Ten Stories About Smoking Read Online Free PDF

of
room.’
    It was happening; she could feel it. They would ask her, the both of them, perhaps nervously at first but then more sure of their position. They needed a housekeeper, a nanny, a person to go out
to Sardinia and open up the house before they went for their week-long break. Someone for Poppy. She would live in that attic room with its hessian flooring and its claw-foot bath and teach Poppy
how to play guitar. And Poppy would look at her and say ‘I don’t ever want you to leave’, and she would be able to say, without fear of contradiction, ‘I’m not going
anywhere, poppet.’
    She smiled at her family, her future employers. And though her steak was far too bloody, she ate it anyway, agreeing with Daniel that there really was no substitute for a proper,
charcoal-burning barbecue.

    After they’d finished eating, Daniel took the plates through to the kitchen. The conversation had been gentle; about work, about family and mostly about Poppy. Did he have
any other topic of conversation these days? He remembered once talking with conviction on art and music, books and politics, science and religion, but these days he struggled to form a solid
opinion on almost anything. Every thought felt sludgy and careworn, and so he no longer put forward his own views, instead simply reported and rehashed what he read in the newspapers. It was not
Poppy’s fault, nor Christina’s; the blame, if there was any to be apportioned, was all his. Through the French windows he watched his sister smoke nervously. Clearly Christina had begun
her examination. Daniel swilled down the last of his wine and went to join them, the word ‘barren’ repeating in his ears.
    ‘Did you want children?’ Christina was saying. ‘I mean, not that it matters whether you did or not, I suspect. It’s one thing deciding on something, quite another having
it decided for you, isn’t it?’
    Her sister-in-law shrugged and blew out a beam of smoke.
    ‘I’ve not thought about it much, to be honest, Chris. But when I do, I just think that it’s probably all for the best.’
    Christina was frustrated that this seemed to end the conversation. She wanted at least a semblance of intimacy. She missed that. At university she’d had four close female friends. They
were arts students, drunk and stoned most of the time, crazy and broken and somehow more real than the Chrissie who worked hard and visited the sports hall for circuit training. They liked her, she
realized, because she was like a governess or a nanny; always there for practical advice and structure. When they needed emergency contraception, help filling out government forms or applying for
loans, it was to her that they turned. In exchange they offered brief insights into their lives.
    She had not seen any of them in a decade. The last time, the five of them had met up at the Princess Louise in Holborn. Christina was late, still in the first flush of enthusiasm for her
respectably paid job in the city. Arriving into the smoky Victoriana of the pub, she saw them around a small table, talking and laughing, drinking pints of lager and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes.
This was, she understood, not a reunion; rather they met up with each other on a regular basis. Her suspicions were confirmed as they talked about shared acquaintances who lived in East End squats.
The stories they told were superficial; lightweight tales of money worries and unreliable boyfriends. As she paid for another round of drinks, Christina looked over and thought about how young they
all appeared.
    Linda was different, she could see it the first time they’d met, a dislocated look in her eyes, a brittleness to her long, starved body. Just being next to Linda made her feel alive and
vital, the potential intimacy charging like static between them. Christina looked at her now, across the glass-topped table, her body smoother and less ragged, her complexion clear but her eyes
still betraying her confusion. If