Solace & Grief by Foz Meadows Read Free Book Online Page B

sleeping people, familiar as a favourite shirt.
    ‘Can I stay here?’ she asked suddenly. The words, it seemed, had leapt from her mouth without filling in the requisite forms. Her hindbrain swore.
    ‘Sure,’ said Manx, impishly. ‘Why else do you think we dragged you back here?’
    The dim fish of memory stirred beneath the surface of Solace's subconscious.
    ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I thought it had more to do with here being closest and you dropping Jess on Evan too many times and everybody being entirely too drunk.’
    ‘Well,’ he conceded, plucking a cigarette from behind his right ear and lighting up with a yellow plastic Zippo from his pocket, ‘maybe a little. But you're welcome just the same. We're not the most normal bunch you're likely to find, though – sure you can handle us?’
    Remembering the bouncer, Solace only grinned.

Infrequently Asked Questions
    I t was, Solace thought, approximately Wednesday. Since moving into the warehouse a week and a half ago, she had discovered quite quickly that absenting oneself from the regimen of calendars, lessons, television schedules, and failing those, any pressing need to be somewhere else introduced a whole new concept of time. Time existed, but only in the sense that yesterday had become today and today would, sooner or later, become tonight, which was general cause for heading down to the Gadfly.
    Of her old life, the only things Solace missed were the books, which had, apart from Mrs Plumber and Miss Daisy, been her only childhood constants. Now that she finally had friends, however, the notion of skiving off to read, alone, didn't seem particularly social, and smacked of being unadventurous. Actually having an option on how to spend her leisure time was a novelty all by itself, with boredom not only off the map, but torn out of the atlas and wedged firmly under a wonky table leg. Once she'd recognised restraint as the key to happy alcoholic consumption, the Gadfly had opened up a world of unprecedented pleasure, and as being thus enlight-ened was both comic and extremely sociable, she drank the experience down like a fine array of spirits.
    It was funny, Paige had remarked, that everyone now called the club by name. Up until Solace had thought to ask, it had only ever been referenced by dint of vague aphorism and collective knowledge – ‘the regular place’ or ‘the Downstairs Club’ – despite the fact that the regular pattern of late-night visits was fast turning Solace nocturnal. Otherwise, they made their own fun, lazing around, going for night-walks through the nearby streets, chatting, arguing, joking, and in the case of Evan, concocting half-baked plans for entertainment that always fell through, but which nonetheless afforded an amusement all of their own. It was amenable, aimless, self-oriented, and like all such things, thoroughly enjoyable, as far removed from the group home as apples from aardvarks. Solace thrived.
    Still, Manx's flippant comment about abnormality had, for one reason or another, stuck in her mind. Given her upbringing, there were some aspects of normal that Solace doubted she'd recognise if they were brought to her asleep on a chair, but even so, once the whirlwind exhilaration of independence had started to die down, she found herself with several pressing questions. The foremost pertained to money, that is: there always being just enough of it, despite the blindingly obvious fact that nobody, least of all Solace, did anything whatsoever to generate income, something she felt increasingly guilty about. Drinks on her first night had been one thing, but as laid-back as everyone was about her lack of funds, she would still have preferred to pay her way rather than rely on credit. And yet, she was never quite sure who was shouting whom. What cash there was seemed too communal to belong to any one person, and despite having known them a relatively short time, she strongly doubted her new friends were thieves. Asking