"Aldiss, Brian W - Short Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldiss Brian W)

ways with every generationyou know, almost like separate
species. My generation made a great attempt to bring the two
sexes together in equality and all the rest, but it seems to have
come to nothing."
"Jack will get better." Janet could hear the lack of
confidence in her own voice.
"I thought the same thingabout men and women getting
wider apart I meanwhen my husband was killed."
Suddenly ail Janet's sympathy was gone. She had recog-
nised a familiar topic drifting onto the scene, knew well the
careful tone that ironed away all self-pity as her mother-in-
law said, "Bob was dedicated to speed, you know. That was
what killed him really, not the fool backing into the road in
front of him."
"No blame was attached to your husband," Janet said.
"You should try not to let it worry you still."
"You see the connection though.... This progress thing.
Bob so crazy to get round the next bend first, and now
Jack. . . . Oh well, there's nothing a woman can do."
She closed the door behind her. Absently, Janet picked up
the message from the next generation of women: "Thank you
for the dollies."

The resolves and the sudden risks involved
He was their father. Perhaps Jane and Peter should come
back, despite the risks involved. Anxiously, Janet stood there,
moving herself with a sudden resolve to tackle Jack straight
away. He was so irritable, so unapproachable, but at least she
could observe how busy he was before interrupting him.
As she slipped into the side hall and made for the back
door, she heard her mother-in-law call her. "Just a minute!"
she answered.
The sun had broken through, sucking moisture from the
damp garden. It was now unmistakably autumn. She rounded
the corner of the house, stepped round the rose bed, and
looked into her husband's study.
Shaken, she saw he leaned half over the table. His hands
were over his face, blood ran between his fingers and dripped
onto an open magazine on the table top. She was aware of
Stackpole sitting indifferently beside the electric fire.
She gave a small cry and ran round the house again, to be
met at the back door by Mrs. Westermark.
"Oh, I was justJanet, what is it?"
"Jack, Mother! He's had a stroke or something terrible!"
"But how do you know?"
"Quick, we must phone the hospital1 must go to him."
Mrs. Westermark took Janet's arm. "Perhaps we'd better
leave it to Mr. Stackpole, hadn't we. I'm afraid"
"Mother, we must do what we can. I know we're amateurs.
Please let me go."