He apparently never used to be like this. “I swear it,” says Augie, born Augustine G Fredericks. “I have never ever taken note of the colour of a cat, let alone drive half way around town to avoid one,” he confesses.
But that’s what happened a week back. Augie was in his Holden — the grey-toned one with the dent in the fender, rear left; his wife, Kavita, drives the other Holden — the one without a dent in any fender, the black one with not a single visible scratch, the one that’s waxed to such a high gloss it’s like gazing into a dark mirror.
“Five years ago I’d have continued driving to office if a black cat had strolled across the road, honest,” says Augie, wiping sweat off his brow, either from relief or as a result of the humidity; it is a tad muggy this day.
What made him take a detour then?
“Oh, I don’t know,” he mumbles vaguely, as though striving to suppress some other statement that, sadly, seconds later refuses to be caged and comes bursting through, “Oh well, I guess it’s Kavita,” he says, finally, adding, “Not that I’m blaming her in any way. You know how these things, little superstitions, prey on your memory and then, bang! Just when you think you’re above all that mumbo-jumbo, a black cat ambles right across your path and you end up doing exactly what you’ve always privately agreed you’d never ever do.”
What if the cat was right outside his gate and walked across as he was about to drive out, I ask.
“Don’t even go there, mate,” he says, “I’d probably have taken the train to work although even saying that aloud sounds just so ... crazy, or silly!”
Kavita’s great-granddad apparently defied one such wandering feline, the colour of midnight, which walked across his bullocks early one morning when he was setting out to plough the fields — he being a farmer. The following morning both animals were found dead in their stall, bitten evidently by a cobra.
“Rationally,” says Augie, “how can one ever draw a line connecting the aimless perambulations of a black cat with the malicious wanderings of a cobra, knowing also that cobras are cranky creatures, but there it is, once the dots are connected belief like a unicyclist rides back and forth on the line and if it doesn’t fall off, then there’s a good reason to keep riding!”
What about his day itself at the office that day?
“Oh, after the detour that took 25 minutes in traffic, it shouldn’t surprise anybody when I say I arrived late at work. I had a book cover to design. I had a deadline to meet. I had a meeting scheduled with the client. I was counting on being at work on time to tie up the loose ends. As it turned out, I was not. The client was there ahead of me, sipping a second cup of green tea. Writers can be polite people on the surface, but you could see the disapproval in their eyes, they are by and large disciplined folk, writing to rigid personal schedules, so they cannot easily accept tardiness and indiscipline in others ...”
Augustine is off on a little rant. He needs to get the day out of his system.
He’s nearly done venting when who should drive up, but Kavita herself, returning from work. Augie and I are still standing on the wide driveway beside his car. Kavita draws up beside and gets out. I say “hello” and wander over to look at her vehicle merely out of idle curiosity.
I am gazing into the perfect sheen on the bonnet when I feel a pressure on my arm. Augie is beside me. He says: “It’s not good to look into a dark mirror. All kinds of portents in there, right Kavita? Kavita gives an unconcerned shrug of the shoulder.
“Augie’s just too superstitious,” she says.
Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia
