Meatloaf in Manhattan by Robert Power Read Free Book Online

shift,’ says my mother, from somewhere deep in the past. ‘But I was out playing tennis. He’ll call again. He’ll call again, soon. He’s to call again to take me out walking on the promenade. We’ll take a turn together around the sweep of the bay.’
    She looks at me, surprised at what she sees.
    â€˜You’re not him,’ she adds. ‘No you’re not him. You look nothing like him and you’re far too old.’
    So I hold her hand and stroke her arm and we sit in the fading sun on the bench. Every now and then an old man or woman walks by, separate and deep in their own world, far, far away. I look into your face. It is the face of my mother, but a shadow has been cast between us. Breaking a bond. I grip your hand, but you don’t respond. So we sit together on this bench and that, for now, will have to be enough.
    So maybe it’s for the best that I don’t tell you what has happened. Anyway, it is all so strange, even now. After the events. There were warnings. On the radio and from the folk in town. Old Barry Davies drove up the hill in his battered ute to check I’d heard what was in the offing. You staying? he said.
    I guess so, I replied. What else is there to do? It was like nothing we’d seen before. So much rain. Day after day, until it got so dark with the deluge of it all that you couldn’t tell morn from night. Then when it came it was as if the world had exploded. The wall of water and the trees crashing and the mud and the machinery and the bits of houses and animals all at once. It engulfed everything. The barn just upped and washed away and the cattle, swirling and screeching, big eyes trying to stay above the whirlpools and the crops and trees all uprooted and swept away. I had climbed to the top of the silo and could see the whole landscape transform before my eyes. As if I was the last man left in the world.
    All we’d worked for ripped away in a flash. I saw a huge croc swim by just below my feet and snakes and lizards and all manner of animals drowned and drowning and wriggling in the flow. All helpless together. So I just waited there. Thinking about the long life we’d had, me and you and how it was all being swept away beneath our feet.
    Sometime later on in the night the rain stopped and the torrent slowed. It was almost peaceful. I just sat on top of that silo watching for the sun to rise, which it did. As if nothing untoward or remarkable had occurred. As if God had turned his back for a while and had missed the show.
    Around mid-morning Barry Davies came by in his old tinny. He circled around where the house had been, his oar barely making a sound. Then he saw me atop the only structure still standing and headed my way. We nodded at each other and he asked me if I was okay and I said I was. Then he told me to get in the boat and we rowed in silence back to town. Eventually the water gave way to higher ground and we tied the boat to a post. Then we walked through the mud and the slop to a shelter that had been set up by the railway station. Not much more than a plastic tent, but everyone was there and it was kind of reassuring to see those familiar faces from town, no matter they all looked so sad and lost, everyone sitting quietly in their grief and bemusement.
    I’m glad you were here up-country and away from it all. The doctor said it was on the news, but you took no notice, even though the old high street was shown blown away. Once the flooding subsided I went back to see what could be salvaged. But everything’s gone. All the topsoil’s been washed away, just leaving bare rock. It’s like the present has been peeled back to reveal the past. Just a couple of huge trees and all that rock. And that’s when I saw Trailer’s leash, the studs glistening in the sun. Wrapped around a branch like a snake warming its cold body in the midday heat. I hadn’t seen that leash in years. No idea where it