Page 69 of Too Busy for Love

‘Mm, I agree. Imagine what it will look like when we’ve cleaned it up.’

‘We’ll have to do that anyway, so we can properly see what state the tiles are in. Barry, grab the jet wash, will you?’

‘Jet wash’ll just fill the place with water, mate,’ Barry replies. ‘You need to wash the worst of the dirt off by hand and then attack it with one of them rotary cleaners like they have in schools.’

‘I’m sure I saw one of those in the store cupboard,’ I tell them.

‘Looks like you’re going to be busy then,’ John tells me with a wink. ‘I’ll get one of the sparkies to check the machine over before you use it. Abby would have my balls for Christmas decorations if I let you electrocute yourself.’

In truth, although I bristle at the assumption that the woman is going to do the menial task, I quite enjoy cleaning the floor. It takes several washes before the worst of the grime is gone, but it’s surprisingly rewarding seeing the pattern of the tiles and, more importantly, the mosaic, come back to life. By the time the rotary cleaner has been passed fit for use, the floor is already looking loads better.

‘Oi! Where do you think you’re going?’ I yell as John nonchalantly strides across the lobby on the way to his van at lunchtime, leaving a trail of dusty footprints.

‘Oops, sorry, Flops. I’ll go out the back way,’ he says before retracing his steps, whistling a melody I don’t recognise.

‘What’s the tune?’ I call after his retreating form.

‘It’s fromCalamity Jane. I can’t remember all of it, but basically the theme of the song is about how a woman’s touch brightens a home.’

‘Very funny,’ I tell him sarcastically as I shut the cleaner down and stretch my back.

By mid-afternoon, the floor is sparkling and John whistles appreciatively when he sees it. ‘It’s a shame it’s going to get mucky again,’ he observes. ‘But we need it spotless for this. Right, on your knees. You start that side and I’ll start over here.’

‘What are we doing?’ I ask him.

‘We’re going to go tile by tile, checking for cracks and breaks. Even a hairline crack needs to be investigated. Here, I’ll give you a marker so you can mark any affected tiles.’

‘Hang on. Are you seriously telling me I’ve spent hours cleaning this floor just so you can draw on it?’

‘Let’s just see what we find, shall we?’

Compared to cleaning it, crawling across the floor on my hands and knees inspecting every tile proves to be back-breaking work. By the time John and I finally meet in the middle, my knees and elbows are aching, and my hands are frozen from the cold tiles. The good news is that we’ve only discovered a couple of cracked tiles near the door, which John thinks will be relatively easy to get out and replace. He’s very carefullylifted them out to send to a specialist tiling company, who will hopefully be able to supply matching replacements.

‘You should take a picture and send it to Abby,’ John suggests. ‘I’m sure she’d like to see it before we cover it up again.’

‘Good idea,’ I tell him as I fish my phone out of my pocket and take several shots from different angles. ‘I expect Reginald will be pleased to see it too.’

‘Is he the guy in the wedding photos you showed?’

‘That’s him.’

It may be only six o’clock when I lock up the site, but I know that’s way too late to drop by to see Reginald. The retirement home serves the residents their evening meal at five thirty, and he told me they frown on evening visitors. I’ll have to wait until the weekend to show him what we’ve found. I sent the pictures to Abby though, who replied with a series of love-heart emojis, so I think I can assume she likes it.

I had been worried about telling Reginald about my decision to stay in Margate rather than go chasing after Jock, but he was surprisingly good about it in the end. I have been teasing him a little about his advice to ‘hold lightly to things’ as he’s taken a good deal of interest in the restoration of The Mermaid, and I know he’ll be delighted to see that the mosaic is undamaged, despite the havoc BudgetWise wreaked on the rest of the fixtures and fittings.

In fact, and I’m not at all surprised by this, the only real fly in the ointment has been Emilio. He’s enthusiastic for the project, but the constant stream of architects, interior designers, kitchen fitters and so on that he’s fired at me since coming on board has been a bit of a distraction. I did mention it to Abby during oneof her site visits, but she just shrugged and said she’d heard he could be a bit of a diva and not to let it get under my skin. John’s summary of the intrusion was rather more pointed.

‘I don’t see why he keeps sending these useless bloody ponces down from London,’ he’d complained last time Abby was here. ‘The last one was going on about “recreating the distinctive ambience that lets the customer know they’re in a Marcuso’s restaurant” or some such bollocks. I told him straight, “Just tell me what colour to paint the sodding walls, OK?” It’s nonsense. Do people actually earn a living spouting crap like that?’

The kitchen itself has also been the subject of some heated debate. On his only site visit to date, Emilio declared it ‘much too small’ and threw a minor tantrum when we explained that the walls were structural and couldn’t just be moved around to suit him. At one point, I actually thought he might walk away, but Abby must have found a way to calm him down, because he was perfectly fine the next time I spoke to him.

I haven’t heard anything from Jock for a while; I expect he’s busy, and I’ll confess that I am avoiding him a little. As far as he knows, the Mermaid project is still dead, and maybe the kindest thing is to let him carry on thinking that. The truth won’t make him happy at all, so why burden him with it?

29

I’m desperate to show Reginald the picture of the mosaic but, in the end, I don’t get time to visit him until Sunday afternoon.

‘Hi, Hazel,’ I say to the receptionist. ‘I’m just popping in to see Reginald.’

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