The Seagull and the Serpent
Charlotte had come to enjoy the early morning hours in the office, when Tom Parker was not yet about, causing unrest with his irritating energy. She had a cup of tea, went through the weekend's reports and emails, and enjoyed a little chat with James Stringer, who came by to see Mr Parker and decided to stay a moment even though Mr Parker was not there yet. Charlotte told him about the luncheon party, though not about the shining-knight-part, and he invited her to walk over to Regency Row later in the day and inspect the bathroom tiles that had finally been delivered.
After he was gone, she listened in to Esther trying to shake off Babington's attentions. Sidney's friend had carried his breakfast plate from the Conservatory to the lobby and was now leaning on the reception desk, sipping his coffee and keeping the head receptionist from her work. "Come on, Esther. It's just a phone number. I'm not going to harass you with drunken calls in the middle of the night. No calls at all if you don't want them. And no messages if it comes to that. I promise."
"Then what would you want with my phone number? Sell it to the highest bidder?"
"I'd just like to have it on my phone and know that I could call you. Theoretically." Esther sighed.
"Babington, why do you persist, when you are treated with so little civility? Is that some form of masochism?"
Charlotte heard Babington chuckle. "Certainly not."
"Why, then?"
"All I know is that the more I see you, Esther Denham, and the more nonchalantly you reject my advances, the more intense my desire for you grows."
"Well spoken," Esther said, sounding more acquiescent. Back in the office, Charlotte felt her cheeks flush. He did talk like the hero of a romantic novel. She could not help but wonder how it would feel like to be adored like that – and whether she would have Esther's strength of resistance.
"Good morning, my dear." Mr Parker strolled in. "Any news from the accounting department?"
Charlotte returned into work mode. "Yes, actually… I've been going through the weekend's reports, and there is something I wanted to talk to you about."
"Oh, is there?" Mr Parker picked up the mail, filed through the envelopes and put them down again, leaving them unopened.
"Yes. You see, I've been reading the manager report…"
"Not much to read there," Mr Parker said with a grin. "It's only numbers, numbers, numbers."
"Incidentally, I stumbled over the number of complimentary rooms. This weekend alone, we have given free rooms to your brother's friends and Miss Lambe – with Miss Lambe staying in the Denham Suite for free until the middle of July."
"Yes, of course. She's family. I mean, nearly family. Nearly Sidney's family, and he is family."
"Yes," Charlotte said. She had expected that name to pop up in the conversation. "But the hotel was fully booked on Saturday night. We could have sold those rooms to paying guests."
Mr Parker looked at her, taken aback. "Oh, my dear. What are you suggesting? That I ask my brother's friends to vacate their rooms so that I can sell them?"
Basically, that was what Charlotte had been thinking of. "Your brother is staying in one of the staff rooms as well," she said.
"Yes, but then he's my brother. His friends will make good on the invitation by promoting the hotel to their friends. That's how you make business these days, my dear."
"But Miss Lambe, occupying in the Denham suite for so long…"
"A favour to Sidney." Mr Parker looked at his phone. But Charlotte was not going to desist.
"Her father is a wealthy man, I understand. Surely he can afford to pay a nominal charge to cover the costs for energy, laundry and cleaning?"
"What?"
"A special rate. A family and friends rate," she went on, feeling more confident now.
"But that would be nothing but peanuts, my dear."
"If she's staying until the middle of July, and you charge thirty pounds per night, that quickly comes up to more than two-thousand pounds. I don't think that's peanuts, especially if you add up the current costs plus the loss of profit you have because you cannot sell the suite to paying guests."
Mr Parker was staring at her, large-eyed and somehow, Charlotte thought, looking strained and tired. "That's very interesting, very interesting indeed. I'll think about it… and now I must dash. Stringer Junior is expecting me on Regency Row. – Take the afternoon off, my dear. You've been working hard these days."
x
It was a fine and sunny day, and as they had no other duties, Babington and Crowe had moved right on from having breakfast in the Conservatory to having a champagne snack on the terrace in front of the Conservatory. That was where Sidney found them after a morning of work. He had tried to get hold of George Lambe – in vain, that man and wife number three were still somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean – and tried to talk sense into Gigi.
