"Aldiss, Brian W - A Rude Awakening - v1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldiss Brian W)

'Sorry, there was a piss-up in the sergeants' mess, everyone getting boozed.' I told her about Dickie Payne driving into the cesspit, and we laughed.

'You sergeants all drunken filthy men! All soldiers are so horrible. Oh, I hate soldiers! All except you, Horry. You good man. When you don't come, I afraid you go with that Miss Katie Chae. She very low woman.' Katie Chae was her pet hate.

I laughed as I handed out cigarettes. 'I never even saw Katie Chae. I came here straight from the mess.'

No breeze stirred. She kept her window closed at night to shut the insects out and it must have been a hundred degrees under the low roof. She saw I was sweating and said, 'I go fetch you nice cool beer.'

'I've had enough bloody beer. Make me a coffee and let's go on the bed.'

She clouted me playfully on the hip. 'Every day bed, bed you terrible randy man, Horry. What you think poor Margey's cunt? Lie down here and have a smoke while I bring you tea. No coffee. Coffee all gone. Why you no bring me more coffee?'

Margey left the lamp with me while she went to prepare the drink.

The attic had been intended for human habitation of a mean order. At the far end of the landing was a cramped area which served as Margey's kitchen and bathroom. The rest of the space under the roof was occupied by two small rooms separated by wood panelling. The ceiling was plastered; some of the plaster had fallen away to reveal laths beneath.

One of the rooms was Margey's own. It had a curtained window, the view from which always delighted me with its spectacle of rooftop decay, and a deep sill on which stood a plant and one or two precious possessions. I set the oil lamp on the sill and undressed. Processed beer oozed from my skin as I did so; even the mosquitoes had fainted in the heat.

Margey's wooden bed was covered with a faded blue quilt, on which I sat to remove my boots. An upturned orange crate standing behind the bed served as a table; on it stood an old alarm clock and a carving of a Balinese dancer which I had given her. Under the bed was a precious metal-trimmed rattan trunk, in which Margey stored her clothes.

On the wall hung a little mirror framed in mahogany with a shelf below. Lipstick stood on the shelf, perfume in a knobbly bottle, and an extravagant manicure set which I had bought Margey whilst on leave in Singapore. A snap of me in swimming trunks was tucked into the edge of the mirror.

The only other items in the room were a towelled bathrobe which hung behind the door and a black and white photograph of Rita Hayworth, wearing an open raincoat and swinging her hips in an inviting way. Margey worshipped Rita Hayworth.

Rolling up my ankle puttees, which I had refused to exchange for gaiters, I tucked them in my boots and set them in one corner. It was good to be in that shabby cubicle, heat or no heat. Yet I, like Margey, had my anxieties. Before stretching out on the bed, I padded over to Margey's bathrobe and felt in its pockets, dreading to find a french letter or similar incriminating evidence of other men. I found a small tortoiseshell comb, I took it out and turned it over several times. It was something of hers I had not seen before. Who had given it to her?

Slipping it back, I relaxed on the bed, thinking of her, imagining her working by what light came over the top of the wooden partition, boiling water on her tiny charcoal fire. A man's voice yelled at her in clattering Chinese. She went to the gap and answered. A brief exchange took place before she returned to her stove.

When she entered the room carrying two small mugs of tea, I asked who had called.

'Is only my brother-in-law, Fat Sian.' She stood before me, looking down as I sat on the bed, patiently accepting my foreignness.

'What did he want?'

'He is only being friendly. Making an enquiry.'

'Does Fat come up here when you are alone, Margey?'

'I tell you many time, Horry, but you not believe.' She stamped her foot. 'He not come in here, except maybe bring some food. He not fuck me like you think. I not like to fuck Fat Sian I am good girl with proper education, but you not believe.'

'But he has fucked you, hasn't he?'

'Aei-ya, you damn drunk soldier, how I hate when you make such rude question! Drink your tea.'

In a week, less, all this would be forever beyond my ken. I could never work it all out. The thought made me despair. The muddle of Margey's psychology and her life-style was at once pain and delight to me.

I knew something of her early history. She loved relating it to me, often with tears running down her face. Margey and her sister, Chin Lim, together with the rest of the family, had lived in a village near to the town of Tsingtao, in Shantung Province, China. That musical name, Tsingtao, ran like a thread through much of Margey's conversation; it was the place she had loved to visit, the place she longed to get back to, somehow, some time if she could not get to London, the other city of her dreams, where women were all like Rita Hayworth and everyone lived in gigantic houses complete with cooks, dogs, and horses.

Little did I understand. I was too young. Way deep down inside, I was shallow. I regarded Margey's vision of Hollywood- London as one more broken dream in a land packed with them. On the other hand, I saw no reason why she could not pack a bag and go back to Tsingtao if she really wanted to.