J. H. Sked by Basement Blues Read Free Book Online Page A

no.
     
     

Three
     
    A week later, he stood on the platform, the urge to glance at people - even absently - gone.
    A glimpse of red-blonde made his stomach whimper. He turned away from her, not wishing to see the way she nibbled hair as she turned a page.
     
    Yet, he slowly turned back towards her; his mind turning to ice.
     
    Janey lifted her head and smiled at him. Closing her book, she began to walk towards him.
    He could hear her heels clicking on the tiles.
     
    He raised his hands, unseen by the press jostling around him as the train approached. Someone pushed by him as the metal tube belched explosively into view. When he regained his balance she was gone.
     
    That was Monday.
     
    The next two nights passed without a sign of her – not that Phan searched the platform too hard. He would stand, his nose pressed stubbornly against the sheet of newsprint held like a shield.
    If he felt eyes on him, he ignored them grimly, applying himself to the lines of senseless print until the blessed rocket hurtled him away from the station.
     
    On Wednesday he was proceeding onto the platform when he saw her. He halted in mid-step, forcing a large, middle-aged woman to skip daintily around him.
     
    She had her back to him, the ever-present book tucked beneath one arm. There were strange marks on the back of her light blue dress, just above her waist.
     
    Is she looking for me?
     
    Phan felt the ice gather low in his belly once more. The woman in blue began to turn, and he sprinted back up the steps, taking them two at a time.
     
    He went and stood at the bus stop, shaking.
     
    No, and no, and no!

Four
     
    T here are ways to travel around London without using the tube, if you don’t mind adding at least an hour to your time by riding the bus, or by spending a small fortune on taxis.
     
    It took weeks to realize he could catch a bus to the station just before Piccadilly. It added fifteen minutes to his commute, but that was better time than an hour.
     
    As the blur through the windows resolved into Piccadilly Station, he caught himself sidling away from the windows, staring out of the dirty glass, and immediately he felt his gut lurch.
     
    There she was there, in her blue dress, slender fingers tapping anxiously against her book. Beside her stood a plump, middle-aged lady with a home perm.
     
    Phan groaned and passed a shaking hand over his eyes. When he looked again, Janey was staring directly at him, indigo eyes trailing wet diamonds that clung briefly to her lashes before rolling slowly down her face.
    .
    The middle-aged woman turned and looked reproachfully in his direction, placing a hand upon Janey’s shoulder, even as she tucked an oddly streaked jacket under her free arm.
     
    Phan sank against the seat as the doors hissed shut and train sped up.
     
    A contemptuous snort caused him to look up. A cocoa-skinned teenager with dreadlocks shook his head slowly at him, strands of hair swinging across features almost too pretty to be male.
    A dirty smudge on the shirt, looking like a deformed starfish, obscured an image of Bob Marley.
    Phan stared, feeling the stirrings of something. His mind was trying to make a connection, groping for a light switch in a blacked-out room.
     
    …this boy, the plump woman with the perm, Janey…
     
    “Are you getting this yet, bro?” The boy eyed him. The carriage lights flickered, and buzzed irritably, and then went out completely.
    “What?” Phan stammered. “What?”
    When the lights flicked back on, the boy was gone.
     

Five
     
    I t was Phan’s turn to cook. He edged into the flat and placed the Macdonald’s bag on the counter.
     
    His grandfather watched, as he unpacked the coloured containers.
 
    “Yours has extra cheese.”Phan slid the box towards him.
     
    “Bribery, then?”
     
    Phan grunted, prodding his bun unenthusiastically.
     
    “Are you going to eat that, or ask me what you want to know?” Grandfather’s empty container slid back towards