Читать книгу CLEO - Helen Brown E. - Страница 14

A kitten knows joy is more important than self-pity.

“Oooow! Help!”

I woke with my hair pinned painfully to the pillow. A wild beast was attacking my scalp, clawing my hair and making dangerous chomping noises. It had to be a tiger or a lion escaped from a television wildlife show. Whatever it was had mistaken me for an antelope that needed eating. Emitting a stifling odor of fish breath, it obviously had a taste for marine mammals as well.

“It’s only Cleo,” Rob giggled.

Cleo? How could a kitten morph into a woman-eating panther in a matter of hours?

“Get it off!” I yelled.

“She’s not an ‘it,’” he said, disentangling the kitten from my hair and placing her gently on the floor. Her legs barely touched the carpet before she sprang back on the bed for a fresh lunge at my hair. I wailed in agony. The kitten’s purr of satisfaction reverberated through my eardrum. Is this the last sound a cat’s prey hears?

The moment I disengaged the animal from my head and set her on the floor, she bounced up on the bed again. How anything that small could leap several times her height was beyond me. She was like an Olympic pole-vaulter minus the pole. Maybe she’d had springs surgically implanted in her hind legs. I sighed and plonked her back on the floor. Eyes gleaming like neon signs, ears huge as moth wings, she bounced up again. She seemed to think it was a game. The animal had no respect for the fact we were engulfed in a grieving process so overwhelming we had little chance of recovering.

“Noooo!” I whimpered, using the pillow as a shield. Cleo was jubilant and hugely pleased with herself. Anyone would think she was the first creature on earth to invent the hair-attack-jumping-back-on-the-bed game. Come to think of it, she probably was. The pillow offered no protection: Cleo simply burrowed under it. I put her on the floor again. She jumped up. Down. Up. Down. Up. This dance routine was going to last all morning if I didn’t do something.

If Steve had been home I might’ve been able to employ him as a human shield. But he hadn’t officially agreed to having a kitten in the house, let alone one that ate humans. Cleo was just an idea of a kitten to him. Over the phone I’d described to him her every curve. “You’re going to love her!” I’d said. Even with my best marketing job, he sounded less than keen. I wasn’t looking forward to his reaction when he arrived home from sea. He was as likely to warm to Cleo as the Pope was to Buddhism.

Rolling reluctantly out of bed I slid into my dressing gown. As I stomped semiconscious towards the kitchen, I experienced a tugging sensation. Looking down I saw Cleo hanging from the belt of my gown like Tarzan from a vine.

“Naughty kitty!” I said, peeling her off my belt and putting her on the floor. The moment I tried to reclaim the belt and loop it around my waist she sprang at my thighs, dug her claws into my flesh and, with her tail swinging wildly, snared the belt between her teeth. I wailed painfully for the second time that morning.

Removing the kitten from my thigh inflicted more pain than the world’s worst Brazilian wax. Obviously there was only one way to deal with this young cat: firmness. I wrapped the belt around my waist, tied a knot and proceeded forwards with all the dignity it was possible to muster. Cleo raced ahead and flicked swiftly between my ankles, before suddenly skidding to a halt. In a single slow-motion movement I tripped over the hump of her spine and sailed through the air, only just managing to grab hold of a wall hanging to stop myself landing on top of her.

Clinging to the macramé tassels, I froze in a position worthy of an advanced yogi and apologized. The kitten rolled on her back, raised a bent paw and fixed me with a wounded expression. I felt terrible for hurting her.

Just as I bent to pick her up, the furry ball exploded to life, sprang to its feet and lunged away from me. Relieved, I followed—until she bounced to a halt and tripped me up again. And again!

Cleo seemed to have decided I was a ridiculous animal, with my bird’s-nest hair and insistence on prancing about on two legs. Her mission was to trim my coat and get me down on all fours so I could savor the exuberance of being a cat.

But I didn’t need a crazy kitten. The animal had no right to dance through our grieving chambers as if life was some kind of joke. If Sam were here, I thought, he’d know how to calm her down. I could almost see him bending over her, hand outstretched, lips damp and tender…

I hurried to the bathroom, the only place I could weep in private, and closed the door. Rob didn’t need to witness any more adult distress than he’d already seen. If only events had unfolded differently that day. If Sam hadn’t found the pigeon, if Steve hadn’t been making lemon meringue pie, if I hadn’t been out for lunch, if that woman hadn’t been driving back to work…That woman. It was all her fault. I wondered if she had children of her own and any idea the anguish we were going through. My mind had turned her into a monster.

A series of jagged sobs erupted. Trying to repress the noise, I leaned my forehead against the cool blue tiles and clutched my stomach. My chest muscles ached. The capacity of human tear ducts continued to amaze me. How many buckets could one pair of eyes fill? Just when I thought I’d exceeded the lifetime quota, another tanker load would discharge down my cheeks. Crying had become just another bodily function, like breathing, something that happened without conscious effort.

