Ian R. MacLeod The Light Ages

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Grandmistress Bowdly-Smart's voice which finally did it for me. She was
telling a supposed friend, who was doing her best to disentangle herself,
about some or other gathering of fellow seekers.
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Her excitement grew so intense in doing so that all the padding with which she
had attempted to encase her voice fell away. I knew then. I was sure of it.
I'd heard such voices a million times, shouting to each other over the fences
up and down Coney Mound as they all beat their rugs on
Twoshiftday. Grandmistress Bowdly-Smart was from Bracebridge, and her
rat-faced husband, as he moved away with a final backward glance to consume
his mountainous breakfast he was Uppermaster
Stropcock, who had leered down at me in that tiny office at Mawdingly &
Clawtson, and told me I wasn't good enough for the Lesser Toolmakers, and let
me touch his puny haft.
Eyes and ears, sonny.
Even the widow's peak of his hair, although now there was somewhat less of it
and it had greyed, was the same. I was sure of it. All that was missing was
his clip of pens and a fag end dangling from his lip.
Uppermaster Stropcock and his wife. Here at Walcote House, and stinking rich,
and calling themselves Bowdly-Smart. This was even odder than my presence
here. What had they done to manage this seemingly magical trick? Whatever it
was, I had the advantage.
Stropcock must have slapped and intimidated so many potential apprentices that
he didn't recognise me. I poured myself another cup of coffee and felt my
hands grow more steady. I decided that I would stay on here for the rest of
the celebrations after all.
The white walls of the seaward side of Walcote House rose above sheer white
cliffs, from white sands. The cliffs curled east away from
Saltfleetby and then on towards Folkestone like a protective arm. Below them,
in waters clearer and bluer than the sky, sailboats hung, fish darted, bright
weeds waved. Weightless swimmers were beckoning as I
took the long steps down.
`It's Master
Robbb-bert . . . !'
Sadie, as under-dressed this morning in a blue-striped costume as she had been
over-dressed the night before, surged out from the sea towards me. Jaunty in
her bathing cap, touching me with fish-wet hands, she told me she had seen
little of what had happened last night, but had heard everything.
Laughing, she sent out spray. That huge vase going over!
`You must come and join us in the water, Robbie!'
But I shook my head. I couldn't swim the Withy or the Thames never held much
attraction once you knew what poured into them and
I had a headache. So I sat down on the crystal beach and watched the bathers.
Highermaster George flopped down by me. His limbs were thin in his striped
swimsuit, licked like sunlight with golden fur. He laughed away my attempts at
an apology for last night. Such performances were seemingly a matter for
congratulation. Why, he'd once been ill over a pile of everyone's coats in
someone's house and had dined out on the tale for the rest of the season . . .
We fell into silence. Sails drifted past in the heat, their reflections
upturned. The bathers swam out to a diving platform and basked like seals.
With an apologetic backward glance, George joined them. These swimmers had the
restless energy of children.
They laughed and played in the water. They crashed through the spray. There
were servants, black figures patrolling the edges of the sands, stooping like
wading birds to offer iced trays. Sadie returned to me, her hair clinging to
her shoulders.
`Oh, I know how you must feel. Try this. It's a guaranteed pick-me up. My own
special recipe.'
A crystal glass the same no-colour of the ocean, and as cold and salt and
deep. But I really did feel better after it or at least different.
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And I became conscious as I sat in the sun of a figure further off at the edge
of the headland, walking at the lip of the waves. Grey knee-length shorts, a
tucked-in white blouse, hands in pockets, long hair and bare calves. The
bathers were still laughing, splashing, arguing over the rules of some
complicated game. No one else had noticed Anna Winters. The heat shimmered,
dissolving her for a moment like the wind puffing out a flame. I got up.
Moving quickly across this dry white sand was like running in a dream. It took
me an Age to reach her.
`D'you know what all this stuff is made of, Robbie?' she asked without turning
her head, still gazing out at the sea. `Classroom chalk.
All of it. Isn't that strange?'
I looked down at the blurred sand as I caught my breath. It was obvious now
that she'd said it. `Why,' I gasped, `wouldn't you talk to me last night?'
`Aren't we talking now?'
Shaking my head, I felt Sadie's potion swimming within my skull.
`But you seemed so annoyed that I'd come here. And that thing you did to me
last night, with the vase, the drink ...'
`You think you need help to behave like a clumsy drunk!'
`I'd thought we were friends.'
`You mean like you are with Sadie, or with George?'
`They're just people I happen to have met.' I waved my hands. `At the end of
the day, the people here are just like people everywhere else.
In fact, they're much worse because they just live and eat and drink and do
nothing. I know that now, Anna. It's probably the only thing I do know about
them.'
`I do wish you hadn't come, Robbie. But at least you're calling me
Anna.'
`And you really want me to leave?'
`No. Not now. You're here, aren't you? And perhaps I was too harsh on you
yesterday ...'
Annalise stuffed her hands deeper inside her pockets. Her hair slid over her
shoulders, the sunlight chasing up and down it with the pulse of the waves. A
larger wave came rolling in, clear as glass, changing the angle of her legs. I [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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