When I got home, I waited for the lift and my fingers tapped impatiently in my pockets as it laboured up the six floors. I looked at my tongue in the mirror because that’s surely what mirrors in lifts are for.
Cat was sitting outside my door, which surprised me because he doesn’t need me to let him in or out.
‘Hello, Cat, what are you doing here?’ I said to myself, and watched him while I opened the lock. ‘If you’re bringing me bad news, I don’t want to know.’ He stood up and brushed against my leg and I felt a sudden uncertainty because Cat generally only comes for a good reason. As the door opened, there was the sound of paper dragging over wood—something pushed under the door. Cat moved past me and strolled in like he owned the place and I bent down and picked up a fat envelope with my name scrawled on it in a familiar hand. It was from Tomomi Ishikawa (who is also called Butterfly), although I couldn’t imagine why she would have written to me and come all the way to my apartment to put the letter under my door while I wasn’t there. But then Butterfly was full of surprises.
I hung up my coat, walked into the bedroom and flopped down on the bed. I kicked off my shoes and toyed with the envelope for a couple of seconds before ripping it open. Inside was a wad of printed pages.
Cat jumped onto the bed next to me and I hoped his paws were clean. He stretched out like a sphinx, much too big for a normal cat. I stroked him with my foot, but he ignored me and stared out of the window. I started to read.
Tomomi Ishikawa was my friend. Tomomi Ishikawa was dead in my hands. My brain locked up as I read the pages. No thoughts could get out. My eyes were heavy with tears, but they wouldn’t fall. I watched my chest to see what my breathing looked like. It was slow, steady and strong. I could see my heart beating, big, powerful beats. It was fast. Very fast. Tomomi Ishikawa was dead, and like a deep and terrible wound, I knew I was hurting, but I couldn’t feel anything.
I was trying to remember the five stages of grief: shock, denial, anger, depression and acceptance? What about guilt, is that one of them? This must be shock. I was in shock. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know my mind and I didn’t know what I was going to do. Why hadn’t I called her yesterday? I could have called so easily. We could have gone for a drink. I looked at Cat and he turned his head and looked in my eyes. I wished he were the kind of cat that would come and sit squashed up next to me and absorb all my negative ions or whatever cats do. But Cat isn’t like that for a couple of reasons. The first is that he isn’t a domestic cat. He’s some kind of wildcat or lynx (or something), the size of a dog, quite a small dog, but much bigger than a cat. He has big claws and doesn’t much care for being stroked. He’s not my cat. He just comes and hangs out sometimes. The second reason is that he doesn’t exist. He’s an imaginary cat, but that’s kind of a secret.
I stood up, looking for my phone, and found it in my coat pocket. My thumbs scrolled down the contacts to Butterfly (fr); I pushed the green button and held it to my ear. There was silence for a second and I took the phone away from my head and looked to make sure it was connecting, then I listened again and it was ringing. ‘Come on, Butterfly, answer the fucking phone. Answer!’ After five rings or so it went to a recorded message and her familiar voice told me in French that she wasn’t available and that she would ring me back as soon as possible. And I could hear myself laughing in the background because I’d been with her when she recorded it. I hung up.
‘What do I do, Cat?’ Cat looked at me. As an imaginary cat, one would think he wouldn’t be restricted by reality, or the laws of science. But Cat is. For example he can’t speak, or at least he never does. Sometimes I think I know what he’s thinking and I sometimes imagine what he would say if he could speak to me, but that’s imaginary imaginary. Cat is very much tied to the world of real imaginary.
‘Oh Cat, help me, I don’t know what to do.’ I put the tips of my fingers on my eyelids as if this would free my brain to think clearly. I lay down on the bed, pulled a pillow over my head, and squashed it down onto my face. I hadn’t been paying much attention to Butterfly of late. She had been occupied with other things and I’d just been . . . doing stuff. She must have desperately needed help, but I was doing stuff. Stuff. Fuck. I felt Cat’s weight as he walked over me, squashing my legs uncomfortably down.
