Transit

Начало книги

The face stared back at Richard Avery, expressionless as a ghost. It was a bloodless face, he thought, the face of a man in limbo. It was the kind of face you did not look at too closely on the Underground in case its owner had died.

He moved away from the silvery grey mirror of the puddle and heard his feet squelch in the soggy earth. He gazed at the gaunt trees and the dull green emptiness of Kensington Gardens. London’s Sunday traffic purred moodily in the distance; but February seemed determined to drown the landscape in a watery silence. And as the sad thin light of afternoon patiently died, it was possible to believe that Kensington Gardens was the most desolate place on earth.

The trouble with Avery was simple. He was recovering from influenza. The depression of the landscape and the depression of his state of mind matched perfectly, reinforcing each other. He should have stayed indoors watching the television, reading a book or playing his habitual meaningless games with the patterns on the wallpaper.

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