by Julia Romp
“I’m sorry but no,” I replied.
I had to stay strong. Stick to my decision. I couldn’t back down on this one.
“Well, would you think about visiting the cat?” the vet asked. “He seems sad. He’s just sitting in his cage with his head hanging down. Maybe he’d like a visit?”
I was not going to take that cat home. I definitely wasn’t.
But you already know what happened next: George walked into the room, the cat stared at him and George looked right back, gazing squarely into the cat’s eyes. He never did that. He could not bear to meet anyone’s gaze for more than a split second, and that was only with people like me, Mum and Lewis. Not strangers—and certainly not strange cats. Then George spoke to the cat in a high sing-song voice I had never heard before. It was the kind of voice that people use for babies and small children, curling out of him, bright with affection, and the cat immediately listened. The stray who had not wanted us anywhere near him when he was living in our shed had a real change of heart when George spoke to him softly and sweetly, almost dancing to the rhythm of George’s words as he rubbed up and down the bars of his cage and stared at George. They looked as pleased as punch to see each other. And the moment I saw the spark between them, all I knew was that my doubts were washed away. Baboo was coming home with us.
Baboo was like a basketball star, known by his nickname as well as by his official name. He was going to be called Ben as well as Baboo, because Mum had had a cat called the same years before and George wanted the name. I didn’t care how many names the cat had because George was excited to have him home.
“When’s he coming? When’s he coming? When’s he coming?” he asked in the days leading up to the one when we collected Ben from the vet.
I’d been told to keep Ben in a small, contained room for a couple of days: the vet had warned me that the first time I let him out of the small room, he would probably try to make a run for it. After making him a bed in a box filled with soft blankets, which I put in the downstairs bathroom, I kept a close eye on him. The most I could usually see when I opened the door to give Ben food or water was the tip of his nose peeping out from inside the box, because he was still very scared. Even when he did come out of his hiding place, Ben looked sorry for himself. What with a huge shaved patch and stitches where the cyst had been removed, and a cone-shaped plastic head collar to stop him nibbling them, he looked as though he’d really been through the wars.
George wasn’t put off in the slightest, though, and kept going to check that Ben was still in the loo.
“He’s in his camp,” he’d say as he looked around the door and spoke in the high, soft voice that I had first heard at the vet’s. “Are you OK, Baboo? Does he want his dinner? He does, he does, he does.”
Whenever George spoke to Ben, he sounded like a Disney character. His high-pitched voice was soft and loving, a special voice just for Ben. I quickly realized that he was talking more as he told me where Ben was, what he was doing, whether he wanted a drink or food. Soon I started replying in the same kind of high voice to encourage him. Although I wasn’t sure where our cat voices had come from or what they meant, I wanted to see where they might take us, because I had long ago realized that I would have to fit in with however George wanted to communicate. When he was about five, George had gone through a phase of barking all the time and I had worked out that two barks meant yes and one meant no. Cat talk might not last forever but while George felt comfortable using it I was going to join in, trying to bring the best out of every situation.
George obviously couldn’t wait for the day when Ben was finally let out of the loo, but I wanted to give him a bit more time to get strong before we gave him his first taste of freedom.
“We’re going to have to be really quiet when we let him out of the bathroom,” I finally told George after Ben had been in there for a week. “He’s going to be very scared, so we’ve got to keep still and not frighten him.”
I pulled the loo door ajar and went into the living room, where George was sitting on a sofa. Nothing happened for a few seconds until Ben suddenly ran into the room. He was going like greased lightning—a streak of black and white fur heading straight for the window and freedom. His collar hit the glass before his body, sending him flying backward on to the floor. I thought I was going to faint as I watched Ben scrabble to his feet and dive behind the TV bench. After all the effort of catching him and getting him well, he’d probably done himself a terrible injury.
“Oh no!” George cried. “What’s happened to him? We’ve lost him. Baboo has disappeared.” Suddenly George started shrieking with laughter, laughter I’d never heard before, bubbling up out of him and erupting into the room like a volcano.
I seized the chance to play along. “Call an ambulance!” I said in my cat voice. “Ben needs a doctor.”
“But he’s hiding. He’s frightened.”
“Really?”
“Yes. He thinks the Power Rangers are going to get him.”
“What are they going to do?”
“They’re going to fight him. Ben’s really scared.”
“Well, why don’t you talk to him? It might make him feel better.”
George kneeled down on the floor. “Come out, Baboo. Come and see us.”
George carried on talking softly in his cat voice, trying to get Ben to come out. Not only did he seem to understand that Ben was scared, we also had just had the kind of conversation that we did not usually have. When George was worried or upset he communicated very specifically through chanting or asking repeated questions. He didn’t really have imaginative conversations like the one we’d just had, in which he used what I said to carry on talking.
“Baboo?” he called as he stared under the TV bench. “Is you scared?”
Ben wasn’t going anywhere, though; all we could do was wait until he was good and ready to come out from his hiding place. But when he finally did, Ben walked into the middle of the room, looking as calm as I’d ever seen him. It was as if he had been wrestling with a big decision while he was hiding under the TV bench—to come out fighting again or make himself at home; and he seemed to have decided on the latter. His eyes were just as peaceful as they always had been when I had first gotten to know him in the shed, and he strolled around the room before giving us both a long look.
