Fire After Dark Read Online Free Page A

Randolph Gardens to Oxford Street, one of London’s main shopping thoroughfares, and am strolling along it, watching the crowds of people out even at this relatively early hour, and gazing in the shop windows. It’s hard to believe that all this bustle and commerce is going on just a five-minute stroll from Celia’s flat. ‘I. . . I’m not sure.’
    ‘Look, here it is,’ the woman says, showing me her map. ‘I wanna see the statue of Charlie Chaplin.’
    ‘Oh – Leicester Square, of course . . .’
    ‘Lester?’ she repeats, puzzled, and turns to her husband. ‘They say it Lester, honey. Honestly everything’s a trap around here if you don’t know.’
    I’m about to tell her that I’m a tourist myself but somehow I’m a little flattered that she thinks I know my way around. I must look like a Londoner. I take the map and look at it carefully, then say, ‘I think you can walk there from here, look. If you go up to Oxford Circus, then down Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus and turn left, it’s a straight line across to Leicester Square.’
    The woman beams at me. ‘Oh, thank you so much, that’s so kind of you. We’re kind of lost. It’s so busy, isn’t it? But we’re loving it!’
    I smile back. ‘You’re very welcome. Have a lovely stay.’
    I watch them go, hoping they’ll find their way to Leicester Square all right and that the Chaplin statue lives up to their expectations. Maybe I should try and find it myself, perhaps it’s worth a look.
    I fish my own guidebook out of my shoulder bag and look through it as people swarm by in both directions. All around are large department stores and big chains: Gap, Disney, mobile phone shops, fashion outlets, chemists, designer glasses stores, jewellers. Along the wide pavements are stalls selling souvenirs, luggage, knick-knacks and snacks: fruit, caramel-roasted nuts, waffles, cold drinks.
    My plan is go to the Wallace Collection, a free museum nearby that holds an extraordinary amount of baroque art and furniture, and then maybe grab some lunch somewhere and see what the afternoon brings me. I have that delicious sense of freedom: there’s no one to answer to, no one to please but myself and the day stretches ahead, full of opportunity and possibility. London has more to offer than I can ever take advantage of, but I plan to see all the big sights, especially the ones nearest to me: the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the British Museum. My degree is in History of Art and I’m practically salivating at the thought of all the things I’m going to see.
    The sun is bright and the sky clear. I’m feeling almost jaunty. The number of people about is overwhelming but there’s also something liberating about it. At home, I can’t go anywhere without meeting someone I know and one of the reasons I found it so hard to venture out is that I knew that everyone would be talking about Adam and me, and what had happened. No doubt they even knew what we’d said in that final tearful interview when Adam had confessed that he and Hannah had been sleeping together for months, since before I’d returned from university. That had probably been the subject of hot gossip, too. And I came back, innocent of all of it, thinking that Adam and I are still one another’s soulmates, the centres of each other’s world. They must have been laughing at me, wondering when I would finally find out and what would happen when I did.
    Well, they all know now.
    But no one here does. No one around me gives a damn about my humiliation or my broken heart or the fact that I’ve been betrayed by the man I loved. I smile and breathe in the fresh summer air. A big red bus rumbles by me and I remember I’m in London, the great capital city, and it’s spread out before me, waiting for me to discover it.
    I set off, feeling lighter than I have for weeks.
     
    It’s late afternoon when I finally return to Randolph Gardens, a heavy carrier bag of groceries cutting into