The Cornish Guest House (11 page)

The regular beatings. Her two brothers had suffered as well; thank God she’d had them, because at night they’d huddled together for comfort, like orphaned puppies or cubs. But the boys weren’t as bad as her, it seemed, because she alone had been adopted, taken in as a baby, and look how she’d repaid her parents’ selfless generosity! With ingratitude, surliness and disobedience.

She could still hear her mother’s thin, hard, hectoring voice: ‘God gave you hands to work with, and work you shall. Make your bed… Do the washing up… Sweep the front step…’ She could still recall the endless bible meetings and prayers. No music or TV. No parties, Christmas or birthdays. Destined, it seemed, to gaze at the neighbours’ children playing in the street from her locked bedroom window.

Later, in her teens, she’d had to wear bras so tight that she could scarcely breathe in order to disguise the swell of her growing breasts, as if her very femininity had been a disgrace that she must pay for. Plain hair, plain clothes, ugliness and misery. This had been her lot in life, this had been what she’d deserved.

But she must have had some spark of courage, of defiance, because she’d started to slip out and jump over the garden fence to meet the one normal friend that she’d managed to make of her own – Molly. Secretly, they’d practised their songs in Molly’s parents’ garage and formed the band together. Tabitha had even tasted cider and snatched kisses from the sweet, gentle guitarist, Dave.

Finally, though, they’d been caught out and her mother’s blank expression, words that she’d learned by heart, had hissed from her lips.

‘“But now I have written to you, if any one called brother be fornicator, or avaricious, or idolater, or abusive, or a drunkard, or rapacious, not to mix with him; with such a one not even to eat.”’ Eyes blazing, she’d pointed at the door. ‘“Remove the wicked person from amongst yourselves…”’

It hadn’t been some random person she’d been throwing out either, it had been her, Tabitha, because she’d dared to blossom into a beautiful young woman, play music and kiss a schoolboy. She’d been barely sixteen and she’d never seen her family again.

She shook her head, trying to brush the bad thoughts away. Thank God Oscar had two parents who loved him. She must hold fast to that.

‘Our boy won’t want for anything,’ Luke said carefully, as if reading her mind. He seemed to have a knack; sometimes she thought there was nowhere to hide. ‘You’re quite safe so long as you’re here with us.’

She looked at her husband, whose blue eyes glittered shiny and hard, like knives.

‘I know.’

It was moving-in day for Loveday and Jesse, and no one at Bag End was to be excused duties. The girl turned up at seven in the morning with bird’s-nest hair and dark circles under her eyes; she wasn’t accustomed to glimpsing light before at least nine and it didn’t agree with her.

Liz, who’d been in a deep sleep beside her husband, took a moment or two to register that it was Saturday. ‘Goodness!’ she said, pulling her robe around her, tying the cord and running downstairs. Her feet were bare and although it was warm inside she shivered as she opened the door and the cold air whistled round her ankles. She rubbed her eyes. ‘I thought you couldn’t pick up the keys till ten?’

‘Well, Uncle Robert’s got to drive me there, and we should bring the bags down and put them in the hall.’ Loveday pushed past her aunt and marched into the kitchen, where she opened the fridge door, took out a carton of orange juice and proceeded to pour herself a large glass. ‘We’ve got masses to do.’

Rosie, woken by the noise, came and joined them at the kitchen table. She was wearing a blue and white spotty nightdress and her fair hair was tangled on one side where she’d been sleeping on it. It used to reach almost to her waist but it had been shaved for the operation, then the follow-up therapy had made it all drop out again. Now, it was chin-length and would take a while to grow back fully but, to her relief, it was just as thick and shiny as before. Liz thought she looked sweet and young, but she didn’t say so.

‘We’ll need to clean the place properly,’ Loveday went on, pulling off her hoodie and hanging it on the back of a chair. She was in uncharacteristically practical jeans and trainers. ‘And put up the pictures and blinds. Jesse and me don’t know much about DIY.’

Liz plonked some cereal on the table and fetched brown bread, jam and butter. ‘Eggs and bacon for starters, anyone?’ She was thinking that this would be a long day. ‘We’re going to need plenty of energy.’

The smell of sizzling bacon brought Robert down and soon Jesse arrived, too, so that Liz had to fetch more eggs from the fridge. She’d bought them, as usual, from Pendean Farm, and smiled at the names on the carton of the hens who’d laid them – Penny, Polly, Poppy, Samantha, Gertie and Maud. Pendean’s eggs seemed to be creamier and fluffier than any others, with bright yellow-orange yolks; she couldn’t imagine going back to supermarket ones now.

