Helen looked apologetic. ‘Sorry, Rosie. But honestly, just like you said to me, you’re going to wake up one morning and realize that this is the best thing that could have happened to you.’
‘It feels like someone’s kicked me in the stomach.’ I picked up a guide to northern France, for a champagne touring holiday we were going to go on but never managed to book time off to take.
‘That’s normal,’ insisted Helen. ‘But don’t forget what a pig he is. Let the rage energy through. It’s cleansing. I had to keep eye masks in the kitchen fridge for a month because every time I thought about not being with Seamus any more, I cried so much I got conjunctivitis. Whereas you need to be angry. Because you deserve more than he was ever going to give you.’
How could I have misread it so badly? I wondered. How had I managed to ignore the fact that Dominic was more excited about a new flat than he was about sharing it with me? Had I just seen the bits of our relationship that I’d wanted to? The thoughts were sharp, and I didn’t want to examine them too closely.
‘But now look!’ Helen pressed on. ‘No sooner do I get rid of all that toxic energy from my life than I meet a really lovely man who makes me happy! It’s all for the best, Rosie. Honest. Relationships don’t have to be one constant headache. Love should be fun. And, let’s be honest, neither of us was having any fun in our relationships, were we? We were miserable.’
‘Mmm.’ I still wasn’t convinced that Seamus and Dominic fell into the same category of boyfriend. They were like parking tickets and death by dangerous driving: technically both car offences, but on separate scales.
‘Is this the toaster you bought that chubby bastard for Christmas last year?’ She held up the lovely blue Dualit toaster. ‘I think you should take it. It’s nice.’
‘Toast’s the only thing Dominic eats at home,’ I said miserably. That’s why I’d given it to him. He’d given me a … I frowned. What had he given me, actually?
‘Then he’s going to have to learn to eat something else.’ Helen dumped the Dualit into the box of my mugs, along with two phone chargers and my expensive iron, which Dominic had broken trying to iron bread when the toaster wasn’t working. ‘Wynn? Could you be a love and take this for me?’
‘No problem.’ Wynn had been waiting patiently by the door. Helen had volunteered his Volvo to do my emergency moving: it was a mobile version of Wynn himself – a big, sensible car with a boot in which I’d spotted some walking boots, a tennis racket and a tatty 2009 road map. A normal person’s car, in other words. There was a pair of floral wellies in there too, which I assumed were new ones belonging to the previously outdoor-phobic Helen.
Wynn wasn’t saying much, out of respect for my wet, red face, but every so often, out of the corner of my eye, I’d catch him and Helen giving each other private, adoring half-smiles when they thought I wasn’t looking, and my heart crumpled up like a used napkin. Then I felt mad again, that I’d wasted two years of my life being strung along by someone who didn’t even have the courtesy to use my real name in his column, when I could have been finding a nice man like Wynn.
This rage/misery combination was really, really exhausting.
We’d just crammed the last box into the Volvo when I spotted movement at the end of the street, where the iron railings turned the corner into Hebden Terrace.
I knew it was Dominic. I could tell from the glint of brass buttons on the coat that he thought made him look like a U-boat commander but that Helen told me everyone else thought made him look like a fiddle player in a third-rate folk band.
I felt a flash of anger. How long had he been lurking there, waiting for me to go, so he wouldn’t have to face me? Me, the woman he’d shared his life and his flat and his column with for two whole years. Didn’t he even care enough about me to say goodbye properly?
I stopped myself, as a voice in my head pointed out that he’d barely shared his flat. Or his life. Our stuff had been so easy to separate: his drawers, my drawers; his shelves, my shelves; virtually nothing bought together in two years, because neither of us was ever home. It was his flat; I’d been like a lodger with benefits. He’d been so slippery about us buying somewhere together – why hadn’t I seen it?
Because I hadn’t wanted to. I’d wanted the idea of me and Dominic so badly that I’d ignored every tiny clue that everyone else had seen. I felt hot with shame and rage, more with myself than him. And I’d thought Helen had been delusional. I’d been much worse.
‘Rosie, are you ready?’ Helen called from the car.
