The Importance of Being a Bachelor Read Online Free PDF

out with a member of the opposite sex Russell had imagined that the girl in question must be the kind of average-looking office worker who wouldn’t hold even the slightest bit of interest for him and so he had been more than a little bit surprised to find that Luke was in fact in conversation with a girl with a cute face, and great style. The fact that she was so held in Luke’s gravitational pull as to barely give him the time of day was neither here nor there. As far as he was concerned there must have been some kind of tear in the time space continuum so frequently referred to in sci-fi programmes that had resulted in his future girlfriend being handed to the wrong Bachelor brother and Luke pretending that he didn’t know him simply rubbed salt into the wound.
    A week later when Russell discovered that Luke was going on a second date with Cassie he found himself hoping for one of two things: for his brother to get bored of Cassie as quickly as humanly possible or for a miracle. He was out of luck on both counts as it turned out that Cassie was as clever as she was beautiful and even he could see that there was no way Luke was going to let her go. Russell had no choice but to stand by the wayside while Cassie and his brother fell in love. When they eventually moved in together (roughly six months after first meeting) Russell hoped he would finally be able to move on but it had never happened.
    ‘So that’s why you turned down that girl with the overplucked eyebrows who was sniffing around you at Liane’s party last month?’
    Russell nodded.
    ‘And why you didn’t make a move on that girl at work who’s always trying to get you to go to the cinema with her.’
    He nodded again.
    ‘And I’m guessing that explains why you turned down my friend Katie when we all went out for my birthday even though she is obviously not the kind of girl who ever gets turned down by anyone?’
    ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ laughed Russell. ‘It’s not like I’m a monk or anything. I did consider it.’
    ‘But you didn’t do anything.’
    ‘I wanted to but I couldn’t. It would have felt too weird. Like I was cheating on Cassie.’
    ‘But you weren’t going out with Cassie!’
    ‘I know.’
    There was a long pause. Then Angie said: ‘You know you can’t carry on like this, don’t you?’
    ‘I know,’ said Russell. ‘I’ve got to sort myself out. I’ve got to make a change.’
    Nothing did change though. In fact things stayed exactly the same.

‘He’s been here half an hour if that and not lifted a finger!’
    It was midday and Adam was standing in the hallway of 44 Woodford Road soaking up all the familiar sights, sounds and smells. This was the best thing about his parents’ home: the fact that nothing changed. The wallpaper which his mum was always threatening to rip down because it looked so dated; the family phone book with the fake telephone dial on the front cover that sat on what was always known as ‘the telephone stool’; the dark wooden wall clock that ticked so loudly it sounded like the noise was actually coming from inside your head; the one and only official Bachelor family portrait (taken two days shy of Adam’s tenth birthday) featuring a middle-aged-looking Mum and Dad in their smartest outfits with the boys positioned in front of them in descending order; to Adam’s eyes all of these items represented the very essence of the Bachelor family home.
    There was something special about this place that kept drawing the three brothers back to the extent that they were now that most rare of filial formations: a family where none of its members lived further than twenty minutes away from the other.
    Adam headed to the kitchen to find the comfortingly familiar sight of his mum standing by the sink shaking the water off a colander full of new potatoes. He walked over and gave her a big squeeze from behind followed by a peck on the cheek. ‘And how’s the most beautiful woman in all the world on this