Cleo

by Helen Brown

  Openness

  The only people less enlightened than those who claim not to be cat people are those who swear they’re strictly dog people.

  The house was hollow as a cave at night without children sighing and turning in their beds. I worried if Rob needed help with his English homework, if Steve was watching Lydia closely enough. At two and a half years of age, she was all confidence and no sense. Cleo wasn’t happy about it, either. She carried their socks around and slept on their beds.

  I made excuses to see them during Steve’s allocated week, collecting Lydia from daycare, driving Rob to Sea Scouts. I tried to make the most of the empty hours, rearranging the bathroom cupboards, reworking feature articles, but my imagination refused to rest. It hovered like a giant telescope in the sky, trained on their every move—was Rob watching for cars before he climbed on the school bus? Was Lydia catching a virus? I wondered if they sensed my presence.

  Sam’s photo beamed at me from the mantelpiece. A cheeky smirk. I thought about the Ford Escort woman. Her memory of Sam would be different. I accepted now she wasn’t at fault. I wondered what I’d have done in her shoes. Moved to another country, tried to bury myself in a new identity. Out late one night with Rob, collecting him from a Sea Scout meeting, I’d run over a cat. It’d happened so suddenly. A flash of white fur, a thump and a grinding thud as the wheel crunched into bone. There was no way I could’ve stopped in time. The woman would’ve felt the same. Shocked, sick with remorse, I stopped the car. The animal was crushed, lifeless. I felt wretched enough running over a cat. Killing a child would be infinitely worse.

  Sometimes it seemed I was destined to lose children one way or another. I’d never liked self-pity. Undignified, tiresome. I’d begun to discover ways out of it. One was to accept invitations to meet grieving parents and to interview people experiencing loss. Their trauma was often recent and more raw than my own. On the few occasions I was able to offer reassurance, my pain was replaced with a sense of doing something vaguely worthwhile. The past five years had informed me about human sorrow. While no two griefs are the same, nobody understands suffering like those who’ve been there.

  The shrink had a box of tissues on her table. Tears were her trade. Not wanting to give the impression I was one of her run-of-the-mill weepy clients I was determined to keep my eyes dry.

  “What you need,” she said, crossing her legs and gazing through her salmon-pink lenses, “is a fresh start, something to boost your self-esteem.”

  Even though I wasn’t crying, my body badly needed to ooze. My nose started streaming uncontrollably. I glanced longingly at the tissues, but reaching for them would be an admission of defeat. The only alternative was to emit loud regular sniffs.

  “Do you know what would do you the world of good?” she asked, sinking into a chair carefully positioned under a Rothko print in pastel pinks and yellows. Presumably the painting was intended to soothe anguished clients with its gentle shades. It probably worked for those who didn’t realize poor Rothko succumbed to depression and killed himself. “A one-night stand.”

  Her words sailed across the room and exploded in my ears like missiles. Mum (due to a range of sexual hang-ups of her own not worth delving into here) had raised me from the cradle to treat my body as a temple, preferably open to only one dreary but dependable worshipper for my entire life.

  “You mean finding a man I have nothing in common with but am mildly attracted to and just sleeping with him for the sake of it?”

  She nodded. The shrink was obviously mad. She wanted me to die of guilt.

  “It would be a healthy way to start a new phase of life,” she said.

  “What about the kids?” I asked.

  “They needn’t find out,” she said. “It’s nothing to do with them. Arrange it for one of the weekends when your ex-husband has custody.”

  Arrange it? People arrange one-night stands? She asked me to make up a list of potential victims. The only blokes I met were at work. Male journalists are unbelievably indiscreet. I had no desire to be added to the list of women in the office who “do it with anyone.” A couple of friends’ husbands had dismayed me by turning up at the house and thoughtfully offering their services, but I was in no way willing to betray my women friends. My list was blank.

  “Good luck,” said the shrink, smiling as I scribbled a shaky signature on the check. “And remember, be open.”

