Summer at the Heartbreak Cafe: Summer Sweet Romance (Lakeview Contemporary Romance Book 0) (12 page)

T
he Bay Hotel
always seemed to mirror the mood of those who stayed there, temporarily or permanently, Penny mused.

For decades, its walls had been witness to some of the town’s most memorable parties and occasions. In its prime, women in glistening dresses had made their way up its grand limestone front steps, show bands had shaken the ballroom walls with lively music, couples whirling in a kaleidoscope of colour on the dance floor below the stage.

Of course it had hosted quieter moments, too. The tea rooms overlooking the often turbulent Irish sea provided a dramatic outlook which contrasted with the interior’s delicate Victorian décor. The cream lace tablecloths, dainty silver cake forks, eggshell tea cups and delicious morsels served there, all seemed to encourage words of affection and compassion, and that room had seen multiple proposals and romantic celebrations. Hands young and old joined over its tables, first and last birthdays were held there, and all were remembered.

Yes, any occasion in Mulberry Bay was deemed almost more special, more magical, for having been held at the Bay Hotel. It was as if there was a feeling about the hotel, an alchemy that had nothing to do with the supernatural; so much joy and so many memories had seeped into its walls over the years, adding to its allure.

Today though, the hotel was quiet, the sounds of normal routine muffled, as though a shroud had been laid over the whole building. Guests moved hesitantly about almost on tiptoe, and even those who hadn’t known Anna Harte, or had only met her once, felt an unaccountable sense of nostalgia, of missing something they didn’t quite know how to describe.

Penny could have told them what it was: if the hotel was the heart of Mulberry Bay, Anna had been its welcoming, wide-stretched arms.

She was in one of the back rooms of the property that served as the family quarters, looking out over the hotel’s large gardens, still numbed by what had happened in the early hours of that morning.

Her beloved mother was gone. In the middle of the night, Anna had awoken with chest pains and collapsed. She had died before the ambulance arrived to take her to the hospital.

She didn’t know where her father had got to. Following the shock of Anna’s utterly unexpected collapse, Ned Harte had barely been sighted. He had been with Anna when she died, and all he’d said to Penny about it afterwards was: ‘It was like she’d been hit by a bullet.’ Penny winced at the description, though it detailed pretty much how she felt right then, as though she too had been shot through the heart, but by some cruel fate had gone on living. She suspected her dad felt exactly the same, but there was no point in asking, because Ned would never in a million years reveal anything of such a personal nature.

Penny guessed he was taking long walks on the beach, avoiding the well-meaning sympathies of the locals. And avoiding her. She knew that keeping his feelings to himself, locked away, until he hit on a phrase or a line from a song to express them was just Ned’s way, but at a time like this she wished that there was some way they could comfort one another. She often wondered if Ned was quiet because he was afraid of saying too much, letting out some feeling that once spoken, could not be drawn back in. Her mother was the only one who seemed to instinctively know how to handle him, how to reach him, and now with Anna gone, Penny would be at more of a loss than ever. It was almost like losing both parents at once.

She was going through her mother’s things in their bedroom trying to obscure – for her father’s sake – all immediate signs of his wife that would make the pain of her recent death all the more vivid: the half-read biography of Katharine Hepburn on the bedside table, the lemon lozenges she liked to chew in bed, the little scraps of notes Anna wrote to herself all day long and then promptly forgot about.

It was these intimate things she wanted to clear away, so her dad didn’t have to feel like his wife was about to walk through the door again any moment. The rest – her mum’s clothes, her make-up, her jewellery – that could all wait until Elle came home.

There would be the funeral to get through first, of course: sharing memories with all those in the community who knew Anna, and finding that all of them remembered her a little bit differently.

But then Ned, Elle and Penny would return to the hotel, which in some strange way would also be grieving Anna’s loss. It might limp along without her for a few weeks, but there was no denying that she had truly been the soul of the place. If people came for the beautiful views and the faded splendour of the rooms, soaked in history, they also came for Anna and her slightly off-kilter sense of humour, her way of knowing what you wanted, what you really wanted, without having to ask for it.

Her mother had known people, understood that most of the time they simply wanted a little bit of a reprieve from their day-to-day lives. She strove to give them a break, to make them feel as though they’d almost gone back in time. The hotel was a beautiful stage, and Anna was the director, working to pull the whole experience together. People came for her famous roast chicken, her delicious old-style fairy cakes, the icing that dissolved on the tongue . . . They came for the fifty-three varieties of tea, traditional and exotic, and for her ready smile and easy chat over breakfast. When they came to the Bay Hotel, they were coming because of Anna, even if they didn’t know it.

Of course, over the years, as these things go, local trade had dwindled, and more and more of those born in the little beach town had moved away to bigger Irish towns or cities. They said (much like her own sister had) things like: ‘It’s a great place to grow up in, but it’s so small – there’s no opportunity.’

