JК
Bullet Park :: Cheever John
Страница: 6 из 131The winters were too inclement for citrus fruit but much too clementfor the native white birch.
Hazzard drew his car up in front of a white house with lighted windows. "This is the property I had in mind for you," he said. "I hope she won't be in. She's not much of a saleswoman. She said she was going out." He rang the bell but Mrs. Heathcup opened the door. It appeared that she was preparing to go out but had not quite made it. She was a stocky woman with skewered silver-gilt hair, wearing a bathrobe. On the tip of one of her silk slippers there was a cloth rose; on the other there was none. "Well you're welcome to look," she said in a in hoarse, carrying voice. "I hope you'll like it well enough to buy it. I'm getting a little tired of having people track mud through the place and then decide on something else. It's a lovely house and everything works-you'll have to take my word for that-but I've known people around here to sell houses with dangerous wiring, backed-up septic tanks, obsolete plumbing and leaky roofs. There's nothing like that here. Before my husband passed away he saw that everything was in apple-pie order and the only reason I'm selling is because there's nothing here for me, now that he's gone. Nothing at all. There's nothing in a place like this for any single woman. Speaking of tribes, it's like a regular tribe. Widows, divorcees, single men, the tribal elders give them all the gate. Fifty-seven is my price. That's not my asking price it's my final price. We put twenty thousand into the place and my husband painted it every single year before he passed away. In January he'd paint the kitchen. Saturdays and Sundays and nights, that is. Then he'd paint the hallway and the living room and the dining room and the bedrooms and then next January he'd start all over again in the kitchen. He was painting the dining room the day he passed away. I was upstairs. When I say that he passed away I don't want you to think that he died in his sleep. While he was painting I heard him talking to himself. 'I can't stand it any longer,' he said. I still don't know what he meant. Then he went out into the garden and shot himself. That was when I found out what land of neighbors I had. You can look all over the world but you won't find neighbors as kind and thoughtful as the people in Bullet Park. As soon as they heard about my husband passing away they came over here to comfort me. There must have been ten or twelve of them and we all had something to drink and they were so comforting that I almost forgot what had happened. I mean it didn't seem as though anything had happened. Well here's the living room. Eighteen by thirty-two. We've had fifty guests here for cocktails but it never seems crowded.
Hazzard drew his car up in front of a white house with lighted windows. "This is the property I had in mind for you," he said. "I hope she won't be in. She's not much of a saleswoman. She said she was going out." He rang the bell but Mrs. Heathcup opened the door. It appeared that she was preparing to go out but had not quite made it. She was a stocky woman with skewered silver-gilt hair, wearing a bathrobe. On the tip of one of her silk slippers there was a cloth rose; on the other there was none. "Well you're welcome to look," she said in a in hoarse, carrying voice. "I hope you'll like it well enough to buy it. I'm getting a little tired of having people track mud through the place and then decide on something else. It's a lovely house and everything works-you'll have to take my word for that-but I've known people around here to sell houses with dangerous wiring, backed-up septic tanks, obsolete plumbing and leaky roofs. There's nothing like that here. Before my husband passed away he saw that everything was in apple-pie order and the only reason I'm selling is because there's nothing here for me, now that he's gone. Nothing at all. There's nothing in a place like this for any single woman. Speaking of tribes, it's like a regular tribe. Widows, divorcees, single men, the tribal elders give them all the gate. Fifty-seven is my price. That's not my asking price it's my final price. We put twenty thousand into the place and my husband painted it every single year before he passed away. In January he'd paint the kitchen. Saturdays and Sundays and nights, that is. Then he'd paint the hallway and the living room and the dining room and the bedrooms and then next January he'd start all over again in the kitchen. He was painting the dining room the day he passed away. I was upstairs. When I say that he passed away I don't want you to think that he died in his sleep. While he was painting I heard him talking to himself. 'I can't stand it any longer,' he said. I still don't know what he meant. Then he went out into the garden and shot himself. That was when I found out what land of neighbors I had. You can look all over the world but you won't find neighbors as kind and thoughtful as the people in Bullet Park. As soon as they heard about my husband passing away they came over here to comfort me. There must have been ten or twelve of them and we all had something to drink and they were so comforting that I almost forgot what had happened. I mean it didn't seem as though anything had happened. Well here's the living room. Eighteen by thirty-two. We've had fifty guests here for cocktails but it never seems crowded.