As I bent over the toilet bowl, part of my consciousness peeled away to float on the bathroom ceiling. It looked down with benevolence at the howling woman doubled over with hurt and hatred. This other me who examined things from a distance didn’t take things so personally. It was spooky and detached. Maybe it had been there since birth and I’d spent the rest of my life crowding it out with emotions, obligations and conforming to what was expected.

At the same time it frightened me. What if I was tempted to float away with it for eternity, smiling down on human drama like an amused zookeeper? The idea of shedding my body and escaping pain was suddenly attractive. I slid the cabinet drawer open and held the bottle of sleeping pills to the light. Each pill glowed like a promise through the brown glass. There were plenty left. They didn’t smell too bad. Washed down with enough brandy they’d be tolerable. I unscrewed the lid.

The bathroom door opened a crack. Dammit. I hadn’t closed it properly. The shower curtain rippled. Assuming Rob had opened the front door and set a draft going through the house, I leaned forwards to shut the door. It continued to nudge itself open. Glancing down I saw a black paw run down the gap. Cleo pushed her way in, padded over the tiles and mewed for me to pick her up. Sighing, I put the pills back in the drawer and closed it quietly. To arrange a permanent exit would be the ultimate act of indulgence. Cleo’s impertinent arrival in the bathroom was a reminder of my responsibilities. I had no right to opt out when a boy and a kitten needed continuity in their lives, and someone to nurture them through to adulthood. Gathering Cleo in my hands, I sobbed into her fur. She didn’t seem to mind being a handkerchief. Purring, she nuzzled my neck and gazed at me with such affection I was taken aback. Not since the boys were babies had a living creature offered so much undiluted love. Once I’d regained composure I lowered her to the floor. She skipped away and I went to find Rob.

The house had gone through a metamorphosis overnight. The hallway resembled the aftermath of a battle. Empty supermarket bags were scattered over the shag pile. Among them lay a selection of unmatched socks. Rob’s blue and white sports sock lay shriveled alongside one of Steve’s. A rainbow-striped bed sock curled around a fallen deodorant bottle. With its cap resembling Napoleon’s hat, the deodorant bottle looked like a deceased general who, knowing he’d lost the campaign, had taken a bullet and tumbled on his side.

In the family room rugs were rumpled and mysteriously askew. Lampshades hung crooked like jaunty headwear. Chairs and tables had rearranged themselves at subtly different angles. Photos had toppled on the window ledge. A rubbish basket lay on its side spewing apple cores and chewing gum wrappers.

The kitchen blinds had collapsed at half-mast and wouldn’t budge up or down. Closer inspection revealed the curtain cords had been either surgically severed or chomped through.

Assuming we’d been burgled, I hurried to the living room. To my surprise the stereo and its speakers still lurked inside their ugly veneer cabinets. The television hadn’t budged, either, though the flock of sympathy cards had taken wing during the night and fluttered to the floor.

The rubber plant lay toppled on its side, its pendulous leaves stretching over the sofa and coffee table. Dirt from its tub avalanched over the carpet. The landslide was decorated with three small, bullet-shaped turds.

I’d never been house proud, but this was too much. Our kitten had undergone a personality change after dark. She was nothing short of a feline werewolf.

The day ahead stretched towards a horizon littered with socks, fallen rubber plants, supermarket bags and acupunctured ankles.

“Where’s Cleo?” I roared, scooping up a blanket I’d lovingly stitched together for Rob. The blanket had taken months to knit. As I clutched the manifestation of mother’s love to my chest, three half-eaten tassels dropped to the floor.

Rata tilted a lazy ear from her sleeping post in the doorway. Rob shrugged. On the tree fern outside a bird was practicing scales. A ship’s horn moaned out on the harbor. Inside, the house was eerily silent. Except for strange tinkling noises coming from the kitchen.

I marched over the linoleum to declare war on a creature one-tenth my size. The clock emitted bored ticks from its watch post above the kitchen sink. The tap, like a drummer with no sense of rhythm, wept into the plug hole. Otherwise, silence. Our furry delinquent had gone bush.

For no logical reason, I reached for the oven door. Just as well we weren’t expecting a visit from Martha Stewart. Grease stains trickled like frozen tears down its glass front. I’d get around to cleaning them off someday, in the next year or two, or whenever there was a day on the calendar marked “World Oven-Cleaning Day.” A pair of roasting dishes glowered back at me from the gloom.

I was about to check out the pot cupboard when we heard the unmistakable sound of plates shattering. Rob lowered the dishwasher door. Cleo was having too much fun crashing around last night’s dinner plates to take notice of us. She ignored my yells to get out. When Rob reached into the dishwasher Cleo shot out and slithered between his legs, then scampered away before either of us could lay hands on her slippery fur.

