Erin looked horrified. ‘Oh, my room doesn’t have to be serviced. I’ll leave thedo not disturbsign on my door all day.’
Rosalie chimed in. ‘Same.Non disturbare.Especially as we’re leaving tomorrow. Can I help with anything?’
Jade softened at this open-hearted offer. ‘Thanks, but I don’t think so. I’m certain I’d be contravening all kinds of regulations and insurance clauses if I let you loose without fulfilling other formalities.’ That wouldn’t have stopped her if she’d wanted Rosalie’s help, but she’d discovered she preferred the other two women at a distance for as long as possible. And that wouldn’t be for much longer, she knew. ‘Sorry, but I have a hot-food order waiting.’
She retreated to the kitchen. Once out of sight, she made a quick telephone call to Carlotta to tell her the good news that rooms 402 and 403 could be left. Two rooms constituted one-eighth of their total number, so missing them out was significant. It was good of the other women to have thought of that, she acknowledged, as she stuck a slice of bread in the toaster and then used a fork to mash avocado with chilli and lime juice.
The rest of her morning whizzed by. Once breakfast and clean-down were finished by eleven, she removed her apron and dropped it into the laundry hopper, replacing it with a clean pink tabard before trotting upstairs to relieve Carlotta. She found her on the second floor.
‘Rooms 102, 104 and 203 have only just gone out, or I would have serviced at least one of them. But I’ve done all the corridors and landings.’ Carlotta peeled off her rubber gloves and dropped them onto the grey cleaning cart. Sweat beaded her upper lip and frizzed her black hair at her forehead. ‘Two and a half daysoff now! See you on Wednesday.’ She handed over the master keys with a beaming smile and ran downstairs.
‘See you Wednesday.’ Jade got to work.
After the three rooms had had their beds made, surfaces and bathrooms cleaned, and floors swept, Jade went downstairs, discarded her tabard, shrugged into her pink jacket and took over Reception while Yara went for her lunch break. Luckily, the desk was quiet. They had no arrivals or departures scheduled, so Jade answered a couple of guest enquiries and several emails. She used quiet intervals on Reception not only for routine admin, but to keep a supervisory eye on Yara’s work. The young woman was sweet, but not above cutting corners. Next, Jade toured the reception and breakfast room, checking that the gilt-framed paintings were straight.
It was dull work and Jade found her mind drifting to Erin and Rosalie, acknowledging, reluctantly, that she could have snatched a couple of hours with them this afternoon had she wanted to. They’d be going home tomorrow with very little resolved between the three half-sisters. She began to imagine Gran perched on the stool behind the desk like an ageing pixie, declaring roundly, ‘Sometimes you must make the best of a bad job, m’darling. Rosalie and Erin can’t be ignored. They’re not Joey.’ Jade stared unseeingly at the screen, thinking about Gran. How much of her Jade had had to let go – and how much letting go she still had to.
She pictured her half-sisters enjoying themselves somewhere and remembered how she’d pushed them into that. But now something in her wanted to test them. Would they sacrifice a sunny afternoon of leisure for a job they might not like? One that she’d dreaded and had been able to put off?
Hesitantly she slipped into the apartment, only to hover outside the closed door to Gran’s bedroom. Finally, she entered, then stood absorbing the Gran-ness of it. The spicy traces ofher perfume, her sunhat hooked over the dressing-table mirror, and the framed painting of the brightly coloured houses of Tobermory on the Isle of Mull, where Gran had spent the first twenty-plus years of her life. A run of ornate wardrobe doors filled one side of the room. Photos cluttered surfaces and a TV hung on the wall. Glass figures danced along the window ledge in a riot of blue, red and orange. Gran’s radio was silent. The intensely personal things like bedclothes, slippers, medication and the glasses with geometrically patterned frames that Gran had loved, had already been spirited away by Vittoria and Carlotta from a wish to spare Jade in her initial rush of grief. Anything official like bank cards, passport and driving licence, Jade had forced herself to deal with. Otherwise, the room had been left untouched. She gazed at a photo of Gran and herself laughing at Vittoria’s mamma’s seventieth birthday party a few years ago. Gran wore a purple jacket, her eyes crinkled to slits, her wrinkles lifted by her merriment. Jade’s hair was plaited down her back. She couldn’t remember what they’d been laughing at, but they were looking at each other. There was so much love in their eyes... She wiped a tear.
