Adrian was away in Scotland doing on what he called ‘a fact-finding mission’, which left just Cliff and Maxine in the Office when the phone rang.

Maxine saw the caller ID and answered it.
“Oh, hello Mum. What’s up?”

“Why am I asking? Didn’t we speak for nearly an hour at the weekend?”

“No. I don’t think I am busy tomorrow night. It could work out pretty well as I’m due at a meeting in Devon the following day.”

“No, he won’t mind. He’s busy with a different project in Scotland.”

“What time and where and why?”

“Ok, I’ll see you just before six thirty.”

“Ok Mum, gotcha about that. What’s the special event? It isn’t either of our birthdays?”

Maxine sighed when she heard her mother’s reply.

“Ok Mum. See you tomorrow.”

She hung up and sat for a moment.

“What’s up Maxi?” asked Cliff using his pet name for her.

“Something’s up with Mum but she’s not telling me what it is.”

“Saving the surprise for tomorrow then?”

“It looks that way. I’d better get on with changing the train booking. I’ll go down to Devon from Mums the following morning.”

“You really do need to take the time and get yourself a car,” suggested Cliff.

“Yeah, yeah but the slave-driver keeps me far too busy as it is… and besides, anything I take an interest in Adrian poo-poos as not being very suitable for an aspiring Company Executive…”

They both laughed at her feeble attempt of a joke.

“I’ll have a word with him when he returns from Scotland. He tends to forget that there are other people with different likes and dislikes to him in the world,” said Cliff.

Maxine chuckled. At times, Adrian was away in his own little world.

---

[the next evening]
Maxine walked the short distance from Trowbridge Railway Station to her childhood home wondering what it was that Mum wanted especially after they’d talked at length only a few days before.

The front door opened as she walked up the very short path. That didn’t bode well. In past times, that had only happened when someone was in deep do-do and about to get a right royal ticking off from their Mum.

“Hello Dear. I’m so glad you could come at such short notice.”

“Hi Mum. No problem. As I said, I was going down to Devon anyway.”

Maxine hung up her coat and took off her shoes as she’d done for years and followed her Mother into the Kitchen. The table was laid which meant that she had something to tell me. Then she realised that it was set for three. Maxine wondered if she’d made peace with Dawn at last.

“Sit down and I’ll pour you a drink.”

That statement told her that Dawn wasn’t involved.

She sat as instructed and Mum poured her a glass of wine. She could see from the label on the bottle that it wasn’t the normal ‘not quite the cheapest’ plonk on sale in the local supermarket. Something was indeed up. The quality of the wine said ‘something special’.

Maxine was about to ask her when the front door bell rang.

“That’ll be our third for dinner,” said Mum calmly as she went to answer it. She closed the kitchen door behind her which was strange. Maxine could hear some muffled voices. Then the door opened again.

In walked Mum followed by Sally Jameson. Both had huge smiles on their faces. Could they? Nah, not possible thought Maxine.

“Hello Maxine. You are looking well,” said Sally with a broad smile on her face.

“Hi Sally. I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight,” she replied.

Sally looked at Mum and grinned.

“We thought that we should both be here when we told you the news,” said Mum.

Maxine had a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Mum poured Sally a glass of wine and they both sat down.

They looked at each other and smiled.

“Your Mother and I have been seeing each other for the past few months.”

The bottomless pit in her stomach suddenly opened up into a huge chasm the size of the Grand Canyon.

“Sally used to stop by periodically to let me know how you were getting on in Chichester. For one of those visits, I cooked her a meal. Then you went to work for Adrian,” said Mum.

“Even so, I carried on visiting. I began to really like your Mother. One thing led to another and we fell in love,” said Sally carrying on the conversation.

As much as Maxine had wanted Mum to find happiness, she had never in a million years thought that she’d go over to the ‘dark side’ as her Mother had described being a lesbian so many times.

Maxine looked at her mother. She had that look of happiness in her eyes.

“Two nights ago, I asked Pauline if she’d marry me and she said yes,” Said Sally as she took hold on Mum’s hand.

