But this year she’s so busy that bothering her with the new festive album from a washed-up noughties band feels kind of stupid. Jem’s always wanted to be a performer—musical theatre is the dream—and this year she finally got a spot in the ensemble of a brand-new American musical. It’s the perfect breakout role for her, after years slogging away in part-time jobs.
It just also means spending six months in Washington, DC, where her parents live. Which couldn’t be less perfect. Jem spent half her childhood living on my street in Surrey, and half in DC—her family moved back and forth twice. When her parents finally settled in the US for good, Jem stayed here. Nice and close to me, nice and far away from them.
Fate, she’d said gloomily to me as we’d drunk cheap wine on my floor and mourned the fact that her dream had come true in her nightmare location. Or Karma. Or something. Basically, the universe has decided I can’t escape my mother.
I grab a bag of candy kittens from the shelf under my computer screen and let the sugar rush hit as I flick through the booking book. My phone buzzes with a notification: it’s from Google, reminding me of a photo from this time last year. I wince. Google is missing some serious subtext: it’s a picture of me with Drew, my old flatmate, who I emphatically do not want to remember, especially at this time of year. I swipe the notification away and ram in a few more candy kittens.
“Lost property time,” says a familiar voice behind me.
I slam the book closed on the desk and steel myself for an interaction with Lucas. As I turn, I see him regarding the booking book with his usual disdain. One of my favourite activities is to make Lucas say “the booking book” as many times as possible during a shift, because he hates my cutesy names for things. The trick is to trap him when a guest is there so he can’t be a dickhead—or at least not out loud.
“Is it?” I say testily.
I glance at the clock mounted behind the desk. It’s another relic from the Bartholomew family. It needs rewinding every morning, and by the end of Poor Mandy’s shift, it’s always running nineteen minutes behind. Checking the time on the lobby clock involves a combination of maths and guesswork: it’s around midday, so the clock is probably already at least five minutes slow, so that means . . .
“It’s twelve on the dot,” Lucas says, already sounding exasperated with me. “I don’t know why you even look at that clock. Don’t you have a watch?”
I do have a watch. It is mint green and fabulously chunky, and I remember to put it on maybe two mornings out of ten. Today was not one of those mornings.
“I don’t need a watch,” I say sweetly. “I have you here to yell the time at me.”
I do one last sweep of the lobby to check it’s all in order and then grab the key to the lost-property room. It’s directly behind us—the door is just to the right of the old Bartholomew clock—but I’ve not been in there for months. The lost-property room was a staffroom, once, with a coffee machine and two comfy armchairs. Now it’s just . . .
“Chaos,” Lucas says as I unlock the door and step into the small amount of available floor space on the other side.
Boxes and boxes of stuff. A rocking horse. A collection of broken teacups, once used for afternoon teas here. An old projector. An absolute plethora of umbrellas.
So yes, it’s kind of a state. But it’s also kind of a treasure trove. My heart lifts as I cast my eye over it all. If I fixed up that old rocking horse, we could definitely sell it for at least eighty quid. Mending the teacups won’t take long, and people will go crazy for that cutesy 1950s pattern on them. We might be able to raise some real money from all this. Mrs. SB is a genius.
“We should decide how and where we want to sell each category of item,” Lucas says, rubbing his mouth as he scans over the contents of the room. “I’ll start a spreadsheet.”
I ignore him and dive in. The first box is labelled “tatty books” and the second “coats left behind in 2019.”
I hear Lucas mutter something in Portuguese behind me and choose to believe it is an expression of delight and excitement.
Lucas
After two days of Izzy making everything as difficult as possible, we establish ourselves on various online stores for second-hand goods, and life is suddenly filled with boxes, envelopes, and trips to the post office. Mandy volunteers to head up sales via social media, which Izzy and I are very happy about, since sorting the hotel’s Instagram presence has been on both our to-do lists for as long as I’ve been here. Izzy tries to insist on a hand-drawn table to keep track of items, but then she spills her gingerbread latte on it and has to come crawling back to my Excel spreadsheet.
My days off pass in a blur of studying, and suddenly it’s Thursday. I pull my collar up against the wind and step closer to the manor wall as I lift the phone to my ear. Thursday means I ring my uncle. I don’t know why I do this. Nobody asks me to, and it always puts me in a bad mood afterwards, but I’ve discovered that if I don’t call him at least once a week, I feel even worse.
“Hello? Lucas?” Uncle Ant?nio answers in Portuguese.
“Hi, Uncle.”
“I’m just heading back into the office after hours of meetings—this week has been relentless,” my uncle says irritably.
I grimace. By the end of this call, I will feel stupid for ringing at all, and this is the first hit: the suggestion that he’s too busy to talk to me. He’s not said that, so of course if I mention feeling this way, he will say I’m being difficult.
My sister, Ana, and I have always been aware that we are a burden upon Uncle Ant?nio. Our father died shortly after I was born, but his brother Ant?nio supported our mother in the time when she was off work, and insisted on having a role in our lives after that. I am grateful to him, of course. Endlessly, repeatedly. It sometimes seems there is no end to the gratitude that is required.
“Is now a bad time?” I ask.
“Now is fine. Tell me how your course is going. Are you running that place yet?”
“I’m less than a year into the course, Uncle, and I’m doing it part-time.”
“There’s no room for part-timers in this world, Lucas,” Ant?nio begins.
I cut him off before he gets into full flow. “I mean, I’m doing it while working at the hotel. I need the practical experience as well as the degree.”
“Hmm, well. I hope they know you’ll be their boss one day soon.”
My stomach tightens anxiously. I’m not doing the course out of a desire to take over Forest Manor. But as soon as Ant?nio says it, that old impulse kicks in: I need to work harder, I need to be pushing for a promotion, I need to do more, do better . . .
“Listen, Lucas, I think you should come home at Christmas.”
I clench my teeth. “I can’t afford it. The flights are too expensive. I’ve booked to come back in February.”
“February is the worst time to come home. Carnival, all the tourists . . .”
“I’ve made my decision,” I say again. It’s best to be strong with my uncle—if you’re anything but assertive, you’ve already lost. “I have to go. Speak soon.”
After ending the call, I pull up my banking app, and then I shut it again very quickly, because the only thing guaranteed to make my mood worse is seeing quite how large that minus number has grown in the last few weeks. I’m still throbbing with all those old feelings, sweating them out beneath my thick coat. I can’t feel the cold wind now. A phone call with my uncle: the perfect way to warm up in an English winter.
I head back to the hotel entrance, with its rounded privet hedges and its big stone steps. As I walk into the lobby, I eye Izzy’s ridiculous rubble nativity scene. For an unpleasant moment, I’m reminded of last year’s Christmas party—Izzy had set up a nativity for that, too. I remember walking past it with Drew, just a few moments after she’d introduced herself. God, could that be more Izzy? she said. Who else would make the camels pink? The memory makes me wince.
I approach the front desk. Mrs. SB is there with Izzy, their heads bent close together, inspecting something. I am immediately suspicious.
“These could be worth a lot!” Mrs. SB says.
Izzy looks up, her hand flying to the thin gold chain she’s wearing around her throat.
“You want us to sell these?”