One Small Act of Kindness Read online

  ‘Maybe it would help your memory if you choose a name you like,’ she suggested. ‘One you feel is you. Don’t think too hard about it – hearing people call you it might trigger something.’

  The woman tapped the pen against her mouth and thought. ‘You know what,’ she said, ‘the name Pippa’s just popped into my head. Pippa. But I can’t be Pippa in real life, can I?’

  ‘You might be.’

  She frowned. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Go for it, then. It’s better than Jo.’

  ‘Ha! Yes . . . Would you mind passing me that water behind you? My throat gets very dry.’ Again, there was a quick flash of that shadowy smile.

  Libby passed the half-empty glass of water on the bedside table to the woman – Pippa, she guessed she should now call her. There was something Pippa-y about her. An old-fashioned arch to her eyebrows, which were pale for her dark brown hair. A sharpness to the cheekbones and the nose.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if I write this down?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Libby. ‘Go ahead.’

  Their conversation seemed to have brought some colour to Pippa’s skin, and there was a pinkish flush now on her cheeks. She chewed her lip as she scribbled, absent-mindedly scratching under the bandage on her head with the other hand, absorbed in getting every detail down as they zipped through her mind.

  Libby wondered what else she could do to help. It was funny how a complete stranger had homed straight in on the name Libby being right for her, she thought. Libby wears interesting sandals. She hadn’t said so, but she’d tried on every other short version of Elizabeth – Beth, Lizzy, Eliza – but Libby had been the only one she liked. Because it did feel more her. A bit more interesting than the Elizabeth Clair that her parents seemed to want her to be.

  She watched Pippa turn over a new page in her notebook and thought how easy she was to chat with, despite being concussed, and having no memory of the last few years. Libby didn’t find it hard to talk to people, but most of her neighbours in London had required a lot of background information and drip-feeding of shared interests before friendships had sprouted; Jason could banter matily about the markets and Chelsea to the men, but it felt as if there was an assault course of opinions to negotiate with the wives – schools, bags, diets, holidays – all requiring the right answer before you got to any real personal exchanges. Or maybe it was her, she conceded. Jason had told her she was mad, and recommended just ‘having a big boozy night out’ to get over it. Except none of them drank.

  Libby had hoped the countryside would be different, but despite Margaret’s Tree of Kindness, sometimes it felt it was the same story in Longhampton, just with another set of opinions – the new shopping centre, dogs on beds, hunting, thermal vests – and this time she had even less clue what the right answers were.

  Philomena. She hadn’t thought of that in so long. Philomena brought back hot Ribena, her red corduroy pinafore, the smell of suncream. Libby realised she hadn’t told anyone that since Kirsty Little winkled it out of her at university.

  Pippa had stopped writing and was staring at her, her forehead again furrowed with concentration. When Libby caught her eye she smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry. It’s just that . . . I can’t help feeling I know you from somewhere. Do I? You seem familiar.’

  ‘I don’t think so, but I know what you mean,’ said Libby. ‘You don’t feel unfamiliar to me either. Were you at Bristol Uni about fifteen years ago? History? Have you worked at the BBC? I was a researcher on factual entertainment programmes. Then freelance – for Thimble Productions.’

  Pippa started to shake her head, then rolled her eyes instead. ‘Well, I might have done. I can’t remember, can I?’

  ‘You know this is going to be your fallback excuse at parties for years,’ said Libby, deadpan. ‘You never need bother remembering anyone’s name again. Oh,’ she added, smacking her forehead, ‘of course you had the address of my hotel in your pocket. Have they told you that?’

  ‘They did. But that doesn’t ring any bells either. Had I stayed there before?’

  ‘Maybe. My husband and I only took over last month, though, so you might have done in the past but we wouldn’t have met.’ Libby racked her brains. ‘Maybe your subconscious recognises my voice from the accident. It’s clinging on to that as something familiar and making you think you know me.’

  ‘Did you talk a lot?’

