Love Is a Four Letter Word Read Online Free PDF Page B

shrink.

4
    â€˜Ev’ry time we say goodbye, I die a little …’ Bella sang along with Ella Fitzgerald while sucking on a sherbert lemon, cursed at a driver surging onto the roundabout in front of her. ‘… why a little, why the gods above me …’ She should have left at lunchtime to miss the Friday exodus. Since Bella had moved, it was barely more than a fifty-mile journey to her parents’ place, a wisteria-covered house in a pretty-pretty village in Sussex, but it was turning out to be a slow drive, much of it cross-country on minor roads. If only she hadn’t got stuck on the receiving end of one of Seline’s interminable monologues about the various ailments of her cats. In the end, she had backed out of the door, shaking her head in sympathy: ‘How awful. Falling out in handfuls? Crusty scabs? Poor thing.’ They were always suffering from some disgusting condition, which would be related to everyone in the office, one at a time, so that all through the day she could overhear the same fragments – ‘Ooh, suppositories? Really?’ – as if played on a continuous tape loop. Why on earth didn’t Seline just shoot them and get some new, unscabby ones? She peered at the signs. Second, third exit; that’s the one. ‘… think so little of me, they allow you to go …’
    *   *   *
    It was properly dark now and the red tail lights of the cars in front bored hypnotically into her eyes against the deepening blue-black of the road and sky. Night driving seemed so full of promise, the road stretching out before her as if it could take her anywhere she wanted to go, her path plotted by a trail of lights like an unnamed constellation crossing the sky. Suddenly, the sign she had just passed filtered through to her consciousness. Her turn-off was coming up: A259 Rye, Hastings. She abandoned her attempt to overtake a Fiat that was even older than her red Peugeot, and nudged back into place to be ready for the turning. A reproving flash from the car behind. Concentrate, woman! If only she didn’t feel so tired all the time.
    There was an old truck stop a couple of miles along this road, she seemed to recall, a relic of an era of bikers in black leather who roared their engines to impress girls in zip-up boots and miniskirts. By some miracle it had not yet been closed down or transformed into an Unhappy Eater or Loathsome Chef with smooth plastic seats, smooth plastic fried eggs and unsmooth, authentic bad service, heralded by badges proclaiming ‘Hi, I’m NIKKI. It’s my pleasure to serve you,’ their enthusiasm as convincing as a squeezed-lemon-faced aunt in a purple party hat. Why didn’t they just tell it like it is – ‘Yeah? I’m Charmain. I’ll bring it when I can be bothered.’
    Bright lights, the sound of eggs spluttering into hot oil, the smell of all-day breakfasts. The few men at the tables looked up from their papers or their mugs of tea when Bella entered. She wished she’d stopped long enough to change out of her work clothes. The clacking of her heels seemed grotesquely amplified by the lino floor as she crossed to the counter to order, drumming out a message in Morse: Look at me, look at me. She buttoned up her tailored jacket, to compensate for her new skirt. The crisp horizontal of its hem framedher exposed knees. She fought the urge to tug it down.
    â€˜Pay when you’re done, love,’ the waitress behind the counter said. ‘Here, hang on a tick for your tea. I’m just making fresh. I’ll bring your sandwich over in a minute.’ She emptied the teapot, spooned in some fresh tea. Steam billowed around her hands, clouding the shine of the metal teapot, the gold of her wedding band, as water rushed from the urn.
    â€˜All right, Jim?’ she turned to a chunkily attractive man who had come up to pay. ‘Where you off to this time,