The Golden Oldies Guesthouse (ARC) Read online

  ‘A big apple?’ asked Tess, to which Orla nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘So, a song about New York?’ Matt said. More nodding. ‘“New York, New York”?’

  Orla shook her head and sighed. ‘Think Christmas!’ she ordered. ‘Didn’t you see I was being a fairy, waving my wand?’

  ‘No,’ they replied in unison.

  ‘And pointing to my tail? “Fairytale of New York” – got it? You really are a bunch of thickos.’

  This caused much giggling all round.

  ‘Tell you what, Orla,’ Simon said, ‘stick with making the Irish coffees! We’d all like another one, wouldn’t we?’

  With some sighing and eye-rolling, Orla headed for the kitchen. ‘Not a brain between you,’ she muttered. ‘Anyway, how can I make proper Irish coffee when you’ve only got Scotch?’

  ‘Well, we weren’t aware of your great talent,’ Simon said. ‘I promise we’ll get some of the Jameson next time – or do you prefer Bushmills?’

  ‘Bushmills,’ Orla said, ‘and until then I’ll just have to make do.’ She sighed as they lined up with their glasses. ‘I’ll just have to use more of it.’

  By nine o’clock everyone was pleasantly pickled, tales had been told of Christmases past, terrible in-laws, terrible presents, disastrous food.

  ‘But this one’s been fun,’ Matt said, ‘if a little weird.’

  ‘Not weird, just our first Cornish Christmas,’ said Tess.

  ‘Josh will never be allowed to forget it,’ Lisa said, laughing.

  ‘We’ll incorporate it into his wedding speech,’ said Matt.

  By ten o’clock both Orla and Simon were fast asleep by the fire and Tess was struggling to keep her eyes open.

  ‘We’d better let these old folks get to bed,’ Matt said.

  ‘It’s been a long day,’ Lisa said, yawning.

  By eleven o’clock everyone was asleep.

  * * *

  No one got up early on Boxing Day; even the children slept until nearly nine o’clock. Josh demanded to know where his tricycle was, and was apparently given all sorts of dire warnings as to what might happen if he even thought about going downstairs until they were all up and dressed.

  Matt decided they should head home in the evening because he had to be at work the next day, and Lisa the day after, when the au pair was due to come back on an early flight from Munich.

  ‘If we set off around five we should be home by nine or ten,’ he said. Seeing his mother’s face fall, he added, ‘But we’ll come back, just as soon as you’re open for business. And we’ll rent one of those fisherman’s cottages where the fishermen don’t live – right?’

  It had been a lovely Christmas, Tess reckoned, even if a little chaotic at times. She’d miss the children, too, particularly Ellie.

  ‘I love it here with you, Nana,’ Ellie said.

  ‘When you’re a little bit bigger you can come often, and even spend the summer here.’

  ‘Oh, I’d love that! But not Josh, Nana.’

  ‘No, perhaps not for a few years,’ Tess agreed.

  ‘He can’t help being like that,’ Ellie explained sadly. ‘He’s a boy.’

  ‘That explains a lot,’ Tess agreed.

  They had a lazy day, eating up the mountains of food, and drinking very little. The three ‘oldies’ indulged in some lunchtime wine; Matt and Lisa stuck to water.

  The afternoon was spent sitting by the fire, drinking cups of tea, entertaining the children. Josh was less boisterous today, and kept well away from the tree with his three wheels.

  * * *

  Later, as their car disappeared down the drive, everyone waving out of the windows, Tess wiped a tear from her eye.

  Simon put his arm round her. ‘It’s been a lovely Christmas, darling – and we won’t need to buy any food for weeks!’

  10

  DISASTER

  On 7 January, at two o’clock in the afternoon, Simon Sparrow fell off the ladder while attempting to paint one of the front bedroom windows. Tess heard the crash as she herself was painting the kitchen ceiling and nearly fell off her own stepladder with the fright. As she dashed out the front door, she found Simon, liberally splashed in white paint, trying to get up and clutching his arm, groaning in agony.

  ‘Oh my God! Are you all right?’

  ‘No,’ said Simon, ashen-faced, ‘I am not.’

