Now You See Me Read Free

on the table. ‘Got any aspirin or anything?’ she went. Greg asked the woman who said, ‘Yes, as it happens, Anadin. OK?’
    Greg opened the box and gave her two and took two himself. The tablets stuck and she choked. They scraped bitterly down the back of her throat. She sipped the sweet stewed tea. He got out a fag and she nearly laughed at the way the lighter flame wavered everywhere before he could get it to meet the fag-end. His eyes were small blue chips of stone.
    â€˜Is there a loo?’ she said. He shrugged. She balanced on her legs to the counter, feeling faint.
    â€˜Toilet?’ she asked.
    The woman sighed. ‘I’m too soft me. Through there,’ and pointed to a door marked Private .
    She went down a passage and into the toilet. She sat on the toilet lid and put her head between her knees till the blood ran back. She washed her face and hands and used some of the Nulon handcream that was there. In the mirror she saw that one of her cheeks was printed with the pattern of plastic lace. She combed her hair. She was OK.
    There was a crate of milk cartons in the passage from the toilet and milk was leaking out on to the brown floor. She looked away.
    â€˜OK now?’ the woman asked when she came out.
    â€˜Fine.’
    There were two more mugs of tea on the table but it was too sweet. ‘Sugar for shock,’ Greg said when she pulled a face. ‘Drink it.’
    The sweetness made her feel sick. ‘All that and it’s only half-past nine,’ Greg said and suddenly a laugh came tearing out of her. She couldn’t stop it. She laughed and laughed until tears were running into her mouth. Greg tried to stop her but then he caught it too.
    The woman came over and said, ‘I can’t have all this laughing in here. You’ll have to leave if you don’t stop laughing.’ She looked as if she’d been sucking a lemon. They tried their best to stop but couldn’t.
    â€˜I’ll call the police,’ the woman warned. But it was as if they were having the laughter wrung out of them. She finally lost patience, opened the door and stood there pointing out into the street, until they got up and staggered out.
    â€˜Drugs,’ she said to someone as they left. ‘Sticks out a mile.’
    When they got outside they only managed a few steps before collapsing on the ground. ‘It’s not funny,’ she kept trying to say but every time she nearly got it under control she remembered the way the woman had said I’ll call the police like there were laugh police to stop you laughing and a whole new squeeze went through her.
    â€˜This is hysteria,’ Greg said and that started her off all over again, the solemn way he said hysteria , but in the end they did stop. And nothing was funny after that. It was a cold day in March. They had nearly been killed. The sky was high and grey and couldn’t care less.
    â€˜I can’t get that arm out of my head,’ she said.
    â€˜Yeah,’ Greg said. ‘What we need is a drink.’
    But it was too early for a drink so they walked by a river and looked at willows and ducks. They wandered vaguely about. Other things were going on as normal: buses running; people wheeling babies; flowers flowering; birds and squirrels whisking through the trees while they walked by, leaning together to keep each other up.
    Later they went into a pub and drank Guinness for a long time and shared a cheese sandwich. She was about as drunk as she’d ever been. She hadn’t drunk a thing since before the hospital and wasn’t used to it. They walked about afterwards like lovers, their arms tight round each other’s waists. They stopped by a tree and he kissed her very softly on the lips. ‘I can’t believe I’ve only known you a few hours,’ he said.
    She looked into his face and said, ‘Me neither,’ because it looked so much like the right face. And it did feel like