Cleo

Trust

A cat is always in the right place at exactly the right time.

As Rob disappeared inside with his new kitten, Lena turned to go. Seized with panic, I grabbed her elbow.

“There’s something you should know,” I blabbed. “I’m not really a cat person. I mean our family had cats when we were growing up, but they were more like wildcats. They just lived under the house and we fed them occasionally. Mum grew up on a farm, you see, and she never really got cats. She let a couple of them come inside and we semi-tamed them, but they weren’t friendly…”

Lena’s face clouded. She needed to hear this. Not telling her would’ve been worse than filling out a customs form and ticking “Haven’t been on a farm in the past thirty days” when in fact you’ve been helping cousin Jeff milk his dairy herd for the last two weeks.

“One of them, Sylvester, used to poop in Mum’s shoes, which was horrible for her, because she sometimes forgot to look before she put her shoes on. She’d scream the house down. She said Sylvester was temperamental because he was part Persian, with the long hair, you know. Black and white, he was. The thing is, Lena, I’m pretty sure we’re more dog people.”

Lena turned her head like an exotic lily and surveyed the scrub that was our garden. Casting her eye over the mountainous piles of dung Rata had bombarded the front lawn with, she sighed.

“This is a very special kitten,” Lena said. “And if you don’t like cats…”

“It’s not that I don’t like cats,” I continued. “It’s just I don’t really know how to look after them. I haven’t read any books about kitten rearing or anything.”

“They’re very easy to care for,” she said in kindergarten teacher tones. “Much easier than dogs. She’ll be no trouble. Just keep her inside for a day or two to settle. Give me a call if you have any problems. And if you change your mind you can give her back to me.”

“But…” Lena didn’t seem to realize I’d made my mind up already. I didn’t want the kitten.

“All she needs is a little love.”

Love. Such a simple, four-letter word to roll off the tongue. So much easier for the facial muscles to arrange themselves around than “lasagna,” “leisure suit” or “leave me alone forever, please.” My heart had been ripped out and pulverized. How could it possibly squeeze out a drip of anything resembling the L word for a creature I’d forgotten we’d ever agreed to own and wasn’t in the slightest way equipped to look after?

Besides, a cat, assuming by some miracle it survived long enough in our company to grow into one, is an arduous, practically never-ending responsibility.

I’d gone down enough in Lena’s estimation without tactfully asking how long a cat of this breed might live. From what I could remember, the ones I’d grown up with, even the semi-tame ones, were lucky to spend more than six years in our company. Most of them met sudden fates usually described in solemn, no-nonsense terms by our parents: “poisoned,” “run over” or “run away.” Further questioning was not encouraged. “Who did it?” or “Where?” were invariably answered with “Who knows?”

Even if this kitten by some miracle managed to reach the grand old age of nine, that would take Rob through to the age of fifteen, a million years into the future. Considering the battering our endocrine systems were taking, I doubted any of us could realistically expect to survive that long.

Lena smiled thinly and disappeared with Jake down the path. Poor Lena. I should have been more diplomatic. Abandoning her kitten to self-confessed dog people, she must have felt wretched. Nevertheless, she had offered to take the kitten back. Maybe I could let Rob play with it for a day or two, then we could return it to the embrace of a cat-loving household.

Rata moaned loudly from behind the kitchen door.

“Don’t worry!” I called to the old dog. “We’ll sort this out.”

Rob was curled up in a corner of the living room, cradling the tiny creature in his arms. To have called it beautiful or even pretty would have made Elton John’s spectacle frames the understatement of the eighties. It was a scrap of life wrapped in a dishcloth. A toy you’d take back to the department store to exchange for one with more stuffing. I refused to think of it as something with a name, but if it did have one, “Cleopatra” would be far too long and elaborate. Something that miniscule wasn’t hefty enough to handle a name with more than one syllable. It wasn’t going to be staying with us long, so for now “it” would suffice.

Sam’s observation had been spot-on. With the prominent head and neck narrower than a vacuum cleaner hose, the animal was more like E.T. than a kitten. To the non–cat person the lack of fur offered too much information about feline anatomy. I tried not to notice the folds of semitranslucent skin draped over its rib cage. The skin was a deep charcoal shade, which mercifully concealed some of the detailed rippling of movement under the surface. If I looked any closer it might’ve been possible to see the throb of a tiny heart. It was safer to avert the eyes.

How anything could be born with so much spare skin was a mystery. The flaps under its arms (front legs?) were generous enough to double as wings. A saggy pouch hung under its abdomen. There was enough spare skin to make at least two other animals the same size. The struggle to survive as the runt had obviously been touch-and-go. No doubt older brothers and sisters had pushed their puny sibling off their mother in order to fill their own bellies.

