"Ian R. Macleod - Grownups" - читать интересную книгу автора (Macleod Ian R)

naked waist. He waded out clumsily, falling on hands and knees. He crouched to
wash himself clean in a cool eddy where the water met the shore, then shook like a
dog. He grabbed his shorts from the branch of a dead willow and hauled them on.

тАЬWhy didnтАЩt you just come?тАЭ Bobby asked. тАЬYou must have known it was
time. The docтАЩs waiting at home to give you your tests.тАЭ

Tony slicked back his hair. They both stared at the ground. The river still
dripped from TonyтАЩs chin, made tiny craters in the sand. Bobby noticed that Tony
hadnтАЩt shaved, which was a bad sign in itself. Out on the river, the raft suddenly
bobbed free, floating high on the quick current.

Tony shook his head. тАЬNever did that when I was on it. Seemed like a great
idea, you know? Then you spend the whole summer trying to pole out of the mud.тАЭ

Around them, the bank was littered with the spoor of summer habitation. The
blackened ruin of a bonfire, stones laid out in the shape of a skull, junkfood
wrappers, an old flap of canvas propped up like a tent, ringpull cans and cigarette
butts, a solitary shoe. Bobby had his own friendsтАФhis own special placesтАФand he
came to this spot rarely and on sufferance. But still, he loved his brother, and was
old enough to have some idea of how it must feel to leave childhood behind. But he
told himself that most of it had gone already. Tony was the last; Pete and Maggie
and the McDonald twins had grown up. Almost all the others too. That left just Trev
Lee, who had locked himself in the bathroom and swallowed a bottle of bleach
whilst his parents hammered at the door.

Tony made a movement that looked as though it might end in a hug. But he
slapped BobbyтАЩs head instead, almost hard enough to hurt. They always acted tough
with each other; it was too late now to start changing the rules.
 They followed the path through the still heat of the woods to the main road. It
was midday. The shimmering tarmac cut between yellow fields toward town.
Occasionally, a car or truck would appear in the distance, floating silent on heat
ghosts before the roar and the smell suddenly broke past them, whipping dust into
their faces. Bobby gazed at stalking pylons, ragged fences, the litter-strewn edges of
the countryside; it was the map of his own childhood. It was TonyтАЩs tooтАФbut Tony
only stared at the verge. It was plain that he was tired of living on the cliff-edge of
growing up.

Tony looked half a grownup already, graceful, clumsy, self-absorbed. He
hadnтАЩt been his true self through all this later part of the summer, or at least not since
Joan Trackett had grown up. Joan had a fierce crop of hair and protruding eyes; she
had come to the area with her parents about six years before. Bobby knew that she
and Tony had been having sex since at least last winter and maybe before. HeтАЩd
actually stumbled across them one day in spring, lying on a dumped mattress in the
east fields up beyond the garbage dump, hidden amid the bracken in a corner that
the farmer hadnтАЩt bothered to plough. Tony had chased him away, alternately
gripping the open waist-band of his jeans and waving his fists. But that evening Tony
had let Bobby play with his collection of model cars, which was a big concession,
even though Bobby knew that Tony had mostly lost interest in them already. They
had sat together in TonyтАЩs bedroom that smelled of peppermint and socks. I guess