by Tara Heavey
Annie nodded her head affably, chewing her piece of chicken for the forty-eighth time.
Mum had been trying in vain to get us interested in ice-skating since we were old enough to stand. Tatiana, with her gangly legs that were far too long for her body, had been the first disappointment. I had disappointed approximately five years later, by delivering repeated impressions of the Sugar Plum Elephant every Saturday at the Dolphin’s Barn ice rink.
‘We haven’t had a decent meal in this house since you got your hands on that blasted video,’ snapped Dad.
‘Oh, shut up, Joe.’ Water off a duck’s proverbial. ‘Oh, Elena – don’t leave the house today without taking that book I borrowed from Christiana. I’ve had it so long it’s getting embarrassing.’
‘I wouldn’t worry, Mum. She’s probably forgotten all about it.’
‘What’s the book?’ Poor Paul was doing his best to make polite conversation. He never really knew what to say when confronted by mad people.
‘It’s about reincarnation. Fascinating! Do you believe in reincarnation, Paul?’
‘Um, no. Not really.’ He looked sorry he’d spoken.
‘Who does Christiana think she’s the reincarnation of these days?’ asked Tatiana.
‘Marilyn Monroe. That’s why she’s gone platinum-blonde again.’
‘Interesting. She always goes for someone glamorous, doesn’t she? Last time I was home she thought she was Kylie Minogue.’
‘But Kylie isn’t dead – is she?’ My father sounded worried, and then looked embarrassed. He had been very taken by those gold hot pants.
‘Don’t worry, Dad; Kylie hasn’t kicked the bucket. But that wouldn’t matter to Chris.’
Dad and Paul exchanged a look. It was easy to interpret: Women! Completely bonkers!
Just then, Mum gave them further confirmation. ‘Oh, girls, I forgot to tell you. I’m being made a Reiki Master next week!’
‘Really?’
‘I don’t know why you’re surprised. Hasn’t she been bossing me around for years?’ Dad had a point.
‘Being a Reiki Master has nothing to do with bossing people about, as you well know, Joe Malone. I wish you’d let me try it out on you. Your energies are all blocked, you know. No wonder you’re such a grouch.’
‘Paul ...’ Dad determinedly changed the subject. ‘Have you given any more thought to buying a property?’
‘Yes, I have.’ Paul smiled at my father in relief: at last, a chance to discuss a normal, sensible topic that he knew something about. His pleasure was to be short-lived, however. ‘I have my eye on an apartment on the Quays.’
‘No, no, no.’ Dad shook his head solemnly. ‘A property like that won’t hold its value once the bubble bursts, you mark my words. And all those apartments were literally thrown up; they’ll probably collapse at the next strong gust of wind. No, what you need to invest in, son, is a good solid property with a few years on it, down the country somewhere. Forget Dublin. I’d go for somewhere in the south-east if I were you. In fact, you know what?’ He said this as if the idea had just that second popped into his head. ‘The area that Rosie is living in would be perfect.’
Oh, here we go, I thought. Why doesn’t he just go the whole hog and offer Paul a dowry to take me off his hands? I’d suggest one hundred camels. They’re all the rage this season, you know.
‘I’ll certainly think about it.’ Paul smiled politely and turned his attention back to the Brussels sprout that he had been attempting to saw in half for the last five minutes.
‘Mum? How long did you cook the sprouts for?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Why do you ask?’
‘Well, they’re a bit hard.’
‘They’re like bloody bullets,’ said Dad helpfully.
‘You’re not supposed to cook vegetables for a long time. It takes all the goodness out of them.’
‘All the goodness in the world isn’t going to benefit you if you can’t bite into the damn things in the first place.’
‘Mum. Dad. I have some news for you.’
All eyes were on Tatiana, sprouts forgotten.
‘I’m getting married.’
She certainly knew how to pick her moment.
There were a couple of seconds of shocked silence, and then Mum squealed and ran around the table, throwing her arms around Tatiana’s neck from behind and almost throttling her. She was closely followed by me.
