Chapter 5
After a much-needed shower, Lily headed downstairs, grateful to be wearing the spare pair of trainers that she had packed, along with clean jeans and a jumper.
At some point she was going to have to figure out what to do with the hire car and face up to the loss of her deposit and possibly worse.
She also needed to retrieve her favourite trainers, now stuck in the mud next to the car.
But, for that evening, she decided to focus on the positive and that was seeing one of her best friends.
She had just reached the bottom of the staircase when Hannah appeared at a nearby doorway, just off the hall.
‘There you are,’ she said, with a wide smile. ‘No more mud?’
‘Nope,’ said Lily, shaking her head. ‘That power shower is amazing.’
Hannah studied her before saying, ‘Wow, your hair is so much longer now I’ve seen it properly.’
Lily touched a strand of red hair which she’d just washed. She hadn’t had it cut for almost six months so it now hung right past her shoulders. ‘No, it’s been this long for ages.’
‘Yeah but I haven’t seen you for three months.’
Lily gave a start. ‘I didn’t think it was as long as that,’ she replied, feeling surprised. Hannah must have got her dates wrong.
But Hannah shook her head. ‘I last saw you in July when I went into London for Beth’s talk at the Greenwich planetarium. We had lunch by the river.’
‘What about Ella’s birthday meal?’ Lily reminded her. ‘That fancy place with the awful food.’
‘You were only with Beth and Ella, remember?’ Hannah told her. ‘I couldn’t get away because there was some solicitors’ stuff that needed going through because of my dad…’
Her voice trailed off and Lily took a sharp intake of breath. How stupid of her to forget, she told herself, stepping forward to give her friend a huge hug. The texts and calls had worried her enough about Hannah so it was good to finally be there to support her face to face.
‘How are you doing?’ she asked softly.
Hannah shrugged her shoulders under her friend’s embrace.
‘You know,’ she muttered, leaning into her briefly.
‘It’s been pretty awful around here.’ She gave herself a little shake as she stepped away.
‘Thank goodness you’re here at last. Come on.
Come and meet everyone properly. Dinner’s almost ready. ’
Lily felt her friend’s grief and pain and was glad that she was around that weekend to finally lend some support.
She followed Hannah into a large kitchen and was pleasantly surprised. In contrast to the empty interiors in the rest of the hotel, the kitchen felt warm and welcoming.
The cupboards along one side of the wall were all oak, weathered and used over many years, she suspected.
Open shelves were filled with every conceivable dish and bowl required, all mismatched and well used.
Stainless-steel pots and pans hung from a cast-iron rail in the ceiling.
Herbs filled small terracotta pots along the windowsill and the view of the trees outside made it feel as if the woods were inside instead.
It was a busy room but instantly Lily felt relaxed.
Walter gave her a wave from the end of a long oak table.
‘This is my mum, Faye,’ said Hannah, introducing the woman in her late fifties who was wearing an apron and stirring a pot of some kind of delicious-smelling sauce on the stove.
Faye turned around and smiled as she headed across the tiled floor, wiping her hands on her apron as she came over.
‘Hello,’ she said, with a warm smile before drawing her into an unexpected hug. ‘Lovely to meet you at long last. Hannah talks non-stop about you.’
‘Hi,’ replied Lily, stepping back from the embrace and smiling at her. ‘Lovely to finally meet you too.’
Faye looked like an older version of Hannah, tall with blonde hair, albeit with wisps of grey mixed in. There was also a similar softness to her, of a gentleness of character.
‘This is Grandma,’ announced Hannah, leading Lily over to the table to introduce a grey-haired lady who was standing nearby. She was petite but Lily was surprised by the strength of the woman who then engulfed her in a hug.
‘You must call me Dotty,’ she said, when she had stepped back.
‘Gosh, your red hair is gorgeous.’ She reached up to touch her grey hair and frowned for a moment before letting her hand drop.
Lily was surprised to see how many rings she was wearing on each hand, all of different styles.
‘Come and sit down with me and warm yourself up by the fire.’
‘It’s such a lovely room,’ said Lily as she sat down.
‘We’ve got our own small kitchen,’ Dotty told her. ‘Walter and I live in the gamekeeper’s lodge just over there, you see.’ She pointed through a window to where Lily could just see a tiny oak-framed lodge in the semi-darkness. ‘But everyone ends up gathering in here.’
Lily nodded. She understood. It was a family kitchen, something she didn’t know too much about. There had been the odd time growing up when she and her parents had snuggled up on the sofa to watch a movie but most of their time had been spent entertaining or going out for official functions.
‘So you’re not working at that pub tonight?’ she asked Hannah.
‘I took the weekend off because you were coming here,’ replied Hannah, laying out some knives and forks.
‘Good job too,’ said Walter, creasing his grey fluffy eyebrows into a frown. ‘They work her all hours at that place and the pay is rubbish.’
Lily looked at her friend with concern. Hannah’s good nature meant that people were always taking advantage of her.
‘It’s fine, Grandad,’ said Hannah, with a wave of her hand. ‘And the pay isn’t that bad.’
‘Great,’ said Ben as he came into the room. ‘Lend me a fiver, I’m broke.’
