"Archer, Jeffrey - twelve red herrings)txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Archer Jeffrey)

find I'm able to help." My father had taught me never to make the
mistake of imagining that your friends and your colleagues were
necessarily the same animals (he often cited the Cabinet as an
example). So, although I didn't like him, I made sure that when I left
Bristol at the end of the conference I was in possession of Jeremy's
numerous telephone and fax numbers.

I drove back to Leeds on the Sunday evening, and when I reached
home I ran upstairs and sat on the end of the bed regaling my sleepy
wife with an account of why it had turned out to be such a worthwhile
weekend.

Rosemary was my second wife. My first, Helen, had been at Leeds
High School for Girls at the same time that I had attended the nearby
grammar school. The two schools shared a gymnasium, and I fell in love
with her at the age of thirteen, while watching her play netball.
After that I would find any excuse to hang around the gym, hoping to
catch a glimpse of her blue knickers as she leapt to send the ball
unerringly into the net. As the schools took part
in various joint activities, I began to take an active interest in
theatrical productions, even though I couldn't act. I attended joint
debates, and never opened my mouth. I enlisted in the combined schools
orchestra and ended up playing the triangle. After I had left school
and gone to work at the depot, I continued to see Helen, who was
studying for her A levels.

Despite my passion for her, we didn't make love until we were both
eighteen, and even then I wasn't certain that we had consummated
anything. Six weeks later she told me, in a flood of tears, that she
was pregnant. Against the wishes of her parents, who had hoped that
she would go on to university, a hasty wedding was arranged, but as I
never wanted to look at another girl for the rest of my life, I was
secretly delighted by the outcome of our youthful indiscretion.

Helen died on the night of 4 September 964, giving birth to our
son, Tom, who himself only survived a week. I thought I would never
get over it, and I'm not sure I ever have. After her death I didn't so
much as glance at another woman for years, putting all my energy into
the company.

Following the funeral of my wife and son, my father, not a soft or
sentimental man - you won't find many of those in Yorkshire revealed a
gentle side to his character that I had never seen before.

He would often phone me in the evening to see how I was getting
on, and insisted that I regularly joined him in the directors' box at
Elland Road to watch Leeds United on Saturday afternoons. I began to
understand, for the first time, why my mother still adored him after
more than twenty years of marriage.