"A Wild Night in Galway" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradbury Ray)

A WILD NIGHT IN GALWAY

A WILD NIGHT IN GALWAY

Ray Bradbury


We were far out at the tip of Ireland, in Galway, where the weather strikes from
its bleak quarters in the Atlantic with sheets of rain and gusts of cold and
still more sheets of rain. You go to bed and wake in the middle of the night
thinking you heard someone cry, thinking you yourself were weeping and feel at
your face and find it dry. Then you look at the window and think, why, yes, it's
just rain, the rain, always the rain, and turn over, sadder still, and fumble
about for your dripping sleep and try to get it back on.
We were out, as I said, in Galway, which is grey stone with green beards on it,
a rock town, and the sea coming in and the rain failing down and we had been
there a month solid working with our film director on a script which was, with
immense irony, to be shot in the warm yellow sun of Mexico some time in January.
The pages of the script were full of fiery bulls and hot tropical flowers and
burning eyes, and I typed it with chopped-off frozen fingers in my grey hotel
room where the food was criminal's gruel and the weather a beast at the window.
On the 31st night, a knock at the door, at seven. The door opened, my film
director stepped nervously in.
"Let's get the hell out and find some wild life in Ireland and forget this damn
rain!" he said, all in a rush.
"What rain?" I said, sucking my fingers to get the ice out. "The concussion here
under the roof is so steady I'm shell-shocked and have quite forgot the stuff's
coming down!"
"Four weeks here and you're talking Irish," said the director.
"Hand me my clay pipe," I said.
And we ran from the room.
"Where?" said I.
"Johnny Murphy's pub!" said he.
And we blew along the stony street in the dark that rocked gently as a boat on a
black flood because of the tilty-dancing streetlights above which made the
shadows tear and fly, uneasy.
Then, sweatrng rain, faces pearled, we struck through the pub door and it was
warm as a sheepfold because there were the townsmen pressed in a great compost
heap at the bar and Johnny Murphy yelling jokes and foaming up drinks.
"Johnny!" cried the director. "We're here for a wild night!"
"A wild night we'll make it!" said Johnny, and in a moment a slug of John
Jamieson was burning lace patterns in our stomachs, to let new light in.
I exhaled fire. "That's a start!" I said.
We had another and listened to the rollicking jests and the jokes that were less
than half-clean, or so we guessed, for the brogue made it difficult, and the
whisky poured on the brogue and thus combined made it double-difficult. But we
knew when to laugh, because when a joke was finished, the men hit their knees
and then hit us. They'd give their limb a great smack and then bang us on the
arm or thump us in the chest. As our breath exploded, we'd shape the explosion
to hilarity and squeeze our eyes tight. Tears ran down our cheeks not from joy