‘That’s great news, Annie! Is it that guy you wrote to me about?’
Annie nodded happily, then looked over expectantly at my father. ‘Dad?’
‘That’s great, Annie. But who are you marrying?’
‘He’s one of my students. I’ve been teaching him English.’
Dad sat like a statue. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Chen.’
We all watched in morbid fascination as the colour drained from Dad’s face.
‘You mean he’s a Chink.’
‘He’s Chinese, yes.’ Tatiana’s tone was cool and her expression hardened as she spoke.
‘Oh, no, Annie. You can’t marry a Chink.’
‘Dad, please don’t use that term. I’m marrying Chen and that’s all there is to it.’
‘But he’s from a totally different culture. I bet he’s not even a Catholic.’
She ignored this. ‘I have another bit of news.’
We all looked at her again.
‘I’m pregnant.’
My mother squealed and strangled Tatiana once more. My father sat like a thundercloud at the head of the table.
‘Well, I hope for your sake that you’re not expecting a girl, or you’ll be forced to abort.’
‘Dad!’
‘Joe!’
We all glared at him angrily. He threw his napkin on the table and got up. ‘I’m going to get a take-away. I’ve had enough of this muck.’
He stopped at the door and looked back at Tatiana.
‘I hope you’re proud of yourself, Miss. You’re the first fallen woman in the Malone family.’
We all sat in silence until we heard the front door slam. Then Tatiana started to sob uncontrollably.
‘Fallen woman!’ she said between sobs. ‘Where does he think he is? The Bible?’
Mum cradled her in her arms. ‘Don’t worry, dear. He’ll calm down once he gets used to the idea. Now come into the living room and I’ll give you a nice Indian head massage. It’ll make you and the baby feel a whole lot better.’
I sighed. There was nothing like a good Sunday roasting.
Chapter Eleven
I was so happy to be driving my beautiful car again. I turned the top down and the radio up; it was playing a song about going to visit the countryside and eating lots of peaches. Yes, having my car back made returning to Ballyknock just about tolerable. At this rate, I might even make it to the end of the week. In fact, I was almost glad to get away from Dublin for some peace and quiet. Warring flatmates, Neanderthal fathers, hormonal sisters ... after what I’d been through, handling a few mice should be a doddle.
And speaking of mice ...
Patricia came into my office shortly after five on Monday evening.
‘Do you have any spare boxes in here?’
I gestured to a container of flat archive boxes balancing against the far wall. She took one of them and expertly made it up. I reflected, not for the first time, that whoever invented them there boxes must be a zillionaire several times over. Wish I’d thought of them.
‘I have a surprise for you,’ she twinkled as she went back into the office.
What could it be? One of her famous fruit bracks? Her secret recipe for prize-winning raspberry jam? My very own pinny? I shouldn’t scoff, I admonished myself; she really had been very kind to me.
I had been wrong on all counts. Approximately ten minutes later, Patricia burst through my office door holding in both hands that very same box, although this time it clearly wasn’t empty.
‘There you go!’ She plonked it unceremoniously on top o
f the file I’d been working on.
I was filled with instinctual, childish delight at receiving a present, any present. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s the answer to all your mouse problems.’
Just then, the box moved. All by itself, you understand. I noticed that the lid had been Sellotaped down on either side and that several large holes had been punched into it.
‘What’s in there?’ Delight was turning to apprehension.
‘Look through the lid and see for yourself.’
‘It’s not a ferret, is it?’
She laughed. ‘See for yourself.’
I cautiously stood up and peered through the holes. From the depths of the box, two round green lights glowed eerily up at me. I jumped back in fright as the lights moved swiftly to the top of the box and an object like a fur and leather pincushion, with five pins stuck into it, shoved itself out of one of the holes.
‘It’s a cat, isn’t it?’ I said with ill-concealed disgust.
As if in reply, the box emitted a low, guttural yowl.
‘It doesn’t sound too friendly.’
