A Winter Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

squeals, and felt horribly out of place. Eventually, they retired to a table on the balcony and sat looking critically down at the mayhem below.
    ‘It was never like this in our day,’ said Nell. ‘It’s got wilder. Drunker. There’re men fighting in the middle of the dance floor. They used to take their battles outside. And girls are fighting, too.’
    ‘There were always girls fighting,’ said Carol.
    ‘Yes, they’d hit one another with their handbags, scratch and scream and cry. But look, they’re actually punching one another, actual fists flying. I don’t know … the youth of today are out of control.’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Carol, ‘but the band’s still rubbish. It’s good to find something hasn’t changed. Don’t think I’ll come back, though.’
    ‘I think I’ll go home. I need a pee first, coming?’ asked Nell.
    Carol said she’d have one last trip around the edge of the dance floor; one last look at the glitter ball. ‘I’m just going to say goodbye to it all. I’m a grown-up now. See you at the door.’
    Nell tottered down the stairs and into the corridor leading to the cloakroom. A couple of men were fighting; it was an intense and bitter struggle, heavy breathing, no words, only the thick sound of grunts and gasps of pain. Fighting in real life was nothing like Hollywood fighting. In films men danced round one another throwing punches that landed neatly on their opponent’s jaw. But actual fights weren’t like that. These two men were locked in a heaving grapple. It was hard to see what was going on. Still, this wasn’t an unusual sight at the Locarno on a Saturday night.
    Nell ignored them and went to the loo. She did her usual skilled peeing, keeping her handbag on her knee and her feet off the floor. She sprayed fresh lacquer on her hair and applied a layer of pink fizz lipstick and gazed at her face. Tonight she didn’t look beautiful; she looked tired and disappointed. And sex had done something to her face. It was thinner; more knowing. She liked that, though.
    As she came back out she glanced at the fighters. Now one man was slumped on the floor. The other man was standing over him. He stared at Nell. He was one of the hard men, as she called them. There was always a gang of them at the Locarno. Bigger and broader than the normal boys, they moved their shoulders as they walked, shoving people aside. They wore sharp suits, tailor-made. They were the best sneerers and drinkers. They swore. They swaggered. They carried knives. Nell had danced with one of them once. He’d shoved his hand up her skirt, stroked her in her secret place, leaned into her and whispered, ‘I’ll give you the best fuck of your life.’ He’d laughed when she ran away.
    There was something odd about the way the man on the floor was lying – something silent and final; a weird dull stillness. Nell’s blood curdled, a thick chill ran over her scalp and a shrill wave of nerves shuddered through her stomach. The man on the floor was dead. Nell just knew it.
    For a moment, Nell and the other man stood, eyes locked. They didn’t speak. Then he ran, pushed passed her and disappeared into the throng on the dance floor. Nell stepped nearer to the man on the floor and bent close. He wasn’t breathing. His mouth was open and his eyes were staring. Her hand hovered over him but she couldn’t bring herself to touch him. She turned and ran.
    When she found Carol at the front door, she grabbed her arm. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
    Outside, Nell hailed a taxi that was drawing up. ‘My treat. I can’t face walking home.’ As they climbed in, the man who’d ran away into the crowd came out, grabbed the door handle, yelling ‘Hey, this is my taxi, you stupid bitch.’ The driver locked the door and pulled away from the kerb. Looking out the back window, Nell could see the man standing in the middle of the road still shouting and throwing curses at them.
    Nell spent the ride watching the road behind them,