The Last Watch Read Online Free Page A

la-la.’
    It was the kind of song grown-ups often use to represent little girls in jokes. Horrid little girls, who are just about to blow something up, break something or say something really nasty.
    â€˜Nadezhda!’ Svetlana said in an icy voice.
    â€˜La-la-la …’ Nadya said in a slightly louder voice. ‘What have I done now? You said Daddy shouldn’t drink before he flies away. Drinking vodka’s bad for you, you said so! Masha’s daddy drank, he drank and he left home …’
    There was a subtle weepy note in her voice.
    â€˜Nadezhda Antonovna!’ Svetlana said in a genuinely stern tone. ‘Grown-up people have the right … sometimes … to drink a glass of vodka. Have you ever seen Daddy drunk?’
    â€˜At Uncle Tolya’s birthday,’ Nadya replied instantly.
    Svetlana gave me a very expressive look. I shrugged guiltily.
    â€˜Even so,’ said Svetlana, ‘you have no right to use magic on Mummy and Daddy. I’ve never done that!’
    â€˜And Daddy?’
    â€˜Neither has Daddy. And turn round immediately. Am I talking to your back?’
    Nadya turned round and pressed her lips together stubbornly. She thought for a moment and then pressed one finger against her forehead. I could hardly hold back a smile. Little children love to copy gestures like that. And it doesn’t bother them at all that it’s only characters in cartoons who put their fingers to their foreheads when they’re thinking and real live people don’t do it.
    â€˜Okay,’ said Nadya. ‘I’m sorry, Mummy and Daddy. I won’t do it again. I’ll fix everything!’
    â€˜Don’t fix anything!’ Svetlana exclaimed.
    But it was too late. The water that had been in our glasses instead of vodka suddenly turned back into vodka. Or maybe even pure alcohol.
    Right there in our stomachs.
    I felt as if a little bomb had gone off in my belly. I groaned and started picking up the almost cold potatoes on my fork.
    â€˜Anton, at least say something,’ exclaimed Svetlana.
    â€˜Nadya, if you were a boy you’d get my belt across your bottom!’ I said.
    â€˜Lucky for me I’m not a boy,’ Nadya replied, not in the slightest bit frightened. ‘What’s wrong, Daddy? You wanted to drink some vodka. And now you have. It’s already inside you. You said vodka doesn’t taste nice, so why drink it with your mouth?’
    Svetlana and I looked at each other.
    â€˜There’s no answer to that,’ Svetlana summed up. ‘I’ll go and pack your suitcase. Shall I call a taxi?
    â€˜No need. Semyon will take me.’
    Even that late in the evening the ring road was packed, but Semyon didn’t even seem to notice it. And I didn’t even know if he had checked the probability lines or was simply driving with the instincts of a driver who has a hundred years’ experience.
    â€˜You’re getting snobbish, Anton,’ he muttered, without taking his eyes off the road. ‘You might at least have told Gesar: I won’t go anywhere on my own, I need a partner, send Semyon with me …’
    â€˜How was I supposed to know that you like Scotland so much?’
    â€˜How? Didn’t I tell you how we fought the Scottish at the battle of Sebastopol?’
    â€˜Not the Germans?’ I suggested uncertainly.
    â€˜No, the Germans came later,’ Semyon said dismissively. ‘Ah, there were real men in those days … bullets whistling overhead, shells flying through the air, hand-to-hand fighting by the Sixth Bastion … and there we are, flinging magic at each other like fools. Two Light Others, only he’d come with the English army … He got me in the shoulder with the Spear of Suffering … But I got him with the Freeze – frosted him all the way up from his heels to his neck!’
    He grunted happily.
    â€˜And who won?’ I asked.
    â€˜Don’t you know any