The Honeymoon Hotel (22 page)

Somewhere, a country and western singer was writing a whole album about me.

It took a depressingly short time to move out of Dominic’s flat, just two days after the Worst Christmas Party of All Time. I packed up all my stuff in four hours, while he was ‘out’ for the evening reviewing some South African barbecue pit in Covent Garden, and that included picking my unwashed laundry out of the basket.

Helen was spurring me on by reminding me just how angry I should be with him for humiliating me like that. I was quite angry now, since the initial shock had worn off, although flashes of misery were also putting in appearances, just to keep me on my toes.

‘Think of all the disgusting stuff Dom made you eat,’ Helen kept urging me, as she yanked open cupboards and stuffed clothes into bin liners. ‘You will
never
have to choke down another yak sweetbread and think of three amusing things to say about it.’

‘I didn’t mind sweetbread, it was the squid that used to make me gag.’ I held up a photo of the two of us on holiday in Scotland, and my heart ached at how happy we looked. Dom hated having his photo taken; I only had four nice photos of
us together, whereas Helen had been dating Wynn for a matter of weeks, and she was already the screensaver on his phone.

That should have told you something
, said a sad voice in my head.

‘He used you for your squid eating!’ Helen cried. ‘And for the fact that you’d stump up half the cash for a bigger flat, the slimy little git!’

Rage returned, with a vengeance.

‘That’s what it was for him,’ I seethed. ‘He just wanted a better bathroom.’

‘He was lucky to have you,’ Helen agreed. ‘We all thought he was punching
way
above his weight from the start. I mean, that ridiculous beard, for Christ’s sake. It was like something you’d grow for charity! He only did it to hide his double chin – you do realize that, don’t you?’

I wobbled. ‘I quite liked the beard,’ I confessed. ‘I thought it made him look—’

Helen leaped in to stop the misery taking hold. ‘Like Captain Haddock? Like a mass murderer? As if he might be hiding food in it for later?’

‘No!’ I winced. ‘Is that what you all thought? I mean, fine if you did, but if you could just keep it to yourself till I’m a bit less … a bit less
humiliated
?’

Helen looked apologetic. ‘Sorry, Rosie. But honestly, just like you said to me, you’re going to wake up one morning and realize that this is the best thing that could have happened to you.’

‘It feels like someone’s kicked me in the stomach.’ I picked up a guide to northern France, for a champagne touring holiday
we were going to go on but never managed to book time off to take.

‘That’s normal,’ insisted Helen. ‘But don’t forget what a pig he is. Let the rage energy through. It’s cleansing. I had to keep eye masks in the kitchen fridge for a month because every time I thought about not being with Seamus any more, I cried so much I got conjunctivitis. Whereas you need to be
angry
. Because you deserve more than he was ever going to give you.’

How could I have misread it so badly? I wondered. How had I managed to ignore the fact that Dominic was more excited about a new flat than he was about sharing it with me? Had I just seen the bits of our relationship that I’d wanted to? The thoughts were sharp, and I didn’t want to examine them too closely.

‘But now look!’ Helen pressed on. ‘No sooner do I get rid of all that toxic energy from my life than I meet a really lovely man who makes me happy! It’s all for the best, Rosie. Honest. Relationships don’t have to be one constant headache. Love should be fun. And, let’s be honest, neither of us was having any fun in our relationships, were we? We were
miserable
.’

‘Mmm.’ I still wasn’t convinced that Seamus and Dominic fell into the same category of boyfriend. They were like parking tickets and death by dangerous driving: technically both car offences, but on separate scales.

‘Is this the toaster you bought that chubby bastard for Christmas last year?’ She held up the lovely blue Dualit toaster. ‘I think you should take it. It’s nice.’

‘Toast’s the only thing Dominic eats at home,’ I said miserably. That’s why I’d given it to him. He’d given me a … I frowned. What
had
he given me, actually?

‘Then he’s going to have to learn to eat something else.’ Helen dumped the Dualit into the box of my mugs, along with two phone chargers and my expensive iron, which Dominic had broken trying to iron bread when the toaster wasn’t working. ‘Wynn? Could you be a love and take this for me?’

