Phillipa Ashley - Christmas on the Little Cornish Isles - The Driftwood Inn

‘All the more reason to have a fresh face around the place, eh?’

For me, thought Maisie, but maybe not for you.

‘That flyer had been up so long the sun had almost faded the words away. You need someone urgently and from what I hear, staff are in short supply on Gull Island. I can help you in the pub and kitchen but I can also help you in other ways.’

His eyes twinkled. Maisie went all shivery. ‘Such as?’ she said, as prim as a maiden aunt.

Undeterred, Patrick pointed at the pub. ‘I could help your dad re-slate that roof and paint the woodwork that’s peeling off. The place will need a new coat of render before spring by the look of it and that terrace furniture needs re-varnishing. Your dad’s not been too well, I hear, so perhaps he could do with a hand.’

The Driftwood Inn sign creaked in the wind. The seagull picture was so weathered it might have been a penguin and the lettering was starting to dissolve. Maisie pursed her lips but her stomach did a flip. She’d winced when she’d seen her dad struggling with the roof earlier and she knew her mum was worried sick. Everything Patrick said made sense. Too much sense, so why was she hesitating? She desperately tried to get a grip and think rationally about the situation.

‘OK. I accept you have experience and we do need some practical help around the place as well as in the Inn but I don’t know anything about you. I only learned your name five minutes ago. If I’m to take you on, it’s only fair that I interview you properly and check all the paperwork’s in order.’

‘Fine. Is now a good time?’

‘As good as any as you’re not going anywhere in a hurry.’

Patrick held out his hand to let her walk ahead of him across the terrace. ‘Bring it on, then.’

Maisie gave him six weeks tops. Less if the weather was particularly crappy over the autumn. He’d definitely be gone before her mum had made the Christmas cake. She led the way into the pub and suggested he take a seat in the far corner while she collected some paperwork and her tablet.

What have I done? What the chuffing heck have I done ? she thought, her inner voice nagging at her like a stroppy toddler. He’d make a great barman but he’d also have the female population of the island falling at his feet, not to mention some of the guys. And while he’d doubtless be very handy to have around, he might also prove an unwanted distraction to her while she was trying to run the place and get ready for Christmas and get a hundred-and-one jobs done over the off-season.

She had to remind herself that she hadn’t actually given him the position yet. She was in control, she had to remember that, whatever the outcome of the next half-hour.

Patrick dumped his pack on the floor while Maisie went through to the tiny back room next to the kitchen that served as an office-cum-staffroom. She could just make out her dad wheeling a barrow through the archway at the rear of the garden that led to another allotment where there was a glasshouse and her mum’s flock of chickens. It was just as well that her parents were safely out of the way for a little while at least. She didn’t want an audience while she interviewed Patrick, and she wanted to make up her own mind about him.

The advantages of taking on Patrick McKinnon were obvious: he’d draw in what scant custom there was and, she was sure, he’d work hard and long hours. He was the answer to her dreams, in so many ways, and that’s what bothered her most. Setting aside the fact that she fancied the faded jeans off him, it was too good to be true that an attractive, personable and experienced Australian barman had rocked up at the arse end of nowhere just when she needed a personable and experienced barperson.

Maisie found her tablet, a notebook and pen and tried to focus on the questions she’d usually ask her potential staff for the Driftwood. Patrick, she reminded herself, was no different and deserved no special treatment. If he didn’t tick all her boxes, he could be on his way back to St Mary’s or wherever. This was business now.

‘OK,’ said Maisie, returning to the table and putting her iPad and notebook down. ‘Before we go any further, I have to ask you this. Why do you want to lock yourself away for six months here when you could be enjoying the sun in Australia? I hate to ask it, but why are you here at all?’

Patrick smiled. ‘Now, that,’ he said, ‘is the question I’ve been asking myself for the past ten minutes.’

‘I’m not going to answer it for you,’ she said with a smile.

‘You don’t have to. Until half an hour ago, I was going back to Melbourne. Although that’s not strictly true. I’ve had a mind to stay on here ever since I set foot on the isles. I came over to London a week ago with the intention of having a working holiday.’

‘Funny time to come here, the end of October.’

‘A mate told me there would be a lot of seasonal bar work going, with the festive season coming up. I believe it starts at Easter over here.’ He grinned.

‘It’s crazy,’ said Maisie. ‘Christmas cards in the shops in August …’ She realised she was agreeing with him too readily. No matter what had gone on between them before, this was meant to be an interview. ‘I can see why you’d want some work in London, where there are tons of jobs at Christmas, and I can even possibly understand why you’d want to be here when the weather’s crap, but why would you want to stay on Gull Island itself?’

He sighed. ‘I’ll be honest with you. I could have got a job in London just like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘And earned a lot more money, but it’ll be a nice change to get out of the city, even a city like Melbourne.’

‘Why did you leave your last bar in Melbourne?’ she asked, still unconvinced. ‘Did they let you go?’

He smiled. ‘They didn’t let me go as in sack me. I’m on a sabbatical as you’ll find out if you take up my references.’

‘ When ,’ she said. ‘I will be taking them up, I can promise you. If I take you on. How many busy city bars can afford to let their managers have a sabbatical?’

He nodded. ‘It does sound fishy, I agree. I can see I’m going to have to be straight with you.’

Maisie’s hackles rose at his flippant reference to telling the truth. ‘I won’t stand for an ounce of bullshit, let’s get that straight from the start.’

‘Well, it’s a long and boring story …’

Maisie folded her arms and firmed up her tone. ‘Why don’t you try me?’

Patrick held her gaze, but she refused to flinch. He could try it on all he liked but she had to show him who was boss from the start and she wouldn’t be fazed by any diversion tactics, however much they might make long-dead feelings stir, deliciously, low in her belly.

‘There was this bloke … let’s call him a special mate …’

The penny dropped in Maisie’s brain with a loud ‘kerching’. Damn it, how had she not realised before? A bloke, a ‘special mate’. Patrick was gay and running away to Gull from a wrecked relationship, just like herself. That relationship just happened to be with a man.

Argh. Maisie kicked herself for her naivety in assuming that he was straight and fancied her. She smiled encouragingly at him, rueing her presumption.

‘I see,’ she said.

Patrick frowned as if he couldn’t see why or what Maisie ‘saw’ at all. ‘Do you?’

‘Yes, I mean, no. Sorry to interrupt you. Please carry on.’

‘This bloke, Greg is – was – a good friend of mine. A very good friend, you could say …’

Maisie arranged her face into sympathetic-good-listener mode. She felt sorry for him, having to explain himself, and perhaps she should tell him now that his personal life was none of her business unless it related directly to his work.