The Cat's Pajamas

by Soraya May

  “Torrid. Yes. Also steamy, I think. I’m not sure he’d appreciate you describing him as ‘a man I keep in my basement’, though. As a matter of fact, neither do I. It makes me sound like a villainess from a Japanese horror movie.”

  Farrah sipped her coffee. “C’mon, it’s empowering.”

  “It’s weird, is what it is. Besides, he can leave the basement, you know.”

  She pointed a manicured finger. “Ah! There’s your mistake.”

  “Yeah, very funny. It’s not like I want to keep him there indefinitely.”

  “Don’t you?” She eyed me over the rim of her cup.

  “In the basement? No, it’s freezing down there, and as damp as hell, and I am a doctor, so—”

  “You know that’s not what I mean, Cat Milsom.” We picked our way through the dwindling afternoon crowds. “Don’t you want to keep him? As in, keep him, keep him?”

  I was dimly aware the conversation had taken a turn I hadn’t expected. “I—can’t you just be happy with steamy and torrid, woman?”

  “No. Not after watching your face when you described him.” Farrah put her hand on my arm as we walked. “Sure, the fact you had red-hot sex on the bar-top was great. Although you’ll pardon me if I opt for table service at Wunderbar from now on.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have—”

  “Quiet.” She stopped and looked straight at me. “But you spent two minutes describing that, and twenty minutes telling me about how he carved you a new handle for your wardrobe. How he helped Daisy McNeish with her roof. How close he is to his family. You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?”

  I didn’t particularly want to, but I did. “Yeah.”

  “Those are not things you talk about in a torrid affair, Cat. You really care about him, don’t you?”

  I looked up at the sky, and then down at the ground. Then I looked up at the sky again. Finally, when there was no other option, I nodded. “Yes, I do. When he’s there, it feels like the place is…finished. Like he was somehow a missing piece that I didn’t know I needed. I was running all this time, and I found this place, and it was good. But I never felt like I belonged here, you know? Not until I woke up that morning and he was there beside me.”

  “Honey, I know. I wish I could change your mind about that, but it seems like that’s not for me to do.” Farrah’s voice was kindly, and I smiled. “As strange as it is, it seems like maybe that’s for Ryan to do.”

  I jammed my hands in the pockets of my fleecy jacket, and stamped my feet together, sinking a little way into the damp grass. “But that sucks, right?”

  “Why does it suck?” Her face was expressionless.

  I rolled my eyes. “For the obvious reason. He isn’t staying.”

  “And him wanting to demolish your bar?”

  “No, that’s not how he sees it.” I didn’t realize I was correcting her. “Ryan doesn’t want to demolish my bar. He wants to preserve the things that are buried beneath it, things which are very important. Demolishing it is just an unfortunate consequence. I don’t like it, but I understand now why he…feels the way he does.”

  Farrah’s eyes were wide, and she shook her head in amazement. “Did you hear yourself just then?”

  “I know, Faz. Would it be better if I still thought he was a self-centered ass?” I stopped. “Come to think of it, maybe it would.” Finishing my coffee, I looked around for a trash can. “Besides, it doesn’t matter, because he isn’t staying. Whatever happens to me, or the bar, it isn’t going to include him. How can it?”

  “I’ll take that.” Farrah plucked the empty cup from my fingers and slotted it into hers. “I have to run soon anyway. Before I do, though, answer me this; if it were just you and Ryan, without the bar, would you go with him?”

  I looked at the sky again. Low cloud had rolled in, and after a sunny day, I could tell it was going to rain tonight. “Maybe. I don’t know. If it were a choice between being here without him, and being anywhere else with him?”

  “If that’s what you think.” Behind the loopy overacting and the extravagant dress sense, Farrah always did have the ability to get things out of you that you didn’t know yourself. Maybe it’s all a front. I’d never thought of that.

  “Faz, I’m not saying I’m in love with this guy, okay? I hardly even know him.”

  She was relentless in her own special way, a high-fashion Dalek in a muddy New Zealand paddock. “Did I say that? I didn’t say that. Would I say that? Perfidy of men, remember. Answer the question.”

