The House of New Beginnings Read online

‘Wait,’ Rosa said, trying to keep up. Had she missed something? ‘Hang on. You two go roller skating?’

  ‘Just the once,’ Georgie said, ‘although I wouldn’t mind going again some other time. It was a right laugh, wasn’t it, Charlotte?’

  ‘It was excellent,’ Charlotte replied, who seemed to be getting a bit squiffy already. (Good, thought Rosa.) ‘Terrifying but excellent. You should come too next time, Rosa, if we go. Girls’ night out!’

  ‘We should go for a girls’ night out anyway,’ Georgie said, seizing upon the idea. ‘And – what was her name? Jo, too, when she’s better.’

  ‘And Margot!’ Charlotte cried. ‘She’s brilliant. Have you met her yet? She is the most glamorous, cool woman . . . I was a bit scared of her at first but she’s ace.’ She giggled again. ‘Do you know, I asked her if she wanted me to run any chores for her the other week and she sent me off on this little tour of Brighton – basically to all her favourite shops, where I had to ask to be served by all these gorgeous men she’s . . . well, curated. And they all love her! How badass is that? For a woman in her eighties!’

  ‘No way,’ laughed Rosa. ‘Love her. So – what, she has this sort of harem of men around the city, her favoured team of shop assistants?’

  ‘Exactly. It was a real eye-opener,’ Charlotte replied. ‘I was sent to buy posh candles, wine, fancy cheese, all these really lovely shops, and then down to the café to get us cappuccinos. “Make sure you ask for Ned”,’ she said at the end in a terrible French accent and for some reason her cheeks turned pink as she mentioned the man’s name.

  ‘Oh, Ned, I know him – Sea Blue Sky?’ Georgie said in surprise. ‘He’s lovely, isn’t he?’ She posted the last bit of crostini into her mouth and licked the crème fraiche from her fingers. ‘So do you think she was trying to fix you up with these men? And did you like any of them?’ Her eyes widened and she leaned forward without waiting for an answer. ‘Go for Ned. He’s so nice. Do you know him, Rosa? Sort of earnest and funny and speccy . . . He runs the café just down from us on the front. Makes a mean coffee too.’

  ‘I don’t know him but I’m definitely going to check him out now. And his coffee,’ Rosa joked, arching an eyebrow as she got up to collect their empty plates. ‘Hmm, and I can’t help noticing that Charlotte’s gone very quiet in answer to your questions, Georgie,’ she added teasingly.

  ‘She has,’ Georgie agreed. ‘Come on, Char. Fess up. Which one was the sexiest, just for future reference? Just so that we can casually drop by and introduce ourselves to Margot’s top man-god.’ She winked. ‘Sounds like a TV show to me. Who goes through to the next round of Margot’s Top Man-God? You decide!’

  Charlotte looked flustered. ‘Well . . . Oh, I don’t know.’ She drained her wine glass with a gulp and Rosa suddenly remembered the drama about the ex-husband from the weekend before. Maybe the conversation had taken a path Charlotte would rather avoid. ‘Um . . . as Rosa knows I’ve been a bit of a mess recently . . .’ Her face flamed as she met Rosa’s eye. ‘But then, saying that . . . Well, I did actually have a coffee with Ned the other day, so . . .’

  ‘Ooh!’

  ‘Get in!’

  Charlotte’s face was now tomato-coloured and she squirmed at the excited faces of the other two. ‘He said maybe we could do it again, so . . .’ She shrugged but there was a tiny smile now visible, Rosa noticed. ‘He seems really lovely.’

  ‘He is really lovely!’ Georgie cried. ‘Oh, this is brilliant news. Cheers to you!’

  ‘That is good news,’ Rosa agreed. Charlotte’s whole face looked softer and happier all of a sudden. ‘I think that’s my cue to open another bottle of fizz.’

  ‘So,’ said Georgie as Rosa brought in the next course a short while later. ‘We’ve covered my dodgy art class. We’ve nosied into Charlotte’s blossoming love life. But I don’t really know much about you, Rosa. You’re a chef, are you?’

  ‘Well, not yet but that’s the dream. I think, anyway,’ Rosa said, putting a dish of buttered new potatoes on the table. For the main course, she’d cooked salmon en croute, adding pak choi, coriander, ginger, lime, lemongrass and chilli to the salmon inside its pastry casing so that it had a bit of a kick. Phew, the pastry was flaking perfectly as she cut it into thick slices.

  ‘You sound unsure,’ Charlotte ventured as Rosa set a plateful in front of her. ‘Although, looking at this, I can’t imagine why. I’d come and eat in your restaurant any day.’

