"Karl Glogaver - 02 - Breakfast In The Ruins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

Breakfast in the Ruins
The Sequel to "Behold the Man"
Michael Moorcock

1
In The Roof Garden: 1971: Scarlet Sin Commonwealth immigrants to Britain were 22
per cent down in April. There were 1,991 compared with 2,560 in April last
year.

THE GUARDIAN, June 25, 1971.

WHEN in doubt, Karl Glogauer would always return to Derry and Toms. He would
walk down Kensington Church Street in the summer sunshine, ignoring the
boutiques and coffee shops, until he reached the High Street. He would pass the
first of the three great department stores which stood side by side to each
other, stern and eternal and bountiful, blotting out the sky, and would go
through the tall glass doors of the second store, Derry's. The strongest of the
citadels.

Weaving his way between the bright counters, piled with hats and silks and paper
flowers, he would reach the lifts with their late art nouveau brass work and he
would take one of them up to the third floor - a little journey through time,
for here it was all art deco and Cunard style pastel plastics which he could
admire for their own sake as he waited for the special lift which would come and
bear him up into the paradise of the roof garden.

The gate would open to reveal something like a small conservatory in which two
pleasant middle-aged ladies stood to greet the new arrivals and sell them, if
required, tea-towels, postcards and guide books. To one of these ladies Karl
would hand his shilling and stroll through into the Spanish Garden where
fountains splashed and well-tended exotic plants and flowers grew. Karl had a
bench near the central fountain. If it was occupied when he arrived, he would
stroll around for a while until it was free, then he would sit down, open his
book and pretend to read. The wall behind him was lined with deep, airy cages.
Sometimes these cages were completely deserted but at other times they would
contain a few parrots, parakeets, canaries, cockatoos, or a mynah bird.
Occasionally pink flamingos were present, parading awkwardly about the garden,
wading through the tiny artificial streams. All these birds were, on the whole,
decently silent, almost gloomy, offering hardly any reaction to the middle-aged
ladies who liked to approach them and coo at them in pathetic, sometimes
desperate, tones.

If the sunshine were warm and the number of visitors small Karl would sit in his
seat for the best part of a morning or an afternoon before taking his lunch or
tea in the roof garden restaurant. All the waitresses knew him well enough to
offer a tight smile of recognition while continuing to wonder what a slightly
seedy looking young man in an old tweed jacket and rumpled flannels found to
attract him in the roof garden. Karl recognized their puzzlement and took
pleasure in it.