Chapter 30
Present
Telling Blythe about her decision to sell the hotel was not nearly as hard as she had expected it to be, Rae had been dreading it. Still, the fact was, she couldn’t stick a for-sale sign up outside the front door without letting her sister know first.
Once that was done, the days rolled into each other very quickly. The following Wednesday, the local newspaper ran a full-page advertisement for Cathal, with the hotel taking up half the page. Cathal had taken the photographs himself and to give him his due, the place looked spectacular in them.
The knock-on effect, which Rae had not counted on, was the uptake in trade in the days following the advertisement. Suddenly, the hotel lobby was busy with locals coming in for tea and coffee, sometimes getting quite maudlin at the idea of the old place closing.
‘No, of course we’re not closing down.’ She had to say so many times over and explain that it was just downsizing.
The most surprising thing – which Blythe would probably be shocked about – was that she was quite excited about the whole thing.
‘You can finally put your stamp on the place, Rae,’ Siggy said to her as they were closing one evening.
Rae always closed out the front doors on nights when there were no bookings.
She savoured the fact that she did not have to be on call for the evening, even if it meant there was no revenue coming in at the same time.
‘I suppose, maybe...’ She glanced up at the for-sale sign at the end of the hotel.
It was strange seeing it there, but Siggy was right, this felt like her chance to finally make a mark.
She’d never had the freedom to make a decision around anything in the hotel over the years, in the end, she was always the one to give in.
‘It’s going to be fantastic, a real boutique hotel.’ Siggy was so carried away on what the hotel might be made into. Even Danial had come up with some brilliant ideas about launching them online and really reaching out to new guests.
‘At the end of the day, I’ll be happy if we can make it manageable and keep the original charm and warmth…
’ Rae believed, the spirit of what Hope Square had been all about had been lost over the years.
Marcus had stamped it out with a ruthless eye on the bottom line.
Rae just wanted to live out her life in peace.
She’d settle for a few nice rooms and having the place tick over with a trade that meant they were still afloat and she could one day hand the place on to Siggy to make what she wanted of it.
Honestly, she was more excited at the idea of having a little more comfort in her own quarters than anything else.
For a long time, she’d craved a decent-sized window to sit next to and a kitchen that was cosy, in exchange for being surrounded by stainless steel and strip lighting as she cooked her dinner and generally ate it alone in the otherwise empty hotel kitchen.
In an ideal world, she’d like a bathroom she could kit out like a mini spa, mind you, anything would be an upgrade to the faded avocado suite that had mould on the ceiling and beauty board up against the bath.
Marcus never saw the point in improving anything that wasn’t going to make the place money.
He’d decided at the start that they could manage in a cheap renovation of the storeroom behind the reception area as their living quarters.
It was one large store, divvied out between a bedroom, living room and bathroom.
The guests enjoyed a much higher standard of comfort than the owners permitted for themselves.
Rae knew it was wrong to live like that.
Pappy had always kept his private rooms comfortable – he and Gisela had lived in style across several grand rooms on the first floor before Marcus took over the hotel.
Rae smiled now. She had changed around her own bedroom the previous day.
Another small step for mankind – an enormous leap in terms of taking some control back in her own life.
Overtaken by a moment of what felt like delicious mutiny, she had dismantled the double bed she’d shared with Marcus and dragged it piece by piece up to the third floor, changing it out for an antique queen-sized bed that she’d always admired.
Honestly, she’d never slept better, since she’d changed it.
She felt lighter, somehow as if she’d shaken off another shackle when she woke up in her lovely ‘new’ bed.
‘I meant to call in,’ Jay Larkin said when he bumped into her the following day in the supermarket.
‘Oh, don’t worry, half the village has already been in.’
‘No, I mean, I wanted to tell you about when we left the post house, you know and moved to our little cottage.’ His wife had operated the post office from one of the Victorian houses on the main street, just as her father before her had run it and probably, his father before him.
They’d moved out after they’d both hit pension age.
These days Jay’s son ran the place and lived in the flat above it.
Jay grabbed Rae’s arm, steered her away from any listening ears.
‘The best thing we’ve ever done was move into our little cottage.
When I wake up and look around me, I swear, every morning, it’s like winning the lotto.
A small back garden – that’s the real secret to heaven on earth, I tell you; you won’t know yourself.
