Читать книгу Christmas at the Gin Shack - Catherine Miller, Catherine Miller - Страница 13

Chapter Five

As it turned out, they didn’t need the formal meeting Olive thought might be required. In Esme’s eagerness to make sure Tony’s mind was put at ease, she’d already sent an advert for a temporary manager to the local paper. The closing date was in a week’s time, so they just had to keep their fingers crossed that someone suitable applied.

In the meantime, they sorted out a rota to cover the week and agreed they’d continue with that pattern of cover until someone was brought in to cover Tony. It meant the number of nights they were all doing was spread evenly and someone was put in charge each night. It was fortunate that, having helped Tony from the ground up, so many of them were familiar with the running of the Gin Shack. They would be a bit thin on numbers with the Salter boys, all of whom were now old enough to work behind the bar, also absent, but they needed to be spending time with Tony. The customers knew what had happened. News travelled fast in the beach-hut community, especially as Tony’s moment had been so spectacularly public. The Gin Shack was an extension of that community so it was no surprise that everyone was aware and being incredibly understanding as a result.

It meant Olive was able to get on with life as usual apart from having to be at the Gin Shack for a couple of extra evenings that week. It was leaving her with a strange sense of loss. She’d not lost Tony, but, somehow, even not having him to call on at the Gin Shack had left her with a strange sense of life being out of rhythm. Like her world had slipped off its axis by just a few millimetres and everything wasn’t the same as it had been before.

Even this morning, Olive was sitting in the Oakley West lobby waiting for Veronica. Olive never had to wait for Veronica. She was a stickler for being on time. It was such an unusual event, Olive didn’t even know what to do with herself.

Currently Olive was doing a very good job at being restless. What was she supposed to do with her spare time? If this was the norm, she would probably settle down with a magazine. Maybe help herself to a cup of water from the water cooler. But it was so uncharacteristic of Veronica to be late, Olive instead tested out five hundred and eighty-two different positions in the chair, none of which was comfortable. Just when Olive was beginning to wonder what her plan of action should be, Veronica appeared from the lift with a huge self-satisfied beam across her face.

‘What have you been up to?’ Olive asked, questioning why her friend looked so like the cat that got the cream.

‘Nothing,’ Veronica said, not letting her grin drop.

Definitely something then.

‘You know we’re not allowed to have secrets from each other, don’t you?’

Veronica peered at Olive. ‘Honestly. It’s nothing you need to worry about.’

‘Really?’ Olive wasn’t so sure.

‘We’ve moved into a double room. Randy and I are roomies. I didn’t want to say anything with everything else going on.’

Veronica had been right. Olive wasn’t going to ask any further questions regarding the details of why she was late. ‘That’s great. I thought there wasn’t one available?’

‘There wasn’t. But they’ve converted some of the previous living area Matron occupied.’

‘Wow. Goes to show how distracted I’ve been. I didn’t even know that was being done.’

‘Yeah, turns out Matron had taken over an entire area that should have been for residential rooms. They’re working on several areas to update them and they’ll be for residents.’

It was strange thinking back on what had happened over the summer. Matron had definitely had it in for Olive and there was a large portion, almost a quarter of Oakley West, which had been out of bounds to the residents as it was allocated to staff. It would seem they’d been using extra rooms for their nefarious activities – rooms that weren’t theirs to use.

Olive was glad they’d seen the back of Matron, and the new staff seemed far friendlier and more professional, although it wouldn’t have taken much to beat Matron’s bedside manner. She was also glad the technicalities of how Oakley West should actually be laid out meant Veronica and Randy had got their room early. She just didn’t want to know what they were doing in there.

Olive liked to think she was wise to the ways of the world, but there was something that made her feel like a teenage daughter cringing about her parents still at it beyond their forties when thinking about the pair. Whatever they were up to that was putting a smile on Veronica’s face, Olive didn’t want to know about it. Not even a snippet.

Instead, they started heading out of the lobby, ready for their early-morning trip to the beach hut. Skipping over the lateness and kooky smile, they chatted about Tony and how well he’d looked despite the massive ordeal he’d been through to save his life.

‘Do you think they’ll manage to get a temporary manager? I can’t imagine there’ll be many people wanting a role that’s only going to last for about three months,’ Veronica said.

They reached the bottom of the slope and wandered along the promenade towards the row of six huts that belonged to Olive’s extended family. ‘Tony was looking for weeks after he got made redundant and he never really found a job, he created his own. So hopefully there’ll be enough people looking for work. We just might not get many applicants, as Esme only put the advert in for one week.’ To be honest, they couldn’t be lavish with advertising for weeks on end. It was less than two months until Christmas and, if they still wanted to continue as planned, they needed to be trading with someone at the helm. Olive just hoped they attracted some decent applicants.

‘How are we going to interview them? Is that down to us?’