  An opportunity to put her advice into practice turned up a few weeks later when Mary the fashion writer set me up on a date to accompany her friend to a fund-raising dinner. Mary assured me I’d love Nigel, who was recently divorced from his second wife, though not for the usual reasons of being disgusting to live with and a total reject. I’d read about Nigel’s activities in our business pages. He was the corporate equivalent of a giant with an eating disorder, a compulsive devourer of small companies. He was an unfamiliar type, potentially dull, if all he could talk about was money. But I was used to interviewing people. I assured myself I could draw out the interesting side of a house spider if necessary. Mary said Nigel had ticks in all the right boxes. I wasn’t sure what she meant. It was years since I’d been on a date. The rules must’ve changed. In fact, there was only one rule back in the old days—don’t let him go all the way unless he’s at least hinted he might want to marry you. During the years I’d spent buried in suburbia, dating seemed to have turned into a clinical cross between supermarket shopping and animal husbandry.

  The night of the date arrived. I was so nervous my hands were trembling. Cleo always liked to supervise my clumsy attempts to apply makeup. She sprang up on to the bathroom vanity as I opened the makeup drawer—one of Cleo’s favorite places in the entire house. Her passion for makeup must’ve been a throw-back to her Egyptian heritage. Given half a chance, she’d steal a sable brush, run away and de-hair it bristle by bristle under my bed. Cleo jumped into the drawer and patted the shiny pots of eye shadow. She seemed to favor purple tonight. With no other beauty consultant available, it was logical to take her advice. She mewed encouragement as I applied two brooding streaks of shadow to my eyelids. Th e effect was more post–encounter with Muhammad Ali than cocktails with Mark Antony, but I was running out of time. Cleo toyed idly with my lipstick, a lurid crimson, which I snatched from her paws.

  “What do you think?” I asked, applying a final circle of lipstick.

  Sitting on her hind legs with her front paws arranged as neatly as a ballet dancer’s, Cleo put her head on one side and winked. She approved. I doubted my legs would be able to hold me up long enough for the evening to ever qualify as a one-night stand, if that’s what it was going to be.

  Sensing my nerves, Cleo took over the meet-and-greet role, her tail curled graciously as she trotted towards Nigel. He was unusually tall and regal, with a sandy moustache. I wasn’t confident facial hair was part of my one-night-stand scenario, but inside my head the shrink’s voice echoed. “Be open!”

  “A cat!” Nigel’s eyebrows ricocheted like lines on a stock market chart. “I’m allergic.”

  “Oh,” I said, lowering her to the floor, “sorry.”

  Unfazed by Nigel’s reaction, Cleo stood on her toes and arched her back prettily. She arranged her tail in a gracious curl as she escorted him to the living room. Trotting ahead of us, Cleo really was the perfect hostess. The back of Nigel’s suit, I noticed, was frighteningly free of creases.

  I guided him toward the most pristine cushion on the sofa and asked if he’d like a drink.

  “Chardonnay would be excellent,” he said, perching on the sofa arm. I couldn’t blame the poor man for protecting his Armani threads from our crumbs and cola stains.

  While the fridge contained an assortment of drinks ranging from milk to cordial, Chardonnay wasn’t among them. The closest on offer was a half empty cardboard box of Riesling. Depressing the plastic plunger, I hoped Nigel wouldn’t notice.

  He seemed agitated, crossing and uncrossing his long scissor legs. Cleo settled a few inches from hi
s feet and fixed her eyes on him like interrogation lights.

  “The problem with cats,” he announced as I handed him a wineglass smudged with fingerprints, “is they always like me.”

  Cleo shuffled closer to him as he spoke and intensified hergaze, then hoisted her back leg aloft and proceeded to lick her most private parts.

  “Shoooo, Cleo!” I growled. But Cleo resented being spoken to as if she was a mere animal. She rolled on her back and writhed seductively at Nigel.

  “There’s a compliment,” I said. “She wants you to rub her tummy.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” he said, drawing a green paisley handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing his moustache. “Th e allergy, you see. In fact, you know, I think I’m going to…”

  The curtains trembled in the aftershocks of Nigel’s sneeze. Startled, Cleo leapt to her paws, dug her claws into the carpet, and bushed out her tail.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll shut her in the back,” I said.