‘She’s just scared, poor little cratur. So would you be if somebody took you away from your home and stuck you in a box for no good reason.’
She had a point. Still, I was confused. ‘Where did she come from? I mean, did you have her hidden in your drawer all day long, or something?’
‘Begod, no, child. Seamus is after bringing her around in his car. He tells me she’s a feral cat that his wife – that’s my sister Dorothy – has been feeding for the last couple of years. She’s just weaned her last set of kittens.’
So the rat-catcher had come up trumps after all.
‘What do I owe him?’
Patricia laughed her head off at this particular gem. ‘Cats don’t cost anything.’
‘They do in Dublin.’
‘Sure they’re all half-mad up there – no offence, lovey.’
‘None taken.’
‘I mean, the countryside is overrun with cats; I’m certain Seamus and Dorothy are only delighted to be getting rid of this one – not that they’re trying to dump her on you,’ she added quickly. ‘It’s just that they have about thirteen cats as it is, between the house and the barns. And you’re in desperate need of a cat, as far as I can tell. And they tell me that this one is a grand little killer.’
Great. ‘What’s her name?’
Patricia looked at me as if I were losing my mind. ‘I don’t think she has a name. “Cat”, I suppose.’
That was original.
‘Here, I’ll carry her out to the car for you.’
I packed up and followed Patricia and the box out to my car. As Patricia started moving, the cat started meowing. At least, I think that’s what it was doing. I didn’t know much about cats, but surely that was no ordinary meow. It was more like a baby’s plaintive cry – a distress signal if ever there was one.
I clicked open the doors, and Patricia went to put the box in the back seat.
‘No, no, no! Not in there.’
She turned and looked at me in surprise.
‘You can put it in the boot.’
She shrugged and moved to the back of the car. I shook my head in amazement. A cat, in the back of my Audi – sacrilege!
The cat kept up its pitiful mewling all the way home. If anything, the sound became louder and more insistent. There was another noise, too; a kind of knocking. I was torn between sympathy and alarm.
I finally pulled up outside Power’s Cottage and approached the boot with caution. Easy does it.... I slowly opened it. Holy shit!
Like a bat out of hell (or a cat out of hell), a small bundle of dark-brown fur catapulted itself past me and disappeared into the depths of the garden. I couldn’t even tell in which direction she flew.
But that was the least of my problems. A second later, my nostrils were assaulted by a pungent stench. Oh, Jesus! I covered my nose in disgust. I might not have been the world’s greatest feline expert, but I knew cat piss when I smelt it. Thank Christ I hadn’t let Patricia put her in the back seat. Horrible little animal, I thought. I hope she never comes back.
I forgot all about the cat until I was leaving for work the next morning. There on the doorstep, placed dead-centre on the mat, was a decapitated mouse.
There was still no sign of her when I was getting ready for bed that night. Feeling very foolish, clad only in fleece-lined pyjamas, slippers and a torch, I advanced into the darkness.
‘Cat! Where are you, Cat?’
No response.
I moved out onto the road. At times like this, I was glad I didn’t have many neighbours. I wished I knew more about cats. How did one find a cat that didn’t want to be found? I swept the beam of the torch in random arcs about the road.
‘Here, kitty, kitty!’
I hadn’t told Patricia about my predicament. I was hardly going to admit to losing the creature ten minutes after she had been given into my custody. How’s the cat settling in? Oh, just fine, thank you.... If she didn’t turn up soon, I’d have to pretend she’d got run over by a car or something. As far as I knew, cats were always being run over. Okay, so I lived on a road where there was, on average, one car every sixty minutes; the moggy got unlucky, that was all.
Increasingly desperate, I walked up the boreen towards the old derelict schoolhouse. It was with some effort that I quelled the impending feelings of creepiness.
‘Meow,’ I said quietly into the darkness.
I couldn’t believe I was doing this. If only Iseult could see me now.
‘Meow,’ I said, louder.
Still nothing.
‘Oh, this is ridiculous.’ I turned on my slippered heel and headed back to the cottage.
