Always and Forever

‘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.