  When I bent over to collect the cat she slithered out of my grasp and scrambled up the bookshelves. Confident I couldn’t reach her and Nigel wouldn’t try, she strutted along the top shelf, tapping a precious Victorian vase with her tail. Cleo was extremely pleased with herself.

  “You’re not getting away with this!” I muttered, dragging a dining chair toward the shelves. The instant I stood on the chair and reached for her, Cleo bounded down from the shelves on to Nigel’s lap. He emitted a boyish yelp and I lunged and got my hands around Cleo’s belly. But she wasn’t surrendering without a fight. As she sank her claws into the Nigel’s thighs for leverage, man and cat emitted a simultaneous yowl.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, unhooking each claw while Nigel focused valiantly on the ceiling.

  I returned from shutting Cleo away to find Nigel sneezing discreetly into his handkerchief.

  “Th e thing is,” he said, pocketing the handkerchief and absentmindedly brushing real and imaginary cat hair off the sofa’s arm, “I’m really a dog person.”

  “So am I,” I said, trying to improve the atmosphere. “At least, technically speaking. We have a beautiful golden retriever, but she’s gone to live with my mother. She’s pretty old now. The dog, I mean.”

  “Dogs are less aggressive,” he added. “When I was a kid I was attacked by a cat.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Yes, I was on my bike on my paper round, and this wildcat threw itself at me.”

  I tried not to smile at the image of a mini version of Excellent Nigel pedaling the streets of Whakatane, being felled by a murderous tabby. Nevertheless, it was clear Nigel’s phobia sprang from deep, Freudian waters. It wasn’t a mere quirk Cleo and I would be able to iron out in one night.

  “Do you think the experience might’ve given you the drive and determination to become a successful businessman?” I asked, hating myself for employing pop psychology to make a sarcastic joke, but Nigel seemed to consider the question seriously.

  “You know I’ve never thought of it that way, but you’re probably right,” he said, reassembling some of his dignity. “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it hadn’t been for that cat attack.”

  He was reminding himself aloud to tell the hack ghost currently writing his autobiography Nigel’s Nine Notches to Excellence to include the cat attack when I noticed the bedroom door glide ajar. A four-legged shadow wafted into view. Cleo could open just about any door that wasn’t locked and bolted.

  As Nigel warmed to recounting his triumph over childhood trauma, Cleo slithered like a commando along the edge of the skirting board. Invisible to him, she crouched in the shade of the bookshelves and listened to details of a cat nightmare he’d suffered over two decades ago. She was still as a stone with a Cheshire cat grin settled on her lips.

  Suddenly, Cleo darted out of her hiding place and ran at Nigel. In a single movement she sprang on to his lap, sending his wineglass flying through the air. Nigel emitted a roar straight from his primeval core. Horrified, I leapt to try and catch the glass, but everything was happening in slow motion. As my hand swiped at the glass it tumbled toward the carpet, drenching us both in a wine fountain.

  Nigel stood up and brushed his trousers with agitated strokes. I grabbed paper towels from the kitchen and dabbed the blotches on his knees, while he attended to the more intimate areas.

  “I’m so sorry!” I cried.

  “Excellent,” he muttered, sinking back into the sofa and crossing his legs. Before there was time to stop her Cleo climbed on his shoulder and wove herself in a knot around his neck.

  “She seems to like you,” I said. “Sorry—your allergy. Here, let me take her.”

  “No, seriously,” Nigel sputtered, disentangling Cleo and arranging her uncomfortably on his knees. “I’m quite comfortable. She can probably smell Rex on me. He’s my Doberman. A very athletic, straight forward dog.”

  “Yes,” I said, wondering if we’d ever progress towards anything that could be classified as conversation. “Dogs are…straightforward.”

  “Dogs are more like men in that respect,” said Nigel. “Whereas cats are more like women, don’t you think? You could write a book about that.”

  Nigel’s face suddenly turned the color of Australian Shiraz. As Cleo dived on the floor and disappeared down the hall Nigel’s eyes rolled towards the ceiling. For a dreadful moment he appeared to be having one of those allergic reactions that seize people’s throats up.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He raised his hands and his mouth curled down in disgust. “Your cat,” he whispered. “Just. Peed. On. Me.”

