River Deep Read Free Page B

tying it in a loose knot, then spent a couple of moments looking through her earrings before selecting some large silver hoops. Stella said she liked the gypsy look, said it suited her nature.
    ‘I have to go out,’ she’d said. ‘I’ve got to rearrange some things so that I can meet you tonight?’ Her tone was tentative and uncertain, as if she was afraid that Pete wouldn’t let her go. Except of course Pete always let her go. He always let her go and he always took her back.
    ‘But you’ll be there tonight? At eight, won’t you?’ he had pressed her, silently thinking he was insane to try and hold her to a time and a place that would take a sizeable miracle to arrange.
    Stella had crossed the room and taken his face in her hands. For a moment Pete had been lost in the violet wheels of her eyes.
    ‘Yes. I’ll be there tonight.’ She had kissed him briefly on the lips, leaving him tingling, and then she was gone. For two thunderous heartbeats Pete had stood motionless in her wake, and then crumpled on to the bed.
    ‘How the fuck am I going to pull this off?’ he’d moaned, knowing that pretty much his entire future happiness depended on him doing just that.
    It was just past nine a.m. when he’d got to the restaurant, and it was firmly shut, grilles pulled down across the huge plate glass windows, and not a sign of life in the minimalist dining room. Pete peered into the gloom and he thought he could see the faintest chink of light blinking through the swing of what must be the kitchen’s double doors.
    ‘Kitchen,’ he said determinedly and headed round the back. The thought had occurred to him then that turning up in his weekend jeans, the ones that hung round his hips with the hole in the knee, and his Leeds replica shirt might, on reflection, not have been the best idea. But he hadn’t had much time for reflection that morning. He hadn’t had time for anything much more than running around in a blind panic like a man about to face the axeman’s block.
    The back door of the kitchen was opened on to a small courtyard and a young lad, maybe sixteen or seventeen, was taking in a delivery of fresh vegetables. Pete paused a few feet from him and shuffled.
    ‘All right?’ he asked mildly.
    The boy raised his head and nodded, turning to go in.
    ‘Um, I was wondering, like. Any chance of getting a table here tonight? It’s an emergency.’
    The lad turned back and looked at Pete, a slow grin spreading across his acne-bitten face. ‘This isn’t McDonald’s, mate!’ he said with a phlegmy laugh. ‘You have to book about three months ahead and you need at least two ton in your pocket to eat here. Sorry, try the Italian in the arcade, they can usually fit you in and their veal’s not bad.’
    Pete regarded his grey and worn trainers and wondered how it had come to this. How he, a grown man of thirty-four, had been reduced to pleading with some spotty kid for his life.
    ‘The thing is, mate, I’m going to propose to her, my girlfriend Stella, that is. And it has to be tonight and it has to be here. Otherwise she’s going to leave me.’
    The kid looked at him with a mixture of horror and contempt. ‘You’ve not heard of planning ahead, then?’ he said. He propped the kitchen door open with the veg and sat down on the concrete step, pulling out a packet of fags from his apron. He offered one to Pete, who didn’t really smoke but took it anyway, and sat beside him on the step. ‘Look,’ the kid continued, ‘I’ve been about, me. I’ve got a few birds on the go and, trust me, if your lass is that demanding you don’t want to be marrying her. You want to be sacking her. Pronto.’ He nodded at Pete’s shirt. ‘So what about last season then?’ he asked him.
    Pete winced and shook his head. ‘You tell me how we got from playing in Europe to a relegation dog fight in just two seasons.’ He shook his head glumly.
    ‘Tell me about it. I’m Si, by the way. I’m sort of dogsbody to the