‘It’s always awful having to fire someone. Being an employer is a huge responsibility. You know it’s someone’s livelihood you’re cutting off. But equally, if the profits of the business are continually undermined – by staff stealing or not carrying out their jobs well – theneveryonewill lose their job because the business will go bust.’
I nodded along. It made complete and utter sense when Mum talked about it that way. I’d even made that argument to Henry in the moment. Still, it had been the day before Christmas Eve. They must have had a miserable time. They must be so worried and stressed. Poor Joseph. If making decisions like that was what being in charge meant, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be. But that discussion needed to happen later. First, I needed to make sure she knew about everything else that had happened.
‘I set light to the kitchen on Christmas Day,’ I blurted out. And then carried on while I still had her attention, like I was ripping a strip of wax off her leg. ‘And the hotel had to be evacuated. And that hotel reviewer…well, he got the full story, no holds barred, God knows what he’s going to write about the place.’ I dragged in a shaky, painful breath. ‘I’veprobably made the hotel go bust. I tried; I swear I did. I’m sorry.’
Mum reached her arm across the table and gripped my hand.
‘Look at me, Beth. Look at me.’ I reluctantly met her eye. ‘I amnothingbut proud of you, okay? You kept this place going. The guests were happy. I’ve heard all about the things that happened and how you dealt with them and I don’t care about some reviewer.’
A ragged little sound squeaked out of my throat and I covered my mouth with my free hand to keep it in, because I did care about the reviewer. Or I had. And now it was over with him before it had even begun. Which was the way it had to be, because I couldn’t get involved with another man who hid the truth from me.
My mum pushed her chair back and came around to hug me.
‘You need some more rest.’ She rested her cheek on the top of my head. ‘I’m sorry you had to deal with so much on your own. Now, I don’t want to see you downstairs for at least another twenty-four hours. Sleep, watch TV, eat chocolate, okay?’
‘Okay.’
I told myself that I wasn’t being pathetic to disappear under my duvet for the remainder of the day because of the following: I needed to recuperate; I deserved a rest after how hard I’d worked recently; it was Boxing Day; I had to catch up on my series binge-watching, and my mum had said I could.
I tried every show available: zombies, billionaires, crooked politicians, Vikings, pirates; I didn’t make it through a single episode without drifting off into a haze of Nick-orientated thoughts and yearnings. I could feel ghost touches on my skin, his fingers in my hair, his voice whispering words in my ear that I thought he’d meant, and that stupid organ in my chest ached. It ached in a way it had no right to for a man I’d only known a few days.
It didn’t help that I wasn’t sure whether he was downstairs somewhere. I didn’t know what day he was due to leave the hotel. I didn’t want to bump into him again, but I equally hated the feeling that I was in hiding as thoughIwas the one who had something to be ashamed of. So, I gave myself Boxing Day, but on the 27th, I made myself get up.
Mum and I already had a present put aside ready for when Ben and Rachel’s baby arrived, so I wrapped it, wrote the card and headed into the village. It was like coming out of hibernation. I’d been in the cocooning heat of the hotel for too long and, despite the snow rapidly melting, the air still stung my cheeks.
Ben and Rachel lived on the far side of the village green, so instead of turning right toward the high street, I followed the loop of road left, until I reached a row of neat little houses facing the school. They couldn’t have lived anywhere more convenient for becoming parents if they tried. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they chose it precisely for that reason, even before they were married. Having such a clear vision for the future must be amazing.
I knocked on their green-painted front door, and waited for them to answer. It was very quiet inside and I really hoped I wasn’t waking them up from much-needed sleep. I was almost ready to turn and disappear when Rachel opened the door with one hand, a tiny little bundle of Babygro and fluffy pale hair, curled on her other hand and resting against her shoulder.
‘Beth.’ Rachel smiled at me. ‘This is a lovely surprise.’
‘Blimey, sorry, I should’ve called you first shouldn’t I? I just came to drop off a present for you – well, for this little one, actually.’
‘Oh, that’s so sweet of you. Er…’ She glanced around the short hallway as though looking for something and then shook her head. ‘Right, hang on. I was going to take Ivy out for a walk. Would you like to join us?’
‘Yeah, of course.’
She disappeared down the hall, stopped, came back, handed me the car key to the small hatchback parked in front of their hedge. Took the present from me, went back down the hallway, stopped again after putting the present down on the stairs, came back again.
‘God, sorry. My brain. Um, could you get the pushchair out of the boot? It’s really easy to put together. I just need to get our stuff and we’ll be right out.’
‘Right out’ turned out to mean a minor Ice Age passing, but since ‘easy’ also translated from Rachel-speak into ‘incomprehensible and dangerous to fingers’, I needed that long to figure out how to how to unfold the chassis of the pram and then attach the carrycot to the top.
She came out laden with an enormous bag, which she stowed under the push chair, and the tiny baby, now roughly twice the size in a white, plush pram suit, with little bunny ears, pulled up over the top of a snug hat. Rachel laid the baby in the carrycot and covered her with a blanket, then fastened the pram cover into place too and we were all set.
‘Right. Ready.’ Rachel sighed. It was probably the most stressed I’d seen her since our GCSE exams. ‘Are you ready to go for a little walk, darling?’ She crooned into the mass of blankets and swaddling.
I leaned over to get my first proper look at the baby and saw a small face, almost invisible lashes around her blue eyes and a little round chin. Pretty much like every newborn, except there was a look of Rachel about her.
‘Hi.’ I smiled at her but obviously she didn’t do much back. She was only a few days old. ‘She’s lovely,’ I told Rachel as we started walking slowly alongside the green. Rachel just nodded, because of course her child was lovely. ‘It’s so weird that she was inside your body a week ago,’ I commented, without really thinking about it.
Luckily Rachel laughed. ‘I know. It doesn’t seem real. Like, I thought I knew her, she was in my tummy wriggling around and making herself known, but now she’s really here and she’s a proper person. It’s crazy.’
We were both quiet for a moment as we absorbed the surreal nature of this everyday phenomena. Babies, life, weird.
‘So, you went with Ivy? It’s cute.’
‘Well, Holly or Evie seemed a bit obvious for a Christmas baby.’
