by Helen Brown
If any whale, white, blue or sperm, tried to audition for a choir I was running I’d turn it down. Those things are tone deaf. I sank back into the bubbles and concentrated on relaxing.
“Is it warm enough for you?” asked Emma, bursting into the room and pressing her face so close to mine I could smell garlic on her breath.
“Yes, thanks,” I said, sinking into the bubbles as deep as possible without drowning. “It’s perfect. I think…”
“Yes?” said Emma, whose face rose like the sun over the edge of the bath.
“I’d like to get out now.”
“Oh, but you’ll miss the massage!” cried Emma, digging her large, practical fingers into my neck.
The massage?! Crouched unwillingly, I endured her attentions with the stoicism of a dog being forced to have its fur washed. Emma’s breaths were hot and increasingly loud in my ear. The masculine tang of her perfume (aftershave?) made me vaguely nauseous.
Images arose of a future sharing a rose-covered cottage with a well-built woman and her turquoise collection. There’d been two women teachers like that when I was at high school. They used to drive to school in separate cars to keep the gossip down, but everyone knew. People said they’d arranged to be buried together.
Technically, I supposed it was an option. A life with Emma would avoid some of the cruelties inflicted by men. Testosterone wouldn’t pose much of a problem, competition from blond dentists would be minimal and there’d be plenty of the affection women enjoy. Cuddles and hugs, not unlike the sort of stuff you get from a cat. I liked Emma. There was only one difficulty. I didn’t love her. Not in that way.
As Emma turned my face in her hands and planted her damp lips on mine I knew straightaway. I wasn’t that kind of girl.
Six months had passed since I’d seen Philip. I was over him, at least I pretended to be. I hardly needed a man when I was flat-out with the kids and work, where I was becoming a minor authority on “wimmin’s issues.” Emma had put me on to a local witch, who’d agreed to visit the office for an interview on women’s spirituality. Apparently witches needed publicity as much as anyone else. Apart from a few crystals dangling around her neck and sticking plasters wrapped around several gnarled toes protruding from her Birkenstocks, she resembled any mature woman I might clash supermarket trolleys with. I escorted her into the interview room. We exchanged smiles. I quietly wondered if she recognized my witch potential. She surprised me by asking if I had any pets. When I mentioned Cleo she hunched forwards, causing her crystals to clatter.
“A black cat is a perfect familiar for a witch,” she said. “A spirit will often manifest in a black cat’s body and attach itself to a witch to help her on psychic levels.”
“You mean Cleo could help my dreams come true?” I asked.
The witch laughed, an ordinary old lady’s laugh, not a cackle.
“On a simplistic level, I guess you could say so,” she said.
We were interrupted by a tap on the door. It was Tina, casting her quick journalist’s eye over the witch. From that one glance I could tell she was soaking up enough raw material to produce a thousand words.
“Sorry to trouble you,” she said. “But there’s someone down-stairs wanting to see you. Says his name is Dustin.”
Absence
A cat seizes opportunities whenever they arise.
Cleo was on edge, as if a low-grade electric current was running through her fur. Whiskers twitching, she paced the carpet. Up, down, under the table and back again. When a car hummed down the street, she froze and flattened her ears. Once the car had gone she’d regained her composure and resumed her carpet patrol. Our next-door neighbor’s son shouted to a friend. She arched her back and sank her claws in the rug.
She kept returning to the desk under my bedroom window, which had the best view of the street. Its gravitational force pulled her back, and back again to survey our front garden and the houses across the road. At the sound of a bird’s call she sprang up on the desk and wove through the curtains to peer out. She then dropped back to the floor with a disappointed thud. The clatter of a distant rubbish tin and she was back on the desk again, scanning the neighborhood before jumping down again to resume her restless stride.
Th en the sound she’d been waiting for—the click of the front gate. Bounding on the desk and through the curtains, she stared intensely at the figure approaching the house. Her tail unfurled and quivered with delight. She sprang to the floor and sped down the hallway toward the front door squeaking mews of delight.
When I opened the door to Philip, Cleo lunged at him and stretched her front paws up his thighs.
