All the Lonely People Read Online Free PDF

reproach, Jim looked in and said, “Lunch?”
    Harry joined him outside. “Thanks, but I’m busy today.”
    â€œYou’re worrying about that woman, aren’t you? Take it from me, she’s just not worth it.”
    â€œLet me be the judge of that.”
    â€œDo me a favour. Coghlan may play at being a businessman, but he’s still a crook and Liz had her eyes open when she shacked up with him. That’s how she is, old son. Give her an outfit by Zandra Rhodes plus a fortnight on the Côte d’Azur and she won’t worry too much about where the money came from.”
    Harry grunted and walked towards his room. At his retreating back, his partner fired a parting shot. “You should have divorced her long ago, can’t you see? Start afresh, it’s the only way.”
    Slamming the door behind him, Harry sat down to work again. But his concentration had gone and he was reduced to shuffling the papers around on his desk. Liz had not lost her capacity to strip him of both emotion and common sense. His fear that Coghlan might have hurt her, his sense of utter powerlessness, had started to stretch his nerves.
    By two o’clock he could no longer ignore the hunger pangs. He wandered out to the Ancient Mariner’s, a corner cafe near the waterfront where buxom girls who couldn’t care less about cholesterol served thick wedges of ham with eggs and mugs of steaming tea. Harry listened to the waitresses’ chatter about lovers past and present, jealous friends and trouble at home. Perhaps all our problems are the same, he thought, it’s just the packaging that differs.
    While paying for the meal, something occurred to him. Liz had a part-time job; she might simply be working. Outside, the rain had turned to sleet, but he folded the collar of his coat and hurried in the direction of Harrington Street. The Freak Shop was sandwiched between a wine merchant’s and a florist’s full of drooping daffodils. One window of Matt Barley’s emporium was filled with distorting mirrors, Hallowe’en masks and a rail of fancy dress costumes. A display of just-about-legal porn videos, exotic lingerie and thigh-length leather boots crammed the other. Harry didn’t know how Matt had persuaded Liz to help him out this last time. An up-market fashion shop might have offered at least the surface glitter for which she yearned - but going back to a dump like this, run by a temperamental dwarf? He shook his head, unable to fathom it.
    In any event, she wasn’t here today. A handwritten card on the door said that the Freak Shop would be closed this afternoon. The truanting schoolkids who were pressing their noses to the glass, admiring the naughty nighties, could goggle to their hearts’ content. Further down the road, he paused for a moment outside Mama Reilly’s. But there was no reason to go inside and it was time to return to Fenwick Court.
    Back at New Commodities House, Suzanne’s sheikh had presumably got his woman and the switchboard girl was now tackling a thousand-pager about sex in Hollywood. Without looking up, she said, “Your lodger - sorry, your wife - called again. She said she’d be out this afternoon, but she hopes to see you tonight.”
    Relax, Harry told himself, nothing’s gone wrong after all. Coghlan isn’t a teenage hoodlum: losing Liz wouldn’t be the end of his world. Follow Jim’s advice and don’t look back. Yet like a client urged to be calm in the witness box, he found it easier said than done.
    He chain-smoked his way through the rest of the afternoon and rang the flat a couple of times without result. Shortly before six, Jim came into the tiny room.
    â€œI’m off to the match.” An F.A. cup-tie at Anfield, already twice postponed due to the snow last week. “There’s a spare ticket here. Ronnie can’t make it. Want to come?”
    â€œNo, thanks, not tonight.”