Always and Forever (15 page)

The urns outside the Wil ow were fal ing over and crumbly, and Cleo felt they were an insurance hazard.

She walked into the big reception and sighed with a combination of pleasure and envy. It was like entering a beautiful, but comfortable home. There were big creamy flagstones on the floor, lots of comfy low couches, books on one wal , and water colours of botanical subjects and a big open fire on the other. The atmosphere was relaxed and opulent without being a bit showy. Money had been wel spent here, and Cleo, with her hotelier’s eye, could see how cleverly it had been done. The receptionist made Cleo’s heart sink further. An exquisite oriental girl with porcelain skin, she was dressed in the spa’s signature colour of olive green, and was smiling warmly at Cleo in welcome.

Smiling!

Cleo thought of sul en Tamara at the reception desk back home. Unless Tamara thought the entire cast of Ocean’s Twelve were arriving for an orgy and were a woman short, she couldn’t summon up a smile of any sort.

‘Can I help you?’ the receptionist said, warmth in every lightly accented syl able.

‘I came for a brochure,’ Cleo said firmly. She was here; she might as wel do what she’d come for. This place was way out of their league but she could learn something.

‘So many people have been here today, because of the piece in the paper, that we are out of brochures,’ the girl said in delighted surprise. ‘I wil phone through for one for you.’ ‘It’s a gorgeous place,’ said Cleo, responding to such friendliness. ‘I had no idea it was going to be so luxurious.

And the uniform is lovely too. Wel , you could wear a sack and look great,’ she added genuinely.

‘You think so? I think this colour is not suited to me,’ the receptionist explained in her careful English. ‘You think it is suited to me?’

‘Fabulous,’ enthused Cleo. ‘But you’re beautiful. Look at you! I’m sure half the clients wil book treatments because they hope they’re going to look like you at the end of it al .’

‘No,’ said the girl, going a subtle shade of peony. ‘My sister, she is the pretty one. I am not. You are lovely with your hair. I very much like your curls.’

‘The bane of my life, these curls,’ sighed Cleo. ‘I’d kil for silky straight hair like yours.’ And then she laughed, because she would never have thought that anyone so glorious-looking as the girl in front of her could possibly have an ounce of self criticism in her. Yet she did. ‘Women!

What are we like?’ demanded Cleo. ‘We al think we’re ugly as sin.’

‘I would hope neither of you two thinks so,’ said a low voice as a woman emerged from a door beside the reception desk holding a sheaf of brochures.

‘Mrs Meyer, thank you,’ said the beauty.

Mrs Meyer handed one to Cleo, who felt as if the word

‘imposter’ was suddenly emblazoned on her forehead. ‘Hi, I’m Leah Meyer.’

‘Cleo Malin.’ Cleo held out her hand. ‘I dropped in to look round,’ she said.

It would have been hard to lie under the friendly gaze of Leah Meyer. Tal and slender, there was something queenly about her and yet she looked the sort of person you could tel everything, rather than someone you kept things from.

‘What do you think?’

‘So far, it’s fantastic’

‘I could give you a tour, if you’d like,’ Leah said. ‘What are you interested in? We have a lot of different treatments, although we’re running an introductory one-day relax and revitalise package for the first month.’

Cleo’s story began to seem even more feeble to her, so she improvised: ‘My family own a hotel in the town and I wanted to see what this was like so I could advise guests to come here.’ ‘A partnership,’ said Leah warmly. ‘I should offer you a free treatment so you can see what we do here.’

‘No, no, please,’ said Cleo, embarrassed. ‘Honestly, I couldn’t.’

‘You could and you wil . Yazmin, may I see the appointments book?’

Leah flicked through a big diary quickly. ‘Indian head massage for half an hour?’ she suggested. ‘And then you’l come into the hot tub with me? Ten minutes in the hot tub makes me feel human again, no matter what sort of day I’ve had, and I love company.’

It seemed churlish to refuse.

Cleo spent the first ten minutes of the head massage worrying about having not been truthful to Leah, then she gave in to the utter bliss of being able to think of absolutely nothing. Not the hotel and the family’s money problems, not the lack of men in her life, simply nothing.

‘I can’t believe I’ve never had one of those before,’ Cleo said three-quarters of an hour later when, wearing a cream robe and a borrowed swimming costume, she fol owed Leah down another mel owly lit corridor. She felt dizzy from the sheer relaxation of it al . ‘Actual y,’ she corrected herself, ‘I can believe I’ve never had that done before. I’ve never had even a quarter of the treatments you do here.’

