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

I put my head back and laugh. There is probably no place in Benedict's life for philosophy, or for dead film stars. I hear her sigh, and when she speaks again her voice is brittle. "I'm going to take the NES scanner up the hill a ways." I catch the tiny sounds of her moving away; a squeak of rotting planks, the dry snap of a piece of driftwood as she reaches the shingle. "I want you to come and help."

I stand up. She's lying, of course. We both know that, and we both stopped caring weeks ago. She doesn't want my help; she would be far happier doing it on her own. What she really wants is to have me where she can see me.




· · · · ·


"Ready?"
"You're going to get us arrested," I said.

"They won't know which one of us to chase," Hey told me, drizzle running from his tangerine fringe.

"Terrific. So they'll only arrest one of us. I feel better already."

He laughed. Comparatively late in life, Hey had decided to take care of his body. Four times a week, he took a bus up to a sports center in Haringey and strapped himself into any number of chrome-and-leather, spring-and-cable Inquisition machines, lifting weights and twisting his body in directions mine would not move in. He had run in both the London and Boston marathons, and turned in respectable times in each. And then some idiot had introduced him to acrobatics.

Which set us down, at five past seven on a wet London morning in March, outside the old Public Records Office on Lincoln's Inn Fields. From the corner where we stood, I could see homeless people in the bushes of the little park, emerging from piles of soggy cardboard, newspaper, and plastic bags. Walking here from Holborn station, one of them had tried to bum some money from us. Hey had smiled hugely and given him a fifty-thousand zloty note, which he had picked up on holiday in Poland the year before and which you could only change for Sterling in Poland. Hey would do and say anything for a joke. I was often surprised that he had so many friends. Quite frequently, I was surprised that I was his friend.

"If we don't do it right now, we'll never do it," he said, looking across the road at the gates of Lincoln's Inn.

"That's all right by me," I said, wiping spots of rain from the plain-glass spectacles he'd made me wear as a disguise. His own camouflage, perversely, consisted of a bright orange wig and a huge false beard. He said he wanted to be as conspicuous as possible. He said he wanted people to remember this.

"It might be all right by you," he said, taking my arm, "but you're coming with me." And he marched me across the road and through one of the pedestrian gates that led into Lincoln's Inn.

The moment we set foot inside the Inn, I froze. Tall terraced barristers' chambers formed a square around a big lawn planted with trees and flower beds. Hundreds of windows looked down on us. It was very quiet; I could hear pigeons' wings clapping as they landed on the grass, hear the kettle boiling in the porters' lodge behind us as somebody brewed his morning cup of tea. I smelled the rain in the air, cigarette smoke on the breeze.

"I can't do this," I said. "It's stupid."

He regarded me sadly from behind his cushion of fake hair. "Monkey," he said, "I'm disappointed with you." And for one moment of unspeakable bliss the tone of his voice told me he'd given up his mad idea.

Then he winked, gave me the same grin he'd given the down-and-out, turned away from me, and before I could open my mouth he had performed a perfect cartwheel along the pavement and sprung into a series of flickflacks.

My jaw dropped. I'd never really thought that he would go through with it. I just stood watching like an idiot as he backflipped away from me down the side of the square.

A shout from the porters' lodge broke the spell. I took off along the top of the square. I heard running feet behind me and didn't dare stop. As I reached the corner and skidded right I risked a glance across the grass and almost got myself caught.

He was still flickflacking down the opposite side of the square, scattering people off the pavement, and he was beautiful. There was no sense of effort. He looked like a force of Nature.

I was so struck by the image that, if the hand behind me hadn't slipped on the rain-damp leather of my jacket, I would have been caught. Lungs bursting, I put on a spurt and pulled away, heard someone swear and fall heavily in my wake.

Hey had already reached the gateway at the bottom left-hand corner of the square, bouncing lightly to a stop on the balls of his feet and watching my approach with an expression of gentle unconcern. I pounded past him, fell over as I burst through the gateway and out onto Carey Street, rolled to my feet, glasses going flying into the road.

He caught up with me in a few easy strides and side by side we ran down Bell Yard beside the Law Courts and out onto the Strand, Hey dumping wig and beard in a litter bin as we ran by towards Aldwych and the Underground.

After subsequently spending many years trying to get around London by Tube, I have never understood how he managed to time it so perfectly. He must even have taken into account the timing of the traffic lights; we arrived at Aldwych station just as the bell rang to signal an incoming train. We were the last two into the lift. He was barely breathing hard; I could barely breathe at all.

I managed to get my wind back enough, on the train to Holborn a couple of minutes later, to gasp, "They were chasing me, you bastard!"