Page 41 of A Very Irish Christmas
‘Did you have visuals?’
‘I did. We have some glorious shots that were taken of the exterior over the summer, the grounds and gardens, and they looked magnificent. The inside, not so magnificent. The cloth sheets in the ballroom probably didn’t exactly give off the right image.’
‘Exactly! And in this game, image is everything. Look, don’t be disheartened – I don’t think it’s unfixable. But you need professional pictures, and you need to show it in action.’
‘What do you mean, in action?’
‘I mean that if you want to market yourselves as an events space, you need to show events – tables set for dinner, musicians in place, a party going on! You need to bring it all back to life again – even if it’s just for one day. Then, Charles…thenyou have something to sell.’
We discuss it all further as we drive, and I am amazed at how quickly my ideas are coming – it’s like something’s been switched back on inside me.
When we arrive back at Bancroft Manor, Georgie and Roberts are waiting to greet us. Georgie hugs me enthusiastically, seemingly full of youthful exuberance, but I can smell the cigarette smoke on her clothes.
‘How’s Allegra?’ I ask, looking around the lobby.
‘She’s not having a good day,’ Roberts replies simply. ‘So she’s resting in her rooms. I hope she’ll feel up to joining us later.’
I pat him on the arm, and say: ‘I hope so too. She’ll remember this place when it was a social whirl, and I’d love to talk to her about it.’
‘I’m sure she would love that too, Cassie – remembering the past doesn’t seem to be a problem for her. Now, what is it that we’re all meeting about? Or could you simply not stay away from my second-breakfast pastries?’
‘I’m sorry to say this, Roberts, but I’ve spent the morning in Eileen’s bakery. I couldn’t eat another pastry if you offered me a million bucks. I’m here to talk to Charles – and you guys – about your plans for this place.’
‘Cassie has some marvellous ideas,’ Charles adds. ‘Why don’t we discuss them as we walk?’
He fills the other two in on what I’ve suggested, and Georgie gets it immediately.
‘We need to dress it all up!’ she says, fizzing with energy. ‘We need to stop it looking like a dusty old museum, and make it looklike the kind of place someone would want to get married in! Like it’s a stage, and we need to set it!’
‘Exactly that,’ I say, as we walk through the various rooms of the house. ‘Like this – the library. Here, we stage it like someone is giving a talk. We scatter books around, get a whiteboard, fill the room with people – find someone to pretend to be the guest speaker. Someone who looks like an author or a playwright!’
‘Jack Mullaney,’ Roberts suggests. ‘He actually is a poet, although I always think he looks rather like Gandalf.’
‘Yes, wizard man – I saw him in the pub, first night I was here. Stick him in a tweed suit, perfect! And you can do the same in the other rooms. Show them how they could be used. So, for example, an art class – stage it so it’s full of people with easels and paints. A meeting room – tables, screens, jugs of water, people having a conversation while they make notes on their tablets.’
They all follow me into the hallway as I speak, like a strange string of eager ducklings.
‘The kitchen,’ I say, ‘that could be so good! Someone demonstrating their baking skills, a few huge cakes scattered around, that whole olde worlde country kitchen thing! Don’t just tell potential investors what it could be – show them! I know from my job that the right marketing sucks you in. Of course you’d go and check the place out in person, but if the look and feel is right, you’ll give it a chance – and honestly, if we’re clever with what we’ve got and find the right photographer, we could do it all in one long day!’
‘But what would happen when they did visit, and saw that all was not as it appeared? That none of it was real?’ asks Roberts, clearly a little daunted.
‘There would be time,’ Charles replies, rubbing his chin and nodding thoughtfully. ‘Time to actually make it real. If we could get the investment, that would allow us to improve things, andby the point we went “live”, as it were, it wouldn’t be fake anymore. Cassie, that’s genius!’
He grins at me as he says this, his mind now very clearly engaged.
‘I don’t know about that, but I am here to help, in any way you need,’ I reply, as we go into the ballroom. It is cold and dusty and empty, but it still shines with star power – or at least it could. ‘And this would be the centrepiece. You need to fill it. You need to make it glow. You need to give it what it needs, no matter how temporarily, to look like the dream venue.’
Georgina heads straight towards the piano, and pulls its dust cover off with a flourish. She lifts the lid, and starts playing something jazzy and fun, maybe Scott Joplin. I shake my head in amazement – this place and these people are full of surprises.
‘There you go – you’ve got your pianist already!’ I say.
Charles is walking around the room, stopping every now and then and tapping his toes to the music as he thinks. By the time he comes back to me, he clearly has questions.
‘It’s a great idea,’ he says, ‘but frankly I wouldn’t know where to start. I mean, even simple things like how to set up a room for a corporate meeting, or how many tables I’d need to hire to fill this place? The logistics feel overwhelming.’
‘Gosh,’ I say, smiling up at him, noticing that his hair is in unruly tufts where he’s been worrying at it. ‘If only you had someone around who was, you know, a professional events planner? Wouldn’t that be useful?’
He laughs, and replies: ‘Well, yes, that would be frightfully useful. Do you know any of those?’
