Goodnight Steve McQueen Read Online Free PDF Page A

decides to follow me. She seems bothered about something.
    “Now then,” she says, searching for her glasses at the bottom of her Budgens carrier bag, ‘you don’t seem quite your usual self today. You seem a little off colour to me. Am I right?”
    I know there’s no point in lying to her so I say, “Yeah, you’re right, Sheila, I’ve had a bit of an argument with my girlfriend.”
    “Nothing too serious, I hope?”
    Tm not really sure. She’s sort of given me an ultimatum.”
    “Oh, Daniel, you’ve not been seeing a fancy woman, have you?”
    “No, nothing like that, not apart from you, of course.”
    She giggles and her face creases up like a wet paper bag.
    “You see, she wants me to get a job.”
    “Well, you have a job, don’t you? I mean, you work here.”
    “I know, but Alison thinks I should get something a bit better, something more like a career. I am nearly thirty.”
    “Tush, you’re no more than a child. Wait until you get to be my age, then you’ll see what life’s made of.”
    “Right. I mean, I’m sure you’re right… but anyway she’s only given me until Christmas to sort it out.”
    “Well, what about your music? I thought you still played in that little band of yours. I thought that song you played me the other day was rather lovely.”
    “Well, see… the thing is she wants to see something concrete. She wants to see something on paper, a record deal or a job one or the other, by the end of the year.”
    “Well, that doesn’t seem like very much time to me.”
    “I know, but she’s just been given this job in Bruges and…”
    “Bruges?”
    “It’s in Belgium.”
    “My dear boy, I know where it is. I’m not senile, you know.”
    “No, of course not, I didn’t mean…”
    “In fact my husband and I spent some time in Antwerp before the war. Lovely city, Antwerp. Beautiful cathedral.
    “Still,” she says, taking my arm and beckoning me close to hear her secret. “They’re a funny lot, you know… the Belgians.”
    “How so, Sheila?”
    She looks both ways to check no one’s listening.
    “They put mayonnaise on their chips.”
    “You hear about all this ridiculousness, Sheila?” says Kostas, coming to join us from the stockroom. “This boy let his girlfriend tell him what’s to do. Have you ever heard such ridiculous thing as this? The girlfriend telling the boyfriend what’s to do?”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” says Sheila, picking up a copy of Best of the Best, ‘she sounds like quite a young lady to me.”
    “She is,” I say. “That’s the problem.”
    “Tsk. You ought to behave like a man, Danny. You wants to tell her what’s to do. A man should be kings of his own castle.”
    “Well… it’s more Alison’s castle really. She does pay almost all of the rent.”
    Kostas looks faintly disgusted and then Sheila taps me on the hand with her bony finger and gets me off the hook.
    “You are still coming to mow my lawn for me on Saturday, aren’t you?”
    “Yes, of course I am. We said some time around four, didn’t we?”
    “Yes, because my daughter’s visiting with my grandson on Sunday and I’d hate for the lawn to be overgrown. I don’t want her thinking I can’t take care of myself.”
    “Don’t worry, Sheila. I’ll definitely be there.”
    It’s funny what old people worry about. She can barely afford to clothe herself on her pension but she still wants to make sure she’s got a neat lawn when the grandchildren come round.
    “Hi, how was work?”
    “Fine,” I say, heading over to the fridge and helping myself to a Snapple. “Kostas made a list of his top-ten Telly Savalas films of all time and that guy from the post office came in to rent House of Whipcord again.”
    “That’s nice. I’ve made us something to eat turkey mince chilli OK?”
    Alison is starting to freak me out. Ever since she said she was leaving she’s started behaving like the wife in a fifties American sitcom. She’s home by six, she’s tidied the house,