Читать книгу The Afternoon Tea Club - Jane Gilley - Страница 11

Chapter 7

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‘For God’s sake, Dora! You’re like a flibbertigibbet. Go find something useful to do instead of moping around like some gangly teenager. It’s a shame your father treated you like a ruddy princess when he was alive because, as I constantly need to remind you, real life comes with hairy armpits. And will you leave your ruddy face alone? It’s how God intended,’ her mother, Yvonne, bellowed.

At forty-nine, Dora was fed up of life.

It hadn’t turned out the way she’d hoped because she’d never really known what she’d wanted to do in life. At school, the careers advisor had tried to encourage her with things like hairdressing, floristry or nursing. But none of those professions had appealed to her. And whereas her friend Jodie always knew she wanted to be a beautician, Dora never had aspirations in any particular direction. And because she knew her father would always be there for her, picking up the tab, no matter what happened, she’d drifted through life, cherry-picking, knowing she never really needed to have any career aspirations.

‘If I choose wisely, I can always be looked after by a wealthy husband,’ was her comeback, whenever her mother had asked what she intended to do in life.

‘Better get a move on then, love, because there’s a ruddy great long queue in front of you, all looking for the exact same thing!’

Her mother, ever sceptical, had never stood for what she used to call Dora’s ‘nonsense’ back then. Even now, at the ripe old age of eighty-nine, she was a still force to be reckoned with. When Dora had been a young girl she’d been spirited, too, and not quite as respectful of her mother as she had been of her father, when he’d been alive. She’d never questioned anything he’d said or done. Didn’t need to. His word had been king. Not that there was ever anything to judge him by or criticise him of. He’d been one of those exemplary people whom everyone looked up to: staff, customers, his children and wife. And he’d done very well for his family.

***

Her father, Martin, as her mother liked to tell everyone, came out of his mother’s womb, ‘knowing what was what from the get-go!’ A shrewd businessman, all his business deals turned to gold, which meant his family would never want for anything in life.

Even as a boy, he’d been at his happiest selling things like his brother’s old bike or an old chest of drawers from their garage while his parents were out shopping. And when he’d left school with few qualifications, Martin had worked in an auctioneer’s, doing what he’d always liked doing best – buying and selling. He’d beavered away, saving up all his commission and wages, with his heart set on buying cheap decrepit old buildings in the right location, and turning them into profitable themed accommodation, one by one.

By being in the industry he found out where all the best places, for the best prices, were. So by the time he’d got married to Yvonne and long before they’d started their family, he’d procured four properties and turned them into Hen & Stag Hotels, sited just outside London. They became incredibly popular and did a humongous trade because of Martin’s relaxed attitude to the clientele’s private enjoyment of the Jacuzzis and other raucous entertainment, setting the scene for riotous but very profitable behaviour.

And once they’d settled into their enviable lifestyle with a big house overlooking the sea, they’d had their kids. Stuart first, followed by Dora, possibly a little late in life. Then with Yvonne’s insistence Martin did an about-turn and purchased another property which, between them, they turned into their Arts & Crafts Hotel in the Cotswolds. They aimed for a different clientele, offering mid-week inclusive breaks for Painting and Drawing or Photography for Beginners, as well as weekend courses of Basket Weaving or Jewellery Making: Beads, Bracelets and Clasps.

It seemed Martin’s magic touch could do no wrong within the industry of themed entertainment. All his properties were highly profitable and constantly packed to the rafters. Martin’s dynamism had set his family up for life.

‘And the “B” plan – if it doesn’t work out, guys – is that we’ll become property developers and turn the ruddy lot into flats or houses and make our fortunes that way!’

But it had never come to that. Updating his properties whenever necessary meant they hadn’t fallen victim to changes of trend. So they all had jobs for life. Dora’s brother, Stuart, married but with no children, was the manager of the themed hotels; her father was overall sales and marketing director and her mother, even up until very recently, had headed up the bookkeeping and bookings team.

As a teenager, Dora had reluctantly done stints as a waitress and chambermaid in the hotels during the school holidays, at her mother’s insistence to gain a bit of what she called ‘real-life experience’ rather than swanning around spending the family’s fortune, as her father would’ve had her doing. Dora had certainly been a daddy’s girl, and her father had doted on his precious daughter. He certainly wouldn’t have had her paling at the sight of vomit in the Hen & Stag Hotel bathrooms that she’d had to clear up, her mother standing over her with a bucket of hot soapy water, when Dora first started working there. But he wouldn’t have sided with his daughter against his wife, either.