“She’s been waiting for you,” I said, as he gathered her in his arms. Cleo clambered up his fisherman’s jumper, licked his neck and burrowed under his chin. Not since Cleopatra made up with Mark Antony had a reunion been so loving.
The children’s welcome was more cautious. Lydia glanced up from a wooden jigsaw puzzle she was working on with an expression that implied a certain amount of groveling would be required if she was ever to take Philip seriously again. Rob emerged from his bedroom door and nodded politely.
As weeks melted into months, warmth and trust gradually returned. The bond we’d had before grew even stronger. Even though I tried to keep part of my heart cordoned off in case it was shattered again there was no doubt I loved—we all loved—Philip.
Late one Sunday afternoon he bundled us all—including Cleo—into his car.
“Where are we going?” I had a longtime aversion to secrets and surprises.
“You’ll see.”
With Cleo perched on Rob’s knee and Lydia beside them, the atmosphere in the backseat was surprisingly genial.
“Are you taking us to a circus?” Lydia asked. Her latest ambition was to become what she called an “upside down lady” in a pink sequin bodysuit and matching feathers hanging from the roof of a circus tent.
“Not this time,” Philip replied. I was impressed how quickly he’d learned parents’ language—using the word “no” sparingly.
“What are we going to the museum for?” Rob asked as we turned into the botanic gardens that lead up to the museum.
“You’ll find out.”
Philip drew to a halt in the same parking lot I’d used that evening we’d first met. He asked us to wait in the car for a minute and disappeared up the steps.
“Are we going to see dinosaurs?” Lydia asked.
“We can’t,” Rob replied, “it’s too late. The museum’s closed.”
“That’s right,” I added. “It’s nearly sunset.”
A gold medallion sun sank in cotton-candy clouds. Long shadows stretched from the columns in front of the museum. It was a perfect night, an almost exact replica of how it had been when we first set eyes on each other. It didn’t take much to envisage the bridal party standing on the steps and that powerful surge of recognition at the sight of my handsome army boy. I still wasn’t certain if my physical reaction had been the result of a cosmic explosion of soul mates colliding—or simply undiluted lust.
Philip reappeared and beckoned us to follow him up the steps. We clambered out of the car. Normally, Rob would have left Cleo in the backseat, but he seemed to sense something momentous was about to happen. He carried her up the steps, while I took Lydia’s hand.
To my surprise, Philip was standing where I’d first seen him, in a shaft of evening sun slightly to the right of the museum doors.
“There’s something I want you to see,” he said, standing aside and holding out his hand. He seemed to be pointing toward a concrete window frame so recessed and steeped in shadow it was difficult to notice anything unusual about it. I was beginning to wonder if Philip wasn’t as straightforward as I’d imagined.
“Look closer,” he smiled.
To my astonishment, hidden in the deepest recess of the window was a small navy blue box. Inside the box was a diamond ring. In front of Rob, Lydia and Cleo, he slid it on my finger.
“How did you
get the right size?” I asked, appalled at my lack of romance but genuinely impressed.
“Stole a ring from your jewelry box. Hoped you wouldn’t notice. Did you?”
I shook my head. It was impossible to answer. I was too busy choking back happy tears.
We agreed a long engagement would suit us all under the circumstances. No date was set, but we thought a year or so would give the family time to become fully integrated. I was only 36 and there was plenty of time if (heaven forbid) Philip felt the need to have a child from his own biological blueprint. Even though I felt sheepish telling crusty journalistic friends I was embarking on an engagement long enough to satisfy Jane Austen, it seemed the best way to go about things. This was no normal marriage. It was a union between one man, three people and a cat. All parties needed to feel comfortable.
I was just getting used to the idea of wearing an engagement ring when an important-looking envelope arrived in the post.
“Cambridge must be crazy!” I said, passing Philip the letter. “They’ve accepted me.”
He laughed, folded me in his ridiculously sinewy arms and said he always knew they would. The timing was perfect in many ways. He’d just been accepted into the Swiss business school IMD to study for an MBA (sometimes I wondered if he might be planning to drown in a sea of initials). Once I’d finished the Cambridge fellowship, the kids and I could join him in Lausanne for the rest of the year…
Cambridge. Switzerland. It couldn’t possibly work. I’d have to leave Rob and Lydia in New Zealand for three months—and Cleo for an entire year! It was impossible. I’d write back to the university, thank them for their generosity and decline.
But Philip urged me not to turn them down. When would another opportunity like this turn up? Steve and Mum agreed with him. Mum offered to look after the children for the first month I was away, and Steve would have them for the remaining two. Cleo gazed at me steadily. Was she daring me to go or stay?
After Cambridge, Lydia would join us in Switzerland and learn French (people said it would be a breeze). Rob said he’d rather stay in his New Zealand high school and visit us during holidays. It was a wild, unrealistic plan with more hidden potential for disaster than an Angolan minefield. We decided to do it.
Cleo helped us interview people willing to rent the house while we were away. First on the doorstep was Jeff, a clean-cut accountant in a blue and white checked shirt. He seemed charming, but Cleo hissed at him and hid under a chair. An hour later Virginia, an aromatherapist, arrived in a haze of silk scarves and patchouli oil. Cleo eyeballed Virginia from a vantage point on top of the bookshelves. When Cleo insisted on claiming higher ground over someone like that it was never a good sign. Lines would be drawn in the litter box. Threats would be exchanged. A battle of wills was bound to follow. I’d already explained to her over the phone that the cat was part of the deal, in fact probably the more important part.
Virginia glowered back at Cleo and said, “One of the reasons I was attracted to aromatherapy was that cats make me sneeze. However, I’ve discovered that if a cat is given weekly baths in lavender oil my sneezing problem practically vanishes. Th en I just have to deal with watering eyes, but homeopathy could be…” I let Virginia drone on as she drained her cup of peppermint tea, then thanked her for her interest.
Personally I warmed to Audrey, a flamboyantly dressed woman in search of a setting to begin her new life since her husband had run off with a massage therapist of undetermined gender. She turned pink with pleasure when I admired the magnificent necklace draped in layers over her breasts. It was a cross between one of those ribbons police stretch around crime scenes and something I’d seen hanging in my cousin’s cowshed. An Italian designer piece, she said, created by a one-armed artist whose work was gaining value by the day.
Our house, she said, was perfect because there was plenty of room for her to dabble in her weekend hobby, sculpturing massive genitalia out of polystyrene, assuming we didn’t mind her transforming Rob’s bedroom into a studio. Fortunately, Rob wasn’t home to have an opinion. As Audrey stood in Rob’s doorway mentally erasing his model airplane collection and replacing it with monoliths of passion, a shadow flicked between her ankles. Audrey’s reflexes were fast enough for her to snare Cleo and press her to her bosom.
“Oh, a pussy!” she boomed. “A house isn’t a home without a furry friend like you!”
Cleo didn’t share Audrey’s enthusiasm for a bonding session. In fact, she was more interested in Audrey’s necklace than Audrey. She raised a paw and patted a silver bauble inquisitively.
“I think perhaps you should put her back down,” I suggested nervously.
“Nonsense! Pussy knows I adore cats, doesn’t he?”
“She’s a she, actually…”
As I tried to disengage Cleo from the necklace, she caught the bauble between her teeth and crunched. Like the first boulder in an avalanche, it tumbled to the ground. In an unstoppable flow of slow motion the bauble was then followed by a cascade of beads, gems and ribbon. Audrey shrieked. Not even the one-armed master would be capable of restoring the pile of festive rubble that now lay at her feet.
Audrey declined my offer to string the beads together again, or at least find somebody who might be able to. I grabbed an old supermarket bag and shoved what was left of the artwork into it. She was gracious enough to leave without strangling me. Or Cleo.
I was starting to feel desperate. Was nobody right for Cleo? Finally Andrea, a young doctor with green eyes and a froth of dark curls, arrived. She swore she was a cat person and would take good care of Cleo. She didn’t try to seduce Cleo as others had and failed. She simply looked around the house and asked questions in an easygoing way. As Andrea stood to leave, Cleo arched her back in a sensuous curve and invited Andrea to pat her. With our cat’s paw print of approval, we signed Andrea up.
