I was a mess, Lottie. And maybe not someone you wanted to be around.’
There was something is his voice that compelled Lottie to look over her shoulder into his face. This was the young man, so full of hope and dreams.
‘Why do you think that you were such a disaster?’ Lottie replied with a smile, looking into his face. ‘From my experience, most seventeen-year-olds feel that way.’
‘Oh, girl, if you only knew the truth of it.’
Then something shifted in his eyes as though a darker memory had floated up to the surface.
And in that moment the mood changed. His brow was furrowed with anxiety, his mouth moved back to a straight line, and his body almost bristled with tension.
‘Then tell me. Tell me the truth about why you were such a mess, because I really want to know.’
‘That’s one hell of a long story.’
‘Then let’s sit down and look at the college and reminisce together.’ She looked around and spotted an old and not very clean wooden bench, which she covered with Rob’s expensive jacket, liner side up.
‘Ah. This is perfect.’ Lottie shuffled back on the hard seat and folded her hands neatly on her lap.
‘It is June. It’s a relatively warm evening and I am sitting on your jacket, so there is no possible escape. I suggest that you start at the beginning and go from there. That usually works.’
‘Are you sure that you’re not an art critic? Because you are being damn nosy.’
‘One of my terrible character flaws; nothing I can do about it. Once I take an interest in something I have to find out everything there is to know. So fire away. Because I am not going anywhere until I find out why you were so very angry with the world the first day you walked through those doors.’
‘A-ha. So you are interested in me. At last she admits it.’
‘I want to know what kind of family my best friend is getting herself into. So far Sean has been great, but are there skeletons in the Beresford family cupboard which will burst Dee’s bubble? Not going to happen.’
‘Skeletons? Lottie, there is a whole pirate ship of skeletons moored offshore all armed to the teeth and ready and able to cause mayhem at any minute they are released. The problem is most of them are about my side of the family. Not Sean’s.’
‘I don’t understand. Sean told me that your mum and dad get on just fine even though they’re divorced.’
‘They do. I am lucky. Tom Beresford met my mother when he opened up the first Beresford hotel in New York City. She was living a bohemian life in an artists’ colony in the Hamptons most of the year, and holding exhibitions of her work in the city when she needed funds. Well...’ Rob smiled. ‘You’ve seen my mother. Gorgeous, fun, and so talented it’s criminal. I don’t blame my dad for falling for her one little bit. She was even more stunning back then and she must have really adored him to settle in the city. In the end they had six great years in New York before we had to move back to London to open the flagship hotel here. That was when things started to change. It was my mum who decided that she could not tolerate living here.’
‘Did she hate London that much?’
‘Not particularly. It was the sudden change in her routine that she hated. Mum likes her day and her life all laid out, nice and simple and familiar. London was too much, too fast, and she couldn’t get used to it. In the end the only way she could work was to go back to the Hamptons for a couple of months at a time with frequent trips back to London to see me. I was only a toddler so I stayed here with my dad and got used to airports.’
‘That must have been tough. But there are people who lead their whole lives like that. My dad used to boast that one year he spent a grand total of fifteen days sleeping in his own bed. The price of modern life.’
‘It might have worked for your family but it didn’t work for mine. My dad made plans to move back to New York but then my grandparents in Suffolk needed him and Mum was staying away for longer and longer periods...and they simply drifted apart. I was way too young to understand what divorce was and nothing really changed in my life. Until my dad met Sean’s mum. Maria. And for the next ten years I found out what it was like to have a mother who was there every minute of the day when I needed her and who even gave me a brother.’
‘Sean. Of course. You loved Maria. Didn’t you?’
‘Adored her. Oh, I knew that I had a real mother. At birthdays and Christmas the house used to be full of Adele Forrester and her friends and extended family who used to descend like a whirlwind then disappear again for another six months leaving chaos behind them. But that was the way Maria and my dad liked it. Open house. Maria was a very special person and Sean was great. I had a family who were willing to put up with a very confused teenager and help him make some sense of his life and what he wanted to do with it. It was all good. It was too good.’
Rob flicked his arm out in a wide arc towards the trees.
‘And then it was all taken away from me. And I went off the rails. Big time.’
‘Maria. Of course. I am so sorry. Sean told Dee that she had died when he was young.’
‘Unfair. So very, very unfair. One day when Sean is a lot older you might want to ask him about his mother’s life as a refugee fleeing war and destruction. Only to die of cancer in a country where she thought she was safe with a family she loved and loved her right back in return. Because I can’t talk about it without wanting to hit something very hard.’
Rob reached out and nipped off a large leaf from the bush growing behind their heads and slowly tore it into segments with his long, clever fingers as he spoke.
‘You want to know about my skeletons? I was seventeen years old, I had plenty of money and a driving licence, and enough fury and anger in my belly to burn down most of London. And that is precisely what I tried to do. I had grown up in this city and knew precisely where to find trouble and distraction in any shape or form. Drink, girls, gambling, and the kind of people my dad would throw out of his hotel. The whole package. Sometimes I got away with it by being smarter and faster than the other guy. Sometimes I didn’t and I have a police record to prove it. And a few broken bones along the way. My nose was a different shape then.’
‘What did your dad do? He must have been frantic and scared for you.’
‘The best he could. He was grieving and lost. Sean was desolate. And I was out of control and heading downhill faster than he could apply the brakes.’
‘How did you pull back from that life to find your way to catering college?’
‘The hard way. I woke up one morning in the bed of a girl whose name I couldn’t even recall and I must have had twenty messages on my mobile phone. All asking me to get back to the house. My mum had got herself into a mess in Thailand. And I mean a mess. Three hours later I was on a plane to Bangkok.’
Rob exhaled long and slow. ‘I had heard the words nervous breakdown but nothing could have prepared me for the emotional wreck I found in a Bangkok psychiatric unit. Her latest lover had stolen everything she had and left her broke and alone in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t the first time that had happened but this was the worst. But she was lucky. One of the other artists on the retreat was worried about her and sent out a search party. They found her on the beach the next day. Crying. Distraught. Irrational and terrified of anyone touching her or coming near her. It was one of the worst twenty-four hours of my life.’
‘Oh, Rob. That’s horrific. For both of you.’
‘I made her a deal. It was very simple. I promised that if she came back to London with me and got some medical help for her problems, then I would take care of her. I would go to college and get the qualifications I needed to run the hotel kitchens. Sober and clean, a hardworking little drone. And that is what I did. I poured all of that bitter anger and fury at Maria’s death into my work.’
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