I picked up my phone and rang Tomomi Ishikawa’s number again, but it went straight to voice mail. I rang it seven times in a row and each time there was a moment’s silence and then her recorded voice. That’s not normal; it rang before. How could it have gone out of range or stopped working in the few minutes between me ringing the first and second times? Maybe it had run out of battery. What if someone had turned it off?
I pulled a small box of interesting things from a shelf. I looked through it and pulled out a key on a short piece of red ribbon. I had a key to Tomomi Ishikawa’s apartment to water the plants when she was away and in case of emergencies.
I put on my shoes, grabbed my coat and went out, slamming the door a little harder than I intended. I hoped I hadn’t chopped off Cat’s imaginary head, but he was standing by the lift. ‘Let’s take the stairs,’ I said to myself, and Cat was happy because he doesn’t really like the lift. He doesn’t like the metro either, but he followed me down and into the carriage and settled between my feet. It’s a tricky business being an imaginary cat on the metro, because people can’t see you and they often infringe on your personal space, but he came with me anyway and I appreciated the gesture.
In the street outside Butterfly’s door, I fumbled with the key panel, trying to remember the code. I typed in various combinations of four numbers I had in my head and the letter A until there was a click. We went in and climbed the stairs. I knocked, but there was no answer, so I pulled out the key from my pocket and let myself in. Cat went ahead because he is braver than I am in this kind of situation. I called out hello, but no one made a sound. Everything looked normal apart from a note on the table with a stainless steel click-on/click-offable pen on top of it. I walked into the bedroom. It was normal and the bed was made. In fact it was very tidy. I checked the bathroom, but there was no one there, then I picked up the note and read while Cat sat down and licked his right paw.
Ben Constable,
It’s twenty past three and it seems that everything is done. I won’t be here when you arrive; I found a place to do this where nobody will have to get dirty hands (death can be a messy business). I’ve organized for somebody to come and deal with my things so you can leave them as they are, but the computer is for you—please take it. There’s stuff in the fridge as well if you’re interested. The yogurts are past the date, but everyone knows that yogurt’s just out-of-date milk, right? There’s some fruit as well if you can be tempted. (What the hell am I nagging you about food for? Sorry—I just hate to see it all go to waste and what with you not being the fattest person in the world, I always imagine that you could use a few pies.) (There are no pies.)
I hope you’re OK and I’m sorry for all this. I have to go now because I still have one more letter to write. (To you, stupid.)
XOXOX Butterfly.
P.S. Hey, you should have this pen as well, it’s an old favorite.
I picked up a banana and ate it. I stood for a moment looking at the clock on the wall. It had faithfully kept the time of twenty past three since I’d known her, but why she’d keep a stopped clock at all was a mystery to me. Cat got up and stretched. Where had she gone to ‘do this’ and who was the somebody who was going to deal with her things? A lawyer? Some kind of removal person? Had she booked herself into a special suicide clinic in Switzerland that offers a full sorting-things-out-after-you’ve-gone service? Does that kind of thing even exist? It seemed hard to believe that she was that organised. She would have gone to the clinic’s website, noted the clean lines of the building, thought of the architect Albert Frey, and then started reading about desert modernism and the moment would have passed.
Cat sat facing the door so that I could be in no
doubt he was ready to leave. I found a jug in the cupboard and filled it with water, then went around pouring a little into each plant pot. I put Butterfly’s shiny laptop, the note and the pen into my bag and left, depositing the banana skin in the dustbin at the bottom of the stairs.
Tomomi Ishikawa was dead and I didn’t know what to do. I turned off my phone and went home.
2
Tomomi Ishikawa’s Computer
For a moment when I woke up I was brand-new. The sun had risen over the buildings on the other side of the road and the shadows of ornate metalwork overhanging the window were crisp and clear on the curtains. I didn’t know where I was. The air was cool but smelled dry like central heating. The quilt was clean and I liked the feel of cotton on my skin. I liked the room. I don’t know what it reminded me of. It seemed exotic. I could hear cars somewhere, not too near, and I could hear birds. It sounded like spring. Everything was still. Everything was all right.
