"Conrad Williams - The Bone Garden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Conrad)

Something black and sinuous worked itself through a bramble patch like a
thin flow of oil.
The light was too great. I would have to kill it to gain a better view.
When I came back to the window I was thinking of snakes and foxes. There
was nothing now of course, save for the grass breathing and a sudden, far
away clamour of sirens. Once I'd grown accustomed to the sounds of my new
home I slept, knowing that before long I wouldn't be able to relax without
them.
At dawn I took coffee into the garden, mildly surprised to find this was
my first visit. It was disorienting, seeing everything from this new angle
when previously, all had been observed from the window up there. The grass
was much longer than I'd believed; it stung my hands as I tried to wade
through it. I wondered what I might unearth should I change my mind and
choose to raze the lot but I didn't much care for the chatter of my
imagination as it tried to offer me answers. I drank my coffee and went up
to take a bath. Once I'd brought the water to a heat I could just about
bear I submerged myself completely, surfacing only to drape a sodden,
steaming flannel over my face. I sucked some of its scalding air into my
lungs and thought of Gran again. Recent memories were of her smothering me
in a way that everyone but me perceived as generosity and helpless love.
She'd lost her husband twice; once to a coma after a bus mashed him
against a wall and again when death finally caught up after ten years of
unsleep. She must have thought it natural for her to transfer her
attention to me, born in the year of his demise, as if she were hoping to
grasp some aspect of his character in the development of mine. Recent
nights I'd bore a hole into the ceiling with my eyes as her slippered feet
scraped in circles. A little after midnight (or sometimes as the first
bird greeted the dawn) I'd hear the creak of bedsprings as she finally
settled down but that sorrowful shuffling remained, a spiral of ghosts in
my mind. I never went up to her room to see what she was doing on those
long nights though I had plenty of ideas, many of them morbid. I
envisioned her dancing a toe-to-smooch with one of her husband's old
jackets or performing a meditative pattern of footsteps designed to suck
him back from the grave. Maybe it was as innocent as cramp or insomnia.
And though they were the more rational, I found myself believing
otherwise.
For some reason I couldn't fathom, possibly connected to the way all women
seem to possess a sensitivity for such moods, mum asked me why I shunned
Gran so. It wasn't something I did effusively; wary as I was of her I
didn't want to hurt her feelings. That mum had noticed my rejection of
her, however subtle, and mentioned it specifically, I found myself
discussing it where otherwise I might have shrugged off the allegations as
ludicrous.
'She worships you, Daniel,' she said, once we'd established that my
coolness towards her was in no way malicious.
'Why?' I didn't wait for an answer. 'I don't like her. She makes me feel,
I don't know...invaded.' That was true enough; even in my dreams I'd
sometimes see her bending over me, her face dipping in and out of shadow,
till she was able to thieve the breath from my lips and the colour from my
skin. Close enough to peel me open and tuck herself safely inside.