by Helen Brown
Still, as she massaged oil into my feet I wasn’t about to complain. Through all my weeks of recovery, Lydia couldn’t have been kinder – cooking, doing laundry, cleaning, even mopping up after I threw up over the blue dachshund slippers. Her regular abdominal massages reduced the swelling and saved me from going back into hospital to have the fluid drained.
Jonah was a soothing presence for the two of us. Whenever we spoke to him gently, running our hands through his fur, it was only natural to use softer tones with each other. Lydia and I became closer than we’d ever been.
While we didn’t have direct discussions about if and when she might return to Sri Lanka, I continued forwarding travel warnings and reports of the civil war to her. The response from Lydia’s laptop was zero. When I asked if she’d read my emails, or even opened them, she was vague. The information I had was important, I’d tell her, aware the accusatory edge was slipping back into my voice.
Incense continued to waft indifferently through the house as she strolled downstairs wearing the pale colours of a monastic student. If I asked if she was still considering becoming a nun, perhaps in some nice local monastery, she shut me down.
While I was willing to accept Lydia could do whatever she liked as a legal adult, I was terrified at the thought of her putting her life at risk.
People could meditate on a bus or a beach . . . just about anywhere, I told her whenever I had the chance. They didn’t have to go to . . . I could hardly bear to say the name of the place anymore.
Meanwhile, my efforts to cultivate friends who belonged to ‘nice local Buddhist’ groups fell flat. Beards and hand-made sandals weren’t her style. Gazing at the wall above their heads, Lydia demonstrated a lack of interest bordering on rudeness.
One day her old school friend Angelique came for lunch and to see the kitten. Lydia and Angelique had both been top students at school, as well as a year younger than most of their classmates.
Jonah romped toward our visitor, pouncing on her shoe buckles.
‘He’s adorable!’ Angelique cried, lifting him up and pressing him to her cheek.
Angelique’s blonde highlights made her look like Marilyn Monroe. Her designer clothes contrasted starkly with Lydia’s monastic chic. Angelique was halfway through a medical degree and hoping to specialise in paediatrics, so she had a long path ahead.
Picking through their salads, the girls caught up on each others’ news. Angelique’s boyfriend had just joined a legal firm, and obviously worshipped her. The girls giggled about teachers they’d had, and nodded respectfully about some others. When Lydia mentioned her spiritual ambitions Angelique’s eyes glazed.
She kissed Lydia goodbye and clicked down the hall in a cloud of perfume. Anything I said was bound to come out badly. But drying the dishes, I had to open my mouth . . .
‘Angelique’s looking pretty.’
Lydia dusted crumbs off the table and changed the subject. ‘I was just wondering,’ she said in a tone that was controlled, but somehow dangerous, ‘if you’d mind knitting me a scarf?’
I’m always flattered when someone requests a sample of my terrible handiwork.
‘I’d love to! What colour would you like?’
As she shook the duster into the bin, crumbs scattered on the floor.
‘Maroon,’ she replied, shooting me a look of defiance.
My heart lurched. Maroon was the colour of monastic robes.
‘It can get quite cold in the monastery at night,’ Lydia added.
I put the tea towel down on the bench. ‘My daughter the doctor’ had such a different ring to it than ‘my daughter the nun’.
Regardless, it was clear I needed to get my head around the probability that Lydia would head back to the monastery in Sri Lanka before long. My illness had brought us closer than ever. I was going to miss her enormously. But she’d been so generous with me it was time to respect her spirituality, and accept how important it was to her. She had certainly never promised to stay indefinitely. Though I still creaked about inside my body, I was able to get around by myself now.
I’d even been bold enough to stand naked in front of the mirror a couple of times. While it was still the same old body, I felt oddly separated from it. My heart went out to the imperfect, wonderful conglomeration of cells that had carried me around for more than five decades. It bore the scars of a military campaign.
The wound across my abdomen was still raw and brutal looking. The swelling hadn’t completely subsided. While my new uplifted breasts had a youthful profile, the artificial one drooped slightly lower than its partner. Most of Greg’s needlework had been concealed as promised under the breasts or around the sides of them but my one remaining nipple was circled with red suture lines. On my fake breast, where the nipple should’ve been, a circle of pale skin stared back at me like a giant eye.
