• Пожаловаться

Pat Barker: Double Vision

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Pat Barker: Double Vision» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию). В некоторых случаях присутствует краткое содержание. год выпуска: 2003, категория: Историческая проза / на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале. Библиотека «Либ Кат» — LibCat.ru создана для любителей полистать хорошую книжку и предлагает широкий выбор жанров:

любовные романы фантастика и фэнтези приключения детективы и триллеры эротика документальные научные юмористические анекдоты о бизнесе проза детские сказки о религиии новинки православные старинные про компьютеры программирование на английском домоводство поэзия

Выбрав категорию по душе Вы сможете найти действительно стоящие книги и насладиться погружением в мир воображения, прочувствовать переживания героев или узнать для себя что-то новое, совершить внутреннее открытие. Подробная информация для ознакомления по текущему запросу представлена ниже:

Pat Barker Double Vision

Double Vision: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Double Vision»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

This gripping novel explores the effects of violence on the journalists and artists who have dedicated themselves to representing it. In the aftermath of September 11, reeling from the effects of reporting from New York City, two British journalists, a writer, Stephen Sharkey, and a photographer, Ben Frobisher, part ways. Stephen returns to England shattered; he divorces his duplicitous wife and quits his job. Ben follows the war on terror to Afghanistan and is killed. Stephen retreats to a cottage in the country to write a book about violence, and what he sees as the reporting journalist's or photographer's complicity in it. Ben's widow, Kate, a sculptor, lives nearby, and as she and Stephen learn about each other their world speedily shrinks, in pleasing but also disturbing ways. The sinister events that begin to take place in this small town, so far from the theaters of war Stephen has retreated from, will force him to act instinctively, violently, and to face his most painful revelations about himself.

Pat Barker: другие книги автора


Кто написал Double Vision? Узнайте фамилию, как зовут автора книги и список всех его произведений по сериям.

Double Vision — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Double Vision», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

‘So how do you manage?’

‘Do a bit of tree surgery. And I’m trying to specialize in water gardening, because actually this is the best time of year to dig ponds. If you leave it till Easter, you’ve missed half the season. And then if it gets too bad, I give in and get a job in a restaurant.’

‘Cooking?’

‘No. Chopping veg and loading dishes.’

‘Sounds pretty dire.’

‘It is, yes, but it’s only for a few months. As soon as the grass grows the phone rings.’

He had a charming smile.

‘Did you train as a gardener?’

‘No.’ A pause. ‘No, I read English.’ He raised the glass quickly to his mouth, hiding his lips.

All right, she thought, no personal questions. Well, that suited her. The last thing she wanted in the studio was chatter.

‘I can give you references. People I’ve worked for.’

He fished in his pocket and produced a sheet of paper, folded twice and slightly damp. Five people were listed on it, four of whom she knew fairly well. ‘Fred Henderson. He’s got that big place just outside Alnwick, hasn’t he?’

‘Yes, that’s right. I did his water garden. He went in for it in a big way when he retired. In fact I think it’s the biggest job I’ve ever done.’ He smiled. ‘What can I say? The patio’s level. The ponds don’t leak. The waterfalls work. And the stream’s full of fish.’

She smiled back at him. It was impossible not to like him. ‘Shall I tell you what I want first? Then you can judge for yourself if you can fit in with it.’

He nodded, watching her intently, rocking the whisky from side to side in the glass, amber lights darting across his fingers. He had big hands.

She sensed he was desperate for work, that chopping veg and loading dishes might be looming, so she didn’t bother making the hours attractive. Eight till four, five days a week. Saturday mornings would be great if he could manage it. ‘And I’ll pay whatever Fred paid. Is that all right?’

‘Fine.’ He looked at her — perhaps he sensed desperation too. ‘You haven’t said what you want me to do.’

‘Driving, lifting, making an armature…’ She waited.

‘I know what it is. I’ve never made one.’

‘I’ll show you.’ It hurt her to say it, to think of other hands on her work. ‘I can’t do it.’

‘Alec said it’s a statue of Christ. How big?’

‘Fifteen feet.’

Fifteen?

‘Yep.’

He was looking at her, assessing the extent of her disability. ‘How high can you raise your arm?’

She pulled a face. ‘Shoulder height.’

‘You’ll need a scaffold. I can’t see you shinning up a stepladder’ — he nodded at her stick — ‘with that.’

‘Could you make one?’

‘Yeah, it’s not difficult.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yeah, no problem. Anyway, I’ll bounce up and down on it first, so if anybody breaks their neck it’ll be me.’

