"Bragg, Melvyn - Crystal Rooms" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bragg Melvyn)

Crystal Rooms by Melvyn Bragg.


Part One.

LONDON CALLING.



CHAPTER ONE.





THE angry howl of the wind pursued the sleet through the cardboard which had replaced the window-panes. Harry woke violently from the terror of his worst nightmare mouthing the word LONDON. He wanted his mother to be near, but in the same split instant he knew that he would never see her again. There was still the inexpressible pain of that parting, an open wound in his heart, which he must bear secretly.
The boy was confused by the whine and rage of the gale unleashed in the bare room. There was comfort, even a certain pleasure in listening to its sound outside but now it had broken and entered, seeking him out, threatening to suck him into the storm which was spinning from a bitter South Atlantic over the turbulent Irish land and sea. As if finding its target, it battered the most wasted streets of the wasted estate in this industrial ghost-town near the north-west coast of England.
For a moment Harry thought, or felt, "Good! I'll go with you. Yes. Take me away from this. Let me disappear on the wind." Then he saw his sister, asleep, beside him on the mattress, and he remembered his tearful promise to their mother, that he would look after her.
He switched on the bicycle-lamp and hurried to stuff the sodden cardboard and some of his clothes into the gaps which had once held glass. Quite suddenly all the force was shut out; the wind, denied, swung away and he was uneasy in the silence. He played the light around the room looking for intruders, taking care not to direct the beam on to Mary breathing evenly, undisturbed. He




knelt down on the floor and tugged the two blankets and the coats over her, wishing he could do more. From downstairs the voices started up and as he edged on to the narrow landing he heard again the word LONDON.
Harry crouched against the wall, his feet chilled by the bare boards. The row - it must have been a row if he could hear them from upstairs; it usually was at this time of night - appeared to have stopped, but he lingered on, listening. They would kill him if they caught him spying on them. His aunt - who hated and despised that word - Fiona certainly would and lake, the new boyfriend, in the end had to do her bidding. lake was still too enthralled by her to let loose his own blind temper yet. The boy strained hard to catch the next word.
At first there was only the wind which attacked the flaking houses on this high and most exposed part of the estate, shaking the boarded-up windows, scattering overfilled dustbins, making a mocking dance of old wrapping papers, takeaway cartons, the litter of daily survival. Inside the house the wind boomed down the narrow uncarpeted hall and clattered the remaining windowpanes. He came out on to the landing.
"Get him off my back!" he heard. The boy knew the vicious power of that tone and dread tensed his body. "We've had the money. The money's gone. It's all bloody spent!" His aunt's next words were drowned under the wind which surged through the house as if determined to invade, possess and destroy it. The boy found that he was edging down the stairs. He had always known that she meant him no good.
"London." Again the word, the name.
"Take him . . ." Once again, Harry could not catch the rest of the sentence which the wind took and gobbled, leaving him fighting down his panic. They must not catch him. "London." lake this time. lake went to London with a "fresh load" in a van now and then. lake's London was a wonder which he flaunted, boasting of it to the boy. He had promised to take Harry with him one day. London was Jake's superiority.
Their voices were still too low and the boy slithered down a few more stairs until he was opposite the door. "Money spent!" recurred and "Take him!" Then Fiona began a litany which always came back to "Life of my own! Life of my own!" Although lake's replies were too murmured to be intelligible, Harry sensed that he was on his side and felt a gush of near-tearful gratitude to Jake which helped hold back his panic. His heart bumped strenuously
against his skinny chest; he took three deep breaths and froze, bottling up the last gulp of air as the door was flung open. lake. Jake with his black oiled hair now looping over his brow, his lumberjack shirtsleeves rolled up to his tattooed biceps - a butterfly on the left, a cobra on the right. Jake with a can of beer in his hand. Harry cowered into a foetal position which absorbed punishment least woundingly. Recent bruises seemed to become alert and tender, especially the cut under his left eye where lake's signet ring had caught him. It was so finely balanced that a breath could decide it - would lake strike? Or would he decide to be a pal, a good guy? - and so Harry took no breath, held on.
It was resolved.
"You," said lake, stabbing his forefinger at the fragile bars between them. "Upstairs." Unnervingly, he winked. "Move." Harry found that he was backing up the stairs, his eyes trapped by Jake's drunken, abstract gaze. "Move!" Jake repeated. Harry turned and scrambled away. "Stay!" lake commanded. Harry stopped dead.
lake looked back into the room. Harry could imagine Fiona, white-faced, blood lipstick, tumbled jet hair, messed clothes, cigarette burning apparently unnoticed between stained fingers, a can of beer to match lake's. Then the whirlwind.
"That fucking boy! Spying on us! See?" From her invisible lair the venom-tipped words thudded, hurting him to despair. "Do it!" lake turned from the door to Harry and back again. "Do it! Or else. Nothing for you. You can sing for it. How would you like that?"
"You!" Harry, fearful of catching lake's eye, was compelled by the man's suddenly vicious stare. "Tomorrow. Four o'clock. London. OK? Move!"
Harry fled into his bedroom, across the bare floor, crawled on to the mattress and endured in silence what was almost a seizure of shivering. Fiona's words scared him as spitefully and as darkly as the wind. His eventual sleep was a shipwreck. The hand on his shoulder was gentle enough but he was startled, untrusting, when lake coaxed, "Off we go, pal. London here we come, eh? Pal?"
He switched on the bicycle-lamp and dressed with the experienced speed of someone used to peremptory and absolute commands.
He was undecided about whether to wake Mary - still breathing evenly in the burrow of warmth he had created for her. But he was tugged by an instinct he could not yet unravel and he tapped