Read Summer at Gaglow for Free Online

closed window, and instead of answering we nodded to her as we drove away.
    ‘My mother, Meg, me and you . . . Shall we invite anyone else?’ My father, against all expectations, had booked for Saturday at the small Italian on the corner of his road.
    ‘I could bring Pamela?’ I offered, and the more I thought of it the more the idea appealed. Pam was my best friend, and although I’d only known her since the start of college we were bound together through sheer drama. Her family lived in Surrey and I’d often been invited there for the weekend where Pamela’s parents set out to soothe away the hardships of our student life. They set up barbecues, picnics and elaborate teas with instant cheesecake and cold crumbly flans. They drove us out to country pubs for scampi-in-a-basket, and afterwards, when we returned, they hovered over us with trays of cake and flutes of German wine. Pam’s mother even packed us treats to take back on the train. Chocolate biscuits, individually wrapped, and fat white eggy rolls. Pam remained slim and flawless, while I, as soon as we reached home, would lie beached up on my bed, promising myself a three-day diet of grapes.
    Pamela Harris was tall and blonde with permanent mascara clogged above her eyes. In the third week of college I had saved her life. We were working late, rehearsing scenes from Wedekind, when the hushed intensity of Act Two was shattered by a roar. ‘ PAMELA !’ It was a bellow followed by the pounding of the door, and Pam gripped hold of my hand.
    ‘ PAMELAAAA !’ The students standing on the makeshift stage froze with their hands over their mouths. ‘I . . . love . . . you . . . Pamela.’ There were cracks and fury in his voice. Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire , and the gold hairs stood up along Pam’s arm. ‘I . . . fucking . . . love . . . you.’
    He was desperate, frothing, Jack Nicholson with an axe, and so I pulled her up and skidded through the building. ‘Quick, hide in here.’ Together we squeezed into a cubicle, shivering and giggling, wincing against the sudden shattering of glass.
    ‘He’ll kill me,’ she insisted, so I helped to push her through a window high up above the sinks.
    Pam stayed with me that night. She lay beside me in my single bed, trembling as she smoked, making me promise that I wouldn’t leave her even to get up for water in the night. ‘Of course I won’t leave you,’ I said, and curled against her arm, her ashtray balanced on my hip, and sank into a blissful and heroic sleep.
    ‘Sarah! My dear girl.’ It was Meg, already seated beside my grandmother, tiny and frail in a dust black dress. ‘Sarah.’ She got up and, both arms outstretched, crushed me against her bosom. ‘Sarah, Sarah, I want you to sit next to me.’
    Pam took the seat opposite my father and, with one hand still gripped by Meg, I made the introductions. My grandmother looked from Pam to me. She held her shoulders straight, her head a little lowered, and when she smiled her chin turned into a point just like my own. ‘How do you do?’ she murmured, and I heard the foreign strength of her old accent.
    ‘Wine, we need more wine.’ Meg hailed the waiter and began to fill me in on the details of her first husband’s life, his triumphs and his failures. ‘It’s far, far worse for women,’ she warned, and with great snorts and sighs she searched around for the names of agents, the ones whose reputations had been strong when her last husband was alive.
    ‘Pam is studying drama as well,’ I broke in. ‘In fact she’s the real star of our year.’ Meg stopped in mid-flow to lean across and clasp her arm, releasing me to take hold of her glass. I took the opportunity to smile at my grandmother. If only I could think of one single thing to say.
    ‘Risotto,’ she whispered to my father, and he placed the order for her.
    ‘And for me,’ I agreed, hoping somehow to forge a link, but her eyes were fixed on Pam.
    Pam laughed and gasped as Meg