Maxine was glad that she was sitting down. Never in a year of Sundays did she ever think that Mum would… would… become a Lesbian.

“Mum?”

She smiled back at her daughter.

“I know darling. It does seem strange to me as well. But since your Father died I’ve never even looked at another man but after a while, I started to… to have feelings for Sally. You could have knocked be over with a feather when Sally told me that she had feelings for me. We decided to let our relationship cool for a bit but it was no use. We still felt the same so… Well, we are here today to let you know about us.”

Then Mum added with a large amount of sadness in her voice,
“I got word to Dawn that she should be here today but she phoned me up and told me what I could do with myself.”

“Pauline is going to sell up and move in with me. I’ve been rattling around in my house in Clifton for far too long. We can make a home of it together,” said Sally.

She saw the look of concern on Maxine’s face.

“Don’t worry, I’ll promise you right here and now that I’ll not touch one penny of her money. I know only too well, that sometimes things don’t work out so Pauline would need somewhere to go should that happen. We are both mature enough to not rush things but I really don’t want to be with anyone else and it is a very long time since I’ve felt that way.”

Maxine sat still for what seemed an eternity.

Eventually, she said,
“What does Jasmine say about this?”

Sally looked a bit sad.

“I don’t know. As far as I know, she’s somewhere in Peru or Bolivia or Chile. She went off on some holiday with a bunch of friends a few months ago. I heard from her when they arrived in Santiago and then about three weeks later when they arrived in La Paz. Since then… nothing. I’ve left messages for her but so far she hasn’t called back.”

“Aren’t you the least bit worried about her? Who she is with and where?”

“Not really. I’ve been talking to the parents of her friends. One of them spoke to their daughter only a week ago. The daughter confirmed that everyone was all present and accounted for. I expect that she’ll call soon. Probably when she needs some more money.”

“What about Dawn? She’ll explode when she finds out?”

“I think your sister already knows. She saw us when we were out in Bath last weekend. She saw me and was going to speak to me then then she saw us holding hands. She went as white as a sheet and fled after giving us a right verbal thrashing at the top of her voice. It was not pretty.”

“Was she with her daughter?” asked Maxine.

Mum shook her head.
“She was nowhere to be seen. As I have no idea where she is living, I can’t begin to know what is happening to her daughter. I only found out that her daughter’s name was Arianna, by accident when I was in the post office in town at the same time as her then boyfriend who was showing off a photo of his daughter to his friends.”

To Maxine’s surprise, Sally didn’t go home at the end of the evening. That simple fact really hit home to her that her mother was changing. She went to bed with a lot on her mind. It wasn’t troubling but seeing her mother and Sally together was not what she’d expected at all. Her final thoughts were that both of them were changing and she wondered if things between them would ever be the same again.

---

[The following day in Devon]

“Ladies, as there is no more business, I call this board meeting to a close. Any objections?” asked Nina who was chairing the latest board meeting at the Hotel in Devon.

No one objected so the meeting closed.

Maxine sat back in her chair with a smile on her face.

“Adrian asked me to tell you that he appreciates the work you have both put in since the sale was agreed.”

“Thanks Maxine,” said Nina.
“And tell him sorry for doubting him when he came to us with the proposal. Both of you have delivered what you promised.”

“No need to do that. He knows.”

“Shall we adjourn to the Restaurant for Lunch?” suggested Belinda.

“Do we have time?” asked Maxine looking at her watch.
“Aren’t we meeting the surveyor at two?”

“Chef knows and has prepared something appropriate,” said Belinda.

Just over an hour later, the three of them met up with the surveyor that they’d employed to look at the now closed pub down in the village.

“Mr Simms?” asked Belinda when he approached them.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Good, I’m Belinda, this is Nina and Maxine. We are the directors of the Hotel outside the town and have engaged your services.”

“Pleased to meet you. I must say that it is very unusual to be engaged by a company with only women on the board. I hope that we can do business here. From what I’ve seen from the outside, the place seems structurally sound and the roof shows evidence of being re-done within the last ten or so years.”

“That’s good. Do you have the keys?” asked Belinda.

“Yes, the agents gave them to me earlier. Shall we proceed?”

