Chapters (67)
- Cover
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
Yes. What he would do after the first few days he did not know but there was always work, with family, friends, even if it was not his own work, not at first, but his brother who lived next door to their parents was an engineer, the other brothers ran a wholesale warehouse. They had come a long way since the years of Chinese takeaways, fish and chip vans, small restaurants like the old Sun King and the Green Dragon, which had been sold while he was still at school. They were prosperous. They had all left home to study and come straight back, to settle, raise their families, push ahead with their careers. He was the only one who had wanted to get away, see another sort of life, try a different part of the country, and they had been hurt and surprised, but they had not complained. ‘You can always come home.’
But not like this.
They had pancakes with sugar and fat curls of cream from an aerosol. The place was full of movement, no one sitting for long, everyone on the way to somewhere else. A restless feeling came over him, and a strange sense of being no bigger than an ant among a million other ants. He looked at his wife and she looked back over her mug, and did not smile. He looked at his son and daughter, and they grinned and started to shove each other.
A picture of the pharmacy came to his mind, empty and dark, with the sign turned to Closed. He would have been seeing a woman with a bad bruise, a man with a cough wanting more of the linctus that he said was all he needed to do him good, though Wang had been trying to get him to see his doctor for months, he needed to see his doctor. He thought of the stockroom shelves, their calm arrangement of boxes, jars, bottles, like a satisfying pattern, and then packets that the men pushed in anywhere, disturbing the order.
He had never told his wife, his family, anyone at all, and even talking urgently to his father, he had skirted round the truth, what they did, how long it had been going on. The threats they had made at the start had been enough for him to let them do what they wanted, they had never had to repeat them.
A busload of pensioners had come in, lines of them tottering on legs cramped after a long drive, heading for the toilets, and after them, fifteen or twenty squaddies in khaki, with berets, boots clattering. The children stared at them.
‘We should go, people will want this table.’ He handed out five pound coins to each of them. ‘Go and get a book or something. No sweets. Don’t take forever.’
They scuttled across to Smith’s.