The Emporium of Illusions (5/8) By Andy Bilton

(1/8), (2/8), (3/8), (4/8), (5/8), (6/8), (7/8), (8/8).

This revelation makes me feel a little sick as I imagine the rough paws of a man clutching the pen that wrote the words that I had fantasised had been scripted by Michelle's delicate hands. And yet, looking at them now for the first time I see that although they are delicate, almost fragile, as I had imagined they would be, they are tainted, the index and middle fingers of her right hand blighted by two tell-tale yellow stains and as if in confirmation she lays down her fork and asks; "Do you mind if I smoke?" "No," I reply.

"Want one?" she says, taking a packet of Silk Cut from her cream leather handbag she has on the floor next to her chair and offering me the opened packet. The cigarettes point at me in rows, like the lined up barrels of rifles in a firing range and I say; "No thank you, I don't smoke." "Each to their own," she says, shrugging her shoulders, popping one of the cancer sticks in her mouth and lighting up.

"Yes, that's what I always say," I add, raising my hand to attract Mario's attention, "each to their own." "Yes sir," asks Mario arriving at our table with his pad. "Another Peroni please Mario," I say, picking up the heavy glass and finishing off the last quarter pint or so of my drink. "Very good," says Mario, "and would madam like another drink - a glass of wine perhaps?" Michelle shoots him an almost vicious glance and blows a puff of smoke in to his face.

"No thank you," she says, "I'm fine for now." "Very good," he says letting out a small cough on to the back of his hand as he leaves.

Helen was a vehement anti-smoker, always insisting that we sat in no smoking areas wherever we went and though I was never so energetic in my opposition to the nicotine vice - after all, Pacino smoked constantly when he was playing Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way - I did find myself refraining from getting too friendly with colleagues who were smokers, seeming to have a an increased level of awareness after I had met Helen, of the noxious odour that seemed to permeate from them. After we've started on our main course, the crowd on the next table are getting noticeably louder, but in a nice way.

They are all obviously well on their way to being totally hammered and yet they are all laughing and joking and everyone is happy and no one has got angry or upset or nasty.

Continued...Next Page (6/8)

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