Second Chance at the Belfast Guesthouse

By Christmas Eve, three of the five large bedrooms on the first floor had been freshened up or completely redecorated. Apart from the high ceilings and cornices, they’d done all the painting themselves. While Andrew was at work, Clare did as much of the brushwork as she could while supervising the installing of the two new bathrooms. When Andrew got home from work, he’d hang his suit over the bedroom chair, pull on his dungarees and take over her brush while she prepared a meal. Afterwards, they’d share the day’s news over coffee and then go back together to where he’d left off.

‘What do we tackle next?’ he asked, as they put up a holly wreath on the front door and looked forward to a few days holiday from paint.

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ she said honestly. ‘A double brings in double the money and there’s only one set of bed linen to launder, but the single rooms will be cheaper and might attract more business. The five singles on the top floor could be very important. It all depends on who we manage to attract.’

‘Some of each, then?’ he suggested. ‘Doing a single would take us half the time it’s taken for the doubles. And we could do our own ceilings up there. Or rather I could do them.’

Clare pulled the bedroom door shut behind her and headed for the top floor, turned along the narrow corridor and stopped at a door with a dim and worn brass number seven. This was the largest of the upper bedrooms with a view over the garden. She stepped into the almost empty room and smiled to herself. It was in a much better state than she’d remembered.

Back in October, she and June had cleaned all the rooms in the house, getting rid of anything that could not be restored or reused. The windows on both floors had stood open for long, sunny days till finally the odour of damp and neglect had been overwhelmed by the faint perfume of lavender polish, the fresh smell of emulsion paint and the strange odour of the new rose-coloured carpet in two of the double bedrooms. Tomorrow, when June came back to work she must ask her who had slept in number seven when she had arrived straight from Grange School to begin her service at Drumsollen.

‘Dust sheets,’ she said aloud, as she tried to remember where the nearest pile of clean ones might be.

She looked more closely at the window frame. ‘And sandpaper,’ she added, wearily. You could paint over fine cracks but loose flakes like these came off on the brush. It was more trouble than it was worth trying to take a short cut.

It was just as she was about to go in search of her materials that a movement caught her eye, a glint, or a gleam from a vehicle just coming into view. She looked down in amazement and watched as a large black taxi drew up at the foot of the steps.

Could it possibly be someone who had misread their opening date? She’d been advertising in a whole variety of newspapers and magazines but she’d stressed: Springtime in the countryside. Special offers for our first guests from April the First. Bookings now accepted.

She peered down. She could see the driver perfectly well as he opened his door, strode round to the boot and took out a large and heavy suitcase, but she couldn’t get a good look at the figure emerging from the front passenger seat.

She ran along the top corridor and hurried downstairs. As she strode across the entrance hall, she caught a glimpse of a familiar figure through the glass panels of the porch door. It can’t be, she’s supposed to be in America, she said to herself, as she pulled them open. But there was no mistaking that red hair. It was Ginny, whom she hadn’t seen since they’d met in a hotel in Park Lane just over a year ago.

‘Clare, I’m sorry, I haven’t any money,’ Ginny said bleakly, as she walked round the vehicle, her face pale, her eyes red rimmed.

Clare threw her arms round her and hugged her. She could feel Ginny’s shoulders trembling ominously. Something was dreadfully wrong.

‘How much is it?’ Clare asked as steadily as she could manage, stepping back and smiling rather too brightly at the taxi man.

She was completely taken aback by the sum he named. She wasn’t sure she had that amount of money in the house, even with the reserve she still kept in Granda Scott’s old Bible.

‘Hold on a moment, will you. My handbag is probably upstairs,’ she said quickly. ‘Perhaps you could bring in my friend’s suitcase.’

‘Right y’ar,’ he replied agreeably, eyeing the well-swept steps and the heavy, white-painted front door.

Clare ran upstairs, emptied her handbag on to the bed. There was a wallet and a purse and some loose silver she’d dropped in when she was in a hurry. Putting it all together, she was still well short of the taxi fare even if she added the pound notes from the Bible and the bread man’s money from the kitchen drawer.

‘Where on earth has Ginny come from?’ she asked herself. Not Armagh certainly. Not since the railway had been closed down. And hardly Portadown to chalk up a bill like that. She stood breathless, a handful of pound notes in her hand and looked around the room as if an answer might lie there somewhere if only she could think of it.

‘Oh, thank goodness,’ she gasped, as she remembered Andrew’s wallet in the top drawer of his bedside table.

It was empty, as usual, but all was not lost. Not yet. She unzipped an inner compartment. There sat the balance of the fare. She ran back downstairs triumphant, delighted by the irony that the reserve she insisted he carry for emergencies was what had saved the situation for her.

‘Thank you very much, ma’am,’ the taxi driver said, as he folded the notes away into his back pocket. ‘I think this young lady had a rough crossing last night,’ he added kindly, nodding at Ginny, as he took a battered card from his pocket. ‘If I can be of service, give us a ring. Distance no object,’ he added, raising a hand in salute to them both as he drove off.

‘That smells good,’ said Andrew as he tramped into the kitchen and struggled out of his jacket. ‘I thought you said a toasted sandwich,’ he went on cheerfully. He ran his eye across the large wooden table. The end nearest the Aga sported a red checked cloth, three place settings and a bottle of wine. ‘Has Harry found us another carpet?’

