Chapter Nine
Pink apron over black dress, Jade was busy in the kitchen for the early part of the next morning, Sunday, while Vittoria waited on tables.
When Jade finally carried a tray into the breakfast room, Rosalie and Erin were already eating.
Rosalie waved wildly to get her attention.
‘Holy shit, Jade, why didn’t you mention it?
’ Her voice was loud. Erin merely raised questioning brown eyebrows Jade’s way.
Shouting and waving didn’t seem her thing.
Surprised, and not massively pleased about bad language in front of guests, Jade frowned at Rosalie before crossing to a middle-aged daughter and elderly mother holidaying together to deposit white china teapots on their table.
After checking the ladies had everything they needed, she joined her business-partners-to-be.
She stooped, hoping it would serve as a hint not to blether – as Gran would say – their business to all and sundry, and murmured, ‘What are you talking about?’
‘That first evening.’ Rosalie lowered her voice, clearly getting the message. ‘We left without settling our part of the bill and you didn’t tell us.’
‘Oh. I realised you’d forgotten.’ Jade said nothing about the stabs of annoyance she’d felt at the time.
Erin’s usual smooth cap of hair was ornamented by a pair of green-rimmed sunglasses atop her head. Her white sleeveless shirt was pristine. ‘It’s our last night tonight, so we’ll go somewhere, and Rosalie and I will pay, to make up.’
Jade wished again that Erin would ask rather than tell, but was beginning to realise that Erin was used to being team leader and her aim was usually to benefit others rather than herself.
It felt like a crucial insight. And did Jade ever put her ‘in charge’ hat on?
Yeah. So did Sheenagh. They were all strong women in management, after all. ‘OK. Lovely. Thanks.’
Then it seemed as if every remaining guest in the place came down to breakfast at once.
Jade remained in the kitchen, dashing from egg-scrambling to cappuccino-frothing while Vittoria, thick ponytail swinging, ran food and drink out to the tables and ferried dirty dishes back, then carried out clean top cloths and gleaming cutlery.
Jade was unloading plates from the dishwasher when Vittoria sailed back in with a tray piled high.
She lodged it on the metal worksurface with a scrape and a clang, her eyes comically wide.
‘Your sisters are asking to speak to you,’ she whispered, as if there was someone in the kitchen to overhear and disapprove.
Jade blew out her cheeks in frustration.
‘OK. As I’m not busy at all.’ She swept a pile of clean white plates into her arms, then hustled through the door to the breakfast room.
After a swerve to the buffet to deposit the plates, she arrived at Erin and Rosalie’s table.
‘Did you want me?’ She tried to inject a whiff of can’t you see how incredibly busy I am? into her voice.
It didn’t seem to work – Erin finished typing into her phone before looking up. ‘Oh, hi. We were wondering whether you were free to do something this afternoon.’
Jade took a calming breath and reminded herself that Erin knew nothing about hotel work.
‘I’ll be here, because Vittoria and Carlotta will finish at eleven o’clock today so they get some of Sunday with their families.
I’ll service any rooms Carlotta hasn’t managed and cover Reception when Yara goes on breaks.
’ Jade was more chained to Three Sisters than ever without Gran, who’d always been happy to sit on Reception and charm guests .
. . She smiled to cover a quiver of her heart.
Erin looked horrified. ‘Oh, my room doesn’t have to be serviced. I’ll leave the do not disturb sign 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 days off 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 of her 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.