The Fourth Bear полностью

“Nuts to that!” she screamed, so loudly that several pieces of saliva exploded from her mouth with such force that Jack had to step aside to let them pass. “Lazy bastard of a husband!” she shouted over her shoulder into the house. She waited with extreme patience for perhaps a half second for him to appear, and when he didn’t, she screamed “HUS-BAAAAND!” so loudly that Jack felt his ears pop, and one of the flowerpots in the garden shattered. Presently, and with the slow, almost reptilian movement of the worst kind of loafer, Mr. Punch appeared, dressed in his traditional red tunic and hat. His features were more exaggerated than his wife’s, his complexion more florid, shinier and uglier. He had a large hooked nose that curved down to almost touch his upwardly hooked chin, and his long, thin mouth was curled into a permanent leer. He wore a small pointed hat and had heaped upon his back a hump that was as pointed as his chin, nose or hat. He also had several bruises on his face, and one eye was puffy and black. He had an infant clasped to his chest in a typical crossed-arms Punch pose and was rocking the baby back and forth in an aggressive manner. Jack stood and stared at Punch and Judy, trying to figure out which one he disliked least—it was a tricky contest.

“Bloody hell!” said Punch in an annoying, high-pitched voice. He opened his glassy eyes wide in shock and grinned even more broadly to reveal two long rows of perfectly varnished teeth. “The pig-bastard baby snatcher! What the ****ing hell do you want?”

“I live next door,” said Jack, “and keep your voice down. If I ever hear you swear without asterisk substitution, I’ll arrest you for offensive and threatening language.”

“Like I g*ve a shit!” screamed Mr. Punch, tossing the sleeping baby into a pram and picking up a handy baseball bat.

Jack stood his ground. “Drop the bat or you’re under arrest.”

“It’s not for you!” screeched Mr. Punch. “It’s for my lazy scumbag of a wife. Where’s my dinner, trout-lips?”

Judy expertly ducked the baseball bat that quickly followed. Mr. Punch, thrown off balance by her quick maneuver, left his flank unguarded, an opportunity quickly grasped by Judy, who thumped him painfully in his already badly bruised eye. Mr. Punch gave a scream of pain, but Judy hadn’t finished. She grabbed his arm, twisted it around so hard he had to drop the bat, which fell with a clatter to the floor, then stamped on his knee from the side. He collapsed in a groaning heap near the still-sleeping baby.

“I’ll get your bloody dinner when I bloody feel like it!” she screamed, and trod on his hand as she stepped over him.

“Are you okay?” asked Jack.

“Never better!” he gasped, his painted grin not for one second leaving his face. “Terrific lass, Judy. Very… spirited.”

“Very,” said Jack, thinking that if Judy hadn’t ducked the baseball bat, she would be unconscious, or worse. Still, this was what they did. What they had always done. For over three hundred years, they had beaten the living blue blazes out of each other for the joyous edification of the masses. Of course, what with the changing attitudes to marriage, women and respect for the law, Punch couldn’t actually kill anyone anymore, but the violent slapstick remained. He had for centuries been a source of lighthearted entertainment, but his star was now low on the horizon, and he was seen more as a misogynistic social pariah than an icon of antiestablishment dissent—especially in any neighborhood in which he lived. It wasn’t his fault the world had moved on; today’s Punch was a fly in amber, a fossilized pop-culture relic from a bygone era.

“I’m too old for this endless fighting crap,” he said mournfully, wincing as he struggled to his feet. “Want to come in for a beer? We could chat about the good old days—do you still do your ‘Jack Sprat / eat no fat’ routine?”

Jack’s heart nearly bounced out of his chest. He’d hidden it for so long that he’d almost forgotten that he was himself a PDR—a Person of Dubious Reality.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said defensively. “I’m as real as the next man. Besides, that Jack Sprat is spelled with one t—I have two.”

“Oh, right,” said Mr. Punch with a smirk. “In denial, are we? Got anything against PDRs?”

“No,” said Jack hurriedly. “Some of my best friends are PDRs. But I’m not and never have been—okay?”

“Okay, okay,” said Punch, winking. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“There’s no secret. I don’t know what you mean, really I don’t,” responded Jack, complaining perhaps a little too forcefully. “Maybe another time for the beer—and keep the fighting down, yes?”

“I’ll try,” said Mr. Punch, with all the conviction of a weak-willed recovering alcoholic being offered a shot of Jack Daniel’s, “but you know how it is.”

“Look what I’ve just found,” said Judy, returning to the door as though nothing had happened and holding a broken dinner plate.