and still her hands only just peeked out. It dragged a little on the floor unless Mia hiked it up slightly with the belt from her old dressing gown. The fluffy pink belt clashed with the dark green tartan pattern but it did the job and there was no-one around to care about her bedroom attire.
She scrubbed her face until it glowed before cleaning her teeth vigorously in the hopes of generating a little extra body warmth. She spat and rinsed and then made the mistake of looking in the mirrored doors of the little cabinet above the sink. The problem with short hair, she mused, was that it just never looked good in the morning.
Wetting her hands, she made a vague effort to try and flatten the dark crop into some semblance of order but quickly lost interest. She had another dirty day ahead cleaning out the grate of the fireplace in what would one day become the dining room, so there was no point in more than basic ablutions as she would be filthy in no time.
With no more reason to linger on the little island of material any longer, Mia hurried from the bathroom and down the sweeping staircase that dominated the hallway of the house. She hopped and skipped her way down, well-versed in which of the boards were half rotten and ready to try and capture her foot in their splintery jaws.
Reaching the bottom, she dove on her cosy boots, shoved her freezing feet into their fleecy warmth, and sighed in relief. She scuffed her way into the kitchen, moving by rote as she made a cup of builder’s strength tea and gathered the bucket, brush and other cleaning implements she would need to tackle the fireplace. The worst of the old soot and rubbish had been removed from the grate the day before, but the whole thing was still stained from years of neglect.
Carrying her tea into the dining room, she paused to catch her breath as the view from the French windows caught her, as it did every time. This, this is what made her carry on when she wanted to throw in the towel and give up on the whole idea of running her own guest house. The view spread out before her: across the sad-looking collection of cracked paving in front of the window, through the weed-filled garden and beyond. Windswept dunes rolled down towards the sea. Churned to a murky green by the winter winds, it swelled and undulated like a living beast.
Dark clouds glowered above and the horizon was blurred by mist and rain out to sea. It looked dangerous and utterly captivating. Mia had seen pictures of it taken in the summer looking like a benign, soft blanket of blue edged with white lacy waves. She was determined that in a few months she would be sitting out on the patio in the sunshine with a cold glass of wine in her hand as she watched pleasure boats sailing across that blanket.
Finishing her tea, she ran through a mental list of things she had already achieved as she slowly put the house to rights. The daily exercise had become a motivational lifeline and thinking of the positives helped to offset the mountain of tasks outstanding. ‘One thing at a time, one step forward.’ Muttering the mantra, she turned back to the kitchen to fetch the first of many buckets of hot soapy water.
A couple of hours later, Mia sat back on her ankles and wiped her face on the increasingly dirty sleeve of her dressing gown; it would have to go in the washing machine that night, taking her another wash away from Jamie’s scent. It was a foolish thought; it had long ago stopped smelling of anything other than her fabric softener and, she gave a rueful sniff, her sweat.
The fireplace looked amazing; the enamel panels set into the red brick surround had come to life under her determined ministrations and were now a gentle shade of cream with a riot of colourful butterflies dancing over the deep green vines running up the centre of them. She had scrubbed the bricks with several different brushes so they varied in shade from dark, almost black, to nearly new red brick.
The house had history, had been lived in by many others, and each person who had passed through the front door had left their mark. Mia was determined to retain the lived-in, homely feel lurking beneath the layers of grime.
She climbed to her feet, rotating her hips a little to release some of the stiffness in them from prolonged kneeling at the hearth, and then lifted the bucket of cold, dirty water. Trying not to spill the filthy contents, she lugged it through the house and out into the yard. A large drain sat next to the barn and she’d taken to emptying the contents into it, rather than spoil the old butler’s sink in the kitchen. One last trip and then it was time for a shower.
The toot of a car horn and a brisk call of: ‘Ooh hoo, Mia darling!’ startled her, sending cold water sloshing onto her boots, which whilst soft and warm were not waterproof.
‘Well, shit,’ she said with feeling. Setting the bucket down, she folded her arms across her chest. She loved Madeline, she really did, but it had been a long day and Mia wasn’t in the mood for a gossip. She shrugged off the unkind thought.
Both Madeline and her kind-hearted husband, Richard, were a welcome blessing in her life. They had taken her under their wing from the moment they had called around to welcome Mia to the village and found her a sobbing mess on the front porch. In the front porch was more accurate as her foot had gone straight through the rotten wood and been stuck fast until they rescued her.
With a mixture of kindness, humour and tough love when the situation required it, the older couple were helping to turn the ramshackle house into the guest house she dreamed of. Mia turned her attention back to Madeline as her words filtered through. ‘I’ve brought you a present, darling. Your first of what I am sure will be many guests.’ Madeline disappeared back inside the car although her voice carried clearly across the cold air. ‘Out you get, Daniel, there’s a good boy. Mia will see you right.’
The passenger door swung open and Mia prayed to every god that she had ever heard of for a sinkhole to open and swallow her whole as a broad-shouldered, dark-haired, bearded man uncurled from the car, eyeing her with some trepidation.
Madeline appeared out of the driver’s side, opened the boot and wrestled out a duffel bag nearly as large as she was. She dropped the bag on the ground, swiftly closed the boot, and before Mia could utter a word, the gears of the car crunched forcing the stranger to jump clear to avoid being sideswiped as Madeline spun the car around and disappeared back up the drive with a toot and a wave.
‘Well, shit,’ Mia said again as the situation clearly warranted it, before she picked up the bucket and slopped over to the drain to empty what remained of the water.
‘Umm, Madeline said you run a B&B.’ The man’s voice rumbled pleasantly in his chest and Mia decided she needed to make the best of the situation, if she could only work out what the hell that was.
‘I am hoping to open the house to guests later this year; it’s just taking a little bit longer than I anticipated to put things straight,’ she said, with what she hoped was a confident smile as she skirted around the man. She was ripe and in dire need of a shower.
‘Daniel, is it? Would you like to come in for a cup of tea while I try and find out if somewhere else in the area is open and taking in guests?’ Mia tried to sound more confident than she felt about letting a stranger into her house. It was something she was going to have to get used to and surely Madeline wouldn’t leave her alone with a crazy man?
She continued briskly towards the kitchen door. He would follow or not but she needed to get her feet out of her wet boots before they started to rot or hypothermia set in.
Daniel watched the woman, Mia, disappear through the back door, bucket swinging in hand and a large swathe of her dressing gown dragging along the ground behind her. He supressed a shudder, wondering whether the inside of the house would be as grubby as its owner. He wandered