Why are you making such a fuss? he seemed to say. I’m fine now. No need to worry.
Ben sniffed the air before padding softly toward George. Turning his body lengthways, Ben started rubbing up against George’s legs, back and forth, back and forth. How was George going to react to being touched? I didn’t want him to frighten Ben by shooing him away.
George didn’t flinch or push Ben away, rub himself to get rid of the feeling of being touched or shout to be left alone, though. He sat completely still until Ben walked away. I wondered if it was a one-off or the start of something new.
I found out for sure the next day after I left George lying on the sofa watching a film with his blue blanket covering him—the blanket that no one else was ever allowed to touch. When I walked back in a few minutes later, I saw Ben stretched out across George, lying on the blanket as though it was a sun lounger on a Spanish beach, while George looked as though it was completely ordinary to be cuddling a cat.
“Ben loves the telly, Mum,” he told me.
“Does he?”
“Yeah. He wants to watch Pokémon. He wants to see Peter Pan. He was in Peter Pan.”
“Can he fly?”
“Yes. He’s good at flying. He’s met Tinkerbell and Superman too. He’s been on TV lots.”
And it was in that moment that I realized Ben wasn’t just a cat. He was something far, far more.
Chapter 8
Have you ever met a cat who likes bouncing on trampolines or eating ice cream? Who tires itself out playing hide and seek before getting into bed and lying on its back with its paws in the air? I hadn’t until I met Ben, and if someone had told me before that a cat could
do all those things, I’d have thought they were a bit touched in the head. But Ben did them. And more.
From that first day when we let him out of the loo and he cuddled up against George, Ben stuck to him like glue. He was more like a dog than a cat: there was nothing cool and collected about him, none of the reserve for which cats are famous. Ben was like a faithful puppy, who followed George from the moment he got up in the morning to the moment he climbed the stairs at night to go to bed. Even then, Ben would follow to watch me tuck George in, and however many times I got up in the night to see to him, he’d be there beside me. When George got up the next morning, he would always find Ben sitting in the same place on the same chair in my bedroom. He would have a good stretch when George came to collect him, before following him into the bathroom when George went to brush his teeth. Then he’d patrol up and down the bed as I got George dressed before meowing for a final cuddle just as George was going out of the door to school.
It was the same every day. Ben seemed to understand how much George needed routine and gave it to him from the moment he arrived. He was a real home cat too, happy in our little house and garden, and once again it was just what George needed. He’d gotten very panicked the first time we’d let Ben out into the garden.
“He might run away, he might run away,” he’d chanted as we opened the door.
But Ben had just walked out on to the grass, strolled down to the end and had a look around before running back inside, jumping on to the sofa and curling up for a sleep. He didn’t go out again for two days, and when he did it was just for a quick sniff around the garden or into the summerhouse, where he would sit for hours. He didn’t want to go any farther and most of the time George was the one who ended up persuading him outside for a play by running up to the window and calling him when we were out in the garden.
George’s favorite game by now was bouncing on a trampoline I’d bought him after we moved. I really wasn’t sure that Ben should join him on it when I first saw them jumping up and down together. Ben’s stitches had healed and he was on the mend, but he should still probably have been having a bit more peace and quiet. George could be rough when he played and never stopped when things got out of hand.
“I don’t think we can have this,” I called as I walked out into the garden. “It can’t be very nice for Ben.”
George immediately sat down and did not move another muscle. I was beginning to realize that I was going to have to get used to expecting the unexpected now that Ben was around.
“Is you OK, Baboo?” he said in his singsong cat voice. “Is you liking being on the trampoline with me?”
Now George had always worried about Lewis—first about his oxygen tubes, and then as Lewis had gotten older and other kids had laughed at him because he was small, he would cover Lewis’s ears so that he didn’t hear the jokes. But he’d never actually talked about it or asked how Lewis felt in the way he was doing now with Ben.
“Do you or don’t you like bouncing?” he asked him. “Is it making you nervous?”
Ben didn’t look as though he wanted to get off the trampoline, but I still wasn’t convinced.
“I think it’s time for him to get down,” I said as George stroked him.
Ben looked at George and then up at me, fixing me with his green eyes. Leave us alone. Can’t you see that we’re playing? George and I just want to have fun.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I must be going soft if I was listening to a cat. I couldn’t let George fling Ben 4 feet in the air, however much they both seemed to enjoy it.
“I don’t think he can really like trampolining, and the rubber will get ruined if he puts claw marks in it,” I said as I lifted Ben off the trampoline.
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“I don’t think he’d be able to help himself, George.”
I put Ben on the ground beside me and he was still for about a second. Then he leaned back into a crouch and jumped back on to the trampoline with a flick of his tail.
You see! Ben seemed to tell me. I want to play. Don’t interrupt us, please. We’re having fun!
I knew when I was beaten. “OK, then, but be gentle.”
George started off slowly enough but was soon jumping in the air, with Ben bouncing just as high.
