over herself and then hid in the bathroom until he left.’
‘Seriously, Becky? You can charm a load of obnoxious strangers into playing musical statues, and you can’t handle being in the same room as Luke Winter, the most easy-going man on earth?’ He shook his head. ‘You’ve got it bad.’
Becky handed him a mug of tea. ‘I’ve met a thousand Stephes at a hundred different events. Their flash and swagger don’t intimidate me one bit. But a decent, kind, hardworking and honest man? Luke sees straight through all that sales-pitch BS, he’s not interested. When I told him I got all As in my GCSEs he nodded politely before turning around and asking Monica Patchett if she’d like help finding her lost kitten. He’s not impressed by any of the things I’m impressive
at. All he’s interested in is a person’s personality, and I’m not sure I’ve got a real one of those left. Luke Winter would want a woman of goodly character. Not one who made a living conning medical professionals into buying life-saving drugs at rip-off prices.’
‘How about one who walked away from all that?’ I suggested. ‘One who had the strength to admit that wasn’t who she wanted to be, and who sacrificed a successful career to start over with nothing?’
‘I have a lot more than nothing,’ Becky groaned. ‘The problem is I feel like I’m a nothing.’
I pulled out a chair for her to sit down on. ‘Believe me, I get it.’ Boy, did I get it. ‘But don’t insult me and Daniel by saying you’re nothing. You’re our friend, and someone we think worthy enough to partner up with in building our dream. Do you think Daniel would trust his family home to a nothing?’
‘Okay,’ she sniffed. ‘But there’s a long way between not-a-nothing and a woman Luke would consider crossing over to the Old Side for.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! This isn’t Romeo and Juliet! If Luke is such a good and decent person, he won’t care about an old feud.’
‘It makes it complicated, though. Old Siders are barred from the Boatman, Luke’s local. It takes forever to detour around to his side. Let alone the constant grief from family and neighbours and everyone else. They wouldn’t even serve him in the chippy if they thought he was sharing his fish special with me. What if we wanted to get married one day? We’d have to elope to avoid it becoming a mass showdown.’
I looked to Daniel for some rationality but he just shrugged. ‘Old wounds run deep. It’s not just Old Side and New Side to them. Ziva’s father-in-law died during the strike. He was so malnourished and rundown that when flu turned into pneumonia, he couldn’t fight it off.’