"The Sympathy Society" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

‘Aren't you frightened at all?’

‘Frightened? What of? Pain? Dying? If we were all frightened of pain and dying, we'd all sit at home with a blanket over our heads, wouldn't we?’

Tybalt came over. ‘Are you ready, Terence? This is what you really want?’ Terence's eyes were bright. ‘Come on, Mr Miller. Let's get this over with. The sooner the better.’

Tybalt reached out and touched Terence's lips with the tips of his fingers, as if he were a cardinal giving benediction. Then he stood up and said, ‘Better stand clear, Martin.’

He went to the tractor and climbed into the cab. He revved the engine two or three times, and each time Terence grinned in anticipation. Then, with no further warning, he engaged the plow. ‘Oh, Christ!’ shrieked Terence. The shining steel disks dragged him in like gristle into an old-fashioned meat mincer. His right arm was crushed into a bloody rope of bones and thin white tendons, and twisted around the spindle. Another disk cut diagonally into his shoulder and opened up his chest, so that one of his lungs blew out like a balloon. His groin was minced into bloody rags, and his legs were twisted in opposite directions.

The plow-blades stopped. Martin could see Terence's head wedged against one of the disks. His eyes were wide with exhilaration.

He tried to say something, but all that came out from between his lips was a large bubble of blood, which wetly burst. His eyes slowly lost their focus, and he died.

Although Terence's death was so grisly, Martin was strangely elated by it. It was the expression on his face, as if he had found at last what he had always been looking for - as if he would have laughed, if he had been able to.


The following Saturday, inside the garage, Tybalt slowly reversed a Mercedes saloon over Sticky's stomach. Martin stayed outside, but he heard Sticky sobbing in pain for almost twenty minutes, and a single runnel of blood crept out from underneath the closed garage doors, and soaked into the pea-shingle.

‘Have you seen anything yet?’ he asked Tybalt, as the two of them sat over supper the following evening.

Tybalt poured himself another glass of Fleurie. ‘Not yet,’ he said evasively. ‘But you will, won't you? It's your turn tomorrow.’ Martin didn't sleep that night. He sat on the end of the bed staring at his reflection in the dressing-room mirror and wondering if he were mad. Yet somehow, it seemed the most perfect and logical way to go. Even if he didn't meet Sarah in the afterlife, at least he would have shared the same death.

At seven o'clock, Tybalt knocked discreetly on his bedroom door and asked him if he were ready.


It had been impossible to find a lake or a reservoir where they could moor two boats close together and stretch a steel line between them. So Tybalt had devised a substitute: a motorcycle, and a wire tied at neck-level between two substantial horse­chestnut trees.

It was a sharp, sunny morning. They walked together down to the paddock, with Martin pushing the motorcycle.

‘I haven't been on a bike for years,’ he told Tybalt. What he was trying to say was: I hope I don't make a mess of this, and blind myself, or cut half my face off, instead of dying instantly.

Tybalt said, ‘You'll be fine. Just make sure you're going full-­throttle.’ He sat patiently in the saddle while Tybalt attached the electrodes. ‘It's funny,’ he said. ‘I feel really at peace.’

‘Yes,’ said Tybalt. ‘Death is a good place to go to, when you understand what life really is.’

‘So what is life, really?’

‘Life is mostly imaginary. That's what I saw when I nearly died, coming off that motorbike. Our imagination always protects us from ugliness, and unhappiness, and fear. We have a gift for rationalizing our existence, to make it seem bearable. We're always looking on the bright side.’

‘It's human nature,’ said Martin.

‘No, no. You don't realize what I'm talking about when I say "imaginary." I mean that our lives as we know them and recognize them are mostly in our minds. You'll see, believe me. Beauty is imaginary. Happiness is imaginary.’

‘I was happy with Sarah.’

‘You imagined you were happy with Sarah.’

‘I just don't follow.’