"Ritual" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

'You're not hungry?' said Charlie. 'It's good. Taste it. It's just about the best thing here.'
Martin shook his head. Charlie watched him for a moment with fatherly concern, then went back to his apple. 'I hope you're not pining for anything, that's all.' He swallowed, and then reached for his glass of wine. 'Your mother won't be home for ten more days, and I can't keep you with me if you're sick.'
Martin said, with unexpected vehemence, 'It's all right, I'm not sick, I'm just not hungry. Come on, Dad, I've been eating three meals a day for three days. I never ate so much Goddamned food in my whole Goddamned life.'
Charlie stared at him. Martin's faced was hectic and flushed, as if he were running a sudden fever.
'Who taught you to speak to anybody like that?' Charlie demanded. He was quiet, but he was also angry. 'Is that what you learn from you mother, Goddamned this and Goddamned that? All I did was ask you a civil question.'
Martin lowered his eyes. 'I'm sorry. I apologize.'
Charlie leaned forward. 'What's gotten into you all of a sudden? Listen - I don't expect you to behave like the Angel Gabriel. I never did. But we're friends here, you and me. At least that's what fathers and sons are supposed to be, isn't it?'
'Yes, Dad.'
Martin kept his head bowed while Charlie made a theatrical performance of finishing his apple pandowdy. In truth, he thought it was foul. The cook had emptied what must have been half a jar of ground cinnamon in it, which made it taste like mahogany sawdust. He would describe it in his report as 'wholesome, reasonably fresh, but over-generously spiced.'
All around the building, the gutters gargled the rain away down iron throats. The French windows were as dark as the glass in a blind man's spectacles. 'You know something, it's hard enough to come to terms with this situation without either of us getting all tied up into knots about it,' Charlie told Martin.
'I said I apologized,' Martin repeated.
The garden outside was lit up by a hesitant flicker of lightning. Charlie turned towards the window again. As he did so, he felt a sensation like somebody running a hairbrush down his back. A white face was pressed against the window, so close to the glass that its breath had formed an oval patch of fog. It was peering into the restaurant with an expression that looked like a mixture of fear and longing.
It could have been a large-faced child. It was too short for an adult. Charlie was frighteningly reminded of Dopey, in Snow White, with his vacant pale blue eyes and his en-cephalitic head.
In spite of the child's obvious anguish, it was the most
terrifying thing that Charlie had ever seen. The lightning flickered one last time and then died; the garden was darkened; the face was swallowed by shadow. Charlie sat staring at the window with his hands flat on the table, rigid. Martin raised his head and looked at him.
'Dad?' he asked. Then, more quietly, 'Dad?'
Charlie didn't look at him. He kept his eyes on the blacked-out windowpane. 'What did you see, out there in the garden?' he asked.
'Nothing,' said Martin. 'I told you.'
'You said you saw somebody.' Charlie insisted. 'Tell me what he looked like.'
'I made a mistake, that's all. It was a bush, I don't know.'
Charlie was about to bark back at Martin when he saw something in the boy's eyes that stopped him. It wasn't anger. It wasn't contempt. It was a kind of secrecy, a deep unwillingness to discuss what he had seen. Charlie sat back in his chair and watched Martin for a while. Then he raised his hand to attract the attention of Harriet the waitress.
'Don't have the coffee,' Harriet told them, as she came across the restaurant.
'I don't intend to. Just bring me a last glass of chardonnay, would you, and the bill?'
'I'll make sure that Mrs Foss doesn't charge you for the veal.'
'Don't worry about it, please.'
Harriet was just turning to go when Charlie lifted his hand again, and said, 'Harriet, tell me something. Does Mrs Foss have any children?'
Harriet sniffed. 'Three — but sometimes they seem like thousands. There's Darren, who takes care of the accounts. Then there's Lloyd, who buys all the provisions. And Henry - but the less said about Henry the better, believe me. Henry is really peculiar?
'I mean young children.'
Martin glanced up. His sudden interest didn't escape Charlie's notice. He had seen that figure in the garden, Charlie was sure of it. What Charlie couldn't understand was why he didn't want to admit it.
Harriet said, 'Young children, no. You're talking about kids, toddlers? She's about two hundred years too old for that.'
On the other side of the restaurant, Mrs Foss's antennae picked up Harriet's slighting tone of voice, and she lifted her head and searched for Harriet with narrowed eyes. 'Harriet,' she said, and there were a dozen Biblical warnings in that one word.
While Charlie was paying the bill, he remarked to Martin, ' You may not have seen anything, but I did.'
Martin didn't answer. Charlie waited for a little while, but decided not to push him, not yet. There had to be a reason why he didn't want to talk about what he had seen, and maybe the reason wasn't any more complicated than the simple fact that he didn't yet trust Charlie enough to confide in him. And considering Charlie's record as a father, he could hardly be blamed for that.
'Where are we going to stay tonight?' Martin asked.
'The original plan was to drive across to Hartford, and stay at the Welcome Inn.'
'But now you want to go to that French restaurant they were talking about?'
'It had crossed my mind,' Charlie admitted.' I always like trying new places. Besides, it'll give us time to spend the afternoon any way we want. Maybe we could go bowling, or take in a movie or something. That's what fathers and sons are supposed to do together, isn't it?'
'I guess.'
'Charlie attempted a smile. 'Come on, then. You go wait for me in the car. I just have to wash my hands, as they say in polite circles.'
'Oh, you mean you have to go the inky-dinky ha-ha room.' Charlie slapped his son on the back. 'You've got it, champ.'
The men's washroom was tiled and gloomy, with noisy cisterns and urinals that looked as if they had been salvaged from the Lusitania. In the brown-measled mirror over the sink, Charlie's face had the appearance of having been painted by an old Dutch master. He scrutinized himself closely, and thought that he was beginning to show signs of wear. It wasn't true what they said about life beginning at forty. They only said that to stop you going straight to the bathroom and slicing your throat from ear to ear. When you reached middle age, you started to disintegrate, your dreams first and then your body.
He bent over the sink and soaped his hands. A faint wash of watery sunlight strained through the small window over to his right. He could see treetops through it, and grey clouds unravelling. Maybe it was going to be a fine afternoon.
Outside the washroom, in the Iron Kettle's red-carpeted lobby, there was a cigarette machine. He hadn't smoked in eleven years, but suddenly he felt tempted to buy a pack. It was the tension of having Martin around him all the time, he decided. He wasn't used to demonstrating his affection on a day-to-day basis. That was why he had so rarely stayed home for very long. He had always been afraid that his love would start wearing thin, like medieval fabric.
He was still buttoning up his coat when Mrs Foss appeared, and stood watching him through her upswept spectacles, her hands clasped in front of her.
'I hope we're going to see you again' she said. 'I promise that we can do better for you next time.'
'The veal was quite acceptable, thank you.'
Mrs Foss opened the wired-glass door for him. 'I hope I've managed to persuade you not to visit Le Reposoir.'
Charlie made a dismissive face.
'It wouldn't be wise, you know. Especially not with that son of yours.'
Charlie looked at her. 'I'm not sure that I understand what you mean.'