"Hutchinson, Dave - Tir-na-nOg" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hutchinson Dave)

"Nice to know they care about you," I said nonchalantly.

He snorted. He had changed since I'd last seen him, just before taking up employment with his new masters. He had become … I don't know, colorless. Insipid. It might just have been the unobtrusive charcoal cord trousers, black turtleneck, and nondescript navy surplus overcoat the security man had persuaded him to wear in order to be inconspicuous, but the life seemed to have gone out of him. His face was thinner, more pinched; he was going bald in an amiable mad-professor sort of way and he wore John Lennon spectacles rather than have an op to correct a worsening astigmatism.

"You look tired."

He shrugged. "So much to do, so little time to do it in." He looked thoughtfully at Michael. "So many people to do it to."

"Not that I look much better, I suppose."

He smiled wanly at me. "Look at us, Monkey. Two old men sitting wondering why the world's so bloody awful. My old grandad used to do the same thing with his mates down at the working men's club."

"I don't know what you're wondering, but I'm not wondering why the world's so bloody awful." Which made a change.

"Too many young people," he said, nodding to himself. "They all want a bit of the action. And every year there's more of them."

"We're not old," I said.

"Sorry, Monkey, but we are."

"If you start to cry, I'm leaving."

He grinned. "Good old Monkey, always ready to stand by his mates."

"That's me."

He looked at my cigar. "Ever wonder what it's like to be dead?"

"It's like teaching at a comprehensive in Outer London. Fewer opportunities to be beaten up, perhaps."

"People could get tired of your smart mouth, Monkey, you know?"

"I know."

"Really, though. Do you think there's a Heaven? An afterlife?"

"A Tir-na-nOg?" I said, and I was glad to see him laugh finally. "Oh my Christ, I hope not."

"When I die," he said as if he'd only just that moment decided, "I'm going to give all my money to charity."

I was about to ask what he meant, but all of a sudden he took off into a description of how plants have a rudimentary nervous system, how various programmable biotech components could now assemble themselves into what amounted to molecular computers, how it should soon be feasible to implant them into people. Then Michael came over and Hey's trip to London was finished, and that was the last time I ever saw him, pushing the Barbican's glass doors open against the early evening drizzle, one day in October.




· · · · ·

"That was seven years ago. And you've had him locked up ever since."