Отрывок из книги
Dame Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of eighteen novels including A Summer Bird-Cage, The Millstone, The Peppered Moth, The Red Queen, The Sea Lady, The Pure Gold Baby and most recently, the highly acclaimed The Dark Flood Rises. She has also written biographies, screenplays and was the editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She was appointed CBE in 1980, and made DBE in the 2008 Honours list. She was also awarded the 2011 Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature. She is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd.
‘A sublime example of Drabble’s mastery in unravelling the intricacies of intimate relationships’ The Times
.....
‘Calm down, calm down, Giles,’ said Hargreaves. ‘Calm down, young chap.’
‘Now you keep out of this,’ said Liz and Venetia simultaneously to Hargreaves, while, in another corner of the room, Deirdre Molloy lifted her voice in an Irish lament. ‘Mother, it’s ten to midnight!’ called Sally from the doorway, and Liz, looking around the confusion she had summoned into being, the scattered earth, the scattered people, the murmuring, the singing, the clustering, thought yes, this was a party, yes, this was living rather than not living, this was permitted, this was planned disorder, this was cathartic, this was therapeutic, this was admired misrule. ‘Piano, Aaron, piano!’ she called, and her middle stepson, with his mobile thin white clown’s face, emerged from the crowd and seated himself at the instrument, as Liz called to Deirdre and the butlers to fill glasses and then join the guests for a toast: Jonathan turned on the radio, the eagle-crowned clock over the marble mantelshelf struck, some joined hands and some did not, Aaron struck up Auld Lang Syne, Big Ben struck, some sang and some did not, voices rose straggling, pure and impure, strong and weak, tuneful and tuneless, there were cries and embraces. Two hundred people, solitude and self dispelled. Liz, at the magic moment, found herself unexpectedly clutching the hot hand of Ivan Warner, which seemed wrong but ordained: she looked for Charles, and saw that the poor man had managed to find himself in the icy palm of Lady Henrietta. Such were the random dispositions of fate. But Alix and Brian had found one another, and so had Otto and Caroline Werner: Esther was caught between lofty Edgar and little Pett Petrie, herself the smallest of all. Should old acquaintance be forgot, they sang, bravely, recklessly, tunelessly, and as the singing stopped, Ivan kissed Liz’s hand. ‘Liz,’ he said, ‘Liz, I’ve always admired your style, but this was something else.’
.....