  Nigel insisted on returning to his apartment to change his suit. While he was gone I searched Cleo’s favorite hiding places under the bed and in the wardrobe to punish her, but she’d successfully dematerialized. Satisfied the evening was drained of potential romance, Cleo had melted into the walls.

  Later I spotted the silhouette of a cat on the roof. Its eyes shone down at me like lighthouse beams. Even from that distance, I could see a glow of satisfaction in them.

  If nothing else, the one-night stand that wasn’t made a good story to share with Mum when she phoned. She sounded distracted. Her outings with Rata were getting challenging. When they’d walked down a hill to a beach at the weekend, Rata hadn’t been able to get back up the slope. Mum said she’d had to carry Rata up the hill. Rata was no small animal. How Mum had managed to lift her was beyond me. The vet had diagnosed emphysema.

  At work on Monday morning Nicole asked if I’d do her a favor. Her flatmate was getting married in a couple of weeks. He and his bride were from the States and didn’t know enough people to make up a decent wedding celebration.

  “Please come along?” she begged. “You won’t have to stay more than an hour. Just long enough to make the room look fuller.”

  Her confidence that my presence could overflow an empty room was hardly flattering. I wasn’t keen on being a one-woman rent-a-crowd. But we both knew I had nothing else to do on Friday nights, except maybe shovel Lego bricks back in their boxes while the children were at their father’s.

  “Pleeeeease?”

  The couple had arranged to get married at sunset on the steps of the city museum. As the sun hovered like a commitment-phobe on the horizon I locked the car and climbed the hill to the museum. Glancing up, I saw the bridal party. She looked like Barbie. He looked like Ken. But it was the best man who caught my eye. He was stunningly good-looking. Not just handsome in an ordinary aftershave advertisement way, but glowingly breathtaking in the manner of a Greek god. Or gay man.

  Gay, of course, I thought, admiring the sweep of well-groomed hair over the wide, tanned forehead, and the broad shoulders accentuated by a well-cut suit. Or married. If not, most definitely girlfriended.

  To say it was love at first sight would be exaggerating. Lust at first sight would be more accurate. As the sunset glinted on his aviator glasses and I saw his flashing blue eyes I was overcome by another sensation that was less carnal
and even more powerful—a sense of recognition. If we hadn’t met before in this life, we’d almost certainly known each other in earlier lifetimes. Even though he was a stranger, I felt I knew him at a deep level.

  The wedding reception was held at the home of Sir Edmund Hillary. Apparently the groom worked with someone who was related to the famous mountaineer. Sir Ed, who was away doing something bold and heroic on the other side of the world, had graciously opened his home to the wedding party. It was a modest, understated home, not unlike the man himself. The walls were a soft yellow and the decor extremely tasteful. Every painting, every handwoven rug, seemed to hold a story of great meaning to its owner.

  By the time the gay/married/girlfriended best man walked over and introduced himself as “Philip with one l” I was over him. He was too good-looking to be real. When I discovered the reason for his athletic profile (freshly honed from eight years in the army) and that he’d just entered the professional arena of banking, it was obvious we had no future. To thrash the final nail on its head, he confessed his age. Twenty-six. Practically a baby, he was eight years younger than me. Unmarried, undivorced and childless, he seemed to spring from a completely different (still possibly gay) world. I was practically his mother. Nevertheless, he seemed a nice young man, devoid of the creepy complexities so many males were burdened with. And I hadn’t forgotten the shrink’s advice. If I drank a lot of wine and didn’t tell a soul, and he was crazy (or desperate) enough to consider it, he had definite one-night-stand potential.

  I told him I didn’t go out much at night, but I did do lunch. I scribbled my work number on a paper napkin. He seemed startled by my offer. Not that he had any reason to. I was more than happy to take on the role of Mother Confessor and counsel the poor boy on his love life. Or just be friends. I was O-pen.

  Next morning at work I studied the phone. No one called, except for a disgruntled reader and the same old Heavy Breather in his phone box. It didn’t ring significantly the next day, or the next week, either. By the time the third week came around I’d forgotten all about “Philip with one l.” Which is why, when he eventually did call, he had to remind me who he was and how we’d met at the wedding.