“Yes, a cat. A dead cat.”
He visibly relaxed. “You’re kidding me, I thought…”
“I know, and I rang you back to tell you.”
“Holy shit, Lizzie. I thought…” For the second time, he didn’t finish his sentence.
I scowled at him. “You thought…? Oh, you thought I'd murdered someone, and I was about to clean up the evidence? I’d hardly call you to help, would I? Now, what do I do about the cat?”
Ronan started to laugh. I stared at him—it wasn’t remotely funny really.
I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him. “Danny is going to be so upset. He might want to bury him, or something. But I can’t leave him on the bed with the handcuffs,” I said.
Ronan ran his hand through his greying hair, and as he did, his white t-shirt rose a little, exposing a tanned stomach. A dark trail of hair headed south under the waistband of his jeans. I wanted to twirl my fingers in that hair, but I had shocking pink rubber gloves with fur around the wrists and a fake plastic engagement ring, and I was holding bleach.
Instead, I groaned. “What am I going to do about the cat?”
“Okay, show me,” he said. I handed him the key, as the gloves were three times larger than my hands and the fingers were doubling over, such was their length.
I showed Ronan to the bedroom, and I watched as he ran his fingers over the foot cuffs. “Ankle cuffs,” he said matter-of-factly.
“That they may be, now…Pat?” I said, hoping to bring him back to the situation.
He chuckled as he moved up the bed. I heard the clank of metal as he played with the handcuffs, and before I could comment again, he leaned over to look at the cat.
“How long do you think he’s been dead?” I asked.
At first there was no reply. “I’d say a few years,” he finally answered.
I was in the process of frowning when he picked the cat up; I leapt forward with my carrier bags and bleach spray. When he turned, he held Pat on a wooden plaque.
The smile on his lips grew wider until he started to howl with laughter.
“What?” I asked, feeling rather bemused.
“He’s stuffed. I think your friend was having a joke with you,” he said.
I widened my eyes and shook my head in disbelief. “No way.”
I reached forward, and as Ronan had said, the cat was stuffed and mounted on a wooden plaque.
“Oh my God, look at his eyes,” I said, covering my mouth with my gloved hands.
The cat had fake amber eyes, obviously, but he was boss-eyed.
Ronan was laughing so much at this point he had to sit on the bed, which made the metal headboard clank further against the handcuffs.
I held in the mirth for as long as I could. I crossed my legs in the hope my bladder might not embarrass me and, with tears streaming down my face, I joined in the laughter.
That was until I realised something.
“That prick had me feeding his stuffed cat!”
Ronan laughed harder, fell backwards onto the bed and started holding his stomach.
“He asked me to clean the litter tray,” I said, my voice no more than a squeak with a combination of mirth and anger.
Ronan was screeching. It wasn’t manly at all.
“This isn’t funny,” I said, in spite of my contorted face and aching stomach muscles.
“Oh, Lizzie. It is, for sure it is. It’s the funniest thing that has happened in ages,” he replied.
“Well, I’m going to bag up the bloody cat and tell Danny it died, and I’ve shoved it down the rubbish shoot.”
Ronan laughed some more. I grabbed Pat from where he’d fallen onto the bed, boss-eyed and with his tongue hanging out, and I shoved him into the carrier bag.
Before I could make my way out, Ronan stood and grabbed my wrist. “Sorry, I know, it’s not funny. It’s a shitty thing your friend has done,” he said.
I squinted, studying him closely. The laughter lines around his eyes had softened, but his lips still twitched enough for me to think he was trying to pacify me.
“Look around. I think your friend is an amateur taxidermist.”
On the windowsill was a small glass case with what looked like a mouse, I think, in it. There was a second glass case on the bedside cabinet. A small bird was perched on a branch in that one.
“That’s grim,” I said, looking at the bird’s face. It was as distorted as Pat.
“Do you think this might have been his cat?” Ronan asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I have no idea. But I know what I’m going to do.”
