Cleo

Witch’s Cat

Sometimes it’s easier to love the moon.

There aren’t many options for a brokenhearted woman with attitude, except perhaps to become a witch. Witches fight off curses. They create their own luck. Witchery had potential. Cleo, with her ability to appear on a rooftop and in front of a fireplace almost simultaneously, was the perfect witch’s cat, not to mention the ideal color.

A room is more beautiful when furnished with a cat. Her silken presence transforms a collection of chairs, discarded toys and crumb-sprinkled plates into a temple to soothe the soul. Poised like a goddess on a window ledge she observes the countless frailties of the humans she has blessed with her presence. The poor creatures make countless mistakes with their neurotic attempts to cling to the past and control the future. They need a cat to remind themselves just to be.

A cat’s ears absorb the thump of a school bag hitting the floor or a mother’s curse when she finds ants in the sugar bowl yet again. Humans and their tragic overreactions amuse her. Nothing they can do disturbs her composure, except for the young, when they go through that horrifying stage of wanting to dress her in baby clothes and imprison her in a pram.

Her paws absorb the earth’s slightest tremor. Ever watchful, her eyes perceive more than human eyes can. When she sleeps, a cat draws a third eyelid, a translucent screen, over her eyes so no movement escapes her. A cat is always watching, but wise enough to refrain from offering an opinion.

A black cat is lucky, or not, depending on which side of the Atlantic you are born. If a black cat crosses your path in Britain expect good fortune. In North America, a black cat spells danger.

With their shimmering fur and mirror eyes, black cats were once regarded as malevolent spirits. They blended into darkness, which to some ill-informed minds made them the personification of evil—the devil himself stalking the rooftops of innocent peasants. Even in Britain, where black cats are considered lucky, the superstition isn’t in the felines’ favor. It’s only because a person suffers no harm when a black cat crosses his path, and has therefore escaped evil, that he can congratulate himself on his luck.

There was no point seeing the shrink again. She’d only tell me to have another one-night stand. We all knew how that ended up. Anyway, I’d learned from my mistakes. I withdrew from the dating world and tried to be wise. A scary replica of my mother, I developed the lonely person’s syndrome of telling people the same stories over and over again. As their eyes glazed I’d stop and say, “Have I told you this before?” The polite ones said no.

When they asked, I said I’d never been happier. So what? A cat never loses its smile. I did everything possible to become a self-sufficient witch who didn’t need a man. Compromise was no longer part of my vocabulary. The Chinese pantsuit enjoyed regular airings. I nailed kitsch pottery ducks to the wall, drank wine and farted when I felt like it. At night, sometimes, when the kids were at their father’s, I turned the stereo up loud enough for the neighbors to notice and danced half-naked to Marvin Gaye. (Never Ella and Louis!) Women friends approved. They said I was empowered.

Empowerment sounds wonderful, but frankly, it’s not everything it’s cracked up to be. Although a witch may seem in control of her life, she has a diligent stalker: loneliness. After the kids had gone to bed I’d pour a glass of wine. Cleo would pad across the floor towards me. The shadow of her tail, an eerie serpent six feet tall, would flicker against the wall. A charge of electricity would shudder up my arm as I ran my hand over her coat. I’d scoop her up and carry her out to the back deck. We’d sit under the stars together, licking our wounds and studying the moon’s acne.

“Nobody touches a witch’s heart,” I murmured, burying my nose in her velvet fur.

Nevertheless, I leapt at the phone every time it rang. It was never him. Why should it be? He’d made it clear enough when we split up. He said he wasn’t “ready,” whatever that meant. If people waited till everything was ready, nothing would ever happen. Life isn’t a menu; you can’t order courses when you’re “ready” for them. I hadn’t been ready to lose Sam. And I didn’t feel ready to say good-bye to Philip. His words were surgical, but his eyes brimmed with sadness and love. Even though I tried to accept what he said I still believed his eyes. Why had he walked away?

I missed his calm presence, his voice warm as a driftwood fire, his ridiculously conservative clothes, the crooked nose, the hairy groves inside his ears. One of the things I missed most was his smell. Even though he seldom wore aftershave, he always smelled like a grove of cypress trees. How come so few sonnets are written to a lover’s smell? Rob was missing him, too. Philip had been a desperately needed role model that had turned out fake, heartless as a shop mannequin. What a fool I’d been. I vowed no man would ever hurt Rob that way again.

I wondered what Philip was up to. Had he shed us like one of his Italian jackets? No doubt he was being devoured by bimbo dentists and lawyers. If our worlds had been closer, a few discreet phone calls would have answered my questions. But we had no friends in common. He might as well have taken off to Pluto. Weeks dissolved into months.

