Читать книгу The Map of Us - Jules Preston - Страница 37

Jack did not look like a world authority on the colour blue. Everyone said that. At first. They doubted him. They kept him waiting in the lobby. They asked him if he wanted tea or coffee or chilled water, and then they left him sitting there for half an hour while they checked his credentials rigorously. They secretly called other companies he had worked for in the past and asked for a detailed description. They all said the same thing.

‘He’s about six-foot-tall with long hair and he wears jeans and faded T-shirts and he looks nothing like a world authority on the colour blue. He looks like he just left his skateboard outside and came in for free coffee.’

That set alarm bells ringing. Sometimes they got security to check for skateboards.

‘Is he really a world authority on the colour blue?’ Would be the next question.

‘Yes,’ would be the answer.

‘Okay. Thanks for your time. Sorry to bother you,’ they would say and put the phone down.

Then they would apologise for keeping him waiting in the lobby for so long, and Jack would joke with them that he was used to it and it happened all the time.

On the way to the meeting they would always ask him why it was that he favoured blue over any other colour.

And Jack would smile.

‘It was the colour of my grandmother’s typewriter,’ he would say.