Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel Read online




  Advance praise for Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel

  ‘An absorbing, tender and heartfelt story of a complicated mother and daughter relationship. Beautifully crafted from start to finish, Hogan fans (of which I am one) are in for a real treat’

  Mike Gayle, author of The Man I Think I Know

  ‘Tender and funny and wise . . . her best novel yet’

  Hannah Beckerman, author of If Only I Could Tell You

  ‘Exuberant and full of zest – Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel is divine’

  Nina Pottell

  ‘Utterly magnificent. Expect twists, tears, laughter, and wonderfully eccentric characters. The Uplit Queen has woven her magic again’

  Dave Cowdry, Wilde Reads blog

  Praise for Ruth Hogan’s bestselling debut

  The Keeper of Lost Things

  A Richard and Judy Book Club Winner

  ‘Ruth Hogan’s touching, funny and romantic debut is that rare and precious thing: a real story with brilliant characters . . . Wonderful stuff’

  Daily Mail

  ‘An exquisite, absorbing novel, a potent cocktail of insightful psychological realism, whimsy and glittering magic, where hopes and new beginnings glint off the sharp edges of grief and loss. It grabs you right from its intriguing opening scene’

  The Lady

  ‘I was hugely impressed by this flawlessly written, most humane novel’

  Ronald Frame, Sunday Herald (Books of the Year)

  ‘A charming story of fresh starts and self-discovery that warms the cockles’

  Woman & Home

  ‘A warm and heartfelt debut’

  Prima

  ‘A charming whimsical novel about holding on to

  what is precious’

  Red

  ‘This mystical and spiritual tale is a joyous read that will broaden your imagination and warm your heart’

  OK!

  ‘Charming, beautiful and full of heart’

  Fabulous

  ‘One is beguiled by its old-fashioned sweetness’

  Mail on Sunday

  ‘Magical and moving’

  Heat

  ‘A lovely read – quirky, fun and plenty of gallows humour’

  Bedfordshire on Sunday

  ‘Charming’

  Marie Claire

  ‘A really beautiful, tender book’

  The Londoner

  Praise for The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes

  ‘Warm and wise’

  Guardian

  ‘A whimsical, wistful affair’

  Sunday Express

  ‘We were huge fans of Ruth Hogan’s The Keeper of Lost Things and her second book is just as brilliantly written – though you may need tissues at the ready!’

  Sun

  ‘Subtle and poignant’

  Good Housekeeping

  ‘Filled with hope and the power of friendship’

  Evening Standard

  ‘The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes will soften even the hardest of hearts’

  Red

  ‘A book to really love’

  Stylist

  ‘An adorable heartfelt story’

  Prima

  ‘Plenty of spirit and heart’

  Daily Mail

  ‘A wrenching story of recovery’

  Metro

  ‘The Up-Lit Queen’

  Sunday Post

  ‘Gloriously gorgeous in every way’

  LoveReading

  ‘One of the stars of “up lit”’

  Radio Times

  Also by Ruth Hogan

  The Keeper of Lost Things

  The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes

  Queenie Malone’s

  Paradise Hotel

  Ruth Hogan

  www.tworoadsbooks.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Two Roads

  An imprint of John Murray Press

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Ruth Hogan 2019

  The right of Ruth Hogan to be identified as the Author of the

  Work has been asserted by her in accordance with

  the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any

  means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be

  otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that

  in which it is published and without a similar condition being

  imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance

  to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  eBook ISBN 9781473669048

  Hardback ISBN 9781473669062

  Audio Digital Download ISBN 9781473686823

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.tworoadsbooks.com

  To Bokey (aka Bokapup) – son of Eli.

  Her eyes they shone like the diamonds,

  You’d think she was queen of the land,

  And her hair hung over her shoulders

  Tied up with a black velvet band.

  Traditional Irish folk song

  Contents

  Part 1

  1 Tilda

  2 Tilly

  3 Tilly

  4 Tilda

  5 Tilly

  6 Tilda

  7 Tilly

  8 Tilda

  9 Tilly

  10 Tilda

  11 Tilly

  12 Tilly

  13 Tilda

  14 Tilly

  15 Tilda

  16 Tilda

  17 Tilly

  18 Tilda

  19 Tilly

  20 Tilda

  Part 2

  21 Tilly

  22 Tilda

  23 Tilly

  24 Tilda

  25 Tilly

  26 Tilly

  27 Tilly

  28 Tilda

  29 Tilly

  30 Tilly

  31 Tilda

  32 Tilly

  33 Tilly

  34 Tilda

  35 Tilly

  Part 3

  36 Tilda

  37 Tilda

  38 Tilda

  39 Tilda

  40 Tilda

  41 Tilda

  42 Tilly

  43 Tilda

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Part 1

  The zebra, the horse and the kraken

  1

  Tilda

  My mother killed my father when I was seven years old. Now, thirty-nine years later, she is dead too, and I am an orphan.

