by Lucy Dillon
‘Now the rugby club has ladies’ facilities, when are the social nights that ladies can attend? I wouldn’t mind an evening out. Meet some fellow rugby widows?’
‘To be honest, Lib, I think they only built it for equality-legislation reasons.’ Jason pretended to look appalled. ‘Most of the wives steer well clear. They’ve still got those 1970s-style Big D peanut cards behind the bar, and it’s only semi-ironic.’
Libby forced a smile. ‘I can cope with sexist peanuts, if it means having a date night with you. I miss our date nights with the wallpaper steamer. And there’s a whole world of entertainment out there in Longhampton, apparently.’
‘I know, babe. But you really wouldn’t want to come to the clubhouse. Why don’t you and Alice go out somewhere?’
Something about the casual way he said it caught on the rough edge of her tiredness. Although the hotel was hardly busy, someone had to be around in the evenings in case of enquiries or to deal with the few guests; Libby had argued Margaret should be excused from evenings, so she could keep up with her friends as much as possible, but that didn’t mean Jason could land her with every shift now his social life was picking up.
‘When?’ Libby put her hands on her hips. ‘I can’t really plan if you just waltz off whenever you feel like it.’
‘Didn’t I put it on the calendar?’ It wasn’t convincing. ‘I need to be there for practice – it’s only a small club; you’ve got to show willing. And afterwards, well, half the team’s on the council or in business round here. A few pints are worth loads of phone calls . . . We’re oiling the wheels of commerce.’
‘Fine. Just don’t . . .’ Libby hesitated, then, since the mood was now distinctly tetchy, ploughed on. She hadn’t said anything after Jason had staggered in after the last night out with the lads, in case it was a one-off. ‘Just don’t go overboard this time.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning, last time you decided to “oil the wheels of commerce”, you didn’t surface until ten, and I had to do breakfast and the laundry change on my own. This isn’t like the office – I can’t put your day on hold until your hangover clears. We need to go to the cash and carry first thing tomorrow. I don’t mean to nag,’ she added, well aware that she was nagging, ‘but . . .’
Jason made placating hand gestures. ‘I hear you. I won’t be late. I’ll just get a couple of rounds in and then I’ll be back. What? What are you looking at me like that for?’
It was out of Libby’s mouth before she could stop it. ‘Just don’t go overboard on the round-buying either. I got the credit-card bills this morning and we’re nearly maxed out.’
Oh God, why did you say that? she asked herself crossly. But she already knew the answer: the fact that she couldn’t get that conversation with her dad out of her head, coupled with finding the bar receipt for the last night out in the back pocket of Jason’s jeans when she did the laundry. Jason had, it seemed, left his card behind the bar and paid for the entire team to get wasted. And they were rugby players. They liked a challenge.
Libby had always adored Jason’s generosity. He was the opposite of her dad in so many ways. But they couldn’t afford that open-handedness now, and she hated having to curtail his nature – more than that, she hated having to be the one to remind him. He should know.
‘Anything else?’ asked Jason. ‘Don’t stay out late, don’t get drunk, don’t spend too much money? No, wait. You missed don’t have any fun.’
They stared at each other and the air between them felt thundery with the row they could have, or avert.
This is how strong marriages grow, Libby reminded herself. By working through tough patches.
‘I don’t enjoy feeling like your mum,’ she said quietly. ‘But this is hard enough already without making things harder for ourselves. Isn’t it?’
Just apologise. Just acknowledge why I’m really hurt. How humiliating it is for me not to be able to trust you.
Jason sighed and put down his kit bag. ‘I’m sorry, Lib,’ he said. ‘I hear what you’re saying. Take the evening off. You need to relax too.’
She didn’t answer.
Jason stepped closer and slid his arms round her, resting his cheek next to hers. He pressed his lips against the soft skin behind her ear; it had always made Libby’s insides turn to water, and now, right on cue, she felt herself melt. She looked down at the strong arms circling her shoulders, and, despite her tension, she relaxed into them.