I removed Pat from the plastic bags and put him back between the pillows before I left the room and grabbed the cat food tins. I scraped the contents into my carrier bags and deposited the tins, after rinsing them out, in Danny’s recycling bucket. I then walked to the bathroom, lifted the lid of the litter tray and scooped out a handful of sawdust, sprinkling that in the waste bin, making sure to drop a little on the floor. I wanted Danny to think I had scooped poop from the litter tray. Ronan followed me from the flat.
“Coffee?” I asked.
“That might be nice.”
Ronan and I walked into my flat, and it was only as I passed the mirror in the hallway that I realised what a state I looked. I had bed hair, no makeup, my PJs still on, furry slippers, and the pink washing up gloves.
“I might need to get dressed,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself as if it would conceal my outfit. I jutted out my chin, however, brazening it out.
Ronan nodded. “How about I make the coffee, or tea for you if you’d prefer, and you get dressed. As much as those fleecy cow PJs are endearing, they don’t match the gloves.”
I dumped my carrier bag in the bin, placed the bleach and sponge next to the sink, and then peeled off the gloves. My hands smelled of rubber and were coated in a white ‘fur’ from the interior. I sniffed them and then screwed up my nose.
I pointed to a cupboard, sure that Ronan would be able to figure out how to boil the kettle and make the tea without further instruction. Once alone in my room, I decided I didn’t feel comfortable having a shower and leaving Ronan in my flat. He could easily snoop around without my knowledge and the noise of the shower pump, which was akin to a jet engine I might add, would cover up any noise he made.
I dragged a brush through my hair and scrunched it into a topknot. I had a quick wash—a pits and bits wash—then cleaned my teeth and dressed quickly before joining Ronan in the kitchen. He was lounging against the countertop, and before he’d seen me, he was chuckling as he held his drink.
“It was funny, I guess,” I said, picking up the tea from beside him.
He bit down on his lower lip, and those laughter lines were back in full force. He nodded.
“What a shitty thing for Danny to do, though,” I said, contradicting myself.
Ronan nodded some more. He sipped his drink, and I pulled out a stool to sit.
“I’m sorry for calling you. I panicked because I thought he loved that cat. I just didn’t know what to do. Had it been mine, I’d have just buried it in the garden, or maybe not, the foxes might get it, but anyway…I didn’t know what to do,” I repeated.
He smiled gently at me. “I’m glad you called. It’s been an interesting morning in what was meant to be an otherwise mundane day. I had a couple of meetings planned, but this has been way better than those would have.”
“Oh, no, you should have said.”
He shrugged. “My team can take care of it.”
“What do you actually do?” I asked. I thought it a good time to get all those ‘introduction’ questions out of the way before our date; we could concentrate on dinner that way.
“I invest in businesses, own property, a bit of this and that, really,” he answered, vaguely.
“Mmm, okay, another time for the answer to that one.”
He looked at his watch and then placed his mug in the sink. He reached for the tap.
“Lizzie,
it’s been enjoyable, and I think your friend has a little kink going on over there,” he said. “I’ll meet you at the restaurant on Thursday unless you’d like me to collect you on the way?”
“Collect me, please. I was trying to be safe and not let you know my address in case you ended up being a stalker or a murderer, or worse.”
“Or worse? What could be worse than a murderer?” he asked with a grin and a glint in his eye.
I walked him to the door. “I don’t know—figure of speech, I guess.” A liar and a cheat could be worse, I thought.
Ronan paused after he’d walked over the threshold. He turned to face me—a little too close, not that I was complaining—and he leaned down to kiss my cheek. “I look forward to Thursday,” he said, and then he walked away.
I closed the door and rested my back against it. I really did like him. It was only as I walked back down the hallway and passed that blasted mirror again that I realised I had my t-shirt on, not only inside out, but back to front. The size fourteen label was hanging out for all to see, displaying the garment’s washing instructions.
I dragged it over my head and righted it while cursing myself. I never used to be this way. Divorce can do awful things to a woman in her fifties, I decided.
It pleased me to know that, unlike Danny probably would, Ronan hadn’t mentioned my pathetic dress sense at all.
