The Thief of Always. Clive Barker

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СКАЧАТЬ thought we agreed—’

      ‘I know. But just one.’

      ‘All right. One.’

      ‘Is this place far from here?’

      ‘Nah. It’s just across town.’

      ‘So I’d only be missing a couple of hours of school?’

      ‘That’s two questions,’ Rictus said.

      ‘No, I’m just thinking out loud.’

      Rictus grunted. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m not here to do a great song and dance persuading you. I’ve got a friend called Jive does that. I’m just a smiler. I smile, and I say: come with me to the Holiday House, and if folks don’t want to come—’ He shrugged. ‘Hey, it’s their hard luck.’

      With that, he turned his back on Harvey.

      ‘Wait!’ Harvey protested. ‘I want to come. But just for a little while.’

      ‘You can stay as long as you like,’ Rictus said. ‘Or as little. All I want to do is take that glum expression off your face and put one of these up there.’ His grin grew even larger. ‘Is there any crime in that?’

      ‘No,’ said Harvey. ‘That’s no crime. I’m glad you found me. I really am.’

      So what if he missed all of the morning at school, he thought, it’d be no great loss. Maybe an hour or two of the afternoon as well. As long as he was back home by three. Or four. Certainly before dark.

      ‘I’m ready to go,’ he said to Rictus. ‘Lead the way.’

      MILLSAP, THE TOWN in which Harvey had lived all his life, wasn’t very big, and he thought he’d seen just about all of it over the years. But the streets he knew were soon behind them, and though Rictus was setting a fair speed Harvey made sure he kept a mental list of landmarks along the way, in case he had to find his way home on his own. A butcher’s shop with two pigs’ heads hanging from hooks; a church with a yard full of old tombs beside it; the statue of some dead general, covered from hat to stirrups in pigeon-dung: all these sights and more he noted and filed away.

      And while they walked, Rictus kept up a stream of idle chatter.

      ‘I hate the fog! Just hate it!’ he said. ‘And there’ll be rain by noon. We’ll be out of it, of course …’ He went on from talk of rain to the state of the streets. ‘Look at this rubbish, all over the pavement! It’s shameful! And the mud! It’s making a fine old mess of my shoes!’

      He had plenty more to say, but none of it was very enlightening, so after a while Harvey gave up listening. How far was this Holiday House, he began to wonder. The fog was chilling him, and his legs were aching. If they didn’t get there soon, he was going to turn back.

      ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Rictus.

      ‘I bet you don’t.’

      ‘You’re thinking this is all a trick. You’re thinking Rictus is leading you on a mystery tour and there’s nothing at the end of it. Isn’t that true?’

      ‘Maybe a little.’

      ‘Well, my boy, I’ve got news for you. Look up ahead.’

      He pointed, and there – not very far from where they stood – was a high wall, which was so long that it disappeared into the fog to right and left.

      ‘What do you see?’ Rictus asked him.

      ‘A wall,’ Harvey replied, though the more he stared at it the less certain of this he was. The stones, which had seemed solid enough at first sight, now looked to be shifting and wavering, as though they’d been chiselled from the fog itself, and piled up here to keep out prying eyes.

      ‘It looks like a wall,’ Harvey said, ‘but it’s not a wall.’

      ‘You’re very observant,’ Rictus replied admiringly. ‘Most people just see a dead end, so they turn round and take another street.’

      ‘But not us.’

      ‘No, not us. We’re going to keep on walking. You know why?’

      ‘Because the Holiday House is on the other side?’

      ‘What a mir-ac-u-lous kid you are!’ Rictus replied. ‘That’s exactly right. Are you hungry, by the way?’

      ‘Starving.’

      ‘Well, there’s a woman waiting for you in the House called Mrs Griffin, and let me tell you, she is the greatest cook in all the world. I swear, on my tailor’s grave. Anything you can dream of eating, she can cook. All you have to do is ask. Her devilled eggs—’ He smacked his lips. ‘Perfection.’

      ‘I don’t see a gate,’ Harvey said.

      ‘That’s because there isn’t one.’

      ‘So how do we get in?’

      ‘Just keep walking!’

      Half out of hunger, half out of curiosity, Harvey did as Rictus had instructed, and as he came within three steps of the wall a gust of balmy, flower-scented wind slipped between the shimmering stones and kissed his cheek. Its warmth was welcome after his long, cold trek, and he picked up his pace, reaching out to touch the wall as he approached it. The misty stones seemed to reach for him in their turn, wrapping their soft, grey arms around his shoulders, and ushering him through the wall.

      He looked back, but the street he’d stepped out of, with its grey pavements and grey clouds, had already disappeared. Beneath his feet the grass was high and full of flowers. Above his head, the sky was midsummer blue. And ahead of him, set at the summit of a great slope, was a House that had surely been first imagined in a dream.

      He didn’t wait to see if Rictus was coming after him, nor to wonder how the grey beast February had been slain and this warm day risen in its place. He simply let out a laugh that Rictus would have been proud of, and hurried up the slope and into the shadow of the Dream-House.

III

       Pleasure and the Worm

      WHAT A fine thing it would be, Harvey thought, to build a place like this. To drive its foundations deep into the earth; to lay its floors and hoist its walls; to say: where there was nothing, I raised a house. That would be a very fine thing.

      It СКАЧАТЬ