Conversations with Wonka - Part five

by Madeleine Masterson

Bertie was now inside and living up to all the worries we had prior to his moving in.

  ‘He frightened me!’ reasoned Wonka, when I told him off for raising a paw at Bertie. This then had Bertie on a long growling run from the depths of the Narnia cupboard. He had swiftly moved from the open space of the dining room, to the dark and busy confines of this cupboard. In the event of a bomb attack or a fire, I must leave all the rest of the household and just gather up stuff from in here; most of my life was crammed into the shelves and corners. With Bertie making this his downstairs home, I had to clear a bit of room for him.

  ‘I don’t know why you are keeping that,’ went Wonka, as I struggled out of the cupboard with the shredder. It weighed a ton, had a broken top, and I had a huge fear of shredding a part of myself in it. Laboriously poking old statements and such through the jagged teeth bored me senseless. If someone wanted to see how much money was available to me, via my saviour the credit card, they were welcome. It proved difficult to the last, resisting an easy lift into the green bin and taking up too much room once in it.

  Freeing up some room and popping down a pillow case reminded me and Wonka of Baba. He used to have his own pilly case at the top of the stairs. Bertie however, did not cough and choke or start up when I was on the phone. He was a silent sleeping occasional growler and once inside, never once asked to go back out.

  Arriving home from an Easter break and with another planned holiday ahead I thought I could stand the new job. ‘It’s temporary,’ I went on ‘and just because the other dinner ladies haven’t warmed to me….’

  Perhaps it was a year of flinging myself in and out of poor situations; aged sibling was still coming to terms with not having his favourite dentist, and friends were entranced with my adventures at work. Somehow they were keeping up with me even my swings into politics and astrology. Mercury in retrograde and lucky Jupiter, with serious Saturn lurking to keep our nose to the grindstone, no wonder all those royals had their own private Astrologers hard at it compiling charts for this and that; Jung was still one of my chief advisers of course, but tended to hold forth on rainy days now. And since discovering an old paperback called significantly ‘Star Signs’ well, all the answers were to hand.

  ‘Did you know…’ I would start off to Wonka

  ‘NO! I did not!’ and then he would just carry on washing under the bed. ‘Claptrap and rubbish’ he would say to me. But I loved it. It said it contained all the secrets of the universe and let’s face it, someone had to get lucky with that. Whilst I flicked through, settled and comfy in bed, alighting on each new revelation with a feeling of oh yes, it all makes sense, and wow…..

  ‘SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr….

  All my nerves and earthly senses would have me at a jangle as Bertie, who managed to move from the wardrobe to the side of my pillow in a regular nightly ritual, was given the Wonka glare. The growling would continue long after Wonka had resettled under the bed, his lair, having achieved his object. I lost my place, my insight into all those secrets and felt wide awake now. The universe would have to wait for another night to give up the final secret that would get me to that forever alright place; until then, Jung and the life plan with a sprinkling of Greeks would do me.

  Holidays had quite taken me over. Before my life changing nerve jangling wretched state that I blamed fully on aged parent (for staying alive) I never went anywhere much. In the days of slogging away in a full time job to all those washed up clients, I used to preach to them about the wonders of goal setting and often used HOLIDAYS as an example. The shame of it had of course revisited me, once I had descended into the same washed up existence; as I am fond of saying and Wonka is fed up with hearing, you are always on the brink of doing something until you HAVE to do it. Only then, in one evil swipe, are all those luxurious plans and actions and goals shoved aside for the real doing of it.

  I broached the subject of the next long weekend, this time to Sheffield to see my idol Ronnieo147; this was his Twitter affectation, and both me and Wonka hero worshipped him rather.

  ‘Who?’ he said grandly, from the sun soaked wood of the sideboard top ‘will be looking after me this time? Eh?’

