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Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 222 из 425Thehome team scores nine runs in the bottom of the ninth and the fucking pennant is ours.”
“If you say so.” But my hand went off on its own expedition, made a loose fist, and knocked on the good solid wood of the coffee-table.
“And hey, the softball game wasn’t a total loss.” John was still talking between little giggling outbursts like helium balloons.
“No?”
“I’m taken with her.”
“Her?”
“Mattie,” he said patiently. “Mattie Devore.” A pause, then: “Mike? Are you there?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Phone slipped. Sorry.” The phone hadn’t slipped as much as an inch, but it came out sounding natural enough, I thought. And if it hadn’t, so what? When it came to Mattie, I would be—in John’s mind, at least—below suspicion. Like the country-house staff in an Agatha Christie. He was twenty-eight, maybe thirty. The idea that a man twelve years older might be sexually attracted to Mattie had probably never crossed his mind… or maybe just for a second or two there on the common, before he dismissed it as ludicrous. The way Mattie herself had dismissed the idea of Jo and the man in the brown sportcoat.
“I can’t do my courtship dance while I’m representing her,” he said, “wouldn’t be ethical. Wouldn’t be safe, either. Later, though… you can never tell.”
“No,” I said, hearing my voice as you sometimes do in moments when you are caught completely fiat-footed, hearing it as though it were coming from someone else. Someone on the radio or the record-player, maybe. Are these the voices of our dead friends, or just the gramophone? I thought of his hands, the fingers long and slender and without a ring on any of them. Like Sara’s hands in that old photo. “No, you can never tell.” We said goodbye, and I sat watching the muted baseball game. I thought about getting up to get a beer, but it seemed too far to the refrigerator—a safari, in fact. What I felt was a kind of dull hurt, followed by a better emotion: rueful relief, I guess you’d call it. Was he too old for her? No, I didn’t think so. Just about right. Prince Charming No. 2, this time in a three-piece suit. Mattie’s luck with men might finally be changing, and if so I should be glad. I would be glad. And relieved. Because I had a book to write, and never mind the look of white sneakers flashing below a red sundress in the deepening gloom, or the ember of her cigarette dancing in the dark.
Still, I felt really lonely for the first time since I saw Kyra marching up the white line of Route 68 in her bathing suit and flip-flops.
“If you say so.” But my hand went off on its own expedition, made a loose fist, and knocked on the good solid wood of the coffee-table.
“And hey, the softball game wasn’t a total loss.” John was still talking between little giggling outbursts like helium balloons.
“No?”
“I’m taken with her.”
“Her?”
“Mattie,” he said patiently. “Mattie Devore.” A pause, then: “Mike? Are you there?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Phone slipped. Sorry.” The phone hadn’t slipped as much as an inch, but it came out sounding natural enough, I thought. And if it hadn’t, so what? When it came to Mattie, I would be—in John’s mind, at least—below suspicion. Like the country-house staff in an Agatha Christie. He was twenty-eight, maybe thirty. The idea that a man twelve years older might be sexually attracted to Mattie had probably never crossed his mind… or maybe just for a second or two there on the common, before he dismissed it as ludicrous. The way Mattie herself had dismissed the idea of Jo and the man in the brown sportcoat.
“I can’t do my courtship dance while I’m representing her,” he said, “wouldn’t be ethical. Wouldn’t be safe, either. Later, though… you can never tell.”
“No,” I said, hearing my voice as you sometimes do in moments when you are caught completely fiat-footed, hearing it as though it were coming from someone else. Someone on the radio or the record-player, maybe. Are these the voices of our dead friends, or just the gramophone? I thought of his hands, the fingers long and slender and without a ring on any of them. Like Sara’s hands in that old photo. “No, you can never tell.” We said goodbye, and I sat watching the muted baseball game. I thought about getting up to get a beer, but it seemed too far to the refrigerator—a safari, in fact. What I felt was a kind of dull hurt, followed by a better emotion: rueful relief, I guess you’d call it. Was he too old for her? No, I didn’t think so. Just about right. Prince Charming No. 2, this time in a three-piece suit. Mattie’s luck with men might finally be changing, and if so I should be glad. I would be glad. And relieved. Because I had a book to write, and never mind the look of white sneakers flashing below a red sundress in the deepening gloom, or the ember of her cigarette dancing in the dark.
Still, I felt really lonely for the first time since I saw Kyra marching up the white line of Route 68 in her bathing suit and flip-flops.