The Christmas Surprise (22 page)

‘He’s our son,’ said Stephen. ‘Everyone else seemed to accept it in about five seconds flat. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.’

Rosie didn’t want to say anything, just glanced back at Apostil, who had fallen asleep as soon as the car had started moving. His grandmother could come round or not, that didn’t bother her much. But the house issue was a little more pressing …

As they came back into town, Rosie noticed something different. There were no cars on the road. Before she had a moment to wonder why that was, a fire engine came roaring past them down the usually quiet cobbled high street, sirens and lights going.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Rosie. ‘I wonder what that is.’

‘My mother probably breathed on something,’ said Stephen grumpily.

Rosie’s phone buzzed. It was a text from Moray. He asked her favours from time to time, when the surgery were short-handed with medical staff, and that seemed to be the case now;
Can you come to the Hyacinth asap 999
, it said.

Rosie blinked and Stephen turned the car around immediately, wheels skidding in the dirty slush by the side of the road.

The Hyacinth was a rather ugly, chintzy hotel about ten miles south of Lipton, which served as a venue for special nights out, and was also the HQ of the apparently very good golf club. Rosie and Stephen didn’t go there very often as the food was absolutely dreadful, plus you couldn’t walk home. Out-of-towners stayed there, and it hosted lots of corporate away days, plus there was always a cabal of golfers (usually including Hye) holding court in the bar, which had a fake gas fire and was covered in bad watercolours of stags. It was where the local people held their big dos – Tina and Jake’s wedding was scheduled there for 21 December. It was staffed during the summer by charming but slightly disorientated teenage staff from eastern Europe who came into Lipton to spend their meagre wages and were the reason Rosie had started stocking piernik.

As they drew closer, they craned their necks. The sirens were still sounding, and they could see a large column of dark grey smoke rising above the forest.

‘No way,’ said Stephen.

‘Do you think it’s them?’

‘I’ll drop you off and take Appy home, I don’t want him breathing in smoke.’

Rosie nodded, her heart suddenly starting to beat faster. Surely not a fire.

‘Shit. Shit.’

Stephen looked at her. ‘And don’t take any stupid risks, okay? You can’t. You’re a mother now.’

Rosie shook her head.

‘It’s all right, you know me, I’m a totally craven coward.’

‘Just let the firemen do their job.’

Rosie felt her heart beat painfully fast as they sped up the gravel to the Hyacinth’s front door. Sure enough, the back of the hotel was ablaze, near the kitchens. On the front lawn, standing shivering in the cold, were a bank of kitchen staff, their checked trousers and T-shirts testament to the fact that it had been a lot warmer inside than out. Also standing about – and notably not mixing with the staff – were several guests, including two in dressing gowns – an older man and a younger woman, whose face was bright red – in the middle of the day.

The fire brigade already had their hoses trained on the blaze, and several enterprising characters were taking photographs on their telephones and, presumably, sending them to the newspapers. Rosie jumped out of the car and kissed Stephen and Apostil. Stephen looked torn.

‘Maybe I’ll just get out and see if they need a hand …’

‘What did you just say to me?’

‘Um, no heroics.’

‘Quite! No heroics! What are you going to do, teach the fire out?’

Stephen bit his lip.

‘But—’

‘But nothing! Look, Derbyshire’s finest are all here.’

It was true, there were copious numbers of both firemen and police.

‘And if they can’t handle it, I promise I’ll call, okay? Now get going, Apostil needs a feed. Moray can give me a lift back.’

Stephen stared at the scene for a few moments more, then sighed.

‘Okay. Go. Be safe. I love you.’

Rosie ran behind the house and found Moray tending to a slightly confused-looking man.

‘Did they get everyone out?’ she gasped.

‘I think so,’ said Moray. ‘I don’t think there were that many people in there. The fire alarm worked well.’

His smooth, handsome face was unreadable.

‘What was it?’

‘A pan fire in the kitchen, I believe. Fortunately they had fewer than half their staff on rota today.’

Rosie looked at the shaking man sitting on a chair. His gaze was fixed.

‘Are you all right?’ she said. She recognised him from church, but she didn’t think he had any children. Anyone and everyone with children Rosie knew incredibly well.

‘This is Mr McIlford,’ said Moray, in a toneless voice. ‘He’s the manager of the hotel.’

‘Oh, you poor thing,’ said Rosie sympathetically. ‘Oh my, how awful. It’s lucky there weren’t many people in today.’

Mr McIlford looked at her briefly and didn’t say anything.

‘I think you’ll be all right,’ said Moray. ‘One of the paramedics is bringing you a cup of tea, okay?’

The man nodded carefully. Moray led Rosie away to the side.

‘Thank God,’ said Rosie. ‘I was terrified when I saw the smoke, really feared the worst. Have you checked out everyone else?’

