Throwback

Начало книги

GRADUALLY THE girl came to the conclusion that she was ill. It could not be anything else.

She pushed her way across the pavement, stood with her back against a brick wall, felt the rough surface scraping her skin through her blouse and jeans. The brickwork seemed to move, like a piece of automatically operated emery paper. Up, down, up, down. Her groping fingers found a doorpost, gripped it; it was moving too. Up, down, up, down, gyrating.

People pushed past her, bumped into her. A woman clutched at her, almost pulled her down, but somehow she held on. Everybody was rushing, a seething mass of hastening humanity as though everybody was ill, that they were hurrying back to their homes before they collapsed in the street. A street that undulated like a slow-motion roller-coaster, had you clinging on to anything you could find, throwing up. Somebody had been sick, she could smell it. It might even have been herself.

Читать дальше →