Читать книгу Christmas on Rosemary Lane - Ellen Berry - Страница 11

As the days had lengthened and Rosemary Cottage’s garden had started to awaken, so Lucy began to feel stronger again – more like her old self.

‘You’re doing too much,’ Ivan warned as she launched herself back into the business of readying their home for guests. ‘Slow down, darling. We can open when we’re ready – there’s no rush.’ But Lucy didn’t want to slow down. She wanted to get things kick-started and found solace in designing a website and setting everything up for online bookings. It was crucial, she felt, to be up and running in good time for the summer season. Being busy certainly helped her to deal with her grief, and by early May they were open.

For those first few weeks, bookings were sparse. But as the mild spring eased into a glorious summer, the guest rooms were generally full at least on Friday and Saturday nights. As well as looking after their visitors, Lucy had thrown herself into decorating the house with flowers and foliage from the garden. She had always loved having fresh blooms around her at home; back in Manchester, she had grown what she could in tubs and window boxes, but been frustrated by the lack of space. Even as a child, she had loved to snip nasturtiums and cornflowers from her parents’ neat suburban garden to plonk into jam jars and bring into her bedroom. Now, as something new seemed to burst into life every morning, her imagination began to run riot. This was the first time Lucy had ever had a proper garden of her own, and she adored it.

Her beautiful, cottagey floral arrangements started to be noticed by friends and guests. Through word of mouth she was asked to decorate the local church hall with flowers from her garden, which in turn led to her creating table centrepieces for a coffee morning at the village primary school. Several more occasions were in the diary. It was thrilling to her, how she was building this delightful side hustle, using little more than the natural resources around her.

Meanwhile, Rosemary Cottage was starting to become popular with hillwalkers, and her excellent breakfasts – prepared by Lucy while Ivan looked after the children – were proving quite a hit. As well as the traditional full English, she had introduced home-made creamy yoghurts and berry compotes, made from the currants that still grew in the garden, to be served with toasted brioche from the village bakery. There was also home-made granola, paper-thin crepes drizzled with molten dark chocolate, and fluffy vegan banana pancakes served with maple syrup and coconut cream.

It had all taken an enormous amount of thought and planning – but as the summer went on, Lucy was determined to offer something a little more special than the average B&B. She knew from reading numerous blogs that the days of the greasy fry-up served by a belligerent landlady-type were long gone. Guests were no longer thrown out into the rain straight after breakfast. It seemed that the most loved B&Bs combined the style and comfort of a boutique hotel with the personal welcome of a family home.

‘And I thought we’d just be able to throw them some Sugar Puffs,’ Ivan joked late one night, as Lucy prepared a batch of pancake mix for the morning.

From time to time, she still suspected her husband was missing his old life with all those client meetings and glittering ceremonies where Brookes had scooped numerous awards. While she chatted happily with guests, Ivan could be rather reserved and prone to hiding away in the tiny study upstairs. He had his freelance work to crack on with, she reminded herself, and perhaps he was still adjusting to rural life.

They grafted all through the summer, with the children spending much of their time playing happily in the garden with their new friends. Just as Lucy had as a child, Marnie and Sam viewed the garden as being full of hiding places, the setting for their imaginative games. ‘I used to climb over that wall when I was a little girl,’ she told them. ‘The lady who lived here used to chase us out!’

‘We’re allowed to play here any time we like,’ Sam remarked with a trace of pride, his lightly freckled face browned from the sun.

‘Yeah – we’re the luckiest,’ Marnie agreed. Her long, flowing light brown hair had turned golden and, like her brother, she glowed from a summer of playing outdoors. Since school had broken up, Lucy couldn’t remember seeing them wearing anything other than T-shirts and shorts. They had inherited their father’s rangy physique, with slender limbs and skin that turned honey-brown at the merest whisper of sunshine; Lucy was paler and curvier. Both of her children had celebrated their birthdays here in the garden, with vast picnics set out on blankets, bunting strung from the trees and what had felt like the entire village descending for afternoons of games.

It had been a glorious summer so far, and Lucy had grabbed any opportunity to tend to the herbaceous borders and pots of herbs she grew for cooking. Meanwhile, Ivan regarded the lawn as ‘his’ job – much to the delight of Irene Bagshott, a widow in her sixties who lived further down the lane.

‘D’you ever loan him out, Lucy?’ she asked with a throaty laugh as she passed by one August afternoon.

‘I’m sure we could arrange something,’ Lucy chuckled, while Ivan raised a flustered smile. Since she’d met him, he had never seemed aware of his visual appeal, and dressed practically – forever in jeans, a T-shirt or sweater – rather than with any concession to style. In fact, since moving here he was proving himself to be quite the handyman. Whilst Lucy certainly fronted the B&B, Ivan wasn’t averse to fixing guttering, replacing a cracked window or sawing a precarious branch off a tree. Whenever he didn’t know how to tackle a job, he read up on it or studied YouTube tutorials, then got stuck in. It had felt crucial to Lucy for them to make a real go of their business this summer, and they had, very happily, certainly achieved that. Next summer, she felt, they could take things to another level and start offering evening meals too.

