"Aldiss, Brian W - Short Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldiss Brian W)

me a minute to tell me how you feel now the first shock is
over?"
"You really must excuse me," Janet said, brushing past
him. As she followed her husband into the house, she heard
Stackpole say, "Actually, I read The Guardian, and perhaps I
could help you. The Institute has given me the job of
remaining with Captain Westermark. My name's Clement
Stackpoleyou may know my book. Persistent Human Rela-
tions, Methuen. But you must not say that Westermark is
living ahead of time. That's quite incorrect. What you can say
is that some of his psychological and physiological processes
have somehow been transposed forward"
"Ass!" she exclaimed to herself. She had paused by the
threshold to catch some of his words. Now she whisked in.

Talk hanging in the air among the long watches of supper
Supper that evening had its discomforts, although Janet
Westermark and her mother-in-law achieved an air of melan-
choly gaiety by bringing two Scandinavian candelabra, relics
of a Copenhagen holiday, onto the table and surprising the
two men with a gay-looking hors d'oeuvre. But the conversa-
tion was mainly like the hors d'oeuvre, Janet thought: little
tempting isolated bits of talk, not nourishing.
Mrs. Westermark senior had not yet got the hang of talking
to her son, and confined her remarks to Janet, though she
looked towards Jack often enough. "How are the children?"
he asked her. Flustered by the knowledge that he was waiting
a long while for her answer, she replied rather incoherently
and dropped her knife.
To relieve the tension, Janet was cooking up a remark on
the character of the administrator at the Mental Research
Hospital, when Westermark said, "Then he is at once thought-
ful and literate. Commendable and rare in men of his type. I
got the impression, as you evidently did, that he was as
interested in his job as in advancement. J suppose one might
say one even liked him. But you know him better, Stackpole;
what do you think of him?"
Crumbling bread to cover his ignorance of whom they were
supposed to be conversing, Stackpole said, "Oh, I don't know;
it's hard to say really," spinning out time, pretending not to
squint at his watch.
"The administrator was quite a charmer, didn't you think,
Jack?" Janet remarkedperhaps helping Stackpole as much
as Jack.
"He looks as if he might make a slow bowler," Westermark
said, with an intonation that suggested he was agreeing with
something as yet unsaid.
"Oh, him"' Stackpole said. "Yes, he seems a satisfactory
sort of chap on the whole."
"He quoted Shakespeare to me and thoughtfully told me