A Cage of Bones

Author:Jeffrey Round
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Rounder Publications
Published: 2008-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

As winter approached, the English weather began to be dominated by a thin constant drizzle that held no promise of snow before Christmas. Warden’s thoughts turned more and more to home. It seemed so long since he’d been at the friendly house on Connaught Circle or out enjoying walks in the park with his sister. The feelings remained curiously aroused and wouldn’t go away.

He received a card from his mother asking about his plans for the holidays. She’d enclosed a photograph of the family taken by his father some years before, with Warden standing between his mother and sister on the front lawn. A stone gryphon sat poised on either side of the entranceway, claw-throated and stiff-backed, guarding the staid residence through long quiet nights. It all seemed so far away, as though it belonged to a previous existence. He phoned to say he’d be home in a week and spent the next few days shopping for gifts.

He landed at the airport on one of those bleakly Canadian days that resonated at the very core of his being. A wintry sunset matched the orange glow in each living room window, suffusing everything with stability and order. He imagined hard wind-swept faces staring from behind endless rounds of beer in front of endless rounds of Hockey Night In Canada, as if the country were held in the unreceding throes of an endless winter.

It was strange to be back, and stranger to think he once belonged there. The places he’d visited seemed more real as they obeyed the relative laws of time and mutability compared to the absolute unchanging homeland.

The gryphons watched his re-entry into the sacred groves of the family under shadowy eaves, lace encircling the windows, withered vines clinging to the outer brick walls. The house stood before him now, welcoming, accommodating, surviving all the changes within him.

Lisa met him, throwing her arms around him in hugs as huge and greenly welcoming as the pine and holly wreathes on the front door. She ushered him in, apologizing that no one had picked him up at the airport, amid exclamations of joy on his return.

“You’re back at last, Ward-Boy—I can’t believe it!”

He set down his bags and took off his overcoat. His mother and father were there to greet him and make the scene complete. He’d already eaten but his mother brought out more food, insisting he eat again as she watched over him.

They wanted to hear all about Italy and England and his work. He told them about the shows he’d been in and of the erratic Sr. Calvino, about go-sees and photographers and his trips around the Italian countryside. He described the abandoned house on Elba and the quality of light in the late afternoon on the tiny island where Napoleon had once been held prisoner and how amazed he was that even the least educated Europeans spoke two or three languages fluently. He even mentioned Valentino’s name several times to see if it elicited a spark of curiosity.

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