’ He lowered his voice. ‘Old houses, Mary was always hearing bumps in the night. She never slept properly any night the safe was filled with cash for double social welfare payments the following day. God alone knows what she’d be like with these burglaries…
’ He stopped, perhaps afraid he’d said too much.
‘Although, of course nothing ever happened, nothing ever does,’ he laughed at this then, to take any creases of fear out of the conversation that he might have put into it.
‘Don’t worry, no harm done.’ Rae wasn’t sure who knew that she’d had to call the guards out a few weeks earlier due to what turned out to be nothing worse than a broken latch on the second floor.
‘I know what you mean. Once the decision was made, it felt like the best thing to do. I’m hoping to modernise the hotel afterwards. ’
‘Ah, you’re moving with the times, good for you,’ he said nodding.
‘Now, the other thing I wanted to say to you was, when they’re doing the work, you know, if there’s dusty old construction work being done, you’re always welcome to stay with me and Mary, in our cottage.
I know Blythe will want you out at the big house, but…
well, it’s a bit of a trek and if you want to be that bit closer to keep an eye on things, there’s a room there for you with us. ’
‘Oh, that’s so kind. To be honest, I hadn’t even thought of that.
’ She genuinely hadn’t. Would Blythe even want her to cross the threshold of Still Water House for any longer than it took for them to argue about the smallest thing?
She hadn’t heard from her since she’d told her that she planned to put the end part of the hotel up for sale.
‘How is Blythe anyway? I haven’t seen her about the place for a while?’
‘She’s good. I think, I haven’t seen very much of her either to be honest. Between ourselves, I don’t think she’s keen on my plans to overhaul the hotel.’
‘No, she probably wouldn’t be, and of course, she’ll be up to ninety now with guests and getting her name into that White Diary she’s always talking about?’
‘Probably,’ Rae said.
‘Nice lad, that Danial,’ Jay nodded as Danial walked along the path on the other side of the square. ‘Good move, getting him to work in the hotel.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Well, you must have heard the murmurings…’
‘No?’
‘Oh, the usual naysayers on the island, saying his arrival coincided a little too perfectly with the break-ins. Someone made a comment on our WhatsApp group.’ He put his hand up quickly to stop her fretting.
‘Oh, don’t worry, I deleted it before the gossips got a hold of it.
I wouldn’t pay it any attention. It’s good that he’s getting a chance to show people what a grand fella he is in the hotel.
My Mary says he’s the highlight of the church choir’s day, going in there after practice.
He looks after them as if he was taking care of the choir of King’s College, rather than the island sing-song group. ’
‘He is lovely. But he’s on the lookout for a proper paying job, he’s just helping me out for now,’ she said because she’d miss him when he left, which he surely would, but she wanted him above all else to be able to make a good start in life for himself.
‘And you’re doing your bit to make sure he gets it; your grandmother would be proud of you,’ he said then, because of course, he was old enough to remember Gisela.
‘I suppose I’m only paying it forward?’ Rae laughed.
‘Well, it seems to me, we are both working for the same thing… to keep Muffeen Mòr just what it’s always been, a place that welcomes people, but also a place that looks after its own.’
‘You might remind my sister of that. I don’t think she’s too keen on the Vals.’
‘Ara, she’ll come round, I have great time and respect for Blythe.
I mean, even if she’s a bit prickly at times, over the years she’s done more than her fair share.
Remember when she organised that container of donations for the Syrians and then, we had the job in hell of getting everything over to the mainland and off to the other side of the world before half the contributions went out of date? ’
‘Oh, yes, indeed, that’s Blythe at her best,’ Rae laughed now.
Marcus was livid at the idea of having a big ugly container down on the pier.
He was certain it would put people off staying on the island if that was the first thing they saw when they landed.
However much Marcus complained privately, he knew well enough that it would have been poor form to make a song and dance about it.
Instead, he had to give as generously as the next person, which annoyed him even more.
Rae had enjoyed the experience, probably added to by her husband’s seething opposition.
‘Your sister’s got a good heart, sometimes you just have to look beyond the anxiousness in people,’ Jay said and then, he was off, to call in on some other old dear probably.
His words stayed with Rae for a long while after that.
It was disconcerting to suddenly have a different view of Blythe held before her unexpectedly, but of course, he was right.
Beneath it all, Blythe had a heart of gold.
Rae had just never imagined her to be anxious about anything in her life.