"Barker, Clive - The Hellbound Heart" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive)

EIGHT

1
There was thunder that night. A storm without rain, which made the air smell of steel.
Kirsty had never slept well. Even as a child, though her mother had known lullabies enough to pacify nations, the girl had never found slumber easy. It wasn't that she had bad dreams; or at least none that lingered until morning. It was that sleep itself-the act of closing the eyes and relinquishing control of her consciousness-was something she was temperamentally unsuited to.
Tonight, with the thunder so loud and the lightning so bright, she was happy. She had an excuse to forsake her tangled bed, and drink tea, and watch the spectacle from her window.
It gave her time to think, as well-time to turn over the problem that had vexed her since leaving the house on Lodovico Street. But she was still no nearer an answer.
One particular doubt nagged. Suppose she was wrong about what she'd seen? Suppose she'd misconstrued the evidence, and Julia had a perfectly good explanation? She would lose Rory at a stroke.
And yet, how could she remain silent? She couldn't bear to think of the woman laughing behind his back, exploiting his gentility, his naяvetщ. The thought made her blood boil.
The only other option was to wait and watch, to see if she could gain some incontrovertible evidence. If her worst suppositions were then confirmed, she would have no choice but to tell Rory all she'd seen.
Yes. That was the answer. Wait and watch, watch and wait.
The thunder rolled around for long hours, denying her sleep until nearly four. When, finally, she did sleep, it was the slumber of a watcher and waiter. Light, and full of sighs.

2
The storm made a ghost train of the house. Julia sat downstairs, and counted the beats between the flash and the fury that came on its heels. She had never liked thunder. She, a murderess; she, a consorter with the living dead. It was another paradox to add to the thousand she'd found at work in herself of late. She thought more than once of going upstairs, and taking some comfort with the prodigy, but knew that it would be unwise. Rory might return at any moment from his office party. He would be drunk, on past experience, and full of unwelcome fondness.
The storm crept closer. She put on the television, to block out the din, which it scarcely did.
At eleven. Rory came home, wreathed in smiles. He had good news. In the middle of the party his supervisor had taken him aside, commended him for his excellent work, and spoken of great things for the future. Julia listened to his retelling of the exchange, hoping that his inebriation would blind him to her indifference. At last, his news told, he threw off his jacket and sat down on the sofa beside her.
"Poor you," he said. "You don't like the thunder."
"I'm fine," she said.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Fine."
He leaned across to her and nuzzled her ear.
"You're sweaty," she said matter-of-factly. He didn't cease his overtures, however, unwilling to lower his baton now that he'd begun.
"Please, Rory-" she said. "I don't want this."
"Why not? What did I do?"
"Nothing," she said, pretending some interest in the television. "You're fine."
"Oh, is that right?" he said. "You're fine. I'm fine. Everybody's fucking fine."
She stared at the flickering screen. The late evening news had just begun, the usual cup of sorrows full to brimming. Rory talked on, drowning out the newscaster's voice with his diatribe. She didn't much mind. What did the world have to tell her? Little enough. Whereas she, she had news for the world that it would reel to hear. About the condition of the damned; about love lost, and then found; about what despair and desire have in common.
"Please, Julia"-Rory was saying-"just speak to me."
The pleas demanded her attention. He looked, she thought, like the boy in the photographs-his body hirsute and bloated, his clothes those of an adult-but still, in essence, a boy, with his bewildered gaze and sulky mouth. She remembered Frank's question: "How could you ever have married such a dullard?" Thinking of it, a sour smile creased her lips. He looked at her, his puzzlement deepening.
"What's so funny, damn you?"
"Nothing."
He shook his head, dull anger replacing the sulk. A peal of thunder followed the lightning with barely a beat intervening. As it came, there was a noise from the floor above. She turned her attention back to the television, to divert Rory's interest. But it was a vain attempt; he'd heard the sound.
"What the fuck was that?"
"Thunder."
He stood up. "No," he said. "Something else." He was already at the door.
A dozen options raced through her head, none of them practical. He wrestled drunkenly with the door handle.
"Maybe I left a window open," she said and got up. "I'll go and see."
"I can do it," he replied. "I'm not totally inept."
"Nobody said-" she began, but he wasn't listening. As he stepped out into the hallway the
lightning came with the thunder: loud and bright. As she went in pursuit of him another flash came fast upon the first, accompanied by a bowel-rocking crash. Rory was already halfway up the stairs.
"It was nothing!" she shouted after him. He made no reply but climbed on to the top of the stairs. She followed.
"Don't..." she said to him, in a lull between one peal and the next. He heard her this time. Or rather, chose to listen. When she reached the top of the stairs he was waiting.
"Something wrong?" he said.
She hid her trepidation behind a shrug. "You're being silly," she replied softly.
"Am I?"
"It was just the thunder."
His face, lit from the hall below, suddenly softened. "Why do you treat me like shit?" he asked her.
"You're just tired," she told him.