"Ian R. Macleod - The Summer Isles" - читать интересную книгу автора (Macleod Ian R)

that seeps from a doorway? But by the time I've blinked, it becomes nothing-an aging man's fancy: the paranoias of love
and fear.
Then quickly along Holywell where an owl calls, and onward under the plane trees to my college and my quad, to the
cool waiting sheets of my room deep in the serene heart of this ancient city.

I open my eyes next morning to the sight of my scout Christlow bearing a tray containing a steaming pot of Assam, a
rack of toast, my own special jar of marmalade. Even as the disappointments of the previous evening and the cold aches
that have suddenly started to assail my body wash over me, I still have to smile to find myself here.
"Lovely morning, sir." Christlow drifts through diamonds of sunlight to place the tray astride my lap. The circled cross
of the EA badge on his lapel winks knowingly at me. "Oh, by the way, sir. You asked me to remind you of your
appointment today."
"Appointment?"
"At ten o'clock, you were seeing your doctor. Unless, of course, you've-"
"-No. Yes." I nod in my pajamas, what's left of my hair sticking up in a grey halo, a dribble of spilt tea warming my
chin-all in all, a good approximation of an absent-minded don. "Thank you, Christlow, for reminding me."
In that scarily deferential way of his, Christlow almost bows, then retreats and closes the door. With a sound like
distant thunder, his trolley trundles off down the oak-floored corridor. And yes, I truly had forgotten my appointment.
The dust-spangled sunlight that threads my room now seems paler and my throat begins to ache as whispers of pain and
uncertainty come into my head.

Walking along High Street an hour later, I have to squeeze my way through the queue outside the Regal for the day's
first showing of Olivier's Henry V. Many, like Christlow, wear EA badges. But all ages, all types, both sexes, every age
and disability, are gathered. A mixture, most bizarrely of all, of town and gown-undergrads and workers-the two quite
separate existences that Oxford so grudgingly contains.
Beyond the junction of Alfred Street I push through the little door beside the jewelers and climb the stairs to the
surgery. The receptionist looks up without smiling, then returns to stabbing a finger at her typewriter. The posters in this
poky waiting room are like the ones you see everywhere nowadays. With Your Help We Can Win. Now Is The Time.
Join the Empire Alliance-Be a Part of the Modernist Revolution. There's a fetching painting of the towers and spires of
this great dreaming city aglow at sunset, much as I saw them yesterday. And, of course, there's John Arthur.
"Mr. Brook. Doctor Parker will see you."
I push through the doorway, blinking. Doctor Parker is totally new to me. Fresh-faced, young, and pinkly bald, he
looks, in fact, almost totally new to himself. I have no one but myself to blame for taking my chances with the National
Health Service. I could have availed myself of Doctor Reichard, who comes to our college every Wednesday to see to
us dons, and is available at most other times, since, on the basis of a stipend granted by George I in 1715, these
attendances comprise his sole professional duty. But my complaints-shortness of breath, this cough, the odd whispering
that sometimes comes upon me, the growing ache in my bones-sound all too much like the simple ravages of age. And I
nurse, also, a superstitious fear that my sexual leanings will be apparent to the trained medical eye.
"Sorry about this ah... I've only just got... ," he says as he glances down at his page-a-day calendar. Thursday 13 June
1940. The letters seem to glow, so brightly rainbowed at their edges that I wonder if this isn't some other new symptom.
"You're the ah... The columnist, aren't you? What was it? 'The Fingers of History'?"
"'Figures of History.'"
"Of course. Daily Sketch, every Saturday. Used to find it handy at school." Then another thought strikes him. "And you
knew him, didn't you? I mean, you knew John Arthur..."
"That was a long time ago."
"But what's he really like?"
I open my mouth to give my usual noncommittal reply. But it doesn't seem worth it.
"Here we are." He shuffles the X-rays into order, then leans over the file. "Um-Griffin Brooke. I thought it was
Geoffrey, and Brook without the e?"
"It's a sort of pen-name," I say, although in fact the Oxford Calendar, the door to my rooms-even the name tags
Christlow sews into my gowns-also read Geoffrey Brook. Griffin Brooke, the names I was born with, now resides only in