Владимир Игоревич Баканов в Википедии

О школе Конкурсы Форум Контакты Новости школы в ЖЖ мы вКонтакте Статьи В. Баканова
НОВОСТИ ШКОЛЫ
КАК К НАМ ПОСТУПИТЬ
НАЧИНАЮЩИМ
СТАТЬИ
ИНТЕРВЬЮ
ДОКЛАДЫ
АНОНСЫ
ИЗБРАННОЕ
БИБЛИОГРАФИЯ
ПЕРЕВОДЧИКИ
ФОТОГАЛЕРЕЯ
МЕДИАГАЛЕРЕЯ
 
Olmer.ru
 


Danny Skinner rose…

Danny Skinner rose first, restless, having failed to get off to sleep. This concerned him as he usually fell into a heavy slumber after they’d made love. Made love, he thought, smiled, and then considered again. Had sex. He looked at Kay Ballantyne as she dozed blissfully, that long, glossy black hair splayed over the pillow, her lips still carrying the remnants of the satisfaction he’d given her. A swell of tenderness bloomed from deep within him. – Made love, – he said softly, kissing her forehead diligently, so as to prevent the bristles of his long, pointed chin from scratching her. Wrapping a green tartan dressing gown around himself, he fingered its gold-stitched crest on the breast pocket. It was a Harp emblem, with an inscription, ‘1875’. Kay had bought Skinner it for his Christmas, last year. They hadn’t been going out long then, and as a gift it seemed to say so much. But what had he given her? He couldn’t recall: perhaps a leotard. Skinner went through to his kitchen, and from the fridge procured a can of Stella Artois. Cracking it open, he headed to the lounge where he rescued the television’s remote from the guts of the large sofa, and found the programme, The Secrets of the Master Chefs. This popular show was now in its second series. It was hosted by a famous chef, who toured Britain, asking local cooks to demonstrate their secret recipes for a party of celebrity diners and food critics, who would then pass judgement. But the ultimate verdict rested with the eminent chef, Alan De Fretais. This celebrated cook had recently courted controversy by publishing a book entitled The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs. On the pages of this aphrodisiac cookbook, internationally renowned culinary experts had produced a recipe, writing about how they managed to use it to advance a seduction or to complement a lovemaking session. It quickly became a publishing sensation, spending several weeks heading the best-sellers list. Today De Fretais and his camera crew were at a large hotel in Royal Deeside. The television chef was a giant, with a bombastic, bullying manner, and the local cook, an earnest young man, was obviously feeling intimidated in his own kitchen. Sipping his can of lager, Danny Skinner watched the nervous, flickering eyes and defensive posture of the rookie chef, thinking with pride how he himself had the measure of this browbeating tyrant; standing his ground on the couple of occasions they’d had dealings. Now he just had to wait and see what they did with his report. – A kitchen has to be spotless, spotless, spotless, – De Fretais scolded, punctuating this with play-rapping cuffs around the back of the young chef ’s head. Skinner watched the young cook hopelessly defer, fearful of the occasion, the cameras and the bulk of the gross chef who harassed him, relegating him to the role of hapless stooge. He wouldn’t try that shit on with me, he thought, raising the can of Stella to his lips. It was empty, but there was more in the fridge. – De Fretais’s kitchen is a fucking midden; that’s what it is. The white-faced young man stood his ground. His attire, a tastefully blended mix of quality designer clothing, did not so much hint as scream at ideas beyond station and salary. At just over six foot two Danny Skinner often seemed larger: his presence augmented by penetrating dark brown eyes and the black caterpillar brows that sat thickly above them. His wavy raven hair was combed in a side parting which gave him a raffish, almost arrogant bearing; this enhanced by his angular face and a twist to his thin-lipped mouth suggesting levity, even when he was at his most sombre. The stocky-framed man facing him was in his late forties. He had a ruddy, squarish liver-spotted face topped by a mane of ambercoloured creamed-back hair that was whitening at the temples. Bob Foy was not used to being to being challenged in this manner. One of his eyebrows was raised incredulously; yet in that motion and the expression his slack features had settled into, there was just a smidgen of enquiry, even of mild fascination, which permitted Danny Skinner to continue. – I’m only doing my job. The man’s kitchen is a disgrace, – he contended. Danny Skinner had been an Environmental Health Officer at Edinburgh City Council for three years, moving there from a management trainee post within the authority. This was a very short time in Foy’s book. – This is Alan De Fretais we’re talking about here, son, – his boss snorted. The discussion was taking place in a barn of an open-plan office, partitioned by small screens dividing it into workstations. Light spilled in through the big windows on one side and although it had been double-glazed you could still hear the noise from the traffic outside on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. The solid walls were lined with a few antiquated tin filing cabinets, hand-me-downs from different departments throughout the local authority, and a photocopier that kept the maintenance men in more regular employment than the office staff. A perennially dirty sink was positioned in one corner, beside a fridge and a table with a peeling veneer, on which sat a kettle, teapot and coffee urn. At the back there was a staircase that led to the departmental conference room and the accommodation of another section, but before that a mezzanine floor with two smaller self-contained offices was unobtrusively tucked away. Danny Skinner glanced at the doleful faces around him as Foy let the report he’d just meticulously prepared fall heavily on to the desk, which separated the two men. He could see the others in the room, Oswald Aitken and Colin McGhee, looking everywhere but at him and Foy. McGhee, a short, squat Glaswegian with brown hair and a grey suit that was just a little too snug, was pretending to look for something in the mountain of paperwork that lay heaped on his desk. Aitken, a tall, consumptive-looking man, with thinning sandy hair and a lined, almost pained face, briefly gazed at Skinner in distaste. He saw a cocky youth whose disturbingly busy eyes hinted that the soul behind them was perpetually wrestling with something or other. Such young men were always trouble and Aitken, counting the days till his retirement, wanted none of it. Realising that support would not be forthcoming, Skinner considered that it was perhaps time to lighten things up. – I’m no saying that his kitchen was damp, but not only did I find a salmon in the mousetrap, the poor bastard had asthma. I was on my way to phoning the RSPCA!


Обсудить в форуме | Возврат | 

Сайт создан в марте 2006. Перепечатка материалов только с разрешения владельца ©