The Extra Guest Part 2

 The following day Myrrnah slept till late but was woken abruptly by the telephone.

‘Well, of course, we never liked him, dear.’ Myrrnah sensed an unspoken ‘Yes!’ at the other end of the line and her mother’s thumb, raised in triumph. There was little attempt to hide her relief – or disdain, hearing that David had left. ‘However,’ she continued airily, giving her daughter no time to elaborate, ‘we have a suggestion for you. Your father and I are taking off for six months or so. So, why not come back to Brighton and run Langton’s while we’re away?’ Myrrnah – who knew the business as well as they did – would be their new manager.

But I never do go back, Myrrnah reasoned privately then suddenly she remembered the child with the bowl. What if this wasn’t really going back at all – but moving on? She remembered Sally’s words too: ‘You should open a restaurant. Something different, with a twist,’ and pictured the Brighton hotel’s rather dated dining room, transformed. There was, she mused, so much she could change.

Time passed; six months became five years and the Langtons, happy to leave things in their daughter’s hands, retired. The drab old dining room had soon become The Extra Guest, a stylish eating place known for its imaginative cuisine, and the little seaside hotel quickly doubled its bookings.  Each summer Lupin Mc.Innery came to stay and would often recall, a little wistfully, The White Hart, and how much she had missed its curious but alluring human presence. And often, Myrrnah would have a dream in which she was searching for something she’d lost. She would embark on long journeys to unfamiliar places, driven on by a sense of loss, until at last her dream led her to The Gallery where the Hart appeared, clear as day, in the window. Thereupon, having gone inside to buy it for her friend, she always awoke with a thrill.

And now ten years on, she was back in Hartridge once more. Puzzled by the portrait of the woman in pink, she strolled back into town, bought a coffee and panini in the Ambergate Arms where she unfolded her newspaper and spread it across the table:

Myrrnah Langton is here to promote her latest cookbook ‘The Extra Guest.’ It highlights a new trend in ‘ethical dining,’ initiated at her Brighton hotel. Ms. Langton encourages her diners to pay for an extra place setting (or ‘extra guest’) and proceeds go to combat poverty in the undeveloped world. £0.5 million have been raised so far and schools built in several African villages. The scheme has now been taken up by restaurants and bars throughout the U.K.

It was a full-page article with colour photographs of the newly painted hotel and smiling school-children, neatly uniformed; and there, in the middle of it all, herself. She felt a sudden surge of affection – almost love – for the woman in the publicity picture. Shyly displaying her new book, her eyes were bright enough but behind the closed smile was a certain buried loneliness. There had been no-one since David, no-one in ten years, for how else would she have done all this? A successful hotel, a collection of cookbooks and a thriving charity had left no room for anything else. She refolded the newspaper and glanced at her watch. The book signing – she had almost forgotten and Lupin would already be there, waiting and wondering what had delayed her.

She hurried back to The Gallery for one more glimpse of the woman in pink. But the portrait was no longer there, only an empty easel. It was, she felt, rather like looking in a mirror and finding no reflection; she had suddenly ceased to exist. For those few moments outside The Gallery the woman in pink had become an extension of her self – and perhaps more than that: a promise of things to come.

‘I noticed a portrait here earlier.’  She pointed to the empty easel and hoped that the girl at the counter hadn’t spotted the likeness. Her neck reddened but the girl was busy, tidying the counter.

‘Woman in Love? It’s not for sale?’

‘And who is the artist?’ Myrrnah persisted, emboldened by curiosity. She pretended to study a collection of Fine Art postcards on a nearby rack.

‘Miss Trostin? The owner?’ Annoyingly the girl made everything she said sound more like a question.

Myrrnah imagined her Miss Trostin; an elderly lady most likely with a talent for water colours.

‘I see.’ She hesitated. It was clearly all a coincidence and anyway, time was now short. ‘In any case, I was looking for something quite different. I was told you might have it here.’ She lied – she was, after all, only here on the strength of a stupid old dream – and began to describe the white deer with human eyes. Feeling foolish, she took a postcard at random from the rack, searched in her purse for some change and waited for the girl’s response, afraid suddenly that she might actually say yes.

