Consolation Read Online Free PDF

. . pinch me. I guess after this you’ll go comparing the tariffs on your mobiles, right?’
    ‘Done that,’ sniggers Mathilde.
    ‘No, I mean it, I really feel for you, kids . . . At your age you’re supposed to be dying of love! Writing poetry! Planning the Revolution! Stealing from the rich! Filling up your backpacks and taking off! Changing the world! But gigabytes, I don’t know . . . Gigabytes . . . Pfff . . . Why not your building society accounts while you’re at it?’
    ‘And you?’ asks Marion the ingénue, ‘what did you talk about with Charles when you were our age?’
    My little sister turns to me.
    ‘Well, we . . . we were already in bed at this time,’ I muttered in turn, ‘or we were doing our homework, weren’t we?’
    ‘Absolutely. Or you were helping me to do my essay on Voltaire perhaps?’
    ‘Quite likely. Or we’d use the time to get ahead with the work for the week . . . And then, remember how we used to recite our geometry theorems by heart?’
    ‘Exactly!’ exclaims their beloved aunt, ‘or equati—’
    The pillow that has just landed in her face prevents her from finishing the sentence.
    She answers immediately with a yell. Another cushion goes flying, then a trainer, other war cries, a sock rolled into a ball, then a – Claire grabs me by the sleeve.
    ‘Come on, let’s go. Now that we’ve got the fun going here, let’s go and stir things up downstairs.’
    ‘That’s going to be harder.’
    ‘Oh, we’ll see about that . . . All I need to do is suck up to that other cretin and tell him how wonderful the products are at Casino and it’s in the bag . . .’
    Then she turns round in the stairway and adds solemnly, ‘Because they still give out bags at Casino! Whereas at Champion, don’t hold your breath!’
    She bursts out laughing.
    That’s who she is. That’s Claire. And she’s some consolation for the other two, after all. At least, she’s always been a consolation to me.
    ‘What on earth have you been getting up to up there?’ fusses my mother, pulling at her apron strings, ‘what’s all that screaming?’
    My sister pleads innocence, showing her palms. ‘Hey, it’s not me, it’s Pythagoras.’
    In the meantime Laurence has arrived. She is sitting at the end of the sofa and is already deep in the huge restructuring plan for the condiments department.
    Right, I know, it’s her evening, her birthday and she’s been working all day but . . . still . . . We haven’t seen each other for almost a week . . . Couldn’t she have looked for me? Got up? Smiled? Or even just glanced over my way?
    I slide in next to her.
    ‘No, no, but it’s a good idea to put the ketchup together with the tomato sauce, you’re right . . .’
    This is what my hand on her shoulder has inspired.
    Enjoy.
    As we are on our way to the dining room, she finally grabs me, as the kids upstairs would say.
    ‘Good trip?’
    ‘Excellent, thanks.’
    ‘And did you bring back a present for my twentieth birthday?’ she simpers, clinging to my arm, ‘perhaps some jewellery from Fabergé?’
    I guess it really runs in the family . . .
    ‘Russian dolls,’ I grumble, ‘you know, one lovely woman, and the more interest you show in her, the tinier she turns out to be . . .’
    ‘Are you talking about me?’ she quips, walking away.
    No. About me.
    She quips.
    She quips, walking away.
    It’s because of an aside like that that I fell in love with her, years ago: her foot was finding its way up my leg just as her husband was explaining to me what he expected from my business . . . He was fiddling with the ring around his cigar, making a to and fro movement with that innocent little piece of paper that I found to be . . . extremely unwise.
    Yes. Because another woman would have been more predictable, more aggressive. Are you talking about me? she would have said, mocking or grating or scoffing or biting or scathing or shooting daggers with her eyes or something less cruel, but not this woman. No,