"Pat Murphy - Peter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Pat)

PETER
by PAT MURPHY

I went to see Wendy when I was in London. For old times' sake. It's a drag, but she expects it, and what
can I do.

"Oh, Slightly, you really are a sight," she says, and smiles as if she expects me to share the joke. "You
look so silly in that black leather jacket. And why do you have a hoop in your ear? Do you think you're a
pirate" laughs girlishly, even though she's over thirty, saddled with a kid, afflicted with a husband who's
never home.

I don't even know why I go to see her. She always insists I stay to tea and serves sweet biscuits and
fusses over her kid the whole time. She gets to me. We have what passes for conversation in her
household,

"Slightly writes for the newspaper, Jane. What do you think of that?" Wendy asks the kid. Jane looks at
me owlishly and says nothing,

"He just got back from somewhere very far away and exotic. Where was it this time, Slightly?"

"Nicaragua," I say. "I was a stringer for the Times. Covering the war. You may have heard about it?"

Can't get under her skin. She smiles sweetly and I just can't bear it. "I suppose. It's so far from our little
world here."

"Could you please call me Hank," I say, a little testily. "I really prefer it."

"Very well, dear," she says, She looks hurt but covers by busying herself with cleaning up a spot of tea
that has dripped from the teapot spout onto the oilcloth table cover. "I will."

She won't. She never remembers.

Finally, the kid goes out to play, dressed in a little pink frock trimmed with lace. Wendy herself is wearing
a housedress that looks a bit worse for wear, but the kid has to have the best. "She's such a dear,"
Wendy says, and then settles in her chair to reminisce, "I was just her age when I first flew off with
Peter."

I don't want to hear about it, but she's off and running. "Remember the lovely little house you boys made
for me? Oh, I was so happy there." And then she goes on and on, about the sweet little room under the
trees and the fun we had chasing the pirates. In her memories, she even likes Tiger Lily, the Indian
princess, though I recall at the time Wendy was quite put out by Tiger Lily's obvious interest in Peter.

Wendy's memories are all quite tidy. She remembers the sweet room beneath the trees and doesn't
remember that it stank like wood smoke half the time because the chimney didn't draw. She remembers
the jolly pirate ship and forgets the death cries of the dying pirates. The deck was slick with blood when
we were done. I remember it, even if she doesn't.

They died horribly--two in the cabin at Peter's blade. The rest on deck, mobbed by the lost boys,
harried by Peter. I didn't kill any myself, but that doesn't mean I was innocent. I carried the lantern and
called to the other boys to follow. I remember flashing the lantern in one man's face - Bill Mullins, I think