Read The Light of Amsterdam for Free Online

with its lights on full beam hurried past, its exhaust a smoker’s throaty cough.
    â€˜This street is a wind tunnel,’ Lisa complained, as the lighter spluttered out again.
    â€˜What’s the point?’ Karen asked, hunching her shoulders. ‘Marty won’t let you smoke in his taxi. He told me off last week for eating a packet of crisps.’
    â€˜He’s not here yet, is he?’ Lisa said, clicking a furious Morse code on the lighter. ‘I think this is empty and I need a fag. He’s getting like an old woman about the taxi. He’ll be putting up net curtains soon.’
    Karen went and stood at the edge of the kerb looking for a sighting of their lift. At the side of the City Hall yellow-windowed buses were already pulling in and discharging their dark silhouettes. A council cleaning lorry with huge, whirring circular brushes was scouring the opposite side of the road. On the front grille was pinned a bouquet of plastic daffodils. She let her toes move out over the kerb’s edge and held herself in balance.
    â€˜Here, one of those would get your work done pretty quick,’ Pat said, pointing with the still-unlit cigarette at the vehicle. The driver waved his hand in greeting.
    â€˜Here, girl, I think you’ve clicked,’ Karen said. ‘It’s freezing. Where’s Marty? Should you phone and see where he is?’
    â€˜Here he is,’ Lisa said, taking her cigarette from Pat and slipping it inside her pocket.
    The three women bunched up tightly at the side of the kerb as if waiting for rescue from a sinking ship and then as the taxi stopped they clambered in with Karen in the front and the two others in the back. The car smelled of air freshener.
    â€˜Home, Marty, and don’t spare the horses,’ Pat told him, snuggling into the seat.
    â€˜You going back to bed?’ he asked.
    â€˜Here, is that an offer?’ Lisa said. ‘Because you’re talking to the Three Musketeers and what one gets the rest has to get.’ The other two women laughed as they angled their heads to the grey wash of city streets.
    â€˜I never mix business and pleasure,’ Marty answered.
    â€˜You should try it some time,’ Lisa said before asking if she could smoke.
    â€˜No you can’t – you know you can’t.’
    â€˜And I’m in a hurry because I’ve four kids about to wake up looking for their Coco Pops and me to get them out to school,’ Pat said, ‘and after that there’s a day’s work to be done.’
    â€˜I phoned the daughter this morning,’ Lisa informed them, holding the unlit cigarette under her nose as if she was a connoisseur smelling a cigar. ‘Gabrielle’s still cutting her teeth and keeping them up half the night.’
    â€˜You phoned her again? You’re pushing your luck,’ Karen said. ‘If the supervisor catches you it’s the sack.’
    â€˜They wouldn’t sack you for phoning your daughter?’ Marty said as he weaved into a bus lane.
    â€˜They would, Marty, when your daughter lives in Australia,’ Lisa answered, and as the other two women laughed she put the unlit cigarette in her mouth. ‘And don’t worry, I’m not about to light it. Wouldn’t want your wee palace smelling of anything as disgusting as fag smoke.’
    â€˜Here listen, Marty, have you heard about Karen?’ Pat paused for dramatic effect.
    â€˜She’s not won the lottery on the sly, has she?’ he asked, glancing at her before turning to give two fingers to a BMW that had cut in front of him.
    â€˜I wish.’
    â€˜She’s going to Amsterdam, next weekend. What about that?’
    â€˜You are not! Can I come?’
    â€˜Girls only, Marty, her daughter’s getting married. They’re having their hen party in Amsterdam.’
    â€˜Can I still come?’ Marty asked. ‘I’ll chaperone you, keep an eye out for you. I’ve always