"Harris, Joanne - Blackberry Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harris Joanne)

In those days there was no wine cellar. We stood on the
mantelpiece above his typewriter, for luck, he said. When
he'd completed the book he opened the last of my companions of '62 and drank it very slowly, turning the glass round
and round in his hands when he'd finished. Then he came
over to the mantelpiece. For a moment he stood there. Then
he grinned and walked, rather unsteadily, back to his chair.
'Next time, sweetheart,' he promised. 'We'll leave it till
next time.' You see, he talks to me, as one day I will talk to
him. I'm his oldest friend. We understand each other. Our
destinies are intertwined.
Of course there was no next time. Television interviews,
newspaper articles and reviews succeeded each other into
silence. Hollywood made a film adaptation with Corey
Feldman, set in the American Midwest. Nine years passed.
Jay wrote part of a manuscript entitled Stout Cortez and
sold eight short stories to Playboy magazine, which were
later reprinted as a collection by Penguin Books. The
literary world waited for Jay Mackintosh's new novel,
eagerly at first, then restless, curious, then finally, fatally,
indifferent.
Of course he still wrote. Seven novels to date, with titles
like The G-sus Gene or Psy-Wrens of Mars or A Date with
d'Eath, all written under the pseudonym of Jonathan Wine-
sap, nice earners which kept him in reasonable comfort for
those fourteen years. He bought a computer, a Toshiba
laptop, which he balanced on his knees like the TV dinners
he made for himself on the nights - increasingly frequent
now - that Kerry worked late. He wrote reviews, articles,
short stories and newspaper columns. He lectured at
writers' groups, held creative-writing seminars at the university.
There were so many things to occupy him, he used
to say, that he had scarcely any time to do any work of his
own -- laughing without conviction at himself, the writer
who never writes. Kerry looked at him, narrow-lipped,
when he said this. Meet Kerry O'Neill - born Katherine
Marsden - twenty-eight, cropped blond hair and startling
green eyes, which Jay never suspected were coloured contact
lenses. A journalist made good in television by way of
Forum? a late-night talk show, where popular authors and
B-list celebrities discussed contemporary social problems
against a background of avant-garde jazz. Five years ago
she might have smiled at his words. But then, five years
ago there was no Forum.', Kerry was writing a travel column
for the Independent and working on a book entitled
Chocolate - a Feminist Outlook. The world was filled with
possibilities. The book came out two years later, on a wave
of media interest. Kerry was photogenic, marketable and
mainstream. As a result she appeared on a number of
lightweight chat shows. She was photographed for Marie
CJaire, TatJer and Me.', but was quick to reassure herself