As they moved towards the back entrance Mr Simms said,
“One moment. You need to wear hard hats. We have no idea what the inside is like.”

“Is that strictly necessary?” asked Nina.

Mr Simms smiled.

“At this time yes. One pub I looked at last year had been totally gutted by the last set of tenants before they left. Half the floorboards were missing.”

He opened the rear of his car and pulled out four yellow hard hats.

“Please put these on and we can go inside.”

Less than a minute later, they realised that his advice was very apt. Everything had been ripped out. Even the light switches and fittings were gone. Bare wires were everywhere.

“This is the worst one yet,” remarked Mr Simms.
“I hope the Electricity is off. Please stay here while I check.”

He pulled a meter out of his pack and knelt down close to a place where a socket had once been.

“All clear but just don’t get too close to any bare wires just to be sure. If I see the fuse box, I’ll switch it off but that’s probably down in the cellar.”

Half an hour later, the party emerged into the back yard of the Pub. No one was speaking much. Inside the building had been a scene of total devastation. Even the bar had gone.”

“I think the place was stripped professionally. To take the mahogany bar would require a lot of people and a large van to cart it away.”

“What’s in there?” asked Nina as she pointed to a large building.

“According to the details I have it was used as a store.

Everyone was pleased to find the whole bar in the store. It seemed that the Pub Company had managed to ger the bar removed from where it had say for close on a hundred years and had it locked away from prying eyes.

“That is a surprise,” said Nina.

“A good one. That means we could use it in the new Pub,” commented Belinda.

At the end of their tour, the three discussed the outline of their plans with the surveyor.

“To be honest, I’ve seen a lot of these schemes over the last ten years. Pubs are regarded as prime real estate and developers love to snap them up, knock them down and put up a few identikit houses and pocket a load of money.”

He paused for half a second.

“But I like this one. It keeps an amenity open for the locals and tourists alike and also provides much needed accommodation for people working in your Hotel.”

“With the right plans, do you think that the planners would go for it?” asked Nina.

“Yes. There really is nothing to object to and you aren’t really applying for a change of use. I saw from the sign over the door that this had an Entertainment License. That is even more valuable. It is really hard to get them these days.”

Back at the Hotel, the three of them sat down to review the meeting with the surveyor.

“I think we should go ahead and buy the place,” said Maxine.

Belinda looked at Nina for a second.

“It is a huge undertaking you know,” said Nina.

“Indeed, it is and we need an on-site Project Manager to… well manage things,” said Belinda.
“We are really wiped out with keeping this place running…”

Maxine smiled at her friends.
“I think I have a solution that will keep everyone happy.”

Nina and Belinda looked at Maxine and both of them burst out laughing.

“What was that for?”

“You… you sounded just like Adrian did when he pitched buying this place.”

Maxine felt both sad that he wasn’t there to see this but proud that she’d learned so much from him.

“You had all this worked out before you came here today didn’t you?”

“Sort of. I had an idea of how to solve the problem.”

They looked at her expectantly.

“The guy who project managed the build for me in Horley. His name is Jerry. He did a great job and comes from Exeter. Just before we completed the project, he let it be known that he wanted to scale down his work and move somewhere a bit nicer as he approaches retirement. I think he’d jump at this chance.”

“He did a great job for me and there is no reason why he could not do the same here.”

Belinda grinned but Nina seemed to remain unconvinced.

“If he accepts then they’ll need time to complete all their present work and then get up to speed on the project here but my guestimate is that we would not be ready to start building for around a year anyway.”

“How do you work that out?” asked Belinda.

“Firstly, we need to put in an offer and go through legal and all that. Optimistically that would take three to four months. Then we can get plans drawn up. Another month. Then getting planning approval, at least six or more likely eight weeks. Add in time for a re-submission to cover all objections and that takes us to say nine months. Then finding a contractor and suddenly it is a year.”

“And you just happened to have all that worked out before you came down here?” remarked Nina.

Maxine shook her head.
“Not me. Cliff. He did all the digging especially around how long planning takes here for a development like this. He knows a lot about councils and planning. He was one for twenty years before Adrian enticed him away.”

