by Helen Brown
I disentangled her and lowered her firmly to the ground. Cleo sprang back on my lap. Like a famished lion she dug her teeth into my cardigan. I tried to dislodge her. A sudden pain in my thumb as she sank a fang through my flesh. Not only had she ruined my cardigan but she’d drilled a hole in me.
Crying out, I stemmed the river of blood with a paper towel. When Steve saw my injury he was unimpressed: Cleo was doing a good job fulfilling his prejudices against kittens.
When we sat down to the meal the furrow between Steve’s eyebrows deepened as Cleo demonstrated how unwilling she was to understand the words “Don’t jump on the table.” She attacked all three of our plates, not to mention the place mats, salt and pepper shakers and cutlery.
Heat pulsed up the back of my neck. My thumb throbbed. The effort of selling a kitten to a reluctant husband was taking its toll. I grabbed her and shut her firmly in the laundry.
“She hates it in there,” Rob whined.
“She can’t ruin our lives!” I shouted to drown out the yowls from behind the laundry door. Something about her jagged cries tipped me over a precipice. It wasn’t just the kitten, the thumb and the husband. The inquest was the next morning. Steve would come face-to-face with that woman. Policemen would prove her guilt. She would go to jail. I would finally have to accept Sam was dead.
Cleo’s yelps intensified. My body started shaking. Breaths came in shallow gasps. “I can’t stand it anymore! She’ll just have to go back to Lena!”
Rob stared into his risotto and swallowed back tears. “You’re. So. Mean.”
Scraping back my chair, I reeled to my feet and ran to the bedroom. Sobbing loudly into the pillow, I knew Rob was right. I was mean. And out of control. A bad mother, hopeless wife, a failed human being in general. I longed for sleep to drop its blanket over me.
Instead, a boy’s hand touched my shoulder. “She loves you, Mummy,” he whispered. “Listen…”
A bulk of fur nestled into my neck. The rhythmical growl of her purr roared in my ear. It was the deep primeval sound of waves rolling in on the black sand beaches of my childhood, the noise a baby hears when it’s in the womb. Wise and eternal, it could be the earth’s lullaby or the voice of God.
A cat’s purr is said to have a profound effect on the human body. Tests have proved purring reduces people’s stress, lowers blood pressure and helps mend muscles and bones. The healing powers of cats are increasingly acknowledged by the many hospitals and nursing homes that employ resident cat doctors. Regular doses of purring have the potential to repair heart tissue as well. Listening to her throaty melody, my chest filled with liquid honey.
Cleo nudged her head under my chin, stared at me with maternal concern and to my amazement planted her damp nose on my cheek. It was an unmistakable kitten kiss. Nestling into my neck, she stretched a delicate front leg across my face. I took the paw between my fingers, caressed it and watched the claws gently open and close. No threat of attack this time. The pads of her foot were softer than my fingertips, and sensitive enough to feel the earth’s subtle tremors (or so I’d heard). As we lay “holding hands,” our souls reached across the divide of species and shared a connection beyond words.
I awoke several hours later with Cleo wedged between the sheets, her head resting on the pillow beside me. She felt entitled to be there. Her motionless form, the peaks of her ears against the white cotton, the restful comfort of her breathing made me wonder if we hadn’t slept that way, human and feline, side by side, since Earth’s first dawn.
Goddess
A cat is a priestess in a fur coat.
“You do like Cleo, don’t you?” Rob asked over breakfast next morning.
I opened the kitchen window. Another seagull screeched across the agate-blue harbor. The half-eaten curtain cord swayed in the breeze. Steve had already put on his tie and left for the magistrate’s court.
“Yes,” I sighed.
“Good, because she likes you.”
“Of course she does,” I said, smiling weakly.
“No, Mummy. She really does!” he said. “She told me last night.”
“That’s nice, dear,” I said. “Finish your toast.”
“She told me other stuff, too.”
