by Beth Moran
‘But we’ve only got one room!’
‘Well, I presume you’ve not rented out my old top bunk to a Weighbridge Walker. I know they love it here, but even our regulars have to draw the line at Grandma’s snoring.’
Mum looked shifty again. ‘I haven’t rented out your old bed, no.’
‘Well, that’s fine then, isn’t it?’
‘But we did move it into the Osprey room to create a second family suite. Your Grandma has a plain single now.’
‘Okay. Fine.’ It was, it was totally fine that I’d come home for the first time in nearly a year and there was no room at the inn. ‘I’ll grab a blanket and find myself a sofa.’
She folded her arms. ‘You can’t do that! It’s against Tufted Duck policy. All guests must vacate the communal rooms by 11 p.m. No sleeping outside of assigned bedrooms.’
‘I’m not a guest!’
She shook her head, jaw set. ‘No sleeping outside of assigned rooms. Not even for family. Not even for Charlie’s family.’ Her voice cracked, and she sniffed sharply.
I closed my eyes, tried not to picture me and Daniel sharing a bed, counted to about two and then opened them again. ‘Okay. I’ll ensure I remain within the policy. Please go back to bed, Mum, we’ll sort something out.’
She harrumphed and left us to it.
‘I’d be happy to sleep—’ Daniel started.
‘Don’t!’ I held up one hand in protest. ‘Please, don’t let’s talk about it until we’ve had a drink and something warm and fattening to eat first.’
Two mugs of hot chocolate and reheated slices of blackberry and apple pie later, we went upstairs to find that my parents had made up the Mallard bed and assembled a travel cot that took up most of the floor space.
‘I’m so sorry about this,’ I said, resisting the urge to bury my face in a frilly cushion. ‘My parents live in their own world and sometimes I forget how bizarre it is compared to the rest of us.’
‘How do they stay in business if they never answer the phone?’ Daniel checked Hope’s nappy and then tucked her gently under the pink blankets, where she let out a big sigh and scrunched up into a sleepy ball.
‘Most of the guests rebook in person before they leave.’
He nodded to where a copy of the hotel policy had been propped up against one of the pillows. Underlined in red ink were choice sentences detailing no sleeping outside of a designated bedroom. No remaining overnight in any of the communal areas. No persons to occupy cars overnight. No sleeping or loitering in the grounds beyond 11 p.m.
‘Looks as though you’re sleeping in here tonight.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘I can sleep on a sofa and then sneak back in here before they wake up. What’s the worst that can happen if I breach the policy?’
Daniel smiled. ‘You tell me.’ He paused before adding, ‘I did think you were here to ask your parents a favour, though, get some inside info on running a successful getaway venue.’
I thought about that, in between feeling embarrassed and awkward all over again.
‘I don’t mind if you stay.’ He smiled again. ‘It’s a bit weird but I think we’re good enough friends now to handle it.’
‘Are you sure?’ I was not at all sure that I could handle sleeping in the same bed as Daniel Perry. What if I rolled over in my sleep and wrapped my arm around his chest or something? What if Grandma’s snoring was hereditary, and I snorted and snuffled all night?
‘What would Charlie say?’
‘She’d think it utterly ridiculous that we were even debating the issue.’
‘I’ll let you have first dibs in the bathroom.’
Daniel was the first to crack. I couldn’t blame him. That had probably been the longest I’d ever stayed in one position without so much as twitching.
‘Okay, so I’ve been thinking.’
I know. I could hear your brain whirring.
‘We could both keep lying here pretending not to be wide awake, or we could give up and do something less stressful instead. That way, one of us might actually end up getting some sleep tonight.’
Daniel’s voice was soft and deep in the darkness. Twisting my head slightly, I could just about make out the outline of his face, looking up at the ceiling. My heart thumped faster beneath the bra, T-shirt and jumper I’d worn, in a vain hope that increasing the layers between us would somehow lessen the impact of being in such close proximity.
