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

He got off the tube at his station and climbed the stairs instead of
waiting for the lift (a conscious decision to help reduce his increasing
loss of tone around his waistline), counting off the steps in threes.
Should he tell Moira? About hallucinating a meeting with the Devil? She
would worry. Tell him he was working too hard. Maybe bicker at him to go
see a doctor. Maybe even a shrink. What would he say? 'I met the Devil
this morning.' He could almost picture Moira's face: you're losing it, the
stress of work is finally getting through to you. At the top of the
underground stairs, panting slightly, he remembered that the Unwins and
the Wraggs were coming to dinner.
The lift had released its cargo just before him, and he had to queue to
show his pass to the guard. A large crucifix hung over the lapels of the
man's London Underground uniform below a worried-looking black face. At
his turn, and as he flashed his pass, Allen asked, on a strange whim: 'Do
you believe in the Devil?' The man pretended not to hear, waved him
through.
'I need you to go out again,' said Moira as soon as he came through the
front door.
'Don't I get a chance to shake the dust from my shoes?' he said, dumping
his suitcase by the stairs.
Moira was standing in the doorway that lead to the kitchen, her arms
crossed. Her hair was up, which she only did when she was cooking. 'I need
ginger. And the only cream we have is not organic.' Chris Unwin, something
of a stickler, would eat nothing that had been touched by pesticides.
'Put it in a jug or something and tell Chris it is organic,' said Allen.
'He's not to know. Where's Emma?'
'She's doing her Elephant tonight,' said Moira. 'You should remember. She
was telling you all about it this morning at breakfast. And we still need
the ginger.'
'Organic ginger,' said Allen, beaming. 'Of course. Do I have to go out and
pick Emma up?'
'If you were paying attention at all at breakfast,' said Moira, 'you'd
remember that Darcy is going to drop her off when she takes Felicity home.
But go and get the ginger now, and the cream, and then you can have a
drink.'
Allen stepped back out and walked briskly along the road towards the
cluster of shops. Checked his watch; the same clucking second hand, the
same bland golden face, as had recorded the length of his conversation
this morning with the Devil. Five to six, now. The grocer closed at six,
but there would be time. Organic ginger. Should he get the cream? Then he
thought: how would His Satanic Majesty calculate that up on his spiritual
calculator? Would cheating Chris Unwin out of his organic cream count as
causing pain to the man? How could it, if Chris never knew about it? And
even if he realised, even if the taste somehow betrayed Allen's small act,
would it really count? How tiny did a grain of pain-causing have to be
before it slipped through the sieve of this spiritual adding-up and was
forgotten? Did swatting a fly count? And if it counted, from whose point
of view, the man or the fly? What would be added to Allen's account -- the
small flick, the momentary blip? Or the body-crushing deathly agony of
being pressed out of existence? Whose perspective was the relevant one?