"Gwyneth Jones - A North Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Gwyneth)

Sheridan takes a walk in the lichen-gnarled oak wood by the shore, in the
company of a ten-year-old girl. Not the daughter of the B&B, another little girl. He
shows her things that she has never known, and tells her the names of flowers and
trees which have merely been flowers, trees, to the barren little mind of the modern
peasant. Here's a wood ants' nest, a treacle-brown heap of sifted soil that looks like
a small grave: but when you take a second glance the grave is heaving. "Did you
know," says Sheridan, "that ants are farmers?" They lie down together, the tall man
and the little girl, in the leaf-litter and watch an ant-shepherd teasing a drop of nectar
from the pointed belly of one of its aphid charges.
 "Holy Jesus God," says the little girl. "It's like a science-fiction film."
"The weak are here to justify the strong," says Sheridan, stroking a drop from
another insect with a pointed grassblade, to show how easy it is to milk this crop.
"Jesus," says the little girl, peering intently. "If they were bigger, it would be like a
horror movie." She sighed. "Yez knows a lot. It's like talking to the Internet."
"Shall I take your picture now?"
The little girl thinks maybe she ought to run. But she doesn't.


Camilla and Noreen walk by the shore, Noreen pushing a stoutly built tartan
upholstered buggy ahead of her. It's what passes for a fine summer day on the west
coast of Ireland. There are cars ranked in the car park, battalions of windbreaks;
very few foreign tourists. Camilla's thinking of her glimpses of native life before this
providential halt. Shovel-faced young women marching along lanes where only
tractors and tourists ply, with the baby in the buggy: and you wonder, where is she
going? You wonder what kind of life is it she leads. You want to touch her. Now
Camilla is in the picture. She has penetrated to the heart of the alien world, It's
always a thrill, however often repeated.
She has seen Noreen's husband briefly. A kitchen monster, sitting at the table,
knife and fork in either fist, red impassive slab of a face. My God, to lie under that,
while it silently prods children into youтАж ! But she keeps such thoughts to herself,
tucks her arm in Noreen's arm and recounts her adventures as a world traveller,
long-haul traveller. The pyramids at Giza, the restaurants of New York. Wise
insights. "In West Africa, in the market in Foumban, beside the earth-walled palace
of the sultans, did you know you will only find Dutch printed cotton?"
"Is that a fact? Would there not be any native handicrafts there?"
"Noreen, it's a big lie that the colonial powers went to Africa and Asia to plunder
the natural resources. That was an afterthought. They went to force new markets for
their goods. To sell, not to buy. It's the same with tourists, did you ever think of
that? They don't come to see, they come to be looked at. Did you ever think of
that?"
"I did not!" said Noreen, blinking in bewilderment. "Oh, but I could never call
you a tourist, Cam. Ye're much more than that to me." Shyly, she clasped Camilla's
arm to her well-nourished flank. (The pleasure lies in knowing that it will go no
further. There will be no consequences, because Camilla isn't staying. Tastes and
smells, moments of intensity, never a bill presented.)
They walked on, Noreen silenced for a little by her own outburst. "You know,"
she said, after a moment or two, "I'm worried about this bug that's going round.
Some folk are keeping the children in. D'ye think I should keep them indoors?"