  ‘God, yeah, and me, absolutely,’ Georgie said enthusiastically.

  Rosa smiled. ‘Aww, shucks,’ she said. ‘Thank you. I do love cooking, but the shifts at the hotel where I work are pretty brutal. And my boss is not really one for career advancement, if you know what I mean. I think he’d have me peeling potatoes and chopping onions forever.’

  ‘When you can make things like this? That’s just criminal,’ said Charlotte, doling potatoes and salad onto her plate. ‘And I’m saying that as someone who eats a ready-meal every night.’

  ‘It’s a bit of a new thing for me,’ Rosa explained. ‘I only started working there this year. I was in advertising before, living in London. Packed up and came here for a new start, when . . . Well, things went pear-shaped, basically.’ She glanced at Charlotte. ‘Man trouble, in other words.’

  ‘I hear you,’ Charlotte replied. ‘So none of us have been here that long, then. I moved here in the new year myself. Another fresh start.’

  ‘And we came down a month ago,’ Georgie said, taking a photo of the dish and typing something into her phone. ‘Sorry, I’m just sending this to Simon to make him jealous, serves him right for being so ignorant. You’re missing out, mate!’ She jabbed a button and then put her phone back in her bag. ‘Well, here’s to new beginnings, anyway. New careers too – and new neighbours. And double cheers to a bloody lovely dinner!’

  ‘Cheers!’ they chorused, holding up their glasses.

  ‘I’m having such a lovely time,’ Charlotte added, eyes shining with the candlelight. ‘Thank you, Rosa, this is all brilliant.’

  ‘Me too,’ Georgie agreed, mouth full. ‘Do you know, when I moved here, my friend Amelia – she’s madly into astrology – got all excited about me living at number eleven. The eleventh astrological house is all about friends, hopes and wishes, she said to me. And I was like, yeah whatever, at the time. But . . .’ She grinned, clinking her glass against Charlotte’s and then Rosa’s. ‘But maybe this is what she meant. Here we are, new friends, hoping Charlotte will go for it with lovely Ned, wishing that Rosa will ask us round like this again . . . ’

  Rosa laughed. ‘You’re both welcome any time,’ she said, scooping salad onto her plate. And she meant it. Having the neighbours round for dinner – and such nice, friendly neighbours they were too – was fun. This was easily the most enjoyable evening she’d had since moving out of London. She’d cut herself off from her old friends, moving down here, wanting to be alone, stewing in her own heartbreak, but having dinner with Georgie and Charlotte had made her realize just how much she missed female camaraderie. She must organize a get-together with the old gang, and soon.

  As they dug into their food, the conversation turned again, this time back to Georgie’s burgeoning new journalistic career, and in particular to the dilemma she was currently facing, with the so-called ‘House of Women’ who were opposing the hotel development designed by her boyfriend.

  ‘Does Simon know you did the interview?’ Charlotte breathed, leaning forward.

  ‘No, he bloody doesn’t – and that’s just between me, you guys and the gatepost, all right? We’ve not exactly been getting on lately. What happens at Rosa’s table stays at Rosa’s table, okay?’ They chorused their agreement at once. ‘The thing is, the deadline for the piece is tomorrow and I’m still in two minds. I mean, it’s the best bit of writing I’ve ever done, you know, it’s proper journalism rather than silly pieces about a roller disco or a weird art club. But then again . . . it’s Simon’s career too. His big break. How can I pit myself ag
ainst him?’ She pulled a face. ‘I can’t, can I? I shouldn’t. He would kill me.’

  Just at that moment, there was a knock on the door, and Georgie’s phone bleeped simultaneously with a text. ‘Oh Christ, it’s him,’ she yelped. ‘It’s Simon at the door, Rosa. Of all the moments! Nobody say anything, will you? Shit!’

  None of them could keep a straight face when Simon came in moments later, a bottle of champagne in hand, apologizing to Rosa for his late arrival and to Georgie for ‘being a bit of a dick lately. What’s so funny?’ he frowned, when she couldn’t hide her guilty laughter.

  ‘Nothing, nothing,’ Georgie spluttered, not entirely convincingly. ‘Charlotte had just told us a brilliant joke when you got here, that’s all. Anyway.’

  ‘Really?’ He looked at Charlotte, who blushed and squirmed.

  ‘You kind of had to be there,’ she told him, kicking Georgie under the table.

