Troy’s Possibilities

by Rodney Strong

  I’d come here wanting a sign – confirmation that there was something more. And he was reciting essentially the same story Cat had told me in the doorway. As signs go it was pretty clear, and suddenly I felt uncomfortable.

  ‘Have you been to see Sunshine?’ He looked to the back of the church, where the cemetery rested.

  ‘Don’t call her that,’ I replied automatically, standing up, wanting to leave before he said anything else.

  ‘When are you going to call your mother?’ Too late. ‘You know, you come here wanting answers to life’s mysteries. Your strained relationship is your mother’s greatest mystery.’

  ‘Thanks for the talk, Kelvin,’ I said and quickly left the quiet seclusion of the church. He would tell her I had come – not the details, but that I came to talk. Mum would take it personally, and casually drop it into conversation next time I saw her, wondering if everything was okay, leaving the unspoken question out there, hanging like a balloon that was waiting to drift away or pop. I sighed and counselled myself that guys in their twenties don’t normally talk to their mothers about relationships anyway. I’m just a normal guy, an average bloke with women problems. A guy sitting at the bar drinking beer and telling his mates about this girl he likes.

  Only I don’t have any guy friends and I hate beer. And I can’t talk to Emily about these things. Sure, we’ve shared conversations about guys and girls, but general stuff – guys are pigs, girls are heartbreakers, that sort of thing. I offered a shoulder and a gin every time her heart broke, and she returned the favour with vodka and a Die Hard movie marathon for me, but this was different. For one thing, it was her friend, which is enough of a minefield for a normal guy. And I was not a normal guy.

  The lack of friends is by choice. My lifestyle isn’t exactly set up for close friends. Over the years, through all the Possibilities, I’d let friendships wither and die, leaving a trail of confused people and broken promises. It was easier that way. Emily was the exception. We are flatmates, which made her a constant, but it was more than that. Emily provided stability where the rest of my life hovered on quicksand. And she was there at the start.

  After leaving the church I wandered the city for a while. There was something about this place, something in my DNA; this was my territory, where I felt safe, whole, complete. I’d lived in other cities, even other countries during Possibilities, but Wellington was home. I can’t explain why; it’s just a collection of buildings, people and personalities carved into the hills and bays. It’s not the brutal southerly sweeping off the strait, or the way everyone succumbs to six degrees of separation, but something kept me here. Forces had bent in my direction over the years in an effort to carry me away – education, job prospects, women – but none of them took. Not for long anyway. Every now and then I like to amble down Cuba Street, stopping for coffee in one of the multitude of cafés, watching street performers, or bizarrely dressed couples yelling at each other for obscure reasons. It felt right.

  I wasn’t convinced by what Kelvin had said, despite the bit about the umbrella. Or maybe I was convinced and that scared me. Barely living, existing without hopes, desires, love, colour – it’s addictive. Not like drugs, or cigarettes, or Facebook posts about cats. But it’s always there, in the corner of your eye, the back of your mind, a heavy coat draped over your shoulders, providing a constant oppressive presence. And discarding the coat, after wearing it so long it seemed like a second skin, taking that coat off and putting it away, wasn’t going to be easy.

  I ignored the universe for a week. Saturday morning Emily went off to volunteer at the SPCA, and lacking anything to do I walked into the city and wandered around for a while before deciding to get a drink; everything seems better with a hot chocolate and a muffin. I was still choosing where to go when I found myself outside the little café Cat had taken me to on our first non-date. I don’t even remember turning down the alley. The universe was pushing hard.

  Before I could enter my phone rang. I didn’t recognise the number so sent it straight to voicemail. A couple of seconds later the same number rang again, and this time, with barely suppressed annoyance, I answered it.

  Emily had left her cellphone at home and she needed it desperately. Could I bring it to the SPCA urgently – life or death, freedom of the Western world depended on it.

  It took an hour, by the time I swung home first, before I arrived at the old hospital building taken over by the SPCA a few years back. The parking lot was full, prospective families excitedly choosing their newest member. Inside competing smells of antiseptic and animal food jostled for dominance.