‘Meow.’ This time it wasn’t me.
‘Meow?’ I replied.
‘Meow.’ There it was again. I wasn’t imagining things.
I nearly lost my life as something warm and soft rubbed against my left leg. In a blind panic, I dropped the torch, which began to roll down the hill, illuminating alternate patches of road and hedgerow as it went. I chased after it as if my life depended on it, scenes from The Blair Witch Project flashing alarmingly through my head.
I caught up with the errant torch and directed the beam uphill. Sure enough, there was the cat, eyes glowing like green candle-flames in the darkness. She was just sitting there, all casual: What’s all the fuss about?
‘Meooow,’ she said as she ran towards me, tail aloft, wrapping herself around my legs again.
Relieved, I almost ran back indoors, the cat padding delicately along beside me. I placed a bowl of cat food on the kitchen floor and watched as she enthusiastically tucked into it. On impulse, I leant down and stroked her back a few times. The cat reverberated like the engine of an expensive sports car.
‘You’re not so bad,’ I told her, and took myself off to bed.
It was the last week of September, and the Indian summer was drawing to a close. I had come to an executive decision to make the most of the few bright evenings that were left to me: I headed off on a constitutional every day after work. This evening, the sky looked uncertain. I changed into my walking gear quickly, before it could make up its mind for the worst.
There wasn’t much else to do down here. Since I’d moved down to Ballyknock, my social life during the week had deteriorated dramatically. In my previous incarnation as a Dublin solicitor, there had always been someone to meet after work for a drink or a meal; even if there wasn’t, there was always Paul and/or Hazel and/or Chris to hang out with. Hell, if I got really desperate, I could even visit my parents. Right then, I’d have killed for an evening in with the old dears. I was sick of watching TV; even I had a limit to how many soap operas I could follow simultaneously. In my boredom, I’d taken to having one-sided conversations with Mary Power on the wall. She hadn’t started to answer back yet, but I believed it was only a matter of time.
I was so wrapped up in nostalgia for my ex-social life that I f
ailed to notice the clouds gathering overhead. My first clue to the impending downpour was when a large raindrop landed squarely on the bridge of my nose. Then one on my hand. Then one on my forehead. Then another. And another. In sixty seconds I was soaked to the skin. A grand soft day, thank God.
Damnation. I must have been two miles or more away from the cottage – I had a bad habit of setting off on a long stroll and forgetting that I’d have to walk the same distance back again. I turned and started to run. In hindsight, this was ludicrous; I was hardly fit enough to run two metres, let alone two miles. No sooner had I begun than a large black bird, probably a crow, burst out of a hedgerow and flew directly into my path – most likely looking for shelter too. Momentarily startled, I lost my footing and fell heavily to the ground. I felt my right ankle going. Shit!
I must have looked a sight, sitting on the rain-sodden ground, groaning and massaging my ankle ineffectually. It really hurt. What was I going to do now?
As if on cue – in one of those rare instances of serendipity – I heard the sound of a far-off engine. It was definitely drawing closer. Thank goodness. Surely the driver would stop and be a good Samaritan. I strained my ears. Not a car; something larger. A truck? A jeep? A tractor, even?
A blue crock of a tractor emerged dramatically out of the mist and drew up beside me. Jack looked down in obvious surprise that the bedraggled lump of clothing at the side of the road was in fact a human being, and that, furthermore, it was me. He switched off the engine and jumped down lithely.
‘Lainey! What are you doing out here?’
‘Oh, you know. Just having a rest.’ The rain was still bucketing down around us.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘It’s my ankle.’
‘Here, let me have a look.’
He knelt down in front of me and, taking my ankle firmly but gently in his hands, laid it on his knee. He undid the laces of my new state-of-the-art hiking boot and smiled.
‘Thinking of going rock-climbing, were we?’
‘I didn’t have anything else to wear,’ I replied sulkily.
Jack eased off the boot and began to manipulate my ankle up and down, left and right. At one point I let out an indignant squeal.
