Free Always and Forever by Cathy Kelly

one who always had something better to do than talk to you. She wasn’t too keen on Cleo, mainly because Cleo was one of those people who never wanted to sit stil .
    Tamara liked sitting stil when there was nothing she felt inclined to do. Even better, she liked working on her nails.
    The acrylics had been too expensive, so she’d got rid of them and it was hard work getting her nails back into condition again. You real y needed to rub nail conditioner in every hour religiously. ‘Yeah, hi,’ Tamara muttered, from where she sat, and went back to reading her magazine careful y so as not to dampen the pages with fingers slick with nail oil.
    Cleo counted to ten. Then she went to twenty to be on the safe side. Screaming at staff was general y not encouraged in hotel management. But Tamara was not Cleo’s idea of a proper hotel receptionist, even if she was ‘almost family’, as Barney put it.
    In the grand tradition of keeping the business in the family, Barney’s wife, Sondra, used to work as receptionist on a part time basis, but now that she was pregnant, albeit only just, with the first grandchild of the Malin dynasty, she had given up work and her sister had been drafted in as her replacement. Cleo had been al for hiring someone new but, no, family had to come first.

    ‘Cleo, come on, charity begins at home and al that.
    Tamara’s a bit low since she lost that job in the beauty salon,’ Barney had said. ‘And it’s not as if you need much experience for reception.’

    That, Cleo decided, was what was wrong with her brothers.
    They didn’t understand the finer points of running a hotel. In Barney’s view, any idiot who could do long multiplication and say ‘Reception, how can I help you?’ could operate a successful hotel.

    ‘Barney, you do need experience for reception,’ Cleo said in exasperation.

    ‘Ah, Cleo, she’l be great,’ wheedled Barney.
    He had such an engaging smile, like Cleo’s but with an added hint of rogue thrown in for good measure. It was hard to resist. ‘Where is everyone, Tamara?’ asked Cleo brightly now so that Tamara would hear her through the half-closed office door. ‘Your mother’s in the kitchen and your father’s out.’ And there’s nobody on reception in case a guest comes in, Cleo thought. The hotel didn’t have a receptionist on al day; they couldn’t afford to. Tamara was employed for times of the day when Harry or Sheila were busy elsewhere.
    Cleo was heading for the door that separated the reception from the kitchen when the office phone rang sharply. After five interminable rings, Tamara picked it up. ‘Hel oo, the Wil ow Hotel, how can I help yoou?’ she intoned in the special voice she used only for the phone or talking to rich guests.
    Tamara would have to go, Cleo decided. Family or no family. Because if she didn’t go, Cleo would end up being arrested for hitting Tamara over the head with Tamara’s cosmetic-fil ed Burberry handbag. Also not general y encouraged in hotel management.
    Cleo’s mother, Sheila, sat in the tiny alcove in the kitchen where an old church pew had been wedged in and covered with cushions so that people rushing around cooking and serving could take a rest and a cup of tea out of everyone’s way. The pew was of worn oak and the cushions looked like a multicoloured bric-a-brac display with two scruffy rose velvets lined up with a scatchy oatmeal barrel cushion, a few threadbare tapestry cushions and a toile de Jouy confection that was faded to nothing. Al had once been somewhere else in the hotel and had ended up in the kitchen when they were too old and shabby to be in the public domain. A smal card table covered with a floral oilcloth sat in front of the pew and it was there that Cleo had done much of her homework, working patiently away with sums and French verbs while her parents spun past as they cooked and cleaned.
    ‘A good hotel-owner needs to be able to cook if the chef doesn’t turn up,’ Cleo’s father