  “Then…yeah. Yeah, I guess I would choose to be.” Now I was about to say it, it didn’t even seem like a surprise. “I would choose to be with Ryan.”

  Inclining her head gently in acknowledgment, Farrah spoke softly. “Then maybe that’s what you should be thinking about, and maybe that’s what you should be telling him, now, before it’s too late. Maybe it’s time to give both of you a chance.”

  “Maybe.” I’d come this far. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I’d bring it up. ‘Hey, guess what? I know we’ve just been having sex recently, but I’d actually quite like to come with you when you leave town. How about it?’. Yeah, sounds really appealing.”

  “Cat, you can do better than that, and you know it.” Farrah’s watch beeped at her, and she jumped. “Shit, I have to run to get May. We need to talk about this later, okay?”

  “Okay, okay. Go, go and get your daughter.” A kiss on the cheek, and she was away, wobbling with intent across the field. “Would it kill you to wear boots once in a while?” I called, but she didn’t hear me.

  Walking through the market, I looked at the people around me; children ran past, clamoring for food or treats. Adults trailed in their wake, sipping coffee in their heavy overcoats, or talking together. They all seemed happy and secure, content in where they were. I told myself that everyone looked like that from the outside, but it was easy to believe that everyone else in the world knew what they were doing, except you.

  My nose caught the scent of sausages again, and I stopped worrying momentarily. Mmm, sausages. It’s amazing how they have the power to make you reassess your priorities. I walked through the row of stalls, past hats and knitwear, personalized woodcarvings, and sketch artists, until I saw the sausage grill not far in front of me.

  Two people stood at the grill, one taller, one shorter, handing over their money and getting a sausage in a bun each, and as I approached I realized it was Bea and Andy. Andy turned, holding a sausage in his large hand, and he smiled in acknowledgment of my approach.

  Uh-oh. After being embroiled in Andy’s medical problem, I would have preferred to avoid talking to the two of them together, but I couldn’t back out now.

  “Hey, guys. How’s it going?” I kept my voice as level as possible.

  Andy, mouth full of sausage, just nodded enthusiastically. “Mmmph.”

  Next to him, Bea looked up at me, dark eyes noncommittal. “Hey.”

  Well, maybe that’s about as good as I get from her. “Sausages okay? Andy looks like he needs two.” Maybe trying to make a joke will help? Big guys always eat a lot. It’s a pretty safe topic.

  Andy was still eating, and gave her a thumbs-up. Bea rolled her eyes. “He does not need two if he’s going to get on the rugby field this season. Or fit underneath a car.” Her tone wasn’t harsh, though, and I wondered if she might be warming just a little.

  “That’s true,” I acknowledged, doing my best to play along. “Maybe one lap around the field per sausage would help.”

  Andy shook his head violently. “Mmmph!” He appeared to be trying to eat the entire thing in one attempt, working steadily through it in several large bites.

  Bea snorted. “Good idea, but I think it’d need to be ten laps. And he’s not allowed to take the sausage with him, or it’ll be eaten by the time he’s finished.” She aimed a kick from her heavy motorcycle boots at her brother. “Come on, you. We need to get back to the garage; we’ve got two more jobs today, remember?” She looked back
at me. “Catch you later—”

  A loud coughing noise from Andy interrupted us. He’d dropped the last part of his sausage, scattered into the grass, and was standing hunched over, one hand on his chest, his large frame racked with coughing.

  “See!” Bea was triumphant. “That’s what you get for eating too fast, idiot. I’ve been telling you this since you were five; you eat too fast.”

  “S-sure,” Andy coughed. “Just need to…feel a bit weird.”

  “Andy, are you okay?” I asked. His coughing fit had spread to become convulsions, and he was bent double. A couple of passersby looked over before carrying on.

  “F-fine. I just…hold on. My head…” He knelt down, putting one hand on the damp grass to steady himself while the other one gripped the fabric of his t-shirt. His shoulders shook.

  I started to get a cold feeling. This isn’t quite right. “Are you having trouble breathing?”

  Bea strode around to his back. “Serves you damn well right if you’re choking on a piece of sausage.” Winding up, she delivered a resounding thump with the flat of her hand.

