Always and Forever (41 page)

Between Leah’s philosophising and Trish’s rabbiting on about how you had to make your own life, Cleo was getting confused. She was jolted out of her thoughts as the taxi drove into a pothole of enormous proportions.

‘Jaysus,’ said the driver as the car lurched out. ‘Whoever’s bought the hotel I hope they fix the bleeding road, that’s al I can say.’

When the taxi final y dropped Cleo and her luggage off at Cloud’s Hil Spa, she was aware of great peals of laughter coming from the terrace. Hauling the suitcase she had borrowed from Trish around the back, she found Leah and some of the spa guests sitting out on the terrace, drinking iced tea in the evening sun and chatting.

‘Cleo, how lovely to see you,’ said Leah, getting to her feet, a smile on her beautiful face. She walked over and enfolded Cleo in her arms.

Cleo was hit once more by that gorgeous scent of roses. It was so lovely being held by Leah, so like the way Mum used to hug her. She hadn’t been hugged in a motherly way for ages. Since she’d left home, in fact. And now here she was, back in Carrickwel , and it was obvious her family didn’t care about her. Leah didn’t look surprised when Cleo burst into noisy sobs.

‘Travel ing is hel ,’ she said cheerily, giving a little goodbye wave to the rest of the guests and steering Cleo in the direction of the house. ‘Leave your luggage here, darling; we’l pick it up later.’

‘It’s just it was so nice to come here and see you and feel welcome,’ Cleo hiccuped as she walked, Leah’s arm around her waist.

‘Coming home can be very emotional,’ Leah said sagely.

‘When you feel as if a place is not your home any more, it’s worse.’

‘That’s it exactly,’ said Cleo, sobbing even harder. ‘I made the taxi driver go by the Wil ow and it looks so lonely and sad, I can’t bear it. And I don’t know how they are or what’s happened or anything.’

‘Wel , I may have news for you on that,’ said Leah. ‘Does your mom know a lady cal ed Mrs Hanley?’ she enquired.

‘Yeah, Irene Hanley,’ said Cleo, perking up. ‘Irene Hanley should be working for the CIA,’ Leah said, ‘because she knows everything in this town. I don’t mean she’s a gossip, she just delivers the information to wherever she thinks it’l do the most good. I liked her a lot.’

‘Me too,’ said Cleo, snuffling. ‘What did she say?’ ‘Your mom and dad have gone abroad for a holiday because they were upset by everything that has happened. Your mom was devastated that you wouldn’t come home when she phoned you,’ she added. ‘She took it very badly, Mrs Hanley says.’ Cleo felt another bout of tears coming on. ‘I was so hurt then, and she said I had to say sorry and it was like they were choosing Barney and Jason and Sondra over me. They wouldn’t see that I’d been hurt and left out of al the decisions.’ ‘Everybody was hurt, I guess,’ Leah went on. ‘If she’d phoned you a few weeks later, you’d have cooled down, right?’ Cleo nodded.

‘Your mom and dad were afraid that you wouldn’t have anything to do with them any more, that they’d screwed up, so when they went away they asked Barney and Jason to talk to you. They were supposed to be the conduits.’

‘Oh, Jason and Barney,’ snapped Cleo, ‘they couldn’t spel the word “conduit”, never mind be one.’

‘That was also what Mrs Hanley thought,’ agreed Leah.

‘She’s a smart woman.’

‘My brothers have never got in touch,’ said Cleo fiercely. It al made sense now. She knew her parents wouldn’t go away without tel ing her where they had gone.

‘Mrs Hanley heard, because her daughter knows Sondra’s best friend quite wel , that Barney and Jason thought it would do you good to be ignored for a while.’

‘I bet Sondra had something to do with that!’ Cleo said.

‘She’s never liked me. The other pair are too weak to make a decision on their own.’

And then she started crying again, because no matter who’d pushed her brothers, it was hard to imagine they’d try to hurt her so much.

Leah brought Cleo to one of the prettiest bedrooms in the old house, a flowery bower with rose-coloured curtains and a! comforter that looked as if petals had been strewn upon it. ‘Lovely,’ sighed Cleo. ‘Nobody does bedrooms like this any more. I always wanted one in the Wil ow and nobody real y agreed; thought it might be too feminine and no man would ever want to stay in it, but …’

‘I understand,’ said Leah. ‘Women sometimes need a few fril s.’ ‘But I should be in staff quarters, shouldn’t I?’ Cleo added. After al , she was coming to work for Leah. Cloud’s Hil was becoming so successful, Leah needed another receptionist and Cleo was looking forward to a nice, unstressful job for a while. ‘Yes, we have a lovely room, but it’s not quite ready for you,’ Leah said. Which wasn’t entirely true. The room was ready, but she felt that Cleo could do with a couple of days of pampering. ‘Why don’t you go to bed early?’ she said, drawing the curtains. ‘I’l get some dinner sent up to you, and you can have some time on your own.’

