Lucky Break Read Online Free PDF

lot,’ he gave a little rueful smile, ‘you know something . . .’ He leant further down towards them and dropped his voice. ‘You’re full of shit.’
    Nell felt herself flush. Beside her, Pierre’s mouth fell open, but he didn’t say a word. The man raised his eyebrows, in derision, in warning, and pulling on his roll-up, he pushed his way out through the swing doors of the pub.
    None of them spoke. There seemed nothing to say. What a horrible, bitter, cynical man, Nell thought. But she felt dirty, as if she’d been caught doing something obscene.
    â€˜He’s probably a failed actor,’ Pierre rallied.
    â€˜Yeah.’ Hettie looked pale. ‘Maybe he trained at the Guildhall.’
    Nell laughed, but she felt unnerved, right in the pit of her stomach where up until a minute before the whisky had been.
    â€˜He’s in the second year,’ Pierre said eventually.
    â€˜Who?’
    â€˜My discovery. Look out for him. Gabriel. He’s going to be a major star.’
    â€˜Really?’ Nell glanced up at the clock. She was ready to go home, but the thought of the note, propped as it was most evenings against her door, inviting her upstairs for a nightcap and a chat, dissuaded her.
    â€˜Don’t forget, you heard it here first. The Angel Gabriel. Gabriel Grant.’
    â€˜OK.’ Nell had never even noticed a Gabriel. ‘If you say so, then I’m sure you’re right.’
    The door swung open and a horde of students burst in, Dan and Jemma at the head of them, Charlie just behind.
    â€˜Make room for the others.’ Pierre and Hettie shifted along the bench away from her, and Nell lost sight of them in the crush.

The Rehearsal
    Charlie Adedayo-Martin was the most beautiful girl in their year. There were other girls, some more obvious, more perfect – the French girl, Marvella, with her sultry, bee-stung mouth, Jemma with her tangle of blonde curls – but Charlie had glamour. She was tall and angular, with toffee-coloured skin and peroxide hair cropped short against her head. There was a rumour she was the daughter of an Abyssinian princess but Nell had discovered she was in fact the child of a legal secretary from Cheltenham and the Nigerian businessman she’d married.
    â€˜That bastard, Rob.’ Charlie’s dark eyes welled up with tears. ‘He’s in love with someone else.’
    â€˜No!’ Nell took her hand and led her out on to the blustery steps of the college, where Charlie told her in gulping tones of outrage that she’d been flicking through her boyfriend’s diary when she’d found a poem – a love poem – in several tortured drafts.
    â€˜No!’ Nell said again, although what she really wanted to ask was whether Rob wrote poems often, and if he’d ever written one for her. But under the circumstances she knew these questions would sound heartless. ‘The bastard,’ she said instead, ‘how could he?’ And she put her arms around Charlie and breathed in the cool, flowery smell of her skin.
    â€˜He’s moving out. He’s borrowing a car this weekend and taking his things.’ Her nose grew red and her eyes, already swollen, spilt over with new tears. ‘I’ll be living on my own.’
    Nell looked away. It gave her an unexpected flash of pleasure to see that even Charlie, the enviable Charlie, could look unattractive when crying. When Nell cried her whole face puffed up, her neck turned blotchy, her ears grew red, and she’d do whatever it took to hide herself. Unless, of course, she was acting, when her tears, unreal, were made of lighter stuff and would trickle, just one or two, down the side of her face. This wasn’t always what was wanted. ‘You’re a milkmaid,’ Patrick had bawled. ‘Not a Lady. Get a hanky out. Let’s see some snot!’ Nell had blushed deep red, right down to her cleavage, which was shown to great