Bono

Chapter Two

HEAVEN OR HELLHOLE

A feline is seldom what she seems.

The following morning, I woke with a plan so perfectly formed it practically qualified as a vision. If it were true that I’d ended up in the wrong life in the wrong city, I’d change it, at least for a little while. And where better to move to than New York?

After all, New York and I had unfinished business. Though I’d never lived among the city’s skyscraper canyons, I’d spent a tantalizing time there a few years earlier celebrating the launch of my first book, Cleo. The parties were every bit as glittering as I’d dreamed, the people warm and fascinating.

No one had been more surprised than me when Cleo bounced onto the New York Times bestseller list. For one thing, the book was about a cat and how she’d helped our family heal after my nine-year-old son Sam was run over and killed in 1983.

While Cleo the cat seemed to be an angel from another world through the darkest days of my grief, when I sent her story to literary agents and publishers most had run for the hills. Eventually it was picked up and before long it had been translated into countless languages.

Just when I was thinking it was time to sign up for gardening classes, I was spinning around the world in a whirl of happy disbelief—magical parties in Frankfurt and Vienna, where writers are revered as artists. In Warsaw, Poland, I found people love to read so much they fill a soccer stadium for their book fair. A tour of the tsunami region of Japan affected me profoundly. It was an honor beyond words when people who had lost so much wanted to share their grief with me.

At an elegant lunch on a whirlwind trip to New York, I steadied a glass of chardonnay and hoped my antipodean earthiness and oversized feet weren’t too laughable.

Across the table, a woman beamed worldly warmth from under a froth of blond hair. The bright scarf around her neck was pinned together with a vivid enamel brooch the shape of a cat. Feline fanatic to the core, she confessed to keeping three cats in her two bedroomed apartment. When she smiled, the restaurant took on a peachy hue. Her name was Michaela Hamilton, executive editor at Kensington Publishing, and Cleo’s US editor.

Now, with a new book soon to be released in the United States, I had a watertight excuse to return to New York. Except this time, I’d stay longer, immerse myself in the city, and put my dreary suburban life on hold. If I met enough fabulous people, some of their glamour might rub off on me. I’d drink champagne with the literati and (if my knee held out) dance down Fifth Avenue at dawn. They might even like me enough to ask me to stay on indefinitely. Only a fool would say no to that. All I had to do was contact Michaela and introduce my other half to the brilliance of the idea.

Philip’s side of the bed was empty. I knew the rule. I was supposed to stay put until he brought in the tea and toast. Our sleepy cat protested as I rolled him off my body and leapt out of bed into my dressing gown. Jonah yowled and tried to cut me off so he could wrangle me back to bed for his regular cuddle. I sidestepped the flicking tail and dashed into my study.

According to my calculations, it would be late afternoon in New York.

I was in luck. Michaela was still at her desk.

Her enthusiasm bubbled back across cyberspace. If I visited in a couple of months’ time, toward the end of March, to coincide with the release of Cats & Daughters, we could have fun together and maybe sell a few books. She agreed that instead of staying in a hotel I should rent an apartment. That way it would be easier to extend my stay and discuss new projects with her.

I pictured myself trotting across Times Square to her office building every morning to discuss my outline for the next Game of Thrones before heading around the corner to binge on a Broadway matinee. As dusk settled over the Empire State Building I’d make a cameo appearance on The Daily Show, before heading across town for cocktails with Stephen Colbert. It was like offering an ice addict her own meth lab.

After Michaela and I signed off, I floated into the kitchen, where Philip was applying broad strokes of jam to a slab of toast.

“What’s up?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure how to share the news. Jonah snaked around my ankles and wailed like Plácido Domingo.

“Has he had his pill?” I asked. Without his daily antipsychotic medication, our cat screams nonstop, shreds the house to pieces, and (if all else fails) goes on a spraying jag.

Philip is the resident expert at pill dispensing. Jonah lies like a baby in his arms while he drops the capsule deftly in the back of the feline’s throat. Whenever Philip’s away and I’m forced to man the pill, the patient wriggles, spits the thing out, and snubs me for hours.

