Chapter 11
I’m standing at the ironing board in Hannah’s living room a few minutes later, working my way through the pile of laundry that’s been left there, when the door to the corridor opens and Hunter Stuart appears, rubbing his eyes as if he’s just come off a particularly hard night shift; which is strange, really, because he’s a gardener, and I’m pretty sure they don’t work at night.
It’s not as strange as the fact that he’s here at all, though; and, judging by the surprised look on his face as we stare at each other, he’s thinking exactly the same thing about me.
Trust him to turn out to be Hannah’s father.
‘Can I ask what the hell you’re doing in my flat?’ says Hunter evenly, recovering first. ‘And at my ironing board?’
‘I don’t know,’ I reply smartly. ‘Can I ask what the hell you were thinking, leaving a little girl on her own in the middle of the night? Because I think that’s a bit more important than you and your ironing, don’t you?’
Hunter glares at me.
‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ he says, ‘but Hannah’s not on her own. Agnes is with her. Or she’s supposed to be, anyway. That’s what I’m paying her for.’
He looks around the room, as if he’s expecting to see the housekeeper hiding in a corner somewhere. Unfortunately for him, though, it’s just me. And also Stevie, who comes bounding towards me joyfully, proof that at least someone in this place is pleased to see me.
‘Agnes isn’t here,’ I tell him, stating the obvious. ‘And Hannah didn’t mention her, either. She was completely on her own. I found her in the hallway outside my room.’
I don’t bother mentioning that I thought his daughter was one of the Undead. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing a parent would want to hear, somehow.
‘Great,’ says Hunter, rubbing his eyes wearily again before coming all the way into the room and dropping into one of the armchairs, pushing a stack of books aside first. ‘I swear to God, I’m going to kill that girl.
Not literally,’ he adds, meeting my startled gaze.
‘You can stop looking at me like that, Rosie Winter. Seriously, though, this is the second time Agnes has promised to keep an eye on Hannah, then disappeared. I bet she’s down in the cellars.
Dante told me he thinks someone’s been helping themselves to some of the booze down there.
Apparently there are quite a few bottles missing.
We think some of the younger staff might be meeting up there after their shifts. ’
He runs a hand down his face, and I feel a flash of sympathy for him. I don’t suppose it’s easy, being a single parent. Especially when people keep letting you down.
‘You didn’t mention you had a daughter,’ I say, turning back to the ironing, just to give myself something to do.
‘I didn’t realise I was supposed to tell the guests my life story,’ Hunter replies. ‘Dante must have missed out that part of the job description. Would you mind putting my underpants down, by the way? I don’t normally show women my underwear until I know them a little better.’
I glance down at my hands as if I’m seeing them for the first time, and, sure enough, I’m holding a pair of bright yellow boxer shorts with tiny pineapples printed on them.
I drop them as if I’ve been scalded by the fabric.
‘I . . . didn’t have you down as a fruit-print kind of guy,’ I blurt out, saying the first thing that comes into my head, as usual.
‘Well, funnily enough, I wasn’t expecting you to come into my flat and start rummaging through my pants,’ replies Hunter. ‘Or I’d have looked out something a little more sophisticated for you.’
‘I wasn’t “rummaging through your pants”,’ I retort. ‘I didn’t want to leave Hannah on her own, and I decided I might as well tackle some of this ironing to pass the time while I waited for you to come back. Some people would describe that as “being nice”, just FYI. But you—’
‘Sorry, Rosie,’ he says quietly, holding up a hand to stop me.
‘I’m sorry. It’s been a long day, and I’m .
. . I’m pretty pissed off at Agnes, but I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.
I appreciate you looking out for Hannah.
And doing the ironing. I’ve been meaning to get around to that for ages; there just never seems to be time. ’
‘It’s fine,’ I tell him. ‘Now who’s the one doing too much apologising?
’ I add, feeling like I should at least attempt to continue with the sparring that’s become customary between us.
Now that I look closer, though, I can see dark shadows under his eyes and a small line between his brows, which I have a sudden, inappropriate urge to smooth out with my hands.