Frowning, the girl opened her order book and ran her finger down several pages. Finally she shook her head. ‘The White Hart? No luck, I’m afraid?’

A current of air from an overhead fan cooled Myrrnah’s cheeks. Unsure whether it was relief or disappointment, she reached falteringly into her bag to call Lupin then remembered she had left the phone in the car.

‘Miss Trostin did have it here once?’ the girl murmured as an afterthought but Myrrnah was already through the door. ‘For quite a while, maybe?’

Lupin was already outside the book shop where quite a queue had formed for Myrrnah’s latest recipes. Later, every copy sold and signed, they wandered back to her car, debating whether to stop for supper at the Ambergate Arms or take a leisurely drive back to Brighton and arrive before dark.  The mobile phone on the passenger seat displayed six missed calls, two voicemails and an impatient text from the hotel receptionist: Tried you several times. Please return urgently – half the staff down with ‘flu.

Suddenly The Gallery was forgotten and as they set off hastily for her annual visit to the sea, Lupin spread out a handful of cards on her lap.

‘I have a good feeling about today all the same,’ she confided, selecting The Wheel of Fortune. ‘After all, the best things always happen when least expected. It’s a good omen for us both, I’m sure.’

They arrived an hour before opening to find Langton’s in chaos. With three staff ill and the sous-chef sneezing violently, Lupin prepared the tables while Myrrnah grabbed an apron and set to work in the kitchen. Soon she was interrupted by the girl from reception.

‘Excuse me, Ms. Langton, but there’s someone at the desk insisting that you see him now. I’ve told him you’re busy but he just won’t go away.’ Myrrnah wiped her hands on her apron and followed her into the hall.

A distinguished looking man carrying two large packages was waiting at the desk. His hair was dark and he wore an elegant suit and well-polished shoes. ‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘Do you happen to have room for an extra guest?’

‘I’m sorry, sir.’ She smiled professionally and ran a finger down the list of rooms. ‘We’re a little short-staffed today but I can find you a room for tomorrow.’

His face lit up. ‘You don’t remember me at all, do you? I’m Richard Austen from The Gallery. It seems our journeys have crossed today.

His smile was a searchlight.

‘So, you’re Miss Trostin?’ Myrrnah said, mimicking the girl in the gallery. Then she laughed, remembering the scruffy angel at the party, unrecognizable now with his smart suit and tidy hair. ‘And you’re really the new owner?’

He nodded. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

Myrrnah hesitated, taking in his golden skin and inviting smile. He would certainly impress the guests. ‘I don’t suppose you’d like a little job for the evening, would you, Richard? I guess we could always find you somewhere to stay.’

‘Well, why not?’  He had begun to unwrap one of his packages but changed his mind and asked if they could be placed somewhere safe for a while. ‘These can wait till later, I think.’

‘Well,’ said Myrrnah, locking up as the last of the diners left. ‘Shall we eat?’ She set a place in the empty restaurant for herself and Lupin and their unexpected extra guest. ‘Let’s open a bottle of something special.’

Richard had collected his two packages and began once more to un-wrap them. He removed a canvas from the first and leaned it against their table. The woman in pink looked back, poised and untroubled by love.

‘I’d better explain. This is how I saw you at Phil’s – not as you were then of course, but as you will become one day.’

He had worked painstakingly from the little New Year’s Day photograph and, as the years passed, the portrait had changed, become gradually older but curiously more beautiful. ‘She’s taken ten years to finish and I reckoned now was the time you should have it.’

Before she had time to thank him he was un-wrapping the other package and soon he revealed another canvas. ‘I found this in the Oxfam shop, soon after you left. I mended the frame and I rather think it inspired me to paint you. Now the portrait’s done it seems time to pass it on.’For a moment it seemed that the White Hart had actually winked.

