"George R. R. Martin - Portraits of His Children" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

fantasy that Cissy had left untouched, yes, certainly, what the hell had he been afraid of? They were his
own creations, his characters, his friends and family.

Of course, there was the new book to consider. Cant-ling frowned. That was a disturbing thought. But
Michelle was his daughter, she loved him, surely she wouldn't go that far. No, of course not. He put the
idea firmly aside and picked up his check.

He expected it. He was almost looking forward to it. And when he returned from his evening
constitutional, his cheeks red from the wind, his heart beating just a little faster in anticipation, it was there
waiting for him, the familiar rectangle wrapped in plain brown paper. Richard Cantling carried it inside
carefully. He made himself a cup of coffee before he unwrapped it, deliberately prolonging the suspense
to savor the moment, delighting in the thought of how deftly he'd turned Michelle's cruel little plan on its
head.

He drank his coffee, poured a refill, drank that. The package stood a few feet away. Cantling played a
little game with himself, trying to guess whose portrait might be within. Cissy had said something about
none of the characters from Family Tree or Rain being real enough. Cantling mentally reviewed his life's
work, trying to decide which characters seemed most real. It was a pleasant speculation, but he could
reach no firm conclusions. Finally he shoved his coffee cup aside and moved to undo the wrappings. And
there it was.

Barry Leighton.

Again, the painting itself was superb. Leighton was seated in a newspaper city room, his elbow resting on
the gray metal case of an old manual typewriter. He wore a rumpled brown suit and his white shirt was
open at the collar and plastered to his body by perspiration. His nose had been broken more than once,
and was spread all across his wide, homely, somehow comfortable face. His eyes were sleepy. Leighton
was overweight and jowly and rapidly losing his hair. He'd given up smoking but not cigarettes; an unlit
Camel dangled from one corner of his mouth. "As long as you don't light the damned things, you're safe,"
he'd said more than once in Cantling's novel ByeLine.

The book hadn't done very well. It was a depressing book, all about the last week of a grand old
newspaper that had fallen on bad times. It was more than that, though. Cantling was interested in people,
not newspapers; he had used the failing paper as a metaphor for failing lives. His editor had wanted to
work in some kind of strong, sensational subplot, have Leighton and the others on the trail of some huge
story that offered the promise of redemption, but Cantling had rejected that idea. He wanted to tell a
story about small people being ground down inexorably by time and age, about the inevitability of
loneliness and defeat. He produced a novel as gray and brittle as newsprint. He was very proud of it.

No one read it.

Cantling lifted the portrait and carried it upstairs, to hang beside those of Dunnahoo and Cissy. Tonight
should be interesting, he thought. Barry Leighton was no kid, like the others; he was a man of Cantling's
own years. Very intelligent, mature. There was a bitterness in Leighton, Cantling knew very well; a
disappointment that life had, after all, yielded so little, that all his bylines and big stories were forgotten the
day after they ran. But the reporter kept his sense of humor through all of it, kept off the demons with
nothing but a mordant wit and an unlit Camel. Cantling admired him, would enjoy talking to him. Tonight,
he decided, he wouldn't bother going to bed. He'd make a big pot of strong black coffee, lay in some
Seagram's, and wait.