The Midnight Library. Matt Haig
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Название: The Midnight Library
Автор: Matt Haig
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Контркультура
isbn: 9781786892713
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Nora was pretty certain her brother knew Friday was her day off. The fact prodded her from inside.
‘I’m happy here.’
‘Except you aren’t.’
He was right. A soul-sickness festered within her. Her mind was throwing itself up. She widened her smile.
‘I mean, I am happy with the job. Happy as in, you know, satisfied. Neil, I need this job.’
‘You are a good person. You worry about the world. The homeless, the environment.’
‘I need a job.’
He was back in his Confucius pose. ‘You need freedom.’
‘I don’t want freedom.’
‘This isn’t a non-profit organisation. Though I have to say it is rapidly becoming one.’
‘Look, Neil, is this about what I said the other week? About you needing to modernise things? I’ve got some ideas of how to get younger peo—’
‘No,’ he said, defensively. ‘This place used to just be guitars. String Theory, get it? I diversified. Made this work. It’s just that when times are tough I can’t pay you to put off customers with your face looking like a wet weekend.’
‘What?’
‘I’m afraid, Nora’ – he paused for a moment, about the time it takes to lift an axe into the air – ‘I’m going to have to let you go.’
To Live Is to Suffer
Nine hours before she decided to die, Nora wandered around Bedford aimlessly. The town was a conveyor belt of despair. The pebble-dashed sports centre where her dead dad once watched her swim lengths of the pool, the Mexican restaurant where she’d taken Dan for fajitas, the hospital where her mum had her treatment.
Dan had texted her yesterday.
Nora, I miss your voice. Can we talk? D x
She’d said she was stupidly hectic (big lol). Yet it was impossible to text anything else. Not because she didn’t still feel for him, but because she did. And couldn’t risk hurting him again. She’d ruined his life. My life is chaos, he’d told her, via drunk texts, shortly after the would-be wedding she’d pulled out of two days before.
The universe tended towards chaos and entropy. That was basic thermodynamics. Maybe it was basic existence too.
You lose your job, then more shit happens.
The wind whispered through the trees.
It began to rain.
She headed towards the shelter of a newsagent’s, with the deep – and, as it happened, correct – sense that things were about to get worse.
Doors
Eight hours before she decided to die, Nora entered the newsagent’s.
‘Sheltering from the rain?’ the woman behind the counter asked.
‘Yes.’ Nora kept her head down. Her despair growing like a weight she couldn’t carry.
A National Geographic was on display.
As she stared now at the magazine cover – an image of a black hole – she realised that’s what she was. A black hole. A dying star, collapsing in on itself.
Her dad used to subscribe. She remembered being enthralled by an article about Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. She’d never seen a place that looked so far away. She’d read about scientists doing research among glaciers and frozen fjords and puffins. Then, prompted by Mrs Elm, she’d decided she wanted to be a glaciologist.
She saw the scruffy, hunched form of her brother’s friend – and their own former bandmate – Ravi by the music mags, engrossed in an article. She stood there for a fraction too long, because when she walked away she heard him say, ‘Nora?’
‘Ravi, hi. I hear Joe was in Bedford the other day?’
A small nod. ‘Yeah.’
‘Did he, um, did you see him?’
‘I did actually.’
A silence Nora felt as pain. ‘He didn’t tell me he was coming.’
‘Was just a fly-by.’
‘Is he okay?’
Ravi paused. Nora had once liked him, and he’d been a loyal friend to her brother. But, as with Joe, there was a barrier between them. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms. (He’d thrown his drumsticks on the floor of a rehearsal room and stropped out when Nora told him she was out of the band.) ‘I think he’s depressed.’
Nora’s mind grew heavier at the idea her brother might feel like she did.
‘He’s not himself,’ Ravi went on, anger in his voice. ‘He’s going to have to move out of his shoebox in Shepherd’s Bush. What with him not being able to play lead guitar in a successful rock band. Mind you, I’ve got no money either. Pub gigs don’t pay these days. Even when you agree to clean the toilets. Ever cleaned pub toilets, Nora?’
‘I’m having a pretty shit time too, if we’re doing the Misery Olympics.’
Ravi cough-laughed. A hardness momentarily shadowed his face. ‘The world’s smallest violin is playing.’
She wasn’t in the mood. ‘Is this about The Labyrinths? Still?’
‘It meant a lot to me. And to your brother. To all of us. We had a deal with Universal. Right. There. Album, singles, tour, promo. We could be Coldplay now.’
‘You hate Coldplay.’
‘Not the point. We could be in Malibu. Instead: Bedford. And so, no, your brother’s not ready to see you.’
‘I was having panic attacks. I’d have let everyone down in the end. I told the label to take you on without me. I agreed to write the songs. It wasn’t my fault I was engaged. I was with Dan. It was kind of a deal-breaker.’
‘Well, yeah. How did that work out?’
‘Ravi, that isn’t fair.’
‘Fair. Great word.’
The woman behind the counter gawped with interest.
‘Bands don’t last. We’d have been a meteor shower. Over before we started.’
‘Meteor showers are fucking beautiful.’
‘Come on. СКАЧАТЬ