Clare pushed a covered dish into the bottom oven, closed the door, straightened up and shook her head. His eyes flickered away from her face as he caught her sober look.

‘Don’t tell me the bailiff has arrived before we’ve even started?’ he said, trying to sound light.

Clare knew the tone only too well. He was going to be upset, but there was nothing for it but to tell him the truth.

‘Ginny arrived a couple of hours ago, by taxi. She came over on the Ulster Queen from Liverpool. Mark’s gone off with an American heiress.’

‘But they were supposed to be getting married last year,’ Andrew protested, as he dropped down into the nearest chair. ‘In June, wasn’t it? But his father was ill, so they had to postpone it. And then they weren’t able to come to our wedding, because of something else. Some big job came up in America and he couldn’t say “No” to it. Wasn’t that what she told us?’

Clare nodded. ‘I though it sounded funny at the time, but I can see it all now. Ginny tried to cover up for him. He lost a lot of money on the Stock Market. She said they couldn’t even afford her fare to come to the wedding. There was something came up in America, so she gave him all she had in the bank for his airfare. But nothing came of it. At least, that’s what he said when he came back. Apparently he thought she’d got a lot more money somewhere and he kept on asking her to help him out.’

‘But what made him think Ginny had money? The bit she gets from Grandfather Barbour’s shares goes down all the time. It’s hardly more than pocket money. She had a job, didn’t she? Did it pay well?’

‘I really don’t know. But remember she was living with your aunt in Knightsbridge while she had her plastic surgery. You know what a splendid house that is and how much you had to raise for the Clinic. It must have looked as if there was a lot of money around.’

‘So, what happened?’

‘She found a letter from this American woman. She thinks he left it lying around deliberately. They had a terrible row. He was planning to fly out next week. Told her he wasn’t cut out for poverty. Sorry and all that. They’d had some good times. But it was over.’

‘God Almighty! Where is she now?’

‘Asleep on our bed under a couple of rugs. There isn’t a bed made up. Anyway, ours is the only room that gets any heat from below. That’s why you chose it. Remember?’

Andrew leaned his arms on the table and dropped his head in his hands. For one moment, she thought he might be crying. He’d always been fond of Ginny. At one time, while she was in Paris, she’d thought there was something between them. Harry had said he’d seen them together quite often, but it turned out it was simply Andrew trying to get her back on her feet after Edward was killed.

Ginny had been driving when they were hit by the speeding lorry and his death had left emotional scars as well as the obvious physical ones. She’d needed a psychiatrist as well as a plastic surgeon. Andrew had raised the money by mortgaging their family home at Caledon which he’d inherited, but that had left him in serious financial difficulties because he couldn’t pay the death duties owed by the estate.

‘So what do we do?’ he asked steadily, lifting his head, a hint of a smile on his face. ‘There’s two of us this time, isn’t there?’

She nodded reassuringly, bent down and kissed his cold cheek and put her arm round his shoulders.

‘There might be some brandy left from that bottle Harry and Jessie gave you for your birthday,’ she said softly, ‘I seem to remember Ginny doesn’t like whiskey.’

‘I’ll go up and see,’ he said briskly, as he got to his feet and headed for the morning room, now their own small sitting-room.

Clare took a deep breath and felt herself relax. She’d been dreading telling him what had happened because she was so anxious about how he would react. He was always so responsible. Far too responsible. For the moment she would keep to herself the fact that Ginny thought she might be pregnant.

‘So you’re quite sure, Ginny?

‘Yes,’ she replied, beaming, as she closed the door behind her and sat down by the sitting-room fire. ‘I feel awful and I’ve got through half that packet of Tampax you gave me yesterday, but I don’t feel sick any more. I think I was just sick with worry, Clare. What would I have done without you and Andrew?’

‘Unhelpful speculation,’ Clare replied easily, as she closed her account book, got up from her desk and came over to sit opposite her in front of the comforting blaze. ‘I can’t say I’m not relieved, though we’d have managed somehow.’

‘I feel I’ve been such a fool. I’ve made such a mess of things after all the hard work Andrew put in to help me,’ she began, throwing out her hands in a typical Ginny manner.

Clare looked at her pale face and listened, comforted by the fact that she seemed so much herself again only a week after her flight from London. Exhausted she had been and still was, but the gestures, the eye movements, the toss of her head, all said this was the Ginny she had known since that wonderful summer she and Andrew had stayed with his cousins at The Lodge.

Since she’d taken up decorating herself, Clare often found herself thinking of that happy summer when they’d all painted the big sitting-room at Caledon. Ginny’s mother had made sketches of all four of them and Edward designed extraordinary games of skill for them to play in their free time. She still found herself thinking of Teddy and the long conversations they had about Irish history, which was his great passion.

He’d told her it was high time Ireland sorted out what actually happened from all the myths that had been invented. Whether you looked at 1690, or 1847, or 1916, there were facts to be had. What he wanted to do was put the record straight, one way or another, so that this group or that could not select their version of events and use them to justify the unjustifiable, nor to prop up corrupt or idle governments, North or South.