Summer Nights at the Moonlight Hotel (10 page)

‘Are you seriously thinking of going to Singapore?’ Cate asks, as she adds a lush, heavy tulip to a bouquet.

‘Do you think it’s mad? The more I look into it, the more tempting it seems, I can’t deny it. When I was planning for Australia, I’d aimed to save enough to allow me to
travel round the country, without getting a job. If I moved to Singapore, I’d get a job and just soak up the local culture without moving.’

‘Soak up Edwin, you mean.’ I don’t even attempt to argue. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she adds. ‘I understand your reasons. But you’ve been harping on
about going to Australia for as long as I’ve known you. You were obsessed.’

‘I know. But Singapore has got one trump card.’

‘And he’s called Edwin.’ She stands back to examine the bouquet.

‘I was actually referring to the fact that the pay out there is so good. Those flowers are absolutely beautiful,’ I tell her.

‘Thanks,’ she grins, pushing back her armful of colourful woven bracelets as she picks up a pen to write the card. ‘Whoever Doris is, she’s going to have an awesome seventieth birthday.’

She’s done a tremendous job with Daffodils & Stars since she inherited the place from her Grandma Isobel three years ago. The fact that the old lady approved so wholeheartedly of the
bohemian edge to Cate’s refurbishment was the source of huge pride – even if Isobel didn’t know it was all funded by every loan Cate could get her hands on – and one or two
credit cards to boot.

She was always close to her grandma, who was a sweetheart – funny and kind, just like Cate herself. In fact, Cate had far more in common with her than she does with her own mum, so it was
little wonder that she was devastated when Isobel died last year. But her legacy lives on in every bloom Cate ties, in every colourful corner of the shop – and in the huge black and white
photograph that dominates the far wall, of her beloved Isobel arranging lilies of the valley.

Daffodils & Stars is one of those shops it’s impossible to pass without stopping to look inside. Its high wood-framed shopfront is stained with a pale, moss-coloured paint, above which
its name pops out in an elegant, yellow scrawl, a clutch of tiny stars bursting out from one side like popped champagne. The window is a riot of colour and scent, with flowers spilling on to the
pavement whatever time of year: hydrangeas and roses in summer, berries and ivy in winter.

Cate’s speciality is weddings and she’s listed as a preferred supplier for some of the swankiest hotels in the Lakes. She tackles everything from large, formal arrangements in
elaborate candelabras, to soft, floating trails of orchids that look perfectly understated on a summer’s day – and she does it all with passion and skill.

The door pushes open and two elderly women walk in to have a browse. ‘Good morning, ladies,’ Cate smiles.

‘Morning,’ says one of them. ‘Ooh, what a lovely shop! Look at these, Diana.’

Over the next twenty minutes, the two ladies proceed to coo over and sniff every other flower in the place while we carry on chatting. ‘Can you still not be persuaded to come to
Spain?’ Cate asks me. ‘It’s been ages since we had a holiday all together.’

‘There was our weekend in Dublin.’

‘That was three years ago,’ she argues. ‘I think I’m owed one with you before you bugger off to Australia, or Singapore or wherever you decide to go.’

‘Oh, come off it – you’ll spend the entire time with Will. You won’t want me there to interfere.’

‘You’re my best friend – your job is to interfere, so of course I do. And besides, I need a partner in crime to finally get Joe and Emily together.’

I look at her doubtfully. ‘I don’t think you need to worry there, Cate. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.’

At that, the ladies announce, reluctantly, that they’re leaving – this has clearly been a sightseeing tour only. ‘Nothing take your fancy?’ Cate smiles gently.

‘I think they’re all a bit out of our price range,’ one of them says. ‘Beautiful though – worth every penny I’m sure. What a lovely place you’ve
got.’

‘Thank you. I think so too,’ says Cate, glowing with pride as she pulls out a few stems from a vase and starts to wrap them up for them. I knew she would somehow. But I’m still
not prepared for the subsequent meltdown the ladies have before scurrying out of the shop.

‘You’ll never become a millionaire businesswoman if you go giving away your stock for free,’ I warn her.

‘Yeah, I know,’ she shrugs. ‘But if you can’t put a smile on an old lady’s face once in a while, what can you do?’

