Sex, Lies & Crazy People. John Hickman
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“We’re competing with Gatwick Airport,” Beau said. “Wow! You’ll see us from
London, hell, even the Moon.”
Now for the daytime attraction; Dad had blue and white striped awnings erected over our entrance steps and above the adjacent bay windows. He stood back to admire his
handiwork.
“Passing trade will find us now night or day.”
Inside the redecorated and refurbished hotel, which retained its Victorian splendour, pleased everyone’s senses.
“Outside remains a work in progress for after we’ve made our first million pounds,” Dad smiled. Then he became serious. “Our new polished vestibule front doors, the ones with the imported inlaid decorative glass, are hardly ever swinging inwards.”
“Other than the postman dropping mail twice daily, and once on Saturday mornings, you’re right, Dad. No-one else ventures in.”
Dad looked worried. “What more can I do?”
Chapter 9
Bogged Down – S.O.S
Dad looked desperate. His nerves were at breaking point. Panic showed in his eyes. “We’ve been open now for a whole three weeks. Bills are mounting and we haven’t enough guests to paddle a canoe. I feel like Errol Flynn trying to reconcile his gross habits with his net
income.”
I was perplexed. Dad had supported me growing up as surely as Prometheus the
Titan, in Greek mythology had shaped man from clay. And why not? Ex-Lancaster bomber pilot, WW2 hero, genuine and honest, my dad. Had he asked me to knit him wings to fly, I would only have asked, what colour? But I had no ideas how to help him fill the
hotel, quickly.
Dad groaned. “It’s pretty evident the flood-lights and striped window canopies are not enough.” He paused and relit his pipe. “As customers aren’t coming to us, I’ll have to go and get them. It’s a case of Mohammed and the mountain.” He sighed. “I’ll call on the local business people to try and drum up some business.”
Frocked up in his pinstripe London suit, dress shirt and RAF necktie he certainly looked the part.
From one end of town to the other he promised ad nauseam, “Please, come and view the Harewood Hotel.” And then the clincher, “Bring your family. Drinks, even cocktails and canapés are on the house.”
Gran looked worried. “I’m no good at this up market stuff. What’s involved with these canapés?”
“Finger foods are easy, Mother. Even John can take care of it.” Dad turned to me. “You don’t need to be a patisserie chef to put something edible on a cocktail stick or sit a cube of cheese astride a biscuit.”
“Amen, to that,” I said with evident sarcasm.
Soon a steady stream of visitors came to view the new, old, Harewood Hotel.
Dad created guest lists. “We’ll fete them according their size and style of business and what might be derived from their friendship and support.”
Lists in hand he leaned into the kitchen. I looked up from opening a stubborn tin of
sardines. He appeared excited, pipe in hand, his salesman’s beam directed at me. “Those cocktail sausages went down a fair treat. I’ll need another plate. And more gherkins, and more cheese, and more sardine thingies.”
“It’s turning into quite a party,” said a worried Gramps.
“It’s not a party, Father. We’re not enjoying ourselves. This is work.”
“Looks like a party to me, Son,” Gran snorted from the washing up sink.
“Yes, a group of people we don’t know, standing around drinking our grog, and
eating our food. Pretty well sounds like a party to me, too,” Gramps scowled.
Dad reappeared. He looked even more excited than before. “And olives; plain and stuffed.”
“Poor bloody, Olive,” Gran said, “hasn’t she been stuffed about enough?”
Despite my grandparents’ concerns it wasn’t long before faces we recognised came back for a second and third time. And more importantly they paid. Dad soon had enough money in the kitty to pay the more pressing bills.
“At last we’re on the up, and up,” Dad declared at the end of the month.
The effect of his words on my grandparents was euphoric. Gramps added a kick to his step while Gran rallied in the kitchen without her usual sulks. With Pandy at her side
twiddling the knobs, together they regulated our gas a fair treat.
Kitchen wise Dad fared worse than me as he didn’t have the smallest clue. “At times I wonder if he knows anything at all about kitchens, Gramps,” I pondered aloud. “He really doesn’t have the faintest idea you know.”
Gramps chuckled. “You’re right. He’s not quite on the same pond as the other ducks yet.”
“When he drapes a lettuce leaf across an empty plate it’s a light salad in progress,”
I replied flippantly.
“Normally he’d give the lettuce leaf his middle finger. Then hurl it in the bin and not bother. In your dad’s new world an uncut tomato or a hunk of cheese might herald a
Mediterranean flavour in the offing,” Gramps added. “Come to that if pressed, he might even open a can of something and reheat.”
“Anything but actually cook, you mean?”
“Yes. What he needs are hotel guests who don’t want to eat anything.”
“He’d prefer to go hungry than prepare a meal himself,” Gran sighed. “He’s always been that way.”
When Dad was able to steer well clear of the kitchens his spirits visibly soared.
“Courtesy of your Gran we have inviting kitchen aromas this morning.” Dad lifted his chin and did an exaggerated sniff that reminded me of the old Bisto gravy advertisements ‘Ah! Bisto’ . “Bacon frying at breakfast, onions browning in a pan from about mid morning. Guaranteed to stir anyone’s digestive juices.” Dad beamed his pleasure. “Well done, Mother. It’s the edible equivalent of an orchestra tuning up. How’s about the simmer of a mild curry later in the day?”
“I don’t do curries.”
“Why not, Gran?” Pandy asked.
“Better ask your Gramps.”
Gramps was thoughtful. “They’re too hot going down, and even hotter on the way out, that’s why, Sweetheart.”
Pandy giggled.
“But I did say mild, Mother.”
“Mild or not, it’s like having a Bunsen burner in your knickers,” Gran was thoughtful for a moment, “but I’ll do liver and bacon, instead.”
When we were without guests it was only family being enticed by Gran’s smell-a-vision. Dad considered heady beckoning aromas like fresh bread baking to attract more trade but that was frowned on by Gran. When she saw the direction Dad was headed, she
panicked, and Gran being our only cook, meant we adopt an instant policy of buying-in fresh bread. We were about to move on when Gran intervened. “But not that new fangled sliced bread. You can’t use that.”
I was dumbfounded. “Why not?”
“Because it’s not as good and fresh as uncut bread,” Gran explained, “at home Gramps always cuts whole loaves with our bread knife.”