Go to My Grave Read online

  ‘I’ll leave you to get settled in,’ I said. ‘I think I hear someone else arriving.’

  A woman was waiting in the hall when I got back downstairs. The light from the front door made her look like a shadow puppet striking a pose there. She had high-heeled black boots on and a tailored black suit so snug under her armpits it rucked up when she bent her arms. She was hunched over her phone

  ‘Soundofthesea,’ I said. ‘All one word. You’ll struggle for a signal unless you log in to ours.’

  But she surprised me.

  ‘And … off!’ She twirled the phone like a Wild West pistol and dropped it into the laptop-bag she had over one shoulder. ‘Is there a safe?’

  ‘Safe?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said the woman, spiking towards me on her impossible heels. ‘Still in work mode. I’m Rosalie. You must be Donna. Is there a safe I can put my devices in for the weekend?’

  ‘How did you know my name?’ I said. ‘Never mind. No, there’s no safe, Rosalie, I’m afraid.’ Rosalie remembers me, I thought. Rosalie for remembrance. ‘It’s pretty low-crime around here. I could…’ Nothing came to mind immediately, and before I could really apply myself to the problem, Rosalie was laughing.

  ‘Oh, God, no!’ she said. ‘Not for the safety. To keep me off them and to keep him off his, even more so.’ She jerked her head back towards the door. ‘Conference call,’ she said, with an eye-roll. ‘I know you because Kim bcc’d me in, by the way. No mystery there.’

  ‘There’s a cupboard that locks,’ I said. ‘If you’re serious.’

  ‘Deadly,’ said Rosalie. ‘I’ve told work. I’ve told the aged parents. The dogs are at the kennel. The kennel’s got the landline – Kim gave it me – and everyone I might want to talk to is going to be here.’ She handed me her laptop bag and then mimed floating away, grabbing the newel post to keep one toe on the floor. ‘I need this weekend,’ she said. ‘Cliff walks and beach bonfires.’

  ‘And my plan is, by Monday you’ll feel it was a fortnight,’ I told her. ‘Let me start by showing you to your room.’

  ‘What’s that heavenly smell?’ she said, as we passed the kitchen.

  ‘Scones.’ Which would burn in three minutes if I got sidetracked again.

  She groaned with delight. More delight than a batch of scones deserved. I wondered if maybe she was in customer relations too and couldn’t switch it off as easily as a smartphone. Me, I can switch it off as soon as I blow through the swing doors marked ‘Staff Only’.

  ‘Ro?’ A voice came from outside. ‘Rosie?’

  ‘He’s finally noticed I’m not there,’ she said, as a tall man came hurrying in, looking down at a phone, showing the bald spot his short hair was supposed to disguise. Like her, he was dressed for business: jacket off, a good pink shirt I reckoned had been professionally laundered, the way its creases were still sharp at the end of the day. His tie was pulled down but it had started out in a Windsor knot that morning, and his shoes were those stupid, extra-long, square-tipped things that made me think of clown’s feet. His watch was clunky and ugly and no doubt cost more than my car.

  ‘How’s Tokyo?’ Rosalie said.

  ‘What?’ He frowned.

  ‘Just a guess,’ Rosalie said, winking at me. ‘Paul, this is Donna.’

  Tall Paul, I thought as I smiled at him.

  ‘There’s a delivery van here,’ he said, pointing. ‘Outside. Something needs a signature.’

  ‘You’ve done remarkably well in life for a man who can’t write his own name,’ said Rosalie, marching back to the door and outside again.

  I started my standard introduction but she was back before I got through it. She had a gift basket in her arms, a hamper propped open and covered with squeaky plastic gathered at the top in a bow.

  ‘Not you too!’ Peach had reappeared, on the landing, still in the fluffy jumper, but now with a chenille cardigan and furry slippers too. If she dressed like that all weekend I’d be laughing. ‘We brought a ton of food and turns out it’s all laid on!’

  ‘Cousin Peach!’ said Rosalie. ‘No, this is a present for the happy couple, I assume.’ She thrust the hamper into her husband’s arms and started searching for a message envelope among the folds of cellophane and froth of ribbon.

  ‘Oh, clever,’ said Peach, coming down. ‘Look, it’s tins. Tin of foie gras, tin of caviar. Gentleman’s Relish.’

  ‘Pretty generic if you ask me,’ Paul said. ‘And heavy.’

  ‘No, but it’s tins,’ said Peach. ‘The tenth anniversary is the tin anniversary, see?’

  ‘Load of nonsense,’ Paul said. ‘Silver’s the first one you need to bother with. Then gold. Christ, we’ll need to make sure and be busy when it’s silver and gold. Cost a fortune.’

  ‘Clearly you’ve never coughed up for a couple’s massage gift voucher,’ Peach said. ‘Some random silver napkin rings would be a snip.’

  ‘Let me take the hamper off your hands,’ I said. I hadn’t missed the way the man – Paul – was frowning as his wife rummaged. ‘I’ll hold on to it till you decide when the big present-opening’s going to be.’

  ‘Big pres—’ said Paul. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, is this whole weekend going to be nothing but speeches and toasts and heartwarming moments? Just stick it in their bedroom and let them find it when they get here.’

  ‘Who’s pissed on your chips?’ said Peach. ‘You’re usually up for a party.’

  ‘Ignore him,’ said Rosalie. ‘He lost a case this morning. Husband dear, we are having a free weekend in pretty swish digs, so toasting our host with the champers he bought is a small price to pay. Anyway, I think this is from Sasha’s work – it’s his name only on the card here – so he won’t want it in his bedroom for his romantic anniversary.’

  Paul’s face twisted. ‘Christ, that’s right,’ he said. ‘They’ve only been married ten years. Hope we’re not through the wall from it.’

  ‘You’re not, Face-ache,’ said Peach. ‘But I am. Unless I switch the name cards. Quick, Rosie, help me shift my stuff before anyone else gets here.’

  I couldn’t tell if she was serious. ‘If you can show your friends their room anyway,’ I said, ‘I’ll stash the hamper.’

  ‘No friends of mine,’ said Peach. ‘We’re all cousins.’

  ‘And some siblings,’ said Rosalie. She handed me the gift card and took Peach’s arm. ‘Let’s make sure we’ve got the rooms we want before the rest arrive.’ They scampered up the stairs, giggling like children.

  ‘I dare you to take the master suite and see if Kim says anything,’ was the last thing I heard from Peach as they disappeared round the landing.

  A flutter of unease must have crossed my face. If they mucked up the room allocations, Home From Home would get the blame.

  ‘I can’t help you,’ Tall Paul said, once they were gone. ‘Not if you’re wondering how my cousin, the respected doctor, and my wife, the lawyer everyone’s terrified of, can turn into naughty toddlers in under two minutes. I knew this weekend would tip everyone into hysterics.’

  ‘It’s a big house,’ I assured him, ignoring most of what he’d said. ‘There are more than enough rooms to escape into.’

  He looked to one end of the corridor, at the six-foot marble statue of Venus framed in the arched window, and then at the other end, where a matching Adonis stood on the deep sill of the tall landing window.

  ‘Oh, I know exactly how big the house is,’ he said. ‘My wife might not have twigged yet, or she might be pretending not to have twigged, but I remember this place very well.’

  ‘Why would she pret—’ I began, then I pasted the professional smile on again and started backing away.

  ‘Because Sasha’s up to something, isn’t he? Bringing us all back here to relive our golden memories. And if there’s one thing Rosalie’s good at, it’s making sure her brother’s little ploys are strangled at birth.’

  ‘Families!’ I said, to lighten the mood.

  ‘Blood’s thicker than water,’ said Paul. �
��Blood’s thicker than concrete, actually. Good place to bury things.’

  I opened my mouth to answer but nothing came out.

  ‘However,’ he added, ‘a good malt dissolves anything. Drinks tray still in the drawing room, is it?’ He gave me a tight smile and walked away, leaving his luggage in the hallway.

  I dumped the hamper on the breakfast table, tucked the little envelope back into the cellophane, and got the scones out of the oven without a second to spare.

  A chorus of ‘Mamma Mia’ started at my hip and I dug my phone out.

  ‘Anybody there yet?’ my mum said.

  ‘Four,’ I said. ‘We’re halfway. Peach, Buck, Paul and Rosalie.’

  ‘Well done!’

  ‘How’s things your end? You sound like you’re down a well.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a big barn of a place. But the pitch is great. Dead central. I’ll send you a picture when I’m finished setting up. And the girl on the booth next door says she’ll mind mine if I mind hers. For pee breaks.’

  I dusted the scones with a bit more flour than they needed and decided they’d pass for well-fired. ‘Sounds like you’re on top of it all,’ I said. ‘I nearly burned the scones, showing folk round.’

  ‘What are they like?’

  ‘Small, round, studded with fruit. I know! I was kidding.’ I thought about the couple in the navy-blue Range Rover and decided not to mention them. ‘The client’s not here yet. One of the men’s a bit of a misery-guts but his wife’s dead nice, and their two fat cousins are lovely. Mouths like dockers, mind you.’

  It had surprised me when I stopped working in the bistro bit of the hotel in Portree, and went to London to learn the trade in the deep end. I thought posh people would be politer than us but they swore all the time. And the really posh ones never said ‘pardon’ when they burped. Women in pearl chokers and diamond earrings would let a right old tonsil rattler go and just carry on eating.

  ‘I think that’s another car,’ I said, cutting in on my mum wittering about the price of the coffee.

  ‘Good luck,’ she told me. ‘And remember, if you get overwhelmed, just open more wine.’

  ‘Yep,’ I said, although that would hardly help if I got overwhelmed at breakfast time. A full fry-up’s one of the hardest meals to get the timings right on. But we had already agreed the menus with the client by the time the wedding fair happened. We’d added daily specials and hoped no one would realize how much easier omelettes are.

  When I got through to the hall, sure enough, another of them had arrived and was lugging in two duffels and a messenger bag.

  ‘Ramsay Buchanan,’ he said, when he noticed me. He was dressed head-to-toe in Gore-Tex: those trousers that unzip to make shorts and a coat you could cook a chicken in. ‘I’m Paul’s brother. I see his car out there.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘There’s a resembl—’ His look stopped me. He was definitely related to the lawyer with the watch, just as tall and even slimmer. Rangy from triathlons was my guess. But his face was scarred all over from old acne. It wasn’t ugly exactly. It was as if he’d been made out of different material from other people, like an alligator bag instead of calf-skin.

  ‘I mean Buck’s cousin. Hence the name,’ I said. ‘Welcome to The Breakers, Ramsay. I’m Donna, from –’ I remembered Buck teasing me and turned it ‘– the holiday company. I’ll be looking after you for the weekend.’

  ‘Oh, no, you won’t,’ Ramsay said. ‘I’m low maintenance. You’ll be looking after Paul and Rosalie from dawn till midnight, and when Sasha gets here you might need back-up. All I need from you is the Wi-Fi code.’

  I started to tell him, but a bellow from the far end of the corridor stopped me. ‘Amun-Ramsay! King of the gods!’ Buck had appeared round a half-open door and came loping along to wrap the newcomer in one of those violent, thumping hugs men give each other.

  ‘Buckaroo!’ Ramsay said. ‘Have you been painting a ceiling? You’ve got white bits all over your hair.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ said Buck. ‘At least I’ve got hair. St Paul’s through here.’

  They disappeared into the billiards room and a noise went up like something from a troop of primates in the jungle. It made me happy. You couldn’t work in this business if you didn’t like the sound of people having fun. I worked the sleeper from London to Inverness one summer, stag and hen parties every weekend, and that was a bit much. But ordinarily the sound of people in high spirits lifted me too.

  ‘Ramsay must get clamsy in his plastic clothes,’ I said. ‘Ramsay with the ravaged face. Paul’s brother.’ I grabbed his luggage to put it in his room and annoy him. I knew his type: uncomfortable with service. He’d deny he wanted a drink, then try to make his own and spill ice cubes on the good furniture. And he wasn’t going to be the worst. Peach was going to be the worst. She’d be putting towels in the wash at the wrong settings, wandering through to the kitchen with stacks of plates, mucking up my system.

  The room with the pale walls and hessian had an en suite that was the back half of the bathroom next door so there was no window. We had found a great extractor fan, though. Silent and powerful. I set his messenger bag on the desk in front of the window, put the bigger duffel down in front of the wardrobe and, after a peek, took the smaller one in there. I wondered what he would say if I opened everything up and laid it out, spirited his bags away, like they did at real country houses with butlers. But all I did was fold a towel onto the marble shelf near the washbasin and leave his vanity-case (to give it its name) on top. Guests always think you’re being respectful of their belongings, setting them on towels like that. Really it stops the dye from their cheap bags staining the counters.

  I was going to enjoy this weekend, I decided, steering such a ragbag through the diceyest kind of party – a family reunion – and making sure they all had a marvellous time without any of them knowing it was me making it happen. Call me a puppet master, but that’s why I love hospitality. I smiled at myself in the mirror and turned to go.

  There was a woman standing in the middle of the room, hands on hips, glaring round.

  ‘What the— Who are you?’ she said.

  ‘Hi, I’m Donna,’ I began, coming forward with my hand out.

  ‘It says “Ramsay” on the door,’ she said. ‘Did he pick you up en route? You’re young enough to be his daughter!’

  ‘I’m the Home From Home representative,’ I said, taking a step back. ‘I was just checking your cousin’s—’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Right. Well, he’s not my cousin. He’s nothing at all to me. Why does he get his own room?’

  I took a breath. She wasn’t joking. She had to be forty if a day but she was moaning about sharing a room with … Was Peach her cousin?

  ‘Have you seen your own?’ I said. ‘You must be Jennifer, aren’t you?’ I swelled a little with pride. I wasn’t just keeping up with the names, I was getting ahead of them. ‘Yours is my favourite.’ I pointed the way. ‘The bath’s humungous and the hot-water system can fill it twice over. There’s a wonderful view of—’

  She hadn’t moved. ‘What makes you think I’m not Kim?’ she said. Her voice was dead and cold. ‘Or Peach or Rosalie?’

  The names swam and I hesitated. What made me think she wasn’t Kim, the rich wife who’d rented the house and chosen the menu and the flowers, was that her plastic costume jewellery picked out the brightest colours in her striped tights. And her tights were pilled and stretched at the ankles. And the thin belt on her homemade dress made her look like a sack of potatoes.

  ‘I’ve been corresponding with Kim.’ That was a lie. My mum did all the emails. ‘And the others are already here.’

  ‘Where?’ she demanded.

  ‘Here!’ said Peach, breezing in and throwing her arms around Jennifer. ‘Jellifer! We’re roomies. Did you know? We’re having a midnight feast tonight and no arguments. Hey, Donna, do chefs do midnight feasts or do we sneak down?’

  ‘Jennifer,’ the woman said, her voice colder than e
ver. ‘And I wasn’t told I’d be sharing a room. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Well, aren’t we a happy family!’ It was Rosalie. She had taken her jacket and heels off, but still wore the pencil skirt of her business suit, with a tight white shirt tucked in. ‘Donna, I was wondering about baths. Is it still a Rayburn downstairs? Will you be able to cook if I run off hot water?’

  ‘What do you mean “still” a Rayburn?’ Jennifer said. ‘Have you been here before? Are you all down here together every other weekend? Why add me this time?’

  ‘God almighty, Jell— Jennifer,’ Peach said. ‘Don’t you remember this place?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Don’t you remember the party?’ said Rosalie.

  ‘What party? If you lot are going to spend the whole weekend reliv—’ She stopped and I think she changed colour. ‘Are you talking about Sasha’s birthday party?’

  ‘Of course, that’s right,’ Peach said. ‘We were all staying and you only came for that one day, didn’t you?’

  Jennifer swallowed. There was a sheen of sweat on her brow. ‘But that was at the beach,’ she said.

  ‘Right there.’ Peach pointed out the window. ‘The trees have grown up. It threw me too.’

  I thought I could see droplets forming on Jennifer’s top lip and she was the colour of pistachio ice-cream.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Rosalie. ‘Do you need to sit down?’

  ‘You need your feet up and a cup of tea.’ I steered her out of the stone-coloured room and into her own. Rosalie and Peach came bustling after us.