On Easter Sunday, I head to Mum’s for lunch. She lives an hour and twenty minutes away in Wasdale with her boyfriend, Barry – though ‘boyfriend’ feels
an odd word, given that they’re in their mid-fifties and not prone to scratching each other’s names in their pencil cases, at least as far as I know.

If you thought where I lived was remote, it’s like Times Square compared with this place. Personally, this would drive me insane, even if I can see its appeal: a view that gives you goose
pimples, across the black abyss of Wastwater, England’s deepest lake, up towards the mountainous stretch of Great Gable and Scafell Pike. Even I recognise why people come to be outdoors here,
to spread their wings, fill their lungs, reflect and breathe.

I arrive at Fell Foot Cottage, where they’ve lived for the last five years, at 5 p.m., and step out of the car to see Mum emerging from the pub next door. She’s dressed in her
ubiquitous wellies and jeans, gilet over a long-sleeved black top, and is swinging something in one hand that’s difficult to make out.

‘What on earth is that?’ I ask, although I am now close enough to have identified the offending item as a large, dead bird. Obviously. She comes to a halt and looks behind her, as if
I’ve just alerted her to the fact that a herd of wildebeest is rampaging down the mountain towards us.

‘No,
that
,’ I gesture. ‘In your hand.’

She lifts up her arm. ‘Oh, it’s a pheasant. I won it in a game of cards. Good, isn’t it?’

‘Never buy a lottery ticket, Mum,’ I sigh. ‘If you ever won a tenner it might blow your mind.’

My mum is fifty-six and looks kind of good on it in an earthy, athletic way – with slim, strong legs and the shoulders of someone who regularly does physical stuff. The tiny thread veins
blooming on her cheeks are the result of working outdoors on farms all her life, although latterly she’s been Head of Maintenance for a holiday park.

Whatever the opposite is of pretentious, she is it: a no-nonsense, no-bull individual whose friends admire her dependability, loyalty and the fact that she can hold her booze like a sailor.
She’s the most practical person I know. It’d never cross her mind to squeal if she saw a mouse, for instance – she’d just pick it up and chuck it out of the door in the way
other people might deal with a leaf that had blown in.

‘So how’s Jeremy getting on?’ I ask, as we head inside the limewashed walls of the building. ‘Don’t you miss having the house to yourself?’

‘Oh, Barry and I don’t mind,’ she says. ‘Although between you and me, I think he might be feeling a bit homesick.’

When Mum told me she was having her second cousin Helen’s twenty-year-old son Jeremy to stay over for the summer, so he could work as a farmhand to save money for his next year at Bristol
University, I did wonder how that might pan out. Particularly since, from what I hear, the closest the guy’s been to the countryside before now was a trip to Center Parcs.

I enter the kitchen as the smell of freshly roasted chicken fills the room, and Barry is standing at the Aga, stirring something with a look of intense concentration on his face. He wipes his
hands on an apron, takes a sip of cloudy ale and spots me.

‘Lauren!’ he beams, pushing his wire-rimmed spectacles up his nose as he dabs foam from his beard and comes over to kiss me on the cheek. ‘Enjoying the Easter
holidays?’

The real answer is:
No, because it’s keeping me from Edwin
, but I decide not to even go down this route. ‘It’s been great, thanks, Barry. Ooh, something smells
nice.’

‘Roast chicken. Good for the soul apparently,’ he winks.

‘Well, I’d never say no to a bit of that.’

Fell Foot Cottage could be gorgeous if it were given the
Ideal Home
treatment, but my mum’s never been much of a fashion victim of any kind. Its charm is innate though, soaked
into the old beams, the thick slate floor-tiles, the big old stove. It’s also helped along by Barry’s love of pseudo-intellectual knick-knacks, the framed
Private Eye
covers,
old Ramones posters and ethnic rugs. Mum’s contribution to the house is more straightforward: wellies, paperback novels (thrillers mainly), and photos of Dad.

There aren’t hundreds of them, just a few on the wall next to the stairs, nestled between other family photos – and the one on the mantelpiece in the living room that was taken in
his early twenties. When I was little I never really thought of my father as cool – who does? But he unquestionably was, as the picture demonstrates; he’s leaning on the motorbike he
had for a couple of years, fringe flicked upwards as a cigarette droops from the side of his mouth.

Mum had been trying to get him to give up from the day they met, and although he loved the bones of her she never quite got her way on that one. He was too headstrong, too focused on the present
to worry about what turned out to be a fragile future.

