Kisses for Lula Read Online Free PDF Page B

angry. How long will you be angry with me? Does your tongue still hurt?’
    ‘Comb?’
    ‘Brush. Top drawer bedside cabinet.’
    Elsa, already repainting the walls, began to laugh quietly.
    ‘Wait!’ said Arnold.
    But it was too late. I’d opened the drawer and was staring at the entire Western world’s supply of condoms glittering in shiny foil beneath one of those toddler-sized hairbrushes.
    I took out the brush and shut the drawer with a grin. Arnold was forgiven. I love a boy with ambition. ‘You dealin’?’ I asked in a fake American accent.
    ‘Ha bloody ha.’
    ‘The good boy’ – I winked over at Elsa who was trying not to laugh – ‘he swears.’
    ‘Just the tip of the iceberg,’ promised my client’s sister, sweeping away with Bright White interior paint like a woman possessed.
    It’s hard to cut hair with blunt scissors and a baby-hair brush when you’ve never done it before, but I have to say the results were pretty incredible.
    Arns blinked, swallowed and cleared his throat. His eyes didn’t leave his reflection. I took the towel and a sheepful of hair away from his shoulders and he stood up slowly. At last he turned round to face me.
    ‘I think your work here is done,’ he said, a slow smile transforming his face. He suddenly bounced out from behind the cupboard door to face his sister. ‘Elsa! Look!’ He spread his arms wide.
    Elsa stood from her crouched position over a skirting board and blinked in surprise.
    ‘Wow, Arns!’
    I grinned happily.
    She put down the roller and the paintbrush and pushed the hair out of her face with the back of her hand. ‘You – you look . . .
amazing
.’
    ‘The walls are looking good too, Elsa,’ I noted.
    ‘Yes,’ admitted Arns.
    ‘Bro, you owe me big,’ Elsa said with narrowed eyes. ‘This is going to need another coat tomorrow.’
    The comment reminded me of my own indebted family. I checked my watch. ‘We’ve got to hustle. I don’t want to call my mum for a lift any later than ten.’
    ‘Arns, you clear up,’ commanded Elsa. ‘Just leave that paint tray and that roller. I’m going to explain your wardrobe to Tatty.’
    ‘I –’ started Arnold. Then he tore his eyes from the reflection in the mirror and looked at the transformation of his room. ‘Yes, Elsa,’ he said meekly. ‘Thank you,’ and he started clearing paint tins, brushes and rollers away. Elsa was already talking nineteen to the dozen and opening up the other doors of the built-in cupboards, but I was fascinated by her brother. He currently held the handles of Sahara Sunset, Passion’s Flower and African Earth all in his left hand with a dustsheet bundled under his arm, and hanging from his right forearm was a bucket loaded with the rest of the stuff, another dustsheet bunched into his armpit and two paint trays, piled with more brushes, held in his right hand.
    Yowzer
, I thought.
He’s got to be really, really strong
.
    ‘Tatty?’ Elsa was behind me, just visible behind a load of grey matter. Not of the cerebral kind, mind. Sweatshirts, tracksuit bottoms, T-shirts.
    ‘What a world of grey,’ I said. And got busy with the scissors again.
    *
    ‘The room will look great when it’s finished,’ I called to Elsa above the clatter of the sewing machine.
    ‘Anything to get Arnold out with a girl,’ she replied.
    ‘You make it sound like I’ve got facial warts or something,’ said Arnold from the doorway. He looked odd. His head did not match the rest of his body. Old-man sweatshirt and tracksuit bottoms, I realised, had been Arnold’s uniform for as long as I’d known him.
    ‘Take off your clothes,’ I said to him, pulling out the finished T-shirt.
    ‘Not bloody likely.’
    I ignored him, bit off a thread and held up the shirt, side seams taken in by a mile, sleeves lopped narrower, body length still the same. ‘Put this on.’
    Arnold shuffled closer and took the garment from me gingerly.
    ‘Go on,’ said Elsa, remaking the bed.
    Arnold stepped