Читать книгу The Road to Nowhere - Maurice Walsh - Страница 17

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Ambrose Trant’s laugh recalled his presence. ‘You—and a bear-cat on the side,’ he drawled. ‘Good thing you were heeled for dry work!’ His eyes were on the glasses, lit amber in the sun.

He met their considering gaze unabashed. He was young, sleek, handsome, without a single mark of weakness or vice, except, it might be, that fish-bellied pallor about a mouth that was sensitive rather than sensual.

Suddenly Paddy Joe spoke up. ‘Care for a glass of beer, Mr Trant?’

‘You’ve done saved my life,’ said Trant, and was out of the saddle as he spoke.

Alistair glanced at Paddy Joe speculatively, and, without a word, turned and strode off towards their cool cache. He came back with two bottles in each hand, and found Trant sitting with the others on the track edge, reins over elbow, and his pony, head alean, behind him.

As Alistair poured the beer slowly, so that a misty film clouded the outside of the crystal, Trant’s mouth opened ever so little and a pink tip of tongue ran across his lips and back again; and his hand was out before the glass could be presented to him.

‘Here’s how, fellows!’ And there was only a trace of white froth slipping down the inside of the glass.

Already Alistair was levering off a second cap. ‘Try another,’ he invited casually.

‘Thanks! Don’t mind if I do. That first did not get below my collar stud. Very decent of you.’

He was more continent with the second bottle, and, between sips that he seemed to strain over his palate, looked about him at the camp.

‘What is your stunt?’ he enquired. ‘Fishing?’

‘Some. We have a permit for tidal waters.’

‘You should try Loch Aonach—up the glen, a morning’s hike. Stocked with rainbow trout.’ He jerked his head to where his wife had disappeared round the point. ‘Might wangle a day for you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Alistair dryly.

‘No trouble.’ Trant’s eyes strayed to where the two full bottles were lying in the heather, but Alistair ignored his look. The man was restless too, and his glance kept shifting to the path. After a pause he got slowly to his feet. ‘Thanks! Saved a life.’ He pivoted into the saddle and the pony started off in a smooth hand-gallop. ‘Owe you a day in harvest,’ he called back, waving his hand.

‘Tame husband goes,’ said Alistair. ‘And a couple of bottles of good beer wasted.’

‘Hoots!’ exclaimed Paddy Joe, coming out of his introspection. ‘We’ve found out that he does not matter a damn—and that’s the hell of it. But do you know, I like that young woman, Elspeth Conroy—or Trant—but Trant is wrong. Did you observe the line of her mouth and her clear eye? She is as unhappy as a stray pup and plucky as a blue terrier.’

‘There goes the sensational novelist—the unspeakable imagination of P. J. Long——’

Paddy Joe paid no heed; he mused aloud. ‘Oh, youth and the clean line, and unhappiness turning down the corners of the mouth! It is the most dreadful thing in the world for youth to be unhappy. It leaves its mark—that unhappiness. It darkens the sun, chills the grey dawn, draws out the length of the gloaming——’

‘One gets used to it,’ said Rogan quietly.

‘The devil bite the tongue of me!’ Paddy Joe cursed himself warmly and turned to Rogan. ‘Where are you thinking of going from here?’

‘Nowhere in particular—nowhere at all.’

‘There’s no hurry on that road.’

‘Stick by us a bit,’ Alistair invited warmly. All the morning he could not get this man out of his mind. Now he warily approached the question of poaching salmon with a net, for he could not be sure how a law-abiding citizen would react to their project.

‘Any way short of dynamite,’ Rogan took him up.

Alistair liked him better.

‘A friend from Moray has failed to turn up for to-night—and there’s a third camp-bed.’

Rogan hesitated.

‘Stay by the fun while it lasts,’ advised Paddy Joe. ‘Seems anyway as if Fate has stacked a hand for us three.’

‘It’s good of you,’ smiled Rogan, ‘only—Fate has no game I’ll play.’

‘Fate will decide that, maybe,’ said Paddy Joe.