Free Various Pets Alive and Dead by Marina Lewycka Page A

well-cut clothes that make her look shapely and stylish, and has thick black sheepy curls that always look interestingly unbrushed. She works as a lawyer in Paradise Square, has two divorces behind her and claims to prefer cheesecake to men.
    ‘She lists her interests on Facebook as history and dressmaking,’ says Clara.
    ‘A killer combination,’ says Ida. ‘You need a stiff gin.’

SERGE: The global elite
     
    The Poire d’Or restaurant, when Serge finally got through to them on Wednesday, didn’t know anything about his bill, but promised to look into it. Since then, they’ve not returned his call, but he’s not too worried because the shares he took a short on have been sliding steadily, and the Footsie closed on Thursday evening seventy points down. He calculates that if he was to buy them back now, he’d be nearly 20 per cent up on his initial outlay. Not bad for an hour’s work. All he needs is steady nerves to hang on and maximise his return.
    By Friday afternoon, to his amazement, he’s made enough to pay off most of his credit card bill, if he chooses to, and still lend Otto another month’s mortgage payment. It was ridiculously easy. Another run like this and he’ll be back where he was. In fact, he’ll be slightly up. He’s pulled in his haul, and the Fibonacci retracements are still surging his way. Next time, he’ll play with higher limits. His head is still spinning, and he needs to steady himself. He texts Otto to invite him for a celebratory drink, but gets no reply, so instead he approaches Princess Maroushka at her desk.
    ‘Are you doing anything tonight, Venus?’
    Leaning over her chair he breathes in her weird perfume.
    ‘Yes,’ she says. On her monitor there’s a quick blink of a screen minimising.
    ‘Tomorrow?’
    ‘Yes also.’
    ‘Sunday?’
    ‘What you want, Sergei?’
    She swivels round abruptly in her chair and their eyes meet. She has that disconcerting way of smiling and not smiling, which he finds irresistibly sexy.
    ‘A drink? A meal? A film?’
    This is at the very clean end of the range of things that he wants, but it’s a start.
    ‘Okay.’ She turns back to her screen.
    Maybe she’s having her period. Women often get ratty at that time of the month. Babs, his last girlfriend, was like that – wouldn’t let him near her. He’ll try again, when she’s had a chance to calm down.
    But at six o’clock sharp, before he can finalise any arrangements for Sunday, she pulls on her jacket and heads towards the lifts at full speed. Why the hurry? Most people won’t be leaving for another hour or so. He hangs around for a while, reluctant to go home just yet. The floor is humming with Friday night vibe, like the whole world is going out to celebrate the end of the working week. During the day English is spoken on the trading floor but, as everyone begins to relax, their talk breaks up into a babble of languages. The three blond Aussie guys have palled up with the two blonde American girls (let’s hope they have a friend) and they’re going out to get seriously wasted. The dapper-suited Japanese bond traders are laughing their heads off quietly in their corner. There are a couple of Singaporeans on that team too, but they tend to hang out with the Chinese, in their palaces of excess on Gerrard Street. Even the slightly stiff Indians on Currencies are heading off to a bar with Lubkov the long-haired Russian mathematician and Ishmail al-Ali the smiling Palestinian ex-aeronautics student who is reputed to have lost FATCA £5 million through a computational error. He doesn’t look as if it bothers him.
    Above the hubbub, Tim the Finn’s voice warbles, ‘I’m forever blowin’ bubbles …’ and one or two others join in.
    Serge can’t sing, but he feels the lightness bubbling up in him. He has something to celebrate too, and though he can’t discuss it with anybody he decides to tag along with the two French guys, both in their late twenties and darkly good-looking