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

with a strong bone structure and high cheekbones, and a great mane of jet-black hair fell in waves
well past her shoulders. Her eyes were dark too, under heavy eyebrows, and her nose was just
prominent enough to give character to her face without being distracting. For all her serious
expression, there was still a smile tucked in one corner of her perfect mouth, almost in spite of
herself.
She wore a pale blue suit, expertly cut but just short of power dressing, with the kind of quiet
elegance that just shrieks money. There was no jewellery, no wedding ring. Looking at her was like
diving into a deep pool of cool, clear water. Hard to tell her age. She was young, but still very
much a woman rather than a girl, and there was something about her eyes that suggested she'd seen
a thing or two in her time. Her fingers were long and slender, crinkling the edges of her
newspaper where she held it firmly. Toby wondered what it would feel like, to be held firmly by
those hands.
She changed her outfits regularly, and never looked less than stunning. But no one ever hit on
her. No one ever tried to chat her up, or impress her with their charm and style, the kind of
stuff attractive women always had to put up with, even if they wore a large sign saying, 'Go away;
I have Aids, leprosy and the Venusian dick rot, and besides I'm a lesbian'. Men would always try
it on. Except no one ever did, with her. Toby could understand that. He'd been secretly admiring
her for months, and still hadn't worked up the courage to talk to her.
Sometimes he thought of her as the Ice Queen, from the old children's story. In the fairy tale, a
boy looked at the distant and beautiful Ice Queen, and a sliver of her ice flew into his eye. And
from that moment on, he had no choice but to love her with all his heart, come what may. Toby was
pretty sure the story ended badly for both the boy and the Ice Queen, but he preferred not to
think about that. What mattered was that he and she were fated to be together. He was sure of it -
mostly. He turned away to look at his own reflection in the window next to him, and sighed
inwardly. He was hardly worthy of a queen. Hardly worthy of anything, really.
He often wondered who she was, really. What she did for a living; where she went when she left the
railway station at Bradford-on-Avon, and why he never saw her anywhere else in town. Whether there


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was someone else in her life... To stop himself thinking about things like that, Toby often
indulged himself with harmless little fantasies. On leaving the station she'd be accosted by some
mugger, and he would bravely see the villain off and comfort her afterwards. Or maybe she'd
stumble and break the heel on her shoe, and she'd have to lean on him as he escorted her home. All
the fantasies ended in the same way, of course, with the two of them having amazing sex on some
huge, luxurious bed. Always her place, rather than his. His place was a tip.
The train finally pulled into Bradford-on-Avon station, the carriage jerking to a halt in a series
of sudden jolts as the driver hit the brake pedal just that little bit too hard. Toby often
thought that train drivers went to a special school, where they were taught how to stop a train in
the most distressing way possible - there was no way you could be this annoying without practice.
Finally the train stopped, and everyone surged to their feet. Toby waited until the woman with the
perfect mouth had closed and neatly folded her paper and stuck it under her arm, and then he rose
to his feet as she did. They stood side by side as they waited for the automatic doors to open,
but she didn't even know he was there.
The doors opened, and a rush of passengers streamed out onto the narrow platform. Toby let the
flow carry him along, as the crowd headed for the black iron gate that was the only way out of the
station. (Being only a small station for a small town, the station building itself always closed
at midday.) The air was suddenly cool and bracing as they filed out into the car park beyond, and