"China Mieville - Details" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mieville China)

hallway. They would be slumped over or reading some cheap-
looking book or swearing loudly as they waited.
There was a young Asian woman who wore a lot of makeup and
smoked obsessively. She ignored me totally. There were two drunks
who came sometimes. One would greet me boisterously and
incomprehensibly, raising his arms as if he wanted to hug me into
his stinking, stinking jumper. I would grin and wave nervously,
walk past him. The other seemed alternately melancholic and angry.
Occasionally I'd meet him by the door to Mrs. Miller's room,

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swearing in a strong cockney accent. I remember the first time I saw
him, he was standing there, his red face contorted, slurring and
moaning loudly.
"Come on, you old slag," he wailed, "you sodding old slag. Come
on, please, you cow."
His words scared me but his tone was wheedling, and I realized I
could hear her voice, Mrs. Miller's voice, from inside the room,
answering him back. She did not sound frightened or angry.
I hung back, not sure what to do, and she kept speaking, and
eventually the drunken man shambled miserably away. And then I
could continue as usual.
I asked my mother once if I could have some of Mrs. Miller's food.
She laughed very hard and shook her head. In all the Wednesdays of
bringing the food over, I never even dipped my finger in to suck it.
My mum spent an hour every Tuesday night making the stuff up.
She dissolved a bit of gelatin or cornflour with some milk, threw in
a load of sugar or flavorings, and crushed a clutch of vitamin pills
into the mess. She stirred it until it thickened and let it set in a plain
white plastic bowl. In the morning it would be a kind of strong-
smelling custard that my mother put a dishcloth over and gave me,
along with a list of any questions or requests for Mrs. Miller and
sometimes a plastic bucket full of white paint.
So I would stand in front of Mrs. Miller's door, knocking, with a
bowl at my feet. I'd hear a shifting and then her voice from close by
the door.
"Hello," she would call, and then say my name a couple of times.

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"Have you my breakfast? Are you ready?"
I would creep up close to the door and hold the food ready. I would
tell her I was.
Mrs. Miller would slowly count to three. On three, the door
suddenly swung open a snatch, just a foot or two, and I thrust the