"MacDonald, John - Travis Mcgee 07 - Darker Than Amber" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacDonald John D)

being nervous or anxious or apprehensive when I moved over onto her sun
mattress and gently shucked her out of her shorts. She made small
purring sounds, half contentment and half sleepy objection. When the
sudden awareness that it was working for her brought her wide awake she
was too far along to choke herself off with all those anxieties Charlie
had built, and when it was done she was happy enough and confident
enough to keep chuckling now and again until her breath deepened into
sleep.

I lugged her dead weight down to my master stateroom, where, many hours
later, in the orange-gold light of the morning sun coming through the
curtained portholes, she proved to herself it hadn't been a fluke.

When I put her ashore in Flamingo, she looked two years younger. Her tan
was good. She had started to fill out again. Her hands were steady and
her voice had lost the edge of shrillness. She smiled to herself quite
often. I had gotten her sister on the ship-to-shore through the Miami
Marine Operator, and the sister had driven down to Flamingo to pick her
up there. I managed to get the sister aside and tell her that if Vidge
weakened and went back to Charlie, he might well destroy her completely.
The sister, in a calm, dry, unexcited tone, said that if Vidge showed
the slightest hint of going back to that monster, she, personally, would
giftwrap Vidge and send her back to me in Lauderdale, prepaid. I guess
she noticed my alarm at that prospect.

Sure, there had been some pleasure in the missionary work, but dealing
at close range with a batch of acquired neuroses can make your ears ring
for weeks. She was a good enough memory to set up a gentle nostalgia,
but not so great that I would have gone looking for her. Most of all, I
think that my nerves were frayed by having to edit everything I said to
the lady for the ten days. I was trying to build back some morale and
independence, and the wrong comment at the wrong time would have send
Vidge tumbling back down.

You can be at ease only with those people to whom you can say any damn
fool thing that comes into your head, knowing they will respond in kind,
and knowing that any misunderstandings will be thrashed out right now,
rather than buried deep and given a chance to fester.

Vidge, like so many other mild nice people, was a natural-born victim.
Life had treated her so agreeably during her first twenty years she'd
never had to plant her feet and swing at anything just to maintain her
identity. She was loving and giving. And she would have made a
delightful permanent package for some guy able to appreciate it. Lots
of Vidges never have to find out they're victims. They land with the
right people. But when one of them has the bad luck to mate with a
Charlie, she gets gobbled up. You see them in the later years, those
vague, translucent, silent women who stand over at the edge of life,
with the nervous smile that comes and goes, and the infrequent and
apologetic cough. Charlie is the squat florid one with the loud laugh