Connections Read Online Free Page A

I can get at Tesco’s.” Fleur had observed six bulging Tesco bags on the floor by the large stove. “When that’s done get all the onions from one of the bags and put them through the food processor.”
    As he spoke he was walking to the kitchen door. He pushed it open and shouted, “Geoff! I want the money for the shopping
now!
”
    Geoff called back, “When I’ve looked in the till.”
    â€œGeoff – I’m a cook, not a fucking investor! Ring fucking Housman again.”
    He came back into the kitchen where he knelt down and began to go through the bags. “Don’t ask what’s happening here,” he said from the floor.
    Fleur did not comment. “Where shall I put these?” she asked, pointing at the sliced courgettes.
    He responded, “In a bowl, dear, where else? Get the bloody onions done, love. I need a lot.”
    For an hour and a half Fleur chopped, sliced, mixed the ingredients for pastry in the mixer, stirred and minded the frying panwhen Al went out into the yard for a cigarette. During this time he kept up a running monologue, chiefly about politics. His views were much like her dedicated-carpenter-and-Guardian-reading stepfather’s, only a lot less mild.
    Finally, when Fleur’s feet were beginning to ache from standing in the same spot, Al sent her into the dark yard for a cigarette which he kindly gave her. The light from the open doorway fell on weeds and straggling grass and piled-up boxes.
    â€œWhat’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” he called out to her.
    â€œI used to work in films but it went wrong,” she called back. “What about you?”
    â€œI can’t deal with normal life,” he explained unhelpfully, “or what passes for it.” Evidently he then looked at his watch. “Oi, you’d better run now – Geoff said he wanted you in the bar.”
    â€œI’d better go home and change,” she said, alarmed, coming back into the kitchen.
    â€œYou’ll have to look sharp,” he said. “Thing is, after the bar opens at six Geoff disappears. I don’t know where he goes. So you’ll be on your own until he ambles in again about eight.”
    â€œI only live opposite,” Fleur said, taking off her apron. “Where shall I put this?”
    â€œTake it with you – wash it yourself. The laundry never calls these days.”
    â€œAll right,” Fleur said, thinking that all the evidence was pointing to a job loss in the near future. She should know.
    Having told Geoff she was coming back shortly she went across to Adelaide House and ran up the concrete steps to the floor she lived on. Outside the Morgans’ flat next door to hers she saw Mrs Morgan and Mrs Simmons in grave conversation.
    They all nodded at each other and, as Fleur let herself in to her flat, she heard the two women continue their conversation.
    â€œSo it’s Christmas at the latest,” Mrs Morgan was saying, regret in her voice.
    â€œWell, it’ll be nice for you,” came Mrs Simmons’ voice, no less upset.
    Fleur had a quick shower, put on a black skirt and top, combedher hair, put on minimal eye make-up and lip gloss and dashed back to McCarthy’s. To her horror, Geoff was gone. There were two men in business suits sitting at a table, though, and as she came in, took off her coat and bundled it under the bar, one said to the other, “That’s a relief – I thought we’d have to go to the Findhorn Star.”
    Fleur didn’t know where anything was and after serving one of the men with a beer and the other with a gin and tonic she realised she had no idea how to work the till. However, the bar prices were pinned up near it and, pleading for exact change, she began a mini-till in a cardboard box below the bar and hoped she could last out until Geoff returned.
    Three young women from a nearby office arrived and bought glasses