Page 24 of One Sweet Day in Lovely Bay
Cally felt her jaw clench. ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
‘Well, I guess I'd better get back to it. Time waits for no one. Enjoy your morning ladies.’
As Alastair left the kitchen, Cally let out a breath through tight lips. ‘Yes, see you later.’
Doreen rolled her eyes. ‘Ignore him. He's something else. Completely in a world of his own.’
Cally laughed. ‘That's one way to put it.’
‘Always been the same. Absolutely harmless at the end of the day. He doesn't understand the value of hard work because he’s never done a day of it in his life. It is what it is. He means no harm.’
Cally nodded. ‘You said it.’
Doreen patted Cally's hand. ‘You're doing great, love. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.’
‘I should get on. Thanks for the coffee.’
‘Anytime.’
Doreen raised her eyebrows. ‘And don’t you be fretting over what big mouth did or didn’t say. Not being funny, but he’s not quite all there, so don’t worry about it. Got it?’
‘Yeah, thanks,’ Cally affirmed, but as she walked out of the kitchen, she made a wincing face. Alastair had pushed her buttons hard and fast, and she didn’t like how it made her feel.She heard a very strange, out-of-context cross between a growl and a croak come out of the back of her throat. Big mouth Alastair had not made her feel very good at all. Trouble was, how she felt was going to get worse. Bumpy ride upcoming. Hold onto your race hat Cally de Pfeffer. Strap yourself in girlfriend. Things are not going to be that fun.
13
Cally walked back to the east wing, her mind buzzing with thoughts. The encounter with Alastair had rattled her, to say the least. He’d not even done anythingthatbad orthatwrong even, the problem was mostly, actuallyall, hers. She tried to keep herself in check as she pondered his comment about her “little job”.
Letting herself in via the code Nina had sent her, she switched on lights and did a walk-through of the rooms. There was more dust than she’d ever seen, piles of crates everywhere, stacks of old paintings, antique furniture left, right, and centre, boxes of forgotten treasures, and loads of old packing cases full of knick-knacks. Ornate chandeliers hung from the ceilings draped in cobwebs, old shutters were locked closed, and curtains were dusty and needed a good air. The smell wasn’t great either. As Cally walked around the wing, it was as if, along with the mustiness and dust, she could feel the weight of history in the air.
‘It's like stepping back in time,’ Cally said to no one at all.
She moved further into one of the rooms off the main corridor, pulled a few dust covers off furniture and peeked into boxes. Flicking through an old photo album, its leather covercracked and faded, she peered at black-and-white photographs of the manor and its inhabitants from decades past. She found an old journal tucked away in one of the boxes and carefully opened it. The pages were filled with elegant handwriting, detailing the daily life of Lovely Manor from decades before. She read about grand parties, quiet moments, and the lives of the people who had called the manor home.
Opening her phone, she navigated to the job spec Nina had sent her, retraced her steps to the main door, and opened the first door on the left. A lot of junk greeted her. She coughed as she walked across the room and dust blew up into the air. She pulled open the curtains, then unlocked the shutters, flung open the windows, and took her bag off as fresh air blew into the room. Fifteen minutes later, with her jacket hung on the handle of the door and a carton of blackcurrant accompanying her, she’d yanked out most of the boxes in the middle of the room and was starting to get to the nuts and bolts of what was what. She pulled open a door to one of a long row of built-in cupboards lining the entirety of one wall. Her chin dropped to her chest at what looked back at her from the shelves of the cupboard – many, many, many vintage Louis Vuitton handbags, which had clearly been someone’s very expensive collection at some point in time. She proceeded to open more doors and more bags appeared to double in front of her eyes.
‘How the other half lives,’ Cally said to herself as she gingerly picked up one of the handbags and blew off a layer of dust. She chuckled, turning the bag this way and that. Squinting in the cupboard, she counted bag after bag after bag. She couldn’t quite fathom how much the bags in front of her might be worth. After a quick eBay search, she was staggered, floored even. Vintage designer bags were clearly a thing. It was a whole other world she had no idea about, but via the listings on her phone, the collection of bags alone would buy her a flat. Not that it wasan option for her, but it was an interesting thought: an old out-of-use room where, just in the contents of its cupboards alone, there was more money than her savings account. As Cally started to pull out the bags and then suitcases, she found it mind-boggling as she came across more and more bags, folios, luggage, and cases.
Sorting methodically through everything and attempting to put it into some sort of order, she thought about how life at Lovely Manor was very different from the world she'd been brought up in. The opulence and the sense of history were overwhelming, and the house itself, of course, was completely different, but it was more the little things that made the contrast just so stark. Things like having staff, rooms full of old bags worth a fortune, and gardens with names of their own. All of it made Cally’s own past, indeed her whole life, seem like a different reality altogether.
Once all the bags were out of the cupboards and she’d added vintage Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent to the humongous pile, Cally assessed her work in the room. She spent ages painstakingly running the vacuum around and dusting until the shelves shone. She then devoted a lot of time curating the bags into styles and shapes and popping them back neatly into the cupboards. Just after she had pressed the button to wind the vacuum cable in, she was stretching her back and pulling her arms over her head when she heard the front door open and Nina appeared in the hallway.
‘Hiya. How are you?’
‘Good. Busy!’
Nina looked around the architrave and raised her eyebrows. ‘Wow, you’ve really cracked on here.’
‘To be honest, it looked a lot worse than it was.’
‘No, you’re a whizz!’
‘Thanks. You’re not going to believe this. Look over here,’ Cally said as she started opening cupboard doors. The designer bags were now curated and sorted on the shelves by size and shape. Now, no longer in a jumble, clean and tidy, they were even more impressive than when Cally had first found them.
Nina’s jaw dropped. She swore and whisper-hissed. ‘Omg. Are they what I think they are?’
‘Yes indeed,’ Cally replied. ‘Can you even?’
Nina walked closer, her eyes wide with astonishment. ‘These must be worth a fortune! Some of these brands...’
