Chapter 28
28
We’re a month into The Mermaid’s transformation and, so far, it’s gone relatively smoothly. There was one hiccup, where the council thought we were pressing ahead with the development of the flats and tried to close us down, but that was straightened out fairly easily. With Ella’s help, I’ve learned to navigate the project-planning software she likes, and we speak on the phone at least twice a week. John has also proved to be an unlikely ally. To begin with, I took exception to him calling me ‘darlin’’ in his rather dismissive way, but Ella told me he was just the same with her when she started, which I found oddly reassuring given how highly he obviously rates her now. It felt almost like a badge of honour when he bestowed my nickname on me after a couple of weeks, and I rang Ella straight away.
‘I’m Flopsy, although he’s already shortened it to Flops,’ I’d told her.
‘Go on. Give me the links,’ she’d laughed.
‘Beatrice took him to Beatrix Potter. Beatrix Potter wrote Peter Rabbit, whose sisters are Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail. He said he nearly went from Beatrix Potter to Harry Potter, but Hermione was too much of a mouthful.’
‘There are lots of other female characters in Harry Potter. Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Cho Chang, that French one that nearly drowned in the lake…’
‘I’m OK with Flopsy,’ I’d told her.
‘Is he being nicer to you now?’
‘He’s never been nasty, just a bit dismissive. But yes, he’s perked up. He’s actually really good at translating my ideas into instructions for the team to follow.’
‘He’s a dinosaur, but a benign one on the whole. I’m glad you’re getting on better with him.’
‘I am.’
Summer is now a long way behind us and the weather has turned, but thankfully the building is watertight again so we’re not held up by the rain. All the BudgetWise fixtures and fittings have been consigned to a series of skips, so we’re pretty much at the blank canvas stage where we can start to recreate some of The Mermaid’s original charm.
‘Flops, can I have a word?’ John asks after we’ve concluded the stand-up meeting that Ella suggested we had at the start of each day.
‘Sure. What’s up?’
‘I’ve been thinking about the floor in the lobby. I know we decided to leave the covering in place to prevent it getting damaged by stuff coming in and out, but we don’t actually know what state it’s in.’
‘You want to lift the plywood and have a look?’ I ask.
‘We could put it back down afterwards. I’m willing to bet that you can’t get those tiles any more, so any broken ones will have to be specially made. Of course, if most of them are broken, we might be looking at a whole new floor, and I’m sure you’d want to know about that sooner rather than later.’
‘I wouldn’t mind having a look at the mermaid mosaic,’ I admit. ‘That’s going to be a nightmare if it’s damaged.’
‘Shall I get a couple of chippies to come and lift the floor then?’
‘Yes, why not.’
I’ve never been on an archaeological dig, but the care with which the two woodworkers raise each panel of the plywood covering to reveal the tiled floor underneath reminds me of one. I half expect John to fish out one of those soft brushes and start gently sweeping the dirt off the tiles. There’s a gasp of excitement when they raise a panel to reveal a distinctly fishy tail and, by the time the final panel comes up to reveal the mermaid’s scantily clad torso and face, it feels like we’re all holding our breath.
‘That,’ observes John softly, ‘is a fucking work of art.’
‘Mm, I agree. Imagine what it will look like when we’ve cleaned it up.’
‘We’ll have to do that anyway, so we can properly see what state the tiles are in. Barry, grab the jet wash, will you?’
‘Jet wash’ll just fill the place with water, mate,’ Barry replies. ‘You need to wash the worst of the dirt off by hand and then attack it with one of them rotary cleaners like they have in schools.’
‘I’m sure I saw one of those in the store cupboard,’ I tell them.
‘Looks like you’re going to be busy then,’ John tells me with a wink. ‘I’ll get one of the sparkies to check the machine over before you use it. Abby would have my balls for Christmas decorations if I let you electrocute yourself.’
In truth, although I bristle at the assumption that the woman is going to do the menial task, I quite enjoy cleaning the floor. It takes several washes before the worst of the grime is gone, but it’s surprisingly rewarding seeing the pattern of the tiles and, more importantly, the mosaic, come back to life. By the time the rotary cleaner has been passed fit for use, the floor is already looking loads better.