  ‘Oh yes. There’s nothing I like more than a captive audience. I barely stopped. I even sang when I ran out of boring chit-chat about how we’re planning to create a boutique hotel, where Jason and I used to live in London, how we met on a train . . . I thought maybe you were faking waking up at one point. Out of sheer boredom.’

  Pippa smiled, then a shadow crossed her face. ‘I haven’t said thank you.’

  ‘What? Oh no, don’t be daft. I just did what anyone would have done.’ Libby lifted her hands and let them fall. ‘I didn’t even do that much really, just—’

  ‘Not just the accident. Thank you for coming to see me today. I feel as if . . . as if I’ve been closer to who I am while you’ve been here. Does that sound weird?’

  ‘No weirder than anything else. I can’t actually imagine what it must be like.’

  Pippa poked her finger into her hairline again, and scratched under the bandage. ‘When I try to think directly about details – my name, where I’m from – my brain goes blank. It makes me panic, then everything goes more blank. Plus the doctor or the nurse is standing there, so that’s more pressure. The more I want to remember things, the tighter my head feels. But while we’ve just been chatting . . .’ She scrunched her nose up, trying to find the right words. ‘I feel as if it’s all there, just outside my head, not inside. But it’s reassuring. I feel as if it’s still there.’

  ‘Good,’ said Libby, because she didn’t know what else to say.

  Pippa smiled and Libby was touched by how sweet the smile was: trusting, despite the awfulness of her situation. ‘It’s kind of you to come and talk to someone you don’t know.’

  ‘I’m glad it’s been of some help. But I bet the police will be here any moment with someone to get you. Your husband, going mad with worry!’

  Pippa stretched out her bare hands. ‘No rings. Don’t think there’s a husband.’

  ‘Your boyfriend, then,’ said Libby, then realised that wasn’t guaranteed either.

  Well done, Libby, she berated herself.

  ‘Or girlfriend,’ she added quickly. ‘Or friends? I mean, who knows? Who knows who’s going to walk through that door looking for you? It could be a celebrity! It could be . . . anyone!’

  They looked at each other and Libby thought she caught the faintest hint of fear in Pippa’s face. Or maybe it was just the light.

  ‘Who knows?’ said Pippa, and smiled. This time, thought Libby, the smile wasn’t quite as certain as before.

  Chapter Four

  Room six was a double room with a perfectly proportioned sash window framing a storybook view of the rear garden and its lilac and apple trees. The garden was about the only aspect of the hotel that didn’t need an overhaul, thanks to Margaret’s obsession with her borders; the velvety lawn was edged with a kaleidoscopic array of hundreds of flowers Libby didn’t know the names of, and wasn’t allowed to pick for displays unless Margaret was supervising.

  If Margaret’s gardening was a kind of silent, non-talking therapy, then so was Jason and Libby’s DIY. Initially, when they were still stumbling through the smoke and debris of Jason’s departure from work and Donald’s death, Libby had thought that even if they couldn’t talk, they’d be together and that’d be enough, just working towards a common goal again, but after a shaky start, they did talk. They talked more than they’d done since they’d first started dating in London, when Jason was a graduate trainee and Libby had been a junior runner, earning less per month than he did per we
ek. Something about being equally hopeless at DIY bonded them; they discussed paint, website ideas, the impossibility of training Lord Bob, Jason’s memories of Donald, Longhampton. The only thing they didn’t talk about was the one thing they needed to: the unfortunate chain of events that had led them from Wandsworth to wallpaper steamers in the first place.

  Libby stood back from the section of wall she’d managed to strip and massaged the side of her neck with scuffed knuckles. Jason had made a start, but there were several layers of paper to work through: a bland, spriggy print giving way to Laura Ashley Regency stripes from the 1980s, giving way to a psychedelic sunflower pattern that must have sent guests to bed convinced they’d eaten something very magic mushroomy in the 1970s.

  She closed her eyes and visualised the images from her room six Pinterest board, trying to project them into the empty space. No tired wallpaper, no swirly carpet. Just plain, restful French-grey walls. A thick rug in a striking accent colour: turquoise or mustard, soft under bare, sleepy feet. Generous, blackout-lined curtains in biscuit linen, tied back with heavy gold swags. A new Vi-Spring bed, draped with a goosedown duvet and proper feather pillows, a velvet coverlet.

