"Michael Marshall Smith - The Man Who Drew Cats" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Michael Marshall)

wives stopped to talk to her. She looked a lot better too: Sam had a job by the sound of it and her face healed up
pretty soon. You could often see her standing holding Billy’s hand as they watched Tom paint for a while before they
went home. I think she realised they had a friend in him. Sometimes Billy was there all afternoon, and he was happy
there in the sun by Tom’s feet and oftentimes he’d pick up a piece of chalk and sit scrawling on the pavement.
Sometimes I’d see Tom lean over and say something to him and he’d look up and smile a simple child’s smile that
beamed in the sunlight and I don’t mind admitting I felt water pricking in these old eyes. The tourists kept coming and
the sun kept shining and it was one of those summers that go on for ever and stick in a child’s mind, and tell you what
summer should be like for the rest of your life. And I’m damn sure it sticks in Billy’s mind, just like it does in all of
ours.
Because one morning Mary didn’t come into the store, which had gotten to being a regular sort of thing, and Billy
wasn’t out there in the square. After the way things had been the last few weeks that could only be bad news and so I
left the boy John in charge of the store and hurried over to have a word with Tom. I was kind of worried.
I was no more than halfway across to him when I saw Billy come running from the opposite corner of the square,
going straight to Tom. He was crying fit to burst and just leapt up at Tom and clung to him, his arms wrapped tight
round his neck. Then his mother came across from the same direction, running as best she could. She got to Tom and
they just looked at each other. Mary’s a real pretty girl but you wouldn’t have believed it then. It looked like he’d
actually broken her nose this time and blood was streaming out of her lip. She started sobbing, saying Sam had lost
his job because he was back on the drink and what could she do and then suddenly there was a roar and I was shoved
aside and Sam was standing there, still wearing his slippers, weaving back and forth and radiating the frightening aura
of violence waiting to happen that keep men like him safe. He started shouting at Mary to take the kid back home and
she just flinched and cowered closer to Tom like she was huddling round a fire to keep out the cold. This just got Sam
even wilder and he staggered forward and told Tom to get the fuck out of it if he knew what was good for him, and
grabbed Mary’s arm and tried to yank her towards him, his face terrible with twisted rage.
Then Tom stood up. Now Tom was a tall man, but he wasn’t a young man, and he was thin. Sam was thirty and
built like a brick shithouse. When he did work it usually involved moving heavy things from one place to another, and
his strength was supercharged by a whole pile of drunken nastiness. But at that moment the crowd stepped back as
one and I suddenly felt very afraid for Sam McNeill. Tom looked like you could take anything you cared to him and it
would just break, like a huge spike of granite wrapped in skin with two holes in the face where the rock showed
through. And he was mad, not hot and blowing like Sam, but cold as ice.
There was a long pause. Then Sam weaved back a step and shouted, “You just come on home, you hear? Gonna
be real trouble if you don’t, Mary. Real trouble,” and then stormed off across the square the way he came, knocking
his way through the tourist vultures soaking up some spicy local colour.
Mary turned to Tom, looking so afraid it hurt to look, and said she guessed she’d better be going. Tom just stared
at her for a moment and then spoke for the first time. “Do you love him?” Even if you wanted to, you ain’t going to lie
to eyes like that for fear something inside you will break. Real quiet she said, “No,” and began crying softly as she
took Billy’s hand and walked slowly back across the square.
Tom packed up his stuff and walked over to Jack’s. I went with him and had a beer but I had to get back to the
shop and Tom just sat there like a trigger, silent and strung up tight as a drum. And somewhere down near the bottom
of those still waters something was stirring. Something I thought I didn’t want to see.
About an hour later it was lunchtime and I’d just left the shop to have a break and suddenly something whacked
into the back of my legs and nearly knocked me down. It was Billy. It was Billy and he had a bruise round his eye that
was already closing it up.
I knew what the only thing to do was and I did it. I took his hand and led him across to the bar, feeling a hard
anger pushing against my throat. When he saw Tom, Billy ran to him again and Tom took him in his arms and looked
over Billy’s shoulder at me and I felt my own anger collapse utterly in the face of a fury I could never have generated.
I tried to find a word like ‘angry’ to describe it but they all just seemed like they were in the wrong language. All of a
sudden I wanted to be somewhere else and it felt real cold standing there facing that stranger in a black coat.
Then the moment passed and Tom was holding the kid close, ruffling his hair and talking to him in a low voice,
murmuring the words I thought only mothers knew. He dried Billy’s tears and checked his eye and then he got off his
stool, smiled down at him and said: