Upside Down Inside Out Read Online Free Page A

road to success? It was filled with potholes then, he thought. Exhaustion. Headaches. Meetings, contracts and paperwork. It was ironic, really. He was such a successful designer he didn’t get time to actually design any more. Joseph ran his fingers through his hair. What a day. And what a day yesterday had been. And the weeks and months before that. He felt more like sixty-four years old than the thirty-four he was. What had happened to his life? He was feeling more and more like he was barely clinging on. All this paperwork and all these details were hurtling past him and he was getting just a glimpse as they rushed by. He had to concentrate. If this headache would go away, he could. He went back to his desk and started reading the tiny print of the Canadian contract again.
    This document confirms the details of the proposed contract agreement between Joseph Wheeler of Wheeler Design of Hoxton, London, hereafter known as the Consultant and…
    It was no good. He wasn’t taking it in. He looked out the window again. Why was he putting it off? This was what all that hard work had been about, wasn’t it? Finetuning his designs. Doing all the research. Making all the prototypes. So he’d get approaches like this?
    Three years ago an offer like this one would have consumed him. Thrilled him. Sent his blood pumping.
    But now? Today? He just felt like picking up the contract and throwing it straight in the bin.

Chapter three
    ‘Oh, Evie, that looks gorgeous.”
    Eva turned and smiled at her young cousin. ‘Thanks, Meg.’ She was very pleased with the latest window display herself. She’d been working on it all afternoon, carefully arranging a balancing act of shiny purple aubergines, bright red chillies and plump heads of garlic, surrounded by long, elegant bottles of olive oil.
    It was like a still-life painting, she decided. But it just needed a few more bits and pieces. Some preserved pears, perhaps, all golden and round in their jars. The handmade chocolates? Or a selection of the freshly baked biscuits in their little cellophane wrapped bundles?
    Meg was inspecting the display closely. ‘Could I try to do one of these while you’re away, Eva? They look so artistic, don’t they? I don’t know where you get your ideas from at all.’
    ‘Those three years I spent at art school, maybe,’ Eva said mildly.
    ‘Oh, that’s right, I forgot about those. I only ever think of you as a shop assistant, I suppose.’
    Eva blinked. Perhaps a person’s tact gene only kicked in at the age of nineteen, she thought. Or perhaps Meg had missed out on hers altogether.
    Meg was oblivious in any case. ‘It’s such great fun here, Evie. Not like work at all. Did I tell you a lady came in yesterday and asked me for quail’s eggs, can you believe it? What size would they be, do you think? God, quails are tiny enough themselves, their eggs would be like peas, wouldn’t they?’ Meg gave a merry laugh.
    ‘Then another lady came in and asked did we serve hot soup. She said she was freezing and walking past, smelt the bread and thought, Mmm, imagine a nice hunk of that bread and a big bowl of freshly made soup, not that packet stuff most of the pubs sell.’ Meg took a deep breath, then kept going. ‘I told her that, sorry, we didn’t serve soup but I’d certainly talk to you and Ambrose about it. Bernadette and Maura, my teachers at Ardmahon House, always said you should never dismiss a customer’s request out of hand. They said it’s better to thank them for the idea and say you’d see what you could do. That way they feel like you really care about them as customers. Could we do that, do you think, Eva?’
    Eva was trying to keep up. ‘Do what, Meg, sorry?’ ‘Serve hot soup.’ ‘Where?’ ‘In the shop.’ ‘Where could we serve it?’ ‘Oh, I mean to take away, in the first instance. Unless we put a few tables and chairs in the storeroom.’ Meg laughed. That’d be cosy, wouldn’t it? “Yes sir, that table there