Read Painkillers for Free Online

dazzled, and the light from the hall was streaming out past the girl who stood there. All I could see was her silhouette.
    'Remember me?' she said. There was an edge to her voice; she had expected more from me than this rabbit-in-the-headlights gawp.
    'Zoe,' I said, stupidly.
    She was at least as tall as her father. Much taller than Brian and Eddie. I wondered if they envied her that
    - her physical similarity to their father.
    'Come on in.'
    'I hoped you'd be here,' I said, stepping past her. Her hair smelled sweet and androgynous - CK One, I told myself, though I knew well enough that startling scent. I watched as she shut the door. She was wearing a georgette slip dress sheer enough that I could follow her long, too-slender legs past the beaded hem. Her Miu-Miu sandals were so wafer-thin, the straps so wire-tight, they had to be some kind of NASA by-product.
    'Mother's in the kitchen still. Would you like a drink?' The pearl studs in her ears picked up and accentuated her eerie, blind-seeming grey eyes. Her teenage gawkiness was gone, but she had filled out hardly at all. Her breasts were tiny, pointed nubs against the grey silk. She looked more than ever like a half-starved Siamese.
    I followed her into the living room.
    'Do you still drink rum?' she said; she was watching me in the mirror above the drinks cabinet.
    'White, if you have it.'
    'Bacardi?'
    My mate Ron. 'Why not?'
    Her eyes didn't leave me once.
    I sat down uninvited on the sofa and stared into the fire. 'I noticed there's a film on tonight. One of Brian and Eddie's.' It was one of those gas contraptions, the flames too blue at their heart to be convincing. 'I think I remember it. What's it called?'
    'Full Auto Angel,' she said.
    'I set my video.'
    'I thought you couldn't watch them.'
    'Well,' I said.
    'There.' She sat on the seat next to mine, sipping from a glass that was clear and ice-filled, like mine. How old was she now? Twenty. Twenty-one. Her arms were smooth and unblemished. I thought about Brian and Eddie. I wondered where her scars were.
    'How's Eva?' she said.
    'Fine.'
    'Eddie said your cafe's nice.' She drew her nails through her hair, drawing it from her ear, showing off her smooth, freshly shaved arm-pit.
    I looked away. 'I guess it's what I need right now,' I said, and strained the rum out of the ice. As soon as I swallowed I knew it was a mistake. Everything went rubber: my neck, my gut. I closed my eyes, fighting a sudden nausea. Deep inside, the aliens flexed, multiple elbows drumming at my chest wall as they sucked the clear hot goodness from my intestines.
    'And Justin?'
    'Justin's well,' I said, when I could.
    'Where is he now?'
    'A school in Kent.'
    I tried breathing, and decided it was good.
    'Knox Lodge,' I said. 'It's a special school. New.'
    'I missed you at the service.'
    'I wasn't invited.'
    'Would you have come?'
    Jimmy Yau was always getting in the way of Zoe and me. Death itself had not stopped him.
    'Dad liked you a lot,' she said. She looked at the fire. She drank her drink. 'Do you miss him?'
    I didn't know what to say.
    She put her glass down with a thunk on the coffee table. 'Nobody else does,' she said.
    'I'm sure that's not true.'
    'Mother's angry with him.'
    'That's not so unusual - '
    'Granddad's lost his mind. Brian and Eddie, well, they wouldn't show feeling if you chopped them into little pieces in front of each other.'
    I dared a small smile.
    Zoe watched me. As usual, she was hungry for something.
    'I miss him,' I said. 'In some ways I'm not sorry about what happened. I took a lot of damage, knowing him.'
    'Adam?'
    I turned in my seat. Drops of split rum chilled my thigh.
    'I hope you set your video.' Money Yau had aged a lot in the two years since we'd last met. The whiteness of her hair I had expected; but not the way her face had sunken in. 'I'm so glad we've done this at last,' she said.
    'Money.' I stood up. 'It's good to see you.'
    Her eyes, which had always seemed so mild and reticent, alone still held the