"Simon R. Green - Nightside 1 - Drinking Midnight Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Simon R)

Most of his contemporaries were married, usually for all the wrong reasons: companionship, regular
sex, baby on the way. Peer pressure, fears of growing old, alone. There were remarkably few great
loves or passions that Toby could detect. Some had already divorced, and were on their second or
even third marriage. Sometimes Toby felt like a late developer. But in his own quiet way he was
stubbornly romantic, and was damned if he'd marry just for the sake of getting married. It helped
that women weren't exactly beating down his door to get to him. And as for a career... Toby was
still looking for a role to play that interested him; something to live for, to give his life
purpose and meaning. He didn't know what he needed, only what he didn't want, and so he drifted
through his life, sometimes employed and sometimes not achieving nothing, going nowhere. Knowing
that his life was slipping away like sand through his fingers, but somehow unable to do anything
about it.
Toby looked at his own reflection in the carriage window, and saw only a pale face under dark
hair, with no obvious virtues; just another face in the crowd, really. He wore a rumpled jacket
over T-shirt and jeans, the official uniform of the anonymous, and even his T-shirt had nothing to
say.
He looked through the carriage window at the passing countryside, stretched lazily out under the
dull amber glow of the lowering sun. Summer was mostly over now, and heading into autumn, and
already the countryside was unhurriedly shutting up shop for winter. But still, it was home, and
Toby found its familiar sights comforting. There were wide woods and green fields, and the River
Avon curling its long slow way towards the town. There were swans on the river, white and perfect
and utterly serene, moving gracefully, always in pairs because swans mated for life. They
studiously ignored the crowds of chattering ducks, raucous and uncouth, darting back and forth on
urgent errands of no importance to anyone except themselves, and perhaps not even to them. Ducks
just liked to keep busy. Every now and again a rowing team would come sculling up the river, the
long wooden oars swinging back and forth like slow-motion wings, and the swans and the ducks would
move ungraciously aside to let them pass. The rowers never looked up. Heads down, arms and lungs
heaving; all effort and concentration and perspiration, too preoccupied with healthy exercise and
beating their own times to notice the calm beauty and heart's-ease of their surroundings.
There were animals in the fields. Cows and sheep and sometimes horses, and, if you looked closely,
rabbits too. And the occasional fox, of course. Giving birth, living, dying, over and over and
over; Nature's ancient order continuing on as it had for countless centuries. Seasons changed, the
world turned and everything old was made new again, in spring. And everywhere you looked, there
were the trees. Not as many as there once were, of course. The ancient primal forests of England's
dark green past were long gone. Felled down the years to make ships and towns and homes, or just
to clear the land for crops and livestock. But still many trees survived, in woods and copses, or
slender lines of windbreaks; tall dark shapes, glowering on the horizon, standing out starkly
against the last light of day.
A single magpie, jet of black and pure of white, hopped across a field, and Toby tugged
automatically at his forelock and muttered, 'Evening, Mr Magpie', an old charm, to ward off bad
luck. Everyone knew the old rhyme: One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a
boy... Toby usually got lost after that, but it didn't really matter. It was a rare day when you
saw more than four magpies at once. Toby watched the countryside pass, and found what little peace
of mind he ever knew in contemplating the land's never-ending cycle. The trees and the fields and
the animals had all been there before him, and would still be there long after he was gone; and
some day they'd lay him to rest under the good green grass, and he'd become a part of it all. And
then maybe he'd understand what it had all been for.
The train paused briefly at the request stop for Avoncliff, a very short platform with stern Do
Not Alight Here signs at both ends, just in case you were too dim to notice that there was nothing
there for you to step out onto. The usual few got off. There was never anyone waiting to get on,
at this time of day. The train gathered up its strength and plunged on, heading for Bradford-on-