  The lady behind the reception told me Emily was showing a family some kittens, but she waved me through the employees-only door. I’d been here often enough to be mistaken for Emily’s brother, or boyfriend, so they didn’t seem to mind where I went. Emily spotted me over the bent backs of parents, their children red-faced with excitement, arguing over the black-and-white one versus the tabby one. Emily winked and gave me a wait signal. Bored, I wandered down the corridor, passing several rooms filled with forgotten lives. I admired Emily for working here. The emotional landscape of breath-taking mountain views as families are brought together is offset by the dark caves of those cases where adoption isn’t possible. It’s only for the strong-hearted, the eternal optimists.

  At the end of the corridor was a closed door, with a single window set in the wood at head height. Something covered the window from the inside, blocking the room from the world. A white sign with black writing hung on a nail. Do not Disturb, Session in Progress, it claimed. I had started to turn back down the hallway when I spotted a sliver of uncovered window, big enough to fit an enquiring eye. Just a quick look, I thought.

  Leaning my head against the cool glass, I peered through the gap. It took a moment to adjust to the dim light in the room, and a moment longer to understand what I was seeing. The room was bare of furniture, the barren walls a soft colour difficult to make out in the light. A small bundle of dark blankets lay casually discarded against one wall. Someone sat against the opposite wall. She wore blue tracksuit pants, a pale-blue T-shirt, scuffed and worn running shoes, and her hair was braided and draped over one shoulder. With a jolt I realised it was Cat.

  She was completely focussed on the pile of blankets, staring at it with an intensity that lacked sense in the surroundings. She seemed frozen in time, a statue immortalised. Yet she wasn’t completely frozen; now that I looked closer her hands were moving – slowly, precisely, hypnotically, limber fingers twisting and turning, performing an intricate dance in the air.

  Fascinated, I watched as a story was woven from threads of air. That’s when I realised she was signing. The random movements not random at all, but letters and words. But why? I knew she wasn’t deaf, so what was going on? I was watching something intensely personal, the cover over the window intended to prevent eavesdroppers, yet I couldn’t look away. I consoled myself with the fact I don’t know sign language so couldn’t understand what she was saying. Even so I stole a guilty glance back down the hallway to check my indiscretion wasn’t being observed.

  On turning back a hint of movement from the other side of the room caught my eye. The pile of blankets twitched again. Slowly a trembling nose emerged from the folds of material, followed by pointed ears, then the dark eyes of a small dog, completely focussed on Cat’s hands. Her fingers paused upon seeing the emergence, but now they restarted, if at all possible more deliberate in their movement. They seemed to be beckoning the dog, imploring him to emerge from the safety of the blankets. I became lost in the beauty of their actions, wanting to move closer.

  The dog agreed with me. He inched out from the blanket, then backed away, startled by his own bravery. His eyes darted from side to side, looking for danger, refusing to believe it wasn’t there, then locking back on her hands.

  Suddenly something grabbed me and hauled backwards. I stumbled away from the door, bouncing off the side wall and fell onto one knee. Startled, I stared up
into Emily’s furious eyes. Wordlessly she pointed to the sign on the door. I opened my mouth to explain but she angrily gestured for me to keep quiet, and half-dragged me down the hall. We reached an empty office and she shoved me through the door, slamming it behind us. I turned in astonishment, and looked into a face I’d never seen before – an Emily consumed with rage. I opened my mouth again to ask what the issue was but she cut me off.

  ‘You will not talk. You will listen, and then you will leave. There’s a reason the door is closed, a reason the window is covered, a reason there’s a fucking sign on the door. And it’s not so you can stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong. What goes on in that room is none of your business. Nod if you understand.’

  I didn’t understand, but nodded anyway.

  ‘No one gets to know what happens in there unless Cat tells them, and she never tells, so go home and pretend you were never here.’

  I obediently went to the door and opened it.

  ‘Wait!’

  I turned back and she had her hand out.

  ‘Phone.’

