Page 40 of A Very Irish Christmas
I close the door against the cold, and realise that I have no idea how to start the fires up – I really must ask for a tutorial or I might freeze to death.
I take a quick shower, get dressed, and have a tiny slice of coffee and walnut cake. The breakfast of champions.
Charles and I have exchanged numbers, and I ask if he’s up for a chat – a business-type chat. He replies immediately that he is, and says that he’ll pick me up later. I realise that I am actually quite excited to try and help, that my mind has been working away in the background, coming up with plans and suggestions. I feel a sense of enthusiasm that I know I’ve been lacking in my actual workplace, and suspect that my reduced hours and demotion back to children’s parties probably aren’t just down to the economy – they’re also down to me.
I used to be a dynamo, full of energy and professional pride, but over the last few years that has waned. It’s hard to be adynamo when inside, you feel like a failure. Losing Ted in such a dramatic way made me question everything about myself, it made me see myself as unworthy, and some of that defeatist attitude has definitely bled into my work.
No more, I think, as I grab my coat and wander around to Eileen’s. I will go home filled with new ambition. And possibly cake.
I find her fist-deep in kneading, her blue apron covered in flour, singing along to ‘That’s Amore’ by Dean Martin as she works – she’s very loudly crooning along to the bit about the moon and the pizza pie.
‘Morning!’ I say brightly, raising my voice to be heard. ‘Anything I can do to help?’
‘Ah, Cassie, love! You’re looking fine today – thought your poor head might be banjaxed!’
‘Nope, which is basically a Christmas miracle. I did get a late-night visitor, though.’
She stops what she’s doing and stares at me intently.
‘He didn’t go and break his rules, did he, the devil?’
I’m momentarily confused until I realise she thinks my late-night visitor came in the form of Ryan. I laugh, and say: ‘No! Don’t worry, my virtue is safe. My visitor had four legs and goes by the name of Eejit. He spent the night with me in Whimsy.’
‘G’way! He didn’t, did he? Now thatisa Christmas miracle! Poor fella’s been straying around for ages now. You must have the appeal!’
‘Yep, that’s me – irresistible to stray dogs the world over. Anyway, it was nice. The whole night was fun.’
‘It surely was – there’s always a good craic around here. Now, don’t be dawdling – go and get the kettle on!’
I spend the next few hours in her company, brewing the tea, fetching and carrying, loading loaves into the ovens and generally making myself useful. She tells me about her life backin Ireland, and her late husband, Donal. They ‘weren’t blessed’ with children, and when he died, she felt like she’d lost her place in the world. Here, she tells me, she found it again, and she’s been in the village ever since. She’s an easy woman to talk to, and the time flies over quickly.
By the time I see Charles’s dark green Jaguar pull into the square, I feel like I’ve already done a day’s work – but it was good, honest work, and I have plenty of energy left to spare.
I make my farewells, and she watches me as I leave. I can still feel her knowing eyes on me as Charles clambers out of his car, coming around to the passenger side and opening it for me like the gentleman he is.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ I say, as soon as I have my seatbelt on.
‘Oh. That sounds serious,’ he replies, grinning. He’s wearing what I now think of as his casual outfit – smart jeans and a perfectly pressed shirt in a shade of blue that complements his blond hair.
‘I was thinking that what we need to do – well, what you need to do – is come up with some absolutely killer marketing materials.’
‘You mean like a website? Because we already have one of those.’
‘I know, but at the moment it focuses on the holiday lets. If you want to attract backers, you have to make Bancroft Manor look as good as it can. You need to show them exactly what’s on offer, and what its potential is. At the moment, you have a good family name, and a beautiful house in a gorgeous location, which is a great start – but, forgive me for saying this, it needs some work.’
‘No apologies necessary,’ he replies, as we drive through the now-familiar country lanes and up the hill. ‘I have eyes. I can see that it’s all very genteel, but most definitely on the shabby side. I’d hoped that my meetings would yield more fruit, to be honest.At the moment we’re surviving, with rentals and the tenants and a few other income streams, but long term, we need to either find a new way of making more money, or look at selling the estate. Which of course would be awful.’
‘It would. Not just for you and your family, but for the whole village, and all of these people who depend on you.’
He nods, and again I am struck by how heavy a burden he carries – which makes me even more determined to help.
‘How did you leave it, with the people you met?’
‘That we would reconvene in the new year, and that I’d come up with a more robust business plan. They seemed interested but not sold, if you know what I mean.’
‘And what did you have to show them, as well as your charming smile?’ I ask. ‘How did you try and convince them that you were a good bet?’
‘I’d hoped the charming smile might be enough, but obviously not. With hindsight, I didn’t show them an awful lot. I had financial projections, and I had comparators – examples of similar places that had successfully diversified. But what I didn’t have was anything unique, or anything that really made them sit up. I did a presentation, but a lot of it was about the history of the place, when I think I needed to focus more on the future.’