I made an effort to keep this strange new body out of sight most of the time, lifting the sheets to cover my breasts when Philip brought tea into the bedroom each morning. He was invariably tactful, assuring me I looked better than before. But I was far from a Playboy centrefold. I wondered what he really thought. Deep down I didn’t want to know in case the truth was devastating.
The tiredness was overwhelming at times. I’d collapse on the bed to sleep and sleep. Too much effort went into getting through each day to worry about the future. Every moment felt precious. I could spend an unfathomable amount of time examining dust particles in a shaft of light, or the painting of a poppy on the wall beyond the end of our bed. Enfolding myself in the flower’s petals, I savoured the miracle of being in a living, breathing body.
Compared to the enormous physical changes I’d been through, the decision to give up thirty years of column writing was minuscule. I felt miraculously free without the burden of Monday morning deadlines. While I missed contact with readers, many stayed in touch. They’d sent floods of emails while I’d been in hospital. Some wrote that after reading me for so many years they felt like friends. A couple even invited me to recuperate at their houses. The generosity of these so-called strangers was overwhelming.
Messages also arrived from women who’d successfully recovered from breast cancer. Most were reassuring, though a few emails were edged with terror. They were from women who’d been recently diagnosed with uncertain futures. One had small children she was dreading leaving. I hoped my attempts to reply to these anguished women weren’t inadequate. They were a painful reminder not to take anything for granted.
Maybe there was more wisdom in Lydia’s request for a maroon scarf than I realised. Knitting was probably an ideal way to sit back, regain my health and reassess for a while.
I’d just hoped something might’ve triggered her to change her mind about leaving. Maybe even the kitten . . .
‘When are you leaving?’ I asked, trying to sound strong.
Jonah danced across the kitchen floor and squeaked up at her. Lydia broke into a smile as she picked him up.
‘Oh boy!’ she said, kissing his forehead. ‘We’d better get you settled as an outdoor cat first.’
Like Lydia, Jonah had a distinct aversion to being trapped at home. He waited by doors and windows hoping to slither out the moment they were opened. And he took the adage of cats never coming when called to an extreme. Whenever anyone mentioned his name, he sprinted in the opposite direction.
Even ‘Kitty’ had a similar effect. He’d turn, scowl, raise his tail and bolt. Some days all I seemed to see of Jonah were the backs of his outsized hind legs and his tail swaying over the pleated circle of his anus as he galloped away.
Possibly Lydia understood his desire to wander the neighbourhood because of her own longing to roam. Living at home, shackled to us (financially anyway) for the foreseeable future, she craved freedom. I couldn’t completely blame her. At the same age I’d been married with two kids. That was imprisonment of a different kind, but it presented a mirage of adult independence. Perhaps she regarded the Sri Lankan monastery as an escape route.
According to the vet, the first step to independence for Jonah was getting him ‘fixed’.
I had no idea Philip would take the procedure so personally.
‘How can removing an animal’s testicles extend his life?’ he growled.
Men are supposed to be the logical species, but on the subject of balls rationality flies straight into the wheelie bin.
I assured Philip that neutering reduced the risk of infection and cancer and that de-sexed male cats didn’t get into fights so often so were less prone to injury. They were also less inclined to wander or spray urine (though that, I imagined, was something only feral cats would do).
Putting it like that made me quietly wonder if the vet mightn’t be interested in a two-for-one deal.
‘Can’t he just have a vasectomy?’
‘Neutering only takes five minutes. The operation’s much worse for female cats,’ I said, wondering why it always seemed to be that way for females of any species.
The day Jonah was due to get fixed, Philip had an early start. Katharine had an appointment with her maths teacher (‘And I get upset when he meows inside his carry box’) which left Lydia and me official Breakers of the Balls.
When we collected Jonah from the vet clinic later in the day, he didn’t seem diminished. By the look of things, his testicles hadn’t been removed so much as deflated.