Lucy even allowed herself to believe that Ivan had settled fully into village life, and that he wasn’t missing his old workplace – or life in Manchester – at all. However, it soon became apparent that other plans were afoot, which he hadn’t shared with her.

Late one warm September night, they were setting the communal breakfast table for the next morning when he sighed and fiddled with fistfuls of cutlery before finally blurting out, ‘I have something to tell you, Luce. A job’s come up. A really good one.’

She stared at him and frowned. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘It’s with Si Morley. Remember him?’

‘From Brookes, yes, I think so. Didn’t you used to go for a drink sometimes?’

Ivan took off his glasses and nodded. ‘He has his own agency now – it’s small but they’re doing incredibly well. A few of the guys from Brookes have already moved over to work with him.’

She nodded, wondering what this was leading to. ‘Have you applied for a job with him?’ she asked hesitantly.

‘God, no, I haven’t applied,’ Ivan said quickly. ‘I wouldn’t do that without saying anything to you, would I? No, Si approached me.’ He repositioned the cups and saucers unnecessarily.

‘But why?’ Lucy asked. ‘Doesn’t he know we’re living here now, and that you’ve gone freelance?’

‘Yes, of course he does.’ Ivan started to polish the glassware with a tea towel even though it was sparkling already. ‘He just thought of me when it came up,’ he added. ‘Apparently I was kinda the obvious choice.’ He pushed back his wavy hair that he wore longer now, since he had left his job. He was more stubbly, too, and his more weathered, outdoorsy look suited him.

‘Right,’ Lucy said. ‘Well, you know how valued you were at Brookes.’

He nodded absently, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him. Lucy crossed the room to one of the two squashy powder blue sofas. As she plumped up the cushions, she tried to ignore the ball of anxiety that seemed to be forming in her gut. Surely he wasn’t tempted by this so-called ‘approach’? Ivan had agreed that he, too, needed a fresh start, especially after they had lost the baby. He wanted to spend more time with the kids and less on jumping to attention when his clients demanded it. His parents, who lived in the outer reaches of North London, had implied that Lucy had ‘forced’ him to give up his job – but it hadn’t been that way at all.

‘What is the job anyway?’ she asked lightly.

‘Oh, it’s a brand manager role. New client. A major repositioning so it’d be all hands on deck for a few months …’ He repositioned the ketchups, the HP sauce and mustards on the table, as if engaged in a simplified game of chess, with condiments.

When he wandered through to the kitchen, Lucy followed him. ‘So, who’s the client?’

‘A pretty dire hotel chain – you wouldn’t know them. They’ve been hit with a torrent of bad reviews and some of them are pretty disgusting. There’s been food poisoning scandals, outbreaks of bedbugs—’

‘Nice,’ she exclaimed with a shudder. ‘Shall I book us in for a treat?’

Ivan smiled. ‘Sure. Anyway, they’ve been bought out with a ton of new investment, and the actual properties are sound, so they’re looking to completely refurbish and re-launch as a collection of boutique urban bolt-holes.’

‘“Boutique urban bolt-holes.”’ Lucy gave him a bemused look.

‘Ha. Yeah, I know,’ Ivan chuckled, his dark eyes glinting. ‘Quite a challenge.’

Lucy unloaded the tumble dryer and started to fold Sam’s T-shirts. They were emblazoned with planets and robots; outer space and mechanics were his main interests right now. She picked up his polar bear sweatshirt, which he had recently shunned, considering it too babyish at the age of six (although he was still fiercely attached to his panda pillow and refused to sleep on anything else).

‘So, are you interested?’ Lucy ventured hesitantly, willing Ivan to say no, of course not, but it was flattering to be asked.

He shrugged. ‘I might just pop in for a chat. Nothing to lose, is there?’

She stared at him. ‘What d’you mean, there’s nothing to lose?’

‘I just think it might be a bit short-sighted to turn it down flat,’ he said quickly.

Lucy stood still, astounded. ‘I thought our life was here now? You agreed, Ivan. You said you’d had it with that kind of full-on work. It was doing your head in, you said—’

‘Lucy, I’m just saying—’

‘So how d’you think it’d work,’ she cut in, ‘if they did offer it to you? I mean, surely you wouldn’t go back to commuting? It was hard enough, those few weeks you did it.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Or would it be a home-based job? I suppose that might be okay. You’ve managed in the study so far, haven’t you, with your freelance work? I know it’s a bit cramped in there. Could we convert the shed, or build an office in the garden—’ Lucy broke off, cursing herself now for not having realised that something was going on. But these days, she felt as if she barely came up for air. It was all she could do to keep on top of day-to-day life here.

‘It’s not a home-based role,’ Ivan murmured. ‘They’re actually offering a flat with the job.’

‘A flat? Where – in Manchester?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, love. It’s a company flat – just a tiny studio – and it comes with the job. Si’s just bought it. They reckon they need me to make this work, this rebranding the hotel chain thing. So they’ve put together this great, um, package.’

