Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
G emma had lost count of the number of times she had broken down since George had handed in his notice. He’d spoken about doing it for years. At the peak of the summer every year, he said it would be his last. That he couldn’t deal with the chaos for another year. But then the days grew cooler, the pace slowed, and he forgot about his desire to leave. Only this year had been different. Just after Easter, his wife had had a health scare. Thankfully, it had all been okay, but it had shaken George. He hadn’t wanted to spend another summer toiling away over a gas hob, waking up at the crack of dawn when other people his age were already retired and spending their mornings pottering around in the garden and with the family.
Even when he handed in his eight weeks’ notice—to make sure they had time to find someone good—Gemma hadn’t actually believed he would leave. She’d assumed that at some point, the thought of retirement and the lack of structure to his days and weeks would scare him back into rescinding his resignation. Even as they got closer and closer to his leaving date and George started telling people the news, a small part of her still refused to accept it. Now, though, with every member of staff, not to mention a few old ones who had moved on, gathered together in the Swan, she knew it was happening.
“I’m not sure how I’m going to cope without you,” Gemma said, struggling to hold back the tears as she hugged George tightly. “It means I’ve been here the longest now. I never felt bad for working in the same place for so long because you’d been here forever, but that’s changed now.”
“You’re going to be just fine,” George said. “You know Oscar rang me to wish me luck with my retirement.”
“He did?” Gemma said in surprise. She spoke to Oscar occasionally, normally when she wanted to make a big purchase like a cake fridge or a freezer, but she couldn’t remember the last time he had rung her. Obviously, she needed to retire for that to happen.
“Yup, he wanted to make sure that nephew of his settles in okay.”
“Nephew?” Gemma said.
“Aye, Kent. He’s Oscar’s nephew, surely you knew that?”
Gemma felt her head nodding in response. Now it all made sense. That was why Kent had been employed. Why she hadn’t seen so much as a CV before Oscar had said that he was coming on board. She shook her head, annoyed by both the nepotism and the fact she hadn’t seen it. She was about to say as much when Dawn, one of the part-time wait staff, called from the other end of the bar.
“George! Do you remember the time you ordered four dozen trout on the cheap from the fishmonger and we had to get it all sold before it went off?” George’s attention shifted from Gemma as he joined in the conversation.
“That was a cracking buy, that was.”
“I think you mean a crackpot buy,” Dawn countered.
“That trout pate was a genius move, though,” Sophie said. “People loved that. You know we still get asked when that’s coming back on the menu.”
Laughter continued around her, but Gemma was distracted. It appeared that she and Kent had even more to discuss than she’d first thought.