The kitten would need to do an awful lot of eating and growing to fill those empty pouches. Even then it stood no chance of looking presentable. A larger, filled-out version of the kitten had freak potential. I took a step backwards. It was definitely one of those things that looked better from a distance. At least the color was consistent. The kitten couldn’t have been blacker. From the claws and pads of its feet to its whiskers it was black. Even the pins of its claws were black. Its eyes were the only things that broke the rule. They were shimmering green mirrors that hardly belonged to a cat. Surely they’d been stolen from a creature from another world. As Rob stroked her forehead with his finger, the kitten gazed adoringly up at him. My heart lurched. All of a sudden the kitten wasn’t ugly anymore. Sun caught her fur. Affection beamed from her eyes. She radiated a kind of silvery light. The room filled with beauty, the pure essence of all new beings. They looked so perfect together, like a scene from a 1950s advertisement.

“Sam was right,” he said, beckoning me forward and lowering her into my reluctant hands. “Animals can talk. Listen to her. She’s growling.”

Maybe it was the warmth of her miniscule weight, the fragility of her limbs or the softness of her fur, but my chest suddenly filled with a fluttery sensation as I lifted her into my hands. “That’s not growling,” I said, running my finger along the delicate beads of her spine. “It’s purring.”

Gazing into the innocent furry face overshadowed by gigantic ears I felt momentarily overwhelmed. Even though we’d lost Sam, and I sometimes felt my existence was finished, this scrap of feline life had summoned up the cheek to burst in on our world with no apologies. Not only that, curled in my hands, she was apparently expecting things to turn out perfectly. She was tiny, helpless. And had no choice but to trust us.

Cleo stretched a lazy paw and yawned, revealing a lollipop-pink mouth palisaded with dangerous-looking teeth. The astounding eyes gazed into mine with an expression that hardly matched the vulnerability of her size. Her unwavering stare said it all. As far as she was concerned this was a meeting of equals.

“Touch her ears,” Rob said. “They’re soft.”

Cleo didn’t object to having her ears rubbed. In fact she dipped her head and nudged firmly into my hand to intensify the contact. Delicate as antique silk, her ears slipped between my fingers.

A reward was the last thing I expected. It was delivered in the form of a sandpapery swipe from her tongue. Cleo’s lick on the back of my hand was startling, like a lover’s first kiss. Part of me wanted to envelop her and never let go. The other part, so wounded, was wary of the tsunami of affection washing over me. To love is ultimately to lose. The unwritten contract that arrives with every pet is they’re probably going to die before you do. The more devoted you are to them the more sorrow their departure will inflict. Opening my heart to Cleo would’ve been the equivalent of placing an already bruised organ on an airport tarmac and inviting planes to land on it.

“Let’s see how she walks,” I said, lowering the kitten to the floor. We watched her paddle like a clockwork toy through the carpet. The shag pile was the equivalent of tall grass for her. Using the worm of her tail as a rudder she paced jerkily towards the rubber plant.

I’d never been a fan of the rubber plant. We’d inherited it from the owners of our previous house. I gradually understood why they’d left it behind. With its big waxy leaves it had an indestructible, vaguely humorless presence. Like an unwelcome guest at a dinner party, it eavesdropped on every conversation and contributed little in return except, perhaps, when it was in the mood, oxygen. We’d been hoping to leave the thing behind when we moved to the zigzag, but the removal men had mistakenly packed it into their truck with our furniture.

When I transplanted the rubber plant into an ugly orange plastic tub its confidence surged. It sprouted dark-green branches the size of Frisbees and sent feelers trailing creepily around picture frames and across curtain rails. Technically more a tree these days, the darned thing had ambitions to engulf the entire suburb. I’d tried cutting it back with a pair of hedge clippers, but that only encouraged it to swamp the sideboard.

About a meter away from the plant’s orange tub Cleo paused. Her ears and whiskers pointed forwards. Her nose twitched as if she was sampling some dangerous perfume. She crouched and, with the stealthy determination of a lion stalking an antelope, eyed her prey—a pendulous leaf dangling from one of the lower branches. Quivering on her haunches, she waited for the moment the leaf would be least suspecting. Satisfied her prey was foolishly absorbed in leafy thoughts, she attacked furiously, claws exposed, teeth perforating the startled victim’s skin.

Then something strange happened. It began with a noise, unfamiliar at first, a soft gurgle followed by vague hiccuping. Our mouths widened, the soft tissue at the back of our throats went into spasm, but not for crying this time. Laughter. Rob and I were laughing. For the first time in weeks we reveled in the simplest, most complex healing technique known to humanity. Grief had pulled me so deeply into its dungeon I’d forgotten about laughing. It took a boy, his kitten and a rubber plant to engage me in a function essential to human sanity. The horror of past weeks dissolved, padlocks of pain were unlocked momentarily. We laughed.

