"C" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCarthy Tom)

ii

In a room to the side of this one, Schoolroom Two, Simeon’s son Serge spends what he has been told in passing, although only by the maid, is his second-and-a-half birthday playing with wooden blocks. He sits on a floor which, unlike the bare wooden floor of Schoolroom One, is muffled by a rug. Morning sunshine falls in a long beam through the bow-window, vaults the cosy recess seat that runs along the inside of the window’s curve and comfortably lands among the rug’s curling hairs; rising from these, it hovers in jars and bottles in which labelled toys-horses, cars, clowns and acrobats-are stashed. More labels, unattached to objects, spill from a low table to spread a debris of words across the floor.

The wooden blocks have geometric figures painted on them, like numbers on dice: squares, triangles, circles and other, more complex forms. On a single side of each block (the side that, were they dice, would bear the number six), several of these figures have been combined so as to form a picture-of a cyclist, a house, a hippopotamus or a magician pulling a rabbit from his hat, for instance. Serge has stacked the magician above the cyclist and, above that, a butcher who clutches a knife in one hand and a string of sausages in the other, holding them up for inspection much as the magician does his rabbit. The figures all appear in profile, flat; the landscape across which the cyclist rides, made up of rectangles and segments, is as shallow as the round wheels above which his trapezoid body sits-as though, even within the painted world of the block’s surface, he were no more than a cardboard cut-out posed in front of a piece of stage-scenery. Serge ponders the combination for a while, then, holding cyclist and magician in place, removes the butcher and replaces him with the large, round hippopotamus, who wallows, again in profile, in an elliptic pool of mud. Serge holds this new vertical line-up together while he contemplates it; then, deciding it’s satisfactory, he removes his hands from the stack. As soon as he does, it starts to wobble, the combined weight of hippo, mud, rabbit and magician proving too much for the beleaguered cyclist, who’s further let down by the soft, uneven surface underneath his wheels. As the blocks tumble, rhombi, trapezia and deltoids flash and disappear in a frantic progression, spreading out across the rug.

Serge looks up at the window, then at a whiteboard on whose surface more geometry is displayed: rows of round shapes with lines inside them have been drawn on it. The shapes modulate as they repeat, their curves narrowing or widening, their lines arcing and flexing as they process across the glass. Looking down again, Serge turns his attention to a toy soldier who’s been resting until now against his thigh. Picking the soldier up, he holds him to his face. The soldier’s eyes are neutral, gazing off into the middle distance; his mouth is set in a calm, still expression that contains the tiniest hint of a smile. Serge lays the soldier front-up on the rug, smoothing its hairs aside to form an enclave for the back to nestle in. The thick fibres thread and wrap around the soldier’s sides. Serge reaches for one of the wooden blocks and, lifting it up above the soldier, slams it down hard onto his face. The soldier’s legs and feet jolt upwards as the comparatively huge slab hits him. Serge draws the block back, then slams it down onto the soldier’s face again; then again, several times. When he’s done smashing him he holds the soldier up to inspect the damage. His eyes are unaffected, still vague and distant, but his mouth has been deformed, its plaster dented and chipped away. Serge scrapes at the ground-down surface with his thumbnail, lifting off more flakes of plaster. Then, to no one but himself since he’s alone, he says:

“Bodner.”

He sets the soldier down gently on the rug, propping him up in a sitting position against the wooden block that’s just mutilated him. Serge is reaching out towards another block when his attention is distracted by the hurried entrance of the family cat and, close on its tail, his older sister Sophie. Sophie is half running, half skipping, with clenched hands held out in front of her. Placing herself between the cat and the door, she thrusts her hands towards the cat and sings:

“Spitalfield! Oh, Spitalfield!”

The cat retreats beneath the recess seat. Sophie stoops low and creeps towards it, opening her palms to reveal four or five small white larval balls nestled warmly in them.

“Just try one, Spitalfield,” she purrs, holding the balls temptingly up to the cat’s face. The cat turns its head away, then, ducking beneath her hands, breaks cover and darts out of the room. Sophie lets out a sigh and, setting the larvae on the recess seat’s cushion, turns her attention to Serge. Scooping three or four of the wooden blocks up from the carpet, she starts laying them out in front of him. Then, kneeling behind them and pulling the front of her skirt forwards so that it covers the figures on their surface, she says: “If you can remember which one is which I’ll give you my pocket money. If not, forfeit.”

But Serge doesn’t want to play her game. He reaches between her legs, pushing through the pleated fabric. She grabs his wrist and pulls it out again. “Forfeit!” she cackles. “Take your trousers down.”

“No!” Serge snaps. But she’s stronger than him. She wraps her arm around him, pulls him to his feet and, still kneeling beside him, yanks his trousers down his legs. He wriggles as she pulls the pants beneath these down as well.

“Aha!” she shouts in triumph. “Now to telegraph the Admiralty.” Holding him in place, she begins tapping his little penis with her index finger. “ ‘Dear Sir: Please send reinforcements,’ tap-tap-tap. ‘Enemy quite outnumber us,’ tap-tap. ‘Are holding out but fear total submission if not soon relieved,’ tap-tip tap-tip.”

“Stop it!” Serge shouts.

“Why? I’ve seen Miss Hubbard do it. She did it with the man from Lydium. ‘Dear Man from Lydium,’ tap-tap, ‘please send more charcoal and wipers for our school class,’ tip-tip-tip. ‘Weather here fine but rain is forecast for tomorrow.’ Tippety-tap. See? You’re laughing.”

“No I’m not!” Serge shouts, straining to get away. Eventually he manages to break loose. Sophie half-heartedly grabs after him, but he pushes her hands away. Moving a safe distance from her, he pulls his pants and trousers up, then gathers the wooden blocks up in his cradled arm and shuffles through the door through which the cat’s just made its own escape.

Sophie watches him go, then shrugs, sits back and tilts her head to one side as she looks up at the whiteboard. As she runs her eyes along the rows of round, lined shapes, her mouth forms positions, holding each in place for several seconds before morphing to strike up the next one: her jaw lowering and lifting, cheeks tautening then slackening, fattening, rising to form pregnant mounds while her lips stretch back in terror or jut forwards to pucker into silent kisses.