Chapter 5
After Noah had left the kitchen with Walter, Beth sat back down at the large oak table in the family kitchen and couldn’t stop herself from reaching forward to take a muffin from the pile on the plate in the middle of the table.
‘Are these my favourite banana ones?’ she asked Hannah, before taking a bite. The taste of nutmeg and ginger exploded in her mouth, alongside sweet banana pieces.
‘They’re my morning breakfast muffins, yes,’ Hannah told her. ‘Talking of which, I must get going in the boathouse. We open in two hours’ time.’
Hannah ran a successful café in the old boathouse next to the lake where her delicious bakes were proving to be extremely popular to both hotel guests and local visitors.
‘But first, you need to quickly tell us about last night,’ added Hannah. ‘I’m still so confused.’
Beth swallowed the remainder of her muffin before replying. ‘That was amazing,’ she said, licking her fingers.
‘The muffin or the stud muffin?’ murmured Lily, with a grin.
‘Please!’ said Ben, shaking his head and hurriedly picking up his mobile phone. ‘I don’t need to hear this about my cousin.’
The women all laughed whilst Ben and Alex swiftly left the room to deal with some unexpected accountancy emergency. Or so they said.
‘Right, now it’s just us girls, spill all the details,’ said Hannah.
‘Dotty? Frankie? Shall we leave them to it?’ asked Faye in a pointed tone, standing at the top of the table.
‘Not on your life,’ said Dotty, pulling her chair a little closer to where Beth was sitting. ‘I still need to get my kicks regardless of my age.’
The other women laughed.
‘Details!’ repeated Hannah.
Beth rolled her eyes. ‘It’s really not a big drama,’ she told her captive audience. ‘I went to the spare bedroom that Lily told me was empty. Everything was still in darkness. And then I found Noah in bed.’
‘Found?’ asked Frankie, raising her eyebrows.
‘More like fell on top of him,’ confessed Beth, to everyone’s shocked laughter. ‘I know! Poor man!’
‘You must have given him such a fright,’ said Lily, laughing and shaking her head.
Beth thought back and remembered that Noah hadn’t seemed frightened at all. If anything, he had seemed extremely calm and in control. She found herself thinking that he must be very good in an emergency.
‘And then you slept on the sofa?’ asked Hannah.
Beth nodded. ‘It was only fair. He had the bed first. And I didn’t want to disturb anyone. And that was it.’
‘That’s it?’ Dotty leaned back in her chair with a heavy sigh. ‘So much for girly gossip.’
Beth shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m afraid so. No drama. Just me tripping over my own feet and a mix-up with the rooms. Anyway, I’ve had enough of men for the time being.’
Hannah reached out to squeeze her shoulders. ‘Lily told me. I’m so sorry about Jeremy.’
‘I’m not,’ said Beth. ‘I’m so over men at this point. I’d rather live on the moon than go through another break-up.’
‘Men,’ muttered Frankie. ‘Can’t live with ’em. End of story. Right, I’d better get on reception in case any of our guests are leaving early this morning.’
After she had left, Lily turned to look at Beth. ‘So what happened exactly with Jeremy?’ she asked. ‘You were a bit vague when you messaged me last night.’
Beth sighed heavily. ‘Well, we were having a lovely weekend. Or so I thought. We’d decided to have a Saturday night in for once.
Anyway, I wanted a shower and to get into something more comfortable if we were going to snuggle on the sofa but I couldn’t get his complicated modern shower thing to work so I just got changed into my pyjamas instead.
Because I didn’t take very long, when I came out of the bedroom, he was on the phone in his study talking to somebody and telling them how much he loved her. ’
‘Perhaps it was his mother,’ said Dotty.
Beth shook her head. ‘Not based on the kind of things I overheard him saying to her,’ she said, with a grimace. ‘What a louse.’
‘A big louse,’ said Lily, nodding her head in agreement.
Beth sighed. There had been differences between her and Jeremy. Quite large differences, in actual fact. But she had hoped that this time she had found her happy ever after. But once more, her choice of men had been poor. When would she ever learn?
Beth thought back to something that Hannah had said earlier. ‘Hey, what was all that about Noah being the biggest bad boy of them all?’ she asked.
She thought back to him standing in the doorway a short while ago and she had to admit that he did look a little rough around the edges. Dark hair, dark eyes and an almost permanent five o’clock shadow. He’d certainly filled out those jeans and sweatshirt pretty well though, she thought.
‘I mean, he’s a bit brooding, good-looking and all that,’ she conceded. ‘But is he really that bad?’
‘Yes,’ said Hannah nodding.
But almost immediately there came an added ‘No!’ from Faye and Dotty in unison.
They exchanged a knowing look across the table.
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Hannah, looking bewildered. ‘Wasn’t he always in trouble? Not going to school? Loads of girlfriends?’
Faye sighed softly as she sat down at the table. ‘What you’ve got to remember is that not everybody was as lucky as you growing up.’
