"Ian Watson - The FireWorm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watson Ian)

ankles in filthy water. They bring in a table, hold him down with a mattress тАФ then they jab a red-hot
cooking rod up his bottom.тАЭ

тАЬThat must hurt.тАЭ Ted felt sick. Another image had arrived to join the crane in nightmare land, one which
he knew his mind would dwell on.

тАЬMaybe we could read a bit of it together, another week? Act it out? ItтАЩs terribly good.тАЭ

тАЬYes,тАЭ said Ted.

They descended the far flight of steps and headed through streets of houses, each with a tiny walled front
flower garden, most with stained-glass panes above the doors. From a number of chimneys identical
aerials rose in the form of a large capital тАЬHтАЭ. Those homes, unlike TedтАЩs or GavinтАЩs, boasted television
sets. The тАЬHтАЭ reminded Ted of H-bomb.

тАЬPow!тАЭ he exclaimed, and made a noise like rolling thunder.

Beyond those streets was a large, tree-dark park with bowling green and pet cemetery as prelude, and a
soot-blackened institution set within iron railings as finale. The old workhouse, from Victorian times, was
still tenanted by aged paupers, mostly ailing. Some of the residents were sitting on park benches,
passively. A few stood watching the bowling, over a low hedge. The players тАФ more prosperous
pensioners in white Panama hats and club blazers тАФ ignored their derelict audience of shabby overcoats.

Ted wondered whether any work was performed in the grim building known as the workhouse. He
imagined old women knitting sweaters for sale to Norwegian sailors, old men whittling wooden boats, or
maybe sewing mailbags. HeтАЩd heard that husbands and wives were kept separate inside, spent the nights
in separate phlegm-racked dormitories. Only when they were let out could a married couple meet.

Presently Ted and Gavin came abreast of a hunched figure in greatcoat and cloth cap shuffling slowly
along. This Methuselah with rheumy red eyes held a huge vile handkerchief at chest level to catch a
constant string of grey gluey drool proceeding from lips or nostrils; Ted couldnтАЩt bear to look more
closely. He had passed this fellow on other occasions and presumed that he and his like were the reason
why this park, which dropped away steeply to the south down a leafy ravine with cascading stream in the
direction of the fish quay, was known as Spittal Dene. On account of the sputum.
Soon they were in sight, over treetops, of the roofs along the river bank: those of shipsтАЩ chandlers which
supplied the trawlers, of wholesale fish merchants, the smelly guano works which manufactured fertilizer
from tons of imported bird droppings, the Jungle Arms public house ill-famed for Saturday night fights,
and Hood HaggieтАЩs rope factory, staffed mostly by notorious women.

Gavin also was staring at the roof of the rope factory. He licked his lips.

тАЬDo you know what Brian Gibbon in my class heard happened at Hood HaggieтАЩs last month? There was
a new supervisor on the job тАФ a young chap. The women pulled his trousers down and fitted an empty
milk bottle over his cock. Then they pulled their skirts up over their waists to excite him.тАЭ Gavin was
sweating, nauseated and excited. тАЬHis cock swelled up stiff inside the milk bottle, and wouldnтАЩt go down
again. He had to go to hospital in a van to get the bottle off. You know about cocks swelling up, do
you?тАЭ

Ted nodded.