‘Make sure he doesn’t lick his stitches too much,’ the vet nurse said as a playful paw protruded from his carry box to grapple with her belt. ‘Goodness, he’s got personality, hasn’t he?’
Jonah bounced back from the operation quickly. To Philip’s relief, the ‘fixing’ had left Jonah largely intact. Suffice to say that while the testicles had been flattened, the Eiffel Tower remained. Jonah enjoyed shocking female visitors by coaxing his glistening pink pencil out of its case and licking it with affection and attention to detail.
Any ‘Ewww! Jonah! Don’t be disgusting!’ responses only made him lick with more enthusiasm.
One day, when we judged Jonah fully recovered from his ‘fixing’, we decided to give him a trial run as an outside cat in the back garden.
I wasn’t strong enough to chase him yet, but wasn’t too concerned. Once he associated the tap of a spoon on a tuna can with us calling his name, I was sure we’d get him sorted.
Stepping outside, Philip lowered Jonah on to the deck. Our kitten sat there cute as Christmas and blinked inquisitively at the sky.
‘Look at that!’ I said. ‘No problem at all. He’s a sensible boy, aren’t you Fur Man?’
A blast of wind rushed through the olive bushes. Jonah raised his nostrils and tensed. His legs stiffened. His tail puffed. The sound of wind was new to him – and utterly terrifying. Philip bent to pick him up, but the kitten shot across the yard straight up the tree trunk. We hadn’t counted on Jonah knowing how to climb trees.
Perched above us, he flattened his ears against the wind as the branches heaved up and down like a raft on a storm at sea. Clinging to the decks, the kitten looked vaguely seasick.
Lydia hurried inside to retrieve the kitchen stepladder. Philip planted it in the earth and ascended toward the escapee. Just as he touched Jonah’s fur, the kitten slithered out of his grasp and clambered higher. Paw over milk chocolate paw, Jonah scrambled toward the top branches. A nearby pigeon tut-tutted and evacuated the tree in a huff.
‘Let him stay up there!’ said Philip.
‘But what if he doesn’t know how to get down?’ Katharine whined. ‘Or if he climbs down on the neighbour’s side of the fence and gets lost.’
Exasperated, Philip leapt off the stepladder and, with surprising agility, swung himself up on a branch. The girls and I watched breathless. For every bough Philip climbed, Jonah scaled one higher. The loftier their ascent, the thinner and less reliable-looking their footing became. If Philip trusted the wrong piece of wood he’d crash to the ground.
‘Got him!’ he called.
The girls and I heaved a collective sigh of relief as Philip abseiled down the trunk with Jonah in the crook of his arm. But just as Philip’s shoe touched the earth, the kitten launched himself in the air.
‘Block the escape routes!’ Philip yelled. ‘He’s going to run for it!’
The girls bounded to their positions along the left side of the house while I stood on the back deck nursing my abdominal stitches.
Jonah became a pale tornado circling the patch of grass in wider and accelerating curves. Philip made a lunge for him, but the kitten was too fast, deftly side-stepping Philip who plummeted empty-handed to the ground.
‘Look out!’ he called to the girls, brushing dirt off his elbows. ‘He’s coming your way!’
The girls bent their knees and stretched their arms out, creating a human shield as the kitten sprinted toward them. Then, spinning on his hind legs, he veered away from them . . . and disappeared down the side of the house.
The scene was vaguely familiar. The chase, the attempt at blocking, the fancy footwork followed by unexpected escape. I’d tried to stay awake next to Philip through countless Rugby games on television, understanding nothing. That was it! They were playing Rugby. Jonah was worthy of his name.
We peered down the side of the house where no living thing, apart from spiders and air-conditioning repairmen, ventured. There was no sight or sound of Jonah.
Philip whispered to the girls to stay where they were while he ran around to the front to wait at the other end of the canyon. I followed him at a sedate pace to give moral support.
‘Can you see him?’ he called to the girls.
‘No! Can you?’
Silence, except for the wind. Jonah had evaporated like a genie.
