Free The Weeping Women Hotel by Alexei Sayle Page A

didn’t really have a choice in the matter.
But the Australians? They sent a boat to the Falklands as well and they’re in Iraq of course.’
    ‘Maybe
they believe in freedom and democracy,’ Harriet said in a sarcastic tone.
    ‘I
suppose they could,’ he replied, taking what she’d said seriously, ‘but I
think they were just bored. Australia ’s a long way from anywhere else and they fancied getting out for a
bit.’
    ‘But
don’t you think that’s a terrible thing: to fight a war in somebody else’s
country just to get away from home?’
    ‘It’s
what men do,’ was his answer. ‘We must fight.’
    ‘Really?
How awful for you.’
    ‘Yes,
it can be.’
    Another
thing, it was starting to creep her out a little having him in her place every
week, sitting there like a strange, unwelcome cousin from New Zealand .
    The
Booing Corporation was telling her that she might as well realise that she was
never, ever going to lose any weight. All the little men at their morning
conference told her to face it: if taking on a personal trainer didn’t do it
then nothing was going to, the nasty little men around the conference table all
said. Harriet simply didn’t have the moral character to stick to an exercise
regime, she should get used to the fact that this was her now. A fat, useless,
thirty-eight-year-old woman that nobody was ever going to love.
     
    In mid-October, as the
leaves on the trees in the park across the way began to turn red and in a few
cases light blue, at the end of their fifth training session she said to him,
‘Wow! Patrick, that was great.’
    ‘So
same time next week, is it?’ he asked, opening the silver plastic case of the
cheap personal organiser he used to record their appointments in.
    ‘No,
now here’s the thing,’ Harriet said quickly, ‘I’ve just got a big contract to
repair the costumes for the Welsh National Opera, apparently a tiger from a
production of Carmen set-in colonial India got loose and slashed all
their costumes, so I’ve got to go and work … in Cardiff. I definitely won’t
be here next week at all so why don’t I give you a ring on your mobile when the
contract’s over?’
    ‘What,
not the week after either?’ he asked.
    ‘Well,
no …‘ His probing made her even more determined to end it now. ‘It’s such a
big job. I have no idea when it’ll end but I’ll certainly call the minute I’ve
got further information and we’ll start training again like before.’
    ‘Well,
I suppose so,’ Patrick said, ‘but you need to do your exercises every day on
your own, or you’ll lose all the progress we’ve made, you understand that,
doncha?’
    ‘Oh,.
I’ll do it, don’t you worry.’
     
    There was one of the
biggest film premieres of the year being held in Leicester
Square : searchlights lit up clouds of starlings that
circled in the orange night air and stretch limousines slid sinuously along the
narrow side streets clipping pedestrians on the elbows with their wing mirrors.
The movie The Laughter of Eggs was the first of Brazilian writer Paulho
Puoncho’s many successful novels to be filmed. Like a lot of Latin American
fiction it heavily featured a talking bird that uttered all manner of wise and
deep statements. Warbird had supervised the humane treatment of the talking
bird while it was on set and during the promotional tour (during location
filming the rumour was the bird had had a bigger trailer than Jeremy Irons),
and now the European premiere was being held in aid of Helen’s charity.
    Toby
and Helen had given their taxi driver a pass which allowed him to drive into Leicester Square right up to the entrance
of the cinema down a high lane that had been carved out of yelling people. The
cameras did not explode for them in a waterfall of light as they stepped from
the cab, though a couple of freelancers penned outside behind barriers took a
few shots of Helen since she was very pretty and might have an affair with
somebody famous one