Graveyard Shift Read Online Free PDF

city! Don’t you just hate it?” she said when she saw me. “Ever noticed how cycle path sounds like psychopath if you say it three times quickly?”
    â€œCycle path. Cycle path. Cycle path.”
    â€œSo how was your day, love?”
    â€œOh, you know, not bad.”
    â€œYou’re a mine of information. But I can’t help noticing you don’t have your sketch pad with you. Remember what I said about not wasting your God-given gift.”
    I felt a flush of guilt about that, but I couldn’t tell her what I’d really been up to. She’d think it was a lot stranger than frequenting cemeteries.
    â€œAnyway, you can tell me what you did do,” she said, and twitched her bag, showing me the parcel of takeout food inside it. “You can tell me over a supper of wonton soup and shredded chili beef — your favorite.”
    â€œBut we can’t afford . . . ,” I started to say. “Can we?”
    Mum shook her head, then ran a hand back through her dark blond hair. “No, we can’t. And you know what? I don’t care. You have to live a little now and then, otherwise you’d go mad. Do us a favor, hon, and carry this for me. My arm aches.”
    â€œYou’re in a good mood,” I said, taking the bag. I hadn’t seen her so buoyant for ages.
    â€œWell, I should be, considering I got the biggest tip I’ve ever seen in my life today.”
    â€œReally? Who from?”
    â€œSome man in a suit, very posh and smart and well spoken. A fish out of water where I work. Hands me a twenty-quid note for a six-quid roast dinner and tells me to keep the change.”
    â€œBlimey.”
    â€œI know! So I ask if he’s made a mistake, does he know he’s tipping me fourteen quid, and he waves me away like it’s nothing. ‘See you again,’ he says as he goes out the door. Oh, I hope so.”
    â€œMe too. Maybe he’ll come back again and sweep you off your feet and . . .”
    Mum clammed up then, lowering her gaze as we left the park. I knew right away I shouldn’t have said it. Perhapsbecause of the way Dad had left us — it had never been that clear to me — she never spoke to me about men.
    We crossed Lansdowne onto Middleton Road. Mum didn’t speak again until we’d climbed the cool stairwell, the coolest place in town today, and negotiated the planters and pigeon droppings on our balcony to unlock the door.
    â€œAnyway,” she said, unpacking the food in the kitchen, “that’s dinner from Hai Ha’s with change left over. Only thing that bothers me is, he said I looked like I could use the money. Now I feel insulted.”
    â€œHe probably didn’t mean it like that.”
    â€œWhat else would he mean?”
    â€œWhere you work. It’s a bit of a dive. He probably thought you must be hard up to work there.”
    â€œHmm.”
    â€œThat’s probably all he meant.”
    â€œProbably. But still. All the same.”
    Â 
    We felt stuffed after the meal, and I told her my day had been a good one without explaining the reasons why. I did mention the squirrel but not the four-leaf clovers, and I mentioned the girl in the canal but not Mr. October’s part in what happened. I even told her I’d had a hot dog for lunch but not where I’d gotten it.
    She seemed satisfied by my story, anyway, and by the time I’d cleared the plates from the breakfast bar she was nodding over the table, close to sleep.
    Another day’s waitressing had worn her out, and I felt sad that she’d been so happy over a lousy fourteen pounds. By the time I’d washed up, she’d crawled from the kitchen to the living room sofa and was drifting away in front of the TV.
    Upstairs, I opened my sketch pad for the first time that day and began to draw, just doodling at first. I was trying to picture the faces Mr. October had shown me on Lamb Lane, but now they all merged into