“I gave it to him just now,” he said. “Aren’t you cold?”

“No, I’m quite hot, actually. Well, I used to be. I was thinking. . .”

“Why don’t you go back to bed? I’ll bring this in to you.”

“I’m thinking . . . I’ve got to go to New York.”

The words came out with the elegance of a cat coughing up a hair ball.

“What for?”

“They want me there to promote the new book,” I said.

My husband took a yellow dishcloth from the bench top and wiped the red tear dribbling down the side of the jam jar.

“The ants are back,” he said after a long silence.

I was so over the ants. They swarmed Jonah’s food bowls every night. He’s terrified of ants, which is undignified for a cat who relished the idea of taking on a rat, or even a small dog. We’d tried every type of trap and poison, but our ants just ignored them and went on with their plans to take over the world.

Drowning ants was my job. I went to the laundry, where the food bowls had transformed overnight into hillocks of writhing life. I filled the yellow bucket from the cold tap and plunged the bowls into the water. Somber with guilt, I watched their bodies form dark swirls as they spiraled down the drain.

“So how long do you want to be away for?” Philip called out.

I returned to the kitchen, where he presented me with a plate of toast.

“I’m not sure,” I said, sinking my teeth into the crust.

Philip said nothing.

“Why don’t you come along?” I asked. “You could take a year off.”

I knew what the answer would be. He could hardly expect the firm to keep his job open while he gallivanted around the world with me for twelve months. Aside from the fact he was too young to retire, our nest egg was barely fertilized.

I waited for him to negotiate my absence down to two weeks, or maybe three. Instead, he put the jam jar in the fridge where the ants couldn’t get it and padded upstairs toward his study.

“Where are you going?” I asked, feeling a stab of alarm.

“To see what flights I can get you on,” he called over his shoulder. “How long do you want to be away for, did you say?”

How much time would it take to stop feeling this empty and confused? A month, a year . . . forever?

“Depends how much stuff they need me to do over there,” I shouted up the stairs. “Maybe keep the return flight flexible?”

His response was so measured and obliging, I wondered if he was demonstrating how his unconditional love extended to helping me carve my dreams into reality. Alternatively, and more understandable in the circumstances, there was every chance he was welcoming the opportunity to have a break from me.

As days melted into weeks, my excitement simmered like lava. There was so much I wanted to see and do in the insomniac city. Not that I’d sunk so low as to call it a bucket list. No way was I about to tick off the Empire State Building and Central Park like items on a funereal shopping list. And I had no ambition to “do” New York, either. In fact, the only thing worse than bucket lists is people “doing places.” I wanted to surrender to the city and let it claim me with its gritty vitality. New York was going to “do” me.

To anyone one who would listen, I tried not to gush about my impending trip. The man-bunned barista at our neighborhood café beamed approval over my takeout latte. My good friend Greg was less impressed.

“What’s happened, darling?” he said, disdain dripping through the phone line from London. “Are you having one of those brain hiccoughs people get at our age?”

Greg and I first met in the dress-up corner back in preschool. Even then I trusted his judgment. He persuaded me the milkmaid’s outfit suited me to a tee, which freed up the fairy queen’s gown for him.

“But it’s the world’s greatest city.”

“That’s just a logo New Yorkers invented to make themselves feel better about living in the world’s worst hell hole,” he said. “Stay away from those yellow taxis, whatever you do. The drivers murder people.”

The vehemence of his reaction was unexpected.

“You’re not jealous, are you?” I asked.

“How could I be? I’d much rather stay in a place where the beggars don’t carry guns.”

“New York beggars are armed?”

“Anyway, what are you doing leaving that gorgeous husband of yours?”

Greg had always been besotted with Philip.

“Do I smell a hint of divorce?” he added hopefully.

I didn’t have answers to either of his questions. All I knew was my knee was sore and my neck ached. Since the kids had left home it wasn’t as if I needed to hang around for them.

