"Campbell, Ramsey - The Parasite 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Campbell Ramsey)

There was no point in feeling tense, frustrated. The lectyire had succumbed to the end of term, that was all. It was only one lecture - no reason for her to feel guilty. She'd loved films for as long as she could remember, but why did that make it immoral to earn so much money in talking and writing about them? She could afford that doubt now. It was an indulgence, a luxury.

Yet she felt ill at ease, on edge for something to happen. That must be New York, which would give them not only a holiday but also the start of an important book. Still, as she emerged beneath the lid of the overcast sky, a jumpy nerve tried to pluck at her lips.

But there was Bill, just emerging from the Centre of Communication Studies, a converted chapel bristling with aerials like garden rakes. In his blue cagoule, and with his momentarily vague expression, he resembled a lost rambler. Though he was six years older than Rose he looked younger, especially while the waterproof hood concealed his greying hair. `Had a good day?' she said.

`Apart from the fact that a plague of the zombies seems to have infected my class, I suppose I had quite a good day.'

`Oh dear.' She noticed that he had been tugging at his moustache; the denuded ends looked ghostly. `Were they dull?'

'Fifteen different varieties of gaping incomprehension. Like being confronted with one of those sideshows where you have to throw pennies in the holes. Thank God for Hilary - thank God for mature students.'

`Yes, I know how you feel.' As they strolled downtown she told him about her day. Windows of the Children's Hospital were crowded with teddy-bears, gilded faces grimaced from the iron gates of the Philharmonic Hotel. Beyond the Mersey, the green afterglow sank towards the horizon as though through deep water; above the Pier Head, clock faces were misted suns.

`Still,' she said, `I can't entirely blame the students. They know that when they leave, their degrees won't ensure them a job. Many will be over-qualified for what's available. Can we expect them to drug themselves with knowledge for its own sake?'

'Why not? It's certainly preferable to the shit they do use. I'm sorry, I'm just not receptive to special pleading today. If I'd sat around moping when I left school I wouldn't be where I am now. I don't like having got there only to waste my energy.'

Students sat in the display windows of Kirklands Wine Bar, on transported park benches beneath baskets of flowers. Wine was imprisoned on shelves by the licensing hours. Rose would have liked to go in for a coffee, but he'd had enough of students for one day. Besides, he wanted to buy shoes suitable for tramping New York.

Lewis's was the nearest department store. They struggled through the rush-hour crowds. Lower decks of buses were crowded as a sale; people breathed out smoke on befogged upper decks. In a window of Lewis's a nightdress stood with open arms, introducing its family of children's wear to a bus queue stiff as window dummies.

Rose liked big stores. The profusion of new clean things reminded her of childhood birthdays. Scents drifted from pastel displays of cosmetics. Huge fluorescent dice dangled overhead, their identical faces saying PAY HERE.

Later, like Bill, she wore her new shoes to break them in. As she stepped on the descending escalator the top stair caught her heel. For a moment it seemed that her new soles would slip, throwing her head-first down the metal stairs. A spark of migraine pricked her vision.

As they sailed downstairs, Bill performing slowmotion kicks in order to admire his shoes, she grew impatient with herself. No need to feel nervous: her marriage and her work had helped her grow out of irrational fears - she wasn't about to regress.

A group of toddlers watched her pass, their eyes painted into the sockets. On the ground floor, red and pink and yellow hands on stalks reached for her from the glove counter. Blind mauve faces craned on necks as long as arms; wigs roosted on their heads.

In the book department, Bill looked to see if their books were on display while she wandered by herself; it embarrassed her to search for her work. Here was The Maltese Falcon in the form of a book of greyish subtitled stills, here were novels `soon to be a major film', as if anyone could make that judgement in advance. Here was a bookcase five shelves high full of MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE. Did Spacemen Colonise the Earth? Was God an Astronaut? One book was called Astral Rape - the pleasure without the pain, she thought, and couldn't help giggling, though a bald man stared at her.

Without warning she felt on edge. Where was Bill? There he was, three aisles distant, glowering at the cardboard labels on top of the bookcases. There had never been a section for books about the arts; something else must be making him gloomy. She was halfway to him when her stomach tightened, her fingers began to shake.

Before she turned she knew what was wrong. The bald man was still staring at her. His head, which looked as if it were perched on top of a bookcase, shone like plastic beneath the fluorescent lights. His eyes were bright, fiat, expressionless as glass; she thought of a display head stripped of its wig. When a fat pink tongue squeezed out between his lips, it was as if a plastic head had come to life.

Was he a store detective? Did he suspect her of theft? But she could see him with unnatural clarity, even the spider-legs of hair protruding from his nostrils. His forehead was beaded like a boiling egg. No, he was no detective.

Unable to think for dismay and rage, she forced her way through the crowd to Bill. Cash registers purred and sang. `Ready to go?' he said.

She glanced back, but there was no sign of the bald man. He was hardly worth mentioning; the sooner she forgot about him, the sooner she would forget her nervousness. It was more important to discover what had upset Bill.

They hurried through the pedestrian subway from Lewis's to the Underground. As the train moved off he produced from his briefcase the source of his mood - a Times Literary Supplement review of The Same Old Movie Scenes, by W. & R. Tierney. `. . . difficult to know how seriously the writers take their subject . . . they strain to make a case for cliches as formal conventions supplying the artist with a context for experiment and personal expression . . . book lacks the disciplines of semiology and structuralism . . . jarring attempts at humour . . . sense of academics slumming . . .'

`Never mind,' Rose said, `it's only one woman's opinion,' but she knew that a hostile notice could embarrass and depress him for days.

`Films and Filming quite like us.' He tilted his glasses to peer at the magazine; their optician had annoyed him by insisting that one wasn't meant to see so clearly. `The Tierneys' new book is especially good in showing how supposedly 'clich6d scenes have developed and changed . . . brilliant and specific analysis of conventions in the urban thriller . . . combines insight and humour with common sense . . .'

`I wonder which of us is which?' Bill said of that comment, giggling.