If I was to be a witch, then Cleo needed to look the part. I taught her to perch on my shoulder. Our first attempts were dismal and painful to us both. But Cleo was a willing student with a sense of balance worthy of Cirque du Soleil. She was soon able to dig her claws into my clothes deeply enough to secure a platform without piercing my skin. I enjoyed the alarm that flickered across visitors’ faces when I opened the door with a black cat glaring down at them from my shoulder. For all their technology and sophistication, people are wired like primitive beings. They still believe in witches. Not so long ago, neighbors would have gathered outside my white picket fence at dusk and dragged me and my cat to the nearest bonfire.

“A woman needs a man like a butterfly needs deep-sea diving gear,” I said to Emma, who’d become a regular visitor. I’d met her at a book launch, where we’d both been hovering by the loo doors. Emma worked in a feminist bookstore. She helped me nurture a herb garden and introduced me to her circle of women friends, who had strong views on the male species. Listening to their wine-fueled discussions, I nodded fiercely. Men were a lesser species, slaves to the bulge in their pants and overdue for extinction.

Even if I couldn’t contemplate cutting my hair short and bleaching it silver the way Emma had, I admired her flair. Turquoise was her color. Only a woman with no children would have time to sift through what must’ve amounted to hundreds of shops and market stalls to find so much turquoise junk—bangles, scarves, even a pair of turquoise sunglasses. One of her favorite accessories was a feather-trimmed pendant inlaid with turquoise, a gift from a Hopi Indian chief who had cleansed her aura, smudged evil spirits out of her house with sage smoke and identified her totem animal as a cougar.

Emma often brought over books from her shop—Why Women Bleed, The Disposable Male. Free from maternal exhaustion, she was honorary aunt to the kids. I envied the excess energy she had to bounce on the trampoline with Lydia or kick a ball around with Rob. I was grateful for Emma’s company.

I was also thankful for the restless, throwaway atmosphere of the newsroom. A combination of deadlines and worldly quips from workmates helped stop up the holes in a shattered heart. I was grateful that nobody, not even Nicole, said, “I told you so.” The toy-boy jokes dried up and gradually stopped. They accepted me back into the fold. I loved them for it.

While I didn’t know Tina well, she was showing signs of being an empowerment witch herself. Not so long ago she’d asked me into her office and suggested I apply for a Press Fellowship to Cambridge University in Britain. My chances of being accepted were less than zero, but I filled out the form to practice applying for things. The form invited applicants to nominate an area of interest. Confident I wouldn’t get in, I invented a zany topic—Environmental Studies from a Spiritual Perspective.

Another weekend without the children stretched ahead like a desert. I was pleased when Emma offered a Saturday night oasis, asking me over to her place for pasta and salad. Thank God, whoever She may be, for women friends, I thought, pulling up outside Emma’s cutesy house nestled in the hills outside town.

“How are you?” she said, opening the door.

Emma was one of the few people I could be honest with.

“Good. Bad…Dunno…Tired.”

She poured a glass of wine, a soulful Australian red. We dined outside under the hypnotic toll of a wind chime.

“You’re a wonderful friend,” I said, scraping the remains of home-baked lemon pudding off my bowl. “It’s such a treat to have a beautiful meal just appear like this. It’s magic. I can’t get over it. I didn’t have to peel a potato.”

“My pleasure,” Emma said, flashing her incisors. The Hopi Indian chief was right. There was something cougarish about her, especially in the evening light.

As I stood to help clear the table, Emma took my hand. “No. Sit down,” she said. “Tonight’s your night. I know how hard you work and how demanding it is raising the kids on your own. Tonight I’m taking care of you.”

Her words made me want to crumble with gratitude. At last someone understood.

“What’s that sound?” I asked. “Do you have an ornamental fountain?”

“I’m running a bath for you,” Emma said.

A bath?! Did I smell that bad? I’d showered before leaving home.

“You said a good bath relaxes you more than anything,” she added, sensing my alarm.

“Yes, but that’s when I’m at home on my own,” I muttered.

“This is going to be better than anything you’ve ever had at home,” said Emma. “I’ve been saving some special French bubble bath for you.”

“That’s…very…kind,” I said, wishing she could’ve just handed over the bottle of bubble bath and let me go home.

“I’ve put a robe out for you,” she said, looking more cougarish by the second. “In the bathroom.”

I felt suddenly hot and confused. Over the years I’d known lots of women, strong wonderful people like Ginny, who I’d trust with my life. We’d laughed and cried together, moaned about men and shared intimate details about our bodily functions. Those women had helped me grieve and give birth, let go of my marriage and laugh off life’s indignities. So far not one of them had invited me to have a bath. A bubble bath at that.

