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

Beside her in the dark Michael began suddenly to laugh- hoarse, wheezing laughter so the old wickerware bed creaked as if laughing, too. Connne lay stricken in dismay amid such merry laughter she could not join.

Sometime after midnight, then, groggily aware of Michael easing from bed. She sighed, turned, shut her eyes tight, pretending to be asleep, yes she was asleep, burrowed in sleep as in salvation.

She would find him in the flimily room. Or the kitchen. Or his office. If she looked. She'd discover an empty Early Times bottle in the trash, beer conspicuously missing from the refrigerator. If she looked Probably there'd be an empty glass somewhere on the floor, tipped on its side: Michael wasn't troubling to hide his tracks, much, any longer. Too angry, and since anger wears you out, too exhausted.

Her worst fear: the telephone ringing.

At 12:50 A.M., and Michael not home.

It was late April, after Easter. Corinne was in bed upstairs, propped up with pillows, too anxious to sleep; reading, or trying to read, one of

Patrick's science magazines. Though every cell and nerve ending in her brain quivered with wakeflilness, she could not concentrate on a passage she'd read, reread how many times.... No evidetwe either in the living world of today or of past geological epochs for a continuous transition of species... what we artually find are separate and weU-distinguished species

intermediate stages from one species to another which should he found are nOt met with. The worlds of organisms, living and extinct, do not represent a continuum but a discontinuum. -.. Certain conditions of stability exist not only for the individual genes -ut alsofc-rgenOmeS A "species" represents a state in which a hannoniously stabilized "genetic halan-e" has been. established, that is... Thinking of Marianne who was so deeply unhappy at school. Yet never spoke of it. Poor Marianne with so few friends now, few telephone calls, and all that visiting the girls had done back and forth at one another's houses----sUdde1ilY, for Marianne, all that had ceased as if it had never been. She'd quit the cheerleading squad, rarely attended club meetings or her Christian Youth meetings. Her grades had dropped to C's but seemed to have levelled off. She was happiest at church, so far as Corinne could judge. Singing hymns in her thin, sweet soprano voice-"Rock of Ages," Corinne's Livorite hymn of all time, was Marianne's, too. It was the only public place she felt comfortable: the First Church of Christ of South Lebanon was a one-room foursquare white-shingled church miles from Mt. Ephraim; the congregation was mostly country people; no one knew the Mulvaneys except as relatively new churchgoers, Corinne Mulvaney and her three children. Corinne drove to church in the mud_splattered rust_speckled Buick station wagon with the bumper sticker 4-H: HEAD HMirl' HANDS HEALTH and. on a rear window, a frayed decal FUTURE FARMERS o- AMERICk 1974. No one would have judged her the wife of a prosperous businessman, or, maybe, anyone's wife at all. If there was a Mr. Mulvaney, no one had ever sighted him in South Lebanon, nor would.

It was a tenet of the First Church of Christ not to judge one's brothers and sisters in Christ. Let him that is without sin first cast a stone.John 8.

Corinne knew she was neglecting her sons. The youngest especially-poor Judd! Babyface, DimpleRaflger. She loved the boy but hardly dared hug him, now he was thirteen. A quiet, good-natured child, all but lost in the ferocity of Mulvaney family life; he'd stopped asking about Marianne, stopped asking about his father. Only a phase Corinne would tell him. God sends us son-ow sometimes to strengthen us.

Do I believe that? Corinne wondered.

Of course, I believe. I must.

