The Village by Alice Taylor

Author:Alice Taylor [Alice Taylor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847175953
Publisher: The O'Brien Press
Published: 2014-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

THE SECOND STEP

THAT FIRST SUMMER in the guest-house we made enough money to pay Jerry, who had not even asked for it until the season was over. We were also able to pay the suppliers, and even the bank manager was quiet for a change. But it was only a temporary respite: the second step had yet to be taken, and that winter we went back to yellow mud and disorder.

We had survived the first season in a kitchen where the ceiling was almost touching the tops of our heads and the heat was stifling, but all that was about to change as the roof was ripped off. Of course this left us without a proper kitchen while we still had guests staying, so part of the dining-room was converted into a makeshift kitchen. The large windows of the dining-room looked onto the centre of the village. It was almost like living out on the street; all through the winter Margaret and I felt that we knew exactly where everyone in the village was at any given time. The bus-stop was just outside the window, so we became aware of the travelling habits of different people to the point where, as the months passed, we could tell who was going anywhere by bus. It was an entertaining view which made me decide that in old age I should have a window onto a village street, where instead of watching television I could watch real people.

We started our second tourist season with seventeen bedrooms. Four extra rooms were on the ground floor behind the kitchen with a side entrance catering for people to whom stairs posed a problem. Above them and the kitchen were five more bedrooms. Fitting out the additional nine bedrooms with bed-linen and towels on our budget required a repetition of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. During the January sales my sister and I spent a tiring day in Cork shopping for sheets and towels, until in the late afternoon I pleaded exhaustion and the need for something to eat. I savoured the menu and finally made my choice, glowing in anticipation.

My sister eyed me accusingly and demanded: “Do you know that you are going to eat the price of two towels?”

I lost my appetite there and then. We left the restaurant, bought the two badly needed towels, and went home to have our meal for what, she assured me, was the price of a face-cloth.

Once again tourism boomed, with English people in particular pouring into the country. Every night we catered for between thirty and forty people and though we worked extremely hard we had great fun. Because we were young and saw no problems, we sailed over many.

One very warm weekend we had a severe water shortage in the village, and we had to appeal to guests not to have baths for a few days. We drew buckets of water from a well at the end of the village and filled an upstairs bath to provide a water reserve for the toilets.

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