'Tell me about it,' Nina laughed. 'There’s no point working for free. I learnt that in month one.’
‘Do you know what? I haven’t looked inside since you finished up on the hotel side of it.’
‘Fancy having a look around?' Nina asked. ‘Have you got time?’
'Yep. It would be good to see why it’s not selling.'
A few minutes later, they’d gone through the tradesmen's entrance, made their way through the kitchen and the living quarters, and were standing in the hallway of what was considered the entrance to the old B&B. A beautiful old mahogany desk sat in the corner, a tessellated floor led to a large, wide staircase, and the panels beside the front door threw light onto the floor.
Nina opened a door into what would have been, in the B&B days, a communal sitting room. Tall ceilings towered over them, beautiful old ceiling roses and floor-to-ceiling doors looked back. A fireplace on the right-hand side, thanks to Nina, looked clean and well-cared for, and built-in bookcases displayed nice things.
Robby nodded. 'Gosh, it is beautiful.'
'Yup,' Nina agreed. ‘It has some stories to tell in these old walls for sure.’
A few minutes later, they were on the first floor. Rooms led off a central hallway. Nina opened the door to one of them and remembered when she’d cleared and cleaned it for sale. She felt an odd attachment to the walls, floors, and surfaces she’d cleaned. As if as she’d got stuck in and worked, the place had let out a little sigh. She felt as if the same thing had happened to her, too. With each room, she’d healed and let go of some of the grief that had suffocated her for so long. Looking around she could vividly recall the emotions that had swirled around her in a fog as she’d got her head down and cracked on. An odd mix of hope, sadness, nostalgia, and looking forward. In a strange way, bringing The Summer Hotel back to life had brought Nina back to life too.
They walked over towards the window and looked down at the river snaking lazily down past the end of the garden. Nina sighed at the sight of it leading to the sea and the rooftops of Lovely topping it from the other side. A church spire punctuated the grey, white drizzly sky, and the lighthouse could be seen peeking its head out of roofs. A couple of boats chugged down the river in opposite directions and a swarm of birds swooped down into the water.
'Yeah, nice,' Robby agreed. 'Imagine coming here on holiday and waking up to this. It really is quite something from up here.’
'Yeah,' Nina said. ‘It’s very nice.’
‘Shame it’s still empty.’
'A lot of work for whoever ends up taking it on.'
'You up for it then now you’ve reminded yourself what it’s like?'
Nina laughed. 'It all sounds good in theory, and yeah, I’d be up for it if someone dropped it in my lap or maybe I won the lottery and bought it with that, but no. And anyway, I’ve just bought a property. The one that we’re going to be living in together. You seem to have forgotten that.'
'Oh, I don’t know,' Robby said, laughing. 'It’s just a bit of a dream. How nice would it be to live here where it all started?’
Nina puffed out a little stream of air through her lips. ‘When you put it like that.’
32
Nina walked past Saint Lovely green with the sounds of the leaves on a huge old conker tree in her ears. The leaves rustled back and forth, a plane droned high up in the sky, and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. Nina was on her way to the chemist to first see Birdie, who was then going to take her around to the chocolate shop to start the decluttering job.
Nina had allocated a morning to work in the back room of the chocolate shop and had assumed that it wouldn’t take a lot more than that. She’d delayed another job to fit it in and wasn’t sure really what she was going to be greeted with, how much work there was going to be, and how big the job was at all. But deep down, a niggling doubt told her it might not be that straightforward. Birdie had talked about Nina doing the job for a 'Lovely price', as she called it, but Nina had heard nothing of it. The last thing she needed to be doing in Lovely Bay, to the people who had welcomed her, would be to charge someone to help out. She’d told Birdie, who had passed it on, that she would only charge at cost if she might need something like a skip.
Strolling through Lovely Bay, she pondered the wedding, who was going to buy The Summer Hotel and all sorts, as she got to the High Street and walked along the pavement.The familiar nods and smiles from locals warmed her heart, a testament to how well she'd been accepted in the third smallest town in the country. A couple of people raised their eyes in acknowledgement to her, and from the other side of the street, Clive called out, 'Bonjour.' A few minutes later, she walked past the deli, looked in the window of the flower shop for a few minutes, and pushed open the door to Birdie’s chemist. The shop bell rang overhead, and as every time she walked in, she was taken aback at the lovely little chemist. No plastic shelving and horrid bright lights for our Birdie. She was enveloped in the quaint charm of Birdie's world. The Shipping Forecast played from the counter at the back. Birdie, in her white pharmacist coat, peered around a shelving partition towering with prescription drugs. 'Hi, how are you?'
'Good, thanks. It’s a beautiful day. Long may it last. Everything good with you?'
'Yeah, just sorting out an order that’s just come in. Ready for the chocolate shop? Wasn’t sure if you were ready or not yet.'
‘I certainly am.’
'Okay, so Lizzie is away, as we discussed, and we’ll go in via the back door.'
Nina nodded. 'It all seems a bit hush-hush.’
Birdie shook her head. 'It is a little bit. I think there’s a lot of stuff tied up in this back room with Lizzie.'
Nina nodded. From past experience organising homes, she knew old items often unearthed complex emotions and memories when it was least expected. And with Lizzie away, the secrecy around accessing the back room hinted that there were sensitivities to navigate. 'Yes, I’ve begun to realise that this is part of the job. Often, people's problems are tied up in their junk.'
'Yep, sounds like it. Right, okay, let me just finish this up and I will lead you out the back here and along.'
