“You are my test case,” I tell her. “We’re doing the full route.” I point at the sketched map I drew up late last night, which shows the order in which each element of the playground should be tackled.
Her grin is infectious. “Bring it on,” she says.
She brightens with every step she takes up the ladder and along the hanging bridge. I don’t get the chance to pull her close, or help her over one of my towers built of pallets, or even squeeze into the treehouse with her, because the moment she steps into it, she’s already launching off on the zip wire. But that’s OK. Maybe it’s better. We know there’s chemistry between us. Today is about showing her that we can be happy together. We can squabble instead of fight. Sit side by side in a comfortable silence instead of a frosty one.
And it’s also about showing her I’m not a dickhead. Though this seems to be harder to prove than I had expected.
“Ha! Done! Take that, Lucas da Silva,” she says, throwing down her helmet as she hops off the rope net and onto the grass. “You thought I’d chicken out, right?”
“No,” I say mildly.
She shoots me a knowing look. “Confess. You wanted me hanging off the middle of that zip wire like Boris over the Thames.”
This allusion passes me by, but I get the idea.
“This wasn’t intended to embarrass you,” I begin, but the last two words are drowned out by the arrival of the Hedgers children, with their father running several metres behind them, his thin grey hair flying.
“Mrs. Izzy!” shouts the eldest Hedgers. “I want a go!”
“Oh, shit,” I mutter. “This area is not yet open!”
“Sorry, sorry, I did see the sign . . .” Mr. Hedgers says, scooping up the youngest of the children and grabbing Ruby by the hand on his way to the eldest one. “No, Winston, not on the . . . Oh, God. Don’t worry, I promise we won’t sue you,” he says to me and Izzy as Winston tackles the tower of pallets.
“Thanks,” Izzy says, eyeing Winston and reaching for her helmet again. “I’ll just . . .”
She heads over to help Winston.
“I actually did want to speak to you,” Mr. Hedgers says to me, watching Izzy adopt a wary squat beneath his son with her arms upstretched, ready to catch him if he falls.
“Of course.”
I let Ruby transfer herself from Mr. Hedgers’s hand to my knee, where she hangs, monkey-like, gazing up at me with glee.
“One of the things I love most about my wife is her absolutely unshakeable belief that she can do anything,” Mr. Hedgers says. He looks tired. He is a tall, thin man, naturally stooped, but his shoulders are more rounded than usual. “But she can’t. Frankly. And we need help. The insurers said they’d pay to put us up here because of the flooding, but there’s a cap on the amount they’ll cover. Turns out we’d have to pay ourselves from the twenty-third of December onwards. Annie has been fighting as hard as she can, but even she can’t talk them out of it. It was in the contract—we signed it.” He shrugs wearily. “Pages and pages on those things, of course we only skimmed over it all . . .”
“Somebody should have flagged it to you.”
“I know. But they didn’t. And the kids are so excited about spending Christmas here. We don’t want to have to move out and go to a budget place just in time for Christmas Day.”
I swallow back a sigh, looking out over the playground. The Hedgerses are a lovely family—the children have brought much joy to the hotel in the last couple of months. They deserve a beautiful Christmas, but . . .
“I’ll speak to the owners,” I promise. “But I should tell you that the hotel is struggling at the moment. We may not . . . Well. Let me speak to Mrs. Singh-Bartholomew and her husband.”
Mr. Hedgers gives me a tired, grey smile. “Thank you,” he says. “And if you wouldn’t mind not mentioning to Annie that I asked . . . She hates the idea of charity.”
Once we’ve removed Winston from the playground—a process that reminds me of levering a barnacle from a rock—I update Izzy on the situation with the insurer. She looks incensed as we make our way to Opal Cottage, her fire-streaked hair bouncing on her shoulders.
“Why are they being such arseholes? It’s not like the insurers don’t have the money.”
“It’s just business to them,” I say, and then swallow back any further insights on this topic in the face of the furious glare she shoots my way.
“Well, it’s real people, not just numbers. Those poor kids. This is all so unsettling for them anyway. And we’ve made the hotel so homely for them!” Izzy tears up slightly. “I chose Ruby’s favourite star to go on the top of the tree!”
How did I ever, ever hate this woman?
“The finance spreadsheets you’ve been working on,” Izzy says, looking up at me. “Is it—is it very bad?”
It was bad before the ceiling fell in. In an attempt to recover from the losses of the pandemic, we’ve accumulated debts, we’ve skipped essential maintenance, and we’ve cut room prices to try to stimulate demand—a move that hasn’t paid off. We have very few bookings, which in turn makes it hard to secure investment. Mrs. SB and Barty often say they are not “numbers people,” and it is obvious that the hotel was not run economically even when it made a healthy profit. The result is that now we are in real, serious trouble.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “It is very, very bad.”
Izzy sighs as she knocks on the door of Opal Cottage, pulling her coat closer around her.
“Oh, perfect!” Mrs. SB says.
She is already turning around by the time the door is open, walking back into the cottage. We step into the warmth, shedding our coats and hanging them on the wonky iron hooks beside the door.
“I’m baking!” Mrs. SB says.
Izzy and I exchange a glance. We have never known Mrs. SB to bake. When we step into the kitchen, it becomes clear what this actually means: Barty is kneading bread in an apron and Mrs. SB is reading him instructions from an AGA recipe book.
We explain the Hedgerses’ financial situation as Barty slaps away at his dough and Mrs. SB tells him he’s not put enough yeast in. He takes this well. I watch them as Izzy talks. How they just slot together, even when they’re quietly annoying one another. I’ve never looked at other couples like this before, but suddenly—now that I’ve realised how I feel about Izzy—I’m seeing everyone in a different way. I want to sit them all down and ask them, how did you do it? How did you get from strangers to this, where you’re like one person split in two?
None of my relationships have ever been like this. And as much as I think my ex was wrong to tell me I have no heart . . . as I stand here in the warmth of the Singh-Bartholomew kitchen, I do wonder if I ever really gave that heart to Camila.
“Normally I would say yes without even thinking about it,” Mrs. SB says sadly. “You know I’d love to help the Hedgerses. But I have to look after all of you, first and foremost. That’s my job, and I’ve not been doing it properly.”
Barty reaches a floury hand across to hold hers for a moment, and then resumes kneading.
“Mrs. SB, that’s not . . .” Izzy begins, but Mrs. SB waves her to silence.
“Don’t,” she says. “You’ll make me cry. Let’s talk business, please.” She sniffs. “The Christmas party.”
Izzy and I both freeze.
The Christmas party is a topic we do not discuss.
“What?” Mrs. SB says, staring at us both.
“Nothing,” I say, collecting myself first. “What was it you wanted to say?”
“I’m just wondering how you’re getting along with planning it for this year?”
“You want a Christmas party this year?” Izzy says, doing a very poor job of hiding her horror.
“Of course. It might be a last hurrah, after all,” Barty says, dabbing his damp brow.
Mrs. SB looks at us expectantly. Last year the party happened in mid December, partly because I had my flights home booked for December seventeenth, and I had led on organising the event. But it’s already December fifteenth.
“Since you’re both here for Christmas, shall we do it on the twenty-fourth?” Mrs. SB asks.