Dying to Write Read Online Free PDF Page A

could do is –’
    â€˜â€“ have a coffee,’ Matt suggested.
    We started to drift from the room. I hung back to avoid Nyree, and found myself alone with Gimson and Kate. But they obviously didn’t realise I was still there. They were talking in urgent under-voices: I didn’t want to eavesdrop and headed briskly for the door. But I couldn’t avoid hearing some of what they said.
    â€˜I nearly died once too,’ she was saying. ‘A pulmonary embolism –’
    â€˜Embolus.’
    â€˜A pulmonary
embolus
, then – often is fatal. I might have died. Because of you.’
    I was almost at the door. But I couldn’t miss what Gimson said next: ‘If you try to put it in some book, I promise you I shall take every step possible to silence you.’
    After mid-morning coffee we were allowed free time. I jogged down to the depressed mining village a couple of miles from the estate to buy a torch. I found an old-fashioned hardware shop with exactly the heavy, rubber-covered type I wanted. I could have bought Kilner jars and a jam kettle if I’d wanted, and enough poison to exterminate all the rats and weeds in Birmingham. I restrained myself, and strolled up the main street. There was a new Peugeot 205GTi parked neatly outside the chemist’s. I winced at the thought of the insurance premiums but soon drifted into covet-mode. It was certainly sleeker than my van. George’s van, really. He’d left it to me, half-converted to combine transport and accommodation for the world tour he had planned for when he retired. When I collected it, his tape measure was still half open on top of his toolbag. The tools have gone now, to a charity that specialises in refurbishing them and distributing them to African workers. But I have the van, and I bought a new tape measure for Africa.
    The van itself was a problem.
    I ought to have paid to have the conversion completed. But I didn’t want a motor-caravan. It was a liability in a city like Birmingham. Since it was too big for my garage, I had to tax and insure it, so I did occasionally drive it. But my main mode of transport was a cycle. Hitherto I’d been quite happy to augment that with public transport, but an occasional foray into self-indulgence had given me the taste for something better. A Peugeot like Kate’s, for instance.
    But then, I could never, ever sell George’s van.
    Kate emerged from the chemist’s and opened the car door.
    â€˜Hi! Want a lift? I can wait, if you have shopping to do.’
    â€˜No, I’ve finished, thanks.’
    â€˜Sure? There’s no hurry.’
    I convinced her, got in, and we set off up the long hill to Eyre House.
    She drove well, confident despite the fact that the odometer showed only 998 miles.
    â€˜How are you enjoying the teaching?’ I asked, in what I hoped was a supportive voice.
    â€˜It’s OK,’ she said doubtfully. ‘But I do find it hard to deal with some of the individuals. Like Garth. He insisted on changing his place on the cooking roster. Has to do it tonight, he says, or his creative juices will evaporate. And he has to make a chocolate pudding. Nothing else will do. He’d already browbeaten the rest of the team by the time I got involved, so I could hardly refuse when he asked me to pick up some of the ingredients. And then he held me up by coming and admiring the car. Sat and told me how he wanted to be famous and buy a Maserati.’ Her voice suggested he wouldn’t achieve fame through his writing.
    â€˜I thought Shazia was responsible for stocking up,’ I said, returning to a subject which would soon affect me intimately, since I’d be cooking too.
    â€˜She’d left ages before the rest of their order. And I was coming here anyway with a prescription. Though how I’ll be able to face food from the same source as Tampax and toilet rolls I don’t know. God knows why it has to be liquid glucose.