Read Online The Woman Who Knew What She Wanted by William Coles - Free Book Online Page B

brothers,’ Oliver said. ‘Twins separated at birth. I was brought up in Berlin, while Kim was taken back to Britain to be raised by his father’s older sister. She was a spinster who lived on the outskirts of London. So although we have never met before, we have an affinity. Instinctively we know what the other is thinking.’
    â€˜You’re pulling my leg!’ she said.
    Oliver and I looked sombrely at each other, before breaking into a rich peel of laughter. We chinked our glasses. ‘Cheers!’
    â€˜So what the hell are you doing here?’ I asked.
    â€˜My father runs hotels,’ he said. ‘I wanted to learn about them in somewhere that was far, far away from home. And a good opportunity to improve my English.’
    â€˜Your English is already perfect,’ I said.
    â€˜No, not yet,’ he said. ‘Though perhaps if I had an English girlfriend.’
    â€˜We’ll soon sort you out,’ said Janeen. ‘Specially if you keep on buying drinks for all the staff.’
    We joined the rest of the staff at the bar and continued drinking till late. Janeen stood next to me, thigh to thigh and with her arm proprietarily around my waist. I looked at her through fresh eyes. She was quite pretty, brazen and brash and so totally different from anyone else that I had ever dated. Now that the frenetic kissing had stopped, I was enjoying the warmth of her leg pressed to mine.
I made up my mind. I was going to go for it. I fancied her. I fancied spending the night with her. What did I have to lose?
    In life, I find that I tend to be thrown into one of two situations. The first is like a glacier; there is a grinding momentum to events. It doesn’t matter what you do or what you say, nothing can change the slow inevitability of it all, and at times, it seems that the only thing that can end this inexorable grind is death itself. A marriage, a career, children, mortgages – these are the train tracks of our lives which can only be changed through the most incredible force of will. And as we get older, life on the train tracks becomes ever more enticing, and so depressingly difficult to leave.
    In the other kind of situation, everything can turn on a sixpence. It does not happen so often now that I am married and middle aged. But there was a time, once, in my youth when but for a misplaced word or a single false step, things would have turned out quite, quite differently.
    I never did sleep with Janeen.
    As it happens, it all hung on just a few silly little words that happened to burble out of her good-natured mouth.
    She’d just been off to the toilets with one of her girlfriends. They came back giggling. The rest of the staff were getting ready to leave. Janeen had a packet of vending machine condoms. She waved them above her head. ‘Look who’s pulled tonight!’ she said.
    A cheer went up around the pub. Roland wolf-whistled and the Knoll House staff glanced at me, thinking I know not what.
    I do not embarrass easily, but I blushed. Janeen came over to me and, as if picking up her prize from the tombola stall, she slipped her arm through mine and kissed me. Her red lipstick stayed on my cheek. I had been sold to Janeen and she had made her mark on me.
    Oliver was inscrutable. ‘Would you first like a nightcap?’
    I was drunk and on the very verge of taking Janeen back to bed. But from all the madness of the storm, it was like I had glimpsed the gleam of a lighthouse in the night. All at once, I could see the shattered ships that had already smashed themselves to pieces on the rocks.
    I looked at Oliver and then I looked at Janeen who now, in the bright light of the bar seemed blowsy compared to that succubus in the snug.
    â€˜I’d love one,’ I said.
    I loosed Janeen’s hand from my arm and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Thanks for a fun evening.’
    â€˜But it’s not over yet!’ she said.
    â€˜I’m all in