The brass buttons twinkled in the light as if the coat they were attached to was ducking farther into the shadows, rather than face me. What a coward.
I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t know what I wanted to say to him. Swedish Betty was welcome to him.
‘Yes,’ I said loudly, towards the darkness. ‘I’m ready.’
And I chucked my house keys over the wall into the recycling bins.
*
In all the years I’d been attending the weekly staff meetings at the Bonneville, I’d never managed to say anything that had made every single person stop talking and stare at me, not even when I announced who I’d found in the circular bath in the penthouse, and with whom (plural – and, no, I really can’t say, sorry).
This time, though, I managed to make the entire meeting fall silent with one simple sentence.
The combined amazement directed towards me could have powered the ballroom chandelier, with some left over to do the wall sconces, but I didn’t care. I was all out of caring. Despite the festive spirit filling the hotel, from the enormous oversize holly wreaths on the outside to Christmas with the Rat Pack playing inside, I could only make myself care about anything in the ten-minute windows when the caffeine wore off at the same time that the chocolate rush dropped. I carried a thermal travel coffee mug and a Twix to make sure it didn’t happen often.
Helen mouthed Are you okay? over the table at me, and I forced on a wonky smile, at which point Laurence looked startled. He put his glasses back on to look at me properly.
‘Say that again?’ Sam the concierge stuck his little finger in his ear and wiggled it. ‘I think my hearing’s going.’
‘Quick! Quick! Write it down,’ hissed Dino, gesticulating at Gemma, who was doing the minutes. ‘Before she changes her mind!’
‘I said, I don’t mind being on the rota for Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve,’ I repeated. ‘In fact, count me in for the whole week. I’ll do it all.’
‘But, Rosie!’ Jean the housekeeper looked aghast. ‘Your parents! Aren’t they expecting you home for Christmas?’ She leaned over the table, giving me the benefit of her full Northern motherliness. Most of it was resting on the plate of Danish pastries, which I was glad Delphine wasn’t here to see. ‘Won’t your mam need some help with the lunch?’
‘No,’ I said truthfully. ‘They’re going on a cruise with my brother and his family. Round the Scandinavian isles. All you can eat. They always do. It’s their annual challenge. My dad’s been looking forward to it since Lent.’
Jean looked sad, which was rich, considering she usually volunteered to work New Year’s to limit her time in Keighley to the bare minimum.
‘What?’ I protested. ‘What is so weird about parents going away for Christmas? If everyone stayed at home, this hotel would make no money at all on Christmas dinner, and it’s one of the busiest days of the year!’
‘So, you’re volunteering to work on Christmas Day, as well as doing the Farewell to the Year on New Year’s Eve?’ Laurence repeated. ‘Because you know I’ve booked Christmas Day off. We’re having Ripley and Otto for Christmas lunch here. Ellie’s joining us.’
He beamed around the table, but I saw Helen, Tam, Sam, Jean, and Dino all flinch in their seats at the same time. For individual reasons, relating to silver domes, the alarmed security doors behind the kitchens, tickets to The Lion King, the laundry chute, and maraschino cherries, respectively. Ripley and Otto’s recent surprise visit
had taken a while to get over. And, to be honest, Ellie’s return wasn’t exactly on a par with a royal visit. (Although ironically, in Ellie’s head, it was much the same thing.)
‘Yes,’ I said. Then said, ‘Yes,’ again to Gemma, for the minutes.
‘I can give Rosie a hand,’ Joe piped up. ‘I’ll be here.’
‘Not on Christmas Day,’ Laurence reminded him. ‘You’ll be enjoying some quality time with your brother and sister.’
Joe didn’t blanch at that, which was manful of him, but just said, ‘Of course,’ then mouthed, I’ll help you when Laurence went back to the agenda.
I smiled tightly. I didn’t want Joe’s help. I didn’t want anyone’s help. I wanted my to-do list to pile up into a blizzard of chores and deadlines and room-servicing, if it came to that, which would propel me into the New Year – and the New Me – with the minimum time allowed for thinking about anything related to food, food writers, or writers.