It wasn’t whispering because it didn’t make a sound, but something was quietly telling my head to stay like this. Don’t move. Don’t think. Stay a while. Answers were seeping through the fabric to form droplets (to questions I hadn’t even asked). They splashed down onto my face. I was in the apartment I rent in Paris, France; the room was my bedroom. Shhh. It was Saturday, March 17, 2007. Shhh, no more. I’d been asleep for a long time; maybe ten hours. No, not yet, wait, wait. I looked at my phone and it was switched off. That surprised me. The fabric tore and my life came flooding in. I closed my eyes. I wished I were asleep. Tomomi Ishikawa was dead and we would never sit, talking and laughing, again.
I stayed in bed for as long as I could, looking at nothing and thinking about nothing. She had told me several times that she was depressed. Eventually I got up because I was hungry. Sometimes I would listen to her, or put my arm around her. I made scrambled eggs and buttered some of yesterday’s bread. Sometimes I made jokes. I poured a glass of grapefruit juice and drank it straight down, then poured myself another. One time I told her to snap out of it. I looked in the bathroom mirror for clues, but there was nothing. I looked out of the window and the weather was brighter, more blue than should be allowed. I dug my fingernails into my arm to see whether I could feel pain. I could, but it didn’t mean anything. I scrunched my eyes. I thought about breaking something, the mirror maybe, but the prospect of cleaning up afterwards put me off. Besides, if I trod on a shard of glass, it might hurt my foot. I climbed back into bed, covered my body with the quilt and watched the ceiling. Yesterday she had slipped a letter under my door. She had been here, alive. She had walked down the street and smiled at somebody who perhaps held a door open. She had given a cigarette to somebody who asked her by the entrance to the metro, and she bought something from a shop.
At two in the afternoon I got dressed. I found hummus in the fridge and crackers in the cupboard.
I cupped the crumbs with my hand and pottered aimlessly into the living room. I sat down and pulled Tomomi Ishikawa’s computer onto my knees and opened the top. The screen was shinier than mine. I pressed the on button. It lit up for a few seconds, then turned itself off—the battery was flat. I hadn’t brought the power supply. I tried to plug in the charger for my computer, but it wouldn’t fit. I could go out and buy a new power supply, or I could go back to Tomomi Ishikawa’s apartment and get the one I’d forgotten. I didn’t want to leave the house at all, but if I was going to Butterfly’s I should do it now, before somebody came and cleared the place. Who knows, that could be soon. It was only a short metro ride away. What else was I going to do with my day? I found small things to do to delay leaving: the washing-up and cleaning my teeth, but finally there were no more excuses.
I got off the metro at Ménilmontant and my body weighed down as I climbed the steps from the station. I crossed the boulevard and turned up rue Étienne Dolet. I remembered the code from yesterday and typed it in, then dragged myself up the stairs to Tomomi Ishikawa’s door and waited. ‘Cat,’ I called softly so that only he would hear. Nothing happened. I guess he was somewhere else hanging out with lady cats. ‘Cat!’ I called slightly more insistently, and he padded reluctantly down the stairs from the floor above. ‘What were you doing up there?’ He didn’t answer and I said, ‘Well, thanks for coming anyway.’ I turned the key in the lock.
Cat went first and stopped dead in his tracks, listening. ‘What is it, Cat?’ He padded silently into the bedroom and poked his head behind the open door, then came out and walked into the kitchen area and looked in the bathroom. Something was different, the apartment smelt different; someone had been here. It was none of my business—this was what Butterfly had organised—but since I was here yesterday, small things had changed; I don’t know what, imperceptible things. I’ve not been gifted with those kinds of observational powers, but somebody had been here, I was certain. All of a sudden I felt upset. There was nothing here to remind her of me. I had never given Butterfly anything. I had never even lent her a book. No wonder she felt so alone.
And these thoughts got stuck in my head and I scratched my skin as if I could scrape them away. I could have called more often, spent more time with her. I could have helped her. I looked in the bathroom. There were no products on the shelves. No shampoo or shower gel, no toothpaste, no creams. There was a small towel hung over the shower cubicle. I guessed it was used as a mat to step out onto. I touched the hard cotton and it was damp. Somebody had showered here and taken Tomomi Ishikawa’s bathroom things.