  I meekly handed over her phone and left, still reeling at Emily’s reaction. It seemed out of proportion to the crime. It also made me wonder if there was something more happening in that room than I’d thought.

  When I next saw Emily the heat had gone out of her, replaced by an icy cold to rival the strongest southerly wind. I waited until the evening before raising the subject. For some reason it was important for me to know.

  First I made sure she was settled on the couch, full of takeaway pizza and sipping on her second glass of red wine. Then I put on the latest reality show addiction, something about famous people beating each other up – I never paid much attention.

  An ad break came on. ‘Ems…’

  She sighed. ‘I’m sorry, okay? I may have overreacted.’

  ‘May?’ I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘Okay, so I went full wolverine, but you deserved it.’

  ‘All I did was peek into a room. You acted like I was some pervert looking in her bedroom window. It doesn’t make sense.’

  She sighed again and sipped her wine. The show came back on and she grabbed the remote and paused the image. ‘I told you on the hill that day, I told you Cat needed you. After the attack she didn’t have you to help her work through what happened. To teach her how to fight. That saved me, Troy – you gave me back some control. You helped me not be afraid any more, but Cat didn’t have that. So she’s coping a different way. We get some bad cases in.’

  She wasn’t talking about people now. I know some of the rescued animals are in bad shape – beaten, neglected, treated like trash. She never talks about it but I know when it’s been a bad day; she comes home, puts on a trashy movie and drinks herself to sleep.

  ‘We only rehome them if they can be rehabilitated. That means teaching them to trust again, that not all humans are scum. Sometimes we do it, and it’s amazing, watching them come out of their shell, being welcomed into a new family. Knowing they’re going to be loved again, or maybe for the first time in their lives. It’s exhilarating. It keeps me going.’

  ‘It’s why you keep volunteering,’ I said.

  She picked invisible threads from her pants. ‘Yes. I know I sometimes come home a mess, but if I can keep at it, if I can help just one animal find love, then it’s all worthwhile.’ She took a sip of wine, lost in her thoughts.

  ‘And Cat?’

  Emily cupped her wine glass in both hands, staring into the dark depths. ‘She takes on the lost causes, the ones everyone else has given up on, and tries to show them a way back from the darkness.’

  I swallowed and looked away, overwhelmed by guilt. I should have helped Cat when Emily asked me to. I couldn’t see further than my own problems, my own constricted view of what mattered. I’d abandoned her – I don’t even know her, but she needed me for something and I wasn’t there. I felt like shit.

  ‘She doesn’t talk about it much, but she’s struggling. I don’t know what she does in that room, and I don’t care. It seems to be helping both her and the animals, and she wants to keep it secret. If it’s helping her, then good, and nothing is going to screw that up.’ Her voice flashed with fire, then she gave me a crooked smile, and sculled the rest of her drink, before restarting the TV. Conversation over.

  The next time I saw Cat was the following week at the trial. With the typical efficiency of the New Zealand court system it had taken some months before the two men appeared in court, charged with assault, attempted rape, and sexual assault. The prosecutor wanted both girls to testify, and I was supposed to be the nail in the defendants’ coffins. The hero who swooped in and saved the day. Most people would revel in the attention, making the most of their fifteen minutes of fame, but there were two reasons for me rejecting that. The first was I still blamed myself for being late. If I hadn’t been lying on that beach, wallowing in my own self-pity party, I might have stopped the attack as soon as it started. I’d never told Emily that’s how I felt, but guilt is a hard emotion to shake.

  The second reason was that I’ve had fame – and, in some Possibilities, fortune as well. It can be fun, especially the money part, but like anything, after a while it gets stale. In one Possibility I won three million dollars in Lotto, and over the course of ten years and several bad investments blew it all. In another Possibility I landed a part in a movie, a cameo – five minutes on screen, three lines – but for one of the lines I adlibbed ‘Check that, Jack’ and it exploded on social media. I became known as the Check-that-Jack guy, invited to parties, had sex with a lot of women who wanted to say they had fucked the Check-that-Jack guy. I won’t lie, it was an awesome time, but after six months the world moved on, and the invitations stopped coming and I struggled to get work as an actor, and for the rest of that Possibility – another twenty years – I was a where-are-they-now segment on entertainment shows. Fame is fun, but only for a while. I don’t need it.