‘Oi! Where do you think you’re going?’ I yell as John nonchalantly strides across the lobby on the way to his van at lunchtime, leaving a trail of dusty footprints.
‘Oops, sorry, Flops. I’ll go out the back way,’ he says before retracing his steps, whistling a melody I don’t recognise.
‘What’s the tune?’ I call after his retreating form.
‘It’s from Calamity Jane . I can’t remember all of it, but basically the theme of the song is about how a woman’s touch brightens a home.’
‘Very funny,’ I tell him sarcastically as I shut the cleaner down and stretch my back.
By mid-afternoon, the floor is sparkling and John whistles appreciatively when he sees it. ‘It’s a shame it’s going to get mucky again,’ he observes. ‘But we need it spotless for this. Right, on your knees. You start that side and I’ll start over here.’
‘What are we doing?’ I ask him.
‘We’re going to go tile by tile, checking for cracks and breaks. Even a hairline crack needs to be investigated. Here, I’ll give you a marker so you can mark any affected tiles.’
‘Hang on. Are you seriously telling me I’ve spent hours cleaning this floor just so you can draw on it?’
‘Let’s just see what we find, shall we?’
Compared to cleaning it, crawling across the floor on my hands and knees inspecting every tile proves to be back-breaking work. By the time John and I finally meet in the middle, my knees and elbows are aching, and my hands are frozen from the cold tiles. The good news is that we’ve only discovered a couple of cracked tiles near the door, which John thinks will be relatively easy to get out and replace. He’s very carefully lifted them out to send to a specialist tiling company, who will hopefully be able to supply matching replacements.
‘You should take a picture and send it to Abby,’ John suggests. ‘I’m sure she’d like to see it before we cover it up again.’
‘Good idea,’ I tell him as I fish my phone out of my pocket and take several shots from different angles. ‘I expect Reginald will be pleased to see it too.’
‘Is he the guy in the wedding photos you showed?’
‘That’s him.’
It may be only six o’clock when I lock up the site, but I know that’s way too late to drop by to see Reginald. The retirement home serves the residents their evening meal at five thirty, and he told me they frown on evening visitors. I’ll have to wait until the weekend to show him what we’ve found. I sent the pictures to Abby though, who replied with a series of love-heart emojis, so I think I can assume she likes it.
I had been worried about telling Reginald about my decision to stay in Margate rather than go chasing after Jock, but he was surprisingly good about it in the end. I have been teasing him a little about his advice to ‘hold lightly to things’ as he’s taken a good deal of interest in the restoration of The Mermaid, and I know he’ll be delighted to see that the mosaic is undamaged, despite the havoc BudgetWise wreaked on the rest of the fixtures and fittings.
In fact, and I’m not at all surprised by this, the only real fly in the ointment has been Emilio. He’s enthusiastic for the project, but the constant stream of architects, interior designers, kitchen fitters and so on that he’s fired at me since coming on board has been a bit of a distraction. I did mention it to Abby during one of her site visits, but she just shrugged and said she’d heard he could be a bit of a diva and not to let it get under my skin. John’s summary of the intrusion was rather more pointed.
‘I don’t see why he keeps sending these useless bloody ponces down from London,’ he’d complained last time Abby was here. ‘The last one was going on about “recreating the distinctive ambience that lets the customer know they’re in a Marcuso’s restaurant” or some such bollocks. I told him straight, “Just tell me what colour to paint the sodding walls, OK?” It’s nonsense. Do people actually earn a living spouting crap like that?’
The kitchen itself has also been the subject of some heated debate. On his only site visit to date, Emilio declared it ‘much too small’ and threw a minor tantrum when we explained that the walls were structural and couldn’t just be moved around to suit him. At one point, I actually thought he might walk away, but Abby must have found a way to calm him down, because he was perfectly fine the next time I spoke to him.
I haven’t heard anything from Jock for a while; I expect he’s busy, and I’ll confess that I am avoiding him a little. As far as he knows, the Mermaid project is still dead, and maybe the kindest thing is to let him carry on thinking that. The truth won’t make him happy at all, so why burden him with it?