Vince and Joy Read Online Free PDF

do you like?’
    Joy laughed. ‘Erm, well, I’ve just finished my A levels.’
    ‘In what?’
    ‘Art, Drama and English.’
    ‘Oh, right, you’re the creative type, then?’
    ‘Yeah, sort of
    ‘So’s our Vincent. He’s the creative type, too. Aren’t you, Vince?’
    Vince shrugged and made a strange gurgling noise that he’d never made before in his life.
    ‘Yeah – he paints, draws, makes things. And you should have seen the creative things he used to do with his hair and a can of his mum’s hairspray when he was a kid.’ Chris laughed out loud and Alan looked at Vince as if he’d only just noticed he was there.
    ‘Are you off to university, then?’ Kirsty asked Joy, galloping to the rescue.
    Joy squirmed a little in her seat. ‘Well, I was supposed to be. I had a place at Bristol. But I, er… had to defer. Hopefully I can take up my place next year.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Kirsty, nodding encouragingly, ‘right.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Joy
    ‘Mmm,’ murmured Barbara, apparently apropos of nothing.
    Vince took a deep breath and tried to control his growing sense of anxiety. This was a fucking nightmare. Never in the whole history of the universe had six people had less in common with each other. Even Chris with all his puppyish gregariousness could do nothing to salvage a decent conversation from this motley mix of people.
    ‘So, you two poor buggers, stuck here with your parents at your age.’ Chris looked from Joy to Vince and back again. ‘Not exactly two weeks in Tenerife with your mates, is it? I reckon you might have more fun if you made a break for it.’
    ‘Eh?’ said Vince.
    ‘Yeah – do a runner. Scarper. Get lost. Go and have some fun doing… doing… well, whatever it is that overgrown teenagers do when they’ve managed to escape from their bloody parents.’
    Vince felt a surge of excitement rising in his chest. As heavy-handed as Chris’s proposal might have been, the idea of getting away from this hideous situation, walking out of the door, getting some fresh air and feeling the evening sun on his skin was too good to resist. But Alan had other ideas.
    ‘Oh, well,’ he said, ‘that’s a very nice idea, er, Chris, but actually Barbara, Joy and I have dinner plans for tonight.’ He smiled tightly and folded his arms across his chest, obviously a man who was used to his word being final, obviously a man who’d never before encountered anyone as persistent as Chris.
    ‘Oh, come on now, Alan. Would you have wanted to go out for dinner with your parents when you were a young whippersnapper of a lad? You and Barbara go and have a nice romantic dinner, just the two of you. Or, better still, why don’t you join my wife and me? There’s some smashing fast-food places up on the seafront. Do you like burgers, Alan?’ He eyed Alan with a determined twinkle.
    ‘We’re not really fast-food people, Chris, to be frank. Greasy food doesn’t really agree with my constitution.’
    ‘Well, then – how about a nice curry?’
    ‘Oh, well. I like a curry, yes I do. But Barbara can’t really eat spicy food. It bloats her. And to be frank, I rather think we were hoping for a
quiet
night this evening. You know – a
family
night. No offence.’
    ‘None taken, Alan. None taken. But, tell you what, how about the young ‘uns head off for the evening, you and Barbara go and have your quiet evening somewhere and me and the wife grab a curry, and we can try to get together later this week for a big night out. When you’re feeling less…
quiet?
Eh? How about that, then?’
    ‘Well. I don’t know’ Alan looked across at his daughter in desperation, ‘Joy, er… what do
you
think?’
    ‘I think that’s a really good idea. I wasn’t hungry anyway. What do you think, Vince?’ She turned and glanced at Vince.
    ‘God – well, yeah. Why not? It’s nice out. We could go down to the seafront.’
    ‘Cool. Right. Let’s go, then.’ She stood up and picked up her bag.
    ‘What –