With that failed as well, he had spent the next two hours advising an Australian client on how to make sure that the future ex-wife received only as little as possible of their joint capital. It was a decidedly unromantic task, and it was not made easier by the fact that Charlotte Heywood kept popping up in his head, taking his mind off his client's divorce.
If my opinion is not agreeable, I'm suddenly too young and too inexperienced to have one.
We are all entitled to missteps.
Don't you agree, Mr Parker?
Despite her scathing words at Lady Denham's luncheon table, she had been such a pleasant thing to look at in that tight-fitting dress, with her hair braided and pinned up to show her delicate neckline (was that a beauty spot on her shoulder?), and a very natural-looking make-up enlarging her eyes. Her eyes! How could such a small person have such large eyes, such full lips, such - no. Sidney was not going to continue that thought. That girl was a mess, too short in size and too big in almost every other aspect. Fortunately, he preferred blonde, petite, ladylike women anyway.
"Parker!" Crowe greeted him, taking his sunglasses off. "You old bore. Where have you been? Come and join us for a glass of the Veuve's best!" Sidney eyed the bottle of Veuve Clicquot in the Champagne bucket on the table and wondered whether it was the first or the second. Or the third. And whichever one it was: whether someone had thought of telling his friends that indulging in Champagne on Monday morning was not part of the free weekend package.
"Come along, Sidney." Babbers offered him a chair. "Take a seat, take a glass and let us bring out a toast on you: Sidney Parker. How good it is to have friends in the hotel industry."
So no-one had told them about the Veuve not being part of the package, Sidney decided. He sat down with a smile that did not reach his eyes, snapped with his fingers to get the waiter's attention and ordered the lunch menu. He would also take care of the bill, and make sure that the champagne was included.
"I had expected you to be leaving this morning," he said to Babington. "Or are you going to have another lesson on the golf course?"
"Sir Edward Denham can't find an extra slot to squeeze me in. Seems to be very popular, the man." Sidney, who had his own opinion on the golf instructor, shrugged his shoulders.
"Doesn't make sense to play golf in Babbers' state anyway," Crowe said, feeding breadcrumbs to a curious seagull. "He might hit himself with the ball."
"I'm perfectly sober," Babington claimed.
"You are not. I'm perhaps a little tipsy, but you are drunk. If not by champagne, then by your infatuation with that Denham creature."
Sidney sighed. Why did all conversations lead to the topic of love in the end? "I'll let Tom know that you are staying for another night," he said, snapping his finger at the waiter again. "I'm sure he doesn't mind. – Let's order."
Lunch was delicious. They had reached the dessert – another one of Arthur's creations, the Pineapple Surprise, a superb combination of Pineapple, cream and coconut – when Tom came walking across the terrace towards their table. "Ah, the great hotelier himself," Crowe cried, his voice audibly slurring, for they had added white wine to their lunch, and with no need to drive back to London, there was no need to hold back on alcohol either.
"Gentleman, good to see you. Hope you're enjoying yourselves?" Tom said with that big smile of his. Sidney, however, who knew his brother only too well, believed to detect a certain strain behind the professional façade.
"Absolutely," Crowe said. "Join us for a glass of champagne. Or wine. Or is it time for drinks already?"
"Would love to, but I need to have a word with Sidney. In private."
Sidney nodded and followed his brother to a table in the near-empty Conservatory. With the weather being beautiful as it was, most guests preferred the terrace. "Well, what is it?" he asked.
"How do your friends like Sanditon?" Tom said.
"They like the food and the drink enough to stay another night. If you have space, that is. Otherwise, they'll move into the attic."
There was a happy gleam in Tom's eyes. "But of course, they are welcome to stay… stay as long as they like, in fact. Splendid! – Do you think they could be persuaded into buying one of the apartments on Regency Row?"
"What?" Sidney asked, thinking he had misheard.
"The apartments," Tom said and waved away the waiter who had been approaching their table. "Do you think your friends could be convinced of buying?"
"I believed the apartments were an extension of the hotel. To attract families and self-catering guests, wasn't that the idea?"
"Yes. And it still is. But I – my business partners… the bank has suggested we sell some of the apartments and undertake the management if the buyer wants to rent them out to holiday-makers."
"I'm not sure I understand," Sidney said, though he thought he did only too well. But he wanted to hear it in Tom's own words.
