by Helen Brown
Then it started. A scuffling sound from the laundry followed by a slam. I caught Katharine’s eye. We both knew what it was. Jonah had chosen this sacred moment to use his litter box. The scuffling grew louder until it became determined scratching. Jonah was digging deep in his litter box and revelling in the sensation of his claws against the plastic base. Sccccrrrrrrich, sccccccrrrrach, he went, faster and faster, until it sounded like a ditch-digger was working away in the next room.
The monk drew a breath and started blessing the people who’d stored our food, and the shopkeepers who’d put it on their shelves. Sccccrrich, scccccrrrrrach. Jonah was letting us know exactly what he thought. Katharine’s chest started heaving in schoolgirl giggles. Immature, yet unstoppable . . . and, under the circumstances, extremely contagious.
I don’t know what it was – a reaction to stressful circumstances – but before I knew it, I was exploding with giggles too. I glanced sideways at Rob and Chantelle’s poker faces. Philip, too, was as solemn as a funeral director. They were so studiously controlled I only wanted to laugh more. The effort of trying to stop myself made my ribs ache. The more I tried to repress the giggles the louder they became, morphing into donkey-like hoots. It must’ve been at least thirty years since I’d been afflicted like this. I tried to disguise them as coughs but nobody was fooled, least of all Lydia, whose cheeks turned as crimson as her teacher’s robes.
Once the meal was mercifully over, the monk excused himself to rest upstairs. Clattering with the dishes over the kitchen sink, Lydia shot Katharine and I a look that could have frozen the tropics.
Next morning as we bobbed and bowed and waved the monk goodbye, parting was such sweet . . . relief.
Yearning
Happiness is a new pink ribbon
Soon after the monk’s stay, Lydia drove me to hospital to get a new nipple. Greg had assured me it was a simple forty-minute ‘tidy up’ that would be nothing compared to the massive body work he’d done seven months earlier in August. With a new nipple, he said, I’d be able to wear flimsy summer tops. We were obviously on different planets.
I could understand why some women who have a breast reconstruction don’t bother getting a new nipple. I’d only experienced a flicker of self-consciousness about having a miniature helicopter pad where the old nipple used to be twice – once when a woman walked in on me in a changing room, and another time when I caught Philip’s eye sliding sideways while I was stepping out of the shower. Still, seeing as I’d gone to all the trouble of getting a new boob, it seemed logical to add the final touch. And Greg was eager to put the final twirl of icing on the cake he’d created.
If there’s one way to stop a conversation, it’s announcing you’re about to acquire a new nipple. If you said you were getting a new earlobe or a new little toe, people might take polite interest. Mention the N word and they don’t know what to say. Nipples are sexual.
To those strong enough to ask, I’d explain Greg was going to cut a couple of centimetres of skin from my left areola and graft it to the helicopter pad, at the same time bunching up a knob of skin in the centre to create the new nipple’s dome. While he was at it he was going to ‘review’ a small flap that looked like a dog’s ear at one end of my abdominal scar.
What was a simple morning’s work for Greg was a whole other matter from my end of the scalpel. Those in the know say there’s no such thing as minor surgery. A slip of the knife or a tube put in the wrong place and . . .
I embarked on the now familiar routine of shedding clothes and jewellery, along with my dignity and everything else connecting me to the outside world, to stow them in a locker. Hospitals are like that. You succumb to them. It helps to remind yourself that surgeons and nurses are highly educated. They know your life sits quivering like a sparrow in their palms.
If a surgical team was a rock band, the surgeon would be lead guitarist with backup vocals from the nurses. The guy who pushes the trolley would be on drums. And the anaesthetist? He’d be bass guitarist. Like all good bass guitarists, the anaesthetist tends to have a modest ego, compared to the surgeon anyway. The anaesthetist knows he’s important but feels undervalued. It’s worth trying to flatter him and form a bond in the few seconds you’re awake with him since he’s the one with the most potential to kill you.
Flat on my back in a blue shower cap, I tried to work my charms but the nipple anaesthetist wasn’t interested.
‘That was quick,’ I said when he asked only three questions and signalled for me to be wheeled into theatre.
‘You survived seven hours last time,’ he replied rather coldly. ