“Thanks,” Izzy says, eyeing Winston and reaching for her helmet again. “I’ll just . . .”
She heads over to help Winston.
“I actually did want to speak to you,” Mr. Hedgers says to me, watching Izzy adopt a wary squat beneath his son with her arms upstretched, ready to catch him if he falls.
“Of course.”
I let Ruby transfer herself from Mr. Hedgers’s hand to my knee, where she hangs, monkey-like, gazing up at me with glee.
“One of the things I love most about my wife is her absolutely unshakeable belief that she can do anything,” Mr. Hedgers says. He looks tired. He is a tall, thin man, naturally stooped, but his shoulders are more rounded than usual. “But she can’t. Frankly. And we need help. The insurers said they’d pay to put us up here because of the flooding, but there’s a cap on the amount they’ll cover. Turns out we’d have to pay ourselves from the twenty-third of December onwards. Annie has been fighting as hard as she can, but even she can’t talk them out of it. It was in the contract—we signed it.” He shrugs wearily. “Pages and pages on those things, of course we only skimmed over it all . . .”
“Somebody should have flagged it to you.”
“I know. But they didn’t. And the kids are so excited about spending Christmas here. We don’t want to have to move out and go to a budget place just in time for Christmas Day.”
I swallow back a sigh, looking out over the playground. The Hedgerses are a lovely family—the children have brought much joy to the hotel in the last couple of months. They deserve a beautiful Christmas, but . . .
“I’ll speak to the owners,” I promise. “But I should tell you that the hotel is struggling at the moment. We may not . . . Well. Let me speak to Mrs. Singh-Bartholomew and her husband.”
Mr. Hedgers gives me a tired, grey smile. “Thank you,” he says. “And if you wouldn’t mind not mentioning to Annie that I asked . . . She hates the idea of charity.”
Once we’ve removed Winston from the playground—a process that reminds me of levering a barnacle from a rock—I update Izzy on the situation with the insurer. She looks incensed as we make our way to Opal Cottage, her fire-streaked hair bouncing on her shoulders.
“Why are they being such arseholes? It’s not like the insurers don’t have the money.”
“It’s just business to them,” I say, and then swallow back any further insights on this topic in the face of the furious glare she shoots my way.
“Well, it’s real people, not just numbers. Those poor kids. This is all so unsettling for them anyway. And we’ve made the hotel so homely for them!” Izzy tears up slightly. “I chose Ruby’s favourite star to go on the top of the tree!”
How did I ever, ever hate this woman?
“The finance spreadsheets you’ve been working on,” Izzy says, looking up at me. “Is it—is it very bad?”
It was bad before the ceiling fell in. In an attempt to recover from the losses of the pandemic, we’ve accumulated debts, we’ve skipped essential maintenance, and we’ve cut room prices to try to stimulate demand—a move that hasn’t paid off. We have very few bookings, which in turn makes it hard to secure investment. Mrs. SB and Barty often say they are not “numbers people,” and it is obvious that the hotel was not run economically even when it made a healthy profit. The result is that now we are in real, serious trouble.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “It is very, very bad.”
Izzy sighs as she knocks on the door of Opal Cottage, pulling her coat closer around her.
“Oh, perfect!” Mrs. SB says.
She is already turning around by the time the door is open, walking back into the cottage. We step into the warmth, shedding our coats and hanging them on the wonky iron hooks beside the door.
“I’m baking!” Mrs. SB says.
Izzy and I exchange a glance. We have never known Mrs. SB to bake. When we step into the kitchen, it becomes clear what this actually means: Barty is kneading bread in an apron and Mrs. SB is reading him instructions from an AGA recipe book.
We explain the Hedgerses’ financial situation as Barty slaps away at his dough and Mrs. SB tells him he’s not put enough yeast in. He takes this well. I watch them as Izzy talks. How they just slot together, even when they’re quietly annoying one another. I’ve never looked at other couples like this before, but suddenly—now that I’ve realised how I feel about Izzy—I’m seeing everyone in a different way. I want to sit them all down and ask them, how did you do it? How did you get from strangers to this, where you’re like one person split in two?