"Robert Rankin - Knees Up Mother Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robert Rankin)

his bed to a day where things were already beginning to happen.
Jim's awakenings, for indeed these were in the plural, had about them a
deliberate quality, a certain restraint, a cautiousness, a subtlety. These were
not the sudden springings into consciousness of those dragged into the world
of work by the clarion call of the alarm clock. Jim had long ago discarded his.
These were more the gentle easings into wakefulness associated chiefly with
the idle rich. Although it must be said that the idle rich are generally
introduced to the new day by the butler drawing the curtains, or by a young
woman skilled in those arts which amuse men doing pleasant things to them
beneath the silken sheets.
Jim was not one of the idle rich.
Jim was one of the idle poor.
Although to Jim's credit, he was rarely ever idle. Jim was of that order
known collectively and depreciatingly as "the ranks of the unemployed", which
is to say that he did not hold any regular employment. Jim was not, however, a
"dole-queue scrounger". Queueing for anything was not in Jim's nature and
the local labour exchange had long ago given up on Jim and withdrawn his
dole cheque accordingly.
Jim would, if asked, have described himself as an entrepreneur. Which
was a good word and covered, as many other good words do, a multitude of
sins. Not that Jim would ever have considered himself a sinner. For he had so
very few vices.
He was basically honest, loyal to his friends and lies sprang but rarely to
his lips. He was a "chancer" and a "bit of a lad" and a "rough diamond" and
many other things besides, but he was not a bad man. Jim was a good man.
A good unemployed man and one with a stinking hangover.
Jim did plaintive mewings and some groanings, too, for good measure.
Sunlight of the day where things were already beginning to happen elbowed
its way with difficulty into Jim's bedroom, negotiating the unwashed windows,
the unwashed nets and the whoever-washes-them-anyway bedroom curtains.
The light that triumphed over these difficult negotiations fell in a wan pool
upon the face of Jim Pooley.
A good face, a basically honest face, a young and, some might say, a
handsome face. A face with clear blue eyes, an aquiline nose, a merry mouth
loaded with fine white teeth, a decent pair of cheekbones and a chin that, if it
lacked for a certain determination, amply made up for it with an abundance of
pre-shave stubble. The hair of Jim was dark and brown, and his limbs were
long and lean.
The eyes of Jim did squintings and focusings and takings in of the new day
and then the mouth of Jim did smilings. Another day, another challenge,
another chance to succeed. The hangover would soon depart with the coming
of breakfast and Pooley, unfailingly cheerful, would get stuck into the day.
Of Jim's rooms, what might be said? Well, mostly they were dry. They
were sparsely furnished in a manner not to Jim's taste, but as these were
rented rooms of the furnished persuasion, there was little he could do about it.
These rooms were not so clean as they might have been, which is to say as
clean as they might have been, if Jim had chosen to clean them. These were
unkempt rooms, small and unkempt rooms: a bedroom, a kitchenette and
something that loosely resembled a bathroom, if you didn't look too closely at
it.