The Cat’s Table by Ondaatje Michael

Author:Ondaatje, Michael [Ondaatje, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Vintage Digital
Published: 2011-08-07T18:30:00+00:00

The evening began to darken and as it did, the Ramadhins’ modest home, which had once been a sanctuary for me, seemed a frail ark. The last visitors were slowly walking out onto the unlit suburban street. I was standing beside the family in the hallway about to leave as well, needing to make the train back to central London.

‘I have to catch a plane tomorrow afternoon,’ I said, ‘but I’ll be back in a month, with luck.’

Massi was watching me carefully. It was what we both had been doing all afternoon, as if reconsidering a person we had once known well. Her face was broader and there was a different manner than when we were young. I was witnessing her new and careful courtesy to her parents. She who had been in loud battle with them all through her teens. I was aware of these differences just as I knew she could pin me down more clearly than anyone among my recent friends. She could have hauled out some perception of me from our past and placed it adjacent to what she was seeing now. She’d been the sidekick to her brother and me during school holidays, when the three of us lounged in a city that was not quite ours and where we were made to feel it was not quite ours – it was a strange contained universe we moved around in, taking the bus to a swimming pool in Bromley or to the Croydon public library, or to Earls Court to see the Boat Show, or Dog Show, or Motor Show. No doubt we still had the same knowledge of those specific bus routes in our brains. She’d witnessed all my changes during our teens. All of this was in her.

Then the gap of eight years.

‘I have to catch a plane tomorrow afternoon but I’ll be back in a month, with luck.’

She stood in the hallway watching me, her face in clear shock at the loss of her brother. Her boyfriend was beside her, holding her by the elbow. We had spoken earlier in the evening. If he was not her boyfriend, he certainly hoped to be.

‘Well, let me know when you get back,’ Massi said.

‘I will.’

‘Massi, why don’t you walk with Michael to the station? You two should talk,’ Mrs R. said.

‘Yes, come with me,’ I said. ‘This way we’ll have an hour together.’

‘A lifetime,’ she said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.