Facing the Light by Adèle Geras Read Free Book Online Page B

imagined her stuffing garments haphazardly into some bag that had seen better days. She smiled as she stood up and went to fetch her suitcase. Then she locked the flat and made her way down to the street.
    As she drove to Alex’s flat, she reflected on family secrets. No one knew about her feelings for Efe. They had given up, most of them, worrying about her being so firmly unattached. I bet they’ve decided I’m a virgin, she thought. Well, let them! Beth never spoke about her sex life. They, Leonora and Gwen and even darling Rilla, thought she was on the shelf. Beth smiled to think of their reaction if they knew. Just because you were sufferingfrom unrequited love didn’t mean you had to do without sex. It was just that you never committed. Never got involved. Wouldn’t let yourself. She was exactly like many of the men she knew.
    These days in Efe’s company would be a test. She couldn’t wait. Quite apart from curiosity about his news, she was longing to see him, to talk to him, to be near him, to smell his smell when they kissed ‘hello’ and at the same time she dreaded it. It would be an ordeal. Fiona would be with him, and so would Douggie, and every time she looked at them she’d feel like the little mermaid in the story, as though she were walking on knives.
    *
    â€˜You drive, Alex, go on,’ said Beth. ‘You know you’re longing to.’
    â€˜Sure you don’t mind?’ Alex grinned at her. They’d piled his belongings on to the back seat with Beth taking great care to see that everything was tidily stacked.
    â€˜No, go on. I’m exhausted. I’ll probably be rotten company. I might even fall asleep.’
    â€˜I’m used to that,’ said Alex. ‘You being rotten company. Go to sleep and see if I care. I’d rather listen to whatever crappy stuff you’ve got in the tapedeck.’
    Beth slapped him with a newspaper that he’d somehow managed, in spite of her best efforts, to keep about his person. She pulled it out of a pocket and batted him over the head with it. Then she turned round and tucked it into one of the carrier bags on the back seat.
    â€˜You’re not touching that till we get there,’ she said. ‘I don’t trust you not to drive and read at the same time. And don’t think I’m ignoring your dig at my music. It’s the Buena Vista Social Club. Take it or leave it.’
    â€˜No, that’s okay. Quite civilized for you. Branching out, are you?’
    â€˜Shut up and drive, Alex. I’m going to sleep.’
    â€˜Right,’ Alex said, and pressed some buttons. Themusic filled the car, and he saw Beth relaxing into her seat and closing her eyes.
    *
    There were very few people in the world Alex felt comfortable with and Beth was one of them. He was two years younger than she was, and he’d always known how much she liked looking after him. By rights, she should be married with lots of children of her own, but as she wasn’t, Alex enjoyed watching her mother everyone who came into her orbit. She tried as hard as she could to organize Rilla; she took an interest in his love life and all his attempts to be evasive counted for nothing. She had a gift for making him speak, and he confessed things to her that he wouldn’t have dreamed of telling anyone else, not even Efe. Worries he had, like, why didn’t he feel what he was supposed to feel for all the various women he’d had short and unsatisfactory relationships with? Beth had patience and never minded listening to him mumbling and muttering. She also, very comfortingly, did it while feeding him delicious meals because she believed he never ate properly.
    Alex was on the staff of a good newspaper and photographed beautiful women much of the time. He got sent around all over the place to take shots of this starlet and that pop singer and the other society person for one or other page, and sometimes he even got