Page 18 of The Inn on Bluebell Lane
GWEN
Gwen gazed down at the schedule she and Ellie had made—Ellie would cook supper on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and Gwen would do Friday fish and chips and a Sunday roast. Saturday was takeaway, and Tuesday leftovers. They’d split the shopping between them, as well as the housework. They’d worked it all out with a surprising and encouraging amount of cooperation; Ellie had been very careful not to presume, yet Gwen had still felt as if she had no choice but to acquiesce. Still, she couldn’t fault her daughter-in-law, not at all, and really, it was all eminently sensible… considering her own situation. It might even come as a relief, no matter that Gwen had been a bit taken aback by Ellie’s suggestions.
She took a sip of tea, deliberately trying to empty her mind out. Ellie had gone upstairs to tidy up, and Matthew was still busy working on one of the guest rooms. Gwen had been relieved to realize he wasn’t sledgehammering his way through walls… yet. So far, he’d just ripped up old carpets and taken out all the basins, getting ready for the grand plan of adding adjoining bathrooms.
“It might be a bit much, don’t you think?” she’d asked faintly when he’d shown her the plans he’d drawn up with one of those online design sites. “Every bedroom with a bathroom…”
“That’s how it’s done these days, Mum. No one will settle for less anymore.” Matthew had sounded so certain, but what did he know about the B&B business, really? They’d started it up when he’d been at uni, and he’d never involved himself during his holidays back home.
“Won’t they?” she asked. She wasn’t really ready to commit to such a huge change, but she couldn’t bear to disappoint her son. And, she admitted, her bookings had dropped off a bit in the last few years, and the guests who did come tended to be long-time visitors or young people on a shoestring budget.
Besides, there was every likelihood she might not be able to manage even the simplest of renovations, depending on the result of her biopsy. It was sensible to let her son take control, and yet she couldn’t keep from issuing a warning of sorts.
“I’m not aspiring to be the Ritz, you know, Matthew.”
“Trust me, Mum, this isn’t the Ritz. It’s just what everybody else is doing.” His smile had taken any sting out of the words, and when he’d shown her website after website of upscale B&Bs, with king-sized beds and beautiful marble bathrooms, Gwen had let herself be reluctantly convinced, even as she wondered if she really wanted to do any of this. What if, with her health concerns, she couldn’t manage the B&B at all? Would Matthew be willing to do that, after he’d completed the renovations? Would Ellie? The future felt fearfully uncertain.
“As long as you know what you’re doing…” she’d said, trying to smile.
“I don’t know everything, but I can hire people who do,” Matthew had replied cheerfully. Like Ellie had said, he was happy having a project, and he seemed enthused about what he was doing, so she supposed that was all to the good.
Now Gwen gazed unseeingly in front of her, as, despite her attempts not to think about it, she recalled the voicemail she’d listened to that morning.
This is the Oncology Department of the Royal Gwent Hospital. If you could ring us at your earliest convenience…
She’d listened to the brief message three times, and then she’d deleted it, and decided not to do anything about it, at least for the morning. She wanted one morning, a few hours, of not knowing. Not thinking.
Except, it seemed she was thinking anyway.
With a sigh, Gwen rose from the table and went to the garden. Now early September, it was past its most glorious bloom, but there were still late-fruiting raspberries to pick, and the old, knotted tree at the back was laden with apples not quite ready to harvest.
All her guests had loved this garden, its deliberate, artful wildness, although, admittedly, this summer it was less artful and more just wild. She simply hadn’t had the energy to keep it up this year, although she had tried, at least a little.
Gwen had also tried to entice her grandchildren out here—she’d had vague visions of them feeding the chickens and building dens in the bushes—but only Ava and sometimes Josh had been interested, and mostly in the old rope swing, which needed replacing. The flat wooden seat had rotted right through, without Gwen realizing. She really had let so much of the place’s upkeep get away from her in the last year or two.
Now she sat down on the wrought-iron bench David had given her for their twentieth anniversary, just a few years before he’d died. They’d spent many a happy evening sitting companionably out there together, watching the sun set. It was quieter at the back of the garden, so Gwen could hear the birdsong, the cluck of the chickens, even the whisper of the wind through the trees.
If only she could stay like this forever. Not wondering. Not worrying. Not knowing.
Because, of course, she did know. The oncology department didn’t ring when it was good news. They sent a letter, with the relevant bits filled out. A phone call was always bad news.
Or could she hope it wasn’t, just a little bit, that this phone call was nothing to worry about, just a box they had to tick? Life could go on, the same as always…
Except, of course, it couldn’t, because it never did. “Everything you have in this world is just borrowed for a short time,” she remarked softly, an old Welsh proverb David had loved to quote. And, in truth, things were already changing. The homely bed and breakfast that had been her and David’s dream simply wasn’t viable anymore. She had known that, even before Matthew had come in with his sledgehammer and saw and his ambition. Already, all the fixtures and fittings they’d lovingly laid down were being ripped up and discarded like rubbish.
Gwen understood it had to change, of course it did. She wasn’t so sentimental or foolish not to realize that the furnishings had been more than a little dated. And yet… it still hurt, because life felt so precious and fragile and fleeting right now, and she still had to ring the hospital and find out what they had to tell her.
She glanced around the garden, just past its height of summer beauty, the leaves starting to curl at the edges, the bright color beginning to be leached from them. There was a tang of autumn in the air, the scent of change. Usually, Gwen loved this time of the year, the crisp nights, the first frost, but today she felt only the pang of sorrow for the loss of summer, the changing of seasons and the turning of the years.
“All right, enough maudlin wool-gathering,” she told herself.
She was just getting up from the bench when an almighty racket came from the upstairs, a most alarming, crashing sound, as clouds of dust flew from the open windows and billowed above the garden.
Gwen hurried back toward the house, her heart starting to pound as Ellie appeared in the back doorway, her face shocked and pale, her eyes wide.
“I think—I think the roof might have fallen in,” she exclaimed. “There’s plaster and dust everywhere, and I’m scared to go in the bedrooms. Gwen… I called up for Matthew and he didn’t answer!”
CHAPTER 11