Tom Houghton Read Online Free PDF

hundred and six, makes me feel like a corpse, but some of the other ladies are going, so I thought why not?’
    â€˜How is Okie?’
    â€˜Old! How’s Puppy?’ I’d made the mistake of telling Lana Hanna’s nickname for Damon and it had stuck.
    â€˜Young. Working hard on his play, you know? He’s really trying to get it seen by the right people but there’s just so much stuff out there it’s impossible to get anyone to sit up and take notice.’
    â€˜I do wish you’d find someone like that . . . what was his name? The boy you brought home to me to meet that time when you had just left university.’
    â€˜Oh god, Mum.’
    â€˜What was his name?’ She tapped her temple as though the motion would prompt her memory into working.
    â€˜Kurt.’ We’d been over this many times before.
    â€˜Yes! That’s it. Just like that movie star – Russell. He was a nice hulking lad, wasn’t he? You loved him, he was good to you, always went to your plays and drove you this place and that.’
    â€˜Mum, Kurt broke my heart, remember? He kept telling me we’d be together forever and then when I finally fell for all that drivel he confessed that he was seeing two other guys at the same time. I’ve long since chalked him up to yet another wayward romance – you need to let him go.’
    â€˜So hunky though, wasn’t he?’
    I ignored her. She mentioned the death of some Hollywood actor in the news, one we’d both admired in the Seven Hills days. We placed currency-free bets on who would be next to go, lifelong believers in the theory of threes, though we never wrote down who we’d nominated, so when some poor star slid off, we both took credit for tipping he or she would be next to go. Lana offered me a beer and sat there drinking while I pretended not to want one. My head was still throbbing and the greasy spoon meal was only just beginning to have a sobering effect. I never alluded to what I cleaned up around her place but when I asked her what she’d done last night, she was honest enough to say she did not remember getting home but was fairly certain Okie had walked her to her door. I was pleased not to be confronted by whatever state he would have been in had he stayed.
    â€˜I got a postcard from Lexi this week,’ Mum said with a hint of surprise. ‘She’s been in Cairo.’
    â€˜Cairo?’
    â€˜Clearly she tells her grandmother more than she tells her father. Said it was chaotic and dangerous and mystical and she was loving every second of it. You really need to reach out to her a bit more, I think. No wonder she doesn’t tell you what she’s up to when you’re too busy with your nose up your own arse like it doesn’t stink.’
    â€˜Charming. Well, she certainly does get around. I’m glad she’s making the most of her time over there.’
    I made the mistake of looking at my watch and she misinterpreted the gesture.
    â€˜Well . . . Okie will be waiting,’ she said. ‘You best be off so I can go too.’
    I kissed her goodbye and listed the things I’d put in her fridge, hoping she would make a note of what needed to be consumed before it went off. She nodded impatiently and ushered me out, pausing to spray a mist of perfume over the top of her head before closing the door behind her. I offered to walk her to wherever she was going but she shrugged me off and I knew not to insist. I sat on the low brick fence at the front of her block waiting for a taxi and watched her walk down the hill towards the shops. She walked like a woman being watched.
    As I climbed into the taxi and told the driver where I was headed, my phone vibrated with a text from Lana. HAPP BIRTHDAY X she’d rushed out her message.

 Four 

    I woke to feel my mother’s body curled in tightly behind me. I couldn’t remember everything that had happened