‘No problem.’ Wynn had been waiting patiently by the door. Helen had volunteered his Volvo to do my emergency moving: it was a mobile version of Wynn himself – a big, sensible car with a boot in which I’d spotted some walking boots, a tennis racket and a tatty 2009 road map. A normal person’s car, in other words. There was a pair of floral wellies in there too, which I assumed were new ones belonging to the previously outdoor-phobic Helen.

Wynn wasn’t saying much, out of respect for my wet, red face, but every so often, out of the corner of my eye, I’d catch him and Helen giving each other private, adoring half-smiles when they thought I wasn’t looking, and my heart crumpled up like a used napkin. Then I felt mad again, that I’d wasted two years of my life being strung along by someone who didn’t even have the courtesy to use my real name in his column, when I could have been finding a nice man like Wynn.

This rage/misery combination was really,
really
exhausting.

We’d just crammed the last box into the Volvo when I spotted movement at the end of the street, where the iron railings turned the corner into Hebden Terrace.

I knew it was Dominic. I could tell from the glint of brass buttons on the coat that he thought made him look like a U-boat commander but that Helen told me everyone else thought made him look like a fiddle player in a third-rate folk band.

I felt a flash of anger. How long had he been lurking there, waiting for me to go, so he wouldn’t have to face me?
Me
, the woman he’d shared his life and his flat and his column with for two whole years. Didn’t he even care enough about me to say goodbye properly?

I stopped myself, as a voice in my head pointed out that he’d barely shared his flat. Or his life. Our stuff had been so easy to separate: his drawers, my drawers; his shelves, my shelves; virtually nothing bought together in two years, because neither of us was ever home. It was his flat; I’d been like a lodger with benefits. He’d been so slippery about us buying somewhere together – why hadn’t I seen it?

Because I hadn’t wanted to. I’d wanted the
idea
of me and Dominic so badly that I’d ignored every tiny clue that everyone else had seen. I felt hot with shame and rage, more with myself than him. And I’d thought
Helen
had been delusional. I’d been much worse.

‘Rosie, are you ready?’ Helen called from the car.

The brass buttons twinkled in the light as if the coat they were attached to was ducking farther into the shadows, rather than face me. What a coward.

I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t know what I wanted to say to him. Swedish Betty was welcome to him.

‘Yes,’ I said loudly, towards the darkness. ‘I’m ready.’

And I chucked my house keys over the wall into the recycling bins.

*

In all the years I’d been attending the weekly staff meetings at the Bonneville, I’d never managed to say anything that had made every single person stop talking and stare at me, not even when I announced who I’d found in the circular bath in the penthouse, and with whom (plural – and, no, I really can’t say, sorry).

This time, though, I managed to make the entire meeting fall silent with one simple sentence.

The combined amazement directed towards me could have powered the ballroom chandelier, with some left over to do the wall sconces, but I didn’t care. I was all out of caring. Despite the festive spirit filling the hotel, from the enormous oversize holly wreaths on the outside to
Christmas with the Rat Pack
playing inside, I could only make myself care about anything in the ten-minute windows when the caffeine wore off at the same time that the chocolate rush dropped. I carried a thermal travel coffee mug and a Twix to make sure it didn’t happen often.

Helen mouthed
Are you okay?
over the table at me, and I forced on a wonky smile, at which point Laurence looked startled. He put his glasses back on to look at me properly.

‘Say that again?’ Sam the concierge stuck his little finger in his ear and wiggled it. ‘I think my hearing’s going.’

‘Quick! Quick! Write it down,’ hissed Dino, gesticulating at Gemma, who was doing the minutes. ‘Before she changes her mind!’

‘I
said
, I don’t mind being on the rota for Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve,’ I repeated. ‘In fact, count me in for the whole week. I’ll do it all.’

‘But, Rosie!’ Jean the housekeeper looked aghast. ‘Your parents! Aren’t they expecting you home for Christmas?’ She leaned over the table, giving me the benefit of her full Northern motherliness. Most of it was resting on the plate of Danish pastries, which I was glad Delphine wasn’t here to see. ‘Won’t your mam need some help with the lunch?’

‘No,’ I said truthfully. ‘They’re going on a cruise with my brother and his family. Round the Scandinavian isles. All you can eat. They always do. It’s their annual challenge. My dad’s been looking forward to it since Lent.’