‘That would be lovely,’ said Cleo. Living in Trish’s constantly busy house, there hadn’t been much time on her own. And there was so much to think about.

‘Thank you, Leah,’ she said with heartfelt gratitude. Leah gave Cleo one last hug. ‘You’re welcome,’ she said.

‘Everyone needs a little looking after occasional y.’ After two heavenly days in which Leah insisted that Cleo did not work, but tried practical y every treatment in the place so she could talk knowledgeably about them, as Leah put it Cleo began to feel better. She certainly looked better, ‘and that always cheers you up, doesn’t it?’ she said to Leah as they sat in the hot tub with Leah admiring Cleo’s now beautiful y manicured hands. ‘I could get used to this doing nothing,’ Cleo added, stretching voluptuously in the hot water.

‘Could you?’ said Leah. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. If anyone had asked me to guess, I would have said that you were one of those energetic people who were always on the go.’ ‘You’re right,’ Cleo admitted, ‘I am, but somehow this is what I feel like at the moment. Doing nothing is always nice when it’s a break from doing something, especial y when the something is stressing you out. Leah, you should be a motivational guru or something. You’re amazing, the things you know.’ Leah smiled. ‘I don’t know anything more than anyone else,’ she said. ‘I just trust my instincts.’

‘I tried that,’ said Cleo bitterly. ‘I trusted my instincts when it came to Tyler and that was a mistake.’ For the first time since she’d come to Cloud’s Hil , she felt emotional y strong enough to talk about the relationship, and she had fil ed in Leah on al the details. Even now, in the cool, clear light of this wonderful place, the memory stil hurt.

‘It wasn’t a mistake,’ said Leah.

‘What do you mean?’ Cleo asked.

‘You liked him and it didn’t work out quite how you wanted it to, that’s al . There was no mistake there,’ Leah said. ‘I suppose.’ Cleo was unsure. ‘You’re saying I had something to learn by it not working out with Tyler, is that it? I’m fed up of learning,’ she said gloomily. ‘Learning always hurts. Why can’t you learn things and not get hurt? Al I’ve learned lately is that your family get fed up with you, and men use you …’

She knew that wasn’t strictly true. Tyler hadn’t used her, not real y. And Nat, dear Nat, hadn’t used her either. What a pity he wasn’t her sort of man.

‘Trusting your instincts means just that,’ Leah said firmly.

‘What have your instincts told you about your mom and dad?’ Cleo’s eyes brimmed again. ‘I couldn’t believe they hadn’t got in touch again,’ she said, ‘I just couldn’t believe it.’ ‘See, your instincts were right. They did get in touch,’

Leah said. ‘The first time, you were too upset to accept the olive branch and the second time, your brothers didn’t pass the

message on.’

‘Leah, this is al very difficult, thinking about this,’ said Cleo.

‘Can’t we just sit here and blob?’

‘Blob away,’ Leah said, rising elegantly out of the water. ‘I have to get out. I have a few things to do.’

Leah was very clever, Cleo reflected, to leave her there to stew in the hot tub and think. Even though she was sick of thinking. Her parents had got in touch - that was the wonderful thing although it was painful to think that Barney and Jason were so ful of bitterness that they hadn’t passed the message on. Cleo felt a twinge of remorse that she hadn’t rung her parents back long ago … She might phone her dad’s mobile phone later, just to see. The thought made her feel happier. She was going to be brave and adult and heal the family rift.

But there was stil one cloud - Tyler, and Roth Hotels buying the Wil ow. There was no easy way of resolving that situation. Even if Tyler arrived crawling and apologising, Cleo could have nothing more to do with him. He and Roth Hotels were the enemy: it would break her father’s heart to know he’d sold the hotel to them.

No, Tyler could rot in hel . And he hadn’t tried to get in touch with her, either. Her instinct had been total y wrong on that one, no matter what Leah said. Stil , she sighed, as she got out of the tub and reached for her towel, she would never have to see him again, would she?

