The Cat's Table - Michael Ondaatje [55]
Two Violets
BY NOW THE STATUS OF MRS. FLAVIA PRINS on the Oronsay was considerable. She had been a guest at the Captain’s Table, and was invited twice onto the bridge for Officers’ Tea. But it was the combination of Aunt Flavia with her two friends and their skills at duplicate bridge that gave her power within the A Deck salons.
Violet Coomaraswamy and Violet Grenier, “the two Violets,” as they were referred to by all, had represented Ceylon in numerous Asian bridge tournaments from Singapore to Bangkok. They were therefore superior to the usually listless card-players during the voyage, and these women, not revealing their professional status, cut a swath with their gambling, searching out a different wispy bachelor every afternoon and making him join them in a couple of rubbers.
The games were in reality a slow interrogation as to the availability of the man, with a possible courtship in mind, as Miss Coomaraswamy, the younger Violet, now happened to be trawling for a husband. And so, though she was in fact the most Machiavellian player of the three, Violet Coomaraswamy pretended modesty at the card tables in the Delilah Lounge, underbidding and faltering when she could have pounced. If she happened once or twice to play a Three No Trump like a genius, she blushed and credited her luck in cards, not, sadly, her luck in love.
I still imagine those three ladies surrounding and ensnaring solitary gentlemen who were out of their depth, not even aware they were in fatal waters. The bangles and brooches tinkled and shimmered as the two Violets and Flavia laid their cards down for the kill, or clutched them shyly to their bosoms. All through the Red Sea there was hope that one middle-aged tea planter would succumb to the charms of the youngest hunter among them. But he proved more gun-shy than they had thought, and during our landfall at Port Said, Violet Coomaraswamy stayed in her cabin and wept.
What I most wished to witness was a card game between my aunt Flavia and my cabinmate, Mr. Hastie. He was still despondent about his demotion. He missed his dogs, and he missed the spare time when he could read. I longed for the possibility of a tournament between these two separate worlds, and I wondered whether the Violets might be destroyed by him in a fair game—in the Delilah Lounge, or in our cabin at midnight, or perhaps best of all, on neutral ground, deep within the hold, on an unfolded card table, under a naked bulb.
Two Hearts
MR. HASTIE’S LOSS OF HIS JOB as Head Kennel Keeper meant the nightly card games did not take place as often as they used to. First of all, Mr. Invernio’s rise in authority meant there was more squabbling between the two friends. And Mr. Hastie, now assigned to chipping paint in bright sunlight, did not have the same energy he had when simply overseeing dogs and reading mystical works. In the past the two had shared a breakfast at the kennels—usually a whiskey and then some form of porridge, which they ate from a washed-out dog bowl. Now they barely saw each other. But sometimes a late game of bridge would still take place, and I’d watch the four of them until I fell asleep, only to be woken by Mr. Babstock, who was a shouter whenever he lost a hand. He and Tolroy, on a night break from being wireless operators, would come to these games exhausted. Only Invernio, who now had the easiest job, was lively, clapping his hands at any small victory. With the odour of dalmatians and terriers rising off him he continued to irritate Mr. Hastie.
By the fantail of the ship there was a yellow stern light. And during the hottest nights my cabinmate dragged his cot there and lashed it to the railing in order to sleep under the stars. I realized he had probably been sleeping there on those first few nights out of Colombo. Cassius, Ramadhin, and I came upon him on one of our night expeditions and he explained he’d been doing