Olive took in a breath of the salty sea breeze. She’d never interviewed anyone in her life. She wouldn’t know what to ask, or how to judge the answers they gave. What made someone suitable to run a bar? Tony did it so well and that was mostly down to his larger-than-life personality. If people weren’t sold on the Gin Shack just by its name, Tony’s welcome guaranteed they became regular customers. But it was hard to know how you’d ever gauge if a person was capable of that in a half-hour time slot. Conducting job interviews just wasn’t something Olive had ever thought she’d be responsible for. The realisation gave her an idea. ‘How about the interview isn’t a traditional one? How about we get them to make us a cocktail behind the bar at the Gin Shack? It’ll give us an idea of how good they are at mixing drinks. They can talk us through it so we’ll know if they’ve got any personality and we’ll know how creative they are, seeing as they’ll be helping us with the Christmas cocktail competition.’

‘That’s a great idea. Let’s hope we don’t get too many applicants or we’ll be drunk that day.’

Olive laughed as they reached the hut and she grabbed the key. ‘I think we’ll have to go for tasters rather than the whole thing if we have lots to try.’

Easing the doors open, Olive let her mind mull over a few ideas for the Christmas cocktail offerings. Was it bad that, despite what had happened, she was still eager to beat the others’ recipes? She really wanted to be the one with the promised bragging rights. She just hoped that, whatever happened, they were still able to carry out all the plans they’d discussed. She’d experiment in the beach hut when she got the chance, in anticipation of them still continuing as planned.

Inside the hut, a bit like the rest of the day so far, everything was out of place. Nothing was where it normally would be, but the last time it had been open and she’d been down here was when Tony had attempted to pop his clogs. Someone, she wasn’t sure who, had been kind enough to secure the beach huts after the antics of that day. It was probably Paul or Mark and they would have chucked everything back in so they could catch up with everyone else as they waited for news.

Olive readjusted the space so everything was back as it should be.

‘You coming in?’ Veronica asked.

There was a nip in the air that day. The sea would be bracing and take the wind out of their lungs. After hearing Tony struggle to breathe so recently, Olive wasn’t sure she should be subjecting herself to those kinds of conditions. This past couple of weeks had aged her and she didn’t like to think by how much. Her shoulders still ached from the force of pressing on Tony’s ribcage.

The words “I’m not sure” nearly left Olive’s lips, but then she stopped herself. Didn’t the fragility of life prove that she should be grasping at every opportunity with both hands? Whatever doubts she had, she put aside. Skinny-dipping was on the cards, even if the temperature might see her nipples drop off. It wasn’t like she had much use for them these days anyway.

Grabbing towels from the drawer (it was way too cold to endure the walk back without one ready), she was once again left feeling as though things were out of place.

The towels were folded, not rolled. Olive always rolled the towels. Somehow they fitted more neatly into the draw when they were stacked that way. But for some very peculiar reason, they were folded. Maybe Olive was losing her marbles. Maybe the cracks were starting to appear. Maybe she’d always folded them and her brain was playing strange tricks on her.

It was easy to recall the reason why she’d ended up agreeing to move into the Oakley West Retirement Quarters. It was because of the day she couldn’t remember what a teabag was after a mini stroke. Fortunately, the effects of that hadn’t been lasting. The moment she’d lost all sense of herself was fleeting.

But now all her rolled towels were folded, maybe this was the start of it? Maybe this feeling of being out of kilter wasn’t about Tony being poorly. Maybe she was as well. Because the towels hadn’t been out when he’d become sick, so it wasn’t like she was able to blame Mark or Paul for shoving them back any which way. No, this was a world where she definitely rolled her towels. She’d done it that way for as long as she could remember, but now there was doubt in her head. Perhaps she’d changed how she did things along the way and her brain had forgotten to take note. Whatever it was, it was bizarre and it strengthened the sense of the world being out of kilter. The sooner Tony was back the better. If she told her son, he’d have her up for some kind of psychiatric evaluation. Tony would help her reason what was going on. She needed him back for the world to be in sync again.

Olive ignored the problem and picked two large towels out and joined Veronica on the shoreline. Her friend had already stripped off and was merrily having a swim. Taking off her pink fleece and pulling her yellow maxi dress over her head, Olive practically jogged into the sea to get the hit from the cold over and done with.

They are towels, Olive told herself. Ordinary towels. It really didn’t matter how they were folded. But then again, it really did, when something so silly was making her lose her sense of what was right and what was left.

Dipping her head back to let her hair get wet, Olive floated for a moment, letting the waves rock her in whichever direction they chose. She didn’t normally. The flash of nudity way too much for any sensitive soul. But today was different. Because, yes, everything was out of kilter. She just had to hope it was more a case of getting out of the wrong side of bed, rather than anything actually being wrong.