Bono

Chapter Nineteen

FUR-FILLING A PROMISE

There’s no better companion for a writer than a cat.

Lydia stood in the middle of our apartment clutching the sheets she’d slept between for the past ten days. She handed them to me in a bundle and asked if I’d mind bringing the blanket we had bought back with me when I returned to Australia. There was not room for it in her backpack and she’d grown attached to it. With her bed flipped back to a sofa again, the room seemed sharp edged and clinical. I could hardly believe she was going. I asked if she wanted to take any of the art gallery postcards from the mantelpiece. She tucked Monet’s water lilies—her water lilies, from now on—in a pocket of her backpack.

New York had transformed our relationship. We were accepting our differences without leaping to conclusions, taking risks, and laughing together. I was amazed at how the city had opened her eyes to art, fashion, jazz, and theater. After her years of religious modesty, the city had unlocked her sensuality. From shopping at Victoria’s Secret to chatting up a jazz pianist, she’d succumbed to the ambient vibrancy and allowed herself to flourish.

More important, I’d never seen her open her heart so willingly to a living creature.

“Oh, and this is for Bono,” she said, reaching into her pack and handing me a cat fishing rod. “Don’t forget to play with him.”

Sensing something was up, the cat trotted out from under the bed and rubbed against her legs. Though he refused to let her pick him up, as usual, he invited her to run her hand over his back.

“Oh, Bono!” she said, tears cascading down her cheeks. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

He fixed her with his golden gaze and nuzzled her fingers.

“You will find him a home, won’t you?” she asked, taking a tissue from her sleeve.

As a parent, it doesn’t matter how old your child is. Whether they’re 4 or 40, you’d remove your own appendix with a kitchen knife if it helped heal your child’s pain.

“I’ll do my best,” I said, leading her downstairs and out to the street.

For once, we didn’t have to wait for a cab.

“We had a good time, didn’t we?” I said, giving her a hug. Though I never like saying good-bye to my kids, I always try to orchestrate the occasion to be pleasant, in case life takes one of its horrendous twists and it turns out to be the final farewell.

“Look after Bono, won’t you?” she said. “I can’t wait to read the first blog.”

She was still crying as she climbed into the backseat.

I went upstairs. Bono was back in his hiding place. The room felt empty without Lydia.

Being alone in New York was going to be more challenging than I’d imagined. I felt vulnerable, unwanted, and past my best before date—like a sick cat without a home. A pair of amber headlights beamed out at me from under the bed. He didn’t like me. Come to think of it, he wasn’t the cat I would have chosen, either. But Lydia loved him, and he had spirit. Maybe the cat and I could prop each other up and create a new life together. If nothing else, he’d be someone to come home to.

“What do you think, Bono? You, me, and the big smoke. Shall we give it a try?”

The headlights blinked.

I slid my laptop out of its case, placed it on the little table beside the fireplace. Not for the first time, I wondered why so many people think they want to be writers. For workplace companionship it’s the equivalent of lighthouse keeping. When working on a book, I’m lucky to have more than one human interaction a day, usually with a barista. Once my recyclable cup is filled with the required fix, I scurry home to stare at the vacant computer screen. That’s when I invent excuses not to write, such as cleaning out the fridge, emptying the dishwasher, or going to the bathroom.

Writing is more tiring than people think. I’ve usually run out of steam by lunchtime, so I’ll lie on the bed and drift to sleep listening to a recorded meditation. After that, I watch daytime TV with the windows shut in case our next-door neighbor, Heather, hears.

My work is usually at its worst on days when words flow and I think I’m on a roll. The best sentences emerge childlike in their simplicity after countless times through the rinse cycle.

At night, I go to sleep reworking the day’s paragraphs inside my head. A lot of the ideas seem brilliant, but I’ve usually forgotten them by morning.

Friendships go on hold. After a few months, I forget how to hold a conversation. When the book finally emerges and needs promotion, I’m expected to undergo a personality change to become witty, well-dressed, and outgoing.

For all its challenges, an author’s life has expanded my world in ways I would never have imagined. No doubt the contrast between emptying garbage at home and being treated like royalty in an Austrian castle or strolling the shores of Lake Como with my Italian translator had contributed to my restlessness.

At book fairs and on tour in various countries there were encounters that will stay with me a lifetime—the woman in Warsaw who stood up and said through an interpreter that our family was Poland’s family; in Japan weeping with tsunami victims who simply wanted to express their pain. I’ll never forget giving a reading in Vienna in an exquisite room where Mozart had performed, or meeting high school students in Portugal to learn they faced the same challenges as Australian teenagers. Wherever I go I meet people whose animal guardians have helped them through loss and pain.

The emails are often deeply moving, too. I try to respond to them all. Every now and then, a reader travels across the globe to meet Jonah. He has received guests from Italy, Canada, Switzerland, and France. They’ve all been women with a happy blend of intelligence and charm. While Jonah holds court, I serve homemade banana cake, which seems a trifle considering how far they’ve traveled.

The machine hummed to life and the screen lit up with an expectant air. I drew a breath and typed “Huffington Post Blog.” Headings are always easy. Two coffees and a fruit tart later, I raised my fingers to the keyboard again.

Bono was the strangest looking cat I’d ever seen . . .