Always and Forever by Cathy Kelly

had reached twenty five because they were both reckless when it came to money. Her mother insisted it was because Harry wanted to make sure they were sensible enough to think of the hotel’s future when they were final y part of the deal.
    ‘Twenty-five is ridiculous. It’s so far off it’s almost Victorian,’
    Cleo insisted at her twenty-first birthday, when she heard of this scheme for the first time and realised she wasn’t old enough to be in it.
    ‘It’s the age of maturity,’ her father said.

    ‘In Jane Austen’s time, perhaps,’ Cleo said. She hated the fact that her father didn’t realise she was already far more mature than her brothers would ever be - honestly, they were like children sometimes - and she was determined to change this. Dad would listen to her. It was crazy not to give her her share now so she could have a say in the running of the business. She had al the training, she knew what would work and she was so eager …

    ‘Are you buying those magazines or are you practising to be in the wax museum?’ demanded the man behind the counter in the newsagent’s. Wrenching herself out of a daydream in which her family listened to her every utterance as if it was written on tablets of stone, Cleo realised she’d been staring blindly at the magazine rack for ages with two glossy magazines clutched to her chest.
    ‘Sorry,’ she said, going over to the counter and beaming at him. Cleo had a fabulous smile, everyone said, because it brought out her dimples and reached her eyes too. If Cleo had been the sort of girl who’d ever got into trouble - and she wasn’t, as she moaned to her best friend, Trish - she’d have been able to wriggle out of it instantly, thanks to her hundred watt beam.
    The newsagent’s face mel owed as he took the magazines to scan them. She was a grand girl and polite too, not like those hoydens who came in, flicked through every magazine in the place, read out the sex hints loudly, and went off without buying so much as a pack of crisps.
    ‘Thank you.’ Cleo took her change and her magazines, averting her eyes from the rows of chocolate at the til .
    Chocolate was evil, particularly the new white chocolate thing that just melted on your tongue and bypassed your stomach completely before resting on your backside. Cleo had never worried that much about her weight: she was tal with long legs and an athletic body. No matter what she ate, her stomach was enviably flat. Her breasts were the problem. A 38D was big in any language, and if she did put on any extra weight at least half went straight onto her chest.
    Trish was waiting for her at the lights, huddled into her fake sheepskin coat because it was so cold, a knitted red hat flattened down on her head.
    ‘Whatdidya get?’ she demanded, poking at Cleo’s purchases as they waited to cross the busy city centre street. ‘Interior design magazines,’ said Cleo, hoping it wasn’t going to rain until she was on the bus home because she hadn’t got either a hat or an umbrel a. Her hair was bad enough as it was, al wild and mind-of-its-own, but if it got wet - then she turned into cavewoman.
    ‘Why didn’t you get nice gossip mags to cheer us up?’

    moaned Trish. ‘I love those pictures of stars with no makeup, spots, cel ulite and fags in their hands.’
    Trish had recently given up smoking and there was nothing she loved better than to see other people looking unhealthy with cigarettes in their hands. It proved, she said with gritted teeth as she chewed another bit of nicotine gum, that she’d made the right decision.
    ‘Because those mags are also ful of diets and hints on how to look like J-Lo, and it always involves spending loads of money, which we don’t have, and being a size six, which we aren’t,’ Cleo pointed out.
    The green man flashed on the pedestrian lights and they hurried across the road to the Shepherd, the pub where they’d spent many an hour when they were both in col ege in the city. Five