Some by Fire Read Free Page B

middle-aged couple stood transfixed, unableto speak; Mr Youngman horrified by his beloved daughter’s appearance, his wife hypnotised by the bulging underpants, which confirmed everything she’d always known about ‘his sort’.
    Voices returned. Insults were hurled. Below them, Janet Wilson held cupped hands over her ears and listened in horrified delight at first, and then in sorrow as things were said from which there was no going back.
    It was a short visit. They didn’t even have a cup of tea. No further words were exchanged between Mr and Mrs Youngman until their car juddered to a standstill, drained of petrol, just south of Doncaster.
    A week later Mr Youngman transferred the mortgage on the house in Essex to his daughter and posted her the documents. That was the last correspondence he had with her. Mrs Youngman finished off the bottle of sherry left over from Christmas, and took to walking to the corner shop to purchase another bottle, even when it was raining. The following August she died after an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol.
    Melissa never slept with her Swazi prince again, although his performance was the one by which she measured all others. She left Essex at the end of the year, to read modern languages at the Sorbonne. From Paris she went to Edinburgh, Manchester, UCLA, Durham and Leeds. She never stayed longerthan a year, never sat an examination. She played the impoverished student, but her fees were always paid in full, in advance.
     
    When Melissa came into his life Duncan Roberts had been slouching in the students’ union, hoping to con a pint out of a friend, or maybe earn one for collecting empty glasses.
    Things can’t be that bad,’ she’d said.
    ‘How would you know?’ he’d growled.
    ‘Because I have magical powers. I can read your aura.’
    He’d seen her around, wondered if he’d ever be able to afford a woman like her. Over the years the rest of the world had done some catching up, but the zips and pins holding her clothes together were gold-plated and the leather was finest calfskin. Her bone structure was as good as ever and the just-out-of-bed hairstyle cost more than a student could earn in a week waiting table.
    ‘As long as you don’t expect me to cross your palm with silver,’ he’d replied.
    ‘Why?’ she’d asked, sitting beside him on the carpeted steps that were a feature of the bar. ‘Do I detect a cash-flow crisis?’
    Her face was close to his and he could smell her perfume. ‘Not so much a crisis,’ he’d told her. ‘More like a fucking disaster.’
    She held her hand out in front of him, palm up. On it was a collection of coins. ‘Well, I’ve got two pounds and a few coppers,’ she’d said. ‘So we can either have a couple of pints each here, or buy a bottle of wine and take it somewhere more comfortable. What do you say?’
    He looked at the coins, then into the face with its painted eyes, only inches away. That perfume was like nothing he’d ever experienced before and her arm was burning against his. ‘Right,’ he’d croaked. ‘Er, right. So, er, let’s go find a bottle of wine, eh?’
     
    By the time I’d finished all the paperwork, that final night shift had lasted until three o’clock in the afternoon. I was supposed to be looking at a flat, but I hadn’t the energy. I drove back to my digs and went to bed. The thin curtains couldn’t compete against the afternoon sun, the landlady’s beloved grandson was kicking his ball against the back wall and the man next door had chosen that particular Sunday afternoon to install built-in wardrobes twelve inches behind my headboard. And then there were all the other things chugging and churning away inside my mind. I didn’t sleep.
    I was up at seven and the landlady kindly allowed me to have a bath, even though I hadn’t given prior notice and it wasn’t really my day for one. She didn’t do meals on the Sabbath, but guests were allowed tocook their own food in the kitchen, as