‘Sorry. Again,’ he says, with one of those unexpected grins of his. ‘You must be rubbing off on me. Can I offer you a wee nightcap before you go, by way of thanks for looking out for Hannah?’
‘A wee nightcap?’ I ask, imagining myself in one of those long hats with a pompom on the end that people used to wear to bed.
‘A dram,’ Hunter clarifies. ‘A glass of whisky. It’s what some people call a nightcap, Rosie.’
I blush again.
‘Of course. I know what a nightcap is,’ I say, wondering what it is about this man that makes me start talking nonsense every time I see him. ‘It’s been a long day for me, too.’
I haven’t actually answered his question, but Hunter gets up anyway and goes over to a sideboard, from which he produces a bottle of whisky and two glasses.
‘Here,’ he says, handing me one. ‘This is a good cure for a bad day.’
I stare down into the glass, unconvinced.
I’m more of a wine person, really. But I’m curious now about how Hunter Stuart came to be living alone in a remote hotel with his seven-year-old daughter, so I raise the glass and take a much larger gulp than I really should have; a fact I instantly regret when I start choking and spluttering, my throat seemingly on fire as the liquid appears to burn its way right down through my body.
‘And you’re telling me people drink this stuff for fun?’ I say, when I finally recover the power of speech. ‘Seriously?’
‘People do a lot of strange things for fun, Rosie Winter,’ says Hunter – a statement that makes me glad of the dim light in the room, because I’m suddenly blushing from head to toe. He’s already finished his drink, and he picks up the bottle to pour himself another, holding it out to me first.
‘Um, no thanks,’ I reply, shaking my head. ‘I think one was enough for me.’
‘It’s a bit of an acquired taste,’ he replies, taking the glass back to his armchair, where he sits down, looking a little more relaxed than when he arrived, although there’s a deep weariness in his posture that makes me wonder what kind of work it is he’s been doing that’s kept him out so late.
Sensing me watching him, Hunter raises his eyes to mine, and I’m very aware of the fact that all I’m wearing is a pair of very short, silky pyjamas, which probably isn’t the most appropriate outfit I could’ve come up with for this: not that I knew that ‘this’ was going to involve drinking whisky with an incredibly attractive and only moderately infuriating man, while the daughter I didn’t know he had sleeps in the next room.
So, for once, this mistake isn’t my fault.
Seeing me tug self-consciously at my top, Hunter gets to his feet, plucks a dark blue hoodie from the top of the laundry pile and hands it to me.
‘Here,’ he says gruffly. ‘Stick that on. It’ll, er, warm you up. Not as much as the whisky, mind, but still.’
‘Thanks.’ I take it gratefully and zip it over my PJs, trying not to think about how ridiculous I must look in a sweatshirt that comes halfway to my knees, and probably makes me look like I’m naked underneath it. ‘I should probably get back to my room, though. I . . . Oh no, wait.’
I slap a hand over my mouth, remembering the way the hotel room door slammed shut behind me earlier.
‘I think I might be locked out,’ I admit guiltily. ‘The door closed behind me when I went into the corridor. They lock automatically, don’t they?’
‘Aye.’ Hunter nods. ‘They do.’ He chuckles. ‘You have a real talent for getting yourself into scrapes, don’t you?’
‘This one wasn’t totally my fault,’ I point out. ‘Hannah knocked on my door.’
Hunter grimaces.
‘Did she? Ach, I’m sorry. I think she just wants someone to talk to. It’s a lonely old place for a little girl.’
‘And for a bigger one, too,’ I say ruefully, thinking about the way Bex Foster expertly managed to freeze me out at breakfast this morning.
‘Hannah really wasn’t bothering me, though.
Well, OK, I might have briefly thought she was a ghost, but I soon figured it out.
And she was very sweet; I was happy to talk to her.
I . . . well, I know what it’s like to be lonely, even when you’re surrounded by people. ’
‘Really? You’re not making friends with the other influencers, then? I’d have thought you’d all have loads in common, what with the shopping, and the selfies, and all that?’
Hunter smiles to soften his words, but they sting nonetheless.
‘I thought I’d make friends with them all, too,’ I reply, perching on the end of the sofa.