Lucy blinked at her husband. At forty-two, his handsome, finely boned face was virtually unlined, his hair showing no sign of thinning. It had amused her, the way some of the women in the village had fussed over him when they had moved in, clearly delighting in the new, eye-pleasing family man who was seen out and about at weekends with his equally attractive children. He had just taught Sam how to ride a bike. He and the children had built a kite in the shed, which had attracted praise from the locals when they’d flown it up on the hill. Whether or not he was prepared to admit it, Ivan really was part of things here, and country life suited him. His wine consumption had reduced dramatically and he looked far healthier and more relaxed.

Lucy turned to him now, trying to remain calm and not over-react when she didn’t fully understand what he was telling her. ‘So, what are you saying exactly?’ she asked. ‘I don’t quite see how …’

‘I don’t want to upset you, Luce,’ he said quickly. ‘Honestly, it’s the last thing I want.’

Lucy swallowed hard, understanding now what this meant. ‘But we don’t need a great package, do we? We’ve worked so hard to build this. What about school, the kids’ new friends, their lives here—’

‘No, you’d stay here with them.’

Her heart seemed to falter. ‘And … you’d move back to Manchester? You mean, on your own, without us?’

‘Um … yeah.’ He nodded, and his gaze held hers. So this was it, she realised; finally, he was admitting that she had dragged him here, away from the cut and thrust of whizzy city life. It had been her dream – not his – to run a B&B in a picturesque village. He had only gone along with it to please her.

‘Are you … leaving me?’ Her voice cracked.

Ivan looked aghast. ‘No! Oh, God, Lucy – no. Of course I’m not. Jesus. Come here, darling.’ He wound his arms around her and pulled her close. ‘It’s just … I’ve really tried, sweetheart. You can’t say I haven’t.’

‘We’ve only been here ten months, for God’s sake. Can’t you give it more time?’

‘They need someone now,’ he said gently. ‘I’m so sorry, darling. I promise it’s true that they approached me. I didn’t go looking.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said sharply, turning away.

‘Running a B&B just isn’t me, Luce. I’ve realised that already. I mean, I love the village, and what we’ve done to this place. But I need more than this.’

‘You need more than us?’ she exclaimed.

‘No, no – not you and the kids. I mean living here, being so cut off from the world, worrying about have we got enough sausages and do we need new pillows, and did we remember lime marmalade, one of the guests asked for it last week, and maybe it’s time we started offering evening meals—’

‘Sorry your life has become so limited,’ she snapped as her tears spilled over.

‘It’s not limited. It’s fantastic!’

‘So fantastic that you’re moving back to Manchester, away from us?’ She was shouting now; she couldn’t stop herself. Thank God their children slept soundly at night.

‘Listen.’ He grabbed at her hand. ‘I’ll only be away four nights out of seven. I’ll set off on Monday mornings and be back on Fridays, and it’ll make our weekends all the more special.’

So it was all decided then, she realised. This wasn’t a discussion about whether or not he should accept the job. His mind was made up and, whatever her feelings, it looked as if she would be running the B&B virtually alone.

‘We can get someone in to help here,’ he added, as if reading her thoughts.

‘We can’t afford that,’ Lucy said flatly. ‘We’re only just managing to stay afloat now.’

‘Yes, but we’ll have my salary again, won’t we? It’ll be less pressurised, love. Think what a relief it’ll be, having that security again – that regular money coming in. I know it’s looking good for the next few weeks, but what about winter? There’s hardly anyone booked in past October—’

‘I could go all out to get more floristry work,’ she said quickly, hating the desperation that had crept into her voice.

‘But there won’t be any flowers then, will there?’

‘I know, but I was thinking of doing Christmas arrangements and selling them locally – even over in Heathfield. There are plenty of shops that sell that kind of thing. Winter foliage, wreaths, there’s tons of scope for seasonal decorations with holly, fir cones, berries …’ Lucy stopped, her cheeks flushing. ‘I know it won’t make much money,’ she added, ‘but I have a feeling it could grow and become a bigger part of our lives.’

‘I’m sure it could,’ Ivan said distractedly. ‘I think you’re so talented, Luce. It’s amazing that you’re doing this too, on top of everything else you’ve got going on here. But it’s not about that. It’s more about …’ He paused. ‘My future, I guess. My working life.’

She rubbed at her eyes and put down the bunch of teaspoons she’d been holding tightly. ‘You really want this job, don’t you?’

Ivan nodded.

‘And it’s definitely yours, if you decide to accept it?’

‘It is, darling, yes, but please don’t worry. I’ll still be with you, in every way. You and me will always be a team.’

She inhaled slowly, letting his declaration settle in her mind, and looked around the country kitchen they had planned so carefully. In the past few weeks she had already scrambled hundreds of free-range eggs on that hob. She was immensely proud of what they had achieved, even at this early stage; the glowing online reviews, and a guestbook filling with positive comments. So she would not fall to pieces if Ivan had made up his mind to accept the job. She had wanted Rosemary Cottage far too much to let her dreams crumble now.

Lucy smoothed down her long dark hair, which fell in loose waves over her shoulders. ‘Okay, then,’ she said firmly. ‘Go ahead and accept the job, if it feels like the right thing to do.’

Ivan cleared his throat and looked at her. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I know I should have talked to you first, but … I already have.’