‘We’ve had a bit of a staffing crisis over the last few days.’ Every sentence was straining my throat. ‘What with the blizzard and a flu epidemic, basically it’s been a skeleton staff – as you might have noticed.’
‘You said people were on holiday,’ Julius Mundey piped up, accusingly.
‘Yes, some of the staff are. Most importantly…the chef…’
Some murmuring was starting back up and my heart squeezed painfully in my chest. It was time; I just had to blurt it out.
‘There’s no one to cook the Christmas dinner, which is included with your Christmas breaks. I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Mr Featherby said. ‘You’re saying you have no kitchen staff? Who cooked breakfast?’
‘I did. I did breakfast and I’m sorry but my attempt to cook the goose resulted in the fire evacuation, and now the kitchen is a mess—’ I stopped, swallowing a sob.
‘What are we supposed to do for dinner then?’ another man asked, one of the husbands – I think possibly Geoff, I couldn’t tell through the wobbling tears I was desperately trying to keep in my eyeballs.
‘If you can wait for me to clear up in there, I’ll be able to do a cold spread…’
A horrified silence filled the room and Julius stood up.
‘This is truly unacceptable. Something should have been done to prevent this from happening. This is poor planning, incompetency even,’ he sputtered. ‘Is it because no one can access that road? Because I told you two days ago that it needed to be cleared and gritted.’
‘Yes, you did.’ The customer is always right, I tried to remind myself. And even though it grated on me to do it, I knew this was the opportunity to take the blame upon myself squarely, admit to all the things I didn’t do that I should’ve done and take the focus off the hotel. ‘I decided not to, which was a bad decision it turned out, because it made it too difficult for deliveries to get here and I had to waste more time fixing that problem than it may have taken to actually clear the road. You’re absolutely right, Mr Mundey, I am incompetent when it comes to being a manager and a chef for this hotel. I’m so very sorry to have ruined all your Christmases.’ I wiped a hand hastily across my cheek and my last words came out as a whisper: ‘I tried my best.’
‘I guess we’ll have to make do—’
‘You can’t have Christmas without a Christmas dinner—’
‘Does this mean we don’t have to eat Brussels sprouts—?’
‘Are we going to get some kind of compensation?’
The volume in the room went up with questions being fired at me and grumbled discussions with their families and I didn’t know who to answer first or what I could say. I didn’t wipe my face any more even though I could feel hot liquid running down my cheeks and rolling along my jaw to drip off my chin.
Someone got up and came over to me and I tensed, waiting for the shouting to get up close and personal but when I glanced up, it was Noelle. She had a napkin in her hand, and she gave it to me, her hand at my elbow.
‘How long have you been running this hotel by yourself?’
‘I haven’t really been by myself.’ I took the napkin and dabbed my face, offering her a watery smile. ‘I’ve had a waitress some of the time, a cleaner, a couple of friends helping me in the kitchen and the bar when our other chef couldn’t be here.’
‘That’s still not a lot of people to run an entire hotel.’ She had a way of speaking that carried through the room and I realised people were shutting up to listen. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t notice. You must’ve been doing something right.’
Mrs Henderson stood up and came over too. She was a tall woman who carried off the casual jeans and jumper look like an M&S model.
‘It’s true. All my husband and I have been saying this morning, all I’ve heard from most of the other guests in fact, is how wonderful this Christmas had been. How perfect with the snow and with the wonderful atmosphere that the staff here have created. Mince pies and mulled wine and carol singing. That’s been you. By yourself. I can’t speak for everyone else—’ she threw a pointed look at Julius ‘—but you certainly haven’t ruinedourChristmas. And we’d be more than happy to wait for Christmas dinner. I can help you cook it if that’s feasible, or we will just make do with what you can manage on your own.’
‘You can help me?’ I rubbed my face harder with the napkin, even though it was rough and probably leaving bits of red tissue on my blotchy cheeks.
‘Of course. Isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Coming together, helping, sharing.’
Mrs Featherby stood up too. I half expected her to announce she was Spartacus.
‘I make a mean prawn cocktail for a starter.’
And suddenly the tone of the chatter changed, and guests were coming up to me, not to shout or demand refunds but to divvy up the tasks and ask to be shown into the kitchen to help clean up and cook. I took a big, deep shaky breath and tears filled my eyes again. Tears of relief and gratitude.
Chapter Nineteen
It wasn’t easy to clear up the dusty foam from the chemical extinguisher but gradually we were in a position where the kitchen started to produce food. None of it cooked by me. I peeled and chopped and showed people where things were, but all the actual cooking was taken in hand by a team of women who by rights should never have set foot in our kitchen. It was completely against all the health and safety rules, but we were so far off the grid by this point I was just letting myself go with it. I wasn’t even worrying about the Hotel Hopper now. How could I? There was nothing I could do to stop them writing their review however they liked, and the rest of the guests were happy – that was all I cared about.