“He’s smiling,” George shouted as he flew upward and I could see with my own eyes that it was true: as Ben took off into the air, the corners of his mouth were curling up.
Over the next few days, it was the same whatever game George played: nothing worried Ben. After all the hissing and spitting when he was living in the shed, I’d wondered whether he might claw George if things got out of hand. But Ben never reacted to what George did—whether it was grabbing his tail or fiddling with his ears. He just padded calmly around after George, and when George had left for school, Ben would spend the day quietly at home until he heard the sound of the front door, when he ran to meet him.
“Baboo!” George would say as he got down to pet Ben.
The easiness between them was like a gift from someone up high, because George’s relaxed behavior with Ben was a huge contrast to how things were at school. By the time Ben arrived they’d gotten so bad that George was at risk of being excluded, and as I was called in again and again I was worried sick. I knew Miss Proctor was doing all she could, and George had also started working with a teaching assistant called Ms. Bahsin, who he had responded to well. Together with Miss Proctor, she had tried every trick up her sleeve to get George to learn. After realizing how much he liked shiny things, if he worked well Ms. Bahsin started rewarding him with little gifts like a ball covered in silver glitter; to encourage him and build his confidence, Ms. Bahsin and Miss Proctor made him charts covered in stickers; and to help him mix with other children, they gave him special play special sessions in the soft play area with just a couple of kids. Even so, George’s behavior at school had gotten worse.
“I’ve got ADHD,” George would say again and again after picking up on conversations around him and if I asked him to look at a book with me, he’d tell me he couldn’t because he didn’t know how to read and write like other children.
You see, George knew he was different because of how people reacted to him and the worst place for that was the playground. It wasn’t so much the children but the mums, who would gasp as he shouted swear words he’d learned or pushed into people as he ran out of the playground, and George couldn’t help but know he was being talked about. I knew there were two Georges: the one who wanted to make other children from the special needs unit happy by pushing them so fast around the playground in their wheelchairs that they screamed with laughter, and the other who ran wild as anger exploded out of him—which was the George most people saw.
“He’s out of control, that kid,” I’d hear mothers mutter as I walked past and they gave me icy looks.
“If he goes near my Casey I’m going to the teachers.”
“Have you heard his language?”
The playground felt like a war zone in which I had to do battle, day in and day out, and even though I tried to ignore the whispers, there’s only so thick-skinned you can be, isn’t there? Each day I’d walk in with a grin fixed on my face and say a cheery “hello” to anyone who looked my way, but even the two mums who could see things weren’t right with George and were prepared to chat with me stopped after he had a fight with one of their little boys. I must have gotten distracted for a few seconds as we walked into school, because I looked up to see George pinning the boy to the ground.
“George, no!” I cried as I pulled him off, unable to understand where his rage had suddenly sprung from.
The boy’s mum was rigid with anger as she looked at me, and we were soon both called in to see a teacher.
“George is a bully,” the mum kept saying. “I’ve heard all the stories and look what he’s done now!’
All I could do was apologize again and again, but the mum wouldn’t listen. From that day on, she never spoke a word to me
again.
“I don’t understand,” I told the teacher later. “I thought George and that boy got on OK.”
“They do sometimes,” she said. “But most of the children are wary of him. They keep their distance.”
How can words like that not break your heart? Eventually we got to the bottom of the problem and found out that the little boy George had fought with had been taking his Pokémon cards. It didn’t make what George had done right, but at least there was a reason why he’d done what he’d done. No one wanted to hear it, though: George was trouble, and the parents kept themselves and their kids away from us. We started using a separate entrance to get in and out of school because it was felt it would be better for George—and everyone else.
So that was why Ben arrived at just the right time to give George what he needed most when he needed it most: acceptance. Ben liked George for who he was and I’d never known how much he needed that until he started to blossom before my eyes—just as I’d never known how deep my longing was to see him happy. It was like an ache that had settled so deeply into my bones over the years that I’d gotten used to it. When I started to hear George’s laughter with Ben, the pain finally started to ease.
Ben was a colorful character with as many likes and dislikes as any person. When it came to food, he loved chicken, ham, toast with butter, salmon and mash, hot dogs and a lick of George’s ice cream. He hated tinned food almost as much as he disliked the noise of a Hoover, which made him run as if a pack of wild dogs were chasing him. What he loved most of all, though, apart from people, was warmth—a patch of sunlight in the summerhouse, the top of a radiator or a pile of clothes just out of the tumble drier would do. He even started getting into my bed. Although we’d tried putting Ben in his own basket on the landing outside our bedrooms when he’d first arrived, he wasn’t having any of it. Ben had a will like iron and when it came to meowing outside a closed door he would carry on for hours, starting off with a soft whine and getting louder and louder until he sounded like a screaming baby. George had wanted Ben in bed with him, of course, but he woke him up too much, so I was the one who’d given in. Soon Ben had his own pillow on the empty side of my bed and would lie on it beside me, only getting up when I did. Most mornings I would wake up to find Ben stretched out on his back with his legs in the air and when I moved, he would open his eyes and look at me.