Open for Business – Part 1

‘And all the better for having you here to celebrate with us,’ he said, reaching out to squeeze her hand. ‘Especially now, with all that’s behind us, and ahead of us.’

‘Hey,’ Molly said, ‘don’t start that. It’s too early in the evening for deep and meaningfuls.’

Robin saluted her friend. For the first time in what felt like ages, and – as her dad had said – despite all that was behind her, she could see a glimmer of hope in what was to come. The idea had been planted, and Robin could tell that it was already beginning to grow in the background, working quietly away in her subconscious. By the time midnight struck and the New Year had dawned, the seed might even have generated a few solid roots.

Robin watched the party guests from her prime position on the top step of the guesthouse. She could feel the warmth of the hallway at her back, seeping out through the half-open door to meet the cold night air, and the solid heat of Molly sitting next to her on the step, wearing Robin’s navy wool coat. She could see the backs of her parents, of Mrs Harris, of Ashley and Roxy from the Campion Bay Teashop, and the couples who had chosen their small corner of the south coast to celebrate the New Year. And then, as the bongs of Big Ben reached her from the radio in the kitchen, Robin watched the night sky light up with the first, golden fireworks. She could just make out the boat they were being launched from, the smoke drifting through the air in the split seconds between one burst and the next. The pops and bangs were like a starting rifle in her mind. On Your Marks, Robin.

‘Happy New Year,’ Molly said, slurring slightly, holding her champagne flute up to the sky, the strobes and chrysanthemums and brocade bursts reflecting in the glass.

‘Happy New Year, Molly.’ Robin clinked her glass against her friend’s.

‘I’m envious,’ Molly said. ‘You’ve already got your resolution. I’m still deciding whether I want to learn how to windsurf or take that tattooist course I’ve been threatening to do for ages.’

‘Why not both? They sound pretty challenging, but somehow still a lot less daunting than taking over the guesthouse.’

‘You’re having second thoughts?’ Molly sat up and turned towards her.

‘No, not at all. I’ve thought of nothing else all evening – not even when Dad threatened to give us all a rendition of “Mack the Knife” after his fourth glass of punch. It made me wonder if I should have the dining room redecorated to look like a nineteen fifties American diner. You’ll be happy to discover I quickly decided no, by the way.’

‘You’re thinking of having themed rooms?’

Robin gave a quick shake of her head. ‘Not themed, exactly. Styled, definitely. I want each room to have a name and its own, individual look, but maybe that’s too ambitious.’ She scrunched her nose up, cross with herself for letting the doubt circle closer and closer, like a shark.

‘You know I can rope Paige in to help around her college course, don’t you? She’s tired of clearing up glasses at The Artichoke, and helping with refurbishments would play to her creative strengths.’ Molly’s daughter, Paige, was studying jewellery design at the local college, with ambitions of setting up her own studio. ‘And I’ve got a couple of builder clients I can talk to,’ Molly added, ‘depending on the scale of work you’re thinking of.’

Robin sipped her champagne and watched as a blue waterfall firework lit up the sky, shimmying down towards the water. ‘I don’t know. It depends how much money I can put into the refurbishment.’

‘Ian and Sylvie?’

Robin nodded. ‘I’ve not even mentioned it to them yet.’

‘They’ll be delighted. It’s a much happier bombshell to drop on them than the one they landed you with.’

‘It might be the bombshell I need. To get properly going again, after Neve.’ It sounded like a new era: After Neve, and that was exactly how she felt about the death of her friend. She had to get going again, to live on in this strange new world where a big piece of her existence was missing.

Molly threaded her fingers between Robin’s and squeezed. ‘You’re in the right place. Even when your mum and dad have gone, you’re not starting it all on your own.’

Robin returned the gesture. ‘I appreciate all of this – the encouragement, the not abandoning me when I first came back, when I was greasy-haired and in my pyjamas, getting through a box of tissues a day. I’m not sure I’ve told you how much.’

Molly dismissed her gratitude with a quick frown and headshake, carrying on as if Robin hadn’t spoken. ‘You’ve got me and Paige. Paige will rope in Adam, and if you want any expert advice, there’s always Tim Lewis, junior partner at Campion Bay Property. I’m sure he’d be keen to offer you a free consultation about your renovations.’ She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

Robin gave a shallow laugh, but her palms were suddenly slick. ‘Oh God, don’t.’

‘Have you seen him, since you’ve been back?’

She shook her head. ‘Sometimes I think I have, a head of blond curls in the supermarket or on the beach, but it always turns out to be someone else.’

‘He must know you’re here. The Campion Bay rumour mill would have spat that nugget of information in his direction. He’s obviously picking his moment.’

‘Or he’s decided to stay away.’

‘Oh, come on.’ Molly laughed. ‘That’s not exactly his style, is it?’

‘No,’ Robin admitted, her stomach churning unpleasantly. ‘No, it’s not.’

The patter of the fireworks was replaced by a meagre smattering of applause from the crowd as the display came to an end. Robin found herself searching through the darkness for that head of blond curls, wondering if Tim Lewis, the ex love of her life, would miss the one New Year’s Eve event that Campion Bay was putting on. Then she realized that he was more likely to be at an exclusive house party somewhere in the Dorset countryside, drinking Tattinger and fifty-year-old Macallan, if Molly’s updates over the years were anything to go by. But if her friend was right and he was choosing his moment to reacquaint himself with her, then what was that moment; why was he waiting? Suddenly it wasn’t just the thought of taking over the Campion Bay Guesthouse that was on her mind, and when she finally made it into bed, a sliver of pale moon glinting at her through the converted attic window, she slept fitfully.

Chapter Two

‘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.

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