Beth took a silent intake of breath. It was true, she thought. Hannah had grown up in a warm, loving family whereas she had known nothing of that.
Lily immediately turned to look at her and reached out to hug her. ‘We know,’ she said, squeezing Beth’s shoulders.
‘But Noah had a family,’ said Hannah, still looking confused. ‘Not like poor Beth.’
‘Having a family doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a happy one,’ Dotty told her.
‘In what way?’ Beth couldn’t help but ask. As far as she was concerned, just having a family would be the best thing ever.
‘Noah’s father was Walter’s nephew,’ began Dotty.
‘Walter and his brother were never that close. They were chalk and cheese personality wise. Frank didn’t want all of this,’ she said, waving her arm around the kitchen.
‘He preferred the big cities and bright lights. Not the peace of the countryside. Plus the place was pretty small in those days before we added so much more to the hotel. In fact, it wasn’t even a hotel.
Anyway, he married Margaret and they had just the one child, Chris.
We used to meet up every year or so, normally in the summertime.
They would come down for the weekend. But Chris grew up pretty wild.
I don’t know why. Just one of those kind of people, I guess.
Frank and Margaret stayed in their little place in Bristol near to their friends but Chris left home as soon as he could.
Joined the army, went travelling. No job ever stuck though.
’ Dotty reached forward to take a sip of coffee.
‘The next thing we heard in a letter from Frank was that Chris had left the army, turned up at their door unexpectedly with a pregnant girlfriend.’
‘Marie,’ said Faye, her lips pressed together in dislike.
Beth was shocked. Faye never seemed to think badly of anyone, such was her gentle disposition.
Dotty nodded. ‘Marie,’ she repeated, with a heavy sigh. ‘Did you meet her?’
‘Only at the wedding,’ replied Faye, with a grimace.
‘Lord, I’d forgotten about that,’ said Dotty, shaking her head.
‘Why, what was so bad about it?’ asked Hannah, wide-eyed.
‘Chris, the groom, had a black eye from getting in a fight the night before and Marie, the bride, all seven months pregnant of her, got absolutely blind drunk,’ Dotty told her, with a shudder. ‘It was a mess.’
‘I don’t think the marriage was much happier,’ added Faye.
‘Hard to tell when it only lasted four or so years,’ said Dotty.
‘Marie walked out on them after that. Husband and son both left behind. Nobody ever heard from her ever again, according to Frank. They tried to do what they could for their son and grandson but Frank had had his major stroke by then and his health wasn’t the best.’
‘And they never saw him that often anyway because Chris seemed to spend the rest of his life roaming around, from the infrequent updates we got from him,’ said Faye. ‘He came here occasionally.’
‘To borrow money which he never paid back,’ added Dotty.
‘But Tony always felt that his cousin could never be pinned down,’ continued Faye.
‘Noah, of course, came off the worse from it all,’ said Dotty, shaking her head.
‘Different homes and schools every year. He was such a sad little boy, trailing around after his dad. Not that Chris seemed to be father of the year either. The lad was often wearing clothes which were too small or even worn thin.’
‘We used to give him Ben’s clothes, do you remember?’ said Faye. ‘As well as feeding him up whenever he came.’
‘Left by his own mother and ignored by his father for the most part, it’s hardly surprising that Noah got himself into a bit of trouble,’ said Dotty.
‘It was a bit more than trouble,’ said Ben, coming back into the kitchen. ‘Wasn’t there something about stealing money?’
Dotty looked uncomfortable. ‘Chris mentioned it in passing. I don’t think it was a lot and it’s not like Chris ever gave him much pocket money, if anything.’
Ben pursed his lips together but stayed silent as he went over to pour himself a coffee.
‘We didn’t see Noah after he left school,’ carried on Dotty.
‘Barely saw Chris either. I think the both of them travelled around quite a bit. Anyway, we met up with Noah at Chris’s funeral a month ago.
Walter said he’d invited him to stay last night but neither of us expected him to show up.
’ Dotty shook her head. ‘We let Noah down. We should have forced Chris to let the boy stay here with us. Then he could have grown up in a stable environment rather than being dragged around by his father all around the country.’
‘I’ve always felt guilty about that,’ said Faye, looking upset.
‘Us too,’ said Dotty, nodding.
‘Poor Noah,’ said Hannah. ‘I just remembered overhearing Uncle Chris talking about what a disappointment he was.’
‘I was never sure about that,’ said Dotty. ‘Anyway, the man standing in this kitchen a little while ago is still family so we must give him the benefit of the doubt.’
‘If you’re sure,’ said Ben, frowning and not sounding convinced.
‘He’s family,’ repeated Dotty, looking stern.
Beth had listened to the conversation, fascinated by Noah’s upbringing. It had sounded pretty rough but at least he had a family, she thought. In that respect, perhaps he was looking for the happy ever after that she had always dreamed of as well.