The Love Trilogy: Room For Love / An A To Z Of Love / Summer Of Love. Sophie Pembroke
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married there in, like, the seventies, so she thinks it will be better.”
“Well, we’ll just have to convince her the Avalon Inn is superior,” Carrie said, with more confidence than she felt.
“Too right. So, a week on Thursday, then?”
“Definitely. And you’ll all stay over, have dinner at the inn?”
“That would be lovely,” Ruth said. “I cannot wait to get the hell out of Cheshire and camp out at your inn for a couple of days.”
Carrie rang off, and added a few more notes to her list. Then she went to find Cyb. If the family were all having dinner, they were going to need more of that ‘darling china’.
Quickly.
* * * *
“So we’re going to be serving my family and our potential financial saviours dinner on charity-shop plates,” Carrie said, her voice flat, as Cyb picked up more floral-patterned side plates and added them to the growing pile on the counter.
“I thought you said they liked them,” Cyb said, a puzzled look creasing her forehead. She held out a green and blue forest scene dinner plate for Carrie to see. “This one’s very pretty.”
“They’re all pretty,” Carrie admitted, adding the plate to the counter. “I just...”
“Well, where else would we have got so much china on short notice?” Cyb asked, her voice perfectly reasonable. “Really, we were lucky Stan was able to make a deal with the hospice shop in Felinfach. That’s where most of it came from.”
Carrie hadn’t really thought very hard about where the china had appeared from. If she’d been pressed, she’d probably have guessed it was all cluttering up the cupboards of the Seniors and their friends. “What sort of a deal?”
“Oh, he traded in his old sideboard for all the cups and saucers the shop had, and a few other bits and bobs, like the vases.” Cyb selected another plate from the shelves, setting aside a few items of stoneware. She’d explained to Carrie earlier that only china would work. ‘It’s an issue of class perception,’ she’d told her, without further elaboration.
“His sideboard?” It seemed an unusual object to barter with.
“It was his aunt’s,” Cyb said, still leafing through china plates. “Not in terribly good condition, but the hospice should be able to sell it for something, so everybody wins.”
“Except Stan, who’s out a sideboard.” Carrie moved over to look at the discard pile, wondering if she could ascertain what made them unsuitable for the Avalon Inn. She couldn’t.
Cyb shrugged. “He was never very fond of his aunt, anyway.”
Which wasn’t really the point Carrie was trying to make, but it did lessen the guilt a little. “Still, it’s very generous. You’ve all been very kind. And helpful.”
Packing the last plate on top of the teetering To Buy pile, Cyb turned to Carrie and smiled. “Well, you’re Nancy’s granddaughter.”
Carrie tried to return the smile, rather than sighing. Part of her wished they were helping her for other reasons—believing in her plans, for example, or even because they liked or trusted her. But perhaps that would follow in time.
“And you think she’d approve of what I’m doing at the inn?” she asked instead, turning to lift the top half of the stack of plates down to the counter for extra stability. It was an offhand question, and, until Cyb paused before answering, Carrie wasn’t really concerned about what she might say. Because of course Nancy would approve. She’d approve of anything that kept the Avalon alive and Carrie happy. They were the things she cared about most.
But apparently Cyb knew different. “Well...” she said, trailing off again, even after her long pause.
“Speak, Cyb,” Carrie said, losing patience.
Cyb shrugged. “It’s just not the way Nancy would have done it, that’s all.”
Blinking, hard, Carrie said, “Nancy would have done whatever was necessary to save the Avalon.”
“Maybe,” Cyb said with a smile and a shrug, and turned away again. “Shall we start in on soup bowls, now? I don’t think we’ll have so much to choose from, there.”
She was already moving across the charity shop, clearly on a mission, and Carrie could do nothing but follow her.
Carrie waited until they had four mismatched soup bowls before asking, “What do you think Nancy would have done?”
Cyb shrugged again. “What do I know?” she asked, diving into another basket of crockery.
“You knew my grandmother,” Carrie said. “You knew her well. So, what do you think she would have done?” Cyb might act dumb, Carrie had noticed, but she wasn’t as slow about people as she was about facts. And Nate said most of the help the Seniors had provided so far had been Cyb’s idea.
Cyb paused, soup bowl in hand, and sighed. Finally she turned to look at Carrie. “Nancy’s philosophy was If you don’t like it, tough. The Avalon was an extension of herself. She wanted people to love it because of what it was, not to try to change it to suit other people.”
Carrie put down the small pile of soup bowls before she dropped them. “You’re right,” she said, eventually. Because Nancy had never conformed, never changed a thing about herself to make people happy. It used to drive Carrie’s dad up the wall.
Putting her soup bowl on top of the pile, Cyb reached out and brushed her fingers against the sleeve of Carrie’s coat, an oddly comforting gesture. “But that doesn’t mean you’re doing the wrong thing.”
Carrie looked up, sceptical. Because wasn’t that exactly what Cyb had just said? That she wasn’t doing as Nancy had intended, when she left her the inn.
“Nancy was a force of nature,” Cyb went on. “People came to the inn for her personality more than anything else. But she’s gone on now and, sooner or later, the rest of us will be, too. You need to find out what the Avalon Inn will be without us. What you need it to be.”
With a small nod, Carrie returned her attention to the great china hunt. Apparently Cyb wasn’t nearly as daft as she looked. “Thanks.”
Cyb shrugged. “Now. Since we’ve got all that sorted out, I’ve got something to ask you.”
“Anything,” Carrie said, with a helpless gesture.
“What do you think about Stan?”
“Stan?” Carrie echoed, confused.
“Well, more precisely, Stan and me.”
Carrie blinked. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware there was a, well, a Stan and you.”
Cyb waved a hand vaguely, rather closer to the piles of crockery than Carrie was entirely comfortable with. “Oh, neither is he, yet. I’ll tell him when he’s ready.”
“He doesn’t know you’re…in a relationship?” Carrie didn’t really want to think about how that would even work, but morbid curiosity made her ask.
“Well, we’re not yet, of course. But I’ve decided, I think, that it’s a good idea. We’ve both been alone a long time and neither of us can really have all that much longer left. It’s important to make the most of the time we do have, don’t you think?”
“Well, yes,” Carrie said, thinking of Nancy.
“So you agree, then? It’s a good idea?”
“I don’t think it’s really my approval you need, Cyb.”
“Oh, Stan’ll come round, when he’s ready.” Cyb stared off into the middle distance. “I wonder what he’s like in bed.”
And that, Carrie