  A warm feeling spread through Libby: Jason was right, this was going to be more than OK. They were on a budget, but Libby had insisted that they kept back enough money from the house sale to do the finishing touches properly. They were what people noticed. The right details were what would take this neglected hotel from being nice enough to something special.

  She opened her eyes and stared at the ragged bedroom wall, with a few patches of wallpaper still clinging obstinately to it, and the warm feeling dipped. It was just going to take a long time – but they knew that already. Libby had project-managed the extension on their London house – she’d been made redundant from the production company in a round of cutbacks and Jason had suggested she take six months off to supervise the work – but she was starting to realise just how good Marek their builder’s team had been. And also what a brilliant organiser Marek was. And how fast his men worked. And, despite being a very competent researcher, how little managing she’d actually had to do of that project.

  Libby’s yearning for her airy kitchen with its architect-designed skylights and smooth ivory wall of cupboards was interrupted by the sound of her mobile ringing.

  Her friend Erin’s photo smiled up from the screen: funny, enthusiastic Erin, her fashion buyer neighbour from St Mary’s Road, with the Boston accent and the big American fridge and the twins, the Beans.

  Libby winced. She was supposed to have called Erin by now. Erin had posted a few times on Libby’s Facebook page, asking – no, demanding – to see photos of the hotel, but something had frozen inside Libby and she’d made excuses not to. She wasn’t proud of herself, but since the Swan didn’t have a website, Libby had let her London friends assume that the Swan Hotel was basically Babington House but nearer Wales. Everyone had looked impressed – Libby had never been to Babington House, but they all seemed to go every other weekend – and she didn’t want them to see the reality until she’d got three rooms up to scratch.

  It wasn’t that she was ashamed of the Swan, just that while the shock of Jason losing his job was still fresh, she’d reframed their house sale/downsizing/good life as a deliberate life choice. It had made her feel better about it. And her circle of friends were . . . Libby searched for the right word to describe her circle of friends. ‘Judgy’ made them sound awful. They weren’t bad people; they were generous, cultured, sociable. But they were . . . Actually, yes. They were judgy.

  Erin wasn’t, though, thank God. She claimed, being American, she had no idea what to be judgy about, and that it was a good job she had Libby there to explain the social difference between a lounge and a sitting room to her. She was stylish, but in an easy, unlabel-conscious way. Very early on, while Libby was outlining the various neighbourhood feuds over a bottle of wine, she’d confessed that since she and Jason had moved into the area, she never knew what to wear. Libby wasn’t really into clothes, whereas everyone she knew in the book-group-and-barbecue gang did a lot of ‘fashion singular’ talk – one of them even had a ‘school runway’ blog. Erin had promptly traded an evening’s babysitting for a styling overhaul, and coaxed Libby in and out of changing rooms until she didn’t look, or feel, like an unemployed arts researcher anymore. One afternoon with Erin had given Libby a confidence way beyond what she’d put on her credit card, plus a proper friendship. As she told Jason afterwards, when someone’s seen you trapped in a bodycon dress, there aren’t many secrets left.

  Meeting Erin had been the turning point for Libby in that new house. It had been Erin who’d tipped her off that if she bought one new handbag per year, she’d always have something she could talk to Rebecca, Marian and Helena about. And from that Burberry seed, friendships had grown. Sort of.

  Libby grabbed the phone before she could change her mind. It wasn’t Facetime. Erin couldn’t see the shambolic wallpaper. ‘Erin! How nice to see your face on my phone!’

  ‘Hey, stranger!’ Erin sounded pleased. ‘Did you call while we were on holiday? It’s been weeks! It’s not like you to go so long without a catch-up!’

  Libby could hear the shrill laughter of the Beans playing in the background and knew exactly where she was: the playground in the corner of the park, with the red swings in the shape of ladybirds, and the cricket pavilion tearoom that did coffee-and-walnut cake. Their old haunt.