  Andy collapsed, rolling forward with the impact of Bea’s blow, face down on the turf. Bea let out a yelp. “Fuck! Andy! Wha-what did I…”

  Shit. I stepped forward. “It’s okay, Bea. Help me turn him over and put him in the recovery position.” Years of sitting in medical classrooms and service in Baltimore emergency wards kicked in, and I was Dr. Milsom again, someone I’d never wanted to be, but someone I knew pretty well. Working with the smaller woman, we put Andy on his side. Putting my fingers in his mouth, I felt his airway for obstructions. Nothing. I tilted his head up and looked at his eyes. His pupils were heavily dilated, and his breathing short and shallow. The pulse in his neck was strong, but racing.

  “Is that man okay?” A few people had stopped at the sight of Andy stretched out on the turf, and as I worked, more gathered.

  I looked up and pointed at a well-dressed lady with a phone. “Can you call an ambulance, please? I think this man is having a seizure.” She nodded, worried, and began to dial.

  “A seizure? Fuck!” Bea was beside herself. On her knees, she put her hand on Andy’s shoulder, shaking him. “Andy! Wake up!” She looked up at me, and the anguish in her eyes was so strong, so desperate, that my heart broke a little for her. I’d seen that look many times before in hospitals, in the eyes of people whose loved ones had been carried into the ER bleeding from gunshot wounds, or injuries sustained in a car crash, or a workplace accident.

  Tell me it’s going to be okay, that look said. Promise me you’ll make everything alright.

  I knew from hard experience, though, that you can’t always do that when you’re a doctor, and that was why you tried not to treat people you knew. But it was far too late for that now; I was involved, and people were relying on me.

  “Bea, he’s going to be okay for the moment. He’s breathing okay, and his pulse is steady. That means there’s oxygen going to his brain right now, so he’s okay. But we need to get him to a hospital as soon as we can.”

  “The ambulance is on its way here.” The lady with the phone broke in, voice tight with worry. A small circle of people had formed, and I looked up.

  “Everyone,” I cleared my throat. “It’s okay. There’s nothing to be worried about. This man needs to be taken to hospital. Please clear the way and let the ambulance come through when it arrives. Could you—” I pointed to a couple of young guys in their late teens, “go to the parking lot and wait for the ambulance, please, so they know where to come?” My tone was clear and direct, designed to reassure the people around us.

  “Y-yeah, sure.” They nodded and sped off.

  Bea stayed kneeling over her brother. His breathing had stabilized, but he was twitching and shaking, his jaw slack, his eyes closed. “Nothing like this has ever happened to him before.” She looked at me, desperate. “This doesn’t just happen out of nowhere, right? You get some kind of warning, right?”

  Ignoring her for a moment, I looked down, taking Andy’s hand. “Andy, listen to me.” He twitched, and his eyelids fluttered. “Andy, I need you to squeeze my hand. Can you do that? Can you squeeze my hand?”

  A clear squeeze. Good. So he’s responding, and he’s got muscle control.

  “You get some kind of warning, right?” Bea repeated her question, at a higher pitch this time.

  I looked up at her. “Sometimes. Andy’s been experiencing numbness and some bouts of dizziness for some time now, and it’s likely that this is connected.”

  “What the fuck?” Bea’s shock showed in her eyes. “How—how do you know? He didn’t say anything.” Her shock was quickly replaced by anger. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me? You knew this was going to happen and you didn’t do anything?” She raised her fists.

  “Bea, hold on.” I spoke more harshly than I’d intended. “I didn’t know this was going to happen.” As I talked, I kept one hand on Andy’s neck, monitoring his pulse and breathing. “Andy came to see me at the bar the other day. He said that he’d been having these symptoms, and he was worried about them. I checked him out, and told him he needed to see a doctor, and he agreed.” I looked up at her. “Look, if I’d thought it was immediately serious, I wouldn’t have let him walk out of the place on his own.”

  Bea’s breathing was ragged. “He…he didn’t see a Goddamned doctor because he’s an idiot, and he doesn’t take care of himself.” She pressed down hard on his chest, distraught. “Wake up, you moron! Why are you doing this?”