Barry and I chat for a while as I help set the table; like me, he works with children – but as an ADHD specialist, helping kids and their families across Cumbria. Then we get on to the
subject of his baking. Barry made his first batch of drop scones after episode one of
The Great British Bake Off
and has never looked back. Unlike other super-fans of the show I know
(Edwin being one), Barry is no armchair cook, and from those humble beginnings, his ambition has known no bounds.

‘I’ve got a beauty today, haven’t I, Caroline?’ he asks my mum. Then he disappears into the utility room and emerges a few seconds later with his latest construct.
‘Ta-da! Can you tell what it is?’

It is, very clearly, his attempt at a magnificent recreation of an instantly-recognisable landmark.

Unfortunately, I haven’t a clue what it is.

‘It’s a cake?’ Mum offers.

Barry rolls his eyes. ‘It’s the Taj Mahal!’

She blinks at him. ‘But it’s brown.’

‘That’s because it’s made of gingerbread,’ he says. ‘
You
could tell what it was, couldn’t you, Lauren?’

‘Of course, it’s obvious,’ I reassure him, at which point the door opens and their house-guest walks in.

I’ve only met my mum’s second cousin’s son once, at the same wedding where I wore those bridesmaids’ gloves, when he was about four years old. He was sweet and shy, as I
recall, with ears like two shiitake mushrooms and a long fringe that kept troubling his eyes.

He’s scrubbed up well, particularly considering he’s spent the day dodging manure and herding livestock, and these days is unfeasibly tall and skinny, with a round face that’s
kind of handsome, if slightly foppish.

‘Hello Jeremy,’ I say, walking over as he reaches out to shake my hand. ‘It’s been such a long time. I’d love to say you haven’t changed a bit, but I’m
not sure how convincing that would be.’

Jeremy has the sort of handshake world leaders exchange at global summits: a single, elbow-dislocating chug, accompanied by eye contact that could singe retinas. ‘Lauren. Hi. Good to see
you again. You’re a teacher these days, I believe?’

‘That’s right, I work in—’

‘Hope you’re better than some of the losers we had working in our place,’ he declares, striding to the table. ‘I hated them all.’

‘Oh? What was wrong with them?’ I ask, carrying on laying the table. Mum starts flicking through the
Westmorland Gazette
.

‘I was predicted to get five A stars in my A levels, but as it is I . . . performed below my clear personal potential, which means I wasn’t able to get into Oxford. I was
totally
let down by them. Who knows where I might’ve been if it wasn’t for their fecklessness?’

Mum glances up briefly. ‘But you might have missed out on shovelling shit all summer and staying in our box room.’ Jeremy doesn’t answer. She goes on: ‘Before I forget,
Lauren – your birthday.’

‘What about it?’

‘I need to give you my present.’

‘But my birthday’s in August. That’s four months away.’

‘I know, but Cate gave me a ring and made a suggestion, so I thought we might as well go with it. Save me having to bother in August,’ she adds.

‘What a lovely sentiment,’ I mutter, as she heads upstairs, from where her printer, which I suspect may be gas-powered, springs into life and creates a similar sort of racket to one
of Caractacus Potts’ egg-boiling machines.

During this time, Barry and I have a discussion about football transfers before the conversation meanders on to the issue of whether Jeremy could have been a Parisian pastry chef were it not for
an incompetent Home Economics teacher who forgot to remove his macaroni cheese from the oven.

Eventually Mum emerges with a print-out that looks as if it’s been chewed by an Alsatian. ‘Sorry – paper jam. This was the best I can do.’

I peer at the crumpled A4 sheet, trying to make it out.

‘It’s a flight to Spain for this salsa holiday your friends are going on,’ she says, putting me out of my misery. ‘It was a real bargain. You’d better go home and
start packing.’

The injection of a surprise trip into the school break lifts my spirits immeasurably, even if I feel slightly wary about how much I might need to spend while I’m out
there. Despite Cate repeating constantly what good value it all was, I know there’ll be a certain amount of alcoholic lubrication, which wasn’t part of the plan, given that I am still
saving. And I
am
still saving. Because, depending on what mood you catch me in, I am either chomping at the bit to fly off to Singapore with Edwin at the start of term, or spilling over
with worry that I’m setting myself up for more heartache.