Rage - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗
'The proposal has another flaw. By decentralizing industry we will make it less effective and competitive. In a modern age when all countries are economically in competition with each other, we will be placing a handicap on ourselves." When he sat down he saw that though he might have convinced nobody, he had given them much to think about seriously and soberly, and when the meeting ended, one or two of the other ministers, most of them southerners, stayed to exchange a few words with him. Shasa sensed that he had enhanced his reputation and consolidated his place in the cabinet with that afternoon's work, and he drove back to Weltevreden feeling well pleased with himself.
He dropped his briefcase on the desk in his study and, hearin: voices out on the terrace, went out into the late sunshine. The gues that Tara was entertaining was the headmaster of Bishops. Usuall' this worthy would summon the parents of recalcitrant pupils t appear before him as summarily as he did their offspring. This dk not apply to the Courtney family. Centaine Courtney-Malcomess hat been a governor of the school for almost thirty years, the only womal on the board. Her son had been head boy before the war and wa,.
now on the board with his mother, and both of them were majo] contributors to the College's coffers - amongst their gifts were th organ, the plate-glass windows in the new chapel, and the new kit.
chens to the main dining-hall. The headmaster had come to call upor Shasa, rather than the other way around. However, Tara was looking uneasy and stood up to greet Shasa with relief.
'Hello, Headmaster." Shasa shook hands, but was not encouraged by the head's lugubrious expression.
'Headmaster wants to talk to you about Sean,' Tara explained." I think a man-to-man chat will be appropriate, so I will leave the two of you alone while I go and get a fresh pot of tea." She slipped away, and Shasa asked genially, 'Sun's over the yard arm. May I offer you a whisky, Headmaster?" 'No thank you, Mr Courtney." That he had not used Shasa's Christian name was ominous, and Shasa adjusted his own expression to the correct degree of solemnity and took the chair beside him.
'Sean, hey? So what has that little hooligan been up to now?" Tara opened the door to the dining-room quietly and crossed the floor to stand behind the drapes. She waited until the voices on the terrace were so intense and serious that she could be certain that Shasa would be there for the next hour at the least. She turned quickly and left the dining-room, closing the door behind her, and went swiftly down the wide marble-tiled passageway, past the library and the gun room." The door to Shasa's study was unlocked, the only doors ever locked at Weltevreden were those to the wine cellar.
Shasa's briefcase stood in the middle of his desk. She opened it and saw the blue folder embossed with the coat of arms of the state which contained the typed minutes of that day's cabinet meeting.
She knew that numbered copies were made and distributed to each minister at the end of the weekly meetings, and she had expected to find it in his case.
She lifted it out, careful not to disarrange anything else in the crocodile-skin attach case, and carried it to the table beside the french doors. The light was better here, and in addit-ion, by glancing around the drapes, she could see down the terrace to where Shasa and the headmaster were still deep in conversation under the trellis of vines.
Quickly she arranged the blue sheets on the table, and then focused the tiny camera that she took from the pocket of her skirt. It was the size of a cigarette-lighter. She was still unaccustomed to the mechanism, and her hands were shaking with nervousness. It was the first time she had done this.
Molly had given her the camera at their last meeting, and explained that their friends were so pleased by the quality of the information she was providing that they wanted to make her job easier for her.
Her fingers felt like pork sausages as she manipulated the tiny knobs and snapped each of the sheets twice, to cover herself against possible mistakes of exposure or focus. Then she slipped the camera back into her pocket, before stacking the sheets in their folder and replacing it carefully in Shasa's briefcase in exactly the same way she had found it.
She was so nervous that her bladder felt as though it might burst and she had to run down the passage to the downstairs toilet. She only just reached it in time. Five minutes later she carried the silver Queen Anne teapot out on to the terrace. Usually this would have annoyed Shasa who did not like her to usurp the servants' work, especially in front of guests. However, he was too engrossed in his discussion with the headmaster to notice.
'I find it difficult to believe that it is anything more than robust boyish spirits, Headmaster." He was frowning as he sat forward in his chair, hands on his knees, to confront the schoolmaster.
'I have tried to look upon it that way." The headmaster shook his head regretfully. 'In view of the special relationship that your family has to the school, I have been as lenient as I can be. However,' he paused meaningfully, 'we are not dealing simply with an isolated instance. Not simply one or two boyish pranks, but a state of mind, an entire behaviour pattern which is most alarming." The headmaster broke off to accept the cup of tea that Tara passed across the table to him. 'Forgive me, Mrs Courtney, this is as painful to me as it must be to you." Tara said quietly, 'I can believe that. I know you look upon each of your boys as one of your own sons." And she glanced at Shasa.
'My husband has been reluctant to come to terms with the problem." She hid her smug satisfaction behind a sorrowful but brave little smile. Sean had always been Shasa's child, strong-willed and thoughtless of others. She had never understood nor accepted that cruel streak in him. She recalled his selfishness and lack of gratitude even before he could talk. As an infant when he had gorged himself at her breast, he would let her know he was satiated by biting her nipple with sufficient force to bruise her painfully. She had loved him, of course, but had found it hard to like him. As soon as he had learned to walk, he headed straight for his father, staggering after him like a puppy, and his first word had been 'Dada'. That hurt her, after she had carried him big and heavy in her belly and given him birth and suck, 'Dada'. Well, he was Shasa's child now and she sat back and watched him grapple with the problem, feeling a spiteful pleasure at his discomfort.
'He's a natural sportsman,' Shasa was saying, 'and a born leader.
He has a good mind - I am convinced that he will pull himself together. I gave him a good thrashing after his school report at the end of last term, and I'll give him another this evening to get him in the right frame of mind." 'With some boy. s the cane has-no effect, or rather it has the opposite to the desired effect. Your Sean looks upon corporal punishment the way a soldier looks on his battle wounds, as a mark of his courage and fortitude." 'I have always been against my husband beating the children,' Tara said, and Shasa flashed her a warning look, but the headmaster went on.
'I have also tried the cane on Sean, Mrs Courtney. He seems positively to welcome that punishment as though it affords him some special distinction." 'But he is a good athlete,' Shasa repeated rather lamely.
'I see you choose, as I would, the term "athlete" rather than "sportsman",' the headmaster nodded. 'Sean is precocious and mature for his age. He is stronger than the other boys in his group and has no qualms in using his strength to win, not always in accordance with the rules of the game." The headmaster looked at Shasa pointedly. 'He does have a good brain, but his school marks indicate that he is not prepared to use it in the classroom. Instead he applies his mind to less commendable enterprises." The headmaster paused, sensing that this was not the moment to give a doting father concrete examples. He went on: 'He is also, as you have noted, a born leader. Unfortunately, he gathers about him the least desirable elements in the school, which he has formed into a gang with which he terrorizes the other boys, even those senior to him are afraid of him." 'I find this difficult to accept." Shasa was grim-faced.