Myrrnah filled their glasses and proposed a toast. (He was, she had to admit, a complete angel; and a rather presentable waiter too): ‘To Richard, our extra guest!  Lupin, your heart is in the right place at last, the book is selling well and we’ve made enough here this month to build another classroom.’ And it seems perhaps I’ve learned to love myself too, she smiled, if Richard’s portrait is anything to go by.

‘You love all this, don’t you?’ Richard Austen observed.

‘Oh yes,’ she answered. ‘It’s my passion – just as painting is yours, I suppose.’

‘No Myrrnah dear – not painting!’ Lupin teased when they were alone. ‘Not by that look on his face.’

‘Rubbish – he hardly knows me.’ She protested but her apricot cheeks had ripened a little.

‘He’s just spent ten years getting to know you, silly girl. Remember The Wheel of Fortune? The best things happen when least expected,’ said Lupin, carrying The White Hart to her room.

‘Give it time.’

(The Story behind) The Extra Guest

Part 1

Myrrnah Langton cleared her throat as the call went onto voicemail. ‘I’ll be a little late – just an hour or two, no more.’ She dropped the phone onto the passenger seat, relieved that she wouldn’t have to explain her delay, and gathered her things from the back of the car. ‘This is it, girl,’ she told herself. ‘You’re here. No bottling it now.’

She took a long breath, holding it close as if reluctant to let it go. A sigh followed – an intonation of such bleak resignation that it took her by surprise. No-one had forced her to come after all.

The phone rang the moment she left the car. She glanced back at the passenger seat where it lay and paused, her key ring looped over one finger. If she went back now she might change her mind, drive off without finding what she had come for. In any case she didn’t believe in going back; it was a rule she had lived by for years.

Ignoring the phone she crossed the main street and stopped at a kiosk to buy a local paper. Celebrity Cook Returns to Hartridge, the headline announced. Book-signing today. Close by, a signboard in the shape of an arrow advertised a gallery. She walked briskly in the direction of the arrow, fanning her face with the newspaper. There was still time to get to the book-signing. She could see the gallery ahead of her now, at the end of a row of half-timbered cottages. It was a still day, hot and airless, and she stumbled a little on the cobbles, slowed down by her narrow skirt and high heels. She smiled nervously, aware suddenly that she had broken her own rule. After ten years away she had, at last, returned to Hartridge.

Upstairs the gallery windows were wide open; faded curtains hung undisturbed by any breeze and baskets of parched lobelias drooped in the midday sun. The shop, now under new management, was closed for lunch. There was a card in the window advertising a vacancy for a part-time assistant. Reading it Myrrnah caught her own reflection in the glass; a graceful girl, with well-cut hair and serious eyes; in the heat her cheeks had taken on the colour of ripe apricots.

She searched the display anxiously, eyes darting from one canvas to another, desperate to find there what she had come for. Tiny hedgerows in enormous mounts, scenes of foxhounds and horses and an extravagant painting of lilies in a china pot: nothing. She sighed and loosened her jacket. It really was unbearably hot. Her blouse was damp and sticky on her back.

Undeterred, she shaded her eyes and peered further into the gallery’s dark interior. A girl was reading at the counter, unaware of her presence and nearby, beneath a small spotlight, sat a woman of perhaps sixty-five. She appeared serene and unaffected, a pink cardigan thrown carelessly about her shoulders. Tiny hearts decorated the low scoop of her neckline and at her throat hung a small silver locket, also heart-shaped, which had fallen open to reveal a miniature self-portrait. Although no longer slender, the woman had a contented poise. As though no longer troubled by love, Myrrnah wondered; a compensation for lost youth perhaps.

It was an accomplished painting, almost life-size. She narrowed her eyes. Careful brushstrokes revealed little lines and folds, shadows where the eyes had sunk. But there was also something oddly familiar about her, a sense of having met her somewhere, of some shared experience. And then it struck her: the woman in pink, though so much older, had the same serious eyes and apricot cheeks as her own. This is me, she marveled, in another thirty years, a plumper me with features that have begun to droop and hair that is no longer sleek.