‘Yes,’ said Moray. ‘Pretty much. It seems the fire alarm went off in good time.’

He glanced back at the white-faced Mr McIlford.

‘Insurance job,’ he whispered.

‘NO,’ said Rosie. ‘No way. Can’t have been. Surely not. Oh my God, do people actually do that?’

‘Half the kitchen staff conveniently not in today? Hotel practically empty? This place has been losing money for years.’

‘He couldn’t have set it on fire.’

‘They’re sending the police in to check, see if he used an accelerant.’

Sure enough, there was a police van there with a dog. Rosie had wondered whether the dog was to look for people in the wreckage. Clearly it wasn’t.

‘Oh my goodness,’ she said. ‘OOH, I have to ring Stephen.’

‘Don’t mention it to him. Don’t mention it at all.’

‘In case you’re wrong?’

‘God, no, I’m not wrong. I knew this place was up shit creek. No, in case we get called as witnesses. Seriously, you don’t want to do that. It is INCREDIBLY boring.’

‘Well I’m telling Stephen.’

Moray rolled his eyes.

‘Oh yes, blah blah blah, we’re so in love.’

‘I bet you’ll tell Moshe.’

Moray glanced away and didn’t answer. ‘How’s Nemo?’

‘Don’t call him that. He’s brilliant. Except …’

And Rosie filled Moray in on the gossip from Lipton Hall.

‘Oh my,’ said Moray.

‘It wouldn’t matter,’ said Rosie, ‘but we really are skint. There are people in Africa waiting for a school we promised.’

‘Nobody thinks you’re skint,’ said Moray. ‘Everyone thinks you’re minted because you’re from London and Stephen’s Stephen.’

‘I know,’ said Rosie. ‘It’s a problem.’

There was a skidding noise behind them, and Tina’s little Ford Escort ploughed up the gravel.

‘Oh GOD,’ came a voice.

‘Shit, I’d forgotten about Tina,’ said Rosie, turning round. ‘Um, who’s minding the sweetshop?’

But Tina was completely distraught. Although the blaze was dying down, the fire had blown out the kitchen doors and windows and half the back wall was down. All the windows were broken and there was rubble everywhere, while the water cascading from the upper storeys was clearly making a horrible mess of the flowery wallpaper and chintzy curtains; floorboards too were splintering under the weight of the water.

‘The hoses are doing more damage to this place than the COMPLETELY NATURAL AND NON-DELIBERATE fire,’ said Moray loudly.

‘MY WEDDING!’ said Tina, bursting loudly into tears. Rosie put her arm around her.

‘Oh darling,’ she said. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘We’ve paid the deposit and everything,’ said Tina,
sobbing and hiccuping. ‘People are coming from Grimsby!!! It’s all arranged.’

Rosie had listened patiently to little else but this wedding for about ten months, and couldn’t help feeling desperately for Tina.

‘But fortunately nobody was injured,’ put in Moray, and Rosie shushed him.

‘What am I going to do?’ said Tina.

‘Is the shop just shut then, or what?’

‘Moray, I think I saw someone tripping over a paving stone,’ said Rosie pointedly.

She sat Tina down on one of the ornamental benches next to a plaster urn.

‘Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks,’ she said just as there was an enormous crash that sounded like a chandelier falling down.

Tina looked up at her.

‘Oh Rosie, you know what this meant to me.’

‘I know,’ said Rosie. ‘I’ve had it in the diary for a year. Circled in red!’

‘What are we going to do? There’s nowhere else.’ She sniffed. ‘Well, I mean …’

Rosie got a sudden awful lurch in her stomach. She knew what was coming. Oh no.

‘I mean, there is one other place that does weddings …’

Lipton Hall did occasionally host weddings, but big
society weddings, with helicopters, and expensive caterers from Leeds, and three hundred guests, and Bentleys and doves and gold Portaloos and stilt-walkers and hundreds of Chinese lanterns that Stephen wanted to ban because the ducks in the pond kept eating them. It was the only way Lady Lipton could keep the lights on in the wintertime, but because she absolutely abhorred having people in the house (especially when lots of them wanted to meet ‘the real lady’ and cornered her to ask her stupid questions about
Downton Abbey
), she only let it happen two or three times a year, charged a frankly outrageous amount of money, and suffered it in a not very silent silence. It wasn’t for the village people; nobody would ever dare hire Lady Lipton’s own house for one of their gatherings. It simply wasn’t done; it would be an insult. As well as a long way beyond Tina and Jake’s humble means.

All of this flashed through Rosie’s mind in a milli-second, as well as her own precarious position vis-à-vis her future mother-in-law. But all she said, of course, stroking Tina’s hair, was ‘There, there. Don’t worry. We’ll sort something out.’