The House of New Beginnings Page 2

  Georgie found she was holding her breath as she walked into a narrow hall, off which another door led to the living room. Setting down her case and bag and gazing around, her heart sank down to her festering trainers. There were no two ways around it, her first impression was . . . disappointment. Back in Stonefield, she had worked hard to create a cosy, luxurious-feeling living room with dark varnish on the floorboards, a soft white rug, a big squishy leather sofa with fluffy cushions, and the wood-burner which chucked out tons of heat on a frosty evening. By way of complete contrast, this room was small and musty-smelling with an ageing navy blue sofa that sagged in the middle and dusty velvet curtains which even the most generous person couldn’t fail to describe as ‘shit-brown’. Despite the filthiness of the sash window, there was no disguising the fact that their ‘view’ was one of a tiny back courtyard and a pair of wheelie bins rather than any grand vistas featuring the sea. Oh, Simon, she thought in dismay. No wonder he hadn’t shown up on time. Too embarrassed to face her in light of this Not-Ideal-Home situation.

  ‘So . . . this is obviously the living room,’ Mrs Morrison-Hulme said, walking briskly into the room beside Georgie and waving an arm around as if showing off an opulent space.

  ‘Yes,’ Georgie replied faintly, unable to dredge up any further comment, let alone enthusiasm. She should have listened to Amelia. She should have insisted on Simon Skyping her through every flat-hunting session. What had he been thinking?

  ‘Your bathroom is along here . . .’ the landlady went on, retreating back to the corridor and indicating the next white-painted door. ‘The kitchen’s obviously here’ – she gestured to a blue-tiled galley space with a sink, fridge and cooker and two small cupboards, then demonstrated how to adjust the thermostat and use the greasy-looking hob. ‘And the bedroom’s down at the end. Okay? I think that’s everything, other than to remind you – no smoking, no sub-renting, no pets, no parties, no music after eleven o’clock at night.’

  ‘Right,’ said Georgie, her voice a croak. No fun, basically. No enjoyment. And definitely no gorgeous, funny dog, bumping his nose against her hand and lolloping after tennis balls on the grassy square outside.

  Angela pulled a business card from her handbag and pressed it into Georgie’s palm. ‘Anything else, give me a call – here’s my mobile number. My son Paul helps out with the business, so you’ll have either me or him at the other end.’ She winked a turquoise-shaded eyelid and leaned closer. ‘He’s very good-looking by the way, my Paul. If it all goes pear-shaped with the unreliable boyfriend – where is he, anyway? – then a nice girl like you could do a lot worse. Just saying!’

  Georgie tried to smile but it was an effort when panic was crashing through her like the waves down on the beach. Oh God. What had she done? What had she agreed to? And why on earth had Simon chosen this dump of a flat? Call himself a great architect, a designer of beautiful buildings? Why hadn’t that artistic vision extended to their new love nest? ‘Thank you,’ she managed to say, as the questions beat about her head like midges, and then, feeling belatedly defensive about her relationship, added, ‘He’s probably got tied up with something at work.’

  ‘Of course he has,’ replied Mrs Morrison-Hulme with another meaningful wink that said she didn’t believe it for a minute. ‘Anyway, I’d better be off.’ Her heels left small indentations on the carpet as she took the few steps back to the front door. ‘All the best. Welcome to SeaView House!’

  The door closed after her, and then it was just Georgie on her own, completely overwhelmed with the awfulness of this new situation. SeaView House, my arse, she thought indignantly, remembering the ‘view’ of the dustbins out the back. She could smell the pong of something rotten in the kitchen and there was a damp patch on the ceiling. What would Amelia say if she could see her now? Oh my God, George. Total nightmare! What the actual frig? Tears pricked her eyes at the thought of her best friend’s shocked voice, and she had to fight the impulse to dash out to her car again and drive straight home. ‘Big mistake,’ she imagined herself telling the gonk as she made a wheel-spinning U-turn. ‘Disaster!’

  But then her phone rang: Simon. ‘Hi,’ she said warily. ‘Where are you? I’m in the flat.’ Please tell me there’s been a mistake and this is not our actual new home, she thought, poking a toe at a dustball on the carpet.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. She could hear conversation in the background, another person laughing. ‘Something came up here. You met the landlady all right, though?’

