"Simon R. Green - Drinking Midnight Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Simon R)

the next. Some damned fool must actually be staying there, in a rotten old building without
power or heat or water. Toby shivered for a moment, though he couldn't have said why. A
dark figure appeared against a lit window. It stood very still, and Toby had a sudden horrid
feeling that it was watching him, just as he was watching it. And then the light went out, and
the figure was gone, and Blackacre Farm was dark and still again.
Toby's upper lip was wet with sweat, and he brushed at it with a finger before settling back
into his uncomfortably hard seat. He would soon be at his stop, and he wanted one last look at
the woman sitting opposite him. She was reading The Times with great concentration, the
broadsheet newspaper spread wide to put a barrier between herself and the world. In all the
time they'd travelled on the same train, Toby had never seen the woman speak to anyone.
Most of The Times's front page was given over to a story about unusual new conditions on the
surface of the sun. Toby squinted a little so he could read the text of the story without having
to lean forward. Apparently of late a series of solar flares had been detected leaping out from
the sun's surface; the largest and most powerful flares since records began. There seemed no
end to these flares, which were already playing havoc with the world's weather and
communications systems. Toby smiled. If the flares hadn't been screwing up everyone's
television reception, such a story would never have made the front page. People only ever
really cared about science when it bit them on the arse.
He looked away, and surreptitiously studied the woman's face, reflected in the carriage
window beside her. She was frowning slightly as she read, her perfect mouth slightly pursed.
Not for the time first, Toby thought she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. She
had a classic face, with a strong bone structure and high cheekbones, and a great mane of jet-
black hair fell in waves well past her shoulders. Her eyes were dark too, under heavy
eyebrows, and her nose was just prominent enough to give character to her face without being
distracting. For all her serious expression, there was still a smile tucked in one corner of her
perfect mouth, almost in spite of herself.
She wore a pale blue suit, expertly cut but just short of power dressing, with the kind of
quiet elegance that just shrieks money. There was no jewellery, no wedding ring. Looking at
her was like diving into a deep pool of cool, clear water. Hard to tell her age. She was young,
but still very much a woman rather than a girl, and there was something about her eyes that
suggested she'd seen a thing or two in her time. Her fingers were long and slender, crinkling
the edges of her newspaper where she held it firmly. Toby wondered what it would feel like,
to be held firmly by those hands.
She changed her outfits regularly, and never looked less than stunning. But no one ever hit
on her. No one ever tried to chat her up, or impress her with their charm and style, the kind of
stuff attractive women always had to put up with, even if they wore a large sign saying, 'Go
away; I have Aids, leprosy and the Venusian dick rot, and besides I'm a lesbian'. Men would
always try it on. Except no one ever did, with her. Toby could understand that. He'd been
secretly admiring her for months, and still hadn't worked up the courage to talk to her.
Sometimes he thought of her as the Ice Queen, from the old children's story. In the fairy
tale, a boy looked at the distant and beautiful Ice Queen, and a sliver of her ice flew into his
eye. And from that moment on, he had no choice but to love her with all his heart, come what
may. Toby was pretty sure the story ended badly for both the boy and the Ice Queen, but he
preferred not to think about that. What mattered was that he and she were fated to be together.
He was sure of it - mostly. He turned away to look at his own reflection in the window next to
him, and sighed inwardly. He was hardly worthy of a queen. Hardly worthy of anything,
really.
He often wondered who she was, really. What she did for a living; where she went when
she left the railway station at Bradford-on-Avon, and why he never saw her anywhere else in
town. Whether there was someone else in her life ... To stop himself thinking about things