At least we still have this, she thought. At least this didn’t evaporate with everything else.
‘You’ll never know how much I appreciate you going with me on this,’ he murmured. ‘But you’ve got to trust me – money comes in and it goes out. Sometimes you have to spend it to make it. It’s what happens in business.’
Libby wanted to believe that more than anything. She rested her nose on his arm and breathed in the smell of Jason’s skin. The comfort of his hug was blocking out any irritating small voices in her mind.
‘I don’t want to stop trying to make us work because we’re making the hotel work.’ There, she’d said it.
‘Me neither, babe. The hotel will work because we’re making us work.’ Jason squeezed her. ‘I won’t be late back. If you promise to be in the bath at exactly half past ten . . .’
Libby pulled away. ‘Make it ten,’ she said in a seductive murmur. ‘Your mother’s going to be out until half ten. The Soroptimists’ spring party, apparently.’
Jason paused by the door, then jiggled his eyebrows. ‘In that case, I’ll be back by half nine. See you later, gorgeous.’
Libby blew him a kiss and listened to him whistling happily as he let himself out through the stag-infested reception, fading back into silence as the front door closed.
With Margaret and Jason both out, Libby spent the evening in the office with Alice, where they could listen for the phone but get on with something useful at the same time.
The something useful was brainstorming marketing ideas from one of Libby’s many how-to guides to the hospitality industry. She had to hide them in a filing cabinet, since Margaret seemed to take the stack of books as a slight on her thirty-five years’ experience, but Libby needed the practical reassurance of lists and goals. She and Jason didn’t have a clue about business management, and every question she asked Margaret was now met with ‘Donald used to . . .’ which was understandable, but not very helpful.
Alice was an easy person to bounce ideas around with, and after filling pages of Libby’s notebook with offers and special weekends, they stopped at half eight for something to eat. Since she’d had to abandon her fish-pie treat, Libby ordered a pizza from the new pizzeria in town, under the pretext of checking it out for guests. She and Alice had, after all, done more work in two hours than Jason and Margaret had done all day.
‘Did any of those details we found today jog your memory?’ she asked, passing Alice some kitchen roll to wipe her fingers.
‘Nothing that’s much help.’ She looked sad. ‘I keep wondering why I’m not on Facebook. I mean, then at least I could work out what sort of person I am from my friends.’
‘I don’t know if you can work out who you are from your Facebook friends,’ said Libby. ‘It just tells you who you’ve met.’
Facebook was a touchy subject for Libby. Erin and the others often posted on her page – lots of ‘Hi, hon!’s and tagging to photos of parties she hadn’t gone to – but she couldn’t bring herself to reply, given that their hectic lives of toddler yoga and Goa holidays rolled on, while hers . . . didn’t. She checked it every day, often late at night so no one would spot her on there, but she’d only posted two photos of Margaret’s garden, the one unequivocally good bit of the hotel. Even then, she’d had to wait for the drizzle to clear up.
Jason thought she was being ridiculous, but Facebook made Libby feel weirdly defensive. No, actually, she thought, it wasn’t we
ird. It was her newsfeed: looking at it made her wonder how much she and the Wandsworth ‘girls’ really had in common. Erin was lovely, but the others, though perfectly nice, had never been the sort of people Libby felt she could tell secrets to, not with any confidence. If she’d had kids, she sometimes thought, there might have been a real connection, a bond made out of private, awkward, less-than-perfect confessions, but the one time she’d tipsily admitted that her entry for the summer street party wasn’t, in fact, Margaret Corcoran’s ye olde family lemon curd recipe but Lidl lemon curd decanted into a plain jar, the ensuing tumbleweed meant she’d thought twice about any soul-baring. (Erin, thankfully, had roared with laughter.)
Urgh, The Lemon Curd Incident. Libby’s face burned, as it always did when she remembered it, and she realised Alice was scrutinising her. Then, because Alice’s lack of judginess made it easy to say what she felt, she said, ‘I keep telling myself that Facebook is all edited highlights, but when we’re working hard here, and on a budget . . . you don’t always want to see how amazing other people’s lives are, do you?’
