Eagle in the Sky - Smith Wilbur (бесплатные версии книг .txt) 📗

expansive.  It's sure nice to talk to you.  How is Debra?  It was

obvious that Dugan's interest in David began and ended with his wife.

That's why I am calling.  She's had an operation and she's in hospital

at the moment.  'God!  Not serious, is it?  She's going to be fine.

She'll be up in a few days and ready for work in a couple of weeks.

'Glad to hear it, David.  That's great.  Loo ere, I want you to go ahead

and set up that script-writing contract for A Place of Our Own.  'She's

going to do it?

Dugan's pleasure carried six thousand miles with no diminution.  She'll

do it now.  'That's wonderful news, David.  'Write her a good contract.

Depend on it, boyo.  That little girl of yours is a hot property.

Playing hard to get hasn't done her any harm, I tell you!  How long will

the script job last?  They'll want her for six months, Dugan guessed.

The producer who will do it is making a movie in Rome right now.  He'll

probably want Debra to work with him there.  Good, said David.  She'll

like Rome.  You coming with her, David?  No, David answered carefully.

No, she'll be coming on her own.  Will she be able to get by on her own?

Dugan sounded worried.

From now on she'll be able to do everything on her own Hope you are

right, Dugan was dubious.

I'm right.  David told him abruptly.  One other thing.

That lecture tour, is it still on?  They are beating the door down.

Like I said, she's hotter than a pistol.  'Set it up for after the

script job.  Hey, David boy.  This is the business.  Now we are really

cooking with gas.  We are going to make your little girl into one very

big piece of property.  Do that, said David.  Make her big.  Keep her

busy, you hear.  Don't give her time to think.  I'll keep her busy. Then

as though he had detected something in David's voice.  Is something

bugging you, David?  You got some little domestic problem going there,

boy?  You want to talk about it?

No, I don't want to talk about it.  You just look after her.  Look after

her well.

I'll look after her, Dugan's tone had sobered.  And David What is it?

I'm sorry.  Whatever it is, I'm sorry.  That's okay.  'David had to end

the conversation then, immediately.  His hand was shaking so that he

knocked the telephone from the table and the plastic cracked through. He

left it lying and went out into the night.

He walked alone through the sleeping city, until just before the morning

he was weary enough to sleep.

The streams of colour settled to steady runs and calmly moving patterns,

no longer the explosive bursts of brightness that had so alarmed her.

After the grey shifting banks of blindness that had filled her head like

dirty cotton wool for those long years, the new brightness and beauty

served to buoy her spirits, and after the main discomfort of her head

surgery had passed in the first few days, she was filled with a wondrous

sense of wellbeing, a formless optimistic expectation, such as she had

not experienced since she was a child anticipating the approach of a

long-awaited holiday.

It was as though in some deep recess of her subconscious she was vaguely

aware of the imminent return of her sight.  However, the knowledge

seemed not to have reached her conscious mind.  She knew there was a

change, she welcomed her release from the dark and sombre dungeons of

nothingness into the new brightness, but she did not realize that there

was more to come, that after colour and fantasy would follow shape and

reality.

Each day David waited for her to say something that might show that she

had realized that her sight was on the way back, he hoped for and at the

same time dreaded this awareness, but it did not come.

He spent as much of each day with her as hospital routine would allow,

and he hoarded each minute of it, doling out time like a miser paying

coins from a diminishing hoard.  Yet Debra's ebullient mood was

infectious, and he could not help but laugh with her and share the warm

excitement as she anticipated her release from the hospital and their

return together to the sanctuary of Jabulani.

There were no doubts in her mind, no shadows across her happiness, and

gradually David began to believe that it would last.  That their

happiness was immortal and that their love could survive any pressure

placed upon it.  It was so strong and fine when they were together now,

carried along by Debra's bubbling enthusiasm, that surely she could

regain her sight and weather the first shock of seeing him.

Yet he was not sure enough to tell her yet, there was plenty of time.

Two weeks, Ruby Friedman had told him, two weeks before she would be

able to see him and it was vitally important to David that he should

extract every grain of happiness that was left to him in that time.

In the lonely nights he lay with the frantic scurryings of his brain

keeping him from sleep.  He remembered that the plastic surgeon had told

him there was more they could do to make him less hideous.  He could'go

back and submit to the knife once more, although his body cringed at the

thought.  Perhaps they could give Debra something less horrifying to

look at.

The following day he braved the massed stares of hundreds of shoppers to

visit Stuttafords Departmental Store in Adderley Street.  The girl in

the wig department, once she had recovered her poise, took him into a

curtainedoff cubicle and entered into the spirit of finding a Wig to

cover the domed cicatrice of his scalp.

David regarded the fine curly head of hair over the frozen ruins of his

face, and for the first time ever he found himself laughing at it,

although the effect of laughter was even more horrifying as the tight

lipless mouth writhed like an animal in a trap.

God!  he laughed.  Frankenstein in drag!  'and for the sales girl who

had been fighting to control her emotions this was too much.  She broke

into hysterical giggles of embarrassment.

He wanted to tell Debra about it, making a joke of it and at the same

time prepare her for her first sight Of his face, but somehow he could

not find the words.

Another day passed with nothing accomplished, except a few last hours of

warmth and happiness shared.

The following day Debra began to show the first signs of restlessness.

When are they going to let me out, darling?  I feel absolutely

wonderful.  It's ridiculous to lie in bed here.  I want to get back to

labulani, there is so much to do.  Then she giggled.  And they've had me

locked up here ten days now.  I'm not used to convent Ille, and to be

completely honest with you, my big lusty lover, I am climbing the wall

We could lock the door, David suggested.

God, I married a genius, Debra cried out delightedly, and then later.

That's the first time it ever happened for me in Technicolor.  I think I

could get hooked on that That evening Ruby Friedman and the Brig were

waiting for him when he returned to his suite, and they came swiftly to

the reason for their visit.

You have already left it too long.  Debra should have been told days

ago, the Brig told him sternly.

He is right, David.  You are being unfair to her.  She must have time to

come to terms, latitude for adjustment.

I'll tell her when I get the opportunity, David muttered doggedly.

When will that be?  the Brig demanded, the gold tooth glowing angrily in

its hirry nest.

Soon.

David, Ruby was placatory, it could happen at any time now.  She has