My skin felt dry and I searched for some product I could put on my face, but there was nothing. Surely Butterfly had endless piles of creams and makeup remover and stuff. She was a girl after all. Why would she have taken them with her? Were they here when I came yesterday? How could I have possibly noticed? It’s not the kind of thing that would strike me when going into a dead person’s apartment. I looked in the bedroom. I thought about rummaging through the cupboards to see what I could find, but that would have been intrusive. The computer and the pen were for me. She’d told me to leave the other stuff alone. All this was none of my business. But whoever had come here had showered and taken Butterfly’s creams and bathroom things. Maybe Butterfly had left them a note instructing them to do exactly that, in the same way that she had told me to help myself to the contents of the fridge. Then my eyes filled up and my throat closed because Butterfly had no creams or cosmetic products. I could have bought her some. Something nice to make her skin feel good. Even if it was a bit expensive. I could have easily saved some money to buy it.
Cat jumped up onto the windowsill and stood staring down at the square below. The trees showed the first signs of coming green. A man was sitting on a bench near the drinking fountain. He turned and looked directly up at me and I stepped back out of sight. The clock on the wall said twenty past three. I looked around and the computer power supply was on the floor, plugged into the wall next to the table. I coiled the cable and put it in my bag. Cat jumped down and waited impatiently by the door, wanting to leave. I thought about staying for a moment and sitting still so that I could think, but not without Cat, so we went. When we were outside the man on the bench had gone and there were some children running round, chasing each other. Cat started walking off in the direction of Belleville and then looked back at me. I’d like to think that he was saying, ‘Just give me a shout if you need anything,’ but I don’t know. Cat’s remarkably uncommunicative. He disappeared round the corner and I walked back to the metro and went home.
* * *
Now, plugged in, the computer booted up without problem.
There were a few icons strewn messily on the desktop (which I find irritating), files saved there because she was too lazy to find a proper place for them. There was a letter of resignation from a job dating from over a year ago, and some kind of reference addressed to the prefecture from 2005. There were two folders imaginatively named ‘untitled folder’ and ‘untitled folder 2’ with nothing in either. I put them in the bin. I clicked on ‘Documents’ and expected to
find hundreds or endless files, badly named and in no particular order to make them easy to lose and difficult to find, but that wasn’t the case. There were five neatly labelled folders: ‘My Brain’, ‘My Dead’, ‘My Paris’, ‘My Stuff’ and ‘Things I Like’. I quickly checked the recycle bin but there was nothing other than the icons I had dragged there seconds earlier. It had been emptied. Butterfly had cleaned up her computer. Perfectly normal, I guess.
‘My Dead’ and ‘My Brain’ were the folder names I was most interested in, and ‘Things I Like’ too. I clicked on ‘My Stuff’ to save the best for later. There was one file, whatever had once surrounded it now deleted. I imagined she decided at the last moment to leave just one thing for me. I clicked and a video started, cutting in in midsentence. The image was of me walking along slowly, filmed from the side.
‘—one thing,’ I said, ‘but you might like it.’ I was smiling as if I thought I was about to say something funny. ‘The design for the whole of Paris was based on a Victorian resort in the northwest of England.’
‘Uh-huh.’ I could hear Tomomi Ishikawa’s voice as she filmed.
‘Napoleon III instructed Baron Haussmann to build the new Paris in the style of Southport in Lancashire.’
‘Really?’ There was noise from passing cars and buses.
‘Have you ever been to Southport?’ I asked.
‘Nope,’ she said.
‘It’s a quite nice seaside town, but it’s hard to imagine that it inspired Paris. Anyway, they say it did, and that’s everything I know about history and architecture.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Maybe Gustave Eiffel got all his ideas from Blackpool,’ I said, and looked round at her. ‘Are you listening to me, or are you just playing with your phone?’
‘I’m not playing with my phone,’ she said, ‘I’m filming you.’
‘I was making a joke,’ I complained.
Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa Page 2