  ‘Yeah. She’s been and gone.’ Georgie raked a hand through her hair and leaned against the wall. Now that she was finally in the same city as him, she no longer knew quite what to say. I hate the flat! she wanted to wail. I can’t live here! But she knew he hated her making a fuss. And besides, she didn’t want to be the clingy sort of girlfriend who made fusses. Gritting her teeth, she made a gigantic effort to banish the lump in her throat and pull herself together.

  ‘Bit of a character, isn’t she? And I know the flat is kind of spartan but I just loved how light it was – and it’s a great location, right? Couldn’t be nearer the beach! We can go for early-morning swims together.’

  She gave a hollow laugh. ‘Yeah.’ Er, no. Was he mad? What about the list she had given him? Had he even listened to a single word she’d said? ‘So are you on your way over now?’ she asked. Everything would feel better once he was there too, she reminded herself. They could laugh about the decor, she could tease him about his terrible lack of taste, they could test out the double bed. (Well. Maybe after she’d hoovered it for bed-bugs and sprayed it with several gallons of Febreze, anyway.)

  ‘I can’t really get away right now but I’ll make sure to leave at five, all right?’ he said and her spirits sank all over again. ‘We can get fish and chips and a few beers, sit on the beach and toast our new start, yeah?’ There was another burst of laughter behind his voice and Georgie had to press the phone to her ear in order to hear him. ‘I’d better go anyway. See you later!’

  ‘See you.’ She hung up and took a deep breath, trying not to give in to dejection. Fish and chips and beers with Simon later, she reminded herself. The beach. Their new start. Come on, George, chin up, it’ll be fine.

  Wandering into the poky living room, she peered out of the window to see two gulls tussling over a chip wrapper in the courtyard, wings beating, beaks lunging. She was not a quitter, she reminded herself, as one eventually flew off, victorious. Definitely not. She had once queued all night in Leeds to be near the front of the queue for the Kate Moss collection at H&M, hadn’t she? She had stuck out a Saturday job at the hairdressers for two years as a teenager as well, even though the endless hair-washing had made the skin on her fingers crack and weep pus. And she had taken her driving test three times before passing, so determined was she to succeed. She didn’t give up on things, that was the point. And there was no way she’d give up this time either, and slink back to Yorkshire only to endure all the pitying looks that her friends, however well-meaning, would give her. Absolutely not.

  So that was settled. She would unpack and make the best of it. It wasn’t all bad, was it? There was the sea right there, just a few hundred metres from her front door, blue and shimmering, with its percussion of pebbles in every wave – plus there was a whole new city for her to explore too. Adventures to be had! Fun to seek out! Maybe even new friends and a bit of work here and there. She could do it. She could cope. She would go and write her and Simon’s names on that flat listing downstairs for starters.

  ‘Right then,’ she said aloud. ‘Let’s do this.’

  Chapter Two

  There was something zen about preparing onions, Rosa had always thought, fingers plucking another papery bulb from the pile and getting stuck in. A slice off the top, a slice off the bottom, and then the burrowing of one’s fingers under the coppery curling skin to peel it away, revealing the naked white bauble beneath, smooth as an egg. Plunge the knife down to split it through the middle, slice into translucent rainbows (‘Finge
rs like bear-claws!’ as Liz, her favourite teacher on the catering course, had instructed) then chop, chop, chop until you had a mountain of pale watery rectangles on the chopping board, a thousand miniature opaque windows.

  ‘Would you hurry up with those fecking onions there now, Dorothy,’ barked Brendan in a distinctly un-zen-like way just then, shattering her trance. Brendan was the souschef at the Hotel Zanzibar, a belligerent Dubliner with a thick neck and an even thicker moustache, who took it upon himself to bellow out orders as if marshalling troops in bloody combat. He was also the sort of person who didn’t bother learning the actual names of his staff, calling them whatever he felt like on that particular day, and so it took Rosa a second to realize he was addressing her.

  ‘Won’t be long,’ she mumbled, bending lower and chopping faster.

