"R. A. MacAvoy - Black Dragon 2 - Twisting the Rope" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacAvoy R A)

yellowed polish. "One's mind is her own mastery."
Elen, seated below him, made a weary gesture with all fingers spread. "Why 'her' own mastery, Ted? Is the
mind a female?"
Teddy gave her one of his very many earnest gazes. "Why shouldn't I say 'her' instead of 'his'? I used to use
'tey' for either, but so few understood, and I try very hard not to use sexist language."
"Oh, you succeed, Teddy. How you succeed!" She ran her hand absently along the pegs of her tall harp as
she spoke to Ted Poznan, but she did not look away from P├бdraig. "There is no one more politically correct
than you. Not in all California ."
Long stood up, letting Marty Frisch-Macnamara slide off his lap like a cat. He retrieved a tissue from his
jacket pocket and blew his nose, which was red. His amber-brown eyes, too, were bloodshot and he was
breathing with his mouth open. It was a miserable cold.
"Eight weeks," stated Martha Macnamara, in tones of great conviction. "It's eight weeks today since any one
of us has seen home. Remember that, everyone, and be charitable."
It looked as though the bad moment had frayed and dissipated in the general weariness, but George St. Ives
was not reconciled. He glanced at Martha, whose band this was, and then away. His gnarled, nervous fingers
played patterns against his hip. "I don't think there's anything out of line in objecting to things that destroy
ourтАж direction, here. After all, we have gone through a lot of sacrifice. The bitterness of being ignored by
critics. The full houses that still don't payтАж"
"This is not an original tune, George," said Elen. "We've done all variations, in the past eight weeks."
Martha broke in. "So George thinks I made a mistake in not trying for any really big halls. Well, maybe I did.
But it was a decision I had to make a lot of months ago. And may I say it's better to sell out a little hall than
sit like little toads in a big empty pond. And this tour will make all I predicted."
"Even if we don't find the missing cash from last night?" asked Teddy.
Long cleared a phlegmy throat. "That is my responsibility."
Martha pointed a monishing finger at him. "You will not make that up out of your own pocket! It's fortunes of
the road."
"And I am the road manager."
"But I am the high mucky-muck herself, and I sayтАФ"
St. Ives raised his voice. "Enough! I was not talking about money. If I wanted money, I'd be in a very different
line of work. I want my music to be heard. This year. Tonight. Life is uncertain and all the old arts are
breathing their last at once. Here we are, a few who know what's being-lost. I had hopedтАж We might haveтАж"
Almost everyone looked away from St. Ives. Many sighed. Marty wiggled.
If he noticed this lack of enthusiasm, it only made him more determined to speak. "Not that the music we
play is in any sense correct by Celtic traditional standards: how could it be, with Pozzy on a Spanish guitar,
Sully with his nineteenth-century German transverse flute, and then of course the squeeze-box: a
factory-made sealed package of Victorian origin, which one can neither tune nor repairтАж" St. Ives paused in
sorrowful consideration of the weaknesses of the button accordion. "But hey! We don't have to court the
modern audience with bizarre clothing."
Martha scratched her scalp with both hands until her gray hair hobbled up and down. She looked very
bothered. "George, if we followed your ideas of what was traditional, there would be no one up there but you
on the pipes."
He appeared to consider that. "No. I'm willing to. grant that the harp is traditional to Celtic music."
"Thanks, George, but I doubt I have the strength to endure your approval," drawled Elen. She put the
instrument in question protectively onto her shoulder and continued tuning.
"Then be at ease, Miss Evans. I said the harp, not the harp player. There is nothing more traditional in your
musicianship than in, say, Ravel." He rubbed one heavy-knuckled hand over his eyes and winced at some
private ache.
With an unnaturally innocent expression, Elen Evans looked around her. "La! Ah believe Ah have been
insulted!" She met P├бdraig's eye.
Perhaps her glance was merely languid, and it was P├бdraig's own hurt he read into it. But ├У S├║illeabh├бin,