One Small Act of Kindness

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  But what? Libby tried to work out why she was shrivelling inside. It was because she did feel judged by this. Judged by herself. The hotel was going to be their thing, the project that’d pull her and Jason back on the same track, and she’d made it sound like the project of a lifetime to her friends, because that’s what she wanted it to be. It coudn’t just be what it was – a simple little country B&B. Why?

  She gripped her mug. ‘Everyone Jason and I know either has an amazing career or an amazing house or amazing children. My career was doing all right, but then the company started making layoffs, and then Jason . . . messed up, and I just wanted to prove that we could do something incredible . . .’

  Something for people to be impressed by. Oh God, I am so shallow, Libby realised. Shallow and glib. Everything I’ve always hated in other people. I thought I was better than that, but I’m not.

  Bob gave another of his expressive sighs and burrowed his head along her hip. Libby could feel pins and needles beginning in her leg, but she didn’t care.

  ‘Prove to who?’ Alice asked, and her gentleness made Libby want to cry.

  ‘To other people.’ Libby paused. That was the truth, but she knew it wasn’t the right answer. ‘My friends.’

  ‘Your friends whose Facebook posts you ignore?’ Alice poked at the duvet. ‘Friends who leave me phone messages asking you to call them and you never do? There are only so many meetings I can say you’re in, when there are, like, two guests a week.’

  Libby said nothing. She knew it was stupid. Every time she saw a message in Alice’s neat writing, she couldn’t quite believe Erin, or Becky, or whoever it was really wanted to talk to her.

  ‘You don’t need other people to tell you who you are,’ said Alice, and her face was sweetly serious. ‘I’ve learned that. The only person who matters, the only person who really knows you is you. And if you think you’re the sort of person who can get back after something like this, and carry on, and finish the job, then you are. You just haven’t needed to do it till now. It doesn’t mean you haven’t been that person all along.’

  Their eyes met and Libby felt stronger, just from the sense of absolute belief radiating from Alice.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘You’re right.’

  Gina Rowntree, PAT volunteer and Longhampton’s premier project manager, it turned out after some cursory Googling, arrived in the afternoon, accompanied by a lanky man with long dark curly hair and a Thin Lizzy T-shirt. He wasn’t her husband, she explained; he was her most reliable builder. Which didn’t mean she didn’t treasure him just as much as Nick, her actual husband.

  ‘This is Lorcan Hennessey,’ she said, once she’d greeted everyone and sympathised (briefly). ‘He’s a carpenter, mainly. He came because he doesn’t want you to think all builders are like this lot who’ve left you in the lurch.’

  ‘Indeed not. Some are worse,’ he said solemnly, in a strong Irish accent, then added, ‘Only joking.’

  Before Libby could react, Gina gave him a mock-horrified look. ‘Time and place, Lorcan.’ She had a stillness about her when she was with Buzz in the PAT sessions, but here, working, her manner was more like a friendly school prefect – competent, firm, no-nonsense.

  ‘Right now, I’ll take all the jokes on offer,’ said Libby. ‘Even the really bad ones.’

  ‘In that case, Lorcan’s your man,’ said Gina. ‘I only let him play his awful rock music on jobs because it drowns out the jokes. Now, take me to your very worst room. That’s always the best place to start.’

  After Libby had led them to the horror that was room six, with its two holes in the walls, they inspected the rest of the first floor, with Libby explaining what the plans were, and Lorcan tapping and frowning at the woodwork. Gina listened, and asked questions that made Libby squirm inside: no, she hadn’t drawn up a proper contract with Marek for delivery times. No, she hadn’t allowed a contingency fund for unexpected extras. No, she hadn’t done a business plan. And on and on.

  ‘Are we the most clueless renovators you’ve ever seen?’ she asked despairingly, after Gina had explained yet another basic building shortcut to her.

