Nomance, T Price [bookreader .TXT] 📗

And in Tony’s case, thebiceps too.

Car, girlfriend andbiceps. They might be good for Tony, but they were like cactusspines in Gwynne’s hide.

And living at Romancehe knew just how that felt.

He dumped his cerealbowl into the sink.

‘Hey,’ Carla yelledfrom behind him, reminding him with an unpleasant jolt of hissister’s existence, ‘swill it out!’

‘I’m going to be late,’Gwynne complained. He worked at the EasyHomes DIY Superstorein East Acton. He did the Sunday shift for the extra fifty penceper hour.

Still, to keep thesemblance of peace, he swilled the dish out. This gave him time topose a pertinent question.

‘Why the fuck don’t weget a dishwasher?’

‘I don’t know – let meguess.’

‘They’re two hundredquid or so at the warehouse.’ He put the bowl on the draining boardand turned to stare at her. ‘Only a hundred each from us, isn’tit?’

‘Only a hundred?’ ButCarla seemed to like the idea of a dishwasher. ‘Can’t you get adiscount, from EasyHomes?’

‘That is with thediscount.’

‘What?’ Carla pulledher face in disgust.

Gwynne shook his head.‘You can’t even get hundred togther, can you? This fucking place.Even I make more money than Romance, don’t I?’

‘You would if you werea pop star instead of a fucking failure,’ Carla said, smiling forthe first time that day.

‘Don’t get too cocky.I’m going to be in a new band soon.’

‘Yeah. Since when?’

‘We’ve been talking itover, It’s with three guys I met at the warehouse.’

‘What, thempensioners?’

‘No, these guys areyoung.’

‘I thought they wereall pensioners who worked there,’ Carla said, making it sound likehe had let her down. ‘You said they all looked horrible and driedup in the company uniform.’

‘Most of them do,yeah,’ Gwynne assured her. ‘But these are young guys who startedthere about a month ago. They’re on this Government scheme forhelping ex-offenders.’ He waved her down, as if she was about toget anxious for his safety. ‘Don’t worry, they’re straight up. Theyall want to kill the management, not me.’

Carla, who hadn’t beenworried, took a moment to digest this. ‘That’s something in theirfavour,’ she allowed. ‘Like I keep telling you – places likeEasyHomes are driving small traders like us out of themarket..’

‘Hm?’ Gwynne wasdwelling again on the wallet he’d found down the park. The wholecycle of rumination was about to repeat itself.

‘I said, Romance can’thope to match their prices for pot-grown flowers. They’re killingus.’

‘Who?’

‘EasyHomes!’

‘EasyHomes?’ He glancedat his watch. ‘Shit, I’m going to be late.’

Two: Golden Aphrodite’s Nightmare

Gwynne loped out of theback door, allowing it to slam behind him.

Carla bestowed arancourous glance on the dish he had left on the draining boardand, with a heavy sigh, turned her attention back to the accountbooks. Within microseconds she pinpointed another loss maker.

Her broad shoulderssank a little lower. ‘Fucking lobelia,’ she muttered.

She hadn’t been able toshift a single one and the whole lot had gone and wilted on her.That bitch, Ms Stevens, had brought them every week without failfor the past seven years and it made sense to assume her devotedlobelia customer was merely ill when she didn’t turn up one week.Discontinuing the line at that point would have been sheer madness.However, the weeks passed and Ms Stevens still didn’t show. By theend of the month, Carla had begun to wonder whether Ms Stevenshadn’t in fact died of her illness. But if that were the case,cancelling the order would still be premature. No doubt Ms Stevenswould want lots of lobelia at her funeral.

Three more weeks passedbefore a postcard arrived, and this, in essence, announced that MsStevens wasn’t dead at all. Instead she was basking in the Maldivesfor a three-month winter warmer.

What a slap in theface! Nothing rubs it in like somebody else’s holiday. And the onething Carla hated more than somebody else’s holiday was . . . oneof her own holidays.

Her last holiday (andCarla had vowed it would be the last) was with Sharon. Sharon hadbeen her friend from school and, just as they both always knew,Sharon was the one who broke free from the chains of her past. Sheleft Richmond-Upon-Thames and carved out a career at the InlandRevenue Tax Office in Wolverhampton. To crown it all, she met thelove of her life – in the same office by a remarkable coincidence –and married him. The lucky guy was Billy in VAT – a Civil Servicehigh flyer whose spectacular rise through the ranks hit the oakceiling when he died seven years later.

After a mourning periodof three months, and just in time for the med holiday season,Sharon called Carla and told her she wanted to start living again.She suggested they went away together.

How did two, lovelysun-filled weeks in glorious Cyprus sound?

Against her instinct,to be honest, Carla said they sounded pretty fantastic.

‘Great! In that case,Carla, I’ll make the arrangements. Leave everything to me.’

Carla was surprisedwhen they got out there to find that Sharon had booked separaterooms. But two days later she was thanking her lucky stars aboutthat. Sharon had met a Cypriot man and they were spending an awfullot of time in her room together. Carla was only glad she couldmaintain her privacy.

On the other hand,Carla did begin to feel she was having a holiday on her own.

For this reason, Carlacouldn’t help resenting Yogi – as Sharon’s new man friend seemed tobe called. So when Sharon invited her out to a restaurant withYogi, Carla took the opportunity, during the meal, to fire off somepetty sarcasms at him. Sad to say, she found her ammunition waswasted. Her petty sarcasms got lost in translation, even when sheunderlined each riposte with a stab at her calamari like it wasstill alive. She saw then that trying to understand English was adreadful strain for Yogi. And he looked dreadfully tired anyway.Carla had to wonder why he didn’t just run his bar himself. Whywear himself to the bone trying to get a foreign woman to marry himand run it instead? She even began to feel a little sorry for himby the time they said goodnight and he went arm-in-arm with Sharoninto her room.

By his grim expression,you could see his work had yet to begin.

But when Carla went toher own room and lay down to sleep, little