‘Oh no, I’ll do that. You’ll want to be getting out and about in the town, talking to people and asking for help with the hotel.’

‘What?’ Elle was absolutely shocked. ‘You can’t expect me to do that! Look what happened last time you sent me to talk to someone in the town. Besides, I haven’t lived here for years. It’s you that everyone knows and likes.’

‘It’s not really something I’m good at, though,’ her sister pointed out. ‘Not to mention that they all just see me as Penny from the tourist office, and I can’t see them taking me seriously as a business person. You’re the one with a way with words, Elle. You’re used to pitching things for your work, aren’t you?’ She waved her hand in the air vaguely as though one of Elle’s presentations was hanging in the space between them.

‘Ah I really, really don’t want to do this.’ Elle looked at Ned who was sitting quietly at the table. Of course, it was no use at all appealing to him, and he would be the very last one in this family you could expect to do the talking. Unless they wanted the fate of the hotel to rest on whatever random Beatles lyrics her father chose to communicate the urgency of the matter. He duly kept his head down, stoically munching on a piece of bread as though that was of the utmost importance.

‘You said you would help,’ Penny challenged haughtily. ‘In fact, you promised. Now you’re saying you won’t? In that case, you might as well slink off home to London.’

The word ‘home’ cut Elle to the core, the implication being that the Bay Hotel was no longer her home. Well, she had as much emotional claim to it as Penny did, she thought angrily.

‘Fine then, I’ll do it. But first I’ll need to think about what I’m supposed to say.’ she said, sounding a lot more confident than she felt. It was true what she’d said about messing things up completely the last time the hotel’s fate rested in her hands.

Elle sighed, taking Penny’s advice about pitching and tried to think of it like a work project. Taken like that, the task didn’t seem quite so momentous.

Second time lucky?

Penny did some more sanding after lunch. It was nicer being up there later in the evening when it was cooler, a glorious sunset starting to develop behind her. The sun was sinking like a drop of molten gold and she imagined fancifully that it would make a huge sizzling sound when it disappeared beneath the water.