ever sceptical, had never stood for what she used to call Dora’s ‘nonsense’ back then. Even now, at the ripe old age of eighty-nine, she was a still force to be reckoned with. When Dora had been a young girl she’d been spirited, too, and not quite as respectful of her mother as she had been of her father, when he’d been alive. She’d never questioned anything he’d said or done. Didn’t need to. His word had been king. Not that there was ever anything to judge him by or criticise him of. He’d been one of those exemplary people whom everyone looked up to: staff, customers, his children and wife. And he’d done very well for his family.
***
Her father, Martin, as her mother liked to tell everyone, came out of his mother’s womb, ‘knowing what was what from the get-go!’ A shrewd businessman, all his business deals turned to gold, which meant his family would never want for anything in life.
Even as a boy, he’d been at his happiest selling things like his brother’s old bike or an old chest of drawers from their garage while his parents were out shopping. And when he’d left school with few qualifications, Martin had worked in an auctioneer’s, doing what he’d always liked doing best – buying and selling. He’d beavered away, saving up all his commission and wages, with his heart set on buying cheap decrepit old buildings in the right location, and turning them into profitable themed accommodation, one by one.
By being in the industry he found out where all the best places, for the best prices, were. So by the time he’d got married to Yvonne and long before they’d started their family, he’d procured four properties and turned them into Hen & Stag Hotels, sited just outside London. They became incredibly popular and did a humongous trade because of Martin’s relaxed attitude to the clientele’s private enjoyment of the Jacuzzis and other raucous entertainment, setting the scene for riotous but very profitable behaviour.
And once they’d settled into their enviable lifestyle with a big house overlooking the sea, they’d had their kids. Stuart first, followed by Dora, possibly a little late in life. Then with Yvonne’s insistence Martin did an about-turn and purchased another property which, between them, they turned into their Arts & Crafts Hotel in the Cotswolds. They aimed for a different clientele, offering mid-week inclusive breaks for Painting and Drawing or Photography for Beginners, as well as weekend courses of Basket Weaving or Jewellery Making: Beads, Bracelets and Clasps.
It seemed Martin’s magic touch could do no wrong within the industry of themed entertainment. All his properties were highly profitable and constantly packed to the rafters. Martin’s dynamism had set his family up for life.
‘And the “B” plan – if it doesn’t work out, guys – is that we’ll become property developers and turn the ruddy lot into flats or houses and make our fortunes that way!’
But it had never come to that. Updating his properties whenever necessary meant they hadn’t fallen victim to changes of trend. So they all had jobs for life. Dora’s brother, Stuart, married but with no children, was the manager of the themed hotels; her father was overall sales and marketing director and her mother, even up until very recently, had headed up the bookkeeping and bookings team.
As a teenager, Dora had reluctantly done stints as a waitress and chambermaid in the hotels during the school holidays, at her mother’s insistence to gain a bit of what she called ‘real-life experience’ rather than swanning around spending the family’s fortune, as her father would’ve had her doing. Dora had certainly been a daddy’s girl, and her father had doted on his precious daughter. He certainly wouldn’t have had her paling at the sight of vomit in the Hen & Stag Hotel bathrooms that she’d had to clear up, her mother standing over her with a bucket of hot soapy water, when Dora first started working there. But he wouldn’t have sided with his daughter against his wife, either.
‘We have to teach her some responsibility and life skills, Martin. She has to learn that life isn’t always about spa days and holidays in Florida,’ her mother had pointed out, as Martin slipped his daughter a couple of crisp £20 notes for her troubles.
At odds with her mother, Dora finally left the family home; left a hated secretarial job and dumped her two-timing fiancé at age twenty-six, to travel Europe and America, refinancing her travels with bar work or nannying whenever she felt like it. She never settled anywhere or with anyone for too long; slumming it on Californian beaches with sun-bleached surfers or bedding down with arty types around the theatre scene in Paris and generally having the time of her life, whilst she tried to decide what she should be doing. It was a far cry from the constraints of family life in Hampshire, even though she didn’t have to want for much in her family’s luxurious surroundings.
Back then, however, even though Dora still didn’t know what she wanted out of life she realised she wanted to live her life on her own terms. Not her parents’ terms.
‘Secretarial and hotel work is simply not for me,’ she’d told her best friend Jodie, who’d repeatedly asked what Dora was going to do next in life, each time her current foreign boyfriend dumped her.
‘But don’t you want to come back and settle down at some point, hon? We could have so much fun again!’ Jodie pleaded.
‘But they want me to work in our hotels and it’s just not what I want. My mother won’t let up about it. She says it’s where I belong.’
So Dora continued to kick back at what her parents wanted for her by staying away and living as freely as she pleased. However, her father’s first stroke – which, fortunately, didn’t kill him – had seen her running back to the family fold. Dora had missed her father. She hugged him while their tears mingled as he held her tightly, forgiving everything, pleased she was finally home.
‘I’ve missed you so much,’ they both spluttered.
His health scare had, however, made him reassess his life and he’d called a family meeting to discuss the pressures of running their family businesses and the toll it was taking on everybody, not just himself.
‘I mean, aren’t we doing this so we can have a good life? We don’t want to be killed off too early because of it,’ said her father, convalescing, afterwards. ‘And I think I need to change my tune about you now, Dora. You’re what? Bloody hell! You’re thirty-two and still single? Your mother is right, princess, it’s high time you took on a bit more responsibility. You’ve enjoyed a carefree life for years. But we need some help, here. Your mum’s seventy-one, even though she doesn’t look it and even though she’s still got plenty of get up and go in her. But she should’ve retired by now. Heck! We both should’ve retired by now. I’m seventy-four.’
‘But, Dad!’ Dora had started to pout and then got a ‘quit whining’ look from her brother, Stuart.
‘Leave it out, sis,’ said Stuart. ‘You’ve had a cracker of a life so far. But back to reality. This is what’s real!’
‘Your brother’s right, Dora,’ her mother snapped. ‘So we’re getting the staff together and putting some new priorities in place. You’re not tied to anyone and you don’t have kids or a husband anywhere we should know about, do you? Don’t pull that face. You never tell us anything. That’s why I’m asking. No? Right, so therefore you’ve got no particular reason to go running back to wherever it is you hang out these days – Spain, did you say?’
Dora had stared sullenly at the patterned carpet and took hold of her father’s hand.
‘I don’t want you to die, Daddy.’
Stuart had scowled at her but her father had drawn her into a long hug.
