Elidor. Alan Garner

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ through my head. And it got worse and worse, all the time the ball was in the air, until the window broke. Didn’t you hear the music?”

      “No. And I don’t now. And I don’t see your fiddler, either. He’s gone.”

      “There’s something odd, though,” said David. “It was only a plastic ball, but it’s snapped the leading in the window.”

      “Oh, it was certainly a good kick from old Roland,” said Nicholas. “And listen: your fiddler’s at it again.”

      The music was faint, but although the tune was the same as before, it was now urgent, a wild dance; faster; higher; until the notes merged into one tone that slowly rose past the range of hearing. For a while the sound could still be felt. Then there was nothing.

      “What’s Helen doing?” said Nicholas. “Hasn’t she found it yet?”

      “She may not be able to climb in,” said David. “I’ll go and see.”

      “And tell her to hurry up,” said Nicholas.

      “OK.”

      Nicholas and Roland waited.

      “I never knew there were places like this, did you, Nick?”

      “I think it’s what they call ‘slum clearance’,” said Nicholas. “A lot of the houses were bombed in the war, you know, and those that weren’t are being pulled down to make room for new flats. That’ll be why all those streets were empty. They’re the next for the chop.”

      “Where do all the people live while the flats are being built?” said Roland.

      “I don’t know. But have you noticed? If we’d carried on right across here, the next lot of houses aren’t empty. Perhaps those people will move into the flats that are built here. Then that block of streets can be knocked down.”

      “There’s the fiddle again!” said Roland. It was distant, as before, and fierce. “But I can’t see the old man. Where is he?”

      “What’s the matter with you today, Roland? Stop dithering: he’ll be somewhere around.”

      “Yes, but where? He was by the lamp post a second ago, and it’s miles to the houses. We couldn’t hear him and not see him.”

      “I’d rather know where Helen and David have got to,” said Nicholas. “If they don’t hurry up the gang’ll be back before we’ve found the ball.”

      “Do you think they’re all right—”

      “Of course they are. They’re trying to have us on.”

      “They may be stuck, or locked in,” said Roland.

      “They’d have shouted,” said Nicholas. “No: they’re up to something. You wait here, in case they try to sneak out. I’m going to surprise them.”

      Roland sat down on a broken kitchen chair that was a part of the landscape. He was cold.

      Then the music came again.

      Roland jumped up, but there was no fiddler in sight, and he could not make out which direction the sound was coming from.

      “Nick!”

      The music faded.

      “Nick! – Nick!”

      The wasteland was bigger in the late afternoon light; the air quiet; and the houses seemed to be painted in the dusk. They were as alien as a coastline from the sea. A long way off, a woman pushed a pram.

      “Nick!”

      Roland picked his way over the rubble to the other side of the church, and here he found a door which sagged open on broken hinges: two floorboards were nailed across the doorway. Roland climbed through into a passage with several small rooms leading off it. Water trickled from a fractured pipe. There were the smells of soot and cat.

      The rooms were empty except for the things that are always left behind. There were some mouldering Sunday school registers; a brass-bound Bible; a faded sepia photograph of the Whitsun procession of 1909; a copy of Kirton’s Standard Temperance Reciter, Presented to John Beddowes by the Pendlebury Band of Hope, February 1888. There was a broken saucer. There was a jam jar furred green with long-dried water.

      “Nick!”

      Roland went through into the body of the church.

      The floorboards and joists had been taken away, leaving the bare earth: everything movable had been ripped out down to the brick. The church was a cavern. Above Roland’s head the three lancets of the west window glowed like orange candles against the fading light. The middle lancet, the tallest, was shattered, and the glass lay on the earth. But there was no ball.

      “Nick! Helen! David! Where are you?”

      The dusk hung like mist in the church.

      Roland went back to the passage. At the end was a staircase. The banisters had been pulled out, but the steps remained.

      “David! Nick! Come down: please don’t hide! I don’t like it!”

      No one answered. Roland’s footsteps thumped on the stairs. Two rooms opened off a landing at the top, and both were empty.

      “Nick!”

      The echo filled the church.

      “Nick!”

      Round, and round, his voice went, and through it came a noise. It was low and vibrant, like wind in a chimney. It grew louder, more taut, and the wall blurred, and the floor shook. The noise was in the fabric of the church: it pulsed with sound. Then he heard a heavy door open; and close; and the noise faded away. It was now too still in the church, and footsteps were moving over the rubble in the passage downstairs.

      “Who’s that?” said Roland.

      The footsteps reached the stairs, and began to climb.

      “Who’s there?”

      “Do not be afraid,” said a voice.

      “Who are you? What do you want?”

      The footsteps were at the top of the stairs. A shadow fell across the landing.

      “No!” cried Roland. “Don’t come any nearer!”

      The fiddler stood in the doorway.

      “I shall not harm you. Take the end of my bow, and lead me. The stairs are dangerous.”

      He was bent, and thin; he limped; his voice was old; there looked to be no strength in him; and he was between Roland and the stairs. He stretched out his fiddle bow.

      “Help me.”

      “All – all right.”

      Roland put his hand forward to take the bow, but as he was about СКАЧАТЬ