Mother Country [antikvár]

From the street, over the bass thump of the music, he could hear the baby's harsh rhythmic wails. His mouth was dry, and his heart hammered unpleasantly. Reaching out a hand, he steadied himself on the sooty trunk of a pavement tree. Thin April sunshine filtered through the leaves, and even in his panic the young man registered pleasure at the street's air of settled and unselfconscious antiquity. London had been in his dreams for a long time, almost as much as Cambridge. 'London, England,' he said under his breath, as if there was some comfort in the words. But the baby's cries tore through the late-afternoon air, all too audible above the soupy thud of the speakers booming from the bowels of the house. Still he stood, leaning on the tree, feeling the ridged bark beneath his hand and the odd dense weight in his coat pocket, hating his own weakness. After a few moments he found that he could distinguish another human sound from behind the scabby plaster façade. A woman was shouting. Indistinct words ripped from her throat and soared into shrieks worse than the child's. The watcher on the pavement closed his eyes. Another voice, lower but also a woman's, seemed to be pleading or soothing. A door slammed, and the two adult voices became muffled while in the foreground the baby cried on, the note rising and grating. Fighting nausea the