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Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 172 из 425Behind all of this was a hard, happy drumming that didn’t sound as if it was coming from a real drum; it sounded as if someone with a lot of percussive talent was whopping on a bunch of boxes. Then a woman’s voice joined in—a contralto voice, not quite mannish, roughing over the high notes. It was laughing and urgent and ominous all at the same time, and I knew at once that I was hearing Sara Tidwell, who had never cut a record in her life. I was hearing Sara Laughs, and man, she was rocking.
“You know we’re going back to MANDERLEY, We’re gonna dance on the SANDERLEY, I’m gonna sing with the BANDERLEY, We gonna ball all we CANDERLEY- Ball me, baby, yeah,t”
The basses—yes, there were two—broke out in a barnyard shuffle like the break in Elvis’s version of “Baby Let’s Play House,” and then there was a guitar solo: Son Tidwell playing that chickenscratch thing.
Lights gleamed in the dark, and I thought of a song from the fifties—Claudine Clark singing “Party Lights.” And here they were, Japanese lanterns hung from the trees above the path of railroad-tie steps leading from the house to the water. Party lights casting mystic circles of radiance in the dark: red blue and green. Behind me, Sara was singing the bridge to her Manderley song—mama likes it nasty, mama likes it strong, mama likes to party all night long—but it was fading.
Sara and the Red-Top Boys had set up their bandstand in the driveway by the sound, about where George Footman had parked when he came to serve me with Max Devore’s subpoena. I was descending toward the lake through circles of radiance, past party lights surrounded by soft-winged moths.
One had found its way inside a lamp and it cast a monstrous, batlike shadow against the ribbed paper. The flower-boxes Jo had put beside the steps were full of night-blooming roses. In the light of the Japanese lanterns they looked blue. Now the band was only a faint murmur; I could hear Sara shouting out the lyric, laughing her way through it as though it were the funniest thing she’d ever heard, all that Manderley-sanderley-canderley stuff, but I could no longer make out the individual words. Much clearer was the lap of the lake against the rocks at the foot of the steps, the hollow clunk of the cannisters under the swimming float, and the cry of a loon drifting out of the darkness.
Someone was standing on The Street to my right, at the edge of the lake.
I couldn’t see his face, but I could see the brown sportcoat and the tee-shirt he was wearing beneath it.
“You know we’re going back to MANDERLEY, We’re gonna dance on the SANDERLEY, I’m gonna sing with the BANDERLEY, We gonna ball all we CANDERLEY- Ball me, baby, yeah,t”
The basses—yes, there were two—broke out in a barnyard shuffle like the break in Elvis’s version of “Baby Let’s Play House,” and then there was a guitar solo: Son Tidwell playing that chickenscratch thing.
Lights gleamed in the dark, and I thought of a song from the fifties—Claudine Clark singing “Party Lights.” And here they were, Japanese lanterns hung from the trees above the path of railroad-tie steps leading from the house to the water. Party lights casting mystic circles of radiance in the dark: red blue and green. Behind me, Sara was singing the bridge to her Manderley song—mama likes it nasty, mama likes it strong, mama likes to party all night long—but it was fading.
Sara and the Red-Top Boys had set up their bandstand in the driveway by the sound, about where George Footman had parked when he came to serve me with Max Devore’s subpoena. I was descending toward the lake through circles of radiance, past party lights surrounded by soft-winged moths.
One had found its way inside a lamp and it cast a monstrous, batlike shadow against the ribbed paper. The flower-boxes Jo had put beside the steps were full of night-blooming roses. In the light of the Japanese lanterns they looked blue. Now the band was only a faint murmur; I could hear Sara shouting out the lyric, laughing her way through it as though it were the funniest thing she’d ever heard, all that Manderley-sanderley-canderley stuff, but I could no longer make out the individual words. Much clearer was the lap of the lake against the rocks at the foot of the steps, the hollow clunk of the cannisters under the swimming float, and the cry of a loon drifting out of the darkness.
Someone was standing on The Street to my right, at the edge of the lake.
I couldn’t see his face, but I could see the brown sportcoat and the tee-shirt he was wearing beneath it.