He turned to look at me, expression swathed in shadow, and every inch of my flesh broke out in goosebumps.
I couldn’t breathe.
‘Or you keep pretending and I’ll carry on wittering until I’ve bored both of us unconscious? Okay, I can roll with that.’
I couldn’t imagine anything I’d rather do right then than lie here and listen to Daniel’s gentle murmurs through the dark. Except, perhaps, wriggle close enough to feel the warmth of his breath, lean forwards and…
‘Gnnnnnn!’ Our roommate let out an anguished groan before inhaling her lungs to maximum capacity and letting rip with precisely how she felt about waking up in the middle of the night in a strange cot, with a strange blanket, strange potpourri smells and strange shadows dancing on the walls.
There was an ungainly scramble while I tried to tuck myself out of the way so that Daniel, on the side furthest from the cot, could clamber over to grab Hope before the entire B & B were jolted awake in a manner that definitely went against Tufted Duck policy.
An age later, she still hadn’t settled. Every time she dozed off, and Daniel placed her back in the cot, she woke up, squawking in outrage.
‘Okay, so there is something else I can try,’ he whispered, after she’d nodded against his shoulder for the fourth time.
‘I could squeeze into the cot, and she could have my space in the bed?’ I suggested, only half joking.
‘If I tuck something that smells of me in there, that usually settles her.’
Good plan. I could imagine the gloriously sweet dreams I’d have surrounded by Daniel’s reassuring scent.
‘The only trouble is, if I put my T-shirt from today in her cot, and then wear another one now, I won’t have a clean one for tomorrow.’
I squinted through the shadows, my brain failing to decipher his point.
He shrugged awkwardly. ‘I’m asking if you mind me sleeping without a T-shirt.’
Okay, so now I couldn’t breathe.
I grabbed my phone and skedaddled out of there.
24
Grabbing my phone wasn’t some automatic millennial addictive response. I needed to set an alarm to ensure I got up before my parents, which on a Tuesday morning in March would be somewhere around five-thirty. After all, the Weighbridge Walkers would be setting off with the sunrise, and a whole lot of eggs needed cracking and sausages needed sizzling before then.
Unfortunately, due to my disturbed emotional state when setting my alarm before collapsing on the biggest sofa in the lounge room, I failed to actually switch the alarm on.
Fortunately, Grandma was up, about and on the prowl well before her son, and while being woken up to find her wrinkled, bloodshot eyes an inch from my own was not the best start to the day, it beat a poke with an umbrella or a lecture from my mother, so I forgave her even before she’d made me a coffee.
By the time my parents emerged, I was showered, changed and already sprinkling the first pot of porridge with cinnamon and brown sugar.
Daniel and Hope arrived towards the end of the breakfast sitting. I left my apron in the kitchen and went to join them with a platter of eggs, smoked salmon and home-grown tomato salsa.
Daniel busied himself loading up his plate and making sure Hope had her toast under control before squinting at me. ‘I’m so sorry about last night. If it makes you feel any better, I spent several hours reflecting on my disgustingly creepy, white male privileged behaviour and putting strategies in place to ensure it never happens again.’
I sat back in surprise. For someone so attuned to, well, everything, Daniel h
ad seriously misread the situation.
‘I also kept my T-shirt on.’
I ducked my head, sure that my cheeks must be on the brink of bursting into flames.
Daniel lowered his voice even further. ‘I really am sorry. I honestly meant nothing by it beyond trying to get Hope to settle and keeping a clean T-shirt so I didn’t stink in front of your family.’
I took a sip of coffee. Not that I needed any chemical stimulus adding to my jitters. Daniel looked devastated. I couldn’t let him go on thinking I’d taken what he said the wrong way.
‘I didn’t run away because I thought you were being creepy.’
He gave me a sharp look, a forkful of egg halfway to his mouth.
‘I left because I didn’t trust myself not to act creepy when in the same bed as you, in the dark, with no top on.’