I picked up the mobile and scrolled to my text messages. I replied to one.
All is good. Haven’t seen Pat yet but he’s eating and toileting well, so I guess he’s happy
I left him to ponder on that, the prick. I had half a mind to invoice him for my time.
“The cat was what?” Joe asked, aghast. We were sitting in my kitchen eating a Chinese takeaway and had already consumed a bottle and a half of wine.
“Dead. Not just dead but stuffed and mounted on a wooden plaque,” I said, trying to stop my chopsticks from crossing and flipping my food across the room. Joe slid a fork towards me, but I was determined to master the chopsticks one time in my life.
“Stuffed?”
“Yes, like taxidermy stuffed,” I said, throwing the chopsticks on the table with a huff and picking up the fork.
“And handcuffs?”
“Yes, although Ronan said the ones on the footboard were ankle cuffs, which is obvious when you think about it.”
“Did Ronan happen to tell you how he knew?” Joe asked with a wink.
I stared, open-mouthed, but closed it before the chow mein could fall out. “He didn’t, what a crafty…Oh, I’m going to dinner with him tomorrow,” I said.
“Well, let’s hope he doesn’t bring any restraints to the restaurant. Now, can we go and see the cat?” Joe’s eyes had that sparkle of mischief.
I placed my fork on the counter and slid from my stool. Joe and I crept, although I had no idea why, to Danny’s. I opened the door and led him to the bedroom.
“Oh, they are real, like proper, not Ann Summer’s handcuffs,” Joe said, jangling them.
“Like police ones?” I asked.
“No, like full on kink ones.”
I wondered how Joe would know the difference, if, in fact, there really was any. Handcuffs were handcuffs, surely?
I watched as he reached over to pick up the cat. Instead of holding him by the plaque as Ronan had done, he picked him up under the belly. All of a sudden a noise echoed around the room. I stared at Joe; Joe stared first at me and then we both stared at the cat. It made the noise again. Joe dropped him, and Pat bounced on the bed before throwing himself off. I reached forwards to catch him, all the time the fucking cat was meowing. I didn’t get to Pat in time, and he hit the wooden floor, his plaque bounced one way, and one eye bounced the other.
“Oh, my God,” I said. Joe just stood with his hands over his mouth.
“Get his eye,” I shouted, I wasn’t sure why I shouted. It wasn’t like it was a real emergency.
“I’m not picking up his eye,” Joe said, finally taking his hands away from his mouth.
“It’s not real,” I said, assuming that to be the case.
Pat had an orb in the side of his face with a glob of dried glue that had been unsuccessful in holding in the glass eye, or marble, or whatever it was. Joe picked up the eye and held it at arm’s length with his head turned away, as if it was the most offensive item he’d held in his palm. I giggled at the thought of the other offensive items he could have touched.
“We need to fix this. He loved this cat,” I said, grabbing the eye and the plaque.
I placed the still meowing Pat under my arm and hoped to God he had a thing inside him, like the teddies at Build-A-Bear. In fact, how had Danny got a recording and then…? I didn’t want to dwell on it.
I walked into the kitchen and placed the bits on a small dining table he had pushed against one wall. “We need glue,” I said, more to myself as Joe was trying hard to stifle the laughter.
I rifled through the cupboards but couldn’t find anything. I remembered the office and walked to the door, pushed it open and stepped in. I’d looked in the room before but other than the certificates on the wall I hadn’t taken too much notice. Lying on the bench were trays of implements.
“Joe, can you come here?” I asked as I stepped closer. I lifted the tea towel off one tray and quickly dropped it.
“Oh my God,” I said. That was fast becoming my favourite phrase and was being used way too often.
“What is it?” Joe replied as he walked in. I pointed to the tray with the towel. Joe lifted it. “Eeww, eeww, what is it?”
“A dead animal, obviously.”
Lying on the tray was a squirrel. A very flat squirrel that had obviously had its innards removed and was awaiting stuffing.
“You did vet this guy, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Lizzie, he didn’t tell me one of his hobbies was stuffing dead animals for fun.”