  In the next moment he was looming over her, the smell of garlic and last night’s beer oozing from his pores. ‘Won’t be long, WHAT?’

  ‘Won’t be long, chef.’

  ‘And don’t you forget it, girl. Courgettes and peppers next. You’re not in Kansas now, Dorothy. Plenty more where you came from.’

  ‘Yes, chef,’ she muttered, whacking her knife down on the board with extra force. She was thirty-five years old and had once been ‘someone’ in advertising, even winning an award for her ‘witty and innovative’ Betty’s Butter campaign, but here she was a nobody; lowly kitchen staff on a pittance of a wage, where she was expected not only to graft like a slave but also to be grateful for the dubious honour of her employment. And to put up with shite round the clock from the likes of Brendan, moreover. She glanced through her eyelashes to see him now berating poor pasty Natalya, the Russian apprentice, whose hands were permanently covered in blue plasters from knife slips. Rosa gave it two weeks, possibly three, before the girl quit for an easier life. She’d only been working there a few months herself but it was enough to know that apprentices came and went like buses.

  Hotel Zanzibar was situated on Brighton seafront, built around the turn of the century; a classical stucco-fronted building with five-star luxury accommodation, its own private wine cellar and an opulent penthouse suite up at the top where all sorts of famous people were rumoured to have stayed in times gone by. There was a glass lift, and a fountain in the reception and a doorman with a burgundy uniform who the kitchen staff enjoyed taking the mick out of whenever possible. Rosa knew that upstairs in the hotel there were beautiful tasteful bedrooms with sea views and balconies, monsoon showers and posh toiletries, with white fluffy bathrobes folded just so in the wardrobe, and a minibar stuffed with temptations. She knew this, of course, because it wasn’t all that long ago since she’d been staying in places like this herself – for conferences and meetings with work, in chichi suits and high heels, or for dirty weekends away with Max, with sexy lingerie and room service on the king-size bed, no expense spared. Obviously she hadn’t given a thought to the kitchen staff or cleaners backstage, scurrying like ants behind the scenes, chopping, basting, scrubbing, scouring. Why would she?

  Sometimes she wondered how Brendan would react if he could see a previous incarnation of Rosa, a year ago, say, groomed and toned, addressing a conference hall in a suit, her long dark hair obediently glossy post-blow-dry, rather than scraped up beneath a smelly kitchen hairnet. Would he even recognize this version of the quiet, humble Rosa who slaved in his kitchen today, the Rosa who wanted nothing more than to blend into the background?

  ‘Onions, Dorothy! For crying out loud!’

  Speak of the devil. ‘Coming right up, chef,’ she replied, hacking through another onion, imagining as she did so that the blade was cleaving right through Max’s beautiful lying head.

  Whoever had designed the shift pattern at the Zanzibar must have had a sadistic streak running through them like the pink lettering on all the seafront sticks of rock, because nobody could have kidded themselves that their kitchen rota was an easy ride. Some days Rosa would have to work a split shift – from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon, and then go back to the hotel from five in the afternoon until midnight. Some days she’d start at five-thirty to cover the breakfast orders, and finish after the lunch session, others she might be on evenings only. It was hell if you wanted a social life, but then again in Rosa’s case, she barely knew a soul in Brighton other than her equally overworked colleagues, and when she wasn’t here at the hotel, she was generally sleeping off her most recent shift, dead to the world. That suited her just fine right now anyway. In her experience, it was only when you let other people into your life that problems started. Going solo, keeping herself to herself, constructing a fence around her small quiet life – it was self-preservation, nothing less.

  Today she had been on an early and had the entire afternoon and evening to herself. Not only that but tomorrow – Friday – was also a short shift, finishing after lunch. She planned to spend her time off in a gloriously lazy fashion: a leisurely saunter around her new city (she was still making discoveries after four months), a slow, people-watching coffee in one of the many fabulous cafés, and then perhaps she would try a new recipe in her own kitchen.