Rob was a sensitive boy. He’d suffered more trauma than any young child should endure. We hadn’t discussed the inquest with him, but he’d probably picked up on the vibes. Now he was dreaming up ideas of the kitten talking to him.
“She said she comes from a long line of cat healers,” he continued.
The poor kid’s imagination was off its leash.
“You mean in a dream?” I asked, fearing for his grip on reality.
“It didn’t feel like a dream. She said she’s going to help me find friends.”
There’d always been a psychic streak in the family, but talking to a kitten was too much. If word got out at school that he was having conversations with his kitten he’d be a target for bullies and all sorts of misery.
“I’m sure she is,” I said, putting my arm around his shoulder and kissing his ear. “But let’s keep it a secret for now.”
“You won’t give Cleo back to Lena, will you?” he asked.
I crouched beside him, rested my hands on his shoulders and examined his face, so serious. His body was rigid with tension. “No, Rob. We’re keeping her.”
His shoulders dropped. Relief rippled through him. He put his head down. His hair moved like wheat. His arms wriggled in a subtle dance of joy. Even though he wasn’t looking at me I could tell he was smiling.
Humans were slow to understand how essential cats were to their survival. One of the attractions of giving up nomadic wandering in favor of farming permanent settlements was the reduced risk of attack from large predators. People spent several generations congratulating themselves on this achievement without realizing a more devastating enemy was thriving in their walls, basements and grain stores. The humble rodent was responsible for far greater devastation than its carnivore cousins. A hoard of mice could destroy a year’s crop, leaving an entire village diseased and starving.
Wildcats circled the settlements, drooling at the prospect of mousey banquets. Occasionally some were bold or desperate enough to venture into the villages to hunt rats, mice and snakes. People gradually began to realize the cats weren’t doing any harm. In fact, they were useful pest controllers.
They started to appreciate the creature’s qualities. They noticed its elegance, admired its aloofness and its refusal to submit to human superiority like a cow or dog. The ancient Egyptians were the first to be impressed by the fact that a cat did not necessarily come when it was called.
Felines were decked out in gold jewelry and allowed to share food from their owners’ plates. Punishment for killing one of these creatures was death. Cats often had more elaborate funerals than people. When a family feline passed away its body was displayed outside the home and the entire household shaved their eyebrows as a sign of mourning—behavior that in today’s suburban neighborhood would result in phone calls to local authorities.
As well as saving millions of lives by killing rodents, our soft-footed friends have helped heal countless hearts. Sitting quietly at the ends of beds, they’ve waited for human tears to ebb. Curled on the laps of the sick and elderly, they’ve offered comfort impossible to find elsewhere. Having served our physical and emotional health for thousands of years, they deserve recognition. The Egyptians were right. A cat is a sacred being.
The kitchen clock dragged itself through the morning. The hearing was taking longer than expected. I assumed there was time-consuming evidence against the woman, previous convictions for dangerous driving—anything to explain what had happened.
A mug of coffee. And another. The harbor was a turquoise Frisbee just as it had been the day Sam died. Malevolent in its perfection. While I willed the second hand to circumnavigate the clock, Cleo introduced Rob to an old paper bag she’d stolen from the cupboard under the kitchen sink. She seemed to love the crac
kling sound it made as she rolled on it. When Rob held the paper bag open, Cleo bounded away from him across the kitchen and skidded to a halt. Turning, she crouched low and focused on the paper cave Rob had created. With pupils dilated, her eyes were almost entirely black apart from their thin green rims. Shifting her balance, she lifted her right front paw and positioned herself for the assault. The preparation was so painstaking and time consuming her audience was in danger of losing interest. Just as we were about to give up entirely and turn our attention to an unopened packet of chocolate-chip cookies, a black dart flew across the vinyl and shot into the crinkled depths of the paper bag.
“Look, Mummy,” he said, lifting the bag that was now satisfyingly round and weighty.
I moved to rescue the kitten from her paper prison, but the bag emitted happy purrs.
Steve returned close to noon, hollow-eyed and semi-transparent in the hallway. His tie, half-undone, hung limp over his chest.
