‘None taken,’ Alice drawled. ‘Why would I want anyone to know I’m hanging out with whattheyconsider to be a smug, self-important snob? My lips are sealed.’
Becky’s mouth fell open.
‘Although I do have a bit of a blabber mouth from time to time. I mean, we New Siders can’t be trusted, can we? I do hope I don’t accidentally mention to Luke Winter on Friday when he calls in for his pie and pint that you’re open to hanging out with New Siders these days. I’ll try really, really hard to keep my mouth shut, then.’
Becky turned a startling shade of beetroot, almost losing the tip of one finger as the grater slipped.
‘Well, I mean, sometimes these things can’t be helped,’ she muttered, her voice about three octaves higher than usual. She tapped the grater to loosen any cheese stuck to the sides. ‘I guess that’s the risk you take in trusting a New Sider.’
‘Okay, if we can draw the Ferrington politics to a close, we’ve got a sea bass with Prosecco Dauphinoise and seasonal vegetables and a locally sourced honey and damson tart to get sorted in, ooh, twenty-two minutes and counting.’
The kitchen door burst open, and Stephe and Saskia stumbled in. ‘Did someone mention Prosecco?’
* * *
It was challenging work getting back into the swing of hosting paying guests. Five was hardly a demanding number, but it can only take one or two requests to turn a straightforward dinner into a stress-soaked slog.
No, we weren’t aware that one of the guests was a vegan (apparently the cream tea earlier was an exception, because they’d had a hard week and deserved a treat). Yes, we could probably rustle up some second helpings (especially when that gave us more time to get dessert sorted). No, none of us ‘gorgeous gals’ were going to squeeze a chair in beside Stephe and tell him all about ourselves.
What we did have was Becky’s party games.
‘How’s it going?’ Daniel asked, wandering into the kitchen once he’d finally managed to settle Hope down, despite the ruckus.
‘The food went down well. Mostly. One of them only ate green beans, but I get the impression that’s all she ever eats.’
‘What’s next?’ He picked up a slice of leftover tart and took a bite, eyes widening with appreciation. I resisted the urge to fan my face with the tea-towel. The adrenaline buzz made everything seem heightened, including Daniel’s manly presence, loitering about taking up half the kitchen. I was feeling flushed with success, all dishevelled and triumphant, and it was teeteringly close to reckless.
‘They’ve been asking what the after-dinner activity is.’
‘So, what have you come up with?’
I nodded my head towards the living room. ‘Becky is about to start, if you want to see for yourself.’
‘I’d love to, but due to unforeseen circumstances I’ve not got my report done for the morning. Looks like it’ll be a long night for both of us.’
He disappeared back into the study, and I slipped into the living room. The guests were all seated around Becky, posed dramatically to one side of the crackling fireplace. Her atrocious fleece was unzipped to reveal an even worse flowery jumper, but no one seemed to notice the unprofessional attire.
‘Damson Farm is a place to dehustle and dehassle, to get away from all those crappy responsibilities and never-ending pressures. This, my friends, is a place where deadlines are dead, to-do is taboo. The only responsibility you have is to be you. The you you always wanted to be. Wild and free. Bold and beautiful. Here, you are an artist, a creator, an original. Your best you.’ Becky paused.
The only sound was Saskia sobbing gently into a tissue while Simon muttered, ‘Give me a break! Or at the very least a decent whisky.’
‘But before you reclaim the real you, we need to lose the boring, money-bags, image-conscious you. So, who’s ready?’
Alice, Becky and I were washing down the last of the tart with a pot of tea when Daniel strode into the kitchen. ‘People are galloping up and down the stairs. Something that sounded distinctly like screaming came from the direction of the conservatory. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were playing hide and seek.’
Becky grinned. ‘One more round and then we’ll calm them down with sleeping lions.’
He shook his head as if mystified, grabbed the final corner of tart and whisked back out.
15
I managed a full two hours of sleep. Becky finished off the ‘entertainment’ with hot chocolate and buttery crumpets and I finished clearing up. The guests retired just before midnight, with the promise of a packed day of activities to come. I then sped ten miles to the nearest twenty-four-hour supermarket and loaded up a trolley with food and drink. I also chucked in some patterned notebooks with matching pens and about twelve different magazines. Arriving back at the farm around two, I spent an hour planning the next day, followed by another hour having an imaginary conversation with Charlie about how on earth I’d ended up running her lifestyle reconfiguration retreat. If anyone needed a lifestyle reconfiguration, surely that was me?
When the guests bumbled downstairs for breakfast at eight, I had kicked into action mode. The breakfast table was laid, a fire crackled in the grate and the kitchen was a bastion of organised efficiency. I was wearing a sleek charcoal dress that was the essence of respectable hotelier. After her disturbed night in the study, Hope was crotchety and disgruntled, but Daniel had taken her out for a walk before a work call at ten.
Chock-full of creamy cinnamon oat-milk porridge, smoky homemade beans on rye toast and a dozen eggs (the green-bean eater enjoyed a bowl of berries while the ‘vegan’ snarfed up the spare portion of eggs), the guests gathered in the living room for the first activity.
I took another emergency trip to Charlie’s bathroom (the only one available to me at that point) to stare hard at myself in the mirror, channel something of my previous badass persona from the page to my actual personality, and grit my teeth until I was at almost no risk of bursting into tears, and then headed downstairs.
