Summer Lies Bleeding by Nuala Casey Read Free Book Online Page B

started to take off with the help of three sell-out London shows and a wealthy collector investing in some of his back catalogue, the idea began to form that maybe they could open up their own restaurant. When Seb’s best friend and business partner, Henry Walker, came on board, they knew that it was going to become a reality. Henry doesn’t believe in failure and whatever he invests in receives the full force of his enthusiasm and ambition. After building a successful model agency, an art gallery and a string of fitness studios, a London restaurant was next on his wish-list. But not any old restaurant, no thatwould never do for Henry; he was going to take them right to the gastronomic heart of London: Soho.
    Seb had smirked when Henry showed him the proposed site – a vacant building right next door to Seb’s old drinking haunt, The Dog and Duck pub on Frith Street. For a moment, he had hesitated. What if being back in Soho resurrected old demons; what if the temptation to slip back into his binge drinking proved too great? But then he had looked at how far he had come – his family, his successful business, his sobriety. It would take more than a little strip of street to tear all that away from him. And Yasmine had fallen in love with it on the spot, so he had given Henry the go-ahead and here they are, eight months later, ready to launch Soho’s newest restaurant: The Rose Garden.
    As he crosses the busy King’s Road, he sees a number 19 bus in the distance. Happiness surges through him as he walks towards the bus stop. There is something so complete about this day; all is as it should be. He feels sharp, clear, completely connected to everything around him: the gleaming red fire engines lined up outside Chelsea Fire Station; the sparkling fairy lights twinkling in the window of Heals, even the angry-faced newspaper seller outside the bank – they all have their place, their roles to perform, just like him. Yes, he thinks, today is a positive day.
    He smiles as the bus comes closer; its destination displayed in thick, white letters: PICCADILLY. He climbs aboard, scans hisOyster Card and takes his seat by the window. As he stretches his legs out in front of him, rain, that has been threatening all afternoon, starts to fall; a gentle rain, smearing the windows and giving the world outside a vague, dreamlike quality. The doors close and the bus pulls away towards Sloane Street. The rain starts to come down quite heavily and as they stop at the lights a procession of tight-faced women clutching large carrier bags from Harrods, Prada and Harvey Nichols run across the road, umbrella-less and exposed, their perfectly blow-dried hair wilting in the downpour. Seb smirks, thinking of his grandmother’s perfect drawing room; her hawkish eyes. Rain is the great leveller, he thinks, it makes sopping wet rags of us all.

5
    â€˜Damn,’ exclaims Stella as she squints to see the road ahead. She hit a patch of heavy rain just outside London and now, as she navigates Earl’s Court Road, her vision a blur of watery car headlights, she hears her phone beep.
    â€˜Not now, Paula,’ she shouts to the empty car. She hadn’t expected this; she had imagined her return to London would be epic, she would sweep into the city like a prodigal child and the great buildings, the statues and monuments would bend towards her in a kind of embrace. But real life is different; real life is sitting in traffic watching windscreen wipers sweep in front of your eyes; listening to the toneless voice of the Sat Nav as it directs you towards a multi-storey car park. Real life is wet and insipid; the golden sunrises, the blazing colours and rhapsodic sounds only exist in the imagined world, the place Stella finds when she writes.
    She swings the car into a vacant space, turns off the engine and closes her eyes. So now it begins. All the build-up, all theexpectation and this is where it starts, in a grey