Bono

Chapter Twenty-nine

LAST CHANCE

A cat is immune to the sound of a ticking clock.

A person who lives in an old house invariably dreams of owning one with windows that do not rattle. Someone who spends days in a townhouse with sleek, functional lines longs for a home with character and a scrabble of roses over a white picket fence.

So why was a happily married woman approaching 60 living out a fantasy about running away from home to New York? Maybe I was chasing after a youth never lived, undergoing some kind of hormonal meltdown, escaping responsibility, or running away from my old buddy, death.

Having grown up under a snow-capped mountain in rural New Zealand, I’d never regarded Australia as my soul home. I considered the Australian landscape too vast and dry, the sky too huge. The lakes and rivers of my beautiful homeland ran through my veins. Besides, few things rile New Zealanders more than Australia claiming one of its own.

But when I saw that bronze kangaroo on the Delacorte Clock, something shifted in me. The five years we’d expected to stay in Australia when we moved there in 1997 had somehow stretched to sixteen. We arrived with a small black cat named Cleo, who watched over our unfolding lives. The five candles I’d placed on Katharine’s birthday cake a few months after our arrival had suddenly become ten, and then sixteen. Anxious nights before school exams had morphed into decisions over what university courses to take. Tears and prayers through Rob’s ulcerative colitis surgery melted into relief as he gained strength during the months of recovery. There were girlfriends, and then, as our daughters blossomed into womanhood, nervous young men standing on our doorstep. The happiness of Rob’s engagement to Chantelle was mingled with sadness at Cleo’s departure.

Kids had left home, but our house had become more a rock pool than an empty nest. The tide washed in to fill vacant bedrooms with granddaughters having sleepovers, family from New Zealand, and visitors from various parts of the world. Through all the seasons, there had hardly been time for Philip and I to notice each other. When things were tough, we’d simply clung to each other. Through other phases, when we were lulled into robotic routine, we’d forgotten to hold each other close, and a cool breeze would waft between us. We’d changed, too, of course. He’d lost most of his hair, I’d shed a breast, but superficial deficits were nothing compared to the things we’d gained. Through the decades we’d learned to forgive our differences, accept them, and in some cases even cherish them.

Once, the sight of a bronze kangaroo would have had no more effect on me than the hippopotamus and penguin circling the clock with it. But after fifteen years, I realized it was no longer a case of choosing between being a New Zealander or an Australian, but a matter of belonging to both countries.

We’d traveled back to New Zealand as often as we could to spend precious time with friends and family, but most of the important and banal things in life had happened to us while we were living in Australia.

Perhaps the greatest miracle was that in this age of mobility all three of our offspring, including their partners and our grandchildren, lived in the same city we did. New York was beguiling, but the prospect of passing months without the joy of meeting Katharine for an impromptu coffee, sitting in on Lydia’s Tuesday meditation class, or answering a casual phone call from Rob on his way home from work. That was altogether a different litter of kittens.

Either way, I wasn’t about to give up on Bono. And when I was honest with myself, Monique was his best and, realistically, last chance. The following morning, Saturday, I slid into my silver shoes and dashed across the road to the flower shop. The manager always seemed surprised when someone wanted to actually buy his blooms. It was as if he’d put them out for decorative purposes only. His tubs of daffodils beamed golden optimism. They looked luckier than tulips. I took two bunches home and stuffed them in the vase beside the fireplace.

Bono watched bemused while I mopped the floor, and sprinkled lavender oil inside the Bunker.

“You’ve got to be on your best behavior,” I said, straightening the nest of papers beside my laptop. “No hiding, okay?”

Desperate to impress, I went into the bathroom and applied a second layer of powder to my nose. An anxious face peered back at me through the gloomy mirror. I ran a comb through my hair, inserted a pair of confident earrings, and applied a circle of lipstick.

We’d been let down before. Even if Monique showed up, she was probably just curious. What could possibly be in this for her? Jon’s words echoed inside my head—only a saint would give Bono a home.

The door buzzed ten minutes early. To my horror, my housemate shot straight under the bed.