And as tourist numbers to the town had also begun to falter, there was less money for the upkeep of the hotel. It was still beautiful, no doubt about it, but more like a memory of beauty at this point. Penny had heard more than one guest say: ‘Oh, imagine what it must have been like in its heyday.’ She knew that it was her mother’s dearest wish to see the building restored to its old glory, but there was never enough money.

She couldn’t imagine that Ned would have the heart or indeed the wherewithal for anything with Anna gone. Penny pushed the thought of the fate of the hotel out of her mind. It would have to wait. She couldn’t deal with any of that just now; and it was something she and Elle would need to talk about together when the time was right.

Elle. She felt heart-sick at the thought of her sister. As bad as Penny was feeling, at least she still lived in Mulberry Bay and was just down the road when all of this happened. She helped out at the hotel and saw Anna every day, had only spoken to her mother yesterday, their last conversation a stupid and meaningless discussion about a linen change in the guest rooms.

But how must her sister feel right now, being away in London? She adored her mother more than anyone else in the world, Penny knew that. Elle was a very strong, stable person, and most of the time went around wearing armour, but Anna was the chink in that armour. Last night on the phone, Penny could only hear her sister’s ragged breathing, the sound of something dropping as she broke the news. Elle had said: ‘I’ll get the next flight home.’ And then nothing. She had hung up, and Penny hadn’t had time to talk to her about anything more.

Elle had been one of those who moved away from Mulberry Bay. In fact, she’d seemed desperate to escape.

Penny was happy to stay behind, helping her parents out with the hotel, and working part time at the local tourist office, while Elle had gone for grand adventures in countries all over the world, testing her limits with bungee-jumping, trekking through jungles, eating wild locusts. Then she had become an architect, the hard edges of the buildings she designed seeming to match the edges of Elle herself. She had come home now and again for visits and holidays, treating the town she grew up in almost like a tourist would: admiring its beauty and the more relaxed pace of life, but in the end itching to get back to the city and her work there.

Last time she had visited, almost a year ago, Penny had enquired if there was anyone special in London.

‘I don’t have time for love,’ her sister had replied easily.

‘Don’t you get lonely, though?’

She had seen Elle’s green eyes flicker for a second, but then she shrugged. ‘I don’t really have time to be lonely either,’ and that had been the end of it. Elle could shut a conversation off rather like closing a door; in that way she was more like Ned than she suspected. Perhaps for that reason alone, their father’s withdrawn and sometimes aloof mannerisms never seemed to bother Elle in the slightest, whereas Penny would drive herself crazy trying to get her head around it, wondering why he always seemed so disconnected and distant. Although in truth, Ned always seemed to brighten when Elle was around; it was just Penny he seemed to stare straight through.

Her sister was due to arrive later this morning. But now with Anna gone and the family dynamic so utterly changed forever, Penny wondered how the Harte family would get through the next few days together.

E
lle was in shock
. She knew it was true, but she refused to really believe it. She refused to really believe anything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Her sister hadn’t rung her in the early hours of this morning to tell her that their mother had collapsed of a heart attack, she hadn’t packed a suitcase of probably unsuitable clothes and booked a flight back to Dublin, she hadn’t taken a sleeping pill to get through the flight, and she certainly wasn’t in Dublin airport waiting in line for a taxi to take her home to Wexford.

If she wanted to wake up, if she wanted a dose of reality, all she had to do was look at her surroundings. There was a man in the queue behind her in a suit that smelt as though he’d been wearing it for days, in front of her a child held in its mother’s arms was steadfastly picking his nose and rolling the results between his fingers. She’d seen dedicated draughtsmen work with less concentration. Elle stood straighter in line and told herself to face reality. This was happening, wasn’t it? She took one deep breath after another and with each exhalation the news seemed to settle like dust over her heart. She was going home. For her mother’s funeral. Her father, as usual, would be quiet and emotionally out of reach, and her sister would be still resentful of Elle for leaving, though pretending not to be.

Try as she might, Elle knew she would not be able to communicate honestly with either of them, especially without Anna’s open and calming influence. Her mum could always make them all laugh when they were together at least. But Elle knew that the next week or so would be a mire of grief, things unsaid, memories left unshared, until she could go back to London and really let her feelings out in the privacy of her apartment.

It had easily been the worst week of her life. Barely a week before, Sebastian, her boyfriend of eighteen months, had told her that he was moving out, effectively calling time on their relationship.

‘I’m tired of being second-best, Elle,’ he’d told her wearily, after she’d yet again arrived home late to the Clapham flat they’d shared, after an exceptionally busy time at the office.

