Nomance Read Online Free Page B

other customers became old and decrepit in
their turn, replacing those who had gone before. Why, one day even
Serena would be old enough to need a funeral.
    So then, who said Carla
didn’t have anything nice to look forward to?
    And Carla was such an
optimist in respect to death in all its many guises. Reading about
fatal car crashes, heart attacks and tragic suicides in the local
newspaper invariably provided her with a certain thrill of
anticipation.
    And here was a
delicious daydream for you – a fatal car crash, a lethal heart
attack and a case of tragic suicide all within a fortnight
(assuming the relatives chose Rupert Nodes and his excellent
service) and she wouldn’t have to get pregnant!
    The door banged open
and Kitty, the young assistant, clumped in.
    Carla started from her
reverie and found herself back in the mundane, everyday world where
three Rupert Nodes funerals within a fortnight was just another
wild and crazy dream.
    She eyed Kitty, a great
big tall, thickset girl of eighteen, and said, ‘Fill all the
buckets, like I showed you. I’m going to talk to Gwynne. He’s
stopped off work to help you out. Come through if you need me for
anything.’
    Kitty leaned towards
Carla as she spoke and stared hard at her lips, as if she were
trying to read them. There was an interval before she nodded in
comprehension, or what passed for it.
    Kitty was built on an
almost gross scale. One of the latest generations of kids, so
pumped up by the chemical nutriments in fast food that they were
almost deformed. There was no chance of Kitty getting lots of
flowers from lovesick gentlemen. A pound of beefsteak, possibly . .
. and no doubt she’d appreciate it more, too. The pity was, no
gentlemen were waiting in the wings. The girl could already lug
bags of peat around with ease, so who knew what she’d be capable of
on a diet of beefsteak?
    Carla went out back
into the large and chilly livingroom where she found Gwynne playing
on his Gameboy . He had it up on full volume.
    ‘Don’t get playing that
thing in the shop,’ Carla yelled. ‘You’ll frighten the customers!’
Gwynne paused the programme, but continued to glare down at the
machine. She added, ‘Mrs Wanless hates loud noises. She almost died
when that shelf fell down.’
    ‘Yeah?’ Gwynne looked
up with interest.
    ‘Just help Kitty out,
will you? You know how she loses track.’
    Carla’s voice lost all
its harshness when she recalled how stupid Kitty was. There was
something so comforting about it. Her own policy for hiring staff
was to avoid anyone with qualifications. The ones with certificates
could never do the job at all, which made them far worse than those
without any certificates, who were merely incompetent. And apart
from not being able to do the job, those with qualifications always
suckered some other employer into taking them on and left her in
the lurch. Carla could sleep at night knowing Kitty wasn’t going to
get another job in a million years. That made having to repeat the
same instructions every day, like it was for the very first time,
so much easier to bear. Then too, once she was set in motion, Kitty
was a methodical beast. Carla believed the shop could burn down
around her and she would carry on spraying the spider plants. Yes,
she would stick at it regardless till the firemen came to haul her
away. Two at each end.
    ‘Turn it off!’ Carla
yelled.
    Gwynne had begun
playing his Gameboy again and the room was filled by the groans of
alien warriors dying in battle.
    ‘It’s all right now,’
Gwynne assured her, sounding as cheerful as he ever did. ‘The
Neckroids have won.’ He beamed down at the screen and its frozen
picture.
    Carla waited, knowing
her presence would soon become too annoying to ignore. And so, soon
enough, Gwynne gave her his attention – as much as he could muster
– and Carla explained what had to be done in the shop today and how
he must slow down when he spoke to Kitty and not expect her to
remember