  Daughter could now be called upon to do the honours or our good cat sitter. For both, I had to leave a dissertation on the cats, the home, and anything else that might happen in the two to three days I was missing. I had been known to have a full on anxiety attack, right on bed time, about whether to text about the window I had left open in the bedroom. In case Wonka was too hot. This sort of thing could keep me awake and annoying whoever I was with for hours. This, plus waiting for a return text. ‘Some people,’ I explained to Wonka, who was now on a prolonged washing ‘never go away because they can’t cope with it all.’

  Wonka barely paused in his washing to look at me.

  ‘Who,’ he repeated carefully ‘is to guard me, Bertie and the house?’

  Taking hold of myself, before I could create another big obstacle preventing me from enjoying my life (what was left of it) I text Daughter. There, I had done it and surely once away having the time of my life in Sheffield, I would relax. Now did I want to drive or go by train?

  The other night, I had reached another mind bending part of the book all about the secrets of the Universe. It seemed that all you had to do was ask the Universe for whatever you wanted and it would boomerang back at you. The most exciting thing was that it was alright to ask for money. Apparently it was just floating round and round waiting for us to grab it, ask for it, and have it back. My giant revelation on it all, and I reckon Jung was nearby at the time, was that you cannot have more than there is. Or, everything is equal and if it isn’t now it will be. Luckily, Wonka slept through most of these nightly observations, nicely under the bed, and if Bertie looked at me a little strangely, I put this down to his befuddled state. We still had no idea where he came from.

  ‘Perhaps,’ went Wonka,’ he’s an alien left behind on one of those missions to see if there is life on earth.’

  Snickering away, he bounded downstairs to spy on the neighbourhood. And check for Ruggles, our best stray. Since his operation, to sort his tail out, he called regularly but had not moved in yet. ‘You may find,’ the Vets murmured to me, when I paid the enormous bill, ‘that he will lose interest in roaming and move in.’

  Not as yet he hadn’t and I had to gather my nerves every time he whipped across the motorway that doubled as our street. But I had a plan formed here, and was working up to actually doing it.

  Once we got to July or thereabouts, it was safe to plan for Winter; the holiday thing had really taken off and I had never been so travelled and re-unionised. Friends (said) how wonderful it was to (keep) see me and even the revived family loved me.

  ‘Not again!’ went Wonka as I span into list making and endless searches online for the train times, or, the usual dilemma about going by car. ‘Are you going by car just to prove you can?’ he questioned, when this sort of confidence prickler was the last thing I needed. I mean the Easter trip all the way down to Cornwall via a giant wrong turn, I had arrived there in the end; and how anyone got in or out of Birmingham....perhaps Wonka had a point.

  ‘We’ll see.’ I pronounced, and put this problem to one side in order to consider the others; and the one that came bobbing to the top of the apple barrel was yet again, Ruggles apple. I mean Rugglestop. Wonka could not understand why I had to put top on the end of his name, but it just seemed right. ‘as right’ I explained to him ‘as calling you Wonkit or Pippin.’ But he had rushed upstairs to check for Bertie.

  The answer when it came was this: give the failing shed a face lift. Pop a catflap in it, pad it out a bit with insulation and just watch Ruggles settle into his new home! Had my nightly conversations with the universe come up with this, or, had Jung stopped for a moment in between hacking away at another stone monument (he had a thing about stone) to advise? Finding a handyman to equip the shed was not s
o easy. No one could help or advise on this and even Wonka tired of my quest.

  ‘You’ve looked in there!’ he shrieked at me, as I once more leafed through a thousand scraps of paper in my diary. ‘You left him a message last week!’ yes and to no avail. All these handy people must be booked up solid with other customers, perhaps building entire annexes to their homes, simply for the pet overflow. Jung muttered something about business opportunities and how synchronicity might be at work, but Wonka reckoned it was too late for me to turn my hand to extensions.

  Finally, someone replied. We exchanged a few halting text messages and I pinned him down to the famous ‘free estimate.’

