Free Always and Forever by Cathy Kelly Page A

always said. And Harry Malin could certainly cook. In the early days, it was from him that Cleo had learned her love of the business - and her skil with people. Dad just had that way with people that made them comfortable in his company. It was the perfect gift for an hotelier. The kitchen was warming up for dinner time with Jacqui, the chef, surveying her empire with pride before she sloped off for a quick break before the rush.
    Jacqui had been with the hotel for a year now. The same age as Cleo and just as eager, she was always having arguments with Harry about innovative new menus. Harry liked substantial French cuisine with an Irish twist. Jacqui liked Pacific Rim food, worshipped lemongrass and longed to be al owed to create exotic recipes with coconut milk.
    Cleo waved a greeting at Jacqui, fil ed a mug with coffee from the pot on the counter, then kissed her mother on the cheek. ‘Where’s Dad?’

    ‘He and Bil are looking at the hot-water pump.’ Bil was the!
    hotel’s part-time handyman and a genius with machines.

    He needed to be, given the age and decrepitude of most of the hotel’s equipment. ‘It’s gone again and Bil has some new yoke to fix it.’
    ‘Cardiac paddles are the only things that’l work on that pump,’ Cleo joked. ‘Or else a novena to St Jude.’ It would take the patron saint of hopeless cases to perform a miracle. Her mother nodded absently over her sewing. ‘For sure.’ ‘Mum, look at these.’ Cleo spread the interiors magazines in front of her mother.
    Sheila moved her mug to make room. ‘Those magazines are very expensive, love,’ she muttered, peering through her glasses at the price stickers. Since she’d started wearing the spindly gilt bifocals, she looked so much older, Cleo thought sadly. For years, Mum had looked so young and lively, with her hair, same uncontrol able nut-brown curls as Cleo’s, tied up in a bouncy bun with tendrils trailing around her neck. But suddenly her hair was almost al grey and the lines around her silvery blue eyes were so deep they looked as if they’d been carved with a compass. Her hands were misshapen with arthritis, the knuckles on both hands swol en, and where she’d once made an effort with pearly nail varnishes, now her nails were bare. Even her clothes looked aged. There was never any money in the Malin family for clothes. Every penny was ploughed back into the business. Cleo’s school uniform had been patched so often it looked like a quilt, to her shame. Mrs Hanley had been right: her mother was worn down by everything. Cleo felt a surge of remorse at not having noticed this herself before now.
    ‘Bit of a waste of money, Cleo. If you’re going to have enough money to buy a car for when you’re working in Donegal, then you’l have to stop spending it on magazines.’
    Cleo bit her lip. She stil had to tel them she’d turned the job down. Everyone had been so pleased when she’d blurted out that she’d been offered it, particularly Mum and Dad. It had been almost upsetting. You’d think they were glad to get rid of her.
    ‘Mum, I had this great idea. Wel , I’ve been thinking about it for ages. We do need to upgrade the place a bit and then I saw this magazine and, what do you think of us doing some new paint effects? It wouldn’t cost much,’ she added hurriedly. She opened the magazine on the correct page for her mother. ‘The dining room could do with a bit of work and just think if we had something like this paint effect on the far wal …’ She got no further.
    The back door opened, and Sondra and Barney arrived in a whirl of cold wind and Body Shop White Musk, a perfume Cleo had once liked and now hated because Sondra seemed to wear a pint of it every day.
    ‘Hel o, just thought we’d drop in to say hi,’ Sondra said, newly pregnant and radiant in ful make-up and a chic black dress.
    ‘We’ve nothing in for dinner so we came up here to cadge a couple of free meals,’ said Barney, who was nothing if