Just then a siren pierced the stillness; with a single stroke it cut the day in half. For someone, somewhere that sound would signal the end of life as they knew it. Just as it had, for her, ten years ago…

They had been standing at the entrance to The Gallery, gazing blankly at the display. ‘Let’s go in,’ Myrrnah said, glancing up at the flat above, where a cloud of smoke escaped from the open window. ‘Lydia’s obviously having trouble with lunch.’

It was New Year’s Day and a small crowd of guests squeezed past them, armed with flowers and bottles of wine.

David Langton was staring into the distance. ‘Myrrnah, I’m leaving.’ Just at that moment a siren sounded and an ambulance turned into the cobbled street, its lights flashing. As it passed Myrrnah placed a hand on her chest, realising that for someone somewhere, things would never be the same again.

‘But you can’t. Philip will expect us.’ Silent now, the siren still echoed in her heart.

David stared down at his shoes. One of the laces, she noticed, had come untied. ‘Myrrnah, I really can’t do this. I’m leaving Hartridge.’

Lupin Mc.Innery had warned her about him from the start. They were unlikely friends, Lupin being twice her age, but she was very wise in her own eccentric way. She read the Tarot and was keen to give advice, especially where love was concerned. Her house was filled with obscure old volumes on dusty shelves, huge lumps of crystal and framed reproductions of Dali and Magritte.

‘He’ll be off, you’ll see,’ Lupin pronounced one day and selected a card from her pack. ‘Death!’ She crowed, waving the card before Myrrnah’s eyes as proof of her judgment. Then, seeing her concern, added: ‘But you will find love.’ She paused mysteriously then began a lengthy discourse on courtly love and the medieval tradition of pursuing the beloved. ‘Remember, never go hunting the hart.’ She tapped her chest softly. ‘Instead of looking for love, first be in love with yourself!’

Myrrnah looked up and noticed a new painting on Lupin’s wall. A white deer with startlingly human eyes stood out from the collection of prints. It was quite old and in a broken frame, its surface cracked, and it looked quite out of place with all the other pictures. It had come from an old aunt, thought to be mad, and passed down through the generations. Although intriguing at first it was not, as it turned out, an easy companion to live with: for there was nothing the White Hart missed, nothing those searching eyes did not see! It seemed, Lupin said, to draw everything to the surface, each secret thought, each hope, each uncomfortable memory. But seeing it, meeting it, there today, Myrrnah felt unusually happy, as though the hart had spotted her and was determined to stick around. She stepped from one side to the other but wherever she turned The Hart went too, following her every movement; and unaware, it seemed, of its own imminent fate. For soon the painting would be gone, stuffed into a box of paperbacks destined for Oxfam, something that Lupin would regret in the years to come. The hart’s image was, in any event, already etched in Myrrnah’s heart.

Outside the gallery she watched the back of David’s head as he walked away then turned mutely and went inside. At the back of the gallery a scruffy young man in enormous boots was cutting mounts. Hearing her enter he looked up from his work and smiled broadly. For a moment she stood perfectly still, caught in the searchlight of that extraordinary smile. He had rather golden skin, suggesting that he had caught the sun even though it was winter, and spiky blond hair that was black at the crown. As he returned to his work a pretty girl with cropped hair burst in through the door and, with a brief wave to Myrrnah, threw her arms around the boy.

‘Sal!’ The boy’s face lit up again.

Sally’s boyfriend has the face of an angel, Myrrnah thought, climbing the stairs to the flat above. She paused on the landing and watched the young friends in the gallery below. They were clearly untroubled by love.

‘So who’s the woman with the serious face?’ the angel murmured.

‘Oh that’s only Myrrnah,’ the girl replied. ‘Uncle Dave’s missus.’

The guests had assembled in a low-ceilinged room where Philip’s paintings filled the walls: bold abstracts and some loving but unflattering studies of his wife in handsome frames.

