"James Lovegrove - The House Of Lazarus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lovegrove James)

merest drop of noise, but to his mother, in the dark, cramped confines of
her mind, it must have sounded like he was bellowing.
>And what's that remark supposed to mean?<
"Nothing, Mum," Joey said softly. "Nothing at all. I'm sorry."
>What is it, Joey? What's wrong with you? We always start out chatting so
nicely, and then I say something, I don't know what, but something, and
all of a sudden you're shouting at me, and I don't know what it is I've
done, I don't know what it is I say, but I wish you'd tell me, Joey, I
wish you'd tell me what it is I do that makes you so angry.<
"It's nothing, Mum. Honest. Look, I've had a long day, that's all. I get a
little snappish sometimes." He decided not to tell her about the bar job.
She would only worry that he was taking on too much, and if, with her
acute sense of what was proper and what was not, she thought working for
TeleStore Services was bad, what would she have to say about serving
drinks in a glorified pick-up joint?
>Yes, wellЕ< she said. >I'm sorry, too. But you must understand, it gets
very lonely in here. Very, very lonely. It's just me in the dark, and
you're my lifeline to the world, Joey. You're all that makes the solitude
bearable. If it wasn't for your visits, I don't know what I'd do. Go mad,
I expect. If I didn't know that you were coming, if I didn't know that you
were going to visit me again soonЕ<
"I will, Mum. I promise. And I won't leave it so long next time."
"That's the best I can hope for, I suppose. Off you go then, Joey. Thanks
for dropping by. It was lovely talking. Come back when you can. Ha ha нн
I'm not going anywhere.<
"All right, Mum. Take care."
>Bless you, Joey.<
"Goodnight, Mum. Sleep tight."
He removed the headset, pushed the blue switch to "Disconnect", and sat
there for a while, listening to the hum of the electric tombs of fifty
thousand slumbering men, women and children, his skin tingling with the
icy chill that emanated from the wall of steel drawers, until the orderly
arrived with his portable console to shut down Joey's mother's brain and
send her back to sleep.

The receptionist presented Joey with a bill to sign.
"I took the liberty of adding the rent for this quarter. Seeing as it's
due in a couple of days, I thought it wouldn't hurt."
It did. Joey winced at the figure at the bottom of the slip of paper.
"I'm not sure my credit's up to this," he said. "I can afford the
conversation OK. I just wasn't expecting the rest."
The receptionist's smile of a lifetime's affinity lost perhaps a
fortnight, but no more than that.
"That's fine," she said. "I just thought it would be easier this way. You
do, of course, have a month to come up with the rent, although I should
remind you that failure to settle the account by the end of that period
could result in your contract being declared void and your mother being
decommissioned."
"I know," Joey said, returning the bill to her.
"I just thought I should remind you," the receptionist said, and tore up