  Pong Parker had also witnessed the accident from upstairs and had dashed down to assist Tess in trying to get Simon to his feet. ‘Thought I saw a bleedin’ sparra flying past,’ he quipped.

  ‘Do you think you’ve broken anything?’ Tess asked anxiously as they got him standing.

  ‘Yes, my bloody arm,’ groaned Simon, clutching his right elbow with his left hand. ‘And my ankle…’ He limped a few steps leaving footprints of white paint all over the stone. The plumber grabbed the paint pot which had crashed to the ground along with Simon. Fortunately it had been almost empty but had still succeeded in splashing both Simon and more of the stonework.

  Tess noted the side of his face and his hand were also badly grazed. ‘We’ve got to get you to the hospital,’ she said, ‘after we’ve got those overalls off, and your shoes.’

  Simon refused to stop clutching his elbow and groaned in pain as Tess rushed to get some scissors and cut away the overalls round the sleeve. He stood shivering in his sweater and jeans while Tess fetched his coat and then drove the Land Rover, parked just a few yards away, to where Simon was leaning against the wall by the front door. Pong and Tess, with difficulty, got him into the front seat and off Tess sped to the local clinic-cum-cottage-hospital five miles away.

  The X-ray confirmed that he’d broken his lower arm in two places but not his ankle, which was only badly sprained. He’d hit his head, too, and had to spend the night in hospital while they checked him for concussion. He’d need to go to Plymouth to have the bones set and the arm plastered but they’d take him by ambulance. Tess was advised to go home as there was little point in her going to Plymouth, but she should check next morning and, if he was all right, she’d be able to drive him home. Poor Simon! He must be in such pain! Furthermore, it was going to delay much of the work he was doing, the window-painting being just one of a long list of jobs that needed to be done. Tess sighed; at times life appeared to be one step forward, two steps back.

  The following morning Tess was informed that he was ready to go home and so off she set for Plymouth.

  ‘Six bloody weeks!’ he ranted, as Tess drove him home. ‘I’m not going to be able to do anything for six bloody weeks!’

  Simon was not a good patient. He limped around the house, the arm in a sling, feeling very sorry for himself and continually getting under Tess’s feet.

  ‘Just sit down, darling,’ she said, exhausted from hours of cleaning the paint off the stonework at the front. ‘Relax! Read a book or something.’

  ‘How can I relax,’ he wailed, ‘when there’s so much work to be done round here? Who the hell’s going to do it?’

  In the end Gideon from the pub very kindly offered to finish off repairing and painting the upstairs windows while Tess concentrated on downstairs. Gideon didn’t say much but he was very obliging. Tess learned that he had a brother, Michael, who’d left home years ago and had a little bar in Penzance. Gideon visited him occasionally but had no wish to leave Portmerryn. Had he ever had a girlfriend? Gideon shook his head and blushed some more. He was painfully shy, which was a great shame, Tess thought, because he was a good-looking guy and he was nice. Some woman would be lucky to have him.

  The plumbers, Pong and Pip, had come back to resume work on 9 January. They were always cheerful, whistled while they worked and told incessant jokes to anyone who would listen. At Tess’s insistence the first job they were asked to do was install the toilet and shower in their bedroom and a toilet in the laundry room before starting upstairs. This, of course, caused more hammering and more dust with the added delight of the water being turned off at regular intervals. Meanwhi
le Simon attempted to paint the new dining room wall with his left hand and succeeded mainly in dripping paint over the floor.

  Then he hit on a new idea. ‘I’m going to set up a website for our business,’ he announced. At least he could sit down, out of the way, to do that. The trouble was that they really needed photographs of the interior rooms which were nowhere near completion. So he concentrated on the ones they’d taken outside when they first arrived, highlighting the views and explaining that restoration work was in progress and that this boutique guesthouse would be available for a minimum of two-week lets from 1 May.

  ‘We aren’t going to be able to open for Easter,’ Simon sighed. ‘There’s far too much work still to be done.’

  This was a setback indeed. ‘We need the money,’ Tess said. ‘But perhaps we can get enough bookings and deposits to keep us going.’ Otherwise, she thought, we’ll be going to the bank for a loan, cap in hand, which was something they desperately wanted to avoid doing.

