Читать книгу Open for Business – Part 1 - Cressida McLaughlin, Cressida McLaughlin - Страница 6

‘This,’ Robin said, rolling out a piece of A0 flipchart paper on the king-sized bed and putting a selection of coloured Sharpies on top of it, ‘is going to be our project plan.’

Molly scooted up to the pillow end and grabbed a neon orange marker, cradling her coffee mug in the other hand. They were in one of the first-floor bedrooms, sadly unoccupied now that New Year had gone and the cold comedown of January had set in. The view through the window was of grey sky and greyer sea, the colours muted like a Lowry painting. Seagulls sat along the rail of the promenade, and Skull Island’s artificial greens looked too bright in the washed-out tableau. Robin shivered and pulled her oatmeal knitted cardigan around her. She scrunched her toes into the thick, aquamarine carpet, finding a crumb that she must have dropped the day before when she’d been touring the rooms with a packet of cheese Tuc biscuits and dreaming up her ideal guesthouse.

‘No carpets,’ she said. ‘I want every room to have floorboards and rugs.’ She turned to the bed, knelt on the duvet and wrote Campion Bay Guesthouse in dark blue in the middle of the sheet. Then she picked up a red pen, drew a line branching out from the centre and wrote no carpets.

‘That’s a big move to start us off,’ Molly said. ‘Do you know what the floors are like underneath?’

‘Not really.’ She sank further into the bed. ‘We took my bedroom carpet up when I was sixteen, but that was half my lifetime ago and I can’t remember what work was involved. But the dining room is polished boards and I think it looks classier, more contemporary.’

‘OK,’ Molly said. ‘No carpets, and no American diner-style breakfast bar. What do you want? Who do you want coming to stay here? Who used Once in a Blue Moon Days?’

Robin took a grey pen and doodled an image of a crescent moon in the corner of the page. ‘The days we offered were bespoke, so they weren’t cheap. We sourced the best hotels, restaurants, private planes, speedboat trips, one-on-one wildlife experiences, day trips to Lapland, Northern Lights tours with added personal touches. Special occasions that were more than a weekend away or a hired-out village hall.’

‘So wealthy people, then?’

‘People who were looking for something unique, often that they’d been saving hard for. Campion Bay has the crazy golf, but it’s also got some upmarket restaurants, and it has a classic feel with Ashley and Roxy’s vintage teashop and the picture-postcard seafront. It could be the perfect weekend by the coast if there was a luxurious, unique guesthouse in pride of place. It needs to be contemporary, but with a natural feel. And I want to decorate it using local products if I can.’

‘How local? Like beach scavenging, bits of driftwood into tables, that sort of thing?’

‘Maybe.’ Robin stared out of the window again. She thought she could see a dot of red, a small fishing boat on the horizon, bobbing alarmingly on the waves. ‘And I want my room – the attic room – to be themed around the night sky. It’s the closest to the stars, it has the best view and the tiny balcony.’

‘Suicide strip?’ Molly’s eyes widened innocently when Robin shot her a look. ‘Come on, it’s bloody terrifying up there!’

‘I’m going to get a telescope,’ Robin said, ignoring her. ‘I’ve always wanted one, and just imagine what you’d be able to see, the constellations, planets, the Milky Way. It’ll be breathtaking. But we’ll do that room last – we’ll have to wait until Mum and Dad have gone and I can move downstairs.’

‘You’re not keeping your bedroom?’

Robin shook her head. ‘The attic room will take us up to five chargeable rooms, all doubles, all with an en suite. The rooms downstairs will be more than enough space for me, and the attic could be really special if we do it right.’ If she closed her eyes, she could picture it. The telescope, the navy feature wall, pinprick lights dotting the ceiling and globe reading lamps set in snug recesses either side of the bed. She’d seen her fair share of luxury when scoping out Once in a Blue Moon Days projects, and she remembered Neve’s favourite. It was a five-star penthouse suite in Switzerland, its glass ceiling inviting the night sky in, as if you were sleeping on the edge of the world. For Neve, who had believed wholeheartedly in astrology, in finding truth and love by reading the stars, it was perfect. Robin couldn’t quite manage the penthouse-level of extraordinary, but she could capture the essence of what had made it so magical.

‘So,’ Molly said, leaning forward, speaking through a mouthful of pen lid, ‘let’s do the rooms in turn. What’s the attic room going to be called?’

Robin finished the doodle of the man sitting in the curve of her crescent moon, took her grey pen and wrote Starcross in large, swirling script. ‘There,’ she said. ‘Room number five.’

‘Starcross,’ Molly read. ‘Robin Brennan, you crazy romantic. Just don’t call one of the rooms Elsinore, or you’ll be tempting fate. What ideas have you got for the other bedrooms?’

They worked for hours, coming up with more and more ideas, words in minute writing squashed up to the edge of the sheet as the new and improved Campion Bay Guesthouse took shape, albeit just on paper.

‘And I was in charge of social media at Blue Moon Days, so I can get that working to promote us,’ Robin said, after they’d declared their ideas banks empty. ‘I can make bread, I’ve got a mean kedgeree recipe and I saw this incredible wall in a hotel that was actually a fish tank. How amazing would that look in the sea-themed room?’

‘It would look stunning,’ Molly said slowly, ‘as long as your parents have left you a million quid, which is about what we’ve spent already, judging by this.’ She waggled the sheet of paper.

