A Friend of the Family Read Online Free PDF

she turned out to be exactly the sort of woman to appreciate being sent glasses of champagne by strange men – it appealed to her sense of adventure. His agent made a discreet exit and she came and joined him at his table. Up close she was better-looking than she was from a distance. She had an intelligent beauty, smooth olive skin, a natural perfume, an infectious laugh. He persuaded her to take the rest of the day off and they drank champagne together until the first evening diners arrived. Then they’d gone back to hers and he’d barely left her flat since. And who could blame him? Her place was stunning, a monster one-bedroom flat carved out of one of those huge stucco-frontedplaces in Paddington. Twelve-foot ceilings, wooden floorboards, shutters and big windows. And with a stylish interior that reflected her job as a lecturer in interior design at the London College of Art and Design. He glanced around her bedroom now, at the faded antique satin throws, the distressed velvet cushions, gilt-framed junk-shop paintings and ornate engraved mirrors. It was stylish but unpretentious, sumptuous but understated, simple but ornate. Sean wasn’t generally one for interiors, for thinking about how things went together. He was more of a furniture person. Some furniture, that was all you needed, and maybe a lamp or two. But he loved this flat. It entertained him and enveloped him, made him feel like he was part of some magic enchanted world – just like her.
    She’d set him up a little work area in her bedroom, by the window, found him a leather-topped desk and an old leather swivel chair. It pleased her greatly to think of him writing there, in her flat, looking through the window at her street while he searched for inspiration. Not in an ‘Ooh, I’ve got a famous writer creating a masterpiece in my bedroom’ kind of a way, but in a pleased-to-be-of-use way. She loved to feel useful. Nothing made her happier.
    So how could he tell her that he hadn’t written a word since the first day he set eyes on her? How could he tell her that her blotter and her lamp and her view of Sussex Gardens were doing nothing to inspire him, that when she left for work every morning he went back to sleep, or watched daytime TV?
    His eye fell upon his sleeping laptop, the £1,200 laptop he’d bought for himself just seven months ago with some of the £50,000 his publishers had paid him sixteen months ago for his second novel, which was to be delivered in two months and which, according to his word-counter, currently consisted of a whopping 12,345 words.
    Jesus, he thought, turning on to his other side, it was like a stalker, that bloody book. Every time he felt happy, every time he thought that his life was perfect, he’d remember ‘the book’– this gargantuan task he had to complete, this impossible mountain he had to climb, and suddenly he’d remember how precarious this ‘happiness’ he’d achieved actually was. It all hinged on being ‘successful’– and being successful wasn’t like being a man, or being tall. It wasn’t guaranteed for ever. Success could be taken away from you, just like that – or rather it could slip away. And where would Sean be without this ‘success’, without the aura that being ‘successful’ conferred upon him? He’d just be scruffy, irresponsible Sean again. And what would he have to offer his older woman, for God’s sake? This amazing creature who he’d only just met, who’d never known him as Sean London, Office-Supplies Delivery Driver, who knew him only as Sean London, Guardian First Novel Award-Winning Author.
    He dragged himself out of bed and decided that he wouldn’t even try today. He decided that trying today would just make things worse. Besides, it was their two-month anniversary tomorrow night and Sean needed to go shopping, buy her something really special. Sean didn’t usually hold with two-month-anniversarytype stuff, but then Sean had never felt this way about anyone