‘We have to teach her some responsibility and life skills, Martin. She has to learn that life isn’t always about spa days and holidays in Florida,’ her mother had pointed out, as Martin slipped his daughter a couple of crisp £20 notes for her troubles.

At odds with her mother, Dora finally left the family home; left a hated secretarial job and dumped her two-timing fiancé at age twenty-six, to travel Europe and America, refinancing her travels with bar work or nannying whenever she felt like it. She never settled anywhere or with anyone for too long; slumming it on Californian beaches with sun-bleached surfers or bedding down with arty types around the theatre scene in Paris and generally having the time of her life, whilst she tried to decide what she should be doing. It was a far cry from the constraints of family life in Hampshire, even though she didn’t have to want for much in her family’s luxurious surroundings.

Back then, however, even though Dora still didn’t know what she wanted out of life she realised she wanted to live her life on her own terms. Not her parents’ terms.

‘Secretarial and hotel work is simply not for me,’ she’d told her best friend Jodie, who’d repeatedly asked what Dora was going to do next in life, each time her current foreign boyfriend dumped her.

‘But don’t you want to come back and settle down at some point, hon? We could have so much fun again!’ Jodie pleaded.

‘But they want me to work in our hotels and it’s just not what I want. My mother won’t let up about it. She says it’s where I belong.’

So Dora continued to kick back at what her parents wanted for her by staying away and living as freely as she pleased. However, her father’s first stroke – which, fortunately, didn’t kill him – had seen her running back to the family fold. Dora had missed her father. She hugged him while their tears mingled as he held her tightly, forgiving everything, pleased she was finally home.

‘I’ve missed you so much,’ they both spluttered.

His health scare had, however, made him reassess his life and he’d called a family meeting to discuss the pressures of running their family businesses and the toll it was taking on everybody, not just himself.

‘I mean, aren’t we doing this so we can have a good life? We don’t want to be killed off too early because of it,’ said her father, convalescing, afterwards. ‘And I think I need to change my tune about you now, Dora. You’re what? Bloody hell! You’re thirty-two and still single? Your mother is right, princess, it’s high time you took on a bit more responsibility. You’ve enjoyed a carefree life for years. But we need some help, here. Your mum’s seventy-one, even though she doesn’t look it and even though she’s still got plenty of get up and go in her. But she should’ve retired by now. Heck! We both should’ve retired by now. I’m seventy-four.’

‘But, Dad!’ Dora had started to pout and then got a ‘quit whining’ look from her brother, Stuart.

‘Leave it out, sis,’ said Stuart. ‘You’ve had a cracker of a life so far. But back to reality. This is what’s real!’

‘Your brother’s right, Dora,’ her mother snapped. ‘So we’re getting the staff together and putting some new priorities in place. You’re not tied to anyone and you don’t have kids or a husband anywhere we should know about, do you? Don’t pull that face. You never tell us anything. That’s why I’m asking. No? Right, so therefore you’ve got no particular reason to go running back to wherever it is you hang out these days – Spain, did you say?’

Dora had stared sullenly at the patterned carpet and took hold of her father’s hand.

‘I don’t want you to die, Daddy.’

Stuart had scowled at her but her father had drawn her into a long hug.

‘I’m not dying today, sweetheart. But it’s going to happen some other day. And before that day comes we do need to sort some things out. So can I count on you to help towards that or at least help us make some decisions about things? Your mother will need all the help she can get whilst I start taking things a bit easier. That stroke has put my left hand out of kilter. And that’s my phone and writing hand, so things are going to be a bit difficult for us at the moment. I’ve already spoken to Stuart and he’s going to take over my role whilst I’m off sick with a view to taking it over permanently, even when I start to get better. He’s recruiting that Damian chap as the manager. He’s a reliable sort I believe. Been with us three years already, as bar manager, so he should do a good job. And your mother needs a certain someone to step up and help out, too. So do you think you can do that for us, Dora darling?’

Dora didn’t want to be stepping up anywhere. She was still searching for her life, the last time she looked.

‘I guess, Dad. But it’s not where my heart lies. I still don’t know where that is but I’m pretty sure it’s not in cleaning up after people or making their beds. I mean, there’s no way I could be a nurse, that’s for sure!’

