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

“And now I think it’s time we did a bit of drawing, isn’t it?” and, taking the kid’s hand, he picked up his chalkbox
and walked out into the square.
I don’t know how many times I looked up and watched them that afternoon. They were sitting side by side on the
stone, Billy’s little hand wrapped round one of Tom’s fingers, and Tom doing one of his chalk drawings. Every now
and then Billy would reach across and add a little bit and Tom would smile and say something and Billy’s gurgling
laugh would float across the square. The store was real busy that afternoon and I was chained to that counter but I
could tell by the size of the crowd that a lot of Tom was going into that picture, and maybe a bit of Billy too.
It was about four o’clock before I could take a break. I walked across the crowded square in the mid-afternoon heat
and shouldered my way through to where they sat with a couple of cold Cokes. And when I saw it my mouth just
dropped open and took a five minute vacation while I tried to take it in.
It was a cat all right, but not a normal cat. It was a life-size tiger. I’d never seen Tom do anything anywhere near
that big before and as I stood there in the beating sun trying to get my mind round it it almost seemed to stand in three
dimensions, a nearly living thing. Its stomach was very lean and thin, its tail seemed to twitch with colour, and as Tom
worked on the eyes and jaws, his face set with a rigid concentration quite unlike his usual calm painting face, the
snarling mask of the tiger came to life before my eyes. And I could see that he wasn’t just putting a bit of himself in at
all. This was a man at full stretch, giving all of himself and reaching down for more, pulling up bloody fistfuls and
throwing them down. The tiger was all the rage I’d seen in his eyes and more and like his love for Rachel that rage just
seemed bigger than any other man could know or comprehend. He was pouring it out and sculpting it into the lean
and ravenous creature coming to pulsating life in front of us on the pavement, and the weird purples and blues and
reds just made it seem more vibrant and alive.
I watched him working furiously on it, the boy sometimes helping, adding a tiny bit here and there that strangely
seemed to add to it, and thought I understood what he’d meant that evening a few weeks back. He said he’d done a
painting for the man who’d given him so much pain. Then, as now, he must have found what I guess you’d call
something fancy like catharsis through his skill with chalks, had wrenched the pain up from within him and nailed it
down onto something solid that he could walk away from. And now he was helping that little boy do the same, and
the boy did look better, his bruised eye hardly showing with the wide smile on his face as he watched the big cat
conjured up from nowhere in front of him.
We all just stood and watched, like something out of an old story, the simple folk and the wandering magical
stranger. It always feels like you’re giving a bit of yourself away when you praise someone else’s creation, and it’s
often done grudgingly, but you could feel the awe that day like a warm wind. Comes a time when you realise
something special is happening, something you’re never going to see again, and there isn’t anything you can do but
watch.
Well I had to go back to the store after a while. I hated to go but, well, John is a good boy, married now of course,
but in those days his head was full of girls and it didn’t do to leave him alone in a busy shop for too long.
And so the long hot day drew slowly to a close. I kept the store open till eight, when the light began to turn and
the square emptied out with all the tourists going away to write postcards and see if we didn’t have even just a little
McDonalds hidden away someplace. I guess Mary had troubles enough at home, realised where the boy would be
and figured he was safer there than anywhere else, and I guess she was right.
Tom and Billy finished up drawing and then Tom sat and talked to him for some time. Then they got up and the kid
walked slowly off to the corner of the square, looking back to wave at Tom a couple of times. Tom stood and watched
him go and when Billy had gone he stayed there a while, head down, looking like a huge black statue in the gathering
dark. He looked kind of creepy out there and I don’t mind telling you I was glad when he finally moved and started
walking over towards Jack’s. I ran out to catch up with him and drew level just as we passed the drawing. And then I
had to stop. I just couldn’t look at that and move at the same time.
Finished, the drawing was like nothing on earth, and I suppose that’s exactly what it was. I can’t hope to describe
it to you, although I’ve seen it in my dreams many times in the last ten years. You had to be there, on that heavy
summer night, had to know what was going on. Otherwise it’s going to sound like it was just a drawing. That tiger
was out and out terrifying. It looked so mean and hungry. Christ, I don’t know what: it just looked like the darkest
parts of your own mind, the pain and the fury and the vengeful hate nailed down in front of you for you to see, and I
just stood there and shivered in the humid evening air.