Open for Business – Part 1. Cressida McLaughlin

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       Chapter Two

      ‘This,’ Robin said, rolling out a piece of A0 flipchart paper on the king-sized bed and putting a selection of coloured Sharpies on top of it, ‘is going to be our project plan.’

      Molly scooted up to the pillow end and grabbed a neon orange marker, cradling her coffee mug in the other hand. They were in one of the first-floor bedrooms, sadly unoccupied now that New Year had gone and the cold comedown of January had set in. The view through the window was of grey sky and greyer sea, the colours muted like a Lowry painting. Seagulls sat along the rail of the promenade, and Skull Island’s artificial greens looked too bright in the washed-out tableau. Robin shivered and pulled her oatmeal knitted cardigan around her. She scrunched her toes into the thick, aquamarine carpet, finding a crumb that she must have dropped the day before when she’d been touring the rooms with a packet of cheese Tuc biscuits and dreaming up her ideal guesthouse.

      ‘No carpets,’ she said. ‘I want every room to have floorboards and rugs.’ She turned to the bed, knelt on the duvet and wrote Campion Bay Guesthouse in dark blue in the middle of the sheet. Then she picked up a red pen, drew a line branching out from the centre and wrote no carpets.

      ‘That’s a big move to start us off,’ Molly said. ‘Do you know what the floors are like underneath?’

      ‘Not really.’ She sank further into the bed. ‘We took my bedroom carpet up when I was sixteen, but that was half my lifetime ago and I can’t remember what work was involved. But the dining room is polished boards and I think it looks classier, more contemporary.’

      ‘OK,’ Molly said. ‘No carpets, and no American diner-style breakfast bar. What do you want? Who do you want coming to stay here? Who used Once in a Blue Moon Days?’

      Robin took a grey pen and doodled an image of a crescent moon in the corner of the page. ‘The days we offered were bespoke, so they weren’t cheap. We sourced the best hotels, restaurants, private planes, speedboat trips, one-on-one wildlife experiences, day trips to Lapland, Northern Lights tours with added personal touches. Special occasions that were more than a weekend away or a hired-out village hall.’

      ‘So wealthy people, then?’

      ‘People who were looking for something unique, often that they’d been saving hard for. Campion Bay has the crazy golf, but it’s also got some upmarket restaurants, and it has a classic feel with Ashley and Roxy’s vintage teashop and the picture-postcard seafront. It could be the perfect weekend by the coast if there was a luxurious, unique guesthouse in pride of place. It needs to be contemporary, but with a natural feel. And I want to decorate it using local products if I can.’

      ‘How local? Like beach scavenging, bits of driftwood into tables, that sort of thing?’

      ‘Maybe.’ Robin stared out of the window again. She thought she could see a dot of red, a small fishing boat on the horizon, bobbing alarmingly on the waves. ‘And I want my room – the attic room – to be themed around the night sky. It’s the closest to the stars, it has the best view and the tiny balcony.’

      ‘Suicide strip?’ Molly’s eyes widened innocently when Robin shot her a look. ‘Come on, it’s bloody terrifying up there!’

      ‘I’m going to get a telescope,’ Robin said, ignoring her. ‘I’ve always wanted one, and just imagine what you’d be able to see, the constellations, planets, the Milky Way. It’ll be breathtaking. But we’ll do that room last – we’ll have to wait until Mum and Dad have gone and I can move downstairs.’

      ‘You’re not keeping your bedroom?’

      Robin shook her head. ‘The attic room will take us up to five chargeable rooms, all doubles, all with an en suite. The rooms downstairs will be more than enough space for me, and the attic could be really special if we do it right.’ If she closed her eyes, she could picture it. The telescope, the navy feature wall, pinprick lights dotting the ceiling and globe reading lamps set in snug recesses either side of the bed. She’d seen her fair share of luxury when scoping out Once in a Blue Moon Days projects, and she remembered Neve’s favourite. It was a five-star penthouse suite in Switzerland, its glass ceiling inviting the night sky in, as if you were sleeping on the edge of the world. For Neve, who had believed wholeheartedly in astrology, in finding truth and love by reading the stars, it was perfect. Robin couldn’t quite manage the penthouse-level of extraordinary, but she could capture the essence of what had made it so magical.

      ‘So,’ Molly said, leaning forward, speaking through a mouthful of pen lid, ‘let’s do the rooms in turn. What’s the attic room going to be called?’

      Robin finished the doodle of the man sitting in the curve of her crescent moon, took her grey pen and wrote Starcross in large, swirling script. ‘There,’ she said. ‘Room number five.’

      ‘Starcross,’ Molly read. ‘Robin Brennan, you crazy romantic. Just don’t call one of the rooms Elsinore, or you’ll be tempting fate. What ideas have you got for the other bedrooms?’

      They worked for hours, coming up with more and more ideas, words in minute writing squashed up to the edge of the sheet as the new and improved Campion Bay Guesthouse took shape, albeit just on paper.

      ‘And I was in charge of social media at Blue Moon Days, so I can get that working to promote us,’ Robin said, after they’d declared their ideas banks empty. ‘I can make bread, I’ve got a mean kedgeree recipe and I saw this incredible wall in a hotel that was actually a fish tank. How amazing would that look in the sea-themed room?’

      ‘It would look stunning,’ Molly said slowly, ‘as long as your parents have left you a million quid, СКАЧАТЬ