Four New Words for Love Read Online Free PDF

disembodied shouting from the booths. You could get drunk on this alone, and I watched Lolly take a giant breath and joyfully
expand. She was in her element in that bouquet of ripe, ready women. It affected me too. I felt light headed as we walked back towards the music and looked around. Lolly leaned against a pillar and
watched me looking, a half ironic look on her face. She has technique she usually employs, like one of those angler fish you see in telly documentaries, down miles deep, where there’s no
light, suspending her bait. Once a victim gets too close to see what’s flashing it’s too late. But she wasn’t doing that yet.
    ‘He’s not here yet,’ she said.
    ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
    ‘You’re not a very good liar.’
    ‘I think I must be too old for this place. I don’t see the attraction any more.’
    ‘Here it is coming.’
    I turned to her and we both managed a quick refill, pouring from her handbag like a goatskin, before I turned back and pretended to look anywhere but in his direction, as he weaved his way
through the bodies towards us. He staked his claim without a word. That annoyed me. I let him stand for a long time before pretending to notice.
    ‘So you’re back in circulation.’
    ‘I’m not a corpuscle, Nick.’ Lolly’s nodding approval behind his back, because this is one we haven’t rehearsed.
    ‘Want a drink?’
    ‘I’ve got a drink.’
    ‘Want to dance?’
    ‘That’s why I brought my handbag.’
    ‘Want some fresh air?’
    ‘You’re fresh enough.’ Lolly gives me the thumbs up.
    ‘I only heard about it afterwards. Gina, I’m so sorry...’ He lets his voice tail off with his falling gaze, puts his drink on a nearby table and pretends to study the floor for
about twenty seconds. Of course it’s complete fucking rubbish. You’d have to live in a submarine at the bottom of the Clyde not to hear about anything that goes on round here.
Nick’s emotional range is about as deep as his intelligence. He has a series of poses he strikes, like something out a mediaeval tapestry, that are supposed to represent sadness, reproach,
regret or whatever. I don’t know if he’s actually capable of feeling anything. He tries to match his appearance that he’s always aware of to what he thinks other people think he
should be feeling, groping his way towards a combination, like a colour-blind electrician. At least he does that as long as he’s trying to get something, like sex or promotion. The rest of
the time he doesn’t give a fuck. This attempt looked like constipation.
    ‘You know me, Gina. I don’t walk away from my responsibilities. If only I’d known.’
    I’m distracted by Lolly sticking her fingers down her throat and miming a hurl. ‘Three’s company,’ I say, across his shoulder. She leans towards me in a conspiring sort
of a way. I’m assuming it’s a joke at Quick Nick’s expense, some dig at his spurt problem, but it’s just to give me another refill. I’ve been drinking in big nervous
gulps since pretending not to see him. He waits till she goes before coming out with a real fucking howler.
    ‘Somehow, Gina, I think whatever comes out of you and me being together can’t be bad.’
    Is he talking about the act of him making his deposit or the end product? Does he even know what he’s talking about? You can’t assume Nick’s words mean anything because
it’s almost impossible to overestimate his superficiality. But I know what to say to him right then and there: ‘Well, that’s all right then. You wouldn’t have minded my
varicose veins and heartburn and piles and tiredness and clothes always drying over the radiator and you doing two nights and a Saturday to make ends meet and my cracked nipples and the teething
and the sleepless nights and the resentment that there’s someone that isn’t you monopolising my tits and the realisation that if you’re any kind of a parent at all you’ve
got someone depending on you for