Page 9 of The Wake-Up Call

I feel myself going pink. “I just figured, even if the ceiling has fallen in, until the builders get here, we can still make the most of the space, right?” I say.

“Yes. Yes, I can see that,” Mrs. Hedgers says.

I’ve built a nativity into the rubble of the fallen ceiling. Baby Jesus is lying in a cradle between two chunks of ceiling plaster, and I’ve spread artificial snow around the scene, even dusting the shoulders of the wise men (three old statues of previous Bartholomew family members from the gardens). My personal favourite element is the sheep, which I created out of an old white footstool and a lotof cotton wool balls. I know it’s a bit tacky and over-the-top, but I think it’s cheerful—and the hotel desperately needs some cheer right now.

“You’re a very creative young woman,” Mrs. Hedgers says, turning her steady gaze my way.

For someone with such energetic children, Mrs. Hedgers is surprisingly calm. She wears her dark brown hair in a chignon, smooth and neat, and there’s never a speck of mud on the wheels of her chair when she heads out of the door. On her check-in notes, she listed her profession as “life and career-change coach,” which is probably why she seems to be so impressivelytogether. I guess you can’t tell other people how to live their lives if yours is a bit of a state.

“Oh, thank you!”

“Is it hard work, staying switched on all the time?” she asks, tilting her head.

“Sorry?”

Mrs. Hedgers smiles slightly. “Creative people tend to need their downtime.” She looks at the nativity. “You like to add a little sparkle to everyone else’s day, am I right?”

“That’s actually why I love working in hospitality,” I say, twisting my fingers together. Mrs. Hedgers is making me nervous. She has a headteacherly sort of energy, as if at any moment she’ll tell me I’m not allowed to wear clip-in highlights at school. “I’m a total people-person.”

“And how do you switch off?”

“Umm. Hanging out with friends?”

“Hmm,” says Mrs. Hedgers.

“I do yoga, too, sometimes,” I find myself saying. I think I last did yoga in the first lockdown, when everyone got excited about working out in our living rooms, as if the lockdown rules were the reason we weren’t all bounding out into the woods for fifteen-mile runs every morning.

Mrs. Hedgers waits. I can come up with no other downtime activities except “watching television,” which sounds like something Ruby Hedgers would put forward in answer to this question, so I just get gradually pinker and wait in silence.

“Well,” Mrs. Hedgers says, hands on her chair’s wheels again. “Perhaps something to think about. It’s so important for us to nourish ourselves so that we can continue to nourish those around us.”

“Right! Totally. Oh, sorry!” I say, hopping out of her way. “Actually, while I have you, I’ve been meaning to ask—we still need a card for any costs that your insurer won’t be covering for your stay. Would you...”

“They’ll cover it all,” Mrs. Hedgers says, and there’s steel in her smile. “Just send the bill their way.”

“Oh, OK,” I say, as she pushes open the door to her suite and manoeuvres herself through.

As the door closes behind her, I stare at it for a while. Nothing about that conversation should have made me feel especially uncomfortable, but I’m all discombobulated. Maybe it’s because she didn’t really like my nativity scene. Is that why?Somethinghas got under my skin, and now I feel as though I’ve made a mistake, but I can’t figure out where.

I whip out my phone and message Jem. She’s in the States, but I do some quick maths and decide that even though I can never remember whether it’s five hours ahead or five hours behind, as long as it’s fivesomethingI’m not waking her in the middle of the night.

Is this lame?I say, attaching a photo of the nativity.

Umm, no?!!she replies instantly.It is in fact the best thing I have ever seen!

I smile down at my phone as she peppers me with stars and Christmas tree emojis. There is nobody in the world with a heart as pure as Jem Young.

Why the self-doubt?she asks.Are you OK, little pigeon?

Oh sorry, I’m totally fine! Just “having a silly moment,” as your mum would say. Maybe time for a sugar fix...

It’s always time for a sugar fix. And please do not quote my mother at me at this hour!!

But Mrs. Young has so many excellent one-liners! What about that time she told me I was an abject failure, dragging her daughter to the dogs?

Or the time she told me I was “a disappointment, fundamentally speaking”?

I press my hand to my heart. We joke about these moments now, but I know how badly they wounded Jem. Even if these days she hasfundamentally speakingliterally tattooed on her arse.

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