The Fahrenheit Twins by Michel Faber Read Free Book Online Page A

particularly lovely at night,’ added the saleswoman in a soft, beguiling tone. ‘Owls come out. They catch mice in the garden.’
    ‘Owls?’ echoed Jeanette. She had never seen an owl. She had seen a lot of things. She’d seen kids sniffing glue, she’d once stumbled onto an attempted rape, she’d had to pick bits of hypodermic syringe out of the rubber soles of her son’s trainers. About a fortnight ago, sitting at this same windowsill late at night, she’d watched a drunken, bloodied boy larking about on the roof of the shop, pissing over the edge, while his mates whooped and ran around below, dodging the stream. Now I’ve seen everything , she’d murmured to herself. But she’d never seen an owl.
    ‘How … how much does this cost?’ she breathed.
    There was a pause while the wind blew a few leaves trembling against the window.
    ‘You can buy,’ said the saleswoman. ‘Or you can rent.’ Her eyes twinkled kindly, offering her customer the choice that was no choice at all.
    ‘How … how much per … um …’
    ‘It works out to a smidgen over fourteen pounds a week,’ said the saleswoman. Observing Jeanette swallowing hard, she went on: ‘Some people would spend that much on scratch cards, or cigarettes.’
    Jeanette cleared her throat.
    ‘Yeah,’ she said.
    Then, desperate for a reason to resist the pull of the beautiful world out there, Jeanette narrowed her eyes and demanded,
    ‘What if some kid throws a brick through it?’
    Again the saleswoman opened her leatherbound folder, and held a particular page out for Jeanette’s perusal.
    ‘All our Outlooks,’ she declared, ‘are designed and guaranteed to withstand the impact of any residential missile.’
    ‘Full beer cans?’ challenged Jeanette.
    ‘Beer cans. Footballs. Rocks. Gunfire at point-blank range, if necessary.’
    Jeanette looked at the saleswoman in alarm, wondering if she knew something about the Rusborough gangs that Jeanette didn’t.
    ‘We do a lot of business in America,’ the saleswoman explained hastily.
    Jeanette imagined movie stars and celebrities like Oprah gazing through these wonderful windows. The saleswoman let her imagine, keeping to herself her own more accurate vision of the urban slums of Baltimore and Michigan, where rows and rows of windows – twenty, thirty, fifty a day – were being plugged up with the grey screens of Outlook Innovations.
    ‘Of course, they’re the ideal security, too,’ she pointed out. ‘Nothing in the world can get through.’
    Jeanette knew deep down she was already sold, but she made one last attempt to appear hard-headed.
    ‘People could still get in through the other windows,’ she remarked.
    The saleswoman accepted this gracefully with another little tilt of the head.
    ‘Well …’ she said, hugging her folder-full of Outlooks to her breast with unostentatious pride. ‘One thing at a time.’
    Jeanette looked back at the garden, the fields. They were still there. The sky, the horizon, the overgrown paths, the tomato-vines: none of it had gone away. She felt like crying.
    Minutes later, while the man outside laboured to fix the screen permanently into place, Jeanette signed a contract, pledging £ 60 per month to Outlook Innovations Incorporated. She knew she was making the right decision, too, because while the screen was being bolted onto her house, it had to be switched off briefly, and Jeanette missed her garden with a craving so intense it was almost unendurable. There was no doubt in her mind that this was an addiction she would gladly give up smoking for.
    An hour later, long after the saleswoman and the green van had driven away, Jeanette was still kneeling at the windowsill, gazing out at Northward Hill. Some of the geese were returning, flying closer to her house this time. They beat their wings lazily, trumpeting their alien contentment.
    Suddenly Tim burst into the house, safe and sound after another long day at his sink school. He came to a halt on the living