Page 27 of My Lemon Grove Summer
I have nowhere to go back to, just Maureen’s if she’ll have me. And I am officially engaged now, even though we haven’t actually . . . We’re a couple, we’re together, and that’s what counts. But will we still be a couple if we go home? Somehow ‘Lennie and Zelda get together and move to Sicily’ seems so much more the story I want for my life, rather than ‘Lennie and Zelda get together, go back to their old jobs and share a house with his mother’.
‘Sorry, looks like you’ll be staying, for a while. Just until the dust settles,’ says Giuseppe. ‘All flights are grounded. Holidaymakers from other parts of the island are stranded. It’s having a wide-reaching effect. So please, make yourselves at home.’
‘But what are we going to do about money?’ Barry says what we’re all thinking.
‘Yes, I was relying on my relocation fee,’ says Ralph.
‘And my credit card is maxed out,’ says Tabitha. ‘Always is these days.’ And suddenly she doesn’t look quite so bright and breezy.
‘I . . .’ Giuseppe tries to come up with an answer, but fails and shrugs in despair. ‘I don’t know what to do. This is all of my making. I brought you here. I feel so responsible. I will make sure you have enough to eat and drink. I have plenty of vegetables in my garden. You are most welcome to anything I have.’
The flights home for us all must have cleaned him out. He’s clearly not a wealthy man. Only one family around here seems to be that, I think angrily. Luca’s family!
‘It’s not your fault, Giuseppe!’ I say, placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘The idea was a brilliant one. We all wanted it. We all wanted to come and be part of this town and help bring it back to life.’
I look around. The others are staring at the floor, where presumably their spirits are. We were all looking for something. We’re having to leave before we could find it.
‘Look, we need to come up with a way of making some cash, just to get us through the next few days – maybe a week if the reports are right. We’re here, in the sun; let’s make the most of the time we have left and use the opportunity to work out what we’re going to do next.’
Tabitha sighs loudly, like a teenager being told she can’t go out.
‘Anyone got any ideas? Any skills?’ I look around. ‘I mean, if I’d had a chance to get out and about, I could have maybe found some second-hand clothes at local markets and sold them online, posted them out.’
Giuseppe shakes his head. ‘You can’t get anything in or out of the island until the dust clears.’
‘I could do cleaning, if anyone wants it?’ pipes up Sherise.
‘And actually, I’m not a bad cook,’ says Ralph.
‘Oh yes, and I can do a full English,’ Sherise adds.
‘I can . . .’ Tabitha thinks hard but doesn’t come up with anything. ‘I could try and write something about our plight, send for help.’
We all look at her.
‘There are hundreds of people in the same boat,’ says Barry. ‘Holidaymakers, tourists, coach parties . . . we’re all stuck here.’
‘That’s it!’ I practically shout, scaring poor Billy.
‘What is?’ Barry asks. ‘We try and leave by boat?’
I shake my head, a smile starting to grow across my face.
‘We can’t leave by boat. The flights from the mainland are still grounded. It’s chaos everywhere. So . . .’ I look around, ‘like Barry said, there’s hundreds of people stuck here. All needing somewhere to stay . . . somewhere not costing an arm and leg. Their holidays are over, they’ll be spent out.’
‘And?’ says Ralph. ‘If they haven’t got money to spend, where’s the business opportunity?’
‘They need affordable bed and breakfast. Not villas for another week, or hotels. They need . . .’ I hold my arms open, ‘this!’
Everyone looks at me blankly.
‘But . . .we’rein this,’ says Barry, slowly looking around the farmhouse.
‘We could make space, clear a couple of rooms, stick them up on Airbnb. Tabitha, you could write a blurb about the setting, in a lemon grove.’ I look out tentatively at the overgrown orchard surrounded by the vicious-looking electric fence. ‘Ralph, you could do some costings, work out what we can charge and how much profit we could make.’
‘Of course,’ says Ralph.
‘Sherise, fancy cleaning the rooms in the barn? There’s two there; they don’t even have to come into the farmhouse other than for dinner and breakfast.’