I’d heard people say kittens were playful and could be almost as demanding as new babies. Almost? Babies stay in their bassinets, for heaven’s sake. They don’t go out of their way to attack your hair or send you flying through the air with the prospect of spending the rest of your days in a wheelchair. This kitten’s behavior was beyond any normality curve—human, animal or vegetable. She was uncontrollable, destructive, possibly psychotic and a sock fetishist to boot. In less than twenty-four hours she’d changed from helpless, charming aristocrat to crazed feral.

We chased after her down the hall, leaping over socks and supermarket bags, but Cleo was nowhere to be seen. We stopped and listened. All that could be heard was the sound of our labored breathing.

I peered through the crack of Rob’s door. Curled on his pillow was the personification of kittenly cuteness. She mewed affectionately, stretched, and gave the prettiest yawn. Cleo had morphed back into the creature we’d fallen in love with.

Rob moved towards her. Cleo’s eyes snapped wide open. Glaring, she pinned her ears back and lashed the pillowcase with her tail. Before either of us could get any closer she sprang to her feet and flitted mischievously across the room. Rob flung himself to the floor, trying to pin her down in a rugby tackle. She slithered through his grasp, leapt on top of his bookshelf and scrambled out of reach up the Smurf curtains, using her claws for crampons.

Swinging from Smurfland, the kitten was deaf to my concerns for the interior decor. Nevertheless, a glimpse towards the ceiling confirmed she couldn’t climb any higher. Descending meekly into our arms, however, wasn’t an option. In less than a breath, she dropped onto my shoulder, a mere springboard from which she then plunged to the floor.

Back on the carpet, she leapt in wild circles around the room, bouncing off the window ledge, the bed, the bookshelf. This was not a kitten. It was a dynamo with enough energy to power a discotheque. Even watching her was exhausting.

It wasn’t going to last. We weren’t cat people. Our house no longer belonged to us. Cleo had invaded and turned us into prisoners. Even though she was tiny, her personality filled every corner of every room. If she wasn’t stealing socks from the laundry basket or chewing the covers of precious books she was hiding in a shopping basket waiting to ambush us.

Admittedly, the trouble she was causing had provided diversion from our pain. Every moment spent worrying what part of the house she was destroying was one not steeped in grief. But I was a barely functioning human being and in no condition to deal with the undiluted force of nature that was Cleo.

The only thing more unnerving than her presence was her sudden, inexplicable absence. “Where’s Cleo?” I muttered after resurrecting the rubber plant and disposing of the turds. The house was too quiet. Rob found her eating potato peelings inside the kitchen cupboard that contained our rubbish bin.

I’d once read somewhere that cats sleep seventeen hours a day. Presumably kittens needed more than that. Going by the damage to our surroundings, Cleo must’ve slept a total of three hours in the past twenty-four. Some other kitten in a blissfully calm household had surely stolen Cleo’s designated downtime and grabbed it for itself. It’d be pigging out on hours of extra sleep, dozing on a cushion in a patch of sunlight somewhere, not causing any trouble. Its stress-free, thoroughly spoiled owner would look at its plump, snoring form and wonder at its passive nature.

I couldn’t stand another minute of that kitten. I persuaded Rob to leave the house with me for an hour or two. The only terms he’d agree to was a visit to a pet shop that sold stuff for kittens.

We crept around the abandoned supermarket bags toward the front door. I turned the lock smoothly to avoid loud clicks that might draw attention to our escape. Just as I shuffled Rob out ahead of me, the supermarket bag closest to the door suddenly inflated to twice its size, exploded to life and emitted a terrifying yowl. A miniature panther pounced from its depths and dug its teeth in my ankles.

I tried to shake her off. The kitten was several notches below us on the Darwinian scale. She had no right—let alone the brains and technology—to detain us. Nevertheless, she was having a damn good try.

Rob picked up a sock and shook it. Cleo was immediately mesmerized. Ferocity: 10. Attention span: 0. She leapt and danced after the hosiery. When Rob threw it to the other end of the hall she scurried after it.

We slid out the front door as Cleo’s tail disappeared into the shadows. She’s only a cat, for heaven’s sake! my mother’s voice lectured inside my head. But I hadn’t felt so guilty since I’d tried leaving the boys at a day-care center that was clearly run by a direct descendent of Adolf Hitler.

We headed along the path to the zigzag. A force tugged me back towards the house. I turned to see our kitten peering out of Rob’s window. If a representative of Hallmark Cards had wandered up the zigzag he’d have signed her up for a lifetime of schmaltzy photo shoots. Nestled in a basket or garden pot, dangling from a Christmas stocking, she’d have been irresistible.

Back in the bathroom she’d rescued me from one of my bleakest moments. I was grateful to her for that. She was beautiful, wonderful. And impossible to live with.