A Week in December (51 page)

Read A Week in December Online

Authors: Sebastian Faulks

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Literary, #Fiction - General, #English Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors, #London (England), #Christmas stories

When, or rather if, the financial crisis ever stabilised, there would be a recession in what journalists charmingly termed the 'real' economy. Millions around the globe would lose their jobs; other millions would go without food, or at least see their modest lives stripped of comfort.

But I have mastered this world, thought John Veals, passing his hand over his newly shaved chin. To me there is no mystery, no nuance and no complication; I am a man alive to the spirit of his time, the one who hears the whispers on the wind.

A rare surge of feeling, of something like vindication, came from the pit of his belly and spread out till it sang in his veins. As he stood with his hands in his pockets, staring out over the sleeping city, over its darkened wheels and spires and domes, Veals laughed.

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