"It's a question of cash flow," his brother said. "If we sell them now, we'll have an immediate cash flow and a safe source of income, depending on the buyer's financing method. It's easier to calculate than the hotel business."
"But that wasn't the original plan."
"Oh well." Tom shrugged his shoulders. "If conditions change, you have to adapt to new conditions if you want to survive. Now, do you think you could talk your friends into buying in?"
"No," Sidney said straightaway. It was, in fact, the most non-sensical idea he had heard in a long time.
"But why not? They seem to be enjoying themselves, they might enjoy a second home on the south coast."
"And I enjoyed my last holiday on George Lambe's yacht, yet it hasn't come to my mind to buy one myself. They are enjoying themselves because they get free drinks and because Babington is in love with Esther. – This is Sanditon, Tom. Not Majorca or the south of France or the Costa Brava, but Sanditon. A beautiful but boring spot on a coast with long winters and short summers and generally unpredictable weather in any season. And as long as you can get flights to France or Spain that are cheaper than a train ticket from London to the Sussex Coast, Sanditon will remain the sleeping beauty." Speaking of beauty: Charlotte Heywood came walking up to them.
"I'm finishing for the day if that's alright," she said to Tom, not seeing Sidney at all. Oh, that bloody dimple in her chin.
"Of course, my dear, of course. As I said: You well deserve an afternoon off."
"Thank you, Mr Parker. I've left the invoices that are due this week on your desk. I've also checked the new guest reviews and emailed you drafts to answer them. Oh, and there is a new Instagram post out right now."
"Splendid, my dear, splendid." She was gone, Tom's gaze following her thoughtfully. "A very clever young woman. Too progressive with her ideas, sometimes, but altogether extraordinarily capable."
"I'm glad to hear it," Sidney murmured.
"But Sidney." Tom's quick mood had changed again, leaving him looking strained and exhausted. "I'm beset with worries. Stringer bothers me about the workmen's pay every day, the suppliers want their bills paid, Lady D is threatening to withdraw her investment, and what will become of it if anything happens to her… if Edward inherits… I have to keep one-hundred-fifty years of family tradition alive, I have to think of Mary and the children, of Arthur and Diana – of our staff. I am at my wit's end, while you… your rich friends…"
"Enough!" Sidney slammed his fist on the table, longing for his only real friend, the punching ball. "Why is it always my responsibility to pull you from the fire, Tom?"
"Because I once did the same for you. As you well know," his brother gravely said. For a second, Sidney closed his eyes. Tom would use that phrase even in fifty years, when they were both old men, hopefully sitting on a bench facing Sanditon's harbour, counting the trawlers that sailed out. I once did the same for you.
"Alright. I'll do what I can to promote the apartments, in London and elsewhere, but I can't promise anything."
"Thank you, brother," Tom said, standing and patting Sidney's shoulders. "That's all I ask of you. Thank you."
When Sidney returned to the terrace, his friends had moved on from white wine to drinks. Babington was feeding more crumbs to the curious seagull, calling it Esther and insisting that it looked like his beloved, and Crowe fiddled around with his phone, trying to take a selfie with a ray of the sun illuminating his gin tonic. "I'm an artist," he told Sidney who longed for the punching ball again.
"Right. Tom says you're both welcome to stay. Stay as long as you like."
"Did you hear that, Esther?" Babington slurred. Esther didn't hear but stalked away.
"Saucy bitch," Crowe said. "Oh! Look. She did it again."
"Esther?" Babington was quickly moving towards the melancholy stage of drunkenness, while Crowe, who was more used to the strong stuff, suddenly was all sober again.
"No. The trainee. Spunky little Charlotte Heywood." She is worse than a bluebell in May, Sidney thought. Popping up literally everywhere. "She's made another Instagram post," Crowe said. "A funny one. Have a look!"
Sidney had a look. The post was a picture of Kamila, the assistant housekeeper, geared up like a superhero with her cleaning equipment, holding a duster and a spray bottle as if about to face Thanos in the final battle. Our local hero in the fight for hygiene, the caption said. #sanditon #sanditongrandhotel #notwithoutmyteam #kamilaisthebest
But it was not the caption that really caught his eye. It was the likes.
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Notes:
In the next chapter, someone is going to take a swim "Down by the Sea".