In truth, she wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Sebastian was a musician and life with him had been fun at first, but lately he had become moody and demanding, expecting her to just leave everything at the drop of hat to do things and go places with him. She guessed the writing had been on the wall for some time but she’d refused to see it, hadn’t wanted to see it.

Sebastian wasn’t the first guy to have given her such an ultimatum, but Elle didn’t see why she had to be the one to compromise. She was who she was, take it or leave it. Though she did wish he was still around now to comfort her, help her through this unbearable grief.

She just had to get through this herself though, she knew. She just had to be strong.

Her bond with Anna had not been damaged by her moving away. Her mum understood her, just as she understood everyone, and knew that Elle had something to prove, if only to herself. She knew that her daughter hadn’t disliked Mulberry Bay and its tiny charms, or that she hadn’t resented the hotel, only that if she stayed, how would she ever truly know what she was capable of?

Anna understood this about her eldest as surely as she knew that her youngest would stay behind in the town, close to her parents and live as gently and unsurprisingly as she could. Penny was soft through and through, as light as a cloud, but Elle glinted like metal with concentration and purpose.

And that was how she’d lived her life: purposefully. She’d wanted adventure; she’d got it. She’d wanted a career, and now some of the buildings she’d designed might be famous one day. Elle didn’t know how she’d get through her days in London now without Anna’s regular emails, her little jokes about the townspeople and her gentle words of encouragement. She had always told herself she loved the city, loved its great bursts of energy, so many people struggling to fit into one small space all at once; the noise, the smells, the anonymity, but the truth was that sometimes she had to steel herself against it. Sometimes she longed for calm, and the only thing that could get her out the door was thinking of a message from Anna: ‘So proud of my clever girl – go and build me a castle.’ She seemed to think Elle and Penny had each hung the moon, despite how different they both were.

She tried to remember the last conversation she’d had with her mother. They’d talked about all the usual things, laughed over some misunderstanding Anna had had with Ned. He’d spoken too quietly when he told her what he wanted for his dinner: she’d made him a cake, when he’d asked for hake.

‘Oh, I knew what he wanted,’ her mother had admitted mischievously. ‘I always know what he wants. But I just thought it would teach him to speak up a bit. I think he enjoyed the cake.’

An avid music fan, Ned Harte was a deep thinker, and oftentimes silent above all else. An engineer by profession, but long retired, her father had always been cerebral, reserved, and analytical. Ultimately, he was the complete opposite of his buoyant, cheery wife who chatted happily with hotel guests, bubbled over in enthusiasm for making everyone comfortable at all times, and was always keen to know the life story of everyone who walked through the front doors.

Ned, however, had always appeared detached from the operations, despite it being the only source of income for his family. Elle wondered now what would happen to the place, which doubled as the family home and as Penny’s place of work.

Penny and Ned both worked at the hotel, but it had always been Anna’s passion. Her dad and sister had operated largely in the background, while it was her mum who’d kept on top of the day-to-day running of the place as well as the business side, keeping accounts, paying taxes etc. For as long as Elle could remember, her father’s passion was his beloved Beatles music, not the The Bay Hotel, and with her mother gone, she wondered what exactly, would happen next with her family’s home and long-standing business.

Thinking again of that story about the cake, she certainly knew that there would be no such carefree joy in her family again.

Not without Anna.

As she moved to the front of the line, Elle put a fist up against her mouth, trying to stifle a sob, and push away the grief that was building afresh.

O
n approach from this vantage
, Elle thought, as the taxi snaked its way along the coast road through Mulberry Bay and up the hill towards her childhood home, the hotel always suggested the splendour it once had been.

There was no sign of any obvious wear and tear: you couldn’t see the paint peeling in flakes from the exterior window frames, the worn carpets at reception, the scuffed ballroom floor, or the hopelessly outdated wallpaper. You definitely couldn’t see that the ballroom chandelier was lightly coated with dust, missing small jewels, or that the staircase creaked unmercifully when you took the wrong step.

Elle recognised that the 1800s architecture of the building was completely outdated, and guessed that her colleagues in London would no doubt chuckle at the high ceilings lined with dark wood, the large imposing doorways, and the turreted ceiling of the bar’s sitting room, which she had so loved as a child. How glamorous, she had thought then, and although she knew she should dismiss it, the hotel hung off her heart like a fishhook, pulling painfully when she least wanted it to.

Her taxi pulled up to the entrance, and here was the moment she’d been dreading. She stepped onto the gravel and saw her sister waiting for her in the doorway. Penny came towards her, arms outstretched and Elle could tell that she was already crying. It struck her suddenly how much like their mother her sister was: slightly plump, blonde, easy in her body.

It was only when she saw Penny coming towards her that Elle finally broke down, letting out all the feelings that had built up over eight hours and six hundred kilometres.