Jesse’s blond curls tumbled round his face and he gave a lazy grin. ‘Ahh, breakfast,’ he sighed, pulling out a chair next to Loveday and shuffling in close, so that their shoulders were almost touching. Robert, who was leafing through the paper, failed to notice, but Liz did. She often spotted them gazing at each other when they thought no one was looking.

Rosie seemed to have lost her tongue and Liz suspected that she had a bit of a crush on Jesse, not that he’d noticed, but, then, so did most of the girls in the village. Fortunately he seemed to have put his playboy days behind him because Loveday wouldn’t have stood for any nonsense.

‘Will you teach me how to cook?’ she asked Liz, as she wolfed down scrambled eggs on toast. ‘I want to make us nice dinners and I can only do cakes.’

She lived mainly off takeaways, but she’d learned to make delicious cakes for the sales she’d put on to raise funds for Rosie’s therapy. Liz had been incredibly touched.

‘’Course I will.’ The image of Loveday and Jesse sitting at their own dinner table made her smile, though she did worry that they were very young. She’d tried to coax Loveday into waiting a year or two, but she’d been adamant, so Liz had resolved instead to support them as much as she could.

Jessie glanced up from his plate. ‘You’re good at making toast as well as cakes,’ he joked. ‘We can live on that.’

Loveday’s face fell. ‘We’ll get bored of toast.’

He cuffed her on the arm. ‘Don’t be silly, I’ll teach you how to cook. I don’t mind doing it all, if you want, or we can get fish and chips from Bob’s On the Beach, or pizza.’ He winked at Robert. ‘Or raid A Winkle In Time for leftovers.’

Loveday perked up. ‘I got some gorgeous plates at the discount store, and matching mugs. We can get pizza when we’ve unloaded the stuff!’

After carting down the bags from upstairs, Robert drove her to her friend’s place to collect her luggage, then on to the estate agent to pick up the keys while Liz and Rosie dressed. Then they all walked together, carrying as much as they could, to the flat in Towan Road, which ran parallel to Humble Hill as you headed from the village in the direction of Polgarry Castle.

Loveday quivered with excitement as she put her key in the lock and insisted that she and Jesse enter first, so that they could invite the others in. It was a little place, not unlike the cottage that Liz and Rosie had lived in before Bag End, only smaller, and its new incumbents had the top flat, while a single man was renting the ground floor.

The narrow entrance smelled of stale cooking, and you had to slap a switch on the left to turn on the dull overhead light, so that you could see where you were going. Once they’d climbed the cramped flight of steps, however, a second door opened straight into a reasonably sized, square room with a window overlooking the street. A brown plastic sofa with a hole in the seat and a matching armchair huddled round the electric fire, and there was a small white table pushed against the left-hand wall and two wooden chairs.

‘Quick, get the throw on!’ Loveday exclaimed, rootling through one of the carriers she’d brought and pulling out a plastic bag containing a pink and blue striped blanket. Once she’d unwrapped and arranged it artfully over the torn sofa, the place already looked cheerier, and the addition of two fuchsia cushions in either corner and another on the armchair improved matters further.

‘How do you like it?’ Loveday stood back to admire her work.

‘It’s very pink,’ said Jessie.

Liz thought, He’s got no idea. He hadn’t yet seen the pink towels, sheets, pillowcases, duvet covers, lampshades and crockery. ‘Let’s have some fresh air,’ she said quickly, walking to the window and opening it an inch or two. She was hoping that she wouldn’t be around when Loveday produced her candy-coloured stuffed animal collection.

While the men returned to Bag End to fetch Robert’s car, loaded with carriers and suitcases, the others rolled up their sleeves, donned Marigolds and got down to cleaning the kitchen. It was only a tiny space, just off the sitting room, but it took a while as the cupboards were sticky and the work surfaces, cooker and microwave were coated in grease.

Liz, who was a bit of a pro, had to show the girls which products to use.

‘You need to give it more welly,’ she scolded, when she caught Rosie dabbing with her good hand at the stained sink, using one shrivelled corner of damp cloth. ‘And plenty of stuff down the drain, please.’ She was a great believer in bleach.

