How to Disappear by Duncan Fallowell Read Free Book Online Page A

make us the same again right away.
    A famous ornithologist called Major Kashir was on leave and at the next table, trying to slap some table manners into his elder son, a morose boy. The younger son was milder, making no sort of challenge but taking it all in no doubt for the day when his pubic hair sprouted and he’d answer back. The Major’s wife leant across to us and asked ‘Are you having a lovely time?’
    â€˜Oh we are,’ beamed Rita, ‘apart from my rat-bite.’ Mrs Kashir looked horrified, so Rita quickly added ‘Not here! Near the station.’
    Mrs Kashir wanted a change of subject nonetheless, and she was also a little embarrassed by the atmosphere between her husband and her sons, so she said to us ‘Come outside a moment. I should like to show you something.’
    Since it was more of an instruction than a request, we stood up and walked past our waiter who halted against a background of fake-brick wallpaper, the second junket on his hands. The Major remained seated, brushing potato out of his moustache with a napkin, while the sullen sons were commanded not to move an inch. ‘Not an inch!’
    Outside in the garden, Mrs Kashir pointed into the navy-blue night above the conifers and asked ‘Do you see that?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜That. Look. There. Above the fourth tree from the left. A star.’
    â€˜Oh, yes. I see.’
    â€˜So it’s a star,’ said Miss Moffett.
    â€˜My dear – wrong. It’s not a star. I’ve been watching it for several days. It’s getting closer.’
    Rita shivered inside her shawl – it was February – and asked ‘How much closer?’
    Mrs Kashir shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe it will crash into us.’
    â€˜But how do you know it’s getting closer?’ asked Sarah.
    Mrs Kashir pounced. She wanted to mystify us. ‘On Thursday it was over there! Above the eighth tree!’ And retied her headscarf and buttoned up the fawn car-coat which she always wore over her beautiful saris. ‘It’s definitely not a satellite, one may say, because it takes a zig-zag course, some nights higher, some nights lower. To-night it’s higher. And the reason I know it’s getting closer is – every night brighter! If you eye it askance, you will see that it is a greenish colour. Can you see that?’
    We couldn’t.
    â€˜Well, I’ve been observing it longer than you. It is undoubtedly a mechanical object.’
    Rita told Mrs Kashir that her car-coat looked very warm and the lady answered ‘Oh, it is. Terywool, you know.’
    We passed a green baize noticeboard in the hall. Sarah nosed among the pinned-up messages and discovered that a jumble sale was happening a few days hence in aid of the roof of St Stephen’s Church, and we decided to go along since it was nearby. Inkie told us that Ooty’s founder, John Sullivan, is buried in St Stephen’s whose arches were taken from the palace of Tipoo Sultan. Also within walking distance, according to the town map, were the Nilgiri Library, the Ootacamund Club, and Spencer’s Grocery Store where they sold Dundee Cake, Oxford Marmalade and Cheddar cheese; while to reach the Assembly Rooms, where English and American films were occasionally shown, you had only to follow gravity down a number of stepped paths.
    The next morning (amphetamine-orange pee in a bright yellow loo) I felt in need of intellectual stimulus. Rita and Sarah invaded the Junk Emporium in a gothic-revival stableyard opposite the Ratan Tata while I took off for the Nilgiri Library which is a famous institution. It was founded in 1859 and the building resembles a red Victorian vicarage, with a reading room like a school-hall jutting into the rear garden. Inside, the walls were adorned with stuffed tiger and stag heads. Novels, popular biographies and children’s books were downstairs while the more valuable part of the collection was