"Charles Stross - Merchant princes 01 - The Family Trade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

provide both, it was her adoptive mother.
Iris Beckstein lived alone in her old house near Lowell Park. Miriam felt
obscurely guilty about visiting her during daytime working hours. Iris never
tried to mother her, being content to wander around and see to her own quiet
hobbies most of the time since Morris had died. But Miriam also felt guilty
about not visiting Iris more often. Iris was convalescent, and the possibility
of losing her mother so soon after her father had died filled her with dread.
Another anchor was threatening to break free, leaving her adrift in the world.
She parked the car in the road, then made a dash for the front doorтАФthe rain was
descending in a cold spray, threatening to turn to penetrating sheetsтАФand rang
the doorbell, then unlocked the door and went in as the two-tone chime echoed
inside.
"Ma?"
"Through here," Iris called. Miriam entered, closing the front door. The hallway
smelled faintly floral, she noticed as she shed her raincoat and hung it up: The
visiting home help must be responsible. "I'm in the back room."
Doors and memories lay ajar before Miriam as she hurried toward the living room.
She'd grown up in this house, the one Morris and Iris had bought back when she
was a baby. The way the third step on the staircase creaked when you put your
weight on it, the eccentricities of the downstairs toilet, the way the living
room felt cramped from all the bookshelvesтАФthe way it felt too big, without Dad.
"Ma?" She pushed open the living room door hesitantly.
Iris smiled at her from her wheelchair. "So nice of you to visit! Come in! To
what do I owe the pleasure?"
The room was furnished with big armchairs and a threadbare sofa deep enough to
drown in. There was no televisionтАФneither Iris nor Morris had time for itтАФbut
there were bookcases on each wall and a tottering tower of paper next to Iris's
chair. Miriam crossed the room, leaned over, and kissed Iris on top of her head,
then stood back. "You're looking well," she said anxiously, hoping it was true.
She wanted to hug her mother, but she looked increasingly frailтАФonly in her
fifties, but her hair was increasingly gray, and the skin on the backs of her
hands seemed to be more wrinkled every time Miriam visited.
"I won't breakтАФat least, I don't think so. Not if you only hug me." Iris
grimaced. "It's been bad for the past week, but I think I'm on the mend again."
The chair she sat in was newer than the rest of the furniture, surrounded by the
impedimenta of invalidity: a little side trolley with her crochet and an
insulated flask full of herbal tea, her medicines, and a floor-standing lamp
with a switch high up its stem. "Marge just left. She'll be back later, before
supper."
"That's good. I hope she's been taking care of you well."
"She does her best." Iris nodded, slightly dismissively. "I've got physiotherapy
tomorrow. Then another session with my new neurologist, Dr. BurkeтАФhe's working
with a clinical trial on a new drug that's looking promising and we're going to
discuss that. It's supposed to stop the progressive demyelination process, but I
don't understand half the jargon in the report. Could you translate it for me?"
"Mother! You know I don't do that stuff any moreтАФI'm not current; I might miss
something. Anyway, if you go telling your osteopath about me, he'll panic. I'm
not a bone doctor."
"Well, if you say so." Iris looked irritated. "All that time in medical school
wasn't wasted, was it?"