"R. A. MacAvoy - Black Dragon 2 - Twisting the Rope" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacAvoy R A)

And what if Mayland was looking older? So was she. She hadn't made him follow her from city to city and
country to country like this. It was his idea. And she hadn't made him… what he was. Whatever ofttimes sad
thing he was.
His eyes opened, focused directly at her. The virus had exaggerated the epicanthic folds at the outer corners
of them, making him look more Chinese. "I have no idea why people do the things they do. None
whatsoever."
She was taken aback. Had she been speaking aloud, after all? "Do you mean yourself—why you're here—or
why I wanted to leave Mendocino at all?"
The eyes narrowed to slits and he laughed. "Neither one. I was talking about the altercation in the motel
room. One would think I would understand human nature by now, considering how long I've been studying it."
Martha frowned in thought. She could look quite fierce that way, despite her round blue eyes and pink-petal
complexion. "You can't see why Pádraig got angry…?"
"Any creature will react to assault by fighting back, if it can't run away. No, I more wonder why St. Ives
attacks, and why he chooses Pádraig as his victim so often. The boy is no threat."
The wind caught Martha's skirt as she stood up. She put one hand against her knee to hold it as she walked
over to stand beside Marty. Down below, in the shadow, the smooth lumps of seal with their small-dog faces
lay resting on the pier's cross braces, and floated staring up from the black, swirling water. "No more fishies,"
she called down to them, and when Marty let out a seallike sound of protest, she added, "No more money to
buy fishies.
"Pádraig is not a competitor to George. He's his natural prey. You can see how George plays on the poor
creature's emotions: all the scale from fury to discouragement to self-loathing. Pádraig is only twenty, while
George is almost my age.";
"Positively a museum piece."
"Well—old in his craft, anyway. But Pádraig's being hit with everything new at once: the geography, the
people, this crazy lifestyle." She shrugged. "And I promised his mother I'd take care of him."
Long blew his nose. "Don't be silly, Martha. You cannot be a life-support system for the boy. At least he has
his health. That is a great good fortune and a reasonable cause for envy." He came to stand beside her, and
he looked down at the seals. One of them raised its head, barked, and then they were gone in a gleam of
disturbed water. Marty let out a yelp of protest.
Martha nudged Long's side companionably. "Pádraig's father runs a fishing boat out of Dunquin, my dear, and
Pádraig himself is one of the best sailors on Iv Ráth. Dinghy races. He's taken me out in a naomhóg under
sail too. (I thought I would die.) But he's no good working with his father."
"They don't agree?" Long put one hand around Martha's shoulder and the other hand on Marty's flaxen head.
The little girl shook it off.
"Seosebh doesn't explain things well. And he has a temper. He calls the boy an asal and—poof!—he is an
ass. Long ears and all. Makes stupid mistakes with the net. Jibs where he should jab with the gaff—or
whatever. It's no good.
"It's the same pattern here. I've seen him at home, or in the Óstán Dún an Óir, in complete mastery of his
material, playing his accordion like six-handed Shiva. The tourists had no idea what they were getting with
their Guinness! But…"
"Here he isn't doing that?"
Martha swayed against the white bar of the paling. "Mmph? Okay, I guess. But he's scared and miserable,
and he plays like a boy that's scared and miserable. He hears himself and knows it's no good. Round the
circle. What is it Teddy says?
" 'What goes around "
"Oh, yes. 'Comes around.'" She touched his mouth with her fingers. "How could I have forgotten?"
Mayland Long sighed. He swiped his nose once more and dismissed the problems of Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin.
Leaning gracefully over the rail, he looked for seals. Skin divers went out from the beach, walking like ducks
and delighting Marty Frisch-Macnamara. She threw popcorn to them as they passed beside the pier. For an
hour the only concern among the small party was the wind in Martha's skirt.