Fire After Dark Read Online Free PDF

white chest seemed podgy and his naked stomach hung down pendulously over Hannah, who matched him in ripeness with her big breasts, an expanse of pale belly and full hips exposed.
    ‘Beth!’ he’d gasped, his expression flicking between confusion, guilt, embarrassment and, unbelievably, annoyance. ‘What the fuck are you doing here? You’re supposed to be babysitting!’
    Hannah said nothing but I could see her initial bewilderment becoming a nasty kind of defiance. Her eyes glittered at me as though she was spoiling for a fight. Caught in the sordid act, she was going to take me on. Rather than play the role of the wicked seductress, she was going to recast me as the lumpen fool intent on standing in the way of Romeo and Juliet’s true love. Her nakedness was becoming a badge of honour rather than shame. ‘Yes,’ she seemed to be saying, ‘we’re fucking, we’re mad about each other, we can’t resist it. So what the hell are you doing here?’
    Don’t ask me how I knew all that in those few seconds between walking in and realising what I was seeing, but I did. Female intuition may be a cliché but that doesn’t make it untrue. I also knew that everything I’d believed in approximately one minute before was now utterly defunct, and that the horrible pain I felt was my heart being beaten and mauled to within an inch of its life.
    I managed to say something at last. I looked at Adam. In my eyes, I implored but I said only, ‘Why? Why ?’
    I sigh heavily. Even a day losing myself in the hugeness of London can’t seem to stop me replaying the whole miserable scene. How can I escape it? When will it all end? Because the truth is, misery is so bloody tiring. No one ever talks about how exhausting it is being sad.
    The flat opposite is still in darkness. I guess the man must be out, living his glamorous life, doing endlessly exciting things, hanging out with women like him: beautiful, sophisticated and high maintenance.
    ‘I need ice cream,’ I decide suddenly. I turn away from the window and say to De Havilland, who is curled up on the sofa, ‘I’m just going outside. I may be some time.’ Then I grab the keys and head out.
     
    Outside the flat, some of the confidence I’ve acquired during the day seeps away, like air escaping slowly from a punctured tyre.
    Around me the buildings are high and forbidding. I have no idea where I am or where to go. I’d planned to ask the porter on my way out, but the desk was empty as I passed it, so I head back towards the main streets. There are shops all right, but none that has anything offer me and anyway they’re all closed, their windows grilled and locked. Behind the glass are Persian rugs, vast china vases and chandeliers or exquisite clothes. Where can I buy ice cream? I walk without direction through the warm summer evening, trying to remember where I’ve come from. I pass bars and restaurants, all smarter than anything I’d seen before, with burly men in black jackets and earpieces standing at the door. Behind manicured box hedges, people in sunglasses, with that unmistakeable air of wealth, sit at tables, smoking over ice-coolers of champagne, white plates of delicious-looking morsels abandoned in front of them.
    I begin to quail inside. What am I doing here? What makes me think I can survive in a world like this? I must be mad. It’s ridiculous. I don’t belong and never will. I want to cry.
    Then I see a bright awning and hurry towards it, full of relief. I emerge from the corner shop a few minutes later with a tub of very expensive ice cream in a bag, feeling a lot happier. Now all I have to do is find my way back.
    It occurs to me I’ve not yet seen a television in Celia’s apartment, or a computer, come to that. I’ve got my aged laptop with me but goodness knows if there’s an Internet connection. Probably not. I’m not sure I can imagine eating ice cream without watching something on the telly at the same time, but I guess I’ll survive