‘We’l have to change that,’ Leah said, leading the way into a decked room that gave a spectacular view of the lake and Carrickwel below. Inside, taking up most of the space, was an enormous hot tub. The windows of the room could obviously slide back so you could hot tub practical y al fresco if you wanted to.

‘Wow,’ was al Cleo could say.

‘It is pretty wow,’ smiled Leah. ‘It’s a bit extravagant but we had to have one. The hot tub is vital to the whole chil ing-out experience. You need to look after yourself, Cleo. You’re precious. You don’t realise how stressed you are until you stop rushing around.’ She shed her robe and sank into the tub, slim, olive-skinned limbs making Cleo feel more Amazonian than ever by comparison.

She fol owed Leah in quickly and let the hot water claim her.

‘That’s wonderful,’ she murmured, sinking down until her head was the only bit visible.

They lay there in companionable silence for a while, with Cleo thinking how nice it was to be able to be silent with someone. If Trish had been there, she’d have been going on about the gorgeous ochre stone work or the view or where exactly did Leah come from in America, because her accent was so soft and mel ow. But Cleo gauged that Leah didn’t need that - Leah just lay back with her eyes closed and a faint smile on her lips.

‘Tel me about your hotel,’ she said eventual y. So Cleo told her: the truthful version. How much she loved her home but how she was worried that the Wil ow wouldn’t survive unless something radical happened. Leah was interested, asking questions in al the right places, and she didn’t flinch when Cleo took a deep breath and admitted that she hadn’t come to the spa to see if she could refer guests there. ‘I hate lying,’ she emphasised, ‘and I didn’t mean to deceive you by saying I was here just to see if we could send customers your way.’

‘You didn’t. You were checking out the competition, which is good business sense.’

‘You’re not upset?’

‘I think I’d hire you. We could do with somebody with your smartness working here.’

Cleo felt ridiculously pleased. ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘but I’m committed to the Wil ow.’

‘I understand,’ Leah replied. ‘Family comes first.’ Cleo nodded. ‘Not everyone gets that,’ she said.

‘What wil you do if the hotel closes down?’

The question threw Cleo. ‘I don’t know,’ she said slowly. ‘It would be awful, like losing your home only worse: other people would have it and you’d never be al owed in again. It would be horrible.’ Although the water was warm, she shivered. ‘You’d manage, though?’

Cleo thought of her family and how they’d got through lots of lean years. So many people were unlucky with their families. Trish’s family deserved their own reality TV show so they could be mad and get paid for it. By comparison, the Malin family’s squabbles were straight out of The Waltons. ‘We’d manage,’ she said easily. ‘We always do.’

She drove home an hour later, exhausted yet mental y refreshed. And that night, she slept without the spectre of rival hotels once jumping into her dreams. Leah had been right about refreshing the body and the mind. If the Wil ow couldn’t build their own health suite, they could certainly link up with Cloud’s Hil Spa. That would be a clever plan.

Cleo couldn’t help mentioning Leah Meyer to the family the next day. Barney had dropped into the hotel on his way to footbal , and he, Cleo and their parents had a rare sit-down in their own kitchen.

‘She’s beautiful, like something from a film, very serene and calm. And if you’d seen the whole place, Mum. It’s like a temple to relaxation. It’s fabulous,’ she said, feeling gloomy at having to impart such news.

‘Cleo, stop torturing yourself,’ said Barney. ‘That’s my job!’

he quipped.

The four of them laughed.

Barney was so much more like the brother she’d grown up with when Sondra wasn’t around, Cleo thought fondly. She had to make more of an effort with him. It was stupid to let her and Sondra’s animosity ruin Cleo’s relationship with her brother. ‘The spa’s just so polished and perfect,’ she added. ‘I don’t see how we can compete.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked her dad lightly. ‘That we should sel up and emigrate because we’re not like Cloud’s Hil Spa?’ ‘Dad,’ groaned Cleo. ‘As if. They’re just providing a different service from ours. Our hotel and their spa hit different markets.’ She could almost believe it herself. It made sense, in fact. On Monday morning, Cleo did the bank run for her father with al the cheques and cash from the weekend, and was back by eleven.

Her mother was sitting in the nook by the kitchen, petite and neat in her black jeans and soft angora sweater as she organised the post into neat piles.

‘Cleo, love, would you ever put the kettle on, there’s a good girl? Your father’s got a visitor in the office with him and I don’t want to send Doug in with the tea in case he overhears something.’

Cleo abandoned the notion of having a cup of coffee and rapidly assembled tea things on a silver tray, wondering who the mysterious visitor might be.

