Fatlands Read Online Free

the main entrance then got out of the car.
    By the time I got there she wasn’t in the loo, or at least none of the ones that were open. I called her name. No answer. She wasn’t buying more cigarettes and she wasn’t making a phone call. Neither was she having an overpriced cup of coffee. That left the bridge to the other side of the motorway.
    I didn’t run, but I didn’t exactly walk, either. I love those bridges, concrete corridors going nowhere. I’ve always wanted to have a last-reel shoot-out in one of them, bullets ricocheting while innocent passersby dive for cover. Either that or me flinging myself through the plate-glass windows on to the back of a passing truck underneath. Alas, today was yet another day when I didn’t get to fulfil my ambitions.
    Neither did I get to find my client. Either she wasn’t there or she’d already left. I hoofed it back to the east side. From the entrance to the forecourt I saw a figure standing next to the car. She didn’t look anything like Mattie, but what the hell …
    At least she had the grace to be shifty about it. Though, to be honest, it wasn’t her face I was concentrating on. I have to say it suited her better: the tattered leggings with the money belt around the waist, the T-shirt under the sharp little leather jacket and the hair piled high like a black fountain frozen in mid-flow. I had a vision of thatnicely pressed Jaeger skirt all scrunched up in the bottom of her bag, but I couldn’t summon up any pity for it. She looked—well, she looked more herself.
    She stood waiting for my disapproval. I stared at her and saw myself aged fourteen, hair like a sheepdog, miniskirt barely covering my knickers and a long string of beads undulating over lumpy teenage breasts: just another suburban rebel desperate to catch up with the sixties when the decade was already over. In retrospect it had been less about fashion than identity. And I had thought I was so wonderful. It still comes as a shock when I look back at the pictures and see myself as overweight jailbait. Now those would be a set of negatives to kill for.
    She was still waiting. I tried to take it seriously. The generation gap demanded it. But I just couldn’t do it. I looked her up and down and shook my head. ‘You look great. Let’s hope your temper improves with your appearance. Shall we go?’ And she gave me just the smallest of smiles.
    Back in the car we were Thelma and Louise. She strapped on her seatbelt and hit the glove compartment. For a second I thought we might be back to the dope, but instead she had her hands full of tapes, making an instant inventory of the music. I’d seen people more impressed by my taste. She took her time. We were already in the fast lane when she said,
    â€˜Who’s Bob Seger?’
    â€˜He used to play back-up to Frank Sinatra,’ I said solemnly. ‘Go on, give it a try.’
    She slid the tape in and I turned on the stereo, loud. The opening chords of ‘Blow Me Away’ lifted the car about an inch and a half off the ground. And this time the grin reached her ears. Rock ’n’ roll. Bringing the world together.
    We hit the rest of the gum and moved towards familymatters via education, on which we had similar views, albeit for different reasons.
    â€˜They’re just stupid most of them. They’re so
young
, even the older ones. Half of them are still slobbering over Jason Donovan.’
    â€˜Jason doesn’t do much for you, then?’
    â€˜God, do me a favour.’
    â€˜How long have you been there?’
    â€˜One hundred and ninety-six days,’she said immediately. ‘Not including holidays.’
    â€˜If you hate it so much, why don’t you ask your father to take you away?’
    â€˜Because he wouldn’t listen.’
    â€˜Have you tried?’she scowled, which was her way of telling me the question wasn’t worth answering. ‘So where