‘So where’s that twin brother of mine then?’ Philip greeted Myrrnah with a glass of wine in his hand. He wore a paint-spattered tee-shirt, his hair tied back in a rubber band. ‘Don’t tell me, too busy to come? Just as well – Lydia’s ruined lunch.’ He looked Myrrnah up and down appreciatively and she ruffled his hair, thinking how he couldn’t look less like his brother David with that ridiculous pony tail.

She glanced around the room at the others, feeling out of place. All those arty people: painters, sculptors, and a few musicians who had travelled up from London, strangers mostly, and she with nothing to say. She began to wish she hadn’t come.

‘Now, you’ll remember Matthew and Vanessa?’ said Philip. The couple nearby gave a little wave. ‘And you must meet Richard Austen; he’s our new framer, an old school friend of Sal’s. Not a bad painter either.’ He pointed to a self-portrait that Myrrnah recognised at once as the scruffy angel downstairs. ‘Sal should be back by now; I’ll give them a shout.’ He opened the door and yelled down the stairs. ‘Richard! Sally! Come and join us.’

Just then a flustered Lydia appeared, hurriedly pushing past her guests to reach them. ‘Oh, this wretched oven – thank God you’re here!’ She offered Myrrnah her cheek. ‘At least you’ll know what to do.’

She butted open the kitchen door and the two women disappeared together into a cloud of smoke.

Myrrnah peered into the fridge and pulled out a jar of olives. Used pans, some of them ruined, filled the sink. Every surface was littered with recipe books and abandoned attempts to interpret them; carelessly opened packages spilled their contents onto the tiled floor. It was chaos but at least in here she was safe, wouldn’t have to worry about David or offer opinions about paintings she didn’t understand. Here she was in her element.

‘Right, Lydia. Shall we start again?’ She opened a cupboard in search of inspiration and took down an expensive-looking bottle of vintage olive oil. She had given it to Lydia last year but it had never been opened. ‘By the way, David’s left me.’

Lydia stared blankly. ‘What! I don’t believe it – I’m sure he’ll be back.’

Strange, they’d never married, David and her, though they’d shared a house, a bed and even, by coincidence, the same name for years. Myrrnah of all people: capable, kind and with looks to die for! ‘He’ll be back,’ she said again.

‘Nope,’ Myrrnah snapped, tipping burned potatoes into the bin. ‘Some things can’t be saved. Now just leave me to it, Lydia, and talk to your guests.’

Lydia hovered then obeyed.

‘Give me twenty minutes,’ Myrrnah called after her, ‘and I’ll rustle up something they won’t forget.’ Growing up in a small seaside hotel, she had always loved to cook. It was what she did best and she had discovered very early in life that whatever the crisis, cooking was always the answer. For some reason, the more stress, the better the dish; so today, lunch promised to be exceptionally good.

She surveyed the mess in the kitchen and began to clear a space. Inside however, the confusion was harder to clear. Things hadn’t been right for a while. Was it the stress of his job, she wondered, or another woman? Whatever the reason she knew he’d already left her months ago in a way.

A little later she reappeared with a huge bowl of pasta a la romana. A tray of little side dishes followed – olives, mozzarella, artichokes – and a bright insalata mista, all glistening with oil and lemon.

‘A masterpiece!’ cried Philip, admiring the perfect blend of colours. ‘Richard! Be an angel, will you?’ He passed a camera to the scruffy young man who obligingly captured Myrrnah’s impromptu creation.

Throughout lunch the guests discussed their latest projects: music, sculptures, photography, painting, and the recent exhibition at the Saatchi gallery. Sally and her friend were arguing good-naturedly about whether a messy bed or a pickled sheep could really be called art while Myrrnah sat quietly, wondering if soon she might soon slip away unnoticed.

‘But Rich, Hirst and Emin are so brave and original,’ pronounced Sally, ‘true reflectors of our time.’

The scruffy angel frowned. ‘Ah, but do they actually inspire?’ He turned his attention to Myrrnah. ‘It’s important, don’t you think – to inspire and not simply reflect? Whose work inspires you?’