  ‘Yes, I can do it.’ He told me, having conveyed his amusement at the job (for a cat! Insulation! A shelf!). And he could do it for one hundred pounds. Would the universe cough this money up, because Jung wanted nothing to do with this kind of material reality? Actually, the reasoning behind this having faith in the world to look after you, operated a little bit like an investment opportunity; and Linda surely was the expert here. You could rattle off whatever it was you wanted and at some time or other it would turn up. What if, I pondered, you needed it to be now? And that was where the good old credit card came in. My personal slave. My saviour, my redeemer my everything. If I ever divorced the car (as opposed to a forced end) I would marry it, this tiny bit of plastic. Rather like a bridging loan it was at the ready to provide for these little extras they call day to day living.

  ‘I prefer cash.’ He said.

  ‘Oh.’ I replied.

  The birthday month of September held everything pressing nicely at bay whilst we celebrated; Getting older, deeper in debt, still not quite in a job and still on my own.

  Wonka spent most of his time checking on Bertie and Bertie spent most of his time avoiding it. How, I often quizzed myself had I managed to create such a dysfunctional brood, or flock or that? My Grandma, who gazed out at me from an old black and white photo perched on the cooker hood had done just that with her three children, of which my Mother was one. Grandma sported an Eton crop in the photo, and whenever I had my hair cut short-er, Mum would cast an eagle eye over it and pronounce it reminded her ‘of Mother!’ As for the other two children, they were handled quite separately from each other, like warring pets they must not be in the same room. I used to scoff at this arrangement, as a child and later as a dark teenager wondering how other families achieved their cosy looking units. Ours was out in the cold. Before Jung who had resettled in my kitchen could come to life with his musings, I told Wonka to keep a watch out on the yard, whilst I went out to the shed for the millionth time to check on the cat flap.

  How was I to know, that Ruggles, a keen stray, used to living here and there, and able to prise open the shed door most nights, could not get in and out of a cat flap.

  Tinkerbelle, the cat who whipped across the motorway aka street, and also shared the shed facilities, handled it with ease, and eventually Rug got the hang of it.

  ‘Hurrah!’ I shouted to the no one there, and even Wonka agreed, we were on a winning ticket. No more anxious nights wondering if he had settled in the shed against a banging door whipped up by a gale force wind. No more concerns about him developing frostbite; all our problems were solved. The money had turned up just like my new Guru Linda had promised, all was well.

  Tinkerbelle would change all of that, not only by mastering the cat flap but by taking over the shed, and promoting Ruggles to a cat on the inside. This was hovering for us, on the right side of the jolly season, and would hang on until all my guests had turned up, tried me and my little house out for size, thanked me very much and gone home.

  ‘I can only hope,’ I shared with Wonka,’ they did not notice all the dust and all the bits of fur and that.’ I said this with confidence as I had my glasses on and could see every last speck of it all. My face, still looked at in the tiny left over bit of mirror (all those years’ bad luck….don’t think about it!) was just about bearable without this close inspection. Jung was still leafing through one of his tomes and on about my latest dream, and Linda, she seemed to have spilled all her secrets and gone off to the next room.

  Autumn was here and I clutched fast to my dreams of a good year had and to come; Wonka, perched on the side, noted that Tinkers seemed larger; around her tummy. She had properly moved into the shed now and required feeding twice daily.

  ‘She could just be fat,’ I went, more to convince myself though. Next time she whipped into the yard I must look harder. ‘I mean look at you Wonka!’

  One of my guests had noted Wonka’s solid form and congratulated me on his size. Proudly, I slung Wonka over my shoulder and he purred into my left ear.

  Together we gazed out back, at the Buddleia grown good and green and called Baba’s Buddleia due to him lying near to it. My eye travelled to the older tree, which Golly cat had favoured, and then to the steps which all the cats had loved and climbed up them to sit on the old wooden plank at the top. Nothing like wood warmed in the sun.

  Whatever else happened we would manage it.

  Me and Wonka. End of.