Clio coaxed and caressed
Mélisande's ankles, weaving slowly back and forth in a tango of
anticipation. Together they breathed in the rich smell of salmon cat
food, yet, with divergent reactions, Mélisande masking her dislike
by talking to Clio mincingly with anticipatory delight of such a
delicious meal. “Oooh, Salmon, Clio, your favourite, yummm....”
She placed the cat dish on the floor and petted Clio who hunched over
it with an instinctual display of possessiveness. Hunger or habit
Mélisande wondered as she watched Clio eat? And was she too but a
pawn of the habitual responses of the digestive tract? Had habit
taken over? Eating by herself stripped the fabric of the dining
ritual away to reveal the truth that one was not always famished at
meal times, and that many small food breaks seemed more efficient.
She even felt she had lost weight since Pavor had been away in
Europe, and yet, she missed the act of sharing a meal. She
sat at her kitchen table and imagined Pavor sitting across from her,
wine glass in hand telling her of his latest chapter of his latest
work in progress, the words and descriptions of character swirling in
the air about them like a host of fallen angels.
Receiving Pavor's email this
morning was like having a fresh painted backdrop descend for the next
scene: Trieste, old buildings, clocks, statues; a de Chirico
landscape with long shadows and late sun, a couple walking in the
plaza. It could be the book cover illustration, The Under-Glasse,
a literary novel by P. K. Loveridge. She was a bit concerned he had
ventured out of his zone of comfort, but secretly pleased that he might be mining layers of hidden sensitivity, layers possibly revealed due
to their being apart for so many months.
Pavor hadn't mentioned his
stay in Prague. It had been the purpose of his trip. A few
weeks in Prague to visit his Mother and gather the spirit of place
for possible fictional purposes, but the Trieste offer had come to him
enroute, his agent having met him in Paris to lay out the details.
His Mother, an imperious woman, opinionated and judgemental, who had
been rather cool to Mélisande upon meeting her for the first time,
had returned to Prague after her many years in Montreal, a return
that may have softened her character she hoped, and made her more
forgiving, surrounded as she now was with her culture and language.
Mélisande imagined that Pavor's Mother had anticipated a doctor or a
lawyer being her future daughter-in-law, and that a librarian was not
quite on the same scale. She realized she didn't truly understand his
Mother. Perhaps never would.
She walked over to the
counter and decided to have a toasted white-seed bagel, sliced pear
and tea for dinner. She carefully sliced the Fairmount bagel and
placed the pieces in the toaster thinking that though Pavor could
read the news of Montreal, and listen to local radio over the
Internet, he could not get a delicious Fairmount bagel in Trieste. He
would be missing that, she thought, and her company.
His description of Slovenia,
horseback riding and cave exploration was enticing. She had already
been reviewing her holiday status and possible choices and decisions
to be made. She hadn't been on a horse for ages. This evoked the
memory of walking with Pavor on Mount Royal last year to enjoy the
autumn colours, and how they stood watching as two police officers, a
female and a male, their equivalents in some other dimension,
approached on horseback upon the cinder path, and how she internally
swooned with the extraordinary beauty and strength of their black
mounts with their long eyelashes, dark eyes and black manes, all urging her to reach out and caress their noses and jaws and talk to them like
she talked with Clio. But of course she had restrained this urge and made do with small talk with the officers, pleasant types who were affable and
proud, doing their best to control the powerful, once wild, natures beneath them.
Sitting down at her kitchen
table with her light repast, she turned on the radio and listened to
the local news before turning the dial to find a piece of music to
accompany her dinner. Frustrated by her findings, she switched it
over to the cd player and pressed play. Telemann, musique de table, baroque music performed by old university roommates and friends of
hers who had made a place for themselves in various baroque music
ensembles in Montreal.
As she ate, she thought of
the odd Latin text that Duncan had brought to her. She had had a
moment during the day to look it over and it seemed to be a part of
an esoteric or occult work possibly from the sixteenth century. The
words clavis magna were used in the text, the great key.
Well, she thought, it was a start. Duncan should be pleased to find
such an odd remnant text thrown into a binding as filler to keep the
cash books of uniform appearance. It must have been a bad year for
business. She should really phone or email Amelia and arrange to
meet over coffee, or perhaps have them both over for dinner and catch
up on their lives. She could use a friendly chat.
She took her tea into the
bedroom. The bedside table displayed her reading of the moment, at
stack of books including Armadale by Wilkie Collins, Dear
Life by Alice Munro, and poems by Anne Carson. She had been
dipping into Armadale on a monthly basis trying to replicate
the reading experience of the original Victorian Cornhill Magazine
readers back in the early 1860s, and often wondered how they could
remember so much after a month had passed, but then again, she had
thought, there were fewer distractions, more time for them to think
upon what they had read and create anticipatory fictional
possibilities. She looked down and noticed the corner of the book of
poems by Pavor under the bed. She brought it up from the dusty
shadows and opened it to read the next poem in the arrangement:
You touch my shoulder
pointing left. The star
Adjacent rising, Notre
Dame, the church,
The overreaching
extrovert, the draw
For photo-ops and tourists
over par,
The structure of belief,
and pigeon perch,
Is casting nascent shadows
and the law.
The buses idle while the
pilgrims stretch.
Hand-held devices at
arms-length will bloom
Like floral offerings.
Smoke and swagger
Arises from the driver
whose fine sketch
In air with cigarette,
“don't miss the tomb!”
Provides a sense of cloak
and dagger.
The architect lies buried
underneath.
What faith, or deal sub
rosa paid for this?
And did Masonic ritual
take place?
The apron and the
evergreen? Did death,
The code, the key, the
mystery, the bliss,
Unlock the blueprint of a
cold embrace?
O'Connell's bones beneath
the stones--a death-
bed convert to acquire his
well-made crypt--
A skipping rhyme, alone he
lies in slate.
And yet, such art, such
beauty, and such breath-
less carvings, azure,
sculptures, stain-glassed script
Surround once rented pews,
choice real-estate.
A skipping rhyme? She shook
her head and laughed. Oh Pavor, she thought, always tossing a pebble
into the clear waters of reflection. He was always digging up interesting facts about Montreal. She remembered when he had told
her about the architect of Notre Dame Cathedral being buried in a
crypt beneath the church, and yet she doubted whether bus tours had
such knowledge, although the pews had indeed been 'choice
real-estate.'
She closed the book and laid
it upon the bed. Drinking her tea, curling her toes and stretching
her tired legs, she began to feel the fatigue of the day overtake
her. A light nap was all she needed. She heard Clio making her way
down the hallway to her bedroom, and as she closed her eyes, she
listened as she approached and felt her leap upon the bed before
settling down to perform her meticulous washing ritual, the sounds of
which eased her mind of all worries. She should write a children's
book she thought, a cat and a librarian take a cat nap together and
dream of a distant castle where the Queen dines on marmalade and
toast, marmalade and toast, marmalade and toast . . ..
© ralph patrick mackay
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