They were all so intense. She had always gone for posters in wooden frames, colourful things from Ikea that brightened the room. Not their kind of thing at all.

What the hell am I doing here, she wondered, on New Year’s Day with my ex’s family and a bunch of people I hardly know? She glanced across at David’s empty chair where someone had draped a jacket.

‘I’m no artist,’ she began apologetically, avoiding the young man’s searchlight smile.

‘But clearly you are,’ Sally protested. ‘A culinary artist. People would pay a fortune for food like this. You should open a restaurant. Something different, with a twist.’

Richard nodded. ‘You could be the next Delia.’

Hearing them Lydia and Phil joined in. ‘Or Clarissa Dickson-Thingy.’ They all laughed, remembering the ‘Two Fat Ladies’ on the television.

‘A full English breakfast is the best cure for hangovers. The liver embraces it,’ mimicked Phil in a plummy voice. ‘I loved their style.

Myrrnah excused herself quickly and went into the kitchen to make coffee. Lunch over, it would soon, thank God, be time to leave.

‘A Happy New Year to everyone!’ Lydia sang as Myrrnah returned with the tray of coffee. She passed round dishes of Christmas cake and burned mince pies.

‘May it be unforgettable,’ said Philip, rather ambiguously Myrrnah thought, for certainly it had begun that way. Then he clapped his hands for silence and proposed a toast:

‘To the lovely Myrrnah: for saving the day.’

‘To Myrrnah,’ they all echoed, sipping wine.

Next he raised his glass to David’s empty chair. ‘Absent friends!’ He slurred drunkenly, spilling his wine as Lydia nudged him sharply. The moment passed and the talking continued.

Philip began flirting with a girl little older than his daughter but Lydia didn’t seem to mind. Occasionally he would glance back at his wife and smile as if to remind him self – and her – how lucky they were. They are close, Myrrnah thought wistfully; too close for petty jealousies. Openly affectionate, they would taunt each other mercilessly at times. But it was safe to do so. Myrrnah watched them now, envying their honesty and ease. But it had not been so with David. Together, they were awkward, their dealings polite and cautious. They spoke only of things they observed – the need for a new piece of guttering or the state of the garden since the last storm – but never things that were felt. That was no longer safe to do, it seemed.

Someone put some music on the hi-fi and one or two, tired of chatting, got up to dance. Myrrnah went to fetch her coat, her handbag slung over her arm. ‘You can’t go yet!’ Philip and Lydia chorused. ‘We need a group photo first.’

The scruffy angel took up the camera once more.

‘Do count me out,’ Myrrnah pleaded but he feigned not to hear. Then, as everyone gathered round and smiled for the camera, she jumped.

There in David’s seat, for an almost imperceptible moment, sat a small child. He seemed as surprised as she was to find himself in such unfamiliar company. But meeting her gaze he smiled – such a look of love it was – and held out an empty bowl. His eyes were familiar, not unlike the white hart’s. ‘So will you help?’ he whispered and instinctively she bowed her head, having the feeling there was something extraordinary she’d just agreed to do. At once the bowl began to fill with golden coins.

The camera was passed from person to person. ‘Damn, I blinked at the wrong time,’ said one. ‘I look drunk,’ said another. ‘But look,’ Lydia laughed. A spiral of white light hovered over David’s empty chair. ‘We have an extra guest.’

As she left, the angel touched Myrrnah’s arm in passing. ‘Did you see him then, the extra guest?’

She returned home to find that David had emptied his wardrobe. His car had gone too but the house keys were still on the kitchen table alongside a note (which turned out to be a check list of things to pack) and an empty coffee mug that he hadn’t bothered to wash before leaving. Still wearing her coat she sat down, unaccountably happy, and stared at the empty chair opposite her. The boy with the bowl still hovered in her mind.

The house had never felt so peaceful.

For more information on the wonderful “Extra Guest” charity please click on the link below:

http:theextraguest.com