The One Before the One Read Online Free PDF Page B

where to look, so I take a sudden interest in the doorframe. ‘Very productive.’
    ‘Great.’ She smiles brightly. Her long legs are stretched out on the sun lounger. She’s wearing bright red lipstick and enormous square shades. ‘So, what do you think?’
    ‘About what?’
    ‘My tattoo, you chump!’ She sticks her right arm out in front of her.
    I look in horror at the anchor (an anchor?) splat in the middle of her upper right arm. I can’t believe this. Dad will kill me. I have an overwhelming desire to head-butt the wall.
    ‘You got that done today?’
    ‘Yes, don’t you like it? It’s like the one Amy Winehouse has, kind of ironic, you know, sailor iconography?’
    ‘Who did it to you?’
    ‘A tattoo artist
did
it to me.’ She laughs. ‘A very sexy, Paolo Nutini lookalike tattoo artist, if you must know.’
    Who the hell was Paulo Nutini?
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Camden Market. That place is awesome. I could have spent a fortune. And guess what? I got a job!’ She sits up on her elbows and I have to look away so it doesn’t look as if I’m leering at her bosom. ‘I met this guy called Wayne.’
    ‘Wayne?’ I grimace. ‘Unfortunate name.’
    ‘I know, but he had
the
most wickedest shop – well, it’s not his, it’s his mate’s, but he’s working on it part-time. We got chatting, coz he’s originally from Sheffield and his accent stood out. I said I’d just landed for the summer and he said he needed some help at weekends and occasionally during the week, so …’
    ‘Hang on. Who
is
this Wayne?’
    ‘He runs a shop in Camden Market, like I said. And he lives in Battersea!’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘On a boat, how special is that? Anyway, do you wanna see the stuff I bought?’
    ‘Yeah, sure.’ I decide to come back to the Wayne thing later; this was all going way too fast. So then she’s up, padding across the garden, legs as skinny as a stork. She gets hold of my hand.
    ‘Come to my boudoir,’ she says, which sounds ridiculous in her thick Yorkshire accent, and I follow her, helpless. We go through the lounge.
    ‘Soz about the mess,’ she says, trampling all over the cushions she’s tossed on the floor earlier. ‘I was trying my new stuff on and was just about to start tidying up when you came home.
    ‘That’s okay!’ I lie, quickly replacing all the cushions on the sofa.
    We get to the guest bedroom.
    ‘Okay, you stay there,’ she says, hands on my shoulders,pushing me against the wall. And then she goes inside and closes the door so I am left staring at it, suddenly feeling like a stranger in my own home. Five seconds later, music is on.
    ‘Ta-dar!’ She flings open the door.
    ‘Nice,’ I say. ‘What is it, exactly?’
    ‘It’s a playsuit, divvy. A vintage one.’
    ‘So when would you wear it?’
    ‘Anywhere, shopping?’
    Not shopping with me you won’t!
    ‘Hanging out in cafés, in Battersea Park, maybe with some high-heeled sandals,’ she says, doing a funny pose like one of those vintage postcards of ladies in 1920's bathing suits.
    ‘And I got these …’ She shoves a pair of shoes in my face. ‘And this …’ she puts on a purple trilby. ‘Cool, or what? And there were loads of stalls and some right nutters selling stuff. There was this bloke, right, he came up to me and he was going, “marijuana”, but pronouncing it with a “J” which cracked me up. So he was like, “Do you wan-na, some maru-ju-ana?”’ She puts her hand on her hip and says it with a convincing Jamaican accent, which, despite myself, makes me laugh. A little. ‘Then he was like, “Do you wan-na some Es?” That’s when I texted you.’
    Es? At Camden Market? Why was I never offered Es at Camden Market? Well, could be I’ve never
been
to Camden Market …
    ‘And, guess what? Jerome was there!’
    ‘Who on earth’s Jerome?’
    ‘A guy I met on the way here on the train – you know, the one who rang me yesterday?’
    So that’s who she was going all coy with.
    ‘Anyway,