‘Not that teapot,’ her mother said, ‘it’s begun to leak. And don’t forget the good spoons.

‘Oh, it’s four cups, not two,’ her mother added. ‘Four?’

‘For Barney and Jason.’

Cleo added two more cups. ‘You mean the boys are in there with Dad too?’ she asked. ‘Who are they meeting?’

Jason and Barney had almost nothing to do with the Wil ow.

‘Oh, just the accountant, Mr Stavi.’

Cleo felt the familiar surge of temper but did her best to subdue it.

‘Why didn’t Dad ask me in too?’ she enquired shakily. ‘I told him I wanted to meet Mr Stavi.’

‘Your father can handle it,’ was al her mother said calmly.

Cleo clattered spoons onto the plate.

Her father smiled as she brought the tea tray in and Cleo instinctively smiled back. Ever the gentleman, he got to his feet, a tal , slender figure with silver hair brushed back from his high forehead and took the tray from his daughter. Cleo felt the anxiety kick in at the sight of his tired face. ‘Thank you, my love,’ Harry said, ‘but Mr Stavi hasn’t time for tea this morning. He has to go.’

The accountant was already on his feet, col ecting papers quickly.

‘Another appointment, I’m afraid,’ he said, not meeting Cleo’s gaze.

Barney and Jason fel on the homemade shortbread biscuits with delight. You’d swear they never got fed, Cleo thought crossly. Mr Stavi shook hands with Harry Malin and moved towards the door.

Cleo held it open for him and looked him in the eye.

‘Everything al right, Mr Stavi?’ she asked brightly. Mr Stavi looked at her sadly. Despite thirty years in the business, he was not a man skil ed at hiding bad news. It was written al over his face.

‘These are tough times,’ Mr Stavi said gently and evasively.

‘I must be off. Goodbye.’

‘Talk about doom and gloom,’ said Barney with his mouth ful , when Mr Stavi had gone. ‘Accountants are al the same al misery guts and no good news. You’d swear the place was going to close down tomorrow.’ He swiped another biscuit, took a final slurp of tea, grinned goodbye at everyone and was off. That was Barney for you, his sister thought: the original Speedy Gonzalez. Barney sold cars for a living and he said that people nowadays liked high-speed everything. Cleo disagreed. There should be time to relax and take it easy, that’s what they liked in hotels: the il usion of calm, even if, below stairs, al was hectic.

Cleo felt her father’s hand on her shoulder. ‘It’l be al right, pet,’ he said. ‘We’l get by, we always do.’ And he smiled at her with the same al -encompassing smile as her own. Cleo took the plunge. ‘That’s not enough, Dad,’ she said. ‘We can’t get by with hoping and praying for a miracle. We need to upgrade the hotel, borrow money from the bank, get someone else to invest in the place, something. We’l close down. Can’t you see?’

Jason jumped in before their father could reply. ‘Cleo, stop it, wil you! We’re al fed up to the back teeth with you complaining and tel ing us where we’re going wrong. You should have gone off to Donegal and left us in peace. Why do you think me and Barney are at the meetings and you’re not? ‘Cos you drive us al mad with your questions.

Everything’s fine. You have Mum stressed out thinking otherwise. Leave it alone!’ ‘I won’t,’ retorted Cleo hotly, instantly matching Jason’s schoolyard tone.

‘Cleo, Jason’s right. Leave it alone,’ her father said sharply.

‘There’s a time and a place for everything. This isn’t it. I have plans up my sleeve.’

‘Tel me,’ Cleo said, face burning with frustration. ‘Aren’t I a part of this family too? Don’t I deserve to know what’s going on? I can help if you’l let me. Being first in my class in col ege counts for something.’

‘A couple of years in col ege doesn’t make you Bil Gates,’

snapped Jason. ‘You don’t know everything, Cleo.’

‘I’m not talking about this any more.’ Her father’s voice was final. He said it the way he used to say, ‘Go to your room, Cleo,’ when she’d had a fight with her brothers. ‘I know that you think you’re the only person around here with any experience of the hotel industry, but you’re not. Leave the hotel to me.’

On Monday, Trish phoned to fil Cleo in on the party, the men, and how long it had taken to clean the place up the next day. Stil weary because the celebrations hadn’t ended until four on Sunday morning, Trish yawned as she explained that she hadn’t met any nice men at the party but had found a fel ow dance fiend named Carol, who’d boogied wildly with her on the dance floor - the dining room with al the furniture pushed back al night. Carol loved al Trish’s favourite songs and the DJ had fancied Carol, so he’d played wal -to-wal girl dancing music al night.