Red Shift. Alan Garner

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СКАЧАТЬ do. I do love you.”

      “For ever.”

      “How—”

      “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.”

      “Quote.”

      “More know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows. And that’s another.” He stood back from her and bent down to skim a stone across the lake. “On one side lay the M6, and on one lay a great water, and the site was full. Seven bounces! Bet you can’t do more than three!”

      “Which of you am I supposed to believe?” said Jan.

      “Both.”

      “When will you grow up?”

      “We were born grown up.”

      “I love you: you idiots.”

      They went round the caravan site by the sand washer. It was a tower, with chutes that fed sand into a piled cone. There was a catwalk to the top, over the chutes. The top was a very small steel plate.

      Tom ran up and climbed to the plate. He stood slowly, feeling for his balance. The sand pile was a perfect gradient, one in one. Tom spread his arms, thirty feet above the ground.

      “If you drop,” he called to Jan, “it doesn’t half rattle your teeth. But if you jump out as far as you can, it’s flying, and you hit the sand at the same angle right at the bottom, no trouble. It’s the first time that grips. You have to trust.”

      He leapt through the air clear of everything and ploughed the sand with his heels.

      “Coming?” He looked up at her.

      “No, thanks.”

      “It’s not what it seems. Or aren’t you good on heights?”

      “I don’t like being gritty.”

      They crossed the road to the estate where Jan lived.

      “That was fairly stupid,” said Tom.

      “I was impressed.”

      “Not the jump. That was stupid, but the other was worse.”

      “It’s happened before.”

      “And it’ll happen again.”

      “I know.”

      “Stupid and infantile.”

      They were clear of the birch wood, by open fields. Television screens in the caravans flickered among the white bark.

      “Corpse candles,” said Tom.

      “Snob. They look cosy.”

      “They are. Togetherness!”

      “Don’t take it out on them. I’d rather not live in London; but I do want to nurse. It’s as simple as that.”

      “I wasn’t stopping you.”

      “You weren’t?”

      “We’ll adapt,” he said. “You’ll get a fair bit of time off, even in training, and you can come home. It’s quick from London. I’m used to you every day, that’s all, knowing I’ll see you—Oh my God.”

      Two men were putting up a For Sale notice in Jan’s garden.

      “I was trying to tell you,” she said.

      “No one does this to me.”

      “No one’s doing anything to anybody.”

      “What’s that, then?”

      “I was trying to tell you. Mum and Dad have been given a unit in Portsmouth. We’re all moving. We’ve never stayed long anywhere.”

      “I reckon it’s a pretty mean galaxy.”

      He took a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. They went inside the house. There was a red light on the telephone answering machine. Jan pulled a face.

      “What’s the matter?” said Tom.

      “Mum has a patient who rings every day. It’s rubbish.”

      “Not to him at the other end.”

      “Precisely.”

      “How can they stay sane, doing that work?”

      “They never let themselves be involved. It’s in the training.”

      “But they’re always on call, especially with that thing.”

      “What, the Tam? There are some patients who’d rather talk to a phone than to Mum or Dad.”

      “Get away.”

      “They would. They feel safer. A tape recorder doesn’t want things from them.”

      “A cassette confessor.”

      “If you like.”

      “An automatic answering divine. God in the machine.”

      “Don’t be daft,” said Jan. “It’s only something that helps two people help a lot of others. It means they’re never out of touch.

      “Or never in.”

      “They’re busy.” She switched the tape on and spoke into the telephone. “This is Jan. I’m going to the caravan for tea, then Tom’s coming back to work.”

      “Do you ever meet?” said Tom.

      “I didn’t ask for that.”

      “Sorry.”

      “OK. But it wasn’t funny.”

      “No.”

      They sat by the fire; landscapes were in the coals.

      “Are you sulking?” said Jan.

      “Thinking.”

      “What?”

      “Plans.”

      “Secret?”

      “No.” Tom fingered the stonework of the hearth. “I’ll miss this nonentity box.”

      “I shan’t,” said Jan. “All our houses are bland, wherever we go. Dad has to buy and sell quickly.”

      “It’s better than a caravan. It gives you room. Every way. Plenty of space for ducks on these walls.”

      “You’re СКАЧАТЬ