"Lisa Tuttle - Ghosts and Other Lovers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tuttle Lisa)

drummer next door, but my place wasnтАЩt haunted, and his was.

IтАЩm not speaking metaphorically. There was a ghost. I saw her twice. The first time was very late at night.
I was coming back from the bathroom and saw a naked woman just ahead of me in the hall, going into
the bedroom. I screamed. When David turned on the light, I made him search the room with me. He was
first worried, then puzzled, then cross. He refused to listen to any nonsense about a ghost. I must have
been dreaming with my eyes open.

The second time I saw her she was fully clothed, a beautiful, dark-haired woman in profile by the kitchen
window early one morning as I stumbled in to make coffee. I didnтАЩt scream that time, not even when I
saw her vanish.

Although IтАЩd still never seen a photograph of her, it seemed obvious to me that the woman was Jane. I
thought it very possible that David saw her, too, and took those sightings for brief, powerful memories. I
wondered if it was his regret or undying love which summoned her spirit, or if JaneтАЩs was such a powerful
personality that she left small traces of it behind in places which had been important to her.

IтАЩd once read about a theory that ghosts were not spirits at all but simply powerful impressions left behind
by particularly strong emotions felt in that place. If you take that as an explanation of haunting, then
thereтАЩs no reason why it should be the prerogative of the dead. The living should have just as much
psychic energy and just as many reasons for using it, consciously or not.

I felt very glad that Jane didnтАЩt know me, or where I lived. I could get away from her. IтАЩve heard people
argue that ghosts arenтАЩt really scary because they canтАЩt do anything to you, and I know now that anyone
who says that ghosts arenтАЩt scary has never met a ghost. I knew she couldnтАЩt hurt me, I knew Jane
wasnтАЩt even dead, and still the prospect of ever encountering her ghost again was just about more than I
could bear. I was so grateful that I wasnтАЩt the one she haunted, that I could get away.

David wouldnтАЩt listen when I tried to tell him the truth, so I made various excuses. We argued, I was
accused of selfishness and of not caring for him, but there was no way I was going to give in. Whether he
believed it or not, I was afraid to spend the night in his flat. As a result of my stubbornness and his, we
spent fewer and fewer nights together at all.

We were drifting apart. In my concentration on Jane I failed to see that she posed no threat. I had
imagined that when he found fault with me David was comparing me unfavorably with her, and that when
he was forgetful or melancholy he must be missing her. It came as a very great shock to discover that he
had betrayed me with another woman, and that woman was not Jane.

Her name was Vanessa. He was guilty but defensive: heтАЩd felt unloved, I seemed so uninterested, I must
be seeing someone else, the way I always made excuses not to spend the night with him.

At that point, Jane was so far out of the picture for him that I knew he would believe in neither my ghost
nor my jealousy. The existence of a new woman aroused what his talk of Jane had originally stirred back
in China. I canтАЩt say that I fell in love with him again, because I no longer think IтАЩd ever fallen in love with
him, but something in my heart or my imagination moved again, and I wanted him fiercely.

He wanted me, too, although not quite enough to drop Vanessa flat. For the next few weeks London
became like China, a foreign backdrop to our internal drama. We sat for long hours in caf├йs and
restaurants IтАЩd not seen before nor been in since, drinking endless cups of tea and rolling cigarettes for
each other while we bared our souls. We were closer than weтАЩd ever been, desperate not to lose each