Lady of the Shades by Darren Shan Read Free Book Online Page A

Exorcist
.’
    ‘But
Summer’s Shades
. . . ?’
    ‘My characters aren’t me, Deleena.’
    ‘But it’s so convincing.
Shades
reads like it was written by somebody truly in love with the genre.’
    I laugh. ‘Trust me, it wasn’t!’
    ‘You aren’t a horror buff?’
    ‘Uh-uh.’
    ‘Thank heaven for that,’ she sighs. ‘I can’t stand horror films. I love to read nasty stuff but I can’t bear to watch it.’
    ‘You only suggested the film to keep me happy?’ I ask cockily.
    ‘Don’t crow,’ she warns. ‘You don’t know my phone number. If I disconnect and don’t call back, you’ll be trotting around London on your tod.’
    ‘What’s a tod?’
    ‘Don’t change the subject,’ she snaps.
    ‘OK. Horror films are out. What does that leave?’
    She hesitates. ‘A meal?’
    ‘Anywhere particular?’ She mentions a small restaurant in the West End. I agree to that, then ask, ‘And after?’
    ‘Let’s wait and see,’ she responds. ‘Maybe I’ll have had enough of you and will want to go home early.’
    ‘Or maybe you’ll want to take me home with you,’ I whisper cheekily.
    A pause. It lengthens. Just when I’m about to ask if she’s still there, she whispers back, ‘Maybe.’ And hangs up.
    The next two nights are delicious. We dine by candlelight in snug restaurants, chatting easily, laughing freely. I’m at ease around her, even more so than I am with Joe.
I feel like a different, less complicated and reserved person.
    Later we go for slow walks around Piccadilly Circus, bustling with young, loud tourists as it always is, no matter what time of the day you visit. The Mall, the wide road running along St
James’s Park, quiet at night, peaceful, Buck Palace glittering at the end of it like a fairy princess’s palace. Through the lovingly maintained expanse of Hyde Park and down by the
casually meandering Thames, the green heart and dark blue soul of this grand old dame of a city.
    Sometimes we stroll hand in hand, other times with our arms around each other. We talk softly about our past and future, hopes and dreams, disappointments and failures. I don’t tell her
everything about myself, but I spill more than I have to anyone else recently. Details from my youth, my difficult teens in Detroit, how my parents died (mother of cancer when I was sixteen, father
of what I hope was an accidental overdose two years later), some of my marital woes, how few friends I have, what a quiet guy I am.
    She works my past out of me effortlessly, charmingly. And I do the same with her, learning of her equally difficult teenage years, the time she spent in rehab, her fractured relationship with
her parents, the way she retreated from the world after she split from her husband.
    For all our talking and sharing, we don’t kiss. At the end of each night I expect her to offer her lips, but she doesn’t. A quick peck on the cheek and that’s it, she hops into
a cab and slips away. I’m confused but pleased — it’s nice to be on the slow burn. I’m sure there will be kissing and more later, but for the time being I’m content to
talk and walk, getting to know her, letting her get to know me.
    Joe returns to London. We meet at a café in Soho in the early afternoon. We order drinks and sit outside, baking in the severe July sun. Joe looks tired and drawn. His
mother pulled through but the doctor told him it’s only a matter of weeks before she succumbs to a fatal stroke.
    ‘I knew she was close to the end,’ he says, wrapped up tightly even though everybody else is in shorts and T-shirts, ‘but to have it confirmed . . . to be taken aside and told
. . . ’ He shakes his head. The glass trembles in his hand.
    ‘You should have stayed with her.’
    ‘No,’ he says, tugging miserably at his beard. ‘Two of my sisters have moved in with her and I’ve got a brother three doors down. I’d be in the way. I might miss
the finale, but that’s not such a bad thing. I’m not sure I want to