"Nicholas Royle - The Cast" - читать интересную книгу автора (Royle Nicholas)

Tommo, for which I was grateful. "What if you take a shot and hit him. You
know what'd happen." This subdued the other player and he looked round for
the ball, just for something to do. He seemed to be embarrassed by my
predicament, as if I had burst out in tears in front of a packed assembly
or dropped my trousers in a lift.
It should go without saying that I felt a degree of cool detachment from
what was going on beneath me. There was nothing I could do to influence
events. I couldn't speak or communicate in any way. I was a statue, a
brittle cast of myself as I had been in that single moment of goal saving.
I thought I ought to be experiencing some anxiety but in fact I felt quite
calm. I was reminded of the time when my car went out of control on the
motorway and span round and round. I had just sat there, aware that there
was nothing I could do, everything would just go on with or without me. It
could only have spun round for three seconds yet it had seemed like an
eternity before it smacked against the crash barrier and I was knocked
back to my senses.
The difference now was that the sense of eternity was stronger. My
survival was in the hands of 21 men in football shirts -- and Zsa.
"Can't we just move him and finish the game?" asked Stud. "And then carry
him back to the changing room or something?"
"It's not that simple." I was pleased to hear Zsa's voice entering the
debate. She was standing right underneath me so that I couldn't see her.
My field of vision was that of the cast's. "You have to break something
off," she continued. I was so glad she knew what to do. I resolved not to
think bad things about her in future. If she had wanted me out of the
picture it would have been so easy to keep quiet and see if anyone else
knew how to get me down. "It has to be something he won't miss, like a
bootlace or something."
"Why can't we just pull him down?" someone asked.
"Try," she said. She knew they wouldn't be able to. However, a number of
the biggest men gripped hold of my cast and tugged. There was no give and
they backed off, faintly disturbed or perhaps just irritated by the delay.

"The laces aren't free," said Docs. "There's nothing to get a hold on.
Can't we just snap his foot off? It's just a cast, after all. It's not
really him any more."
I became frightened for the first time.
"Don't!" said Zsa sharply. She knew. She knew. "Don't do anything. There's
got to be something we can get at."
Docs spoke again. "Bob. Bob, can you hear me?"
It was the first time someone had talked to me rather than about me. But I
couldn't respond.
"I'm sure it's all right to break a bit of anything off," someone else
chipped in, one of their players eager to get on with the game. "It's not
as if that's him. I saw a thing about it once. You snap something,
anything, and that frees the cast. Then you take it to the bloke's flat
and leave it there alone for a few days. And he's as right as rain. I've
seen it. Don't ask me to explain it but that's what happens."
"Don't come near him," Zsa commanded. Thank you, Zsa. Thank you. You
probably saved my life.