Robin stood and stretched her hands up to the ceiling, undoing all the knots in her back. The sea had taken on a deep, inky hue as the weak January sun had emerged, and it winked on Molly’s Murano glass earrings. She thought that she could put stained glass window panels in one of the rooms, taking advantage of the ever-changing Campion Bay light.

‘It’s not as bad as all that,’ she said, pushing away a wave of unease. ‘Mum and Dad have offered to invest a fair amount – I think partly they feel guilty about going to France even though I’m resurrecting the guesthouse.’ On New Year’s Day she had made a maple and pecan loaf cake, sat her parents down with that and a pot of Ceylon tea, and introduced the idea of taking over the guesthouse. She had expected them to tell her that they didn’t think she was ready, that it wasn’t possible, but instead they had cautiously embraced the idea, offering as much support – moral and financial – as they could. ‘Besides,’ Robin continued, ‘once we start investigating suppliers, putting the research in, we’ll find affordable options. And with your friends, Jim and Kerry, agreeing to help with the decorating, we’re going to make some savings. I can’t believe Jim was sold by the offer of free haircuts for life.’

‘It’s for his beard. He’s beyond proud of it, and nobody trims a beard better than at Groom with a View.’ Molly grinned and then, catching Robin’s eye, her expression became more serious. ‘When I met them in The Artichoke the other night to discuss your plans and see what bartering could be done, I did also, uhm, happen to see Tim.’

Robin went very still, one hand pressed between her shoulder blades, her elbow sticking up towards the ceiling. ‘You did?’ Her mouth was suddenly dry.

Molly nodded. ‘He was there with his boss, Malcolm. Tall, weaselly, gives me the creeps – you’ve probably not run into him yet. It looked like they were celebrating a deal.’

‘Right,’ Robin managed. ‘You didn’t speak to him – Tim, I mean?’

Molly shook her head. ‘But he flashed me one of those what-a-man-I-am grins, as if maybe he knew I was going to relay the encounter to you.’

‘That’s how he smiles at everyone.’

‘I had a feeling that this smug grin was extra special. I’m unnerved by the fact that he’s not dropped by to see you yet. It makes me wonder what he’s up to.’

‘Maybe he heard about London, about what happened to Neve, and thought he’d give me some space.’ Robin chewed her lip. ‘Actually, no, if he’d heard about it, he would have offered me a shoulder to cry on.’

‘His shoulder would be the best, obviously.’

‘Oh, of course,’ Robin said, smiling at her friend, ‘none better in the whole of Campion Bay – or on the south coast, for that matter.’ She turned away, thinking how wrong it felt to talk flippantly about her grief, even though she knew it was progress – returning to some semblance of normality, making fun of the darkness when you were relieved to be emerging into brighter days. There had been a time, not so long ago, when even smiling had seemed like too much of a stretch.

‘Lunch?’ she asked.

Molly rubbed her stomach. ‘If you’re offering, otherwise some of these Sharpies might mysteriously disappear.’

‘Make yourself comfortable downstairs and I’ll bring in some sandwiches.’

Robin boiled eggs, fried rashers of streaky bacon and brewed Lapsang Souchong in one of the ruby-red breakfast teapots. As she did, she found her thoughts turning unavoidably to Tim.

Tim Lewis had been her childhood sweetheart. The most irritating, prank-playing, arrogant little shit at school who, somewhere between the ages of twelve and fourteen, had become utterly desirable. He had still played the odd prank, but his ridiculous blond curls were tamed, and his arrogance had honed itself into a confidence and determination that he was going to do something with his life.

Robin had, like all the other girls, harboured a not-very secret crush on him, and was more surprised than anyone else in the school – though only by a small margin – when, on a balmy September day, aged fourteen, he had asked her out. She had never been a wallflower at school, but she hadn’t reached the heights of popularity that put her automatically within his reach, either. He’d seemed over-confident when he’d asked, accidentally spilling the can of coke he was holding nonchalantly in his hand, and Robin liked him all the more for that. They’d travelled on the bus to Bridport cinema and watched There’s Something About Mary, nervous at having got in a year too young. Towards the end of the film, Tim had slipped his hand in hers.

They’d dated, declaring each other boyfriend and girlfriend, their relationship surviving against the odds right up until Robin went to London to study Sociology. They’d thought they could make it work, Robin had harboured ideas of Tim coming to join her in the capital – she was sure his ambition would outgrow their cosy Dorset town – but she had misjudged him. Tim was happy where he was, staying close to his family and being a big fish in a small pond, working for a local estate agent, graduating from first homes and small flats to manage country estate sales. Now, it seemed, he’d progressed even further.

Robin poured out the boiling water and ran the eggs under the cold tap, the smell of sizzling bacon filling the kitchen. Of course she’d thought about Tim when she’d made the decision to return to Campion Bay, but they hadn’t spoken for over ten years. They were both in their early thirties now. Molly had kept her updated with significant news while she was in London, and so as far as she knew he wasn’t married, but did he still leave his hair that bit too long, allowing those gorgeous blond curls to flourish? Robin bit her lip. It was only a matter of time before they bumped into each other.

There had been something magnetic about his confidence, something altogether irresistible. It was the thing that made her heart beat faster now, so many years later, and even after the way it had ended. The problem was that Tim knew how irresistible he was, and over time the kindness and warmth that he’d directed at her had begun to fade, especially once Robin had moved away and their relationship had become more like hard work. Maybe she hadn’t been there often enough, telling him she loved him, keeping his ego inflated. Whatever it was, he’d eventually found comfort and adoration with someone else, and had admitted it to Robin during an argument weeks later, as if wanting her to know what she was missing out on.