Then there was Patrick. Haughty P.J.! The child least like either of his parents. It was a mystery to Corinne how Patrick continued to accompany her to church services at the little South Lebanon church, now he was eighteen years old, a tall, restless, skeptical- minded young man. "Monosyllables of wisdom" Patrick cruelly and wittily described their minister's sweetly simple sermons. The congregation he called "the flock"-if you know animals, you know there's nothing dumber, less attractive, than an adult sheep. As a boy he'd tried to take part in hymn singing but now he seemed merely to be mouthing the words, his mind elsewhere. He was visibly embarrassed when "witnesses for Christ" came forward; lie shuffled to the communion rail with an expressionless face, like a stoical child taking his medicine. His participation in "clasping of hands in Christ" was distinctly less than enthusiastic. Yet, he continued to accompany his mother, sister and younger brother to church; it was their custom for Patrick to drive the Station wagon home, so that Corinne could sit quietly beside him, fingers to her eyes, adrift, her soul almost palpably buoyed by the love ofJesus Christ she'd taken into her heart anew. Patrick was being, Corinne guessed, a good son. Mom's good son. Acquitting himself dutifully and with a measure of good humor, just possibly counting the days until he left High Point Farm for college and could leave his Christian faith behind. It worried Corinne terribly, but-well, she just knew!

What her sensitive, easily offended son was thinking about it, what experiences he was having at the high school in the wake of it, Corinne shrank from imagining. She knew what adolescent boys could be like-what cruelty, dirty-mindedness, mockery of those perceived as weaker, or as outsiders. Yes, and girls, too! The cruelty of the barnyard: how chickens peck fiercely, relentlessly at an afflicted chicken in their midst, pecking to the raw flesh, seeking blood. She supposed Patrick must suffer as Michael Sr. suffered. She supposed he couldn't help but overhear remarks about his sister and Zachary Lundt; he'd have to see the Lundt boy every day, Mt. Ephraim High was so small, only a few hundred students. Yet he was managing, he was quiet but resolute. If he shared his innermost thoughts with anyone, it was no longer Mom.

As for Mike-eldest son, firstborn baby, so grown. Mikey-Junior who'd turned twenry-one-----no: twenty-two--last month. Corinne had been stunned by Mike's abrupt decision to leave home and live in Mt. Ephraim, just at the time of his birthday. But why? Corinne had asked, for to her High Point Farm was paradise, and why would one leave paradise willingly? Mike said, Well, it's time. Corinrie asked again, But why? and Mike said, shifting his shoulders restively, clenching and anclenching his fists, It makes sense to live where you work, right? and Corinne said, Yes but you could ride in with Dad instead of driving in yourselL the way you used to-how can that be a reason? and Mike laughed and said, Mom, you just don't get it, and Corinne said, hurt, I guess I don't. Michael Sr. didn't approve of the sudden decision, either. Why the hell did Mike want to move to town, to an apartment! A mere apartment. And in a cheaply flashy stucco building in the new Riverdale section of Mt. Ephraini where the Mulvaneys knew no one. Corinne tried for a lighter tone, teasing Mike about how he'd prepare his own meals?-for Mike was the biggest eater of the Mulvaneys, always huti-y. Mike said with a shrug he'd eat in restaurants mostly. and Corinne said, chiding, Restaurant meals!-they aren't very nourishing, and they're expensive. And Mike said, in that winking way he had with his mom, as if there were a subtext to their conversation she hadn't been getting, Hey Mom: it all depends upon the restaurant.

All depends upon the restaurant.

It was then, waking Corinne from sleep, the telephone rang close beside the bed.

But she hadn't been asleep-had she?

Fumbling to lift the receiver, the palm of her hand already damp with panicky sweat, she knew, just knew it must be bad news.

"Corinrie? Hey sorry-did I wake you? It's-"

The voice was familiar, gratingly-Conflne recognized it even as she struggled to comprehend what she was being told.

1-law Hawley. At Wolf s Head Lake. Calling to say that Michael had had an "accident""Nothing too serious, but he shouldn't be driving tonight. We thought we'd better let you know, so you wouldn't worry-"

Corinne was already out of bed. "Is he hurt?"

"Hurt?"-as if the idea hadn't occurred to Haw. "Well-not really. I mean, he's mainly sleeping. We put him in one of the rooms, in bed."

"I'll come get him," Corinne said.