  For dessert, Rosa had baked a good old apple and blackberry pie, but she’d scented it delicately with ginger and made custard flecked with real vanilla. Simon, meanwhile, polished off the massive leftover portion of the salmon en croute, and told Rosa that she was a goddess, and that it was the best dinner he’d had since he’d left Yorkshire. ‘A proper dinner, that’s what it was. I’d pay good money for this, I’m telling you.’

  ‘And he’s a Yorkshireman, remember, so he’s tight as a gnat’s chuff,’ Georgie said, ducking as he tried to swat her.

  ‘I’d pay too,’ Charlotte echoed. ‘Hey – you could do one of those supper clubs,’ she added suddenly. ‘Someone at work went to one at the weekend, said it was brilliant. It’s like a dinner party in your home but people actually cough up for the privilege. Basically this, but with us shelling out twenty quid or something.’

  ‘Get ten or so people together,’ Simon said, nodding. ‘Cover your costs, everyone brings their own booze . . . You’ll be laughing.’

  ‘There was something about supper clubs in the magazine the other day,’ Georgie remembered, chipping in. ‘I’ll dig it out and find it for you. But, yeah, you could totally do it, Rosa.’

  Rosa glanced from face to face, as if expecting them to be teasing her, but they seemed deadly serious. Her skin prickled with a rush of sudden excitement. ‘Really? You think people would pay to have dinner here in my flat?’

  ‘Definitely!’ they all said as one. ‘What have you got to lose?’ Georgie added, waving her empty spoon in enthusiasm.

  ‘Think about it anyway,’ Charlotte urged.

  ‘I will,’ Rosa said. Her heart was pounding a tattoo all of a sudden, her head was whirling. A supper club, she repeated to herself. Her own miniature restaurant right here. She could do it, couldn’t she? And why not?

  Chapter Nineteen

  SeaView House Noticeboard:

  POLITE NOTICE TO ALL TENANTS

  Please could you endeavour to keep all noise DOWN after ten o’clock at night. I have had complaints from the neighbours and would like to remind you that this is a respectable house NOT a DISCO.

  Angela Morrison-Hulme

  Property Manager

  Georgie tossed a pebble into the sea with a plop and sighed. The new edition of Brighton Rocks magazine was out and she had three whole pieces in it this week, but the pleasure and pride that she might normally have felt at such an achievement was tainted by the conviction that she was probably the worst girlfriend in the world. Yes, she had submitted the women’s refuge interview, written under a pseudonym. Yes, she knew this would only add to the opposition Simon was facing at work. Yes, it was probably pretty unforgivable of her.

  ‘You’re taking over the magazine!’ Viv had emailed cheerfully when she sent over the link to the digital edition. As well as her interview, there was also the write-up of the Alternative Art Club which Viv had loved, and the Hey Em column, which was getting more hits than ever, as well as a whole inbox of new problems. The interview itself had had a lot of feedback online, and someone had even started a petition to save the house, which had gathered almost a thousand signatures already.

  There was no way she could tell Simon of her writerly success, though. It had been bad enough him finding out about the whinging agony letter she’d written and accidentally got into print, but this was far worse. He was not easily prone to forgiveness either, being the kind of man who liked to have at least one grudge simmering away at any given time. In the past he’d had it in for the binmen, former colleagues, the manager of Leeds United, the Prime Minister . . . the list went on. The last thing Georgie wanted was to go straight to the top of his chart.

  Anyway, the magazine was tiny, she reminded herself. Petition or not, hardly anyone read it; it wasn’t like she’d stitched Simon up in the national press, or on television. He never had to find out. Maybe in years to come, she’d confess and they’d roar with laughter about it, she thought optimistically, lobbing another pebble overarm into the waves. Maybe they’d even show their grandchildren. Yeah.

  Her phone was ringing in her pocket, she realized, and she pulled it out to see her editor’s name on the screen. ‘Hi,’ Georgie said, turning her back on the roaring sea, and cupping her other ear in the hope of better hearing. A gale was whipping up around her, snatching at tendrils of her hair, and she bowed her head against it and began clambering back up the pebbly bank in the hope of finding shelter.

  ‘Hey, George, you okay?’ Viv asked. ‘Got any plans for tonight?’

  ‘Well . . .’ There was Silent Witness on later, and a steak and ale pie in the fridge (Simon’s favourite), but that was about the extent of it. ‘Not really,’ she admitted.

  ‘Great, because I’ve got the next challenge for the You Send Me column, and it’s a doozy.’ Viv was smiling in a very pleased-with-herself sort of way; you could hear it behind her words. ‘Get your best frock on, girl, because . . .’

