Читать книгу Smithereens - Terence Young - Страница 11

I still have it somewhere, her initials engraved, all three, C.A.Y. in curling capitals, the surface tarnished because who polishes silver anymore?

I’ve seen a dozen similar at Value Village, tossed out by children who are better at letting go, so few interested in relics from an age that is still too recent.

It flips opens like an old-school cellphone, two neat halves that part, the cigarettes all in a row, tilting up.

I used it for a while to hold my own, an affectation I liked, the formality, how I would draw it from an inner jacket pocket, select one as though I were choosing a diamond from a display case.

But cigarettes became so long I’d have to cut them to fit, and I hadn’t the patience, dropped it in a drawer, then into a box that might be in the attic.

On evenings they had guests, my father in grey, my mother in green silk, I’d watch her reach for it in her purse or lift it from the coffee table, the way she’d light up and breathe in, allowing some smoke to remain hanging, which she’d take in a second later through her nose, French inhaling it was called, a name that made her even more attractive.

She would hold it flat against her palm until an errand claimed her, then set it aside discreetly.

Once, I picked it up, still warm from her grip, a bright, lovely thing that made me want it the way I want it even now, years after I have given up the habit, if only for the sound it made when she snapped it shut.