Joe started to pull open drawers of a unit. I heard more mutterings of “eeww” and didn’t want to look. Eventually, I heard, “Ah ha.” He turned around with a tube of glue in his hand.
We left the bedroom and returned to the kitchen. I picked up Pat and saw underneath the row of stitching where the pelt met. I could also feel the lump where I imagined that little recording device sat. When Joe had picked him up, he’d activated it.
“We need to glue his paws,” I said, holding him upside down while Joe uncapped the glue.
“Why don’t we just leave it where it was?”
“Because I’m pretending I haven’t seen this. If Danny comes home and it’s all broken, he’ll know I’m lying.”
“Why are you pretending?”
“Because that prick asked me to feed his cat, Joe. This cat,” I said, waving Pat around.
“That wasn’t nice. In fact, it’s a little odd.”
I nodded as Joe deposited a blob of glue on each paw. I could see where the cat had been positioned before and while Joe held the plaque still, I stood Pat in place. We held on for a few minutes until I thought the glue had taken and then slowly I released my hands. It wasn’t until then that I realised—Pat stank.
“Now the eye. If I don’t make him boss-eyed, he’s going to look like he’s looking left,” I said, as I studied the piece of amber glass.
“Looking left is a little better than boss-eyed,” Joe said. I nodded.
Excess glue had stuck the eye onto my finger, and by the time I managed to get it off and into the socket, I began to agree with Joe.
I put Pat in between the pillows on Danny’s bed and placed the glue back in the drawer. “It is odd, isn’t it? Maybe I should keep my distance…in fact, Danny texted me, and I don’t recall giving him my number at all,” I said.
“Block him. Let’s lock up, leave the keys through the letterbox and see what happens.”
As I closed the door and lifted the letterbox, I said, “To go to the extremes of a litter box is…” I looked at Joe.
“Oh no, you don’t think…” I said, as I opened the d
oor again.
We scoured the flat for a cat, a real one. We found a couple of toys but no live pet. We called out, opened the closets and drawers just to check he hadn’t got stuck. When we were completely satisfied there was no live cat in the flat I finally shut the door and left the keys through the letterbox. I’d already left a large bowel of biscuits; should it materialise there was a real cat, at least it had something to eat.
“Maybe Pat only just died,” Joe said, as he refreshed our wine glasses.
“Maybe Danny is a dick who thinks that was funny,” I replied, accepting my glass and taking a sip of my wine.
“So, tell me again what happened when Ronan came over.”
We laughed at the misunderstanding, and I found my smile getting wider the more I talked or thought about him.
Joe told me, “He has a spa that he’s hoping to open soon. You know I said about a weekend away? I’ve snagged us a discount. It’s going to be a very exclusive place. I’m going to help with some finishing touches.”
“That sounds great; I could do with a spa weekend. We could time it for when my divorce is finalised. That should be some point next month according to my lawyer. It can be one of those divorce parties that seem to be popular nowadays.”
“Yes! Do you still have your wedding dress? We can do a trash the dress photo shoot.” Joe seemed very excited about that.
“I doubt I’d fit in it now, and I imagine it’s in storage somewhere. Which reminds me, I really need to sort out somewhere to live soon. Maybe you’ll keep your eye open for a fairly cheap flat or house for me?”
Joe spluttered, and I suspected it was the word ‘cheap’ that had been the cause. I laughed as he recovered himself. “I need to get going. When is Danny back?” he asked.
“Friday, I’m not sure what time. I thought I might be out all day, I really don’t want to bump into him. That stuff with the cat has creeped me out, to be honest. I don’t know him well enough for pranks like that.”
“I agree. Maybe I could keep my eye out for something suitable for you. I’ll ask a few friends; see what’s on the market. I’ll then rent this place out to someone really awful, a convict maybe.”
“I don’t think convicts—who wouldn’t be convicts if they were out of prison by the way—are going to afford this apartment in this plush part of London.”
Limp Dicks & Saggy Tits Page 5