  ‘Sorry. Things have been mad.’ She turned away from the wall, forcing a smile onto her face as a longing for that lost life, going on without her, cut into her chest. ‘I keep meaning to ring, but there’s never enough time to settle in for a proper chat.’

  ‘Of course. It must be crazy! Sorry – I’m being selfish and nosy. We just miss you, is all. Are you run off your feet? Tobias, get off that, honey. It’s not safe . . . We’re in nanny-on-holiday crisis mode here! You’re going to have to give me staff-management tips!’

  Libby tried to remember what she’d told Erin about the staff situation. She probably hadn’t mentioned that it was just her and Jason, Jason’s mother when she felt up to it and Dawn and Peggy cleaning on different days.

  ‘So, come on, I want to know everything!’ said Erin. ‘Are you redecorating? Did you do your mood boards? How are your plans for the spa?’

  At the leaving lunch, after three glasses of wine and a tense conversation with Rebecca Hamilton about her four-week Body Holiday in Mustique, Libby had spontaneously invented a holistic spa she and Jason were going to build behind the hotel. Everyone had wanted to come to the hotel then. Or so they’d said.

  ‘I think we need to spend a while getting the feel of the place before we start any major work.’ It was so tempting to unload to Erin, but Libby knew she couldn’t. She owed it to Jason to keep any teething troubles to themselves. Positive, she reminded herself. New start.

  ‘Hurry up, will you? I’m dying to come visit – you’re going to make it fabulous. In fact, I was talking to my friend Katie about you. Remember Katie? The features director at Inside Home? I told her she should send one of the travel freelancers, Tara, to review the Swan when it’s done. I gave her that whole pitch: boutique hotel, slice of London in the countryside, cute family business backstory . . . She adored the hook of you and Jason going on a hotel adventure together!’

  Libby didn’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified. A journalist. Coming to the hotel. A journalist. From Inside Home.

  ‘Did you? Thanks, Erin. That was really kind of you.’

  ‘No problem! I thought it’d help your relaunch profile, right? When are you planning on relaunching? Wasn’t it just a refresh, apart from the spa?’

  A chill of excitement and panic rippled through Libby. ‘It might take a few months . . .’

  ‘Perfect! Christmas issue! Romantic winter getaways in the UK. You’ve got a log fire there, haven’t you?’ Erin made
a noise of extreme envy. ‘I love country hotels. I think they’re one of my favourite things about the UK. That and John Lewis.’

  Libby couldn’t concentrate: as she turned to the window, she’d spotted a crack, previously hidden by wallpaper, and it seemed to be running all the way up towards the ceiling. Had that been there the previous night? Jason had dismissed her suggestion of getting someone to look over the place before they bought in (‘Mum would know if it was falling down’), but since they’d started work, she’d spotted a few problems that she recognised from their last house: damp spots, cracks, creaky floors.

  ‘So shall I give Katie your details,’ Erin went on, oblivious to Libby’s frown, ‘and you can set up a good time?’

  ‘Um, yes!’ The idea of a travel writer checking in to the damp, dog-hairy hotel as it currently stood made Libby’s blood run cold, but what Erin was offering was a major lifeline. A major lifeline. Magazine coverage in exactly the market she and Jason needed to attract if they were going to turn the hotel around – you couldn’t buy publicity like that. Well, you could, but they couldn’t afford it.

  It was a target, she told herself, her pulse fluttering in her throat. A target would focus them. Start thinking like confident hotel owners. No one knows you’re making it up as you go along if you don’t tell them.

  ‘Erin, you’re a star,’ she said, gratefully. ‘That’d be so fantastic. We can totally recreate Christmas in September for her – we’ve got a gorgeous log fire.’ Libby recast the lounge in her head, stripped of the tartan carpet, done out in sisal flooring with generous Harris Tweed sofas huddled round the fireplace. A better fireplace. A reclaimed one from somewhere. Candles, holly, mulled wine in goblets. ‘We’re planning to hold wine tastings, and winter teas, with hot toddies and my mother-in-law’s family-recipe fruit cake. There are some lovely walks around here . . .’