"Adam Roberts - Balancing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Robert)

fingers in the wintryness of the work; who had condemned themselves to
months in a seaquaking boat, rattling around like flakes of fake snow in a
glass globe. Was all their suffering to be added to his account? He was
using the fruits of their labour, used it every day. And the worst of it
was that he never even gave their sacrifice a second thought, he had in
effect erased them from the universe. Taken them, and their work, for
granted. Perhaps he was complicit in their misery.
Adios, senor Sancho.
He fetched himself a coffee, and the little chemical burst of it hitting
his blood pushed him over the lip. Maybe it wasn't so bad. The men who had
laid the cable -- how did he know? Maybe they had loved the work. Maybe
they had been paid handsomely, had made friends and comrades. Maybe the
fact that firms like Allen's required the phone line had brought joy to
hundreds of people, and he was due a share in their pleasure. It wasn't so
bad.
Without even realising that he had made the decision, Allen found himself
back at his desk calling a commercial registry. 'Yes,' he was saying, the
coffee still lifting him, 'I'm trying to find a particular marine affairs
expert, Louise Winterton. She did some work for us, and there are some
things we'd like to clear up. If you could just check amongst firms
specialising in marine work. That's right. If you could call my secretary
when you have the contact details.'
He put the phone down and stared out of the window. One time they had lied
to their respective partners, he to his wife, she to her then boyfriend,
and had taken the light railway to the airport for a night in Denmark.
Allen could no longer remember why they had chosen Denmark. Tulips, Lou
had said. That's Holland, Allen had insisted, and they had swapped
positions in a hilarious lover's mock-quarrel of oh no it isn't and oh yes
it is round and round. Allen had been struck suddenly, as if he had been
taken out of the situation and given the chance to see from outside, that
he was actually enjoying himself. He could not remember having had so much
fun in many years. The two of them had got drunk on the free airplane
alcohol, and had booked into a towering buisiness- man hotel in Groningen
giggling at the check-in desk like adolescents. They had gone straight
upstairs and made love. Outside it was sleeting, grey and grainy like a
badly tuned-in TV. But Allen had felt a delicious pleasure in the core of
his chest, a happy that was so alien it was almost painful. A bath, food
in the hotel restaurant, and back upstairs to make love again. And then,
only then, lying naked on the bed curled up like John Lennon with Yoko
Ono, had the grit of conscience started to work on him. He should have
phoned Moira. He'd told her he had to fly away at short notice, but she'd
surely expect him to phone. Then all the thoughts of her at home with the
baby, and him away behind her back, had begun to sting. He had got up and
walked naked through, carrying the phone in the crook of his elbow into
the bathroom; then he had sat on the toilet with the lid down and called
London. Yes, yes, boring meetings. Back tomorrow though. Miss you. Love
you.
Obligado. A month's special course on Business Spanish and he still needed
a cheat-sheet to speak to their Mexican clients. Allen pushed the piece of
paper around the desk with his thumb. Mi corazєn se ha dormido.