Then she took out her phone and called Rosalie.
‘Hi.’ Rosalie sounded happily out of breath. ‘Erin and I took the funiculare to Brunate and trekked to the Volta Lighthouse.’
‘Which was shut,’ Erin’s voice put in from the background.
Rosalie laughed. ‘The view’s glorious, but it’s windy and hot. I’m parched. Erin’s fancying the Nuvole Garden Hotel, but it looks posh.’
‘You need to keep hydrated. And, yes, Nuvole Garden’s five-star.’ Jade offered the information automatically, as she would to guests. She could imagine Erin aspiring to the beautiful, gracious Nuvole Garden more readily than Rosalie.
Erin’s voice came again. ‘But we’d get something nice. That wee place you wanted to go into was just beer and crisps.’
‘I like beer and crisps.’ Rosalie sounded unruffled.
Jade hesitated, wondering if her idea was going to land like a lead balloon if they were busy playing tourist. Tentatively she asked, ‘Is the offer of help still open?’
‘Yes. What do you need?’ Suddenly, Rosalie sounded focused.
Jade glanced around Mairead’s bedroom. ‘Gran’s room needs sorting out. Get her clothes ready to donate to charity and stuff.’ She ignored a clutching of her heart and made herself strictly pragmatic. Gran was gone. Erin and Rosalie were here. This was real. This was happening. Only she could take the lead. ‘Then, if...whenyou return in a few weeks, you’ll have somewhere to sleep. The guestrooms are usually full in high season and I don’t want to turn away paying guests anyway.’For you, she added silently.
Rosalie sounded surprised, but pleased. ‘Of course. I’m sorry that that kind of job hadn’t even crossed my mind, but why should you be left with it? Let me tell Erin.’
Noting that Rosalie seemed as willing to ‘tell’ Erin what to do as Erin was to tell others, Jade waited, nursing an uneasy mixture of relief and regret. The emotional job wouldn’t all be down to her. On the other hand, in clearing and changing Gran’s room, she’d be accepting the loss of her grandmother and the future she’d hoped for. Mood swinging crazily, she knew a moment’s panic that she was inviting Erin and Rosalie too far into her life. She wanted to change her mind and say, ‘No, it’s OK, I’ll do it on my own,’ but Rosalie’s voice had already become muffled while she and Erin conferred.
In seconds, Rosalie returned with a swift, ‘We’re on our way.’ The call ended, leaving Jade in a jumble of feelings over her sisters touching Gran’s things. Sharing her... Yes, well. Shedidshare her, like it or not.
When Yara returned from lunch, ponytail swinging, it had been so quiet that Jade’s handover consisted of a smile and, ‘I’llbe in the apartment.’ Inside, she hung up her jacket and kicked off her sandals, then, floor tiles cooling her feet, grabbed lunch while she waited.
By the time a tentatively smiling Erin and Rosalie arrived half an hour later, she’d plugged in the efficient, rational part of her brain and was waiting with empty bags and boxes. Also glasses of cold water because the sunny, end-of-July afternoon was hot and humid, and the apartment had no air conditioning.
Erin looked the most relaxed Jade had seen her in a strappy top and shorts. Her brown eyes rested on Jade. ‘You can leave sorting out Gran’s things to Rosalie and me, if you like. If it’s easier on you.’
Rosalie grimaced sympathetically, tucking her hair behind her ears. ‘Might be less ouch-y.’
Jade didn’t quite manage a smile. The offer was good-hearted, but the prospect of leaving them to dismantle the memories of Gran without her had the effect of making her less reluctant to tackle the job. She didn’t intend to be excluded from decisions about what to keep, what to give and what should be thrown away, even if Gran’s other granddaughters technically had every right as they were inheriting a portion of everything of Gran’s, not only the pensione. ‘Let’s do it together.’ She glanced around and sighed. ‘When Gran brought me up, and then we worked alongside each other for so long, I never guessed that one day I’d be standing here with two other granddaughters.’
Unexpectedly, Erin’s eyes turned pink. ‘It’s tough on us all in different ways.’
