Trafika Europe 9/10 - UK in Europe

JayMerill

and Aggie came in. What was she doing home at this hour, I wondered? Hell, it was like an invasion. First one then another of them. No peace. She came into the kitchen and I escaped with my coffee mug, giving her the largest smile I could manage, as I darted past her into the hallway. She hadn’t been in ten minutes when Flake came in and joined her. They started rattling pots and pans about as though they were doing a big fry up and the burning fat smell that reached me moments later confirmed this was the case. I looked at my watch. It was around lunchtime but usually nobody in the house ate lunch, or at least they didn’t eat lunch on the premises. None of them came home during the afternoon as a rule. So,

what a pain.

I was forced to stay in my room as long as Aggie and Flake were hanging about downstairs as I didn’t want to have to pass them. I didn’t feel like speaking. Some days were like that. I didn’t even feel like doing the smile a second time. So I lay in bed with the duvet pulled up as I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Eventually I fell asleep and dreamed an unpleasant and unsettling dream which featured Cherry naked and laughing at me with my family behind the hedge, and me ten years old again and doing my ungainly dancing, and then Ciaran entering the frame as he was now – twenty eight that is to say – and saying something corny to Cherry that I

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