Portobello Read Online Free Page A

There was nothing for it
now but Elixir. They always had Chocorange in stock; indeed, in
stock in reassuringly large quantities. His most recent visit to one
of their branches had been to the store in Marylebone High Street
and before that to New Oxford Street. It must be at least a fortnight
since he had used the branch in Paddington Station. Enough
walking had been done for one day and Eugene hailed a taxi.
    He didn't ask the taxi driver to take him to Paddington Station;
not, that is, through the glazed-in approach area in front of the
entrance where Isambard Kingdom Brunel, architect of the Great
Western Railway, sits on his plinth. That would have led to the
driver asking him what time his train was, whether he wanted him
to take this route or that and what was his destination. Better ask
the man to set him down in one of the streets that run from Sussex
Gardens to Praed Street and leave him to make his own way to
the station. He had tried to remember street names but only came
up with Spring Street. That would do.
    The first thing he noticed – the first thing he always noticed –
was the illuminated sign with the green cross on it that hangs
above pharmacies. There it was, halfway up little Spring Street, a
small shop like Mr Prasad's between a bank and an estate agent.
Eugene felt that catch of breath and lifting of the heart most people
would associate with the sight of the person one is in love with.
He used to feel it at first sight of Ella; now it was for a purveyor
of sugar-free sweets. Don't think of it like that, he told himself,
don't be silly. The pharmacist this time was a woman, also Asian,
wearing a sari, beautiful, calm, with downcast eyes. But he didn't
look at her. The moment he entered her shop a plethora of
Chocorange, radiant in their orange-and-brown wrappings, seemed
to leap up and meet his eyes, to jostle for his attention. This was
a treasure to add to his list, a number eleven to oust Prasad's Bolus
for ever. Without bothering to stock up on more tissues and toothpaste,
he went up to the counter, picked out three packets of
Chocorange and laid them in front of the deferential shopkeeper.
She smiled at him, but courteously, without a hint of cunning or
amusement, and rang up the sum of two pounds twenty-five.
    Now free to make his other purchases, Eugene took a bus back
to Notting Hill, where he bought the ingredients for the
dinner he intended to cook for Ella that evening and dropped into
one of the bags the envelope he had picked up earlier. Walking
home with his two fairly heavy bags and sucking his second
Chocorange of the morning, he wondered if tonight would be a
good time to ask Ella to marry him, whether it might not be better
to put it off for a further week or two. After all, their present
arrangement worked very pleasantly. There were none of the problems
of living under the same roof but plenty of lovely sex two or
three times a week. He checked these thoughts, while telling
himself that all men thought along these lines. He loved Ella. If
she wasn't quite the only woman he had ever loved, he loved her
best. He could hardly imagine being parted from her.
    But he was a secretive person. Should someone who treasured
his privacy so much marry at all? Still, he had been more or less
living with Ella, at least at the weekends and on holidays, for three
years now. She hadn't probed into his secret life. But another
problem was this habit of his. Even as things were, there were
difficulties. Once or twice she had caught him out and he had had
to say he had a sore throat and was 'just giving these things a go'.
Worst of all, he had been obliged to offer her one, which she had
taken and liked. When he got married he would have to give up.
He knew he must give up anyway and to some extent longed to
give up but, like St Augustine and sex, he asked to be released
from his habit but not yet. After all, as he told himself every day,
several times a day, it was harmless. He enjoyed it so much.