Where Everything Seems Double by Penny Freedman (popular romance novels .txt) 📕

There is quite a long pause. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘It might be cool.’

‘I’ll book us into a swish hotel,’ I say, recklessly, and I can hear her smiling.

‘Even cooler,’ she says.

The first thing to do is to swap the Evita tickets. I have a testy exchange with a woman in a box office, who says that they don’t do exchanges. I have been on the website and I know that they are sold out for the evening next week when I have tickets, but not for the end of the month when I want the new tickets. I point this out. She says they don’t do exchanges. In the end, I have to give in: I buy the new tickets, then go upstairs to my neighbour, Melissa, who is an eBay queen and will be happy to sell them for me.

By the time I get back from seeing Melissa, and having a glass of wine because, ‘Gosh, it’s nearly lunch time,’ there has been a reply from Eve. She has obviously decided to take her cue from me and is channelling the cool and breezy approach:

‘Great. We are in Carnmere. Can’t offer to put you up I’m afraid as we have Laura’s boys with us but every other house here is a B&B.

See you soon.

Eve’

I don’t get kissed with an x at the sign-off, I notice. (I dithered over that one in my message and decided to go for it.) Carnmere. I wasn’t really thinking when I promised Freda a swish hotel. Are there even any swish hotels in Carnmere? Have I promised Freda a unicorn? I have stayed in the Lakes a few times, the most memorable occasion being an ill-judged family camping holiday some twenty years ago which involved relentless rain, a lost tent peg, a stomach bug, a lot of shouting and an early return home. I can surely do better than that, at least.

I am cheered to find that there are several hotel websites for the area, and delighted when an imposing, ivy-festooned, balconied vision looms onto my screen. Carnmere Manor Hotel sits up high, with hills rising behind it and the vista of the lake before it. It is not only a hotel but a spa, and it is eye-wateringly expensive. It is so expensive that my heart starts to do panicky little skips when I work out the cost of a week there, but I pick up the phone. The woman on the other end has a reassuringly cosy tone, and I begin to realise that it might be possible to bargain. The hotel is not oversubscribed, I can tell, and for an immediate booking a deal might be made. First, we agree that a stay of more than five days merits a discount, then, when I explain that I want a twin-bedded room for myself and my granddaughter, I am offered a ‘family suite’ at the same price. This, it turns out, is a double room with a small room with bunk beds leading off it.

‘Nicer, really, if your granddaughter’s thirteen,’ she says. ‘I know what they’re like at that age.’

I agree fervently and seal the deal, reading off my credit card number and then putting down the phone with a shaking hand. When I am breathing more calmly I text Freda:

‘Look at Carnmere Manor Hotel. We have a suite!

Xxxxx’

Shortly afterwards I get a reply:

‘Excellent. Will we need smart clothes?’

Clothes are the next hurdle. I associate the Lakes with walking boots, padded anoraks and woolly hats; after five years of living in London I have nothing like that. On the other hand, it is notionally summer, in spite of the apocalyptic rainstorms that have been sweeping the country along the path to its virtual cliff edge. Layers, I think. I may somewhere have the anorak that I wore for dog-walking when I lived by the seaside, and if not there are shops in Cumbria, after all. Do we need smart clothes? I would like to pay homage to the hotel restaurant’s rosette by wearing something smartish in the evenings. Casually elegant is what I picture, but when I throw open my wardrobe doors I find nothing answering to that description. The problem is that we have such short, unreliable summers these days that proper summer clothes don’t wear out. You take a look at them in May, and there they all are. Just a bit limper and saggier but still with another year in them, you think. And here are mine, drooping apologetically from their hangers, elegance way beyond them. I would buy something new since expense seems to be no object at the moment, but it’s the end of July and the shops will already be offering their sale rails – garments even sadder than the ones I already own. I fish out a two-year-old maxi-dress and a pair of reliable silk trousers and hope Freda will not be mortified. I am not sure how to reply to her query. ‘Smart’ is a concept that doesn’t cross two generations with much conviction. When she went out with her friends on her birthday the girls were all wearing tiny shorts and vest tops or halter-necks; they were dressed for the beach, in fact, although they were heading for a town centre pizzeria, it had been raining all day and the temperature was in the low teens. It is possible that the Carnmere Manor has a “No shorts” rule in their award-winning restaurant. I text:

‘Maybe a skirt for dinner? Bring what you feel comfortable in but add a jumper and a rainproof! xxx’

I send this, pull a few more clothes out of my wardrobe, leave them in a disconsolate heap on the bed and go off to up-end the recycling bag in search of back copies of the Guardian and what facts I can find about the disappearance of Ruby Buxton.

Chapter Two THE VOYAGE TO THE ISLAND

Wednesday morning

Would it have been different if there had been girls on the