Jean looked sad, which was rich, considering she usually volunteered to work New Year’s to limit her time in Keighley to the bare minimum.

‘What?’ I protested. ‘What is so weird about parents going away for Christmas? If everyone stayed at home, this hotel would make no money at all on Christmas dinner, and it’s one of the busiest days of the year!’

‘So, you’re volunteering to work on Christmas Day,
as well as
doing the Farewell to the Year on New Year’s Eve?’ Laurence repeated. ‘Because you know I’ve booked Christmas Day off. We’re having Ripley and Otto for Christmas lunch here. Ellie’s joining us.’

He beamed around the table, but I saw Helen, Tam, Sam, Jean, and Dino all flinch in their seats at the same time. For individual reasons, relating to silver domes, the alarmed security
doors behind the kitchens, tickets to
The Lion King
, the laundry chute, and maraschino cherries, respectively. Ripley and Otto’s recent surprise visit had taken a while to get over. And, to be honest, Ellie’s return wasn’t exactly on a par with a royal visit. (Although ironically, in Ellie’s head, it was much the same thing.)

‘Yes,’ I said. Then said, ‘Yes,’ again to Gemma, for the minutes.

‘I can give Rosie a hand,’ Joe piped up. ‘I’ll be here.’

‘Not on Christmas Day,’ Laurence reminded him. ‘You’ll be enjoying some quality time with your brother and sister.’

Joe didn’t blanch at that, which was manful of him, but just said, ‘Of course,’ then mouthed,
I’ll help you
when Laurence went back to the agenda.

I smiled tightly. I didn’t want Joe’s help. I didn’t want anyone’s help. I wanted my to-do list to pile up into a blizzard of chores and deadlines and room-servicing, if it came to that, which would propel me into the New Year – and the New Me – with the minimum time allowed for thinking about anything related to food, food writers, or writers.

I know. In a hotel. It was like something the malignant wing of Satan’s Hell Committee would have chortled themselves bright red over. And I’d come up with it all by myself.

*

Laurence asked me to pop into his office as soon as everyone barged their way out at the end of the meeting. Guests were very generous at this time of year, and no one wanted to be invisible when it came to appreciative gestures, even heads of department.

I hoped it wouldn’t take long, whatever it was. I had a potential October bride coming in at eleven, and I wanted to get her in and out before lunch, while the sun was still shining crisply over the courtyard and the Palm Court hadn’t filled up with wild-eyed Christmas shoppers streaming in from Piccadilly to take the weight off their aching feet.

‘Ah, Rosie. Sit ye, sit ye,’ he said, but less jovially than usual.

When I was settled in the chair opposite his, Laurence steepled his fingers (minor wince for arthritis) and adopted his concerned expression, not the anxious ‘my computer seems to be frozen’ one I’d been expecting.

I felt slightly nervous. We hadn’t actually discussed the events of the
London Reporter
Christmas party, as they related to me personally. Dominic wasn’t stupid enough to complain about the blatant envelope tampering, and the hacks had spent double what we’d expected on booze, but I knew it didn’t reflect well on me in a managerial capacity that I’d let it happen. Laurence might be too gallant to mention it, but I was pretty sure he knew. And Caroline would definitely find out. She found out everything eventually.

‘Rosie,’ he said, like someone choking down their sprouts to get them out of the way first, ‘this may be none of my business, but … things aren’t going very well at the moment, are they?’

I blinked. How did he know that? I wondered if Joe had said something about his work experience with me. We’d been getting on a bit better lately, since he’d been moved on to catering and wasn’t hanging around my office asking annoying questions about
why
brides had bridal favours/three types of attendants/fruitcake;
but thanks to Flora’s constant demands, he still seemed to drop into my office most days with an irritating observation about my management style.

‘Has Joe said something?’ I asked carefully. ‘Because Flora’s very happy with—’

‘What? No. No, I mean, things clearly aren’t quite right with you. Volunteering to work over Christmas and New Year. Letting Sam get away with comments about the bridesmaids. And you look as if you haven’t slept in a week. I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re looking a little … well, not as coiffed as usual? Would you like me to book you in for a health check?’

I lifted my (stress-spotty) chin, and tried to tell myself that it was a compliment to my usual high standards of appearance.