Then I picked up my empty plate and mug and ran away.
Having put away the last glass and wiped every stray crumb I could find off the kitchen surfaces, I couldn’t keep hiding any longer. I met Daniel coming down the main stairs, jacket and boots on, Hope in the sling. We both automatically paused when we saw each other coming, but Daniel was the first to start moving again, affecting what I think he considered to be a nice, normal expression.
‘Are you going out?’ I asked, my freewheeling thoughts not being able to grasp anything beyond stating the obvious.
‘Yeah, I thought we’d go on a walk, see the lake. Give you some space to catch up with your parents.’
‘Oh, we did that, last night. Dad already asked if there’d been an emergency and I said no. Nothing more to catch up on.’
‘Right. Okay. Do you… want to come with us?’
While I appreciated the invitation, and under different circumstances I might have been tempted to say yes, the look on his face was enough to have me making my excuses about wanting to go over the booking system before I scuttled into the office.
‘Ah, Eleanor, there you are!’ Dad came in a few minutes later, his solid stomach leading the way. ‘Gadwall, Pintail and Goosander all need a changeover.’
We had ten rooms in total, most named after a bird that normal people had never heard of.
‘I’m just going over some of your admin processes, if that’s okay.’ I shuffled the office chair an inch or two closer to the desk, to prove my point.
He frowned, baffled. ‘Room changes are done before admin, you know that.’
‘Dad, I’m here visiting, not as a temp staff member. I’ve already helped with breakfast.’
‘You’re either here as family, and all family pitch in on changeovers, or you’re here as a guest, in which case that’ll be ninety pounds a night. You can have Pintail, as of this morning it’s unoccupied.’
‘Are you serious?’
I pulled my eyes away from the numbers dancing across the cranky old desktop screen. Dad stared back at me. Of course he was serious. I supposed that if I helped change the beds and clean the bathrooms I might be able to wangle some information as we went.
One sparkling, spanking clean Gadwall, Pintail and Goosander later, I had garnered the following.
The systems and processes employed by the Tufted Duck were in place because they’d always been that way, and why change something that worked? With that attitude, I was impressed they’d progressed to a computer. I did manage to gather some dribs and drabs on how they managed accounts and budgets, but honestly there was nothing I couldn’t have found in half the time by looking on the internet. Mum did, however, reveal something of genuine significance.
‘Did that person manage to get hold of you?’
‘What person?’ I focused very hard on smoothing down the fresh sheet on Pintail’s bed as my heart began tap-dancing in my chest.
‘They called asking to speak to you.’
‘What did you say?’ Could have been an old friend. Someone from the town… one of the staff at the Cumbrian Chronicle.
‘Well, I told them you weren’t here, of course.’
‘And?’
Mum flicked on a duvet covered in frolicking forest animals with expert speed. ‘And what?’
‘What else did they say?’
‘They asked where you were.’
‘And?’ I tried to keep my voice below a screech, despite my throat having seized up.
‘Well, I asked who was asking. They said an old friend from school. I don’t know who they were but with an accent like that they weren’t from round here. I’m not about to give away any details to some stranger. I know all about stalkers and super-fans and things. I’m not an idiot, Eleanor. I told them to try your online whatsit. They could have been a tabloid journalist looking for a dirty scoop.’ She bent over to start damp-dusting the skirting boards.
‘Was it a man or a woman?’
‘A woman. I think.’
‘Anything else about her you remember?’
Mum stood up and went to shake the duster out the window. ‘No.’
‘When did she call?’
‘A few weeks ago I suppose. Please don’t stand there staring at me. That mirror won’t clean itself.’
‘After I’d called to tell you I’d left London?’
‘Well, it must have been, or else I’d have mentioned it then.’
‘Okay. Thanks for letting me know.’ I gave the mirror a squirt of cleaner.
She was the one to stop then. ‘Is everything all right? Because you’ve just sprayed bathroom cleaner on a glass surface.’