  Mostly, of course, it was the guilt thing.

  When I saw Cat standing there, bookended by her parents, I flashbacked to that night. Her father took two steps forward and shook my hand so hard I lost the feeling in my fingers. When he finally let go her mother enveloped me in a bone-crushing hug. They both said something but I wasn’t paying attention; I nodded and smiled.

  Cat wore a defiant expression on her face, ready to stare down the world. If I hadn’t seen her in the room at the SPCA, seen the vulnerability on her face, the exhaustion in her posture, I might have believed in it.

  ‘Hey,’ she said.

  ‘Hey,’ I replied.

  ‘I haven’t had a chance to say thank you,’ she said awkwardly.

  That wasn’t right; I didn’t want things to be awkward. ‘My fault,’ I grinned. ‘I’m regretting all those lost opportunities for you to buy me drinks.’

  She laughed, a genuine and beautiful sound that by her parents’ reactions was a rare event. At that point Emily went to find the bathroom, and Steven arrived with a girl I recognised as Jessica. He was holding her hand, and noticing my glance he grinned at me. I rolled my eyes and his grin broadened.

  The parents turned their attention to the new arrivals, and Cat took the opportunity to edge closer to me.

  ‘I’m scared,’ she whispered, her eyes never leaving her family.

  I remembered the strong woman I’d first met, the wild and carefree one who stole my phone and was ready to sleep with me, all on the same day. Those two words made me angry that someone could take away her spirit so easily in the space of a few minutes.

  ‘This is where you say something inspirational to make me feel better,’ she added.

  I looked into her eyes, trying to think of something to give her strength, dredging through multiple memories to find the perfect thing to say. But there was no perfect thing. Then I remembered something a doctor told me when I was fifty and going in for triple bypass surgery. ‘You’re allowed to be,’ I told Cat.

  ‘It’s not who I am.’ She shook
her head in frustration.

  ‘And it’s not who you have to be – tomorrow, or next week, or next year. But right now you’re about to face the man who attacked you, and it’s okay to be scared.’

  She shook a little. ‘What if I can’t do it? What if he gets off?’ She looked like she was about to throw up.

  ‘Do you remember what we did to him on the beach?’

  Her eyes widened and a smile played across her lips.

  ‘If you get scared in court, if he looks at you funny, think of me kicking his ass. Because I’d happily do it again for you.’

  She looked at me thoughtfully. ‘Who are you Troy? Why did you slam the door on my face that morning?’

  I was spared answering by the trial starting. I waited in an adjoining room and was eventually escorted into the courtroom, where I sat in the witness chair. After I gave my oath the prosecutor began with some simple questions. I answered as clearly as possible, all the time sneaking glances at the defence table. The two men kept their heads down the whole time, but there was one moment when the guy whose nose I broke looked up and scowled at me with pure hate. I stumbled over my words, before taking a sip of water, and continuing.

  I didn’t look in their direction again, not even when their lawyers attempted to twist my testimony, suggesting I was the aggressor, that I had interrupted a consensual act between two couples and attacked their poor clients. But it was a shot in the dark, a vain attempt to distract the jury with wild theories. This wasn’t my first time in the courtroom. In one Possibility I’d become a lawyer, and spent fifteen years prosecuting guys like these. There was nothing their defence could throw at me I hadn’t seen before. And with Emily and Cat’s testimony it was a slam-dunk case.

  I didn’t see Cat after the trial – her family whisked her off as soon as she testified – but the prosecutor told me Cat and Emily both did well. ‘Even shedding a couple of tears,’ she said gleefully. ‘That’s jury gold.’

  It was one of the quickest jury decisions in months: twenty minutes to convict, sentencing to follow at a later date. Case closed, time to move on with our lives.