Pets Read Online Free PDF

expected such kindness from the wife of his friend Hinrik, who was such a fine fellow. His last words were that no one had answered at his friend’s house, he was no doubt working, just like poor old Rikki, and then he followed the driver down to the parking lot. Once inside the car, he said he wanted to go down to Austurstraeti, where the driver would be rid of him. He wouldn’t have to worry about him any more, at least not for the rest of that day. He took the leather-bound book out of the plastic bag and was busy turning over the pages as the taxi drove out of the car park and along the road.
    9
    Probably half an hour had passed since take-off. The woman in the window seat asked the flight attendant for two little bottles of white wine and said no thank you when she was offered a liqueur to have with her coffee later. I had made up my mind not to drink anything on the way; I was going to wait until the evening when my friends, Saebjorn and Jaime, were going to drop in. Those plans were altered when Armann ordered four little bottles of red wine and told the flight attendant to put two of them on my table. I didn’t want to decline his offer, and after a few minutes’ thought—which involved changing my plans for the rest of the day—I decided to take an active part in the wine purchasing by ordering four miniature bottles of Cointreau to have with our coffee; two for me and two for Armann. He seemed really pleased at that. But later it became apparent that the red wine was free—part of the service, Armann said with a smug smile, rephrasing the information he’d been given by the flight attendant—while I needed to pay for the liqueurs with my credit card, which I had to fetch from the overhead bin. While I was standing up, Armann turned to the woman in the window seat and asked her if we couldn’t offer her a liqueur with her coffee. By using the word we he had made us into comrades. She thanked Armann for the offer but no, she wasn’t very partial to strong drinks. Armann seemed almost offended when she declined; he repeated what she had said, “not partial to strong drinks,” and when I sat down again I heard him mumble something to the effect that it was her choice.
    â€œThese bottles don’t hold much,” he observed and lifted one of the red wine bottles up to eye-level. “Perhaps it’s about one glassful. Maybe slightly more.”
    I replied that he was probably right but didn’t want to say any more, in case he was going to start another discussion like the one on heat and cold. Armann opened the bottle he was holding, poured the contents into his glass, and then put his hand into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a paperback. I couldn’t imagine him shutting himself off in a book and, of course, that was not quite what he had in mind. He opened the book and while he turned the pages (rather roughly for my liking) he said he wanted to show me something. He had bought this book in Foyles Bookshop on Charing Cross Road and discovered, afterwards really, that it was exactly what he had been looking for.
    â€œThat was lucky,” I said and poured red wine into my glass.
    â€œYes, you could definitely say that,” Armann answered. “It’s always a pleasure when life takes one by surprise. It doesn’t happen that often, does it?”
    He pulled his glasses case out of his jacket pocket. Like the Opal box, it appeared to have been sat on. However, I was rather surprised at how modern the shape of the frames were, and I noticed that the woman by the window watched Armann’s clumsy movements—he put on his glasses and replaced the case in his pocket—with a smile. He seemed to be having trouble finding what he was going to show me, and the woman, who had taken out Harper’s Bazaar from her bag, appeared to be rather shocked at the way Armann thumbed his way back and forth through his book. She, on the other