Loveday and Rosie were too squeamish to tackle the loo, so Robert manfully stepped in. Meanwhile, Jesse insisted that he could put up the new roller blinds and Liz stood at the bottom of the ladder, looking on anxiously as he ripped down the faded curtains and bored messy holes in the wall using Robert’s power drill.

‘Are you sure you don’t want a spirit level – or a ruler?’ she enquired.

‘Nah,’ said Jesse confidently, ‘I can do it by eye.’

Once he’d fitted the blind into its mounting brackets, he came down from the ladder and stood back, hands on hips, to examine his work. There was a pause while he put his head first on one side, then the other, to view the blind from different angles.

‘Does it look straight to you?’ he asked at last.

‘Um…’ Liz didn’t want to hurt his feelings. ‘Perhaps it’s just a teeny bit higher on the right?’

Jesse screwed up his eyes, as if that would make a difference. ‘I think we’ve just been looking at it too long.’

Neither of them noticed Loveday arrive with a feather duster in one hand, a can of furniture spray in the other.

‘It’s wonky!’ she cried, making them both start.

‘No, it’s not,’ Jesse said hotly. ‘It’s only because you’re standing so far back. Come closer and you’ll see it’s fine.’

Loveday took a few doubtful steps forward before waggling her feather duster bossily. ‘Look, it’s definitely up on one side, down on the other. D’you need glasses?’

Liz thought of the large holes in the wall that would need to be filled in if he started all over again, not to mention his wounded male pride.

‘Well, I think it gives the room character.’ She glanced sideways at Loveday, whose lip curled cynically. ‘And it’s a gorgeous colour!’

That seemed to do the trick.

‘It is, isn’t it?’ She grinned. ‘And it matches the pink and blue blanket.’ She tickled Jesse’s cheek with the duster before linking arms. ‘I couldn’t ever of put that up, I wouldn’t know where to begin.’

‘It was nothing,’ he said modestly, but he seemed to have grown a couple of inches in height. Liz, meanwhile, decided that she might just ask Robert to do the next blind on the quiet.

When the flat had been cleaned from top to bottom and smelled of bleach and lavender polish, they hung some pictures on the walls, put flowers in the small vase they’d bought and set it on top of the TV. Then Robert and Rosie went for groceries, while Loveday and Jesse made up the bed with new sheets, pillows and duvet.

Liz, who was in the kitchen, putting cutlery in the drawer, could hear giggling and when she poked her head round the door they were throwing cuddly toys at each other across the room.

‘That’s Puff!’ Loveday screamed, as a pink and yellow dragon hit her on the head and a large stripy zebra flew in the other direction, making Jesse dodge. ‘Don’t hurt him!’

‘Puff?’ Jesse said delightedly. ‘
Puff?
What kind of name’s that?’

It was late afternoon by the time they’d finished and they plonked down on the sofas and armchair, exhausted, while Jesse called for pizza. They hadn’t had anything since breakfast and the food, which they ate on their laps, tasted more delicious than a gourmet meal.

‘I’m so happy, I could explode!’ Loveday sighed, when she’d had as much as she could manage. She cuddled into Jesse, beside her. ‘I never ever thought I’d have my own place, with my own kitchen and bathroom, all my own things – and my own boyfriend,’ she added shyly. ‘My room at my parents’ was so tiny and there was no privacy. You could hear everything anyone said – especially the arguing.’

Jesse put down his plate and wrapped an arm round her shoulder. ‘We won’t argue, babe. Well, not much, anyway.’

Liz looked at Robert, who smiled. ‘I think you’re going to be very happy here, I can feel it in my bones. And I’m looking forward to dropping by frequently, unannounced, to make sure you’re behaving.’

Loveday shifted uncomfortably while Jesse stared hard at the floor.

‘Only joking,’ Robert added. ‘Sort of.’

They washed and dried up, using the new tea towels that had made Rosie so cross, and when at last it was time to go, Loveday was quite tearful.

‘Thank you so-o-o-o much.’ She gave Liz and Robert a hug and planted a sloppy kiss on Rosie’s cheek. The younger girl looked embarrassed and pleased at the same time. ‘You’ve been really brilliant. I’ll never forget you.’

Liz laughed. ‘We’re not emigrating to Australia! We’re only round the corner. In fact, you’re nearer here than you were before!’

‘I s’pose so, but it feels different, like everything’s going to change because I’m an adult now.’ Loveday said ‘adult’ as if it were a dirty word.

‘I don’t think so,’ Robert teased. ‘Not until you stop wearing those skirts like bandages, anyway.’