The pity I felt for him was immediately obliterated by hungry rage. “What does she look like?” I asked, surprised at the harshness in my voice.
“Why are you angry, Mummy?” I hadn’t noticed Rob following me down the hall with the purring paper bag in his hands.
“I’m not angry.” My tone was dry and cold.
“Daddy, look what Cleo can do!” As Rob offered him the paper bag, Cleo’s head emerged mischievously from its mouth.
“Not now,” I snapped. “Take her into the kitchen, will you?”
Sensing the jagged atmosphere, Rob left obediently. If only, I wished, one day there could be a time when our son might be able to understand and forgive.
“Well?”
“I dunno,” he sighed, rubbing his eyes wearily. “Ordinary…”
I probed as much out of him as I could. Her hair was brown, possibly fair. Her build was on the heavy side. She worked for the Health Department. She was wearing a coat, probably navy blue. He couldn’t remember if she wore glasses. They hadn’t really looked at each other across the courtroom. She seemed sad, but offered no apology.
I needed more, much more. The shape of her nose, the placement of moles, her smell…I wanted to devour every detail about her.
“How old is she?”
“Mid thirties, maybe.”
“Is she going to jail?”
Gazing over my left shoulder, he shook his head slowly.
“They must be prosecuting her for something. A fine, at least?”
A fly performed a lazy figure eight above his head.
“They can’t.” His voice was calm and kind, as if he was speaking to a lunatic. “It was an accident.”
What did he mean accident?
“There was no way she could’ve seen him running out from behind the bus. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t do anything wrong.”
My brain spun to a halt. He might as well have been saying the sky was green. If Sam’s death really had been an accident and the woman wasn’t at fault, there was no one to blame. I had no right to hate her. I might even be expected to forgive her.
My heart was tight and hard. Forgiveness was for the gods.
Resuscitation
Cats are willing to take into account the fact that people are slow learners.
The moment my old school friend Rosie heard we had a kitten there was no stopping her. I put her off the first time she phoned. That was like a bowl of sardines to a starving stray. A couple of days after the inquest she broke through the invisible barricades around our house. Notorious for her ebullience and lack of tact, Rosie wasn’t everyone’s favorite person. Steve suddenly remembered an important appointment he had in town.
“Poor itty-bitty baby Cleo,” she crooned, examining Cleo through giant red spectacles. “Fancy having to come and live wid a whole lot of humans who aren’t cat people.”
“I didn’t say we’re not cat people, Rosie.”
“So you can honestly say you are a cat person?” she asked, peering at me over her crimson horizons.
“Yes. Maybe…I’m not sure.”
“Then you’re definitely not a cat person,” she said. “You’d know if you were. It’s like being a Christian or a Muslim. You just know when you are one.”
Rosie didn’t have a Church of England background like mine, where you could mumble the Lord’s Prayer, sing “There Is a Green Hill Far Away” and slurp tepid tea while avoiding conversation with the vicar before going home free from any sense of allegiance.
Rosie was a cat lover extraordinaire. She’d adopted six strays she’d named Scruffy, Ruffy, Beethoven, Sibelius, Madonna and Doris, though it was impossible to guess which one belonged to its name. Adopted wasn’t exactly the right word. More accurately, Rosie had invited a sextet of four-legged thugs to invade and decimate her property. Ungrateful to the core, the fur balls shredded her curtains and splintered her furniture while sprinkling her house with the unmistakable stench of ammonia. When they weren’t indulging in gang warfare and raiding rubbish tins they were murdering local wildlife. Whenever humans dared venture through Rosie’s gate, six sinister shapes skulked under her bed. None of which, she said, stopped them having fabulous personalities and being unbelievably cute and adorable.
There was nothing Rosie didn’t know about cats. Her radar was bound to suss out a member of the kittyhood that had been condemned to life with us on the zigzag.
