A Perfect Life by Raffaella Barker Read Free Book Online Page A

but never-to-be-forgotten sensation, as he walks past a metal double-height door where he dimly recalls he may once have scored a bag of useless smack. The heat is sticky already, although the sun has not yet beamed down between the tall blocks on to the narrow SoHo street. It is a good thing in Nick’s opinion that he put on a black T-shirt when he got up today, and not the white linen shirt Angel had packed in his case with a post-it note saying, ‘Thursday for Trade Fair. Make sure you hang it up in the bathroom as creases will drop out that way.’
    The shirt is still in the bottom of his case, and Nick has no plans for removing it. He has never entirely shed the remnants of his youthful musical aspirations, although now all that is really left, apart from a collection of guitars and twenty-three pairs of cowboy boots, is a tendency to wear over-tailored jackets with jeans and to leave his hair a bit too long. Angel’s determination to style the whole of her life even extends to her husband, and his packing for a business trip. Unbelievable. But, as Nick likes to remind himself, she can’t help it. It’s a disease, and boy does he know about disease. And Angel, governed as she isby guilt, is a great wife. Nothing is too much for her, and there are times when Nick is overawed by her determination and her strength. For example, when she decides to clean the back of the cooker and inside the kettle after a day of meetings and business administration, she honestly seems to believe that if she scrubs hard enough, she will get rid of her own demons. Pour out a bottle of bleach on the world and let there be light. And the more Angel purifies her surroundings, the more Nick obscures his, covering his tracks, keeping every bit of his life separate so no one can see the whole of him. Least of all himself. He crosses the road, and because he has time to spare, and the brick wall of jet lag has just hit him on the head, he enters a coffee shop, orders an espresso and drinks it on the sidewalk. The hot bitterness jolts him into the present, and he winces at the honking of car horns and the pulse of a pneumatic drill a few blocks away. A girl with black, belligerent sunglasses and a snake of plaited hair gets up from the round table outside the café door and glides away on roller blades. Nick sits down in her place, and the sun glances off his wedding ring.
    Angel’s sense of guilt has given Nick a lot of slack rope, and her desire to assuage it keeps him in luxury. He’s not complaining, or not on the surface, but those whom Nick shares with in his twice-weekly AA meetings know a different truth. The real truth. Nick doesn’t really accept it at all. He is fed up with doing life Angel’s way, and he’s fed up with his own guilt for the things he does in defiance. He may be powerlessover her actions, but he is accountable for his own, and the marriage is suffering.
    In his quietest moments he wonders if he and Angel were ever really suited. He was drinking, he rescued her, and she was grateful. When he stopped drinking he saw the confusion that had brought them together, or as much of it as he could deal with, but there were the children by then, and life just kept on going. And like he always says, Angel is a great wife, and he loves her. He has to believe this truth, and that she loves him too. Without this, Nick knows the whole of his life would have to be rewritten.
    He finishes the coffee and, leaving three dollar-bills under the sugar shaker, he crosses the road and turns the corner. He walks half a block then pauses, looking for a number on the building he has reached. It makes no sense to think about Angel now anyway. She’s miles away and right now she is not his problem.
    â€˜Hey, Mr Stone, good morning.’ A glossy girl with peach-pink lips and huge pale purple sunglasses turns to walk up the steps to the building alongside Nick. Joy of joys, she is wearing a miniskirt