I know. In a hotel. It was like something the malignant wing of Satan’s Hell Committee would have chortled themselves bright red over. And I’d come up with it all by myself.
*
Laurence asked me to pop into his office as soon as everyone barged their way out at the end of the meeting. Guests were very generous at this time of year, and no one wanted to be invisible when it came to appreciative gestures, even heads of department.
I hoped it wouldn’t take long, whatever it was. I had a potential October bride coming in at eleven, and I wanted to get her in and out before lunch, while the sun was still shining crisply over the courtyard and the Palm Court hadn’t filled up with wild-eyed Christmas shoppers streaming in from Piccadilly to take the weight off their aching feet.
‘Ah, Rosie. Sit ye, sit ye,’ he said, but less jovially than usual.
When I was settled in the chair opposite his, Laurence steepled his fingers (minor wince for arthritis) and adopted his concerned expression, not the anxious ‘my computer seems to be frozen’ one I’d been expecting.
I felt slightly nervous. We hadn’t actually discussed the events of the London Reporter Christmas party, as they related to me personally. Dominic wasn’t stupid enough to complain about the blatant envelope tampering, and the hacks had spent double what we’d expected on booze, but I knew it didn’t reflect well on me in a managerial capacity that I’d let it happen. Laurence might be too gallant to mention it, but I was pretty sure he knew. And Caroline would definitely find out. She found out everything eventually.
‘Rosie,’ he said, like someone choking down their sprouts to get them out of the way first, ‘this may be none of my business, but … things aren’t going very well at the moment, are they?’
I blinked. How did he know that? I wondered if Joe had said something about his work experience with me. We’d been getting on a bit better lately, since he’d been moved on to catering and wasn’t hanging around my office asking annoying questions about why brides had bridal favours/three types of attendants/fruitcake; but thanks to Flora’s constant demands, he still seemed to drop into my office most days with an irritating observation about my management style.
‘Has Joe said something?’ I asked carefully. ‘Because Flora’s very happy with—’
‘What? No. No, I mean, things clearly aren’t quite right with you. Volunteering to work over Christmas and New Year. Letting Sam get away with comments about the bridesmaids. And you look as if you haven’t slept in a week. I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re looking a little … well, not as coiffed as usual? Would you like me to book you in for a health check?’
I lifted my (stress-spotty) chin, and tried to tell myself that it was a compliment to my usual high standards of appearance.
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘It’s just that I’m staying at Helen’s at the moment. She doesn’t have a lot of room.’
‘Why are you staying at Helen’s?’ Laurence looked shocked. ‘Don’t tell me your flat’s having to be fumigated again. Dominic hasn’t been hanging pheasants in the airing cupboard?’
I sighed. I’d forgotten about that. How we’d laughed (eventually). ‘No, it’s not that.’
I had to tell Laurence. He – and the rest of London, probably – would find out soon enough when bloody Dominic announced in his column that Betty was dead, long live New Betty. Swedish Betty was probably packing her Scandi-culottes for a fabulous New Year eating venison and bonfire-roasted marshmallows with Dominic’s friends. My old friends. Well, acquaintances.
‘Dominic and I have split up,’ I said, and the invisible fist punched me in the chest this time. ‘Helen’s letting me sleep on her sofa till I find somewhere else.’
‘Oh, Rosie. I’m sorry to hear that. I really am.’
I didn’t dare look up. Laurence’s sympathetic face would finish me off. As it was I was biting my lower lip so hard it was starting to go numb.
I don’t know what I was expecting him to say – some too-much-information comment about the time Ellie kicked him out of his own hotel, probably – but instead he said, ‘Well, this is rather fortuitous because I was going to suggest it anyway, but if you’re set on working over the Christmas period, then you really ought to move in here.’
‘Into the hotel?’ I looked up, surprised. ‘But we’re fully booked.’
‘No, into the staff apartment. I’m going away for a few days …’
‘Are you?’
‘I’m detoxing,’ he said piously. ‘It’s not huge, as you know, and Joe’s back in his old room, but it’s cosy enough, and you’re very welcome.’ Then he spoiled it by adding, ‘Anyway, you’ll be downstairs most of the time if you’re duty manager.’