Hannah shot her brother a grin. ‘Me too, bro,’ she replied.
Lily still felt embarrassed about how they had met but thankfully Ben seemed quite at ease as he grabbed the bread basket from the side and brought it over to the table.
Faye placed a large pie topped with golden pastry into the middle of the table, ready for serving up, alongside vegetables, mash and gravy. As the family all helped themselves and chatted away, Lily felt touched by how close they all were.
The chicken pie was delicious and the first taste of home cooking that Lily could remember having for a very long time.
‘This is fantastic,’ she said before thanking Faye.
Faye smiled at her. ‘It’s an old recipe,’ she said. ‘Easy to put together.’
Lily thought that she was very much like her daughter. Gentle in nature and happy to sit back and let the others chat on. Perhaps she too lacked confidence, much like Hannah.
Even though the pie had been warm and filling, there was still room for cake afterwards. Hannah placed a tray of still-warm brownies in the middle of the table which were delicious and Lily found herself also asking for a small slice of cherry cake as well.
‘Yum,’ she said, looking across the table at her friend. ‘I’ve missed your cakes.’
‘I keep telling her that she should open up her own bakery instead of wasting her talents at that pub,’ said Walter. ‘You’ve got a real skill there.’
Hannah rolled her eyes. ‘I’m doing fine, Grandad,’ she muttered, blushing.
It was always the same with Hannah, thought Lily. Dismissing her incredible skills all too quickly. What little confidence she had in her baking in the early days when they had first met seemed to have been eroded over the years. But perhaps she was happiest at home, just baking for her family.
Dotty suddenly turned to ask Lily, ‘So tell us about yourself. Where did you grow up?’
With the whole family listening in, Lily was suddenly embarrassed at the attention. She shifted in her seat, always uncomfortable talking about herself.
She blushed as she replied, ‘Pretty much everywhere.’ She then went on to give a very quick history of how her father’s job meant that they had travelled the world when she had been growing up.
‘So where have you been?’ asked Ben, sounding intrigued.
‘Most places until I went to boarding school,’ she told him. ‘Africa, South America, India, and then finally the Far East.’
‘How marvellous,’ said Dotty, her eyes gleaming. ‘India was one of my favourite countries,’ she added, looking down at her ornate rings. ‘These gold ones were from a market in Kolkata. I treated myself when I was working there.’
‘What did you used to do?’ asked Lily.
‘I was a photographer for National Geographic ,’ Dotty told her. ‘Used to do a little bit of journalism too, in my time. Remind me to show you all the treasures I picked up on my travels. We can compare notes on the places we’ve both been to.’
‘Replace the word treasures with junk and it would be about right,’ murmured Walter, giving his wife a wink.
Dotty brushed his teasing aside with a wave of her hand. ‘I’m sure Lily would appreciate it.’
‘So you’ve also travelled around the world?’ asked Lily, grateful for the change of conversation direction so that the spotlight wasn’t on her.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Dotty, nodding in memory.
‘I went everywhere. And then I went to London to photograph the mods and rockers in the mid-sixties and got a puncture on my motorbike. Some guy who was visiting for the bank holiday weekend ended up helping me…’ Her voice trailed off and she looked across at her husband. ‘I married him a week later.’
Lily watched as Dotty exchanged a smile with Walter before turning back to look at her.
‘So you decided to settle in England?’ she asked.
Lily nodded. ‘I moved to London after college.’ She shot Hannah a grin across the table. ‘Which is where I met your granddaughter.’
‘In that awful house,’ replied Hannah, laughing.
‘It was terrible,’ agreed Lily, joining in her laughter. ‘The windows were so rotten that they eventually got stuck and wouldn’t even open.’
‘And then one night Ella pushed the bathroom window open and the whole thing fell out into the garden!’ added Hannah.
Lily smiled at the memory, still hearing the laughter shared with her friends over the disaster. ‘And trust me, the places I’ve rented since haven’t been any better,’ she found herself saying.
‘Is that why you keep moving about?’ asked Faye. ‘Hannah tells me that you have a new address every year or so.’
Lily instantly felt the need to shut down again, even under Faye’s gentle questioning.
‘Well, they’ve all been pretty awful,’ she said. ‘Not lovely like this.’
She looked around the kitchen once more, hoping they picked up on the change of topic. The truth was that she had deliberately kept moving around. She was still wary of getting too close to anyone other than her best friends.
To distract anyone from asking her anything else, she reached forward to pick up another brownie from the plate, even though she was full. ‘They’re just too delicious,’ she said.
‘I agree,’ said Walter, with a rare smile. ‘They’re my favourite.’
‘Hannah’s got such a talent for baking,’ said Faye, looking proud.
‘I inherited it from you but it’s really not anything special,’ said Hannah automatically. She had always had no confidence in her abilities.
‘Rubbish,’ said Ben, helping himself to a large piece of cherry cake and shooting his younger sister a smile.
Lily found herself warming to this close-knit family. She wondered again about the lack of hotel guests but decided that after the renovations, and with a great new interior that she would design for them, the hotel would be full once again all year round.
Then maybe they could all help each other become a success, she thought.