Always and Forever. Cathy Kelly

over Trevor phoning in sick,’ her mother teased.

      ‘To outsiders, I’m Ms Whiplash,’ grinned Cleo. ‘You lot all know I’m a pushover. I’ve been trained to sound managerial in college because that’s how you get results from staff. And if you and Dad let me have a few words with Trevor, Mum, well…his work would improve,’ she added earnestly. ‘We’ve got to think of the Willow, and of you. Why employ a dog and bark yourself? Trevor has to knuckle down to work or he’s fired. Don’t you agree?’

      Her mother forced a smile. ‘I agree, love,’ she said. ‘You’re right, I am exhausted. I’ll just lie down on my bed for a while.’

      When her mother was gone, Cleo cleaned with renewed vigour. Working out exactly what she’d say to the recalcitrant Trevor when she set eyes on him kept her going.

      

      ‘You won’t believe it, I was just going to text you. We must be psychic!’ said Trish in delight when Cleo phoned her that afternoon.

      ‘Psycho, perhaps,’ Cleo agreed. ‘I’m not so sure about psychic.’

      ‘Well, I am,’ Trish argued. ‘I am full of wonderful vibes and mystic energy today, and I was going to text to ask you to come up to the city tomorrow because we’re having a party in the house. With a DJ and everything.’ Trish thought this was the last word in cool. The fact that the DJ was a friend of a friend of a friend was a minor point. He was bound to have more party CDs than her housemates had. Nobody would let her play her Beyoncé or Christina Aguilera stuff; she, in turn, refused to listen to any rap, and the only common ground was Barry’s moody muso CD collection. No matter how much you loved REM, Trish pointed out, you couldn’t dance to them.

      ‘I can’t, sorry.’ Cleo would have loved a party on Saturday night but a busload of people from Finland were arriving that evening, and they were having dinner in the restaurant on both Friday and Saturday nights. It would be all hands on deck. ‘We’re booked up for the weekend and Mum’s a bit wrecked. I can’t go.’

      ‘At least the place is full.’

      ‘Yeah.’ Cleo sounded dubious.

      ‘Don’t be old Moany Minnie,’ Trish said in exasperation. ‘You’ve been giving out stink about how the hotel is only ever half full and now when you’re stuffed to the rafters, you’re still moaning.’

      ‘Thanks for that helpful advice, O person of wonderful vibes and mystic energy,’ Cleo retorted sarcastically.

      ‘Sorry.’

      ‘Accepted. What I meant was that being full this weekend isn’t as good as it sounds.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘This booking is a year old and it will be the first time we’ll have been full in roughly…’ Cleo did the calculations in her head, ‘eight months.’

      ‘Point taken. A party would cheer you up,’ Trish decided, irrepressible as ever. ‘You might meet Mr Would-Do-For-A-While at it. While you’re waiting for Mr Utterly Perfect, that is.’

      ‘Nah, Mr Utterly Perfect doesn’t exist, but thanks all the same,’ Cleo said. ‘The reason I was phoning was to ask you to come here tomorrow so we could check out the spa that’s opened up at the old Delaney place. There was a piece in the paper about it and I’m dying to actually visit it because I could get some great ideas for the health centre we could develop here, but I don’t want to ask anyone from home or else they’ll say I’ve got more pie-in-the-sky ideas.’

      ‘I can’t come back to Carrickwell now,’ Trish said apologetically, ‘not with the party. What about Eileen?’ Eileen was the third part of their schoolyard gang and worked in the local hospital as a nurse.

      ‘Think this is one of her weekend shifts. I’ll just have to go on my own.’

      ‘And have treatments and stuff?’

      ‘A full body massage by this holistic massage expert brought over from Australia, and he looks totally beautiful. Scuba diver, surfer, six-pack stomach, or is it an eight-pack…?’

      Trish fell for it. ‘You cow…don’t go this weekend, please. Wait until I can come.’

      ‘Gotcha!!’

      ‘Bitch.’

      ‘Gobshite. How would I know what the staff are like, you idiot?’

      ‘Well, if there turns out to be a gorgeous Aussie hunk there, phone me and I’ll be down pronto,’ Trish said. ‘Knowing my luck, the talent at the party will belong to the OK-if-you’re-really-desperate category.’

      ‘I thought they were the only sort of guys you ever asked to your parties,’ Cleo said innocently.

      ‘You wait and see,’ Trish promised. ‘When I find a genuine Aussie scuba-diving surfer type with a ripped bod, then you’ll be sorry.’

      ‘I won’t. I’ll be asking for his brother’s phone number,’ Cleo said. ‘Be hopeful: that’s my motto.’

      

      With limited funds at her disposal, Cleo had thought she might book something not too expensive, like a manicure, at Cloud’s Hill Spa. But then she had hit on the better idea of just popping in that afternoon to pick up a brochure and look round.

      She borrowed her mother’s creaky old Austin, a car that had been in the family for fifteen years and still smelled vaguely of the sheepdogs the previous owner had bred. Spluttering along the countryside, the Austin finally creaked to a halt outside Cloud’s Hill Spa. Cleo felt instantly dismayed. The photo in the local paper hadn’t done it justice.