  ‘No! Not at all. The most ambitious, maybe.’ The glamorous baths had drawn oohs and aahs from both Lorcan and Gina, then sharp intakes of breath when Libby had confessed how much they’d cost. ‘But you’d be surprised how many couples don’t discuss budgets properly when they start these things.’ Gina pulled a face over a doorless doorway. ‘In a way, it’s good because otherwise they wouldn’t need to pay me to come in and sort it all out afterwards.’

  ‘But don’t you find it annoying?’

  ‘No.’ Gina gave her a consoling pat. ‘To be honest, the worse the mess, the more satisfying the sorting-out.’

  ‘Good,’ said Libby. ‘I think.’

  After an hour or so, Libby sat Gina and Lorcan down in the kitchen and offered them a cup of tea, with the last of Margaret’s expensive biscuits. Margaret had taken herself off somewhere, probably to one of her town cronies to complain about her selfish daughter-in-law.

  Gina sipped her tea, then got a black notebook out and turned to a fresh page. Something about the practical gesture sparked a tiny flame of optimism in Libby’s weary heart. Tea, notebook, fresh page.

  ‘So, to recap,’ she said, clicking her pen, ‘you’ve got a deadline, which is this journalist coming at the start of September. You want to be opening again at the beginning of July. We’re now nearly in June. That’s about five weeks. Plenty of time. And your budget is . . . ?’

  ‘Minimal. Can we come back to that?’ asked Libby bravely.

  ‘No problem,’ said Gina, as if it wasn’t a problem. ‘Lorcan? What’s your verdict?’

  Lorcan sighed, put his elbows on the table and shoved his big hands into his black curls. ‘OK, so . . .’

  Libby’s forehead creased with dismay.

  ‘Ignore that,’ said Gina, seeing her reaction. ‘He does that on every job I’ve ever seen him on. It’s how builders think. Brain has to connect with hands.’

  ‘I reckon . . . it’s not quite as bad as it looks,’ said Lorcan. He sat up and met Libby’s worried gaze direct; he had disconcertingly denim-blue eyes, with thick dark lashes, and his smile started there and worked down to the rest of his face. ‘They’ve not done the neatest job, but once we’ve got those walls sorted out, and the rest of the bathrooms plumbed in, it’s straightforward tiling and painting.’

  Straightforward. It could be brain surgery as far as Libby was concerned.

  ‘And then you’ll need carpets.’ Gina was making notes. ‘And your soft furnishings . . . Did you have an original budget I could look at?’

  Libby slid Jason’s spreadsheets across the table and watched as Gina flipped through them with an expert eye, circling things here and there.

  ‘Did you say your husband works in finance?’ she asked, without looking up.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You know he’s put no VAT in any of these calculations?’

  ‘Really?’ Libby groaned.

  ‘It’s no wonder you ran out of cash sooner than you thought. So . . . the bad news is, straight off, I think you’re going to have to scale back your plans.’ She smiled supportively. ‘Again, I say this at least twice a week – you’re not the first developer to go over budget; you won’t be the last. So my advice is to take control of it. Either focus on getting four rooms really nice and keep the rest of the doors shut or tackle the whole hotel more basically.’

  Libby’s dreams of Egyptian cotton sheets and luxury detailing were sliding away in front of her eyes. ‘When you say basic . . . ?’

  ‘I mean, off the top of my head, sanding and sealing the floors instead of carpeting. Um, going for cheaper curtain material but lining them properly. Painting instead of wallpapering. Getting basic sa
nitaryware in for the rest of the en suites but decent taps. I can work through your budget and see where savings can be made.’

  ‘But the journalist thinks she’s coming to a luxury boutique hotel!’ Not just the journalist but all their friends in London, who’d be eagerly flicking through the magazine to see Libby and Jason’s fabulous lifestyle change. Something churned inside her. She could almost hear Rebecca Hamilton asking, ‘Where’s the spa, hon?’ in that fake-concerned way she had.

  ‘There’s no point going into debt to make one journalist happy,’ said Gina. ‘If you haven’t got the money, you haven’t got the money. Move on. Change the question to one you can answer.’