‘Of course, darling.’ Her father had nodded soothingly. ‘But I think your mum could do with some help behind the scenes in the office, just until we sort things out on a more permanent basis.’

She’d pulled a narky face, despite her mother shaking her head. Inwardly, she’d have liked nothing more than to run away from that responsibility. She’d never liked the hotel life she’d been made to endure when she was younger. She’d have enjoyed working on the front desk as a receptionist in those days, but her mother had insisted she start at the muddy bottom and work her way up, which had put her off working in hotels for life!

‘Look, Dora, surely you realise you’ll be able to offer a better service to your customers as well as understanding the problems the staff face on a regular basis by doing this. And then, of course, the hope is that it’ll make you a better boss at the end of the day, when you and Stuart inherit the businesses,’ her father had said.

Inherit the businesses? So that’s what all this had been about? Dora had never wanted to inherit the sodding businesses. She’d always intended that to be Stuart’s baby when the time came for her mother and father to check out, as it were.

That type of commitment, whereby she’d have to cultivate and tout for business and then maintain that business, was too much for her. She wouldn’t be able to live a carefree life, that’s for sure. And though she’d never really known what she wanted to do in life, she’d certainly never envisaged taking on the family businesses.

All she’d ever loved doing was romping around interesting countries with equally interesting men in tow, even though she’d blown the last one, Pepe, out after she’d caught him stealing her money for his roll-ups and vodka. He wasn’t the love of her life, even though the sex had been terrific. So, at the time, her foray home because of her father’s ill health had coincided with her limited choices of what to do next. Their tiny airless studio flat in Alicante was still there awaiting her return if she decided that was her plan, though she’d told Pepe it was not.

On the other hand, it was marvellous to be back amongst the lavish trappings of her family’s home environment. She could sleep in her beautifully furnished bedroom when she wanted and eat what she wanted, when she wanted. She didn’t have to do things like go out with Pepe on his boat to catch flapping, gasping fish for their supper or spend hours scouring the markets for all the items she needed to make everything from scratch. Dora simply did not expect to have to do things like killing, skinning and gutting things in order to eat. That’s what supermarkets were for, to take the stress out of finding food on a daily basis. She found life so much more civil at home in the UK. She knew she would starve if she ever found herself stranded on a desert island.

So looking down on her father, on his sick bed that day, Dora had sighed deeply, just to let everyone know she wasn’t happy with the suggestion that she ‘pull her weight’. Yet whilst she didn’t like to admit it, she could see that it did made sense for her to stay and help her folks get things sorted and settled for a little while because she really had nowhere else to go. Plus a stint in the office would be infinitely better than cleaning up after their mainly boozy guests. So it just might be do-able.

Yeah, but then I’ll be gone, she’d told herself.

In fact, not only had Dora stayed to help out for a few months, but she’d stayed working in the family business for a good few years longer than she intended. And she did everything from bar work to, yes, cleaning toilets when the situation arose, as well as running the accounts team and sitting in on the monthly meetings and putting her points across in a professional manner. Remarkably, she found she quite enjoyed managing people and, surprise, surprise, her parents had been right – working from the bottom up had put her in a good place for dealing with problems the staff faced. Thus business and life in general, for Dora, was trotting along at a good pace and they’d just secured another small hotel in London with a view to turn it into a boutique spa hotel when her father suffered his second, fatal stroke.

And then – almost overnight – everything suddenly changed.

After the funeral, one of Martin’s business associates asked if he could buy the four Hen & Stag Hotels and Dora’s mother said ‘Yes,’ without flinching. Those hotels might have given them an enviable lifestyle but they’d never been places Yvonne had felt comfortable in, even though that’s where she made Dora do her first few years’ work experience.

Stuart had just gotten divorced and decided to take a year out and tour Australia. And there, on a train between Sydney and Brisbane, he met Hazel, the woman he was now married to. They’d moved to Devon and ran a hotel there, complete with her young daughter, Stephanie, and a rescue dog they’d called Ozzy. The Wallabies, Dora called them all. A property developer bought the boutique spa hotel in London and Dora’s mother sold the family home and flat but kept the Cotswolds hotel she now lived in and ran with Dora. And even though Dora would later admit that it wasn’t such a bad thing, no longer running around the world with the likes of Pepe, she still had her off days when she wished she could just do that.

