Freya North 3-Book Collection: Love Rules, Home Truths, Pillow Talk. Freya North
not even living together, let alone married.’ Her glum pout surprised Alice.
‘But you’ve been together for ages,’ Sally declared.
Thea shrugged.
‘You’re not waiting for him to ask, are you?’ Sally probed, as if the notion was so old-fashioned as to be far-fetched.
Thea shrugged again.
‘Ever the romantic, our Thea,’ Alice said fondly, giving her arm a reassuring squeeze.
‘So?’ said Thea, resolutely.
ADAM
September, Issue 16
Willem Dafoe cover
The quiet hero – Dafoe defines cool
Sex – learn the language of talking dirty
Perfect ‘V’ – hone your physique in a month
Divas, sparrows, angels, fruitcakes – female rock goddesses
Yeah man, I was there: Woodstock, Isle of Wight, Glastonbury
Big Brother – 130 CCTVs log your daily movements
Fast-food nation – terrifying facts that’ll have you reaching for the alfalfa
Toys, gadgets and gizmos – we don’t need them, but we love them
ADAM
October, Issue 17
The Survivor’s Guide. Underwater cover
How to love and have lust survive
How to do platonic sex and have the friendship survive
How to dive with sharks and survive
How to play the stock market and survive
How to cook a banquet and have your guests survive
How to renovate your house – and have the building survive
How to win a survival course in the Pyrenees
Mark stroked Alice’s stomach, turned away from Newsnight and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. ‘When is Sally’s baby due?’ he asked.
‘Couple of months,’ Alice told him, her eyes on the vast television screen, ‘I think her due date is Boxing Day.’
‘You’d look glorious pregnant,’ Mark anticipated. Alice was quiet. ‘Maybe we should think about trying?’ Mark said. ‘We are married, after all. And we are ageing rapidly. And we do rattle around this big place. And I don’t know about you but maybe the cogs of my biological clock are starting to turn.’
Alice wanted to cry and she hadn’t a clue why. She invented a coughing fit and rushed to the kitchen for a long drink of water.
ADAM
November, Issue 18
Mick Jagger cover
Old enough to be your dad, cool enough to be your mate, rich enough to buy a continent – Sir Mick, we salute you!
Stay or stray? When love loses lust
Lizzie Jagger – what would her dad say?
Undercover in Afghanistan
Armani or Burton – who suits you?
Fitness – prepare now for your mum’s Christmas cooking
Sex and drugs – don’t try this at home
Money – save or spend: is it worth it?
Kiki had worked in the West End for three years, from the time she came to Britain from Indonesia at the age of seventeen. She liked it. The money was good. Her colleagues were now as close as family. Her clients were mostly fine. Her accommodation exceeded her expectations. She felt she had much to be thankful for because she knew she was much luckier than some. Kiki chose not to take much time off, limiting herself to one morning and one afternoon a week but never a whole day. It didn’t seem worth it; her plan was to save and not spend and she didn’t hate her job enough to run from it whenever she could. She’d seen quite early on how not much business came in on Monday afternoons and Sundays so these were the times she decided not to work.
In the first year of her life in London, she had spent her Sundays and Monday afternoons too overwhelmed by the scale of the capital city, the pace of it all, to do much else than go from McDonald’s to McDonald’s, splitting a meal between establishments and giving herself an allowance that stretched to a further soft drink and two cups of tea to fill her free time. It wasn’t that Kiki became braver, but as time passed the city seemed smaller; her awe simply dwindled and her penchant for McDonald’s ceased altogether. As her English improved and she found Time Out fairly easy to read, she took to venturing further afield. She started with the major museums and galleries, then she sought out smaller collections, traversing London from east to west, north to south as she did so.
She went on a tour of the Thames Barrier and walked around Hampstead with a group of strangers and a guide dressed as Charles Dickens. She lay on her back alongside other visitors at an installation at Tate Modern and craned her neck during a walking tour of the financial district. She went backstage at the Royal Opera House and down into the orchestra pit at the Barbican. She pressed the buttons in the Science Museum and rode the small train at Kew Bridge Steam Museum. She walked around a candlelit restored Huguenot property in Folgate Street in reverential silence and sang ‘My Old Man Said Follow the Van’ raucously at a living Music Hall museum. From fans to dolls, musical to medical instruments, from wine to buses – it seemed to Kiki there was a museum to celebrate everything.
Kiki had never heard the shipping forecast. The radio at work, when on, was set to Heart FM and softly at that. But she’d read about an exhibition called ‘The Shipping Forecast’ showing at a gallery space within Spitalfields market and, though she didn’t know her North from her South Utsire, it was a rainy October Sunday so she decided to go along.
‘At school, Alice and I did a project called The Shipping Forecast in our second year,’ Thea told Saul. ‘It was our first and – if I don’t count our David Bowie collage – our last foray into mixed media.’ Saul laughed and unfurled his umbrella to protect them both from a sudden squall. ‘Don’t laugh,’ Thea protested, ‘we sewed and stuck and modelled and carved all the stations on the forecast. We spent ages on it. And though we spelt German Bight incorrectly and treated Lundy Fastnet as a single location – overall, it looked good.’
‘So do those burgers,’ Saul salivated as they walked through Spitalfields, ‘look at the size of them.’
‘Culture first,’ Thea said, ‘then I’ll buy you lunch.’
The exhibition was small; just one photo per location, but the space was cleverly subdivided by walls and screens to create a journey for the viewer. This also served to give a sense of private viewing time in front of each image, the chatter of the market merely a muffled background thrum. Saul was leaving Dogger and Thea was approaching Biscay when Kiki moved away from South-east Iceland.
‘Hullo.’
Thea glanced round but the greeting appeared to be directed at Saul. She narrowed her eyes and tipped her head, regarding the girl. She knew her from somewhere. ‘Hullo,’ Thea said.
‘Oh, hi!’ the girl exclaimed, blushing. She bade Saul and Thea goodbye and off she went, with the shy smile that had enabled Thea to place her.
‘It’s clicked,’ Thea said to Saul.
‘Sorry?’ Saul said. ‘Great photo, this one of Rockall – look at the quality of the light.’
‘The girl – that girl,’