"Barker, Clive - Weaveworld (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive)

'I'm Doctor Chai.Т

The face before her was round as a biscuit, and as bland.

'Your grandmother, Mrs Laschenski . . .Т

СYes?, . . . there's been a serious deterioration in her condition. Are you her only relative?Т

The only one in this country. My mother and father are dead. She has a son. In Canada.Т

'Do you have any way of contacting him?Т

'1 don't have his telephone number with me ... but I could get it.Т

'I think he should be informed,' said Chai.

'Yes, of course.Т said Suzanna. 'What should I . . . ? I mean, can you tell me how long she's going to live?Т

The Doctor sighed. 'Anybody's guess,' he said. 'When she came in I didn't think she'd last the night. But she did. And the next. And the next. She's just kept holding on. Her tenacity's really remarkable.Т

He halted, looking straight at Suzanna. 'My belief is, she was waiting for you.Т

For me?Т

'I think so. Your name's the only coherent word she's spoken since she's been here. I don't think she was going to let go until you'd come.Т

'I sec, 'said Suzanna.

'You must be very important to her,' he replied. 'It's good you've seen her. So many of the old folks, you know, die in here and nobody ever seems to care. Where are you staying?Т

'I hadn't thought. A hotel, I suppose.Т

'Perhaps you'd give us a number to contact you at, should the necessity arise.Т

'Of course.Т

So saying, he nodded and left her to the runners. They were no less blind for the conversation.

Mimi Laschenski did not love her, as the Doctor had claimed; how could she? She knew nothing of the way her grandchild had grown up; they were like closed books to each other: And yet something in what Chai had said rang true. Perhaps she had been waiting, fighting the good fight until her daughter's daughter came to her bedside.

And why? To hold her hand and expend her last ounce of energy giving Suzanna a fragment of some tapestry? It was a pretty gift, but it signified either too much or too little. Whichever, Suzanna did not comprehend it.

She went back to Room Five. The nurse was in attendance: the old lady still as stone on her pillow. Eyes closed, hands laid by her side. Suzanna stared down at the face, slack once more. It could tell her nothing.

She took hold of Mimi's hand and held it for a few moments, tight, then went on her way. She would go back to Rue Street, she decided, and see if being in the house jogged a memory or two.

She'd spent so much time forgetting her childhood, putting it where it couldn't tail the bluff of hard-won maturity. And now, with the boxes sealed, what did she find? A mystery that defied her adult self, and coaxed her back into the pass fn search of a solution.

She remembered the face in the tall-boy mirror, that had sent her robbing down the stairs.