‘Might be as well.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t think my neck could take any more.’

‘How long do you have to wear the collar?’

‘Another month at least.’

‘But you will get the mobility back?’

‘So they say.’

A pause. ‘So how shall we leave it?’ he asked. ‘Do you want to check with Fred first?’

‘No, I need to get started. How about tomorrow?’

‘Are you sure you’re well enough?’

‘I’ve got to be.’

‘Well, if you don’t feel up to doing much, I can always be making a start on the scaffolding.’

She felt relieved beyond measure. It had all happened so quickly, so easily. Her first job tomorrow morning must be to ring Alec and thank him. It was a bit late tonight, she thought, glancing at her watch.

Immediately, Peter put his glass on the table and stood up. ‘No, don’t get up,’ he said, seeing her reach for her stick. ‘I can let myself out.’

She heard him pulling on his boots, grunting with the effort, and then went to the window to watch him go. The security light flicked on again as he crossed the beam. He seemed to sense her watching and without turning round raised his hand as he disappeared into the dark tunnel of rhododendrons.

A moment later she heard the car start. The noise was distorted, as every noise here was, by the wall of trees. He reversed, turned, and then she heard the hum of the engine diminishing into the distance before being swallowed up by night and silence. Then there were only the trees, and a few flakes of snow shuddering on the black air.

Three

The following morning, after seeing Peter start work on the scaffold, Kate accepted Angela’s offer of a lift into the village and went to see Alec Braithewaite.

It was a cold, clear day, the grass around the headstones rimed with frost. A trail of muddy, trampled snow led up to the rectory door. She rang the bell and heard it clang deep inside the house, a vast, draughty Georgian mausoleum of a place. She wondered why Alec didn’t protest to the bishop and insist on being given somewhere more sensible to live. Justine was only left at home because the wretched glandular fever had kept her back for an extra year, and Kate found it impossible to imagine what it would be like for one person living here alone.

Justine’s mother, Victoria, had left eight years ago, in a scandal that rocked the parish, though as far as Kate knew no other man had been involved. Alec, pursuing her down the garden path, was supposed to have asked, as she heaved her suitcases into the waiting taxi, ‘Is there anybody else?’

‘Yes!’ Victoria had roared, at the top of her voice for the whole village to hear. ‘Me.’

Angela deplored this behaviour, which she regarded as unforgivably selfish. Kate secretly applauded. Everybody had thought that Alec would leave the parish as soon as another living could be found, but he’d elected to stay, mainly for Justine’s sake — the local girls’ high school had an excellent reputation and Justine had been very happy there. But she’d now left school, and Alec still showed no inclination to move on, though he often talked wistfully about his desire to do more obviously valuable work in some inner-city parish. Like opening his door in the middle of the night to kids off their heads on crack, Kate thought. He was probably safer here. She rang the bell again. The last time she’d spoken to him about his plans he’d seemed to feel guilty that his life had settled into an undemanding groove, ministering to the spiritual needs of what Angela called ‘green-wellie Christians’ — weekenders who wouldn’t have dreamt of attending church in the city, but who in the country dropped in to morning service on their way to the Rose and Crown, as if — Angela again — God was thrown in as a job lot with Labradors and waxed jackets.

There were the locals, of course, but they turned up only two or three times a year: Easter, perhaps, Harvest Festival and the Christmas carol service. All dates at or near the main pagan festivals, as Alec cheerfully pointed out. She rang the bell again, thinking she might as well be waiting for some little Victorian maid ninety years dead to get up from her grave and answer the door.

Instead she heard the slap of bare feet on lino. A disgruntled voice called, ‘All right. I’m coming.’

The door opened and there was Justine, flushed from sleep, big-breasted inside a too-tight Snoopy T-shirt, yawning, showing the pink cavernous interior of her mouth as uninhibitedly as a cat. ‘Dad’s in the church, I think. Do you want to come in and wait?’

Читать дальше

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Double Vision»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Double Vision» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё не прочитанные произведения.


Stephen King: Guns
Guns
Stephen King
Stephen Dixon: 14 Stories
14 Stories
Stephen Dixon
Stephen Dixon: Interstate
Interstate
Stephen Dixon
Stephen Dedman: Tour de Force
Tour de Force
Stephen Dedman
Stephen Baxter: The Martian in the Wood
The Martian in the Wood
Stephen Baxter
Отзывы о книге «Double Vision»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Double Vision» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.