CLEO. Helen Brown E.
a whine since Sam’s death.
“Good girl!” I said, stroking the lovable rug of her back as she lunged towards the front door, her tail wagging.
The head behind the glass shifted expectantly. Whoever it was had heard both the bark and my response. There was no choice now. Refusing to open the door would be plain old-fashioned rudeness.
Looping Rata’s collar through my fingers, I turned the latch. Sunlight stabbed my brain. The graceful figure belonged to Lena. Attached to her long elegant arm was her son, Jake, who was the same age as Rob.
Most people had kept their children away. All except one or two of Rob’s closest friends had maintained their distance. Understandably. The death of a grandparent is enormous enough for a child to encompass, let alone the annihilation of someone their own age. Who knows what effect the sudden departure of someone from their own generation could have on their unformed nervous systems? And there’s no proof tragedy isn’t contagious.
I wasn’t confident about my reactions to other people’s children yet, either. When names were mentioned, especially boys Sam’s age, vengeful rage would boil inside. What right has your son to be alive when mine is not?
Lena’s son stared up at me unblinkingly, then at Rata joyously bursting to escape my grip on her collar. Jake peered around me into the hallway. Perhaps this was going to be a half-normal visit after all, refreshingly free of the old “I’m so terribly sorry. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“Would you like to see Rob?” I asked the child, in case Lena wanted to express the platitudes I’d learned to expect. “He’s building a city on the moon.”
Jake stood still, a smile flickering on his lips.
“You could use the toilet if you like,” I blabbered, trying to stop Rata’s flailing tongue drowning him in saliva. “Except it’s not very private at the moment, I’m afraid. They said they’d need two weeks to strip the door, but it’s taking forever. We’re in a bit of a mess…”
Lena bent like a willow over her shoulder bag, a huge patchwork sack, flamboyant and colorful enough to have been made by the artist herself. Reaching into the bag, she excavated a small creature with large triangular ears. It was black and not so much furry as sprinkled with occasional hairs. Perhaps she’d stitched together some kind of toy to comfort a boy grieving for his lost brother.
I was alarmed when the tiny thing’s head moved. Its eyes bulged like a pair of glass beads. A set of impossibly dainty feet draped themselves through Lena’s fingers. I was reminded of those photos of premature babies whose miniature scale is demonstrated alongside an adult human hand. An organism so helpless it would surely have difficulty supporting its own life.
“We’ve brought the kitten,” said Lena, smiling steadily.
The kitten? What kitten?
“Sam’s kitten!” said Rob, running down the hall and squeezing around me.
Rata barked loudly and sprang free of my grip. Jumping on her haunches, she almost knocked Lena over. The kitten recoiled into Lena’s breast. Our dog must have seemed a monster to the little thing. The two animals obviously loathed each other.
“Down, girl!” I growled. “She’s not used to cats.” Grabbing the dog firmly by the collar again, I led her inside and back down the hallway.
“Don’t worry, old thing,” I said, rubbing a hand through her coat. “We’ll sort this out.”
Rata seemed to understand that being jailed in the kitchen was a temporary inconvenience. The kitten, Sam’s kitten, didn’t belong in our house. It had arrived like E.T. in a spaceship (disguised as Lena’s patchwork bag). The kitten was from another time. We were different people when Sam was with us and our lives were whole. Now that we were broken, frayed remnants of our former selves there was no place for a kitten. Not with us.
I couldn’t possibly cope with a baby animal and all its needs. Not when I’d already proved myself a failure as a parent of one human child, aged nine. How could I nurture such a tiny, vulnerable creature? Besides, poor Rata had suffered enough. She certainly didn’t need her life messed up any more than it was already by a natural-born enemy.
Lena would have to take the intruder back. She’d understand. Finding a family better equipped than ours to look after the kitten would be no problem for her. It was a presentable enough animal, and she was a brilliant saleswoman. Heading back to the front door, I prepared my speech. Lena would feel let down, but her disappointment would be nothing compared to what we’d been through.
As I reached the front doorstep I saw Lena haloed in sunlight, lowering the kitten into Rob’s hands.
“She’s yours now,” Lena said softly.
“I’m sorry, Lena…” I was about to launch into my speech.
But then I saw Rob’s face. As he gazed tenderly down at the kitten, and ran a chubby finger over her back I saw something I thought had vanished from the earth forever. Rob’s smile.
“Welcome home, Cleo,” he said.
Trust
A cat is always in the right place at exactly the right time.
As Rob disappeared inside with his new kitten, Lena turned to go. Seized with panic, I grabbed her elbow.
“There’s something you should know,” I blabbed. “I’m not really a cat person. I mean our family had cats when we were growing up, but they were more like wildcats. They just lived under the house and we fed them occasionally. Mum grew up on a farm, you see, and she never really got cats. She let a couple of them come inside and we semi-tamed them, but they weren’t friendly…”
Lena’s face clouded. She needed to hear this. Not telling her would’ve been worse than filling out a customs form and ticking “Haven’t been on a farm in the past thirty days” when in fact you’ve been helping cousin Jeff milk his dairy herd for the last two weeks.
“One of them, Sylvester, used to poop in Mum’s shoes, which was horrible for her, because she sometimes forgot to look before she put her shoes on. She’d scream the house down. She said Sylvester was temperamental because he was part Persian, with the long hair, you know. Black and white, he was. The thing is, Lena, I’m pretty sure we’re more dog people.”
Lena turned her head like an exotic lily and surveyed the scrub that was our garden. Casting her eye over the mountainous piles of dung Rata had bombarded the front lawn with, she sighed.
“This is a very special kitten,” Lena said. “And if you don’t like cats…”
“It’s not that I don’t like cats,” I continued. “It’s just I don’t really know how to look after them. I haven’t read any books about kitten rearing or anything.”
“They’re very easy to care for,” she said in kindergarten teacher tones. “Much easier than dogs. She’ll be no trouble. Just keep her inside for a day or two to settle. Give me a call if you have any problems. And if you change your mind you can give her back to me.”
“But…” Lena didn’t seem to realize I’d made my mind up already. I didn’t want the kitten.
“All she needs is a little love.”
Love. Such a simple, four-letter word to roll off the tongue. So much easier for the facial muscles to arrange themselves around than “lasagna,” “leisure suit” or “leave me alone forever, please.” My heart had been ripped out and pulverized. How could it possibly squeeze out a drip of anything resembling the L word for a creature I’d forgotten we’d ever agreed to own and wasn’t in the slightest way equipped to look after?
Besides, a cat, assuming by some miracle it survived long enough in our company to grow into one, is an arduous, practically never-ending responsibility.
I’d gone down enough in Lena’s estimation