How to Make Friends with Demons by Graham Joyce

Author:Graham Joyce
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-10-28T09:39:42+00:00

Chapter 22

We'd finished desert. Crème caramel, and the sweetness of it just made me want to give in, to kiss her. I wanted the sugar from Yasmin's lips. Her hand lay flat upon the table, and I still wanted to stroke it, to touch it, but without penalty. I looked round for the waiter.

"Don't order more wine," Yasmin said.

"No?"

"No. Do you know why I suggested this pub?"

"Tom Paine's bones are supposed to be buried in the cellar."

"That's it.

The Rights of Man. Tom Paine is my hero. The landlord of this building at the time had Tom's bones brought back from his pauper's grave in New York. He was going to give him a heroic burial, but then he lost his money. The building was sold and Tom's bag of bones was left in the cellar. And walled up."

"And what has this got to do with me?"

"Nothing really. Except that you're walled up in the cellar. Like Tom."

I laughed, but I felt the furrowing of my own brow. "What? I think I do need another glass of wine." I waved to the waiter.

"I've added another basic right to Tom Paine's list."

"What would that be?"

The waiter, a handsome young man with a head of dark curls and raisin-coloured eyes, appeared, smiling at the table, hands clasped before him, leaning in to the table. She didn't even acknowledge him. "The right to be fucked within an inch of your life by a beautiful woman who has the hots for you."

I blinked. I couldn't help it: to avoid the intensity of her gaze I looked at the young waiter, as if for his comment on the situation. Perhaps he saw a kind of pleading in my expression, because he looked away from me and stared down at the table.

"If that's what

she wants," she added. "And she does." Then she turned to the waiter and smiled. "We just want the bill. Thank you."

The waiter went away and I fumbled for my credit card. "Well, that'll give him something to tell them in the kitchen."

"I don't care what they think in the kitchen. Take me home."

But I couldn't take her home, even if I wanted to, because my daughter and her boyfriend were there.

"My place, then," she said, "but I warn you, it's not up to much."

I tried to think of a way of resisting, but she'd taken charge and wasn't even listening to my feeble protests. Outside the pub she confidently hailed a hackney cab and while its diesel engine ticked over she held the door open for me. She gave the driver an address just south of the river.

In the rear of the cab she leaned in to me, kicked down the seat in front of her and laid a heel on it, exposing from underneath her coat a leg clad in that elegant grey nylon. I was forced to admit to myself that I was a little bit scared of her. "Look, I don't know how much good I'm going to be to you.

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