300 Days of Sun Read Online Free

much enjoyment as if it had been cold beer, all the while offering comments and observations.
    â€œPortuguese girls . . . are very attractive, but don’t they just know it. A bit too pleased with themselves for my taste. But that might just be because I haven’t got lucky yet.” He winked as if to imply it was only a matter of time.
    â€œI thought you had—­down at the clubs.”
    â€œNo. I met a nice Spanish girl the other night—­and an Irish girl. They’re everywhere, Irish girls. It’s all the Ryanair flights. Mind you, half of them think they’re landing a bit closer to Lisbon than it turns out. This girl, right, she says to her mate,” he put on a passable Irish accent, “ ‘Didya not read the small print, Siobhan? It’s de small print where dey tell you where de floight for fifty pee is really going!’ ”
    We both laughed hard. As I said, Nathan was the easiest of companions. I didn’t regard any of his questions as intrusive, because he was so happy to answer mine. So when he asked me, “Is your bloke coming to see you, then?” I gave him an honest answer.
    â€œI hope not.”
    â€œWhy’s that then?”
    â€œI’m running away from him.”
    â€œLike that, is it? How long you been together?”
    â€œA ­couple of years.”
    Nathan reached for his cigarettes, not offering me one. I don’t smoke, and he knew that by then. He took a drag and sucked the smoke into his lungs like nourishment before exhaling. “What did he do wrong?”
    â€œLong story.”
    â€œAren’t they all.”
    I said nothing.
    â€œWhat can you do, except be as kind as possible?” said Nathan.
    He was a sweet boy. For a minute I did wonder about telling him a bit about Marc and how he still wanted it to work out between us, whilst I had never intended our arrangement to be permanent. I’d seen the light at the end of the tunnel, and was racing to meet it.
    â€œThat’s all you can do,” I agreed.
    The trouble was, I had tried being kind, but that meant staying to listen to all the arguments to stay. And even if I did capitulate, our relationship was not the only thing that wasn’t for me anymore.
    â€œIs he a journalist, too?”
    â€œNo.”
    I was quite surprised Nathan remembered what I did for a living. It hadn’t been mentioned since that first evening at the cocktail bar with the rest of the language course students when we all threw chunks of biography at one another. I certainly hadn’t brought it up, mainly because it wasn’t strictly true anymore. Learning some Portuguese was my way of treading water while I worked out what to do next.
    â€œMust be interesting, though, being a journalist,” said Nathan. “Bet you enjoy it.”
    â€œI do,” I said, truthfully.
    â€œYou work for a newspaper, right?”
    I hesitated.
    â€œOnly, I wanted to ask you—­”
    â€œActually, I’m here because . . . I was recently made redundant.”
    â€œShit. That’s tough.”
    â€œYes, well. Onwards and upwards.”
    â€œWhat’re you going to do? You can get another job, yeah?”
    â€œWith any luck. Newspapers are like every other business in these tricky times: cutting down on margins, and that means staff. It’s not so bad. If I don’t get another job straightaway, I can always freelance.”
    â€œCourse you can. You must have loads of experience. I mean, journalists know how to find out anything, don’t they—­so all you need to do is find out where the work is and go for it.” He nodded encouragingly.
    I had to smile. “Something like that.”
    We lay back after eating and dozed. “I’m going to burn if I stay here much longer,” I said after a while.
    â€œWe could walk from here to see the whale, if you want,” said Nathan. “The one that was in the