The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro Read Free Book Online Page A

sure. You can come back in a few minutes and tell us what you've seen.'
    For a few more seconds Boris gave no response. Then he sat up, let out another weary sigh and slid off his chair. For some reason best known to himself, he affected the mannerisms of someone utterly drunk and went staggering away from the table.
    Once the boy was a sufficient distance away, I turned back to Sophie. Then an uncertainty came over me as to how I should begin and I sat hesitating for a moment. In any case, Sophie smiled and spoke first:
    'I've got good news. That Mr Mayer phoned earlier about a house. It's just come on the market today. It sounds really promising. I've been thinking about it all day. Something tells me this might be it, the one we've been looking for all this time. I told him I'd go out there first thing tomorrow morning and have a good look. Really, it sounds perfect. About half an hour's walk from the village, all by itself on a ridge, three storeys. Mr Mayer says the views over the forest are the best he's seen in years. I know you're very busy just now, but if it turns out to be anything like as good as it sounds, I'll call you and perhaps you could come out. Boris too. It might be exactly what we've been looking for. I know it's taken a long time, but I might have found it at last.'
    'Ah yes. Good.'
    'I'll take the first bus out there in the morning. We'll have to act fast. It won't stay on the market long.'
    She began to give me more details about the house. I remained silent, but only partly because of my uncertainty as to how I should respond. For the fact was, as we had been sitting together, Sophie's face had come to seem steadily more familiar to me, until now I thought I could even remember vaguely some earlier discussions about buying just such a house in the woods. Meanwhile my expression had perhaps grown preoccupied, for eventually she broke off, then said in a different, more tentative voice:
    'I'm sorry about that last phone call. I hope you're not still sulking about it.'
    'Sulking? Oh no.'
    'I keep thinking about it. I shouldn't have said any of it. I hope you didn't take it to heart. After all, how can you be expected to stay at home just now? What home? And with that kitchen the way it is! And I've been taking so long, finding somewhere for us. But I'm so hopeful now, about this house tomorrow.'
    She began to talk again about the house. As she did so, I tried to recall something of the phone conversation to which she had just referred. After a while, I found a faint recollection returning to me of listening to this same voice - or rather a harder, angrier version of it - on the end of a telephone in the not-so-distant past. Eventually I thought I could recall also a certain phrase I had been shouting at her down the mouthpiece: 'You live in such a small world!' She had continued to argue and I had gone on repeating contemptuously: 'Such a small world! You live in such a small world!' To my frustration, however, I found nothing more of this exchange would come back to me.
    Possibly I had begun to stare at her in my endeavour to jog my memory, for she now asked rather self-consciously:
    'Do you think I've put on weight?'
    'No, no.' I turned away with a laugh. 'You're looking quite marvellous.'
    It occurred to me I had not yet mentioned anything of the matter concerning her father and I tried again to think of a suitable way to broach the topic. But just then something jolted my chair from behind and I realised Boris had returned.
    In fact the little boy was running around in circles near our table, kicking a discarded paper carton as though it were a football. Noticing that I was now watching him, he juggled the carton from one foot to the other, then kicked it hard through the legs of my chair.
    'Number Nine!' he shouted, holding his arms aloft. 'A superb goal from Number Nine!'
    'Boris,' I said, 'hadn't you better put that carton in the waste bin?'
    'When are we going to go?' he asked, turning to me.