Out the front by now, I was beginning to wonder if the kitten had slipped out of our lives forever when a silver bullet shot out from the side of the house into the front garden. Philip dived sideways and, in what seemed slow motion, twisted gracefully through the air. He extended his arms, his hands curving around the missile, lifting it several centimetres.
For an instant, man and furry ball hovered mid-air . . . then time sped up and they collapsed on the soil. Philip landed on his stomach with his arms outstretched around the unharmed kitten. The perfect Rugby tackle.
‘Poor Jonah!’ I cried. But as Philip brushed the blood off his knees and handed me the kitten, it seemed Jonah was unhurt and not at all shaken. He purred ecstatically and stretched a sportsmanlike paw towards Philip.
Inside Cat
The only thing more worrying than holding cats and daughters close is setting them free
Our daughter and our cat still craved freedom. Lydia clearly longed to return to her monastery. Jonah wanted to run away down the street. Both were oblivious to danger. I wasn’t ready to give either of them what they wanted – or not just yet.
I’d hoped Jonah might demonstrate some of the streetwise savvy Cleo had been born with. Cleo had lived near busy roads her entire life and had possessed a second sense about keeping away from traffic. Jonah’s idea of a safe haven was hiding under the wheels of parked cars.
During his trial weeks as an outdoor cat, Jonah proved a nuisance to others and a danger to himself. He could scramble up anything, from trees to lampposts, but coming down he always got into trouble.
One day, a neighbour tapped on the door to report our cat was stuck up on his roof. He kindly offered the girls a ladder so they could reclaim him.
Another time a different neighbour brought him home trembling in her arms after he’d tried to take on her two black tom cats. I’d seen those two monsters patrolling the street. The size of small panthers, they were cat mafia. She told us the pair of them had cornered Jonah before she’d rescued him. He was, she said, lucky to have escaped with both eyes intact.
Jonah’s attempts at bird stalking were tragic. The moment he saw a pigeon he’d freeze and crouch close to the ground. Homing in on his victim he shadowed every little waddle and peck until he almost merged with his prey.
His camouflag
e colouring gave Jonah potential to terrorise the bird world – until he curled his lips back and emitted a loud ‘Heh! Heh!’ giving the pigeon time to rearrange its feathers and deliver some reprimanding ‘tut-tuts’ before flapping up on to the fence.
As for the usual cat business of gliding effortlessly along fence tops, it was beyond Jonah. Birds laughed at him whenever he tried it. With the front and back feet of one side of his body limping along the top of the palings, and the other two feet trailing behind on the crossbeam below, he hobbled along looking like a two-legged mutant.
Jonah’s nerves were made of crystal. He jumped and cowered at the slightest noise. The slam of a rubbish bin lid sent him scuttling for cover.
The sound of dogs barking, on the other hand, was a battle cry. No matter how big or brutal-looking the dog was, Jonah would charge toward it, tail flying, confident he’d crush the thing with a flash of his eyes.
He had no idea how to fight, adhering to courtly ideals of warfare. Much yowling and posturing was involved but he always kept his claws sheathed. To him, battles were largely psychological, staring the enemy down until they realised how unworthy they were and skulked away.
We were constantly on Jonah safaris, running down the street past the WANTED signs for missing cats, calling his name or rummaging uninvited through neighbours’ gardens. Occasionally, he’d allow us catch him without much fuss but most of the time he’d refuse to return to the loving arms of his family until we’d all had a good sprint around the street for half an hour or so.
Despite his escapist ways, he was hopelessly dependent. He always stood in the window waiting for us to come home, and was first at the door to greet Philip and the girls. When we put him in a cattery for a weekend while we checked out Rob and Chantelle’s wedding venue, he was miserable. One of the cattery workers, Vivienne, had taken a shine to Jonah. She said she’d played with him for an hour each day, and he made her laugh. She was soft-spoken and gentle. I liked her straight away. A flicker of concern crossed her face when she mentioned Jonah had been very needy and thrown up twice. She said catteries mightn’t suit him. If we went away again, she’d be more than happy to cat sit him at our place.