  Libby stared at her mug, her mind spinning. This week had been full of turning points. She’d always assumed life’s turning points would be signposted well in advance, like motorway junctions, so she could prepare for the big swerve towards a new destination, but the reality was that they sprang out at you, you had a split second to react, and then you were heading off in a direction you weren’t even sure you’d chosen.

  Jason losing his job had come out of nowhere. Now this. A week ago, she thought she knew what she wanted. But now what did she want? And even if she did know, how capable was she of making it happen, with no money and no experience? Right now, even paying for next week’s groceries was looking shaky. Was she kidding herself that she could do this alone? Should she just hand over the keys?

  The voice in her head pointed out that now she was sitting round a table with two people who were helping her, because they wanted to, and were talking to her about what she wanted. A first, really, on this project. She had a chance to take control.

  Libby’s eye fell on Jason’s spreadsheets and she had to look away; it sent a shard of pure misery straight into her chest.

  ‘As far as that feature goes,’ Gina went on, folding up the spreadsheets without further comment, ‘and I’m speaking as a regular reader of those sorts of magazines, I’m way more interested in someone who’s put their dream project together on a budget, under mad pressure, than some hedge funder’s wife who just threw her husband’s cash at some architects, then ram-raided The White Company in order to make a boring hotel the same as all the other boring hotels her boring friends go to. A bit of friction makes it much more interesting.’

  ‘Yes, when you’re reading about someone else. When it’s you . . .’ Libby knew her voice sounded whiny, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  Gina reached for her mug of tea and gave Libby’s wrist a squeeze on the way. It was a friendly grip, but a ‘come on, now’ one. ‘Libby, we’ve all had moments like this. When you and I know each other better, I’ll bore you with my story of how the very best things in my life came out of the very worst moments. Seriously. Lorcan too.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Lorcan nodded. ‘Life has terrible timing. You wouldn’t want it organising a party for you.’

  ‘It’s still a great PR opportunity; you just have to decide how to play it,’ Gina went on. ‘Honestly, this place is such a gem! I love your baths, and the colours you’ve picked are great . . . So what if you economise? What do people really remember about a hotel? The expensive sheets, or how relaxed they felt when they left? Pick some nice cheap touches to make your own. I’ve recommended the Swan to visitors on the strength of the dog-friendly rooms alone – that’s a really strong selling point, for one.’

  Libby opened her mouth to say that wasn’t part of her plan, actually, but wisely changed her mind.

  ‘In the end, though, it’s your choice,’ said Lorcan. He cast a warning look at Gina. ‘Easy for us to see this as a project – imagine it’s more complicated than that for yourself right now. Emotions-wise.’

  ‘Fine, take the emotions out of it,’ said Gina. ‘Let’s get this place finished and then you can put it on the market if you want. But you can’t do nothing, right?’

  Libby took a deep breath and looked ahead for the turning point. She could do nothing and get nothing, or she could reach out, take some help and see where she ended up. A lightness filled her chest, like a thousand tiny birds lifting her up and up and up. The hotel deserved to be put right. She wanted to be the one to do it.

  I’m going to do this, she thought, and I’m going to show Jason he was wrong, that he didn’t need to gamble our money to pay for it. And that if it comes to it, I don’t need him either.

  God, that made her cold and sad. She wanted to take it back instantly, before the universe took her at her word.

  ‘OK,’ said Libby, ignoring the ache in her chest. ‘How do I do this?’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘. . . and so Lorcan’s getting his apprentices to use the hotel as training to keep the costs down.’ Alice deftly moved the chopped clove of garlic into the pile she’d already made. ‘Everyone’s pitching in to help – Gina’s husband, Nick, has offered to do the photography for the website, and another of the PAT volunteers works at a house-clearance charity, so she’s stockpiling rugs for Libby for the bedrooms. They’re going to give more of a vintage feel, instead of the boutique look.’

  She paused, aware that she’d been telling Gethin about Libby’s plans for about half an hour, non-stop, and he’d barely said a word. ‘But it’s going to be a lot of hard work,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s mucking in. I said I’d do some painting, if they need an extra pair of hands.’