I knew that as well as being capable of great affection Cleo was tough and independent, a survivor. Nevertheless, I worried. Sinking my nose into her fragrant fur, I prayed we’d see her again. The prospect of leaving the kids for three months was like chopping an arm off and putting it in the freezer. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t going to be an amputation like losing Sam, but a mere putting on ice. Mum and Steve assured me the children would be fine, especially with Anne Marie’s help. I knew all three of them loved Rob and Lydia, but they couldn’t provide that unique combination of neuroticism and adoration that is a mother’s love. They kept telling me three months would fly. Philip assured me he was going to be engrossed by his pressure-cooker MBA squeezing a two-year course into one.
Cambridge has been home to the best of Britain’s grey matter for centuries. Being clever people, the inhabitants have arranged to live in one of the most picturesque towns on earth. Its thirty-one colleges, ancient and modern, are tossed loosely together around the river Cam, which can be sluggish or romantic, depending on its mood. Even on that first day in the knifelike January air, the beauty of Cambridge dragged me out of internal melodrama. The turrets of King’s College Chapel pointed skywards with such delicacy they were surely fashioned by bees, not human hands.
“Miss Brown, we’re expecting you,” said a voice that sounded as if it came directly from God. It carried knowledge, power, authority—and belonged to the college porter.
Something about the porter reassured me I was part of his scene now and everything would be okay. After he showed me to a large, comfortable room overlooking four fruit trees, I spread photos of the children, Philip and Cleo on every available shelf. And burst into tears.
Everything about Cambridge was unfamiliar. Back home, January is one of the hottest months of the year. Even though I knew England was going to be cold, I hadn’t imagined the chill would penetrate every form of clothing and footwear I owned. The English version of the sun dragged itself out of bed at half-past seven and hovered in the air like a reluctant twenty-watt bulb before collapsing into the gloom around three p.m.
Nevertheless, I adored the oldness of Cam
bridge. The cobblestones, the creaking colleges, the dreaminess of boy soprano voices wafting towards what must surely be heaven at Evensong in King’s College Chapel (which, by the way, is nothing short of a cathedral). I loved the quirkiness of Cambridge and its adherence to rules so ancient nobody can remember why they exist. Only college Fellows are allowed to walk on the grass (though I never dared, in case I was the wrong sort of Fellow). Because most of Cambridge’s rules serve no apparent practical purpose, there’s a pleasant tolerance of odd behavior. If, for instance, a professor turns up at a formal dinner wearing a diving suit and mask (it was rumored one had) he was simply adhering to some tradition nobody else could recall.
Everywhere I went in Cambridge there were cats. Being hopelessly cat-sick, I tried to befriend the fat marmalade feline who sat on the brick wall behind the fruit trees. He scurried away at the sight of me.
One day I saw a black tail disappearing around the corner of an ancient church. My heart leapt in recognition. Logically, I knew it wasn’t Cleo, but maybe the creature carried some of her spirit. But by the time I’d clambered over the slippery paving down the side of the church the cat had disappeared.
A smug tortoiseshell stretched himself in front of a professor’s open fire and yawned. He opened one eye, licked his chops, ran a lazy paw over one ear and fell asleep. His claws snapped open and shut. His tail twitched. No doubt he was dreaming of mice.
Homesickness was such a full-time job during the first few weeks there was hardly time for research. I wrote to Philip, sent postcards and letters on tape to the children every day. Cleo made regular appearances in my dreams. One night I saw her three times the size of the Ardmore Road house. With her head resting on the chimney, she stretched her front paws around the windows and meowed. Her meow was like the roar of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lion. Maybe it was her way of saying she was safe and fulfilling her duty as protector of the home. Unable to sleep, I pulled on two pairs of socks and stumbled down the stairs. The one black phone that house residents shared was mercifully free. I listened for the pulse of the phone ringing at the other end and was about to hang up when someone answered.