  Andy shivered, and his lips moved. “B—b—b…”

  “It’s not anyone’s fault, okay?” I took Bea’s hand, and gently moved it from her brother’s chest.

  She snatched her hand away from my grasp, and her fingers curled into a fist again. “Don’t Goddamned tell me it’s not anyone’s fault! My brother’s hurt and no-one did anything to stop it!” Eyes flashing, she looked about wildly at the crowd. “What are you all doing staring? Fuck off!”

  This time, I spoke more gently. “It’s going to be okay. Trust me, please. He’s going to be fine. We just have to wait and take care of him until the ambulance comes. He’ll be taken to the hospital, and they’ll make a full diagnosis.” I thought about putting a hand out to comfort her again, but decided against it.

  “B—b—b…” Andy was trying to speak again, although his eyes were still closed. “Not…not…”

  “It’s okay, bro. Just wait.” Bea’s voice had a brittle, crystalline calm to it. “We’re going to be okay, man. It’ll be fine. I won’t leave you. Not ever.”

  Andy shook his head, and raised a hand. “Not…not Cat’s fault. Told her…not…to say anything. Made her…promise.”

  I nodded, wordlessly. From across the park, the noise of a siren approached, and people began backing away, clearing a path for the ambulance.

  As the ambulance pulled up, and the paramedics jogged over with the stretcher, asking questions and giving quiet, calm orders, I could feel Bea’s eyes boring into me, accusing.

  26

  Cat

  As I came back to Wunderbar with the groceries, Ryan was waiting on the steps, his face worried.

  “How’s Andy?” He stood up and came towards me, taking the bag from my hands.

  “He’s doing okay now. I spoke to the registrar at the hospital, and explained who I was and what had happened. He’s conscious, sitting up and talking now.”

  “So what was it?”

  I shook my head. “It’s hard to say at this point. His symptoms could be manifesting for a bunch of different reasons. They’ll keep him in for a couple of days, and do a series of tests. Once that’s done, we’ll all know more.”

  “He was lucky you were there.” Ryan shouldered the bag, and waited as I opened the door. “If it had happened somewhere else, or when he was driving, things could have been a lot worse.”

  “Try telling that to Bea. When she found out Andy had been to see me, and hadn’t told her, I thought she was going to t
ake a swing at me.”

  “Uh-oh. I can see how she was upset about it, though. Come on, let’s get this stuff unpacked.”

  Mounting the steps, I thought back to Bea’s accusing glare at me, and her desperation when she saw Andy hurt. “Yeah. She was upset, and that’s understandable; I’ve seen it plenty of times before. But if she thought I wasn’t on her side before, this isn’t going to change her mind.”

  In the kitchen, Ryan dumped the bag of groceries on the counter, and began to put them away. I pulled up a chair, and sat watching him. He looked back at me for a moment, canned beans in one hand, and then, carefully, unselfconsciously, put the beans on the counter, and came and wrapped me in his arms. I hugged him back, pressing the flannel of his shirt against my cheek.

  “Look, you did the right thing; you don’t need me to tell you that. However Bea feels about you not telling her, you were there to help when you were really needed. All you can do is have faith that she’ll come to understand that sooner or later.”

  “I know.” I smiled wryly. “It’ll need to be sooner if I’m going to get that oven fixed, though. She’s the only one who can do it, and if I turn up at their garage right now, I just might get a car dropped on me.”

  “Are you sorry you had to go back to being a doctor? I know you felt like you’d left that part of your life behind.”

  “No. It was fine.” I shrugged again. “I never disliked being a doctor; I liked being able to help people, I really did. It was the expectations of my family that I couldn’t take in the end.”

  “Really? It sounded like they were always proud of you.” Ryan extricated himself from my arms, pulled up another chair, and sat facing me, extending a hand to take mine. “I can see why, too.”

  I squeezed his hand back. “Thanks. Yeah, they were proud of me, but…” I paused. “They were proud in the way you’d be proud of a collection of stamps; like something that was all properly arranged and worked out carefully in advance. I was a doctor because it was the ‘right’ thing to do. I got engaged to a doctor because we were the ‘right’ couple. That’s what I couldn’t take.”