Since arriving at her mother’s cottage a week ago, Daisy had barely ventured out of her cocoon. Her days had slipped into a routine that would not make it into any lifestyle ‘n’ diet book. In the mornings, she sat in front of the TV in her pyjamas, ate sugarcoated breakfast cereal and watched reruns of television shows she normal y wouldn’t dream of looking at. In the afternoons, she drove to the little shop at the crossroads and stocked up on food - chocolate, more breakfast cereal, pizzas - and whatever variety of wine was on special offer. In the evenings, she played her mother’s opera CDs at ful blast, wal owed in misery as endless heroines sang of lost loves, felt her waistband getting tighter, and drank her week’s safe intake of alcohol in one fel swoop. The next day, she repeated the cycle.

She didn’t return her phone cal s, except for one to Mary to say she was fine and would be in soon. Both statements were patently untrue. ‘I’ve been worried sick about you,’

Mary said. ‘I rang bloody Alex and told him to contact you.

Did he?’

‘He did.’ Daisy didn’t mention that Alex’s phone cal had been nothing but a single message left on her voice mail.

She’d begun to think that if Alex could have dumped her by voice mail message, he would have.

‘I gave him a piece of my mind, I can tel you,’ Mary went’

on. ‘The louse. He didn’t know what to say to me.’

It gave Daisy a grim satisfaction to imagine Mary verbal y ripping Alex to shreds. But it was a useless exercise. He was gone and nothing could change that.

‘You need to come back to work, Daisy,’ Mary said.

‘Believe me, I know what it’s like to have your heart broken, and hiding away doesn’t cure it. Alex was just one part of your life - forget him and think of your future. It’s not as if having a man is the be-al and end-al , now is it?’

When she was in cheering-up mode, Mary was a force to be reckoned with. But she was missing one vital concept, Daisy felt: the fact that Alex real y had been everything to Daisy. She tried to explain this. ‘He gave me confidence.

When I was with him, I liked myself and even when I wasn’t with him, I could stil like myself because he loved me.’

It sounded so stupid, no matter what way she put it. So ful of naked self-dislike. How could someone like Mary, who was the ultimate in strong, confident businesswomen, understand what Daisy had been like before she’d met Alex? She’d been shy, scared and afraid of the world. He’d changed al that. Most importantly, he’d managed to make Daisy like herself. ‘You can’t … you shouldn’t …’ Mary seemed to be having trouble taking this information on board. ‘Alex didn’t make you who you are,’ she managed final y. ‘If it was al down to him, how did you cope when he wasn’t with you? Answer me that! How did you travel to Paris, London, Diisseldorf, do your job so fabulously and have everybody adore you if Alex wasn’t with you? You did it because of you, not because of him!” The logic of this might have been obvious to Mary but not to Daisy. ‘When he wasn’t with me, I was happy because I knew he loved me,’ Daisy said simply. ‘Having Alex in my life said I was doing OK, somebody loved me. I didn’t have a wedding ring or even an engagement ring to tel the world that, but it didn’t matter because I knew I had Alex. I was content in myself.

Then, when he was gone, it al fel apart. I didn’t look much different but how I felt was the difference. I felt, sorry, I feel unloved, odd ‘Being single doesn’t mean that,’ Mary insisted. ‘Daisy, you can’t say you have nothing and are nothing just because Alex is gone.’

‘But that’s what it feels like,’ Daisy said bleakly. ‘It’s like waking up from this lovely dream to find out that I’m seventeen, fat and lonely again. Alex took me away from al that.’ ‘You took yourself away from it,’ Mary insisted. ‘Where are you phoning from? Your mother’s?’ she asked.

‘No, she’s back so I’m staying with friends,’ Daisy said, hating lying but not wanting Mary to find her and make her come back to the real world.

‘Why don’t you come and stay with me?’ Mary suggested.

‘No, real y,’ said Daisy. She didn’t want to be with anyone: she wanted to be on her own. ‘I’l cal soon, I promise.’ She put down the phone and walked aimlessly round the cottage. She’d eaten al the chocolate biscuits she’d bought the day before, there was nothing for dinner in the fridge and only one bottle of wine remained.

There was no point going near her mother’s drinks cabinet.

Nan Farrel took the odd gin and tonic and occasional sherry at parties, but that was it.

Daisy’s dad had been the opposite, a hail-fel ow-wel -met type, ready to have a pint with anyone he met on the street.

He hadn’t made time for his family; he’d far preferred the company of strangers in the pub.

That was why Daisy was almost happy he lived abroad now. If he’d been around, she might have had to think about why her father had preferred other people to herself and her mum. She’d loved him for his humour and his light-heartedness, such a contrast to her mother’s grim attitude to life. But he hadn’t wanted to stay with either of them.

Men didn’t stay around Nan and Daisy, it seemed.