‘True.’
‘And real friends are real friends,’ she went on. ‘Not people who’ve clicked on your profile and added you to get their numbers up.’
‘I know. But it’s like a paper trail, isn’t it? Of who you’ve been. What freaks me out,’ said Alice slowly, ‘is what if I never meet someone who knows me again? Those years I can’t remember, they’ve just . . . gone. Even if I trace all my old school mates, they’re in London. What am I doing here? Have I just . . . lost the person I’ve been for the past few years?’ She blinked, lost, and Libby felt bad about her own selfishness.
‘No! Your memory will come back. And of course you’ve got friends, and of course they’ll find you. But you can start again, if you have to. You can make new friends – I mean, look, you’ve made two new friends already, me and Jason. Everyone has to reinvent themselves when they move. You’re just a bit more . . . extreme than that.’
As she said it, Libby realised she hadn’t exactly taken her own advice on that score. Two months in and the only new friend she’d made had literally been brought to her front door by a careless driver.
Alice picked at her pizza. ‘I’m so grateful to you two, but I can’t stay here forever. How can I get a job with no references and no bank account? No National Insurance number? It’s going to look so dodgy.’
‘We can start tracing all those things now. And you’ve got a job here whenever you want.’
‘Really? You don’t have to say that.’
‘Of course! You’re already a better receptionist than the last one Margaret had. By which I mean me.’
Alice smiled at Libby, and Libby’s throat tightened at how relieved she seemed. ‘Thanks, Libby. You’ve been so kind . . .’
There was a crash out in reception and they both jumped, and listened. It sounded like something being knocked over.
Libby put down her pizza. ‘It’s probably Jason, back early. I don’t think Margaret would be crashing in like that. Unless she’s fallen over the dog.’
‘Where is Bob when you need him?’ said Alice. ‘Some guard dog he is.’
‘Who’s in room four? Mr Harrington? I suppose he might have tried to get into the lounge for the papers.’ Libby slipped her feet back into her shoes. ‘I’ll go and see.’
As she went out into the reception area, she saw movement over by the door and heard a male voice whisper, ‘Shhhhhh!’ far too loudly.
It was Jason. He always lost his volume control when he’d had a few. Libby braced herself for the display of puppyish affection that was heading her way. Jason’s tolerance for drink was about four pints, although he was capable of putting back a considerable amount more than that.
On the one hand, he’d come back in good time for their rendezvous in the bath, but on the other, she thought, irritated, it sounded as if he’d be sleeping in it. Still, at least she hadn’t wasted her last two centimetres of decent bath oil on him.
Jason was clinging to the door frame and smiling cherubically. The lights were still on, and the pale dust sheets made the room even brighter. His blond hair was plastered to his head, as if much beer had been spilled on it. There was someone else with him – one of his mates, in a red hoody under a leather jacket, was half supporting him, half holding him up.
Had to be another rugby player, Libby thought; he was a good six inches shorter than Jason, but was wiry enough to keep all thirteen stone of inebriated idiot upright.
She was about to go over to relieve him of his wobbly prisoner when Jason suddenly bent over the brass umbrella stand and started making the same dramatic retching noises Lord Bob liked to make after eating something dodgy in the park.
Oh, you’re joking, she thought. How come Margaret never sees this?
‘Man, I’m feeling really—’ said Jason, in a very strong Longhampton accent, and then threw up noisily into the umbrella stand. While Libby was still staring, open-mouthed, by the reception desk, Jason straightened up, wiping his face with the back of his hand. He grinned gormlessly at his mate, who said nothing, but let out a long sigh.
‘Better in there than on the carpet,’ said Jason. ‘And least I didn’t do it in the taxi.’
‘That wasn’t a taxi, you weapon, that was my van,’ said the friend, and pushed his hoody back off his face with a weary hand. As he spoke, Libby realised exactly who it was, even though it had been a while – Luke.
