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

Long shot a burning glance at the young man's back. "Impudent puppy. It certainly does matter!"
"Oh, well, don't be upset by it," said Martha. "How could he know? He's only in his twenties. Scarcely older
than Pádraig. But doesn't Ted have an appealing smile, my dear?"
Then, in the same tone, she added, "I wonder if he's on something?"

"Casadh an t'Súgáin"
I feel that I have to… to make up for twenty years of practice that I haven't had." Pádraig put his flute down on
the dressing room table. The old rosewood tube had but one key and a worn silver mouthpiece. The Paolo
Santori button accordion which lay next to it was brand-new and bright red.
"Well, you can't," stated Elen Evans, sitting herself beside him. "So don't bang your head against walls." She
gazed at nothing-at-all in the corner of the dressing room. "Besides, Pat, you don't need to."
Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin had a baby face. He set his smallish mouth stubbornly. "I missed the bridge last night
that Martha wrote out for me and everything. Nobody else has to get music written out for them. You do it all
yourself."
Elen had to giggle. "You got it a bit different, that's all, ducks. Seriously, how could anyone but me arrange
things for this one-of-a-kind dinosaur I play? Martha gave you that bridge because you asked her to, and
though it was pretty nice of her, it was no better than the kind of thing you fuss around with, and probably lots
harder to finger. After all, it's not her instrument.
"And believe me, Pat—no one but ourselves dreamed there was anything amiss last night, and we only knew
because you practiced the thing so much. Too much, I think."
"George knew, and that was what counts."
Hearing St. Ives's name, Elen sat quite still for a moment. Then she propped an ankle over the opposite knee
and played with the flounce of her skirt. "Diddle St. Ives, Pat. He's a cancer to all concerned. In fact, let me
be nice and catty for a moment: he's not who Martha wanted for the tour. I myself might have thought twice
about coming, had I known he'd be in the group."
Pádraig looked up from his sulk. "You say he's not who Martha wanted? There was someone else?"
Since Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin ended all his questions on a fall of the voice, it took Elen a fraction of a second
to realize they were questions. "Folsom," she replied. "Seán Folsom. We were set up until a month before
the tour and bang! He's got a cracked spine. Fell off a roof. St. Ives was what she could get."
A smile touched Pádraig's face, like a glimpse of sun on a dark day. He hit her on the upper arm, rather too
hard. "She only asked him then? She asked me six months before. She asked me first." But he was
immediately sober again.
"You say you wouldn't have come. But you came after all."
She shrugged. "I couldn't let Martha Macnamara down: not for any reason. I wouldn't, for one thing. She's too
decent a lady. And then professionally, it'd be the kiss of death, wouldn't it? Everyone knows she's good, and
she fulfills her promises. Both to the houses and to the people she works with. So I gave a great sigh and
said 'La!' And here I am."
"I'm glad," said Pádraig, and then he looked away. "But I think it isn't Martha herself who keeps everything
right but her boyfriend."
Elen grinned, and this encouragement was enough to induce Pádraig to add, "And they aren't married, are
they?"
Elen Evans sat up straight on the hard bench. "I'm sure I never asked. They don't project that image, as Ted
might say, but I never thought it my business…"
Pádraig shot her a glance almost gleeful in its mischief. "But isn't it funny? They are not young kids, to be
getting in trouble. Why are they at it?"
Elen opened her mouth but no sound came out for some seconds. Pádraig laughed aloud at the expression
on her face. At last she clapped both long-nailed hands on her knees and said, "My dear infant, how long
have you been out?"
The baby face went bleak again and he turned half away. "Not long enough to play with Macnamara's Band.
Martha knew I blew it too."