  Tess felt cheered when, at the end of the month, the kitchen units finally arrived and were fitted free of charge by the supplier. It had been a dull, grey month with little or no sunshine and Simon complaining constantly. He couldn’t sleep at night because of the pain in his arm and, on one occasion, Tess had inadvertently flung one of her own arms, in her sleep, directly onto the fracture. Chaos ensued with Simon insisting that he must sleep alone until such time as the pain subsided. This meant her decamping to one of the divans in what would become the new dining room at the rear.

  Tess consoled herself by enjoying her newly fitted, newly painted kitchen with its new Shaker-style units. Better still, her washing machine, dryer and freezer had now been installed in their correct places, along with the new loo and shower, in their new bedroom.

  ‘Time to move out of Windsor Castle,’ Simon said, ‘and bring our nice big bed downstairs.’

  They hadn’t lit the fire in there again as the room had to be painted and made ready. They chose a pale yellow for the walls, in an effort to make the room feel warmer since it, like the kitchen, faced east. Tess found a clothes rail in a second-hand shop, which she installed at one end of this new bedroom. It would have to do for now, but perhaps one day they might be able to afford a wall of built-in wardrobes. One day.

  Pong and Pip plus their apprentice were now hard at work upstairs, as was Bob Pengilly, who was adding a few extra power points. All in all it was a slow, laborious business and Tess felt exhausted with the endless clearing up, painting, ferrying Simon around as well as shopping, cleaning and washing. At least the tank for the central heating oil had arrived and was sited a few feet from the back door.

  And then Damien phoned.

  Simon cleared his throat and said, ‘Thing is, Tess, he needs somewhere to unwind and practise, get a repertoire together and all that. He’s really keen now on going solo.’

  Tess knew what was coming.

  ‘I mean,’ Simon continued, ‘it’s not as if we have guests yet or anything. Heaven knows we have plenty of space.’

  ‘And a house full of workmen,’ Tess added.

  ‘He won’t care, darling. He’ll have his sleeping bag and he’ll doss down anywhere. After all, he’s used to sleeping on the bus, in squats, any old place. It will only be for a week or so and then he’ll be heading back to London.’

  Tess knew she could hardly refuse.

  ‘On one condition,’ she said. ‘No drugs! If he has to smoke or sniff or snort or whatever he does with the bloody things then he does it somewhere else: on the cliff top, in the woods, anywhere he likes but not, repeat not, in this house!’

  ‘I knew you’d understand,’ Simon said, kissing her on the cheek. ‘He’ll be no trouble.’

  * * *

  He’d hitched all the way from London to Launceston, Damien said, and there didn’t seem to be any way of getting to Portmerryn from there. No bus, no train, he moaned, what sort of a place were they living in, for God’s sake? So could someone please come and pick him up? Tess downed tools and set off, with Simon in the passenger seat, for Launceston.

  ‘He’s come at just the right time,’ said Simon, ‘to be able to help you with the painting and everything.’

  Well, that’ll be a first, thought Tess.

  They found Damien, with a girl, leaning against the war memorial in the main square. Both wore tight jeans, black leather jackets, and both had backpacks. Damien also had his guitar slung over his shoulder.

  ‘What the…?’ Tess muttered as she had to double park to pull up alongside.

  ‘Hi, Dad!’ Damien yelled cheerfully. ‘I see you’ve been in the wars! Hi, Tess!’

  Simon had leaped out with some amazing agility and embraced his son with his good left arm, while Tess, afraid of blocking the traffic, remained in the driving seat, staring at the girl.

  ‘This is Liz,’ Damien added. ‘She’s come along for the ride.’

  Come along for the ride! What are we supposed to do with her? Tess wondered.

  Damien and Liz had clambered into the rear seats, having deposited their belongings into the back. Simon, now sitting in the passenger seat again, was beaming ear to ear.

  ‘And where do you hail from, Liz?’ he asked cheerfully as Tess pulled out into the traffic.

  Tess studied what she could see of Liz in the rear-view mirror. Thin-faced, piercings, nose studs, long dark hair, gum chewing.

  ‘Southend,’ replied Liz. ‘Essex, like.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Tess, ‘and how did you two meet?’