“You knew that we’d want to go ahead then?”

Maxine smiled.

“The idea is a good fit for this place and barring that the building was going to fall down, I knew that we’d want to go ahead. It was to me a real ‘no-brainer’.”

“Can you afford it?”

“That’s for me to worry about but yes, I can especially given the time that will elapse before the building work would start.”

“I estimate that it would take around a million to do properly,” said Belinda.

“One point five is my guestimate,” replied Maxine.
“Five hundred to buy the place and seven to refurb it to the sort of standard we’d want but I’d add a contingency of two hundred grand.”

“You make it sound so easy,” remarked Nina.

“It won’t be easy but that’s why having Jerry manage it works for all of us. He knows how this place runs and also how my business runs. He’s also a tightwad when it comes to money. The books for the build in Horley are a thing of beauty.”

After a slight pause, Maxine said,
“What about it?”

“You seem to have this all sorted out?” remarked Nina.

Belinda laughed.

“I seem to remember you saying very much the same thing about Adrian when he first appeared on the scene with that crazy offer to buy this place…” said Belinda.

Then she added,
“Maxine has obviously been doing a lot of thinking and research into this whole thing. We are far too involved with running a business to go to that level of detail. That’s why I for one value her judgement.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence Belinda. We don’t need to make a firm decision today. As you said, from what the agents have said, there has been little interest in the Pub but we can’t rest on our laurels. Why don’t I put down my ideas and send them to you and we can meet again this time next week. I’ll have my legal people prepare an offer document for the pub just in case. If we decide to go forward then we really do not want to sit back and let someone else get in first. I honestly believe that this is a really good business opportunity for all of us.”

Neither Belinda nor Nina had any objections.

---

That evening, the three of them discussed the plans for the Pub.

After an hour, Belinda said,
“Then we are agreed. We’ll put in an offer for the pub using the company that Adrian uses for these things. Hopefully, that will hide our interest in the place from the current owners. Then we’ll renovate it as a restaurant and accommodation for our staff.”

No one disagreed.

“We should aim for it to open by next Easter,” said Nina.
“The start of the tourist season would be a good time to open.”

“Are you sure that Planning will be easy to get?”

“It should be pretty straightforward. We are not applying for a change of use or any new external structures. As the building is not listed we are pretty free to do as we please internally. Besides, there are have not exactly been a rush of potential buyers have there. The selling agent said that there had only been one other preliminary inquiry.”

“If the sellers really don’t have any idea that it is us buying the Pub then we should not have to pay over the odds,” said Maxine.

“But we all know there are a lot of things that can go wrong before the deal is done. I’ll get the architect we use to draw up the detailed plans so that the day the deal is done, we can submit the planning application that same day.”

“What about the finance?” asked Belinda.

Maxine grinned.
“All sorted. Adrian and I have moved some money around and it will be all there in the bank account for our building company ready to go.”

Nina picked up her wine glass.
“To a successful conclusion of Phase 1.”

---

When Maxine returned to Reigate, she was still troubled by the events in Trowbridge. It didn’t take long for Adrian to notice that something wasn’t right upon his return from Glasgow.

“Ok, out with it!” he said as they cleared away the dishes from their evening meal.

“Out with what?”

“Whatever is on your mind. At the start of the week, you were full of beans. Now? It is as if you are carrying the world on your shoulders. So? What is it?”

Maxine sighed. Then she sighed again.

“Mum is getting married again.”

Adrian smiled.
“Isn’t that a good thing? Don’t you want to see her happy?”

“To Sally…”

It took Adrian a moment to grasp what Maxine had said.

Then he laughed.

“It is no laughing matter you know!” retorted Maxine.

“I didn’t expect that at all. Sally is a dark horse.”

Then Adrian took hold of Maxine and gave her a big hug.
“I guess suggesting a double wedding is taking the piss then?”

“What? I thought we’d decided to wait until I had my operation before…”

“I know we did. But I have some news of my own.”

Suddenly Maxine knew what Adrian was about to tell her. Another Grand Canyon sized hole opened up in her world.

[to be continued]