In the Cleo versus rubber-plant leaf war, there was no doubt who was winning. The leaf was twice Cleo’s size and firmly attached to the plant’s trunk. Every time she tried to grip the vegetation between her claws it slipped away and bounced insolently skyward again.

“She’s a gutsy little thing,” I said.

The kitten suddenly stopped and collapsed on her haunches. She looked up at us and emitted a dictatorial mew. No interpreter was needed. Cleo was tired of entertaining us. She demanded to be scooped up for more cuddles. A mournful howl from the kitchen reverberated through the wall, reminding us it was time for Cleo to meet the lady of the house.

I instructed Rob to let Rata out of the kitchen while I held on to Cleo. But what if the dog lunged at the kitten and tried to eat it? Adult muscle strength would be needed to restrain the dog. The only option was to instruct Rob to hold the kitten carefully while I brought Rata in.

Overjoyed to be released from kitchen confinement, Rata showered me with saliva. She was seemingly oblivious of my prison-warden’s grip on her collar.

“Now girl, there’s someone we’d like you to meet,” I said, sounding like a dentist introducing a first timer to the drill. “There’s nothing to worry about, but you’ll have to be very gentle.”

The golden retriever knew exactly where we were going. Like a jet boat with a water-skier in tow, she dragged me into the living room. Rob stood by the window anxiously clutching Cleo close to his chin. Rata took one glimpse of the kitten and tightened every muscle under her collar. Cleo’s eyes widened to become a pair of glittering jewels. The kitten puffed her patchy tufts of fur out to double her size, though she was still hardly big enough to intimidate a chihuahua. She arched her back and flattened her ears. Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, Rata barked, puncturing the air like gunshots. The poor little kitten was going to die of terror.

Any normal animal outclassed in size would have recoiled into Rob’s arms, but Cleo was no common beast. Glowering down from her human fortress, she shrank her pupils to pinpoints and lasered out enough malevolence to intimidate the entire canine empire. She then peeled back her mouth, exposed two parallel rows of fangs—and hissed.

Rob, Rata and I froze. Frighteningly primeval, Cleo’s hiss was something a python would emit before swallowing a rabbit, a hiss worthy of Cleopatra herself. It was an imperial hiss, one not to be argued with.

Rata fumbled under her collar and collapsed on her haunches. Shocked at the kitten’s ferocity, the retriever hung her head and studied the floor. The old dog seemed disappointed, confused.

Then it struck me. I’d been misreading Rata’s signals all along. Her jumping at Lena by the front door had been a welcome, not an attack. The growl just now had been one of friendly excitement, the bark an invitation to play. Rata’s feelings had been wounded not only by me misinterpreting her intentions but by a stroppy kitten not much bigger than her front paw.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Bring Cleo over here.”

Nursing Cleo in his arms, Rob walked cautiously to our side of the room. Rata gazed up at the kitten with an expression so soft and kind it could have been stolen from Mother Teresa. Nevertheless, I maintained the grip on her collar.

“See? Rata doesn’t hate the kitten. She’s just not sure how to make friends. Put Cleo down and see what she thinks. I won’t let Rata go.”

Rob took several steps backwards and lowered Cleo to the floor. The kitten stood on all fours and blinked at her monumental housemate. Rata tilted her head, pricked her ears and whined tenderly as Cleo advanced steadily towards her. When the kitten finally reached Rata’s front paws, Cleo stopped and glimpsed up at the monstrous dog face towering above her. She then turned around twice, curled up like a caterpillar and snuggled between Rata’s giant feet.

Our retriever trembled with delight at being recognized for the super nanny she was. Not since the boys were babies had I seen her so bursting with maternal instinct. In the way she’d been utterly protective with our children, I knew Rata would be equally trustworthy with the kitten.

Ours weren’t the only hearts that had been mashed to pulp. Whatever dog-deciphering system Rata had access to, there was no doubt she knew what had happened to Sam. In some ways Rata’s grief had been more consummate than ours. Without the release of language and tears, she could only lie on the floor and will the hours away. Pats and tender words from us seemed to provide only momentary comfort. But the kitten had rekindled something in the old dog. Perhaps Rata’s heart was resilient enough to open up one last time.

As I let go of her collar her tongue unfurled like a ceremonial flag. Without a twitch of uncertainty, the young intruder succumbed to being lovingly slurped over from tail to nose and back again.

“Where’s Cleo sleeping tonight?” Rob asked.