  Cooking had always been her thing. When she’d been a student, she’d been known for her magnificent Sunday roasts with the best gravy and fluffiest Yorkshire puddings. In her twenties, she would lay on great Indian banquets for her friends on a Friday night – curries fragrant with cardamom and cumin, steaming jasmine rice, and bowls of smoky dhal. She loved throwing sumptuous, hangover-obliterating weekend brunches for her best girlfriends too – huevos rancheros or stacks of golden pancakes studded with shiny blueberries – and of course, when Max was home, she’d enjoyed cooking seductive dinners for two – seabass with almonds, paprika chicken, steak and dauphinoise potatoes . . .

  ‘You should do this professionally,’ her friends had always swooned, asking for seconds and thirds, scraping the last crumbs from their plates. However many times they said it, though, Rosa knew, as they had done, that there was no chance of leaving her prestigious and extremely well-paid job in advertising to go and grub about in a sweaty kitchen for a living. And yet that was exactly what had happened.

  ‘My goodness, I wasn’t expecting this,’ her human resources director, Colin, had said, startled, when she’d sat down in his office and handed over the crisp white envelope containing her resignation letter. He’d stared at it for several seconds with the air of a man eyeing an unexploded bomb, before pushing up his round glasses and raising his gaze to hers. ‘Can we persuade you to stay? A pay rise, or some other kind of financial incentive?’ he asked coaxingly. ‘An extra week’s holiday, how about that?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, folding her hands in her lap. Having discovered the shattering truth about Max the night before, she had barely slept, but she did know, with great certainty, that she wanted to run away. Anywhere. And even though it felt right now as if she was standing at the edge of a precipice with the safety of office life behind her while ahead was a gaping chasm of emptiness where the land completely dropped away, she knew that whatever Colin might offer her, it wouldn’t be enough to keep her in this office, right under Max’s nose.

  And so she had come to Brighton pretty much on a whim that same afternoon, a mad rush of adrenalin and anger and hurt. The city was lit up for Christmas and it had been like driving into a fairy world, where nothing mattered, where nobody would judge her. As soon as she’d moved into her new flat, one of the first things she’d done to christen the place was to go out and buy cake tins and ingredients, queuing up with all the frazzled Christmas shoppers, perspiring in their big coats and scarves. A Victoria sponge was a guaranteed short-cut to making a place feel more like home, she had figured. A Victoria sponge, then a round of mince pies (well, it was nearly Christmas) and then some home-made gingerbread and a Christmas cake to soften up her mum for when Rosa had to drive up to Derby on Christmas Eve, and face the difficult conversations she knew lay ahead. (‘He what? You’re kidding. And then you . . . Oh,
you didn’t, love, tell me you didn’t!’)

  If in doubt, bake, she told herself through those first few grim days where she kept wondering what the hell her game-plan would be now, what on earth she was going to do next. But that was when it had occurred to her: that this was what had always made her feel better – the weighing and whisking and baking. Forget her years of advertising experience, forget her knack for brilliant jingles and creative flair. With a pinny on and her hands floured, all felt temporarily bearable in her world. Maybe it was time for a total sea-change, she had thought, and where better place than right down here by the sea?

  Her mum and sister, of course, thought she had totally gone lala. Her friends too couldn’t quite believe she’d gone through with it. (‘I know you’re upset,’ a couple of them had said in talking-to-a-mad-person voices, ‘but don’t you think this is a little . . . extreme?’) Admittedly, there had been a few occasions during Rosa’s six-week intensive cookery course in the new year at the local college when she’d had what felt like out-of-body experiences, and stared at herself making a vichyssoise or tartare sauce in a starched white apron, and thought, what the hell . . . ? Maybe everyone was right, maybe she had lost the plot, she had worried each time. Here she was, after all: miles from her friends and family, pursuing this whim which had no guarantees of work, security, decent pay . . .

  At moments like this, she’d find herself flashing back to something one of her teachers had once written in a school report: Rosa is a rather emotional girl with a tendency to overreact. A cold-eyed biology teacher, she seemed to remember, who had taken umbrage when Rosa refused to dissect a dead frog in a lesson, due to reasons of squeamishness. Was that what was happening here? Had she over-reacted again, been too emotional; the pale nauseous one heaving over a rubbish bin at the side of the lab, while the rest of the class got stuck in with their scalpels?