Page 30 of Welcome to Pennycress Inn

‘That’s right. It should never have been sold,’ the man Jackson had referred to as Ron took a sip from his pint glass before continuing. ‘We need to stick together.’

‘No, you all need to butt out and give Laura a chance. I know it’s an adjustment with the inn being in new hands, but Laura is a good person and she’d be a valuable asset to the village if you just let her.’ Jackson took a deep breath. ‘The way each and every one of you shunned her yesterday, you should be ashamed of your behaviour.’

He had noticed then.

‘Hey, no need for that, Jacks. We’re only trying to do the right thing.’ Evie rubbed her fingers across Jackson’s hand.

‘No, you’re really not.’ Looking down at the bar, Jackson shook his head and pulled his hand away. ‘This is no way to behave, and you all know it. Drop the stupid pact and grow up.’

‘Now…’ Ron pointed his pint glass in Jackson’s direction. ‘We welcomed you to the village with open arms. You know there’s more to this than her being a newcomer.’

Pulling the tea towel from his shoulder, Jackson threw it onto the bar before turning and disappearing into the kitchen.

As the group huddled closer and lowered their voices, Laura stood still and held her breath. Was he going to come back out?

One man turned, holding up his hand to the group and raising his voice. ‘Back to work I go. Catch you later.’

As if being shocked into moving, Laura turned quickly and walked to the door, her head down, trying desperately not to draw any attention to herself. They hadn’t noticed her, had they? As the man reached the door before her and held it open, she shuffled through, glad she’d escaped unnoticed.

Outside, she headed back to the inn, oblivious to the rain drenching her coat and bag, the rumble of thunder around her. What had just happened? What had she witnessed?

As she reached the top of Wisteria Lane, her hood slipped from its position, but she continued, the rain quickly soaking her hair, strands sticking to her wet cheeks. She didn’t care. She’d been right. At least she hadn’t been paranoid. A strangled laugh escaped her lips. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? She wasn’t going crazy, she was just being shunned in an attempt to… what? Make her sell up? Run back to her parents’ with her tail between her legs?

Letting the gate swing closed behind her, she hurried down the garden path towards the porch. Her first instinct was to flee. To pack up her bags and escape. To give the villagers what theywanted. But what then? Where would she be? Homeless and penniless, living with her parents again. Without a job and with no prospect of moving on.

Of course, it wouldn’t be forever. It would only be until Pennycress sold, and she found somewhere else. Somewhere more welcoming. Somewhere without crumbling plaster. Without woodworm. And preferably with a bog-standard electric oven too.

Huh, maybe it would be a good thing in the long run. She’d at least know a little more of what she was looking for.

She closed the door behind her and made her way into the kitchen, placing her bag of wet shopping on the table. Shrugging out of her coat, she headed out into the hallway, into the sitting room, before taking the stairs. As she wandered around the guest bedrooms, she ran her fingers across the golden wallpaper in one room, the large roses emblazoned upon a cream background in another, the path of raised vines on the feature wall of another room.

She didn’t want to leave. She loved this place. Despite there being more work involved before she could open than she’d ever imagined there would be, there was something about it. About the bones of the place, about the building.

She’d fallen in love with Pennycress, and she wanted to stay.

Sinking to the top step of the ornate staircase, Laura bundled her wet hair into a messy bun. Those people wouldn’t run her out of Meadowfield. She’d just have to make them see she was a good person who only wanted the best for the inn.

And that needed to start right now.

Standing up, she ran down the stairs and grabbed her car key. She’d start with fixing the plaster and as she now knew there was no chance of getting a professional in and why she’d been turned down by them all, she’d do it herself. How hard could it be? There were YouTube videos for everything, right?

16

Laura wiped the back of her hand across her forehead, feeling a smear of wall filler against her skin. Yuck. Standing back, she crossed her arms, getting yet more white goo across her T-shirt, and surveyed the hallway.

Strips of wallpaper lay strewn across the floor, with small mounds of crumbled plaster mixed in. And the dust! The fine white powdery dust covered everything: the reception desk, what was left of the woodworm-riddled banister, as well as herself.

Her plan of only filling in the gaps in the plaster which she’d discovered during the previous days had soon turned to ripping the wallpaper from the whole of the hallway. She’d begun filling in the first patch which had crumbled when she’d been on the phone to her parents, but every time she’d brought the little scraper up to the wall to smooth the wall filler, more of the old stuff had crumbled away and before she’d known it she’d uncovered a patch the size of a dinner plate and then a large oven tray, until she’d taken off a whole metre square of wallpaper and the wall was still crumbling beneath her fingers.

Still, it needed doing, and it needed doing right. And now, with the wallpaper on the floor, she could see where the worst of the old plaster was crumbling. She squeezed the last of the ready-mixed wall filler from the tube and threw the empty container onto the heap of three other empty ones behind her before beginning to smooth the blob.

Laura took the final tube of wall filler from where it was sitting on the reception desk and cut the sealed top off. In hindsight, if she’d known how many patches there were, she’d have looked into replacing with plasterboard. Although, of course, she’d have only been back to the same old problem of struggling to find a professional willing to fix it for her.

No, this way, although she was certain it was probably more awkward and time consuming, at least she’d have it done in one day. And she’d have done it herself, too. She contemplated taking a photo to send to her parents but, catching sight of her hands, decided that gloating wasn’t worth ruining her phone for.

Running a palm over the final section of the wall, she winced as yet more plaster snowed down. Still, at least the dodgy patches were flaking off easily, apart from this one patch about halfway up the wall at shoulder height, where the hole was deeper than she’d discovered elsewhere, and yet there was still more plaster coming off.

She pulled out the screwdriver she’d been using, which she’d found where Jackson had left it on top of the washing machine, and had stashed in her back pocket. Then gently tapped the small section. She just needed to get to the solid stuff. Nowhere else had been a problem, the plaster had finished crumbling a few millimetres beneath the surface.

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