"Simon R. Green - Nightside 1 - Drinking Midnight Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Simon R)

'It's your own fault,' Cragg said unfeelingly. 'They only hire you because you can make it sound
convincing, no matter what crap you're writing about this week. Do you believe any of it?'
'Hell no! I might be an old hippy, but the only time I ever saw a UFO was when I scored some dodgy
blotting paper in London, back in the seventies. There are no UFOs, no ghosts and no secret
conspiracies. And I should know because I've written about all of them, at one time or another.'
He smiled suddenly, and brightened up a little. 'Hey; I had a great idea for a new Crow film the
other day! Princess Diana comes back from the dead, with an Uzi in each hand, and hunts down
French paparazzi! Easy enough to find a good lookalike and put her in The Crow make-up... You're
looking at me strangely again.'
The arty set started talking determinedly about the hippy commune that'd recently taken over the
old Manor Farm on the edge of town. There were supposed to be a dozen of them, six men and six
women, but so far they'd outraged local gossip by keeping themselves strictly to themselves.
They'd come down from some dark corner of London, according to a girl who worked at the estate
agents' who handled the sale, looking for peace and quiet and inner calm. Leo quietly wished them
the best of luck in a town like Bradford-on-Avon, where the barriers between fact and fantasy had
been rubbed a little thinner than most people were comfortable with.
What made the hippies so fascinating was that all details of the purchase of Manor Farm had been
handled strictly by post. Not even a telephone call had been made. The commune had arrived en
masse one morning, rumbling through the town in a converted double-decker London bus, and had
settled into their new home without any help from anyone. And no one had seen hide nor hair of
them since. The few things they needed were ordered by mail, and delivered by curious locals who
found the money waiting for them on the doorstep. All the farmhouse's windows had been boarded
over, and there was neither sight nor sound anywhere of the new occupants. There were rumours of
drugs and orgies and dancing naked in the moonlight, but no one knew anything for sure.
'Hippies should have stayed in the sixties, where they belonged,' said Grant, pushing his empty
coffee cup forward, in the hope that some kind soul might offer to refill it for him. 'Back with
Love and Peace and Flower Power. It all seemed to make some kind of sense at the time. These days
we're all too cynical to believe in Brotherhood and "make love, not war". Great music, though.
There's never been any really good music since the Beatles split up.'
'Oh come on,' Leo said automatically. 'There's more kinds of popular music now than there's ever
been. Something for everybody.'
'Rubbish,' said Grant. 'It's all white kids getting off on pretending to be gangstas, and girl
groups so young they're probably still doing homework. And most rap should have the letter C in
front of it... Oh God, listen to me. I sound so old. I hate kids' music and I can't stand the
fashions. I have become my parents.'
'Everybody does,' said Cragg. 'But the Manor Farm bunch do worry me. What have they got to hide?
What are they afraid of our finding out? Nothing good will come of this, mark my words.'


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'You always say that,' said Grant.

'And I'm usually right. Another coffee?'
Everyone immediately pushed their empty cups at him, and he went over to the bar to order more
industrial-strength caffeine.
Grant scowled after him. 'He may be a gloomy bastard, but he has a point. I just hope they don't
turn out to be another of those bloody doomsday cults. End up drinking poisoned cider and burying
themselves in the back garden. Before you know it, the whole town will be crawling with TV