I was intrigued, quite apart from the generosity of the offer. I’d only been into the Bentley Douglas apartment a few times. It wasn’t anything like the rest of the hotel. I remembered it as being like stepping back into 1964, all jazzy sunflower wallpaper and battered yellow Formica, since any spare money the family had went on the public areas, not their own living quarters. I’d always assumed Ellie had overhauled it, just like she’d attempted to turn the rest of the hotel neutral, and that now it would look as if someone had stapled four miles of beige linen to every flat surface.
Still, it was central, it was part of the hotel I’d never had a chance to explore, and I needed every penny I could lay my hands on, if I wanted to buy a flat of my own.
Flat. I’d be lucky. On my salary, even finding a tiny studio like Helen’s within the M25 would be a miracle.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘That’s really kind.’
‘Excellent.’ Laurence rubbed his hands together. ‘Bring your stuff round whenever you like. We have Wi-Fi –’ he said it with air hooks, as if he didn’t quite believe in it – ‘but only a very basic package. Joe’s on at me to upgrade it.’
I smiled, touched by his thoughtfulness. It was like a family here. Dominic had been wrong. I hesitated. ‘Laurence, um, you won’t tell anyone why I’m moving in, will you? I don’t really want everyone to know just yet.’
I could deal with Laurence feeling a bit sorry for me. Sam, not so much. Or Dino. Or any of the other heads of department who might either gossip about me or try to get me to join their after-hours poker circle for terminally single hotel employees.
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘It’s none of anyone’s business but yours. As my divorce lawyer liked to tell me.’
I was nearly out of the door, my head held high, when Laurence added, ‘But if you don’t mind me saying, Rosie, I hope your next boyfriend appreciates you a little bit more than that pretentious berk,’ and I had to walk out very quickly before he saw my wobbly lip.
If even Laurence thought Dominic had taken me for granted, things must have been very bad indeed.
*
When I let myself into the staff flat the following evening, with most of my life in three bags, Laurence was out having a Christmas drink with ‘an old friend’ I’d reintroduced him to at a wedding the previous weekend, after a discreet tip-off from Car
oline. Joe, though, was at home to welcome me.
Or rather, he was sitting at the yellow Formica kitchen table, eating mince pies with a casual disregard for either calories or crumbs, and going through a list with a pen. I recognized Flora Thornbury’s scrawling hand – the list was titled: Bridesmaids, Long List, and was divided into Blondes, Brunettes, Redheads and Children. A copy of Tatler’s eligibles list was open next to it, with many Post-it notes.
‘Don’t tell me Flora’s choosing bridesmaids according to hair colour now?’ I asked, before I could stop myself.
Joe spun round. ‘Actually, she is. Part of the bridesmaid questionnaire she sent out was, “Would you object to having your hair dyed?”’
‘No.’ I put my handbag down on the table and looked closer. ‘You’re winding me up.’
‘I’m not. I had to talk her out of making them give her their weights and measurements, too. So I am getting more tactful, see?’ He grinned. ‘Flora’s almost as bad as you when it comes to detail. I can see you asking your bridesmaids to dye their hair to—’
He stopped, suddenly remembering why I was moving in. Because I was at the exact furthest point from requiring bridesmaids.
‘Tactful,’ I said. ‘But for the record, I will not require my imaginary bridesmaids to dye their hair. I will have their heads shaved so I will be the prettiest woman there. I believe that’s the Bridezilla principle you’re always going on about?’
‘Hey, let me get your bags,’ he said, getting up. ‘Welcome to Casa Bentley Douglas. You can pick a room, there are two spare …’
I followed him out into the narrow hall/landing where, as I’d guessed, Ellie had made a stab at redecorating by painting the walls ‘biscuit’. She hadn’t been able to do anything about the loud carpet, which had a jolly 1960s swirling pattern, or the chunky furniture, which had been out of fashion for so long it was coming back in. After the clean lines and muted thirties colours of the main hotel, it felt like going through the wardrobe to Narnia.