"Oates, Joyce Carol - We Were the Mulvaneys" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oates Joyce Carol)

"Honey? It's just-me."

Marianne stood, and a book fell from her lap, noisily to the floor-Marianne's own Bible, a long-ago Christmas present to her from Corinne.

Instinctively, Corinne reached out to touch her daughter. She drew a shaky hand across Marianne's matted hair, smoothed it from her forehead. Corinne's heart was beating terribly hard now. She knew, she knew-but what did she know? Wanting to close her arms tight around her daughter, poor child, poor unhappy child, but she didn't dare. Others were watching. And Marianne, with a teenager's finesse, eluded her, groping to pick up the Bible and to gather gloves, bookbag, purse beside her on the seat. You might almost have thought, observing, that Marianne had been waiting for her mother to come by, pick her up and drive her home as she so frequently did.

"Well. Maybe we should-go?" Corinne whispered. She was smiling so hard her face seemed to her, from inside, one of those ridiculous happy faces.

Never beg any child of yours, Corinne's mother had warned her, long ago. Of all things, never that.

What a strange, unexpected remark for Ida Hausmann to have said, impulsively, to her own daughter.

As if she, Ida Hausmann, had ever begged any of her children- for anything.

Yet here Corinne was, confused, hopeful, pleading with her daughter whose vague eyes, grainy skin, windblown hair frightened her-"We'll just go home, honey? Yes?"

Going home, to High Point Farm: Corinne's remedy for any sorrow.

She was driving the Buick station wagon along streets she barely saw. Keeping up bright, nervous chatter. And the radio was on, to her favorite station-WYEW-FM out of Yewville. No point in upsetting Marianne, or herself, so she spoke gently, repeating her simple questions: What was it? Had something happened? Why wasn't Marianne in school? What was wrong?

Stiff beside her in the passenger's Seat, like a stranger in dread of being touched, Marianne seemed scarcely to hear. Her lips were dry and chapped; her skin that was always so smooth and fresh looked shadowed, a sad-tinctured skin. Puff-y eyes-she'd been crying. Of course, crying. And her hair, the child's lovely wavy hair, matted, tangled, needing to be washed-how had she ever left the house that morning, without Corinne noticing? Was Corinne blind?

To her questions, Marianne murmured, near-inaudibly, what sounded like I don't know, Morn.

Corinne asked, more daringly, "Is it about last weekend?-the prom? Did something happen at the prom-or after?"

Marianne shook her head, not emphatically but as one might shake one's head to clear it. She was hunched in the seat, her sky blue parka zipped to her chin. A wintry light, qualified by the splotched windshield, so badly in need of cleaning, made her appear diminished, child-sized. On her lap, clutched in both hands, was her plain black simulated-leather Bible, Chickadee's Bible crammed with brightly colored Sunday school cards and bookmarks.

"Did you have a-quarrel? Disagreement? With one of your friends?"-Corinne persisted. "Honey, you can tell me."

Recalling with a sensation of dismay how, the previous evening, instead of sitting down at dinner with her family, Marianne had stammered some excuse, a headache, cramps, she'd taken a bowl of cottage cheese with mashed banana up to her room, but how could Corinne know she'd actually eaten it? And that morning, rushing at the last minute, a hurried breakfast or perhaps none at all, in the conmiotion of the morning kitchen, who could tell? And what about the previous morning?

Was Corinne blind?

"Does Patrick know? I mean-that you've been missing school, and-whatever it is, that's wrong?" Corinne spoke confusedly, suddenly furious at her son. Patrick who rode the school bus into Mt. Ephraini five mornings a week with his Sister, Patrick who might have noticed she wasn't attending classes. Even granted they were in different classes, he should have known. Damn that Pinch, so wrapped up in himselfi

If Marianne replied, Corinne hadn't heard. She was approaching a railroad crossing, braked to avoid colliding with another vehicle- winced, and waved, with a contrite smile, as someone, a man (anyone she knew?-the pickup truck looked familiar) sounded his horn at her irritably. "Ohi Sorry, honey." She looked anxiously at Marianne who was turned from her, gazing sightiessly out the side window. A hurt girl, a damaged girl. A girl Corinne didn't know.

If only she'd turn to Corinne, give the slightest sign, Corinne would have seized her in her arms and held her tight.

Instead, Coriime continued driving, bumping across the Chautauqua & Buffalo track, approaching the shabby edge of downtown Mt. Ephraim without exactly knowing where she was, now saying, in her anecdotal manner, "-Lydia Bethune-you know her!-happened to mention to me-we'd run into each other in the post office-she'd seen you in the church?-where apparently she goes?-not in school-and I said, `There must be some mistake. I'm sure Marianne is at school. She never misses a day of school.' And she said-'Well, I thought you'd want to know, Corinne. I would want to know if it was my daughter.' So I said-" Corinne's voice rushed, plummeted. As if she could not stop the flow of words, as if Marianne's silence were a space that had to be filled; the interior of the station wagon (so cluttered in the rear with family debris, it was shameful) had to be filled. She heard herself say, m a wounded tone, as one might speak to a very young child, "Now what a surprise that was, Marianne: to learn about something so private-I mean, it should be pnvate, kept within the f-rnily, shouldn't it?-from a total stranger. Oh not that Lydia Bethune is a total stranger, but-"

And on and on, breathless. Trembling, her tongue absurdly numb, cold. Though the heater was on frill blast, in her face. And she was fumbling with the radio dial: the announcer's overloud phony-excited voice reading an ad (and the announcer was Ted Wintergreen she'd known back in high school: in those days a timid sallow-skinned farm boy) was distracting. Beneath the grungy overpass and up the steep potholed hill past the Blue Moon Cafe, where, years ago, when he'd just started the business, Michael used sometimes to have lunch-the Blue Moon Special, he'd joke about, kidding Corinne she should make it at home, greasy-salty hash with ketchup, a big plate of it, absolutely delicious. There was the dilapidated rear of the old Civic Center, a brownstone slated for razing, rebuilding with county funds. (The builder was a friend and associate of Michael Mulvaney's and the understanding was, Mulvaney Roofing would get the contract.) FOR SALE/LEASE signs like sprouting weeds. So many aging buildings. Even the Odd Fellows Lodge, a "historic" local mansion donated for tax purposes-shabby amid heaps of tattered snow.

Corinne turned up a backstreet, parallel with South Main. Passing from the rear (it looked as if a delivery was being made, from a big tin-colored truck) Mulvaney Roofing. Only later would Corinne realize she'd never so much as considered saying to Marianne, Shall we go see Dad?

Now on Fifth, passing the YM-YWCA with its new, spiffy fascade fronting an old stone building of the 1 940s. Corinne recalled how, a lifetime ago, when she'd been a young teenager, she'd used sometimes to swim in the dank chlorine-smelling bluish water of the Ransomville YM-YWCA pool on one of her infrequent outings in town. If you were a country girl, a farmer's daughter, you valued such outings in ways no Ransomville children did. What thrilled you-a gift from providence!-was just routine to them, taken for granted. Boring, even. Like graduating from high school (Corinne Hausmann was the first in her family), like insisting upon going to college at Fredonia (what an audacious step that had been). With a pang of sentimental, embarrassed affection Corinne saw herself hurrying along the street, a tall lanky rawboned girl with cheeks that looked perpetually windburned, bright eyes, heart brimming with excitement for-oh, everything! For life. For love. Falling in love. Marrying, and having babies.

All that, in her shyness, so doubtful of herself, Corinne Hausmann had known could never happen to her.