  ‘Is that a good idea, though?’ Gethin stopped peeling an onion and turned to her, concerned. ‘You shouldn’t be pushing yourself so hard.’

  It was lunchtime, Gethin had taken the day off, and they were chopping vegetables side by side in the kitchen. Tastes were, according to the hospital, good memory prompts, so Gethin had found recipes they used to make together; apparently this was a favourite Thai curry that they both loved and used to make ‘at least once a week’.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she reassured him. ‘I’m just doing easy bits. And making a lot of coffee.’

  Gethin tilted his head and gazed at her through his shaggy fringe. ‘You were only supposed to be helping out for that one day. I think they’re taking advantage now.’

  ‘They’re not.’ Alice paused. ‘They’ was really just Libby. Jason was still AWOL, Margaret was barely speaking to anyone, and Luke wasn’t coming until the following evening. Something expanded inside her chest at the thought of Luke walking through the front door.

  Luke had texted her to check she’d be around when he called in and Alice’s stomach had looped over just at the sight of his name on her phone. She wanted to talk to him about the plans, about her memories of her parents . . . About anything, really.

  ‘Libby doesn’t know anyone round here: she needs all the help she can get,’ she said quickly, to push Luke out of her mind.

  Gethin opened his mouth to say something, then closed it.

  ‘What?’ Alice recognised the tension that flashed across Gethin’s face when he had to remind her of an unwelcome memory, something she needed to know but wouldn’t enjoy hearing. It was a miserable responsibility, she thought, that the one you loved most also had to be the most honest with you. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I just think you’re being a bit naïve. They don’t have any money to pay staff, so of course they’re going to take advantage of the fact that you’re grateful to Libby. I don’t want you to get dragged into anything, especially when you’re still not completely over your accident. And,’ he added, ‘maybe it’s selfish, but I want you back here with me, not painting walls for strangers. This house feels empty without you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Libby.

  Gethin selected another tomato from the pile and sliced it in half, revealing its heart of seeds. ‘It’s hard, when you’ve got used to sharing your life with someone,’ he said, keeping his eyes on his chopping board, ‘and suddenly they’re not there.’ He bit his lip. ‘And it doesn’t feel like they want to be there.’

  ‘But I do!’ sai
d Alice at once. ‘That’s not fair. I’m just . . . It’s just getting used to it all.’

  He didn’t reply and Alice cast a sideways glance at him. Gethin chewed his lip and looked . . . not quite sad, but almost offended? She supposed he had reason to be.

  After that first date night, Gethin had ditched the smart clothes and returned to a more relaxed polo shirt and jeans. She liked his slightly mod look: rumpled and sweet. They’d kissed at the door last time she left – not a passionate kiss, but something lingering, tender, that had caught fire a little at the end, his hands in her hair. Enough to make her hope that, maybe, soon, her body might remember something.

  He finally looked up, straight into her eyes. ‘When are you going to move back?’

  Gethin’s sincerity caught her off balance; she hated the idea he could see her doubt, or the more troubling thoughts hovering at the edges of that dark curtain over her memory. ‘Soon,’ she said.

  Alice was saved from saying more by the phone ringing in the hall.

  He put down his knife. ‘I’ll get it,’ he said. ‘Probably my boss. She doesn’t understand the concept of a day off. Won’t be a moment.’

  ‘So it’s OK for her to take advantage of you, but not for Libby to take advantage of me?’

  Alice said it lightly, but Gethin frowned. ‘Don’t be like that.’

  She turned back to the pile of garlic cloves and resumed her chopping. It was nice, this, she told herself. Glass of wine, Gethin’s playlist of ‘their’ songs, summer air streaming through the big doors in the—

  Ow. The knife had got too close to her knuckle while she’d been dicing and taken a small but bloody chunk out of her finger. Alice sucked it. One ruby drop of blood had already fallen on the chopping board.