How to Make Friends with Demons Read Free Page A

for her at the same time. "Are you sure it's not four o'clock?"

    I looked at my watch for her. "Not even close to four."

    She spun her body away from us, but clearly without any idea of what to do with herself. She hung her head, stuffing her hands deeper into her water-cylinder lagging.

    "I'll be on my way," I said. "I only dropped by to keep you updated."

    "And I appreciate that, William. I really do." A blissed-out smile told me that she meant it. With Antonia it was never just rhetoric.

    As I stepped around the lost Mancunian girl in the padded jacket I heard her ask Antonia, "Eh! Eh! So when will it be fuckin' four o'clock? Eh?"

Chapter 2
    When I got home that evening the telephone was ringing. I didn't hurry. Sometimes I didn't bother answering at all, since it was usually only someone who wanted to talk about something or other. I hung up my keys, slipped off my coat and chose a Moulin-à-vent 1999 Beaujolais from the rack. I finally answered the phone, squeezing the receiver under my chin while I pulled the cork from the bottle and poured myself a very large glass of the rubicund relief & rescue.

    It was Fay. "How are you?"

    "I'm good, Fay. You?"

    To have Fay enquire about my health and temper at all was new. Even if it was only a formality, it was progress. Normally she simply launched in. Anyway, once she'd got the hideous semblance of caring out of the way, she flew like an arrow to the clout. "The children have talked about it. Claire will see you, but Robbie doesn't want to have anything to do with you."

    I took another sip of the rain from heaven. It splashed on my tongue like a soft shower in the arid desert; it swooped over my palate like an angel robed in red. I think the Grand Masters must have been looking at the wine in the glass when they clothed their models on the religious canvas. Come here my love: let me array your nakedness with the juice of the grape.

    "Well, that's something."

    "He might come round," Fay said. "I'm trying to stay out of it, but I won't let him not see you." I heard a sucking noise. Fay always seemed to be eating something when she was on the phone. Ice cream, maybe. Or honey or chocolate sauce, from her fingers.

    "I appreciate that, Fay." There was an uncomfortable pause, so I said, "How's the celebrity? Is he feeding you all well?" I knew if I turned the conversation to Lucien it would curtail the call.

    "Busy with his new programme. There's some issue with the contract."

    "There always is." Oh yes. Be advised of this: contracts demon is a spirit of martial force.

    Fay had left me, three years ago—for a celebrity chef. He's on the telly. He's very good with pastry. Spinning it out with sugar and all that. I really can't be bothered with pastry myself. Anyway, he left his wife and his two kids for my wife and my three kids. I would have offered a straight swop but my God you should see his brute of an ex-wife. My eldest child, daughter Sarah, is studying at Warwick University; she has always been on "my side," so, two out of three ain't bad.

    Fay came to the point of her call. "So Robbie wants to know if this applies to his tennis and his fencing as well as his school."

    "How can he ask me that if he won't talk to me?" Really! The little shit!

    I thought I heard her shift the phone from one hand to the other to suck the freed-up fingers. "Obviously he's asked me to ask."

    "Obviously he has to ask me himself. And obviously you'll explain why that is necessary."

    "That's your answer?"

    "Obviously."

    Fay sighed. She's good at sighs. She can invest the entire weight of disappointment over years of marriage into a single sigh. "All right. I'll let him know."

    "Thanks for your call, Fay."

    I replaced the receiver and topped up my glass. Yes, there is still pain. There is still hurt. I lash the suppurating sores with red wine.

    I know what you're thinking. For the record, and since I don't expect you to be an expert in the identification or taxonomy of these