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

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

With each secret revealed she leans in closer, her eyes become brighter, more alert, she is more animated, more lively, doing the actions at the same time as she speaks. I used to think that Helen was a destroyer of dreams. After all, it was she who had procrastinated when we were going in for the bigger house on the waterfront, so much that we would have missed out had I not withdrew the savings to lay down the deposit. She too, always showed the greatest reluctance to put anything on the Visa bill without which we would not have had the Plasma in the living room, the DVD players in every room, the dishwasher, the four weeks in Florida and Las Vegas.

It all has to be paid for eventually, she said. We could be dead tomorrow, was my blanket response. Next to Michelle however, Helen was a novice kill-joy, a trainee wet-blanket, merely an apprentice damper. A realist, not a pessimist.

And as Michelle launches in to another disclosure, small droplets of spittle spraying on to my face as she talks so fast, I remember uncomfortably the things that Helen said to me after she got to the mail before me. After I had to tell her about my job and finally on that day she left me, a month later, crashed out in front of the portable in the living room, watching Scarface on video, empty bottles of Beck's strewn at my feet. As I remember this and picture Helen's tear-soaked face turning away from me, I have to take a long deep breath as it feels like someone has punched me in the stomach and the air in the restaurant is limited, there's not enough to go around, I need more than there is, my heart's struggling, racing, I'm suffocating. I stick up my hand quickly whilst Michelle's mid sentence. "What's up?" she says.

"Need another beer." I say. "Don't you think you've had enough," she says. I look at her and for the first time I notice that though she is quite attractive, she really looks nothing like Jennifer Aniston at all, she looks just like Michelle, Michelle from the tatty joke shop in the run down old arcade in town and I stare at her for a long, long time. "You know what Michelle?" I say eventually, "I think you're right. I have had enough."

"Yes sir?" says Mario arriving at our table. "Could I have the bill please, Mario?" I say.

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