‘Yes.’ I used the duster to wipe off most of the fluid. ‘It’s fine.’
‘And you’ve no idea who it is?’
‘Like you say, probably a fan of my writing. They can always get in touch with me online. Thanks for letting me know.’
My mother was about as convinced by that theory as I was.
I ducked into the bathroom and started scrubbing before she could see my hands trembling.
Daniel messaged to say that he’d not be back for lunch. I shoved down the immediate thoughts of panic that I’d scared him away forever, and made a cheese and tomato toastie.
Dad and Grandma joined me with locally bred ham and mustard rolls left over from the Weighbridge Walkers’ picnic choices. Not a squeak of halloumi anywhere.
Ah, home sweet home. I took a happy bite of toastie and sat back in my chair.
‘Did the woman find you?’ Grandma asked, around a mouthful of white bread.
The toastie formed a solid lump halfway down my throat. ‘What woman?’
I was torn between being relieved I hadn’t decided to come home, and terrified that someone from the Alami family might come looking for me while I wasn’t here to deal with it.
‘She phoned. Asking for you.’
‘Did you get her name?’
‘I did!’ Grandma nodded eagerly, before pausing to think. ‘I can’t remember it.’
‘Okay, it doesn’t matter.’ And if it’s who I think it is, they won’t have given a real name, anyway.
‘She sounded posh. Like that woman off the telly.’ That made Grandma smile. ‘Perhaps it was her! Maybe she wants to invite you onto her show.’
‘Maybe.’ I smiled as brightly as possible considering a heart-in-a-box-posting stalker was quite possibly still on my trail.
‘Did you tell her where I was?’
‘I don’t know where you are!’ Grandma shook her head. ‘I said that you live with a friend now and to try there.’
‘Did they ask what friend?’
‘Yes. I told them your friend who had died.’ She frowned. ‘She hung up then.’
‘Okay. If she calls again, please don’t tell her I’m staying with Daniel. She might be a deranged fan.’
‘Who’s Daniel?’
I felt pretty confident that my secret was safe with Grandma, even if I did feel sick to my stomach at the thought of this person contacting my family.
Worst of all, I realised with a jolt of horror, this meant they had definitely figured out my true identity.
‘Dad, I’m a tiny bit concerned about that call. If it is an obsessive fan, they might come here.’
Dad beetled his brows. ‘Why would they do that if they know you aren’t here?’
I shrugged. ‘They might think Grandma’s lying.’
‘Oh no, they’ve spoken to me and your mother, too. We were very clear.’
Him too?
‘Okay. Thank you. But if they are really obsessed, they might come here anyway. To find out more information, or see the place where I was raised and used to work. They could book in and then try to trick you in pleasant conversation into giving more information about where I am. Or, I don’t know, poke about until they find a phone number or something.’ Sheesh, Eleanor, stop! I was really scaring myself now!
‘This is quite a big jump from a couple of phone calls, to someone sneaking in here and stealing information.’ Dad’s look conveyed that he knew full well I was hiding something.
‘Dad, I’ve had a lot of nasty trolling – messages and threats online. It’s part and parcel of being a woman in the media these days, but it’s one of the reasons I decided to stop. Some of it was vicious. I don’t know what someone who could make those kinds of threats might do. I don’t want you to be scared…’
‘Good, because we aren’t!’
‘… but I do want you to be careful.’
Dad rolled his eyes. ‘Eleanor, when have you ever known your mother and me to be anything else?’
I managed a real smile, then. ‘That’s true. Okay. And if they call again, will you let me know, please?’
He got up to carry our plates into the kitchen. ‘Of course.’
I knew he wouldn’t let me know, but at least I’d asked.
While half-heartedly going through more of the Tufted Duck files that afternoon, I tried to process the information that felt far more pressing. Grandma had told the caller that I was staying with a friend who had died. Could that lead anyone to Charlie, and then Damson Farm, and then Daniel, Hope and me?