  I haven’t been back to her flat since the funeral on that hot and humid day in late August, and now the glowing colours and rich, earthy smells of autumn have been swept away by the cinereous hues and raw, salty winds of a seaside winter. As the taxi crawls along Brighton seafront in the thick, teatime traffic, I can just make out the gunmetal-grey waves smashing onto the pebbles. The lights on the Palace Pier are twinkling seductively in the late-afternoon gloom and, even after all these years, they still spark a flicker of childlike excitement inside me. We pass the street where Queenie used to live. Losing that life still smarts as sharply as a paper cut. The taxi turns left, away from the sea, and stops outside a tall, Victorian house. From the outside, my mother’s flat is dark and still. As I turn the key in the lock and open the door, the silence and the musty air creep out to
greet me, and the secrets of my mother’s life – and mine – stir softly in their hiding places, waiting to unravel the familiar pattern of my past.

  I sleep soundly, and wake feeling shamefully refreshed. I say ‘shamefully’, because it doesn’t seem quite decent that I should be feeling so chipper given the circumstances. It’s like wearing a red dress to a funeral. I am here to pick over the bones of my mother’s life like some sort of domestic vulture; deciding which linen, china and furniture are worth keeping, and which should be consigned to the charity shops in town or left to the mercy of the bin men. The silence has been banished by the measured intonations of a Radio 4 presenter. The musty air has been sucked out into the bright, new morning through the open windows, and replaced by the altogether more appetising smell of toast and freshly brewed coffee. I pour myself another cup and carefully butter a slice of toast, making sure that every square inch is thinly but evenly covered, and then repeat the process with thick-cut, bitter orange marmalade. I cut it precisely into four triangles and place the knife, perfectly straight, to the left of the plate; blade side inwards. These are the rituals that keep me safe.

  Outside, the sun is shining hard and bright, making the slab of crinkling waves flash and sparkle like cut glass. I’m tempted to open the French windows and stand on the balcony for a few minutes to feel the fierce wind buffet my body and lash through my hair, as if to underline the fact that I am still alive. But I resist. I’m not sure I know where the key is in any case. I’m simply trying to delay the start of a task that I feel sure is going to be both complicated and time-consuming. Deciding what to do with the furniture is not straightforward. I have already resolved to keep the flat, but whether as a permanent home or as a holiday flat and source of income I have not yet decided. Either way, it will need furniture. The kitchen table is staying; Victorian stripped pine, well used and well loved. During the last few years of my mother’s life, she developed a passion for crossword puzzles, particularly those in the broadsheets. She said they kept her brain alive. She would spend several hours each morning sitting at the kitchen table with the newspapers spread in front of her, a dictionary and thesaurus close to hand – bad form to the purists, I know, but she rarely used them. When I visited her, she would sometimes ask for my help, as I sat drinking coffee and gazing out at the ever-changing sea. It was the closest we came to ‘companionable’ during my adult life; a poor relation to the emotional intimacy more usually found between a mother and daughter, but the best that we could do. Her actions had placed a distance between us that remained until her death, and I long ago gave up trying or perhaps even wanting to build a bridge across it. We skirted around one another with the cool politeness of strangers; remote even when we were in the same room. Still, the table is staying. I am also keeping the ornate over-mantle mirror, whose beauty is temporarily disguised under a generous layer of dust. I remember my mother checking her hair and patting her face with powder in the mirror before going out, taking care not to singe her tights by getting too close to the flames of the gas fire that burned beneath.

  ‘Old age is not an excuse to let oneself go,’ she used to say.

  Sadly, her eyesight was not as good as it could have been if she had deigned to wear her spectacles, and her generous application of face powder often made her look a little dusty, rather like the mirror. But this was offset by the ‘fresh from the salon’ neatness of her hair, her smartly tailored coat, and the immaculately stylish silk scarf tied around her neck. This ‘going-out’ ensemble was always completed with a brooch pinned either to the lapel of her coat or at her neck, in the centre of the silk scarf. I once bought her a small, silver brooch with the word ‘Mother’ engraved on it. I never saw her wear it.

  The two wing-backed easy chairs in the sitting room are the epitome of abominable ghastliness and are going. Definitely. Aside from the fact that they are of a shape and design that can only be described as ‘Old People’s Home’ chic, they are covered in an eye-popping chintz that looks as though it has been created by Cath Kidston on LSD. The green velvet-covered sofa is inoffensive to look at, and reasonably comfortable to sit on, and is therefore staying for the time being.

  After a purposeful start, my mind is beginning to wander and so am I. I drift from room to room, touching things, picking them up and putting them down again aimlessly. In the bathroom, my mother’s toothbrush is still in a glass on the sink, alongside her neatly folded face flannel and a half-used bar of soap. Here my rationale deserts me; what exactly is the protocol for dealing with dead people’s toiletries? These things are of no use to anyone, and should surely go in the bin? But these are the last remaining relics of the flesh and blood that was my mother. They still have her on them. These humble objects retain a physical intimacy with her that would have discomforted me while she was alive, but which I am not yet ready to relinquish now she is dead. I put them into the toiletry bag covered in sprigs of tiny pink flowers, which she used on the rare occasions when she visited me. I don’t know what else to do with them.