  ‘Liz has a great voice,’ Damien replied. ‘We met at a gig in Farnborough.’

  ‘Farnham,’ corrected Liz.

  ‘Whatever.’ Damien yawned. After a minute he asked, ‘What’s the music scene like down here?’

  ‘No idea,’ replied Simon. ‘Tess and I haven’t got round to attending any gigs yet, have we, Tess?’

  ‘No,’ Tess replied through gritted teeth, ‘we haven’t.’

  As they headed back towards Portmerryn the heavens opened. Tess switched on the windscreen wipers and stared gloomily out at the bare hedges and leafless trees forming intricate patterns against the ever-darkening sky. It wasn’t her favourite time of year but there was a certain stark beauty in the countryside on a day like this.

  ‘What a godforsaken place!’ said Liz.

  Tess’s blood began to boil. She had to stop herself saying, ‘Well, nobody asked you to come here,’ when Simon said, ‘Oh, but it’s so beautiful in summer, Liz, and when the sun shines. Just wait until you get that first glimpse of the ocean!’

  As luck would have it the grey sky merged with the grey sea in a grey haze and the ocean was completely indistinguishable. Their visitors appeared unimpressed, even when they finally arrived down on the coast road.

  ‘That’s our local pub,’ Simon informed them as they drove past The Portmerryn Arms.

  ‘Cool,’ said Damien.

  ‘They have gigs there?’ asked Liz.

  Tess tried to imagine Jed and Annie and the domino-playing locals swaying around to rock and punk.

  ‘Not as a rule,’ Simon replied, grinning at Tess.

  As they turned up Seagull Hill, over the now barely noticeable potholes, Over and Above became just about visible through the bare trees. Simon said, ‘That’s us!’

  Tess drove up the drive and parked next to the plumber’s van.

  ‘Bloody hell, Dad!’ Damien exclaimed as he clambered out of the Land Rover. ‘That’s some pile!’

  Simon smiled proudly.

  ‘This great big place for just the two of you?’ Liz asked.

  ‘The idea is that we’ll have guests when the work is complete,’ said Tess as she led them into the kitchen. ‘This room is almost finished except for the radiator to be fitted. No central heating, I’m afraid, so it’s going to be a bit chilly.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Damien, looking around.

  You can say that again, thought Tess.

  ‘So where are we sleeping?’ asked Liz, peering into the l
aundry room.

  Before Tess could reply Simon said, ‘Probably best if you two camped out in Windsor Castle,’ blithely unaware of the startled looks exchanged between Damien and Liz or the sharp intake of breath from Tess.

  ‘Windsor Castle! We passed near that hours ago!’ Damien looked from one to the other. ‘Is the Queen expecting us or something?’

  Simon then explained to them that Windsor Castle was in fact a caravan and that they were very fortunate indeed because it was the only place round here that was warm and cosy. Tess, who frequently escaped there when the cold and the noise became too much, was furious. He hadn’t even considered her!

  ‘Well, it seemed like the obvious place to put them,’ said Simon defensively when they were on their own. ‘Out of our way.’

  Tess had intended them to camp down in what would eventually become the sitting room at the back, among all the assorted furniture. She was hopeful that not even the view would likely compensate for the workmen arriving at eight o’clock, stomping about overhead in their heavy boots followed by hammering and banging, bearing in mind that Damien rarely surfaced before mid-morning. They’d probably only stay for a couple of days. But the caravan! They’d probably never have lived in such luxury. They’d be here forever. She could only hope that they’d be bored witless and decide to move on before long. In the meantime she had to feed them and prayed that they hadn’t gone vegan.

  Damien, like his father, was a good-looking man. Tess had to admit that he had a certain charisma if you concentrated hard enough to decipher it, but not in the same league as Simon. Any shortcomings that Damien might have were, according to Simon, ‘just like his mother’. As she’d never met Simon’s ex, she couldn’t really argue with that, but she was a handy scapegoat.

  Tess had stripped the bed in the caravan when they moved into the house so she now had to find some bedlinen and towels, switch on the electricity supply again and attach the hose to ensure that the water supply was topped up. All tasks requiring two hands.