A Friend of the Family Read Online Free PDF Page A

people who ate seaweed, not hefty great English blokes who drank Guinness.
    He stopped to pick something off his windscreen – a small green card.
Lose Weight Now! We’re looking for 100
overweight people in this area.
Please call Wendy on 07978 245542.
    He sighed, tossed it into the gutter and lowered himself into his tiny car, trying to ignore the likeness of the sensation to that of stuffing a duvet into a drawer, and headed for the office.
    Fifteen minutes later he was on Clapham Pavement. Sidestepping a gaggle of scary schoolgirls in blue uniforms as he got out of his car, he nearly collided with a laminated board hinged on to a metal stand, which most certainly had not been there yesterday.
    For Millie’s benefit, he turned to glare icily at the errant piece of street furniture and was confronted by a photograph of a very fat man in a voluminous T-shirt with at least twelve chins:
Overweight? Like to lose lbs? Lose weight fast the natural way. First lesson free.
    What? thought Tony. What is going on? Is there some kind of conspiracy at work here?
Bryan lost 31 lbs in just eight weeks.
    Tony followed the wording to another photo of ‘Bryan’, this time wearing lurid floral surf-shorts, wading through the sea and proudly flexing his quads. No way, thought Tony, looking from one picture to the other. There is no way that that is the same bloke. He looked about ten years younger, for a start. But it was Bryan, he thought, looking closer, it really was. Bloody hell, he looked good. Tony passed his hand absent-mindedly across his belly and tried to visualize the taut muscles buried somewhere underneath the wobbly stuff.
Please take a leaflet.
    Tony glanced around briefly to make sure no one was looking, grabbed a leaflet and jammed it into his coat pocket. Then he started walking, extra fast, for some reason, towards his office.

Sean’s Older Woman
    Sean was woken up at ten-thirty by the fat cat suddenly landing on the bed in the midst of some kind of mad-bastard attack, rolling around on his back and kicking himself in the chin with his back paws.
    ‘Buffoon,’ said Sean, rubbing his face into his hands. ‘You’re a buffoon of a cat.’Not his cat, though. Her cat. His Older Woman. Her flat, too.
    He’d met her two months ago in a restaurant in Covent Garden, his older woman. He’d been having lunch with his agent and she’d been having lunch on her own. She was eating a big bowlful of rocket, which she’d forced haphazardly into her mouth with a fork while holding a newspaper in the other hand – the first time he set eyes on her she had rocket hanging from her lip and a splash of vinegar on her chin and was trying to shovel the stray fronds of greenery into her perfect mouth with a finger. He liked the fact that she shovelled. He liked the fact that she ate lunch on her own. And he liked the fact that every time he looked at her he felt like he was staring straight in the eye of his future.
    She was older than his usual type. He’d imagined her to be his age, maybe a bit older. He’d been surprisedwhen he found out that she was six years older than him. His last girlfriend had been twenty-two. The one before that, twenty. The oldest woman he’d ever been out with before her had been twenty-eight. He usually went for blondes. This woman was brunette. He usually went for conventional dressers. She was slightly bohemian in a vintage blouse and hoop earrings.
    His agent had noticed that his mind wasn’t on their conversation. ‘What’s up?’ he’d said, looking beyond Sean to whatever it was that had been distracting him. And then he’d seen her and looked knowingly at Sean. ‘Aha,’ he’d said, ‘I see. Why don’t you send her over a glass of champagne?’
    Sean had been appalled by the idea at first. It was corny and smooth. It was something that other men did. It wasn’t his style. But then, he’d thought, neither was she. Sean’s agent’s advice had been perfectly judged, however, because