Hence why her mother’s recent outburst had Dora lamenting to her friend Jodie that life was becoming ‘predictable’.

‘I’m still living at home with my ox of a mother, for God’s sake! And she thinks I should be settled and married like The Wallabies by now.’

‘Aw, honey,’ Jodie had crooned. ‘But you’re not the marrying kind.’

Admittedly, Dora had certainly evaded that institution! But she’d soon be fifty, a fact that concerned her greatly because, where had all that time gone?! She was certainly at an age where she no longer felt happy in her own skin and had not been on a date or hooked up with anyone delectable in years. She felt as though she was drifting again, with no particular direction in mind. She seldom went out, unless Jodie rang out of the blue and they spent a rare weekend together at Jodie’s home, back down in Southampton, getting rat-arsed down the pub, whilst her bloke was working night shifts for his security company. Yet it somehow felt wrong that she was still living with her mother. In fact, everything felt wrong with her life.

‘It’s all slipping away from me, especially since my looks have faded,’ she’d whine to anyone who’d listen.

So, fed up of her friend’s whinging, Jodie had rung one day with a suggestion.

‘Look, why don’t you have a shot at Botox or whatever. Works wonders for me.’

‘No chance! I don’t like pain and what if it all went wrong?’ Dora had blared, robustly.

‘Look, just have a think about it. I can send you a whole bunch of literature on it.’

Just a little nipping and tucking could work miracles, the brochures had said. The glittering photos of the before and afters had certainly looked inspiring. And there were all sorts of procedures to choose from – invasive and non-invasive. And so, reassured by Jodie, Dora had asked her friend to drive to their hotel and then dragged her along to her appointment to try out a bit of Botox.

When they got back to the hotel Yvonne had squinted at the results, and then pulled a face. ‘Is that a botch job or what?’

Disillusioned, Dora went back to try and get it sorted out the next day.

‘Oh I’m sorry, love,’ the receptionist had told her. ‘You have to wait till it wears off. Round about three to four months after your first injection, sometimes less. And then we can have another go at it.’

‘What? So I’m supposed to look like a frog in the meantime, am I?’

‘You must’ve moved while they were doing it,’ Jodie had said, suppressing a giggle. ‘It should’ve been fine. Oh, don’t worry about it. Just put a bit of lippy on and smile more instead of frowning. Anyway, I thought the intention was to get your forehead done? Not your mouth.’

‘I know but I hate my saggy face! And anyway, you should’ve persuaded me to use your chap.’

‘But you rarely get leave of absence from your hotel. Plus, like I said, he’s on holiday. Anyway, it doesn’t look that bad.’

Despite her friend’s encouragement, she didn’t feel any better and her smile was definitely wonkier than it had been. She wasn’t sure that a bit of lippy would help but clearly there was nothing she could do about it all now.

‘Oh, how I hate getting old and decrepit,’ she’d groaned to her mother.

‘You behave like a small child!’ her mother had snapped. ‘Just grow up and find yourself a man and settle that roving spirit of yours.’

‘Well, that might happen if I looked prettier than I do. But just look at my crow’s feet, my lined forehead, my crappy skin.’

‘What do you expect after sitting on a beach for nearly ten years?’ her mother had shot back. ‘And do you hear me whinging about my looks?’

Dora snapped. ‘No. But you’re allowed to be wrinkly at eighty-nine. It’s expected of you.’

Their sparring had become amiable over the years. True, she had been a daddy’s girl and absolved of all failings and errors because of that. But now she was much closer to her mother. She was even closer to The Wallabies and popped over to see them sometimes, when being in one place for too long took its toll.

Yet it was on a rare couple of days’ visit to see her mother’s sister, Aunt Philippa, in Southampton, after nagging her mother to leave the staff in charge of the hotel and come with her because she was fed up of doing things by herself, that Dora spied a flyer in a shop window offering free afternoon tea at a nearby community centre, the following day. And it transpired that the building was on a road parallel to where Philippa lived.

So because Dora was feeling out of sorts and generally fed up with her life she decided to act on that flyer and find out what afternoon tea at the Borough Community Centre was all about. And as her bloody mother had complained about her moping about, she intended to leave her mother and aunt to catch up whilst she went off on a little adventure for the day.

Who knows, Dora thought, it might just cheer me up a bit.

Plus it said she was going to get a free cup of tea and a piece of cake.

The Afternoon Tea Club

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