Page 11 of One More Day
‘And the shower might run cold if you don’t – oh. Hang on a second,’ she says when we hear a car arrive outside. ‘Are you expecting company?’
Her neck cranes towards the front door.
‘No chance,’ I reply, too busy eyeing up the forest that runs along the back of the cottage to care much. With the sea at the front in the distance and a forest at the back door, this is a little slice of heaven. ‘Company is the last thing I want, to be honest.’
The sound of a car door closing sends Marion scurrying down the wooden floor of the hallway, wiping her hands on a tea towel and muttering as she goes.
‘Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting anyone. This is a dead end but maybe it’s someone who’s taken a wrong turn. That happens sometimes.’
I follow her, realising I probably should in case this uninvited guest is some sort of threat, but before she gets to it, the red door opens from the outside and we’re met by a red-haired man with a very impressive matching bushy beard.
He is slightly stooped over, as if he is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and his attire makes me feel like I’m impeccably turned out in comparison.
‘Marion?’
‘Rusty?’
‘What’s going on?’ he asks, walking inside as if he owns the place. I quickly cop on that, actually, he does own the place.
He wears a heavy khaki coat, a blue checked shirt and baggy jeans that have seen better days, but his face, which I’d guess is close to sixty years old, is in a puzzle. He stops dead when he sees me, and then looks at me with a blend of confusion and despair.
‘What on earth areyoudoing here?’ Marion asks him through gritted teeth and a polite fake smile. ‘It’s off season, Rusty!’
‘It’s my cottage – I didn’t think I needed an appointment?’
‘It’sourcottage since we’ve been married for the past thirty odd years,’ she corrects him. I wonder if perhaps they’ve both forgotten I’m here. ‘You never come here unless you’re forced to these days. What’s going on?’
I should maybe excuse myself or else pretend I need the loo or something. This is very awkward. Rusty keeps rubbing his red beard, which up close I notice is flecked with little speckles of silver. With the frosty atmosphere between him and his wife, I’m surprised he has any red hair left at all.
‘I came to check on – erm, I just came to – actually I could ask you the same question, Marion,’ the man continues. ‘What areyoudoing here?’
I’m hugely impressed by his evasion skills.
‘I’m checking in my guest,’ Marion says, tucking her short hair behind her ears again.
‘But we don’t let the cottage out at Christmas.’
‘Yes, yes, I know that, but I’ve made an exception just this once. This is Charlie. He’s a friend of Niall, one of our regulars, not that you’d know any of them, and so I’ve made an exception, just this once. He will be here for Christmas.’
The man’s face twitches, and then all our eyes turn to the window as a third car pulls up outside. I remember I still haven’t let Max out of my own vehicle, so I try to make my way past and rescue him while the two owners sort outwhatever is bugging them, but the man is blocking the doorway like a panting guard dog.
‘There may be aslightproblem with that,’ Rusty says, wringing his hands. ‘You see, I happen to have made the same exception, just this once. I too have booked inmyguest, and she has just arrived.’
‘Yourguest? Rusty!’
‘Well, I didn’t know you were taking a booking over Christmas, did I?’ Rusty answers her quickly under his breath. ‘Maybe if we communicated a little bit more instead of—’
‘No, that’s not good enough,’ says Marion, her own voice rising as his drops. She folds her arms. ‘How dare you go behind my back? This is just typical of you, Rusty Quinn. Typical!’
I hear a car door slam outside as they continue to argue in front of me. Very quickly my therapy tactics kick in and I can’t help but give my tuppence worth.
‘Sorry to interrupt. I know we’ve only just met but it sounds likebothof you have gone behind each other’s back?’ I blurt out. ‘This might be a lack of communication, but it seems to me it’s on both sides.’
Rusty and Marion glare at me then glance in each other’s direction in acknowledgement that this may indeed be true, but I can tell neither one is about to budge. Just at that moment the other guest arrives on the doorstep.
‘Oh, hello again,’ she says to me, looking utterly confused, which now makes four of us. ‘What’s going on? I thought I was meant to keep this a …’
‘Rose?’ says Marion with a look of, to put it mildly, horror. ‘What on earth?’