‘Or I hoped I would. I was really excited about getting to meet them all, but . . . well, they’re nothing like the way they come across on their socials.
None of them are. And it’s not all about “shopping and selfies” by the way,’ I can’t resist adding.
‘I do think about other things as well, you know.’
‘Oh, aye? Like what? What does Rosie Winter like to do when she’s not shopping?’
‘I . . . um . . .’
I look around the room, as if for inspiration. Going by the guitars, and all of the records he has lying around, it’s not hard to guess that music is one of Hunter’s interests; history, too, judging by the books I can see on the shelf. But me . . .
I wrack my brain, trying to think of something I do, other than going to work and coming back home again.
I don’t think watching true crime on Netflix, or going to the pub with my friends counts as a hobby somehow, but, other than those things, I’m coming up painfully empty here.
My entire adult life so far has basically been spent working to pay for all of the things I want to buy .
. . which I never really have the opportunity to enjoy, because I’m too busy working to pay for them.
I have a feeling there has to be more to life than this; I’m just not totally sure what it is, yet.
‘I don’t really know,’ I admit, thinking about Agnes, and how certain she was about her future. ‘I guess that’s what I’m here to find out.’
Hunter looks at me intently; which is such a novel experience for me and my invisibility cloak that I have to fight the impulse to glance over my shoulder, just to make sure there isn’t someone standing there who’s more deserving of this kind of intensity.
‘What do you do for work, then, when you’re not pretending to be an influencer?’ he asks, the softness of his tone making me feel like he’s genuinely interested, and not just making polite conversation; another novelty for me.
I tell him about my boring office job, which I called in sick to in order to come up here, and he chuckles when I admit I’d sometimes rather be sick than have to spend one more day sitting in that temperature-controlled box with a view of the car park.
‘Well, if it’s a big change you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right place for it,’ he says, toying with his whisky glass. ‘You’ve already seen what my office looks like.’
He tilts his head to indicate the window, which, like mine, looks out across the sprawling grounds of the estate, and down to the deserted beach beyond.
There’s still a faint touch of light on the horizon, despite the lightness of the hour.
I’m starting to think it must never get properly dark here; instead, time just stretches out, as if there’s plenty of it to go around, and it’s never going to run out.
It makes me feel almost light-headed from the sense of space and . . . well, freedom, it inspires. In a place like this, I could be anything I wanted to be.
I just have to figure out what, exactly, that is first.
‘Don’t you ever get lonely, though?’ I ask, in a blatant attempt to find out where Hannah’s mum is, or if there’s anyone else in the picture. ‘You don’t miss being around other people?’
‘I think most people are overrated, Rosie,’ he says simply, putting the glass down and getting to his feet. ‘Hannah and Stevie are more than enough for me.’
I nod as if I completely get this, although my heart sinks slightly; both from the admission that he doesn’t seem to have room for anyone else in his life, and from the fact that he’s obviously getting ready to kick me out of his apartment.
And just when I was starting to enjoy his company, too.
‘Look, I better go and find a spare key for you,’ he says.
‘Dante’s basically nocturnal, as far as I can tell, but even he has to go to bed sometime.
I’ll go and catch him before he clocks off for the night, if you wouldn’t mind waiting here for a minute?
I’d take you with me, but I don’t want Hannah to wake up and come looking for me. ’
‘Oh, no, of course,’ I say, sitting back down. ‘No problem.’
‘Help yourself to another drink while you’re waiting,’ he says over his shoulder as he leaves. ‘If you think you can handle it.’
I snort with amusement at the transparent attempt to goad me, like I’m Marty McFly being called chicken. All the same, though, as the door clicks softly closed, I find myself reaching for the bottle anyway, painfully aware of a shift in the atmosphere of the little room.
Offering me one drink could just have been an act of politeness on his part; a way to thank me for looking after his daughter while he was gone. Offering me a second, though . . . well, that almost sounds like he wants me to stay longer.
Does he though? Or is that just wishful thinking on my part?
I look at the bottle of whisky, as if it might possibly answer my question.
I guess it wouldn’t hurt to hang around a little longer and have another tiny sip.