Luke always made Libby think of the moody guitarists in the indie bands she’d liked as a teenager – he was wiry and hollow-cheeked, and looked like he could knock out a stage-diver without breaking rhythm. His eyes were the first thing anyone noticed about him, not because they were beautiful and blue, like Jason’s, but because they had an intensity that frequently made Libby glance behind her to see if someone more interesting had suddenly walked in.
‘Luke?’
He turned, and when he saw her, he groaned.
‘Oh shit, I mean, hi, Libby. I was going to try to get Jase upstairs and into bed without bothering you.’
‘Not into my bed, I hope. That’s not the kind of surprise a girl likes to come across late at night.’
He turned his palms up in acknowledgement. ‘Good point. Plan B was to stick him in the bath. Easier to hose him down in there.’
They both looked over at Jason, who had sunk to his knees and was hanging on to the umbrella stand as if it were a life raft.
‘How much has he had?’
‘Ten pints!’ Jason raised an unsteady hand. ‘T . . . en! Or twelve!’
‘Four, I’d imagine,’ said Libby. ‘If that.’
Luke ran a hand through his dark hair; it was longer than it had been the last time she’d seen him. Then it had been almost army-short, but now it was long enough to fall into a half-quiff over his forehead. ‘Six, I reckon.’
‘Well, thanks for carting him home,’ she said. Luke never said much, and she found herself gabbling to fill the gaps. ‘How did you find him?’
‘I called into the clubhouse to meet someone about a job and he was there.’ Luke nudged Jason with the toe of his trainer and Jason let out a groan. ‘He was pretty far gone by the time I arrived. You’re out of practice, mate,’ he added for good measure.
‘You are not my keeper,’ slurred Jason. ‘If I want to have a drink with the lads, then I don’t need my big brother telling me—’
Whatever else he was going to say was lost in another bout of retching.
‘What a catch,’ said Libby.
‘Anyway, since I was there, I thought I’d better bring him back. Bit old for Mum to come and get you, aren’t you?’ He directed the comment towards his feet.
Jason mumbled incoherently.
‘Well, thanks for risking your own van to do it. I didn’t know you were around,’ said Libby. ‘Where are you staying? You know
we’ve been here since the beginning of March?’
‘So I gather. I’ve been back and forth, meaning to give you a ring, but you know, Mum . . .’ Luke shrugged. ‘Listen, I don’t want to sound rude, but I think we’d better get Wonderboy up the stairs before— Oh, hello.’
For a second, Libby wondered if Margaret had come back; Luke had straightened up, and was smiling uncertainly towards the office. Good, she thought. Now Margaret can see what Jason’s really like after a few jars, instead of intimating that I always make a fuss about nothing.
But Luke’s smile was different. He looked pleased but uncertain. Surprised, even.
Libby spun round and saw that Alice had appeared and was staring at them with the same ambiguous expression on her own face. It was an expression Libby had seen a lot over the past few days, while she was reading magazines, while they were doing quizzes, while they were talking. Alice was trying to remember something. Trying really hard.
Finally, Luke spoke.
‘Alice!’ he said. And then he smiled. As if he knew her.
Chapter Twelve
Alice stared at the man holding Jason up on the other side of the reception and a shapeless thought pushed in the back of her head, trying to get through the wall of blankness.
She didn’t know him, but he . . . wasn’t unfamiliar. Libby had called him Luke, and something in her head had gone, Oh yes, of course. Luke, but no more than that.
He knew her. He’d said her name, but the way he was looking at her confirmed it. Luke was the first person she’d met who actually knew who she was, and she’d met him here in the hotel she’d been heading for.
Alice’s throat went dry.
He took a step closer, frowning at her lack of response, and the quick movement of his gaze over her face was familiar too: the sharp, attractive eyes, almost black under his strong, straight eyebrows. A hank of brown hair fell over his brow and he pushed it back to see her better, revealing a small tattoo on his wrist: an apple.
Luke.
Alice felt a tug inside. He looks really pleased to see me, but he’s confused, she thought, reading his angular face. And he knows me. He knows who I am.