“Don’t worry,” soothed Emma. “It’s your special night.”

Oh, well. What was wrong with taking a bath? She might think me unsophisticated if I said no. I liked Emma a lot. She was obviously trying to help. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings or seem unappreciative.

The French obviously knew a thing or two about bubble bath. Giant rainbow domes rose from the water. A row of colored candles blazed on the window ledge. Surely a fire hazard. A robe was folded thoughtfully on the vanity. I instinctively raised a hand to lock the bathroom door. There was no lock.

Sinking into the bubbles, I examined the Women Can Do Anything poster on the wall. Had I sent unusual signals to Emma? I hoped not. She knew my tastes were straightforward. Perhaps I’d been naive to assume hers were, too. She certainly hadn’t gone out of her way to talk about previous love affairs. I’d respected Emma’s need for privacy. Maybe I should have been more curious. She’d mentioned a man once, and women friends. But I’d assumed “friends” was the operative word. Maybe I’d been loose in my use of language. When I’d told her I loved women I hadn’t felt it necessary to add “but not in that way.” Strange sounds warbled from under the door that I had closed firmly as possible.

“Whale song!” called Emma. “With subliminal messages.”

“Oh,” I replied nonchalantly. “What do you mean?”

“They recorded messages you can’t quite hear under the whale song,” she said. “To change your way of thinking.”

Suddenly on edge, I craned my neck out of the water to listen for whatever hidden message there was behind the yodeling whales. Some sort of mumbling was definitely going on. Maybe Emma was trying to brainwash me to join some religious sect.

“What does it say?” I asked, trying to conceal my anxiety.

“Oh, relax, let go, that sort of thing.”

If any whale, white, blue or sperm, tried to audition for a choir I was running I’d turn it down. Those things are tone deaf. I sank back into the bubbles and concentrated on relaxing.

“Is it warm enough for you?” asked Emma, bursting into the room and pressing her face so close to mine I could smell garlic on her breath.

“Yes, thanks,” I said, sinking into the bubbles as deep as possible without drowning. “It’s perfect. I think…”

“Yes?” said Emma, whose face rose like the sun over the edge of the bath.

“I’d like to get out now.”

“Oh, but you’ll miss the massage!” cried Emma, digging her large, practical fingers into my neck.

The massage?! Crouched unwillingly, I endured her attentions with the stoicism of a dog being forced to have its fur washed. Emma’s breaths were hot and increasingly loud in my ear. The masculine tang of her perfume (aftershave?) made me vaguely nauseous.

Images arose of a future sharing a rose-covered cottage with a well-built woman and her turquoise collection. There’d been two women teachers like that when I was at high school. They used to drive to school in separate cars to keep the gossip down, but everyone knew. People said they’d arranged to be buried together.

Technically, I supposed it was an option. A life with Emma would avoid some of the cruelties inflicted by men. Testosterone wouldn’t pose much of a problem, competition from blond dentists would be minimal and there’d be plenty of the affection women enjoy. Cuddles and hugs, not unlike the sort of stuff you get from a cat. I liked Emma. There was only one difficulty. I didn’t love her. Not in that way.

As Emma turned my face in her hands and planted her damp lips on mine I knew straightaway. I wasn’t that kind of girl.

Six months had passed since I’d seen Philip. I was over him, at least I pretended to be. I hardly needed a man when I was flat-out with the kids and work, where I was becoming a minor authority on “wimmin’s issues.” Emma had put me on to a local witch, who’d agreed to visit the office for an interview on women’s spirituality. Apparently witches needed publicity as much as anyone else. Apart from a few crystals dangling around her neck and sticking plasters wrapped around several gnarled toes protruding from her Birkenstocks, she resembled any mature woman I might clash supermarket trolleys with. I escorted her into the interview room. We exchanged smiles. I quietly wondered if she recognized my witch potential. She surprised me by asking if I had any pets. When I mentioned Cleo she hunched forwards, causing her crystals to clatter.

“A black cat is a perfect familiar for a witch,” she said. “A spirit will often manifest in a black cat’s body and attach itself to a witch to help her on psychic levels.”

“You mean Cleo could help my dreams come true?” I asked.

The witch laughed, an ordinary old lady’s laugh, not a cackle.

“On a simplistic level, I guess you could say so,” she said.

We were interrupted by a tap on the door. It was Tina, casting her quick journalist’s eye over the witch. From that one glance I could tell she was soaking up enough raw material to produce a thousand words.

“Sorry to trouble you,” she said. “But there’s someone down-stairs wanting to see you. Says his name is Dustin.”