  A seagull overhead chose that moment to let out a screech and Georgie, back up by the arches now, ducked into a small trendy gallery selling hand-painted cards and crackle-glazed earthenware bowls, where silence reigned. ‘Sorry, I missed that,’ she had to say into the phone. ‘Could you tell me again? I can hear you now.’ Get your best frock on, she was thinking. It must be somewhere posh. The theatre, maybe. The opera. Ballet, perhaps! She hoped it would be something romantic so that she could drag Simon along with her. She pictured them holding hands in the audience, maybe sharing a tentative smile and reconnecting once again.

  ‘Are you there?’ Viv yelled, so loudly Georgie had to hold the phone away from her ear. ‘I said, we’re sending you speed dating. Only it’s speed dating with a difference. Have you got a pen? I’ll give you the details.’

  ‘Well, I . . .’ Georgie found herself meeting the eye of the woman behind the counter in the gallery, a woman with hennaed hair and a pierced nose who looked a bit too interested in the speed dating conversation for Georgie’s liking. She turned away and lowered her voice, pretending to be browsing through a rack of birthday cards. Bloody hell, six quid each, she noticed. No chance, mate. ‘The thing is . . . I’ve got a boyfriend, and . . .’ She could just imagine the gallery assistant’s ears now flapping with nosiness and cringed. ‘Look, I’ve got a boyfriend,’ she repeated, more firmly this time. ‘So . . .’

  ‘So you don’t have to do anything, Jesus, I’m not asking you to shag around. Come on, Georgie. You don’t have to tell anyone there that you’re boringly hooked up. You don’t have to tell your bloke either. Just go along, have an open mind and report back. That’s all I’m saying.’

  Georgie hesitated. ‘But . . .’ It was all very well saying ‘You don’t have to tell your bloke’ but if her name was printed alongside the speed dating piece, it was going to be pretty easy for him to find out, wasn’t it?

  A snap of impatience had entered Viv’s voice, the smile abruptly dropped. ‘Look, love, this was your idea. Send me anywhere, I’ll do it, I’m up for anything, that’s what you told me. And now you’re wussing out?’

  ‘I’m not wussing out! It
’s just that—’

  ‘Right, well, I’ll give you the address, then. Have you got that pen ready? First rule of journalism, always have a pen ready.’

  Georgie sighed. She didn’t have a pen ready, obviously, because she was not that organized, so there was the journalism test failed. Cursing herself – and Viv too, for her stupid bloody ideas – she eyed up the gallery’s selection of pens displayed in a small pot nearby, for five pounds each apparently. They could bog off and all, she thought crossly, rummaging in her bag for her lipstick and a crumpled old receipt. ‘Ready when you are,’ she said through gritted teeth.

  Just another secret from her poor mistreated boyfriend, then, Georgie thought glumly as she loitered outside the Olive Grove cocktail bar that night, wishing she still smoked so she could light one up in order to kill some time. She wished too that she had put her foot down more vehemently with Viv, told her in no uncertain terms that she wouldn’t cooperate. Did she have the nerve, she wondered, to file copy for a completely different ‘You Send Me’ night, one that she actually wanted to do? She could write the column about a new comedy place that had opened in Hove, or the samba group she’d seen advertised, for instance. The readers would be interested in both those things, let’s face it, way more than they’d want to read about someone who already had a boyfriend going speed dating.

  Glancing through the steamed-up windows of the bar, she could see that there was already a big crowd of people inside. Women in little black dresses with their hair up in gravity-defying dos. Men in jeans and pastel-coloured shirts, a couple in suits as if they’d just stepped off the London train. She bet it stank in there, of bad aftershave and nervous sweat. Shit. And she was meant to join them and go along with it all, flirting and bantering and listening to chat-up lines flying about, while there was poor unsuspecting Simon, grafting away at work. This was all wrong. This was not ideal girlfriend behaviour, was it? Yet again.

  Georgie looked down at her own outfit – a rather tired plum-coloured dress bought in the Hobbs sale about three years ago and a pair of court shoes that were scuffed at the toe. Her hair was decidedly undone – and could do with a cut, moreover – and she had grudgingly slapped on some make-up as a token effort, without really caring how she looked. Bloody Viv, she thought, scowling and wondering what to do. Was the woman deliberately trying to sabotage Georgie’s relationship, or something? Speed dating, indeed. And not just that – this was silent speed dating, where you couldn’t even have a laugh about how awful it was but instead were meant to communicate through your eyes alone. Georgie had googled the event details earlier and it sounded absolutely excruciating.