Ten Stories About Smoking Read Online Free PDF Page B

only she would talk more, open herself up.
    ‘And if you do meet someone you can always try IVF or adopt, can’t you? Have you thought about adoption?’ Linda put out her cigarette and shot her a wry smile.
    ‘I think I might need a man before I start thinking about the babies, Chris.’
    Defeated, Christina drank the last of her wine and suggested a game of Scrabble.
    They played Scrabble, then Yahtzee. At just before midnight, Daniel and Christina went to bed, leaving Linda to smoke one final cigarette before going up to her attic room. She was drunk and
woozy, not quite yet ready for sleep, but tired all the same. The heaters were off and the air was cooling rapidly. She smoked the last of the cigarette and thought again of the house in
Sardinia.

    She woke early – before six – and could not get back to sleep. Her head throbbed and she drank the whole pint of water she’d put on the bedside table, then
went to the bathroom to refill it. There she paused and decided to have a bath rather than go back to bed. She ran the water and poured in the almond and honey oil. The steam made her feel better,
her mouth rejuvenated by a vigorous brushing of her teeth. She got into the water and closed her eyes, imagining herself bathing at the house in Sardinia, or soaking herself after a hard day
looking after Poppy. Her bedsit seemed so very far away, its dampness, its chill draught and cooking smells. She would not go back: she belonged here, with Poppy.
    It felt strange to have a plan, to have a clear and definite strategy, but she liked it. For so long, she felt, she had drifted in and out of life, never knowing what it was there for. But now,
in this claw-footed bath inside the huge Buckinghamshire house, it made sense; her childlessness now not quite a blessing but something neat, something explainable. All she needed to do was give
Poppy the pink jumper with the white horses on it and show Daniel and Christina just how much the child wanted and needed her auntie. Then the whole plan would fall into place. Daniel would drive
her home, she would pack up her belongings and perhaps she’d knock on the door of the pinched divorcee and give him the Ella Fitzgerald record as a parting gift.
    Using the shower attachment she again washed her hair with mint and tea-tree shampoo, and conditioned it with the jojoba conditioner. She wrapped it in a towel, turban style, dried herself and
then put on the white hooded bathrobe that was hanging on the back of the door. She opened the frosted window and steam wafted out on to the morning air. The swimming pool had leaves bunched at its
edges: they would need to be fished out before she and Poppy jumped in later.
    Back in her room she went to open her bag and paused. There was a rich and powerful smell coming from the bag, an overwhelming stink of stale cigarettes, and of unaired rooms where smoke had
lingered for weeks and months. It caught at the back of her throat; and she thought then of what Carl had said about being too clean. She understood what he’d meant suddenly: only when
you’re clean do you realize just how dirty life is.
    She removed the plastic bag in which she’d put Poppy’s jumper. The jumper was wrapped in paper decorated with illustrations of horses. She put her nose to it gingerly, hoping perhaps
that somehow the package itself had escaped being tainted with the stench. But it hadn’t. It smelled dreadful.
    Linda unwrapped it fully just to be sure. The smell was noxious, insufferable, so strong she could feel it taking over the air in the room. She held it towards the light, and noticed that the
horses on the front were no longer white but a dirty yellow colour, like old men’s teeth. Linda kept it held it up to the light to be sure, but there could be no mistaking the dirt that had
embedded in the horses and the jumper.
    She saw how the pattern was crooked and the horses difficult to tell from any other kind of animal, that the stitching was