  I go into her bedroom and sit down on the end of the bed. The bed in which she died. It will have to go. Her dressing table is positioned at the end of it. I sit gazing into one of the triptych mirrors, studying my face for any echoes of hers. Our bone structure is similar; high cheekbones, a strong, straight nose, and my dark hair and fair skin are like hers – were. But her eyes were cool and green and somehow glassy. I remember as a little girl, I used to think that they were the colour of marbles. But I could never tell what she was thinking. I have my dad’s eyes; dark and mercurial; one minute watchful, the next lively, and equal mirrors of fury and mirth. The small, deep scar above my left eyebrow is mine alone.

  On the dressing table is a large, wooden jewellery box, a brush, comb and mirror set, a large silver crucifix and a bottle of my mother’s favourite perfume, Chanel No. 5. I have never liked it. I have always found it too overpowering, but often bought it for her at Christmas and birthdays because she adored it. The brush still has a few strands of her hair woven in amongst its stiff bristles. There is also a small photograph in a plain silver frame. It is an old and faded black-and-white snapshot of a young woman wearing a pale summer dress and a single string of pearls. She is holding the hand of a small girl aged about five or six in shiny new sandals and very white socks, one of which is flying at half-mast. It is my mother and me.

  2

  Tilly

  Tilly sat on the back doorstep in her new red sandals and carefully inspected the scab on her knee. She had fallen off her bike the previous Wednesday, when she had been momentarily distracted by the sight of Mrs O’Flaherty’s enormous bum waddling down the street wrapped in a bright orange Crimplene dress. Like two pumpkins fighting in a sack, as her daddy would say, and then her mother would press her lips together and pretend to look cross, like she always did when he said something funny but slightly rude. Tilly wasn’t allowed to say ‘bum’, but surely it was all right if you just thought it in your head? The orange pumpkins had captured her attention just long enough for her to miss the discarded roller skate that the front wheel of her bicycle had hit with enough force to catapult her from the saddle and send her crashing onto the pavement in a muddle of flailing limbs. She lay in the muddle for a moment, listening to the wheels ticking round until they stopped, and watching the tassels on the handlebar nearest to her face gently fluttering in the breeze. Her knee hurt and her elbow was sore, but her arms and legs seemed to be working normally. Luckily, Mrs O’Flaherty had not heard the crash she had unwittingly been responsible for, and had carried on to the end of the street and turned the corner with her pumpkins swaying jauntily behind her. Mrs O’Flaherty was a kind woman, who had an easy way with children, which was just as well as she had seven of her own (she was, according to Tilly’s mother, an ‘enthusiastic Catholic’). Had she seen Tilly’s fall, she would undoubtedly have hoisted Tilly from her pavement muddle and insisted on returning her safely to her mother for the administration of a swab of stingi
ng antiseptic, a sticking plaster, and a comforting hug. But these would be the attentions of a normal, happy mummy, who baked cakes, wore a pinny, and, more often than not, a smile; who smelled of Avon perfume and called her husband ‘darling’. A woman like Mrs O’Flaherty or the mummy from the soap powder advert on the telly. Not Tilly’s mother. She would be cross about the fuss, the interference of Mrs O’Flaherty, the clumsiness of Tilly, and the hole in the elbow of a perfectly good cardigan. There would be no hug, and the stinging would come from her mother’s harsh words. Tilly picked herself and her bicycle up, cleaned her wounds as best she could with spit and a rather grubby hanky, and spent the rest of the day with the sleeves of her cardigan pushed up far enough so that the hole didn’t show.

  The scab was almost black now, with the white edges ripe for picking. It itched, and the skin around it was puckered and tight. Tilly lifted one edge experimentally with her fingernail, and immediately a trickle of blood ran down her leg and soaked into her very white sock. ‘I knocked it on the chair’: the excuse immediately sprang to mind in readiness for her mother’s inevitable rebuke. She often wished that her mother was more like the soap-powder mummy. Tilly thought she must be using the wrong sort. She pressed the scab back down with her finger and carefully rumpled her sock to hide the scarlet stain.

  The borders in the back garden were full of flowers, and the lawn was neatly cut and edged. It looked like a picture-book illustration. The fragrant sweet peas were carefully coaxed and twirled around wigwams of cane sticks, and their fluttery flowers in every shade of purple, pink, red, mauve and white were a testament to her daddy’s loving care and attention. He had shown her how to nip out the side shoots that looked like tiny coiled springs. He said it made the stems grow longer and straighter and produce more flowers. She checked them every day, and nipped out each stray green tendril between the nails of her thumb and forefinger exactly as he had taught her. The borders were full of marigolds, snapdragons and Livingstone daisies, their colours brash and bright like a 1950s picture postcard. Tilly loved the brazen daisies in their dancing-girl rows; not for their dazzling colours or shiny petals, but for the way they opened themselves up to bask in the sunshine, and then shut up tight once the clouds rolled in or the sun went down, like back-to-front umbrellas. It was magic.