The Savages Read Online Free PDF Page A

behind her.
    â€˜Now just a minute, young lady! No daughter of mine has the last word in this house!’
    A moment later, under the gaze of his wife and son, Titus Savage paid the price for disturbing the peace when the baby monitor popped and crackled.
    â€˜
Mince!
’

3
    Oleg Fedor Savadski, a former officer in the Russian Red Army, took a pinch of fish food and sprinkled it into the bowl. This was how Sasha found him when she reached his open door.
    â€˜Hey, Grandpa. What’s happening?’
    â€˜Do you know what goldfish thrive on more than anything else?’ he asked, peering through the glass as the two inhabitants rose to nibble at the flakes.
    â€˜Is it their short-term memory?’ Sasha closed the door behind her. ‘I should imagine forgetting your past and starting afresh must be quite appealing sometimes.’
    Oleg glanced at his granddaughter for a moment, before returning his attention to the bowl.
    â€˜The answer is fish meal and fish oil,’ he told her, and turned to show her the tub in his hand. ‘It’s central to their diet. Feasting on their own kind is what brings out the very best in them. Yes, you can offer them a vegetable substitute but they quickly lose their zest, and I only want the best for my babies.’
    Oleg, known simply to his family as Grandpa, was exactly one year away from celebrating a century in this world. Like his son, Titus, he sported a bald dome and thick eyebrows. His long grey beard was the most striking aspect of a man who had shrunken and withered over the years. It made him appear immensely wise, like someone who had produced several tomes of epic Russian novels. It was a look that fell away when food became trapped in the strands, however. Then he would appear more like the kind of lost soul you might find shouting at bins in a back alley. Since the last of his teeth had lost their moorings, Grandpa preferred his food in liquidised form. Whatever was on the menu, Angelica just passed it through the blender and he would literally lap it up. Like the rest of the family, Grandpa had enjoyed a stir fry made up of the leftovers from the day before. His bowl sat on a tray at the table under the skylight, along with the straw he had used to ingest it.
    â€˜I can take that down for you,’ said Sasha, who had noticed the bowl.
    â€˜It can wait,’ Grandpa told her. ‘You’re welcome to stay here for a while. I heard all the shouting downstairs just now.’
    Grandpa occupied the loft space in the family home. It had been converted into simple, clean and bright quarters by Titus when he came to live with them following the passing of his wife. Both Sasha and Ivan had grown up sharing the house with him. Not that he left his room very often. Still, his door was always open for anyone who wished to spend time with him. Sasha considered herself lucky. Oleg wasn’t the kind of grandfather who would sit there with one hand cupped to his ear and mumble incomprehensibly. Above all, he liked to listen as much as talk, which is why Sasha had headed upstairs having fallen out with her father.
    â€˜Why does he have to be so controlling?’ she asked, taking the chair where Grandpa had just finished his stir fry smoothie. ‘Sometimes it feels as if he’d like me to be fitted with an off switch when I don’t live up to his expectations.’
    â€˜Is this about Jack?’ he asked, and placed the tub beside the fish bowl. ‘I’ve heard all about him from Ivan.’
    Sasha rolled her eyes.
    â€˜So, you know he’s a vegetarian.’
    Grandpa shuffled across the room. He peered through the skylight. There were no windows in his attic space. Just several points that offered him a clear view of the heavens above, as well as pictures on the wall of family and places from his past.
    â€˜There are worse things in this world,’ he said. ‘And your father is only being protective.’
    â€˜Has