"Mark Morris - The Chisellers' Reunion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Mark)

confetti. I felt a right James Hunt."
Nobody responded and Conrad fell silent. As we got nearer to Seven Arches,
it seemed to rise above the green horizon, like a great stone spider
pushing itself from its lair.
And then, inevitably, we were there, at the centre of all things,
scrambling down the weed-choked bank. A stream moved sluggishly through
one of the arches, beyond which an incline led up to a secluded corner of
a park that used to be wasteland when we were kids. All we could see from
here was a bit of landscaping and a screen of trees beneath which nestled
an empty bench. There were no people around, and no sounds except for the
gurgle of water and the stealthy whisper of wind in long grass.
We passed beneath the viaduct, beneath stone walls that breathed out cold.
Despite the vast openings at either end, the through draft of air, it
always smelled under here, a damp stale sweaty smell, like a small room
after a wild party. And yet it was freezing; it was always freezing. I
hugged myself, feeling not only my skin but the muscles beneath tightening
up. Used condoms lay among the rubble on the ground like bleached slugs;
ancient beer cans rusted among the weeds. Scraps of paper clung to stalks
of long grass, occasionally fluttering like ensnared moths. And on black
walls thickly beslimed with some milky substance, graffiti swarmed,
mementoes of clandestine meetings, first fucks, teenage summers.
Nick crouched down, parting weeds. "Still here," he said.
I stood behind him and looked down. On the section of wall he had
uncovered, beneath a crude sketch of a woman performing fellatio, were our
names in yellow paint: MARK, CON, STUART, NICK.
"Hey!" shouted Conrad, waving something in the air. "Look what I've found!
A wank mag!"
We crowded round to look at the pulpy pages, at the bodies of
over-developed teenagers, oiled breasts speckled with mould. One girl was
a circus freak, tits big as coal sacks, hanging to her knees.
"Reminds me of my first wife," said Nick wistfully.
The three of us scrambled up the embankment towards the railway tracks. It
was steep and fairly treacherous, layered with smooth white stones.
Because Nick was carrying the beer and couldn't keep his balance properly,
he nearly slipped back down a couple of times, ending up on all fours as
stones rattled around him. By the time he joined Conrad and I, who were
sitting at the top with our backs to the track, looking out over the
valley, he was red and dusty and swearing a lot. He plonked himself down
beside us and grabbed himself a beer.
"Actually I think I will have one," Conrad said brightly.
"Yeah, me too," I added.
"You can both fuck off," growled Nick.
We sat there for a while, chewing the fat, trading insults, trying to hide
our increasing nervousness from each other. I was feeling Stuart's absence
keenly, and not just because of what the implications might be for the
reunion. It felt bad to be all together without Stuart. This might sound
odd, but it felt as though we were excluding him somehow, as though we'd
gone behind his back, met without telling him we were doing so. As we sat
there it got chillier and the sun started to go down. The approaching
Liverpool-Manchester train made the rails whine like an injured dog.