Read Online Now You See Me by Lesley Glaister - Free Book Online Page B

hideous brass and peach someone hadn’t even flushed the bog. First of all (after flushing) I ran myself a bath. The bath is triangular, deeper than most baths. I tried out the new Jacuzzi effect. It was strange and wonderful, the bubbly swish of it, milky with the Clarins stuff sloshed in, like being in a milk-shake machine. I shampooed my hair and started the chores in Mrs Harcourt’s silky dressing gown while my clothes did a short cycle in the machine.
    While I was drying my hair I stared in the mirror which has little lights round the edge as if she thinks she’s a superstar. I looked hard, wondering what Doggo had seen when he stared at me but it was just me and nothing more special than that. I do look young, even to myself, as if I haven’t lived the last couple of years at all. A kind of space in the eyes. Cheek-bones pitted from teenage acne, cracked lips, dark fluff above the top lip, shadows underneath the eyes. The longer you look, the worse it gets.
    I plucked my eyebrows and rubbed some of her wonder cream in my skin, but the only difference was it made me shiny. It took me ten minutes over my time to get the jobs done because of the long bath but I did them and got out before anyone came back which I took to be a good sign.
    At lunchtime I walked past the Duke’s Head and looked in the garden but there was nobody I knew. I had a Perrier and a packet of peanuts and sat at the same table outside that Doggo and I had sat at even though it was freezing. Nobody else was sitting outside. The wind was blowing a crisp bag round and round in circles making a scrapy fingernail sound and I stared at it till I was almost hypnotised. Then I went back to Mr Dickens. It was a bit early but I knew he wouldn’t mind.
    I rang the bell. I thought maybe the woman from last night would come to the door and tell me to go away, but it was just the usual transformation of Doughnut into a hell hound. I let myself in before he could brain himself on the door. Mr Dickens was sitting by his fire with a tray of dirty plates and stuff beside him. It took me a minute to breathe properly in the doggy air so I couldn’t speak at first. Doughnut collapsed on the floor and Mr Dickens beamed. ‘Ah, there you are, Lamb.’ His hair is thin and fluffy like baby hair and it was all lit up from the standard lamp he was sitting under.
    â€˜Is that new?’ I said. Usually it’s a bit gloomy in there with only the overhead light in its brown glass shade.
    â€˜No … it’s from front. Niece lugged it through. Nice to see you, duck. Take a seat. I’ll fetch tea in a minute.’
    â€˜Niece?’
    â€˜Great niece actually. Sarah. Nice lass, you’d get on.’
    I felt real danger then, like a cold grassy ripple down my back. ‘She staying with you?’ I said. I held my breath till he shook his head.
    â€˜No, no. She were visiting some friends – just dropped in to visit. Nice lass. She cooked me something what was it … risotto with some sort of bits in, nuts, get all up in my denture but didn’t like to say. Not half bad otherwise. Bit of kick to it. Which you don’t get with Meals on Wheels, I can tell you.’
    â€˜Didn’t know you had a niece.’
    â€˜Brother’s daughter’s girl.’ He started to struggle up.
    â€˜Sure I can’t get the tea?’ I could have bitten my tongue off. The day he can’t do that himself any more will be a tragic one. I picked the tray up though and followed him at a Zimmer pace through into the kitchen.
    â€˜I didn’t know you had a brother,’ I said.
    â€˜There were three of us,’ he said. ‘Bob and Wilf are both … I’m only one that’s reached ninety. Only the one offspring between three of us and we were all randy as hell. A right liability.’ He gave a dirty snigger. I wondered if he’d been drinking. He does keep a bottle of Scotch tucked down by his