“We’ll set up a bed for her in the laundry. I’ll fill a hot-water bottle to keep her warm.”

“We can’t do that! She’ll be missing her brothers and sisters. She’ll have nightmares. I want her to sleep with me.”

Rob hadn’t mentioned the words “missing” and “brother” in the same sentence since 21 January. Nevertheless, the Superman watch stayed glued to his wrist. During daylight hours Rob gave a surprisingly good impression of a child enjoying a trauma-free life. Nights were a different matter. Tortured by dreams of being chased by a monster in a car, he slept fitfully on the mattress in a corner of our bedroom.

“There isn’t room for all three of us and a kitten in our bedroom,” I said. “Besides, Cleo’s probably going to make a fuss the first few nights while she’s settling in.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “She can sleep with me in my old bedroom.”

The bedroom Rob and Sam had shared still sat empty. We’d bundled up Sam’s clothes and toys and dumped them in a school charity recycle bin on an afternoon so surreal in its hideousness I’d felt like a figure in a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. After that we’d done the expected thing and set about giving the room a makeover. Steve painted the walls sunshine yellow. I sewed some Smurf curtains and pinned up a Mickey Mouse poster. Steve nailed together a kit-set bed and stained it red. I bought bright new covers. But for all its primary-colored dazzle the revamp hadn’t made a cat’s hair of difference to Rob. I’d envisaged him sleeping in the corner of our bedroom until his twenty-first birthday and beyond.

“You’re ready to move back into your bedroom, Rob?”

“Somebody has to look after Cleo at night.”

Ensconced in his new/old bedroom that night, Rob looked almost as disoriented as his new kitten. The smell of fresh paint spiked our nostrils. The bedcover had an almost neon glow. The new sheets were crisp and cold.

Adding to the uncomfortable sense of newness was the acid-dipped bathroom door that had been delivered and fitted back in its frame that afternoon. Even though the house was piecing itself together around us, we in no way shared its confidence for the future.

Certain favorite bedtime stories had to be avoided these days. Green Eggs and Ham was out because of the character Sam I Am. I couldn’t face The Digging-est Dog because it featured a boy named Sam Brown who was devoted to his dog. With Cleo curled between us we settled for One Fish Two Fish, so familiar and comforting in its rhythms I could recite it pretty much from memory.

As we reached the last page, I could sense Rob’s anxiety swelling like a wave on the horizon. “Are you sure there are no monsters in here?” he asked, glancing anxiously under the bed.

“Absolutely.” It didn’t seem the right time to tell him where the worst monsters hide. They conceal themselves cleverly inside our heads and wait for the moments we’re at our most vulnerable—bedtime, or when we’re sick or anxious.

“Will you check for me?”

“I looked under the bed before.”

“Can you look again?”

“Okay,” I said, bending to reexamine the battalion of fluff balls in hiding from the vacuum cleaner.

“What about behind the curtains?”

Picking up Cleo—why did I make excuses to hold her all the time?—I peeled back a corner of the curtains. For the first time I detected a glint of hope in the city’s sparkling lights. Or was it? More likely, they were playing a cruel trick, laughing at us for even wondering if tonight might be a little easier.

“No monsters,” I said, tugging the curtains firmly shut. “Now, good night, darling boy.” I stroked his hair and kissed his forehead, savoring the delectable smell of his skin. Strange how every child is born with a distinctive aroma, complex, intoxicating and immediately recognizable to the mother. I wondered if he had any inkling how much my life depended on his at that moment. Without the example of his courage and his need for me the lure of brandy and several bottles of sleeping pills would have been too strong.

“Did you look in the wardrobe?”

“Nothing but soccer balls and raincoats in there.”

“Can I have Cleo now?”

The kitten. Rob’s kitten officially. As I lowered the furry bundle into the crook of his left arm Rob sighed and raised his thumb to his lips. He and Cleo had a lot in common. When a wife loses a husband she becomes a widow. Children are called orphans when their parents die. As far as I knew there was no word for someone grieving for a sister or brother. If there was such a word it would have described both boy and kitten. Since birth their lives had overflowed with clumsy hugs, play fights, the noise and physical warmth of their siblings. Now brutally brotherless, they were both lost and frightened. Yet they were so brave and full of life. The only option for them was to snuggle into the night together and trust that tomorrow would sort itself out.

I switched the light out and ran the day’s events across a screen of darkness in my mind. The relentless ache of living without Sam permeated everything. Nevertheless, I realized with a sense of guilt, almost, that the past twenty-four hours hadn’t been entirely bleak.

Steve would still need to be convinced, of course, but Cleo, as kittens went, was proving remarkably civilized.