"Tim Lebbon - The Repulsion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lebbon Tim)

ago -- this plea would have stirred him in other ways. Now it merely made
him afraid.
They went up in the rickety lift and Maria waited for Dean to unlock the
door. She leant against the wall in the hallway, fingers splayed against
the cold plaster as if reading its history. She did not even undress
before flopping onto the bed and stretching her way into a deep sleep.
Dean opened the doors and went out onto the balcony. The thought of going
inside and lying next to Maria, perhaps naked, perhaps with love in mind,
now seemed alien and foolish. However much he tried to convince himself
otherwise, their relationship was still a shadow of its former self, and
coming here could have been a big mistake. If there had been some serious
misdemeanour it would be simpler, but in reality it was simply a matter of
things growing stale. Neither of them wanted to be the one to finally pull
the plug.
He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and watched the smoke haze away in the
dark, picked up briefly by the lights from the harbour. It was a noisy
night in Amalfi, straining scooter motors underlying the aimless car horns
that seemed to spring out of nowhere, and unknown conversations were
shouted through the dark. He could sense rather than see bats jerking
about in the night, dipping and weaving like points of black light thrown
from a negative torch. From inside he heard the toilet gurgling its
displeasure at someone flushing elsewhere in the hotel. Outside again, a
splash as something fell into, or jumped out of the water down below,
confident of safety under cover of night.
He stood to go to the loo. The cigarette had burned down and fused itself
to his two fingers, but he felt no pain. In the bathroom Maria stood
before the full length mirror, naked, a breast in each hand. Her nipples
were pink and risen, as if recently pinched.
"Have you ever come face to face with yourself?" she asked, turning to
look at him. Seconds later her reflection followed suit. Its eyes were not
her eyes. They were eyes painted by a bad artist, unable to follow him
around the room, shallow and soulless. "Am I asleep?" the reflection said.
"I've pinched, but I don't wake up."
A pain in his fingers pinched Dean and jerked him from sleep, and for a
couple of seconds he did not even know which country he was in. He dropped
the cigarette butt and stomped it to death, hissing as he felt the blister
already rising on his index finger. Shaking, he went in from the balcony
and shut the doors, locking out the night. Maria was naked on the bed,
covers screwed around her waist. Her nipples were soft and pink.
After running cool water over his fingers Dean stripped and climbed into
bed next to Maria. There was no warmth to share with her; not because she
was cold, but because he could not imagine cuddling as they once had.

The next day they were booked on a boat trip to Capri; Dean had thought
that exploring together may encourage sparks from the dying embers of
their love. Now, the most he could hope for was a smile for old times. And
he realised, in a moment of shocking clarity, that he really didn't know
Maria that well at all. He was unaware of her past, other than what she
had chosen to tell him. If she had problems, maybe he had not even
discovered them yet. If she had always wanted to come here, and she did