“She’s not exactly the prettiest kitten, is she?” Rosie continued. “I’ve seen more fur on a golf ball. She looks like she’s been in prison camp. And those eyes. They’re so…bulgy.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” I said, riding an unexpected surge of loyalty. “She’s a work in progress.”
“Hmmm,” said Rosie doubtfully. “Part Abyssinian, eh? Famed for their love of water and high places.” Rosie used every opportunity to show off her knowledge. “Even taking into account that she’s related to the short-haired Asian cats that are lightly built and therefore able to tolerate warm climates more easily than their more sturdy European cousins, she’s pretty skinny. What are you feeding her?”
“Cat food,” I sighed.
“Yes, but what sort of cat food?”
“I don’t know. Stuff from the pet shop.”
“Vitamin supplements?” she asked in courtroom tones.
“Of course,” I lied, changing the subject. “Do you want to see her play sock-er?”
I held a sock above Cleo’s nose. Cleo pretended she’d never seen such a thing before.
Rosie shook her head. “Cats don’t play fetch,” she said. Her ginger curls tumbled forwards as she reached into her red handbag. I felt a twinge of remorse. Even though she could be irritating, she deserved a thousand brownie points for turning up. So many of our friends had found excuses to withdraw.
Rosie hadn’t changed her manner since Sam’s death. Her behavior was mercifully dictatorial and cheerful as ever. What’s more, she wasn’t speaking to me in that hushed, now familiar, tone that implied the house had some kind of curse over it.
“You’ll need these,” she said, thrusting a pair of dog-eared books at me. Kittens and How to Raise Them and Your Cat and Its Health. “Oh, and I thought this might be helpful.”
Bossy, crazy, sweet Rosie. For all her quirks and her conviction I had Cleo’s worst interests at heart, her deep-down goodness was undeniable. Why else would she present me with On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross offhandedly along with the kitten books?
I knew about the five states of grief Kübler-Ross put together to help people deal with grief. There was a lot I recognized.
1. Denial. Definitely during those initial shocking moments after the phone call at Jessie’s house. A big chunk of me continued to be in denial. On street corners and in shopping malls, I still saw Sam running and laughing. They were all blond-haired impostors. Something in the dungeon of my subconscious clung to the ambulance man’s words that Sam would have been a “vegetable” if he’d survived. Several nights a week I dreamt everyone had decided to hide from me the fa
ct that Sam was still alive. Suddenly aware of their lies, I’d sprint through a labyrinth of hospital corridors to find him attached to machines in a darkened room. He’d then turn his head and fix me with those blue eyes, just as he had when he was born. I’d wake up, heart thumping, pillow saturated.
2. Anger. It would’ve been helpful if, after a few weeks of Denial, I’d faded recognizably into Anger. Every cell in my body raged at pigeons scattered like pieces of torn paper in the sky, women driving Ford Escorts, in fact, women drivers in general, and Sam’s school friends who had the effrontery to still be living. If only I could be assured the Anger stage would pass. Trouble was I was angry and in denial all at once. And yes, there had been a few pathetic…
3. Bargaining Sessions. Sometimes, in the bathroom or be hind the steering wheel, I conducted one-sided negotiations with God asking Him (or, if Rosie was to be believed, Her) to please wind the clock back, so the events of 21 January would unfold five seconds earlier, so the car rolled down the hill before Sam’s foot touched the curb, the pigeon was delivered safely to the vet and we all sat down around the kitchen table for Steve’s lemon meringue pie. What was a little time shuffling for someone (or something) as omnipotent as the Great Creator? In return I’d do anything He (or She) required, including join a nunnery, take up women’s rugby and pretend to enjoy sleeping in tents. All of which would save me from…
4. Depression. The wardrobe of sorrow houses many out fits. For casual daywear there’s plain old self-pity, which sufferers sometimes flippantly refer to as depression. Postnatal depression is slightly dressier. For full-blown formal occasions (complete with attendant psychiatrists and pills) there’s clinical depression, suicidal sadness and, ultimately, insanity.