Son Rob and his wife Chantelle were up to their armpits in house renovations, their jobs, and their adorable daughters. My granny guilt meter went off the scale imagining Grandparents Day at Annie and Stella’s preschool and the empty seat where I should be. All the other grannies who’d hobbled along on their walkers would refrain from asking where I was in case I’d taken a shortcut to the cemetery. Our younger daughter Kath was immune to my activities. She was off to college and in a parallel universe that involved dressing up as an elf and fighting Orcs in a park near the university. There was only one more person to break the news to.

Our older daughter, Lydia, seemed surprised the afternoon I called to suggest we take a walk in Victoria Gardens, the dog park just down the road from our place.

As we watched a man toss a ball for an arthritic Alsatian, I fought the urge to tell her how much prettier she looked since she’d stopped shaving her head, and how happy I was she’d become a secular Buddhist and braved a speed dating night to acquire a boyfriend. Living in a shared house with hipsters clearly suited her.

“How’s Ramon?” I asked.

She emitted a dry cough. Only a mother would notice the way her hands were forming the shape of fists at her side. She didn’t need to be defensive. I was hardly going to suggest we roll out a picnic rug and google bridal gowns. That said I liked Ramon immensely. Half Sri Lankan and raised Catholic, he had a whimsical sense of humor that was an ideal foil to her serious nature.

“Fine,” she said, watching a skateboarder trundle toward the gates in the distance.

We were both bruised from our harrowing battles around the time of my breast cancer. I’d been hurt and furious when she’d taken off to Sri Lanka to become a Buddhist nun instead of staying home to provide emotional support through the mastectomy. In turn, she’d been perplexed and affronted by my lack of understanding of her need for spiritual growth.

Though our relationship had improved since she’d returned to Australia to complete her psychology studies, we still tended to circle each other like cats in a basement.

We found a bench under a tree and settled in the leafy shade.

“I’m going to New York.” The statement sounded clumsy, and oddly shocking.

A golden retriever galloped in front of us, its tongue waving like a dishcloth. A bird trilled the opening notes of a jazz number. Lydia remained silent.

“I know, you think I’m crazy wanting to go there, you must think it’s a dump, but . . .” I searched for the right words. “I really want to see The Book of Mormon. You know, the musical about the Mormon boys sent to convert people in Uganda. It’s hilarious.”

What was I saying? Lydia hated musicals. Besides, through her years of hard-core Buddhism she’d been forbidden to step inside a theater, which had been no hardship in her case.

“Are you serious?” she asked in a tone that implied I might need professional help.

“It’s won a raft of Tonys,” I said. “It’ll be years before they bring it to Australia. I got the CD off Amazon. Have you heard ‘Spooky Mormon Hell Dream’?”

“No, are you really going to New York?” she asked, fixing me with the psychologist expression that sears into my soul and makes it impossible to lie.

“Well, yes. My publishers think it’s a good idea, with the new book coming out.”

One of the curses of being a writer’s daughter is you’re destined to end up in print. I still wasn’t sure how Lydia felt about me portraying our dramas in Cats & Daughters. Months earlier, watching her solemn expression as she’d read through the manuscript, I’d half expected her to hurl it on the floor and forbid me to send it to the publisher. Instead, she’d been incredibly forgiving and generous.

“How long for?” she asked, her face turned away, her tawny hair gleaming in the dappled light.

Why did everyone keep asking that?

“I haven’t decided.”

I knew what she was thinking. New York, of all places. Center of global capitalism, crass materialism, and everything nonspiritual. A fox terrier galloped through the gates and snapped at the heels of the old Alsatian.

“Why don’t you come along?” I asked to fill the silence.

Lydia turned her face toward me. Her cheeks were pinker than usual. “I’d love to!” she said.

“Really?!”

My eyes filled with moisture. After everything we’d been through Lydia was volunteering to spend time with me in an environment hostile to her entire belief system.

“I couldn’t stay for long . . .” she said.

Yeah, right, I thought. She’s having second thoughts and wriggling out of it.

“But I could be there for maybe ten days at the beginning of your trip,” she added.

She could have knocked me over with an incense stick.