coffee? Tea? A glass of champagne?’
‘We don’t want to be any trouble,’ Dave said.
‘It’s no trouble at all. But we can have it sent to your room as soon as we’ve checked you in. We’ll do that, will we?’ She smiled again, desperately keen for them to enjoy this. The Honeymoon Suite was also a no-go, she decided. They’d likely be embarrassed by its sexy implications. But she wanted more for them than a regular room. Click, click, click, went her head, mentally scanning all the bookings over the next few days. ‘Let me just get your check-in details.’ She went to the reception counter and threw, out of the side of her mouth, ‘Corrib Suite’, at Madelyn.
‘Perfect,’ Madelyn breathed, and picked up the phone, straight into action.
Cara kept the Robertses talking while the Corrib Suite was quickly kitted out with champagne, flowers, handmade chocolates and a welcome card from Patience, the deputy manager.
High in the eaves, it was smaller than the other suites. The cream and pale gold décor of the sweet little sitting room was attractively cosy. The bedroom was bright, simple and straightforward – no four-poster complications to scare them.
Paula looked around. ‘This is nice.’ She seemed marginally less terrified.
‘How about that cup of tea now?’
Paula scanned the room. ‘Kettle?’ she asked.
‘The rooms don’t have kettles,’ Cara said. ‘But anything you’d like, anything at all, just ring down.’
‘Okay,’ Paula said quickly.
Cara suspected she wouldn’t. Paula and Dave were humble people who were more likely to try to sleep with every light in the room blazing than to bother someone to explain how to turn them off.
Cara rang for the tea, then said, ‘Seriously. Those lads downstairs in room service need to be kept busy or else they’ll be out of a job.’
Dave’s attempt at a smile was more of a grimace.
‘You won’t be putting anyone out.’ She directed this next bit at Paula. ‘Let someone else wait on you for a change. I don’t know about you, but I’ve two boys and I seem to spend my entire life standing at the hob, frying fish fingers.’
Was Paula starting to understand that there was a real person behind Cara’s uniform and name badge?
‘I feel as soon as they finish one meal,’ Cara said, ‘it’s time for me to start cooking another.’
Now Paula smiled.
‘I’ve been lucky enough to stay here a couple of times,’ Cara said. ‘It took me a while to relax. Then I got the hang of it. They really know how to take care of you – they want to do it. Now, let me show you the features of the room.’
She talked them through the lighting and the sound system. ‘Room-service menu here. But basically they’ll do anything you like, cheese on toast, curry chips, even if it’s not listed.’
A knock on the door announced the arrival of the tea. As Gustav, the young uniformed waiter, delicately poured from the silver pot into the china cups, Dave hovered, as tense as a board, a fiver clutched in his fist.
At his first opportunity, he thrust the note at the boy and blurted, ‘Thanks, son.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Gustav murmured.
Dave turned away from him. He looked spent. And that wouldn’t do. The Robertses seemed like big tea drinkers. If Dave had to go through that every time they wanted a cup, he’d be dead from the stress of tipping by the end of the day. Not to mention stony broke.
She was already formulating a solution when her internal line rang. It was Hannah the hair. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to Paula and Dave. ‘I need to …’
Out in the corridor, she said, ‘Hannah?’
‘Cancellation. You want your hair blow-dried? Got to be right now, though.’
‘You serious? What time is it? One thirty? I’m already off the clock! Be with you in ten. Thank you.’ First, though, she raced down to the storeroom in the basement. ‘Any spare kettles?’ There were bound to be. All kinds of peculiar abandoned things lived there. A functioning kettle turned up in moments. In the kitchen, she assembled a tray with a silver teapot, a strainer, china cups, all the paraphernalia necessary to make tea, then hurried back up to the Corrib Suite.
Paula opened the door. ‘Oh!’
‘You can have all of this,’ Cara said, ‘if you promise to order everything else your heart desires.’
Then Dave appeared. They both looked so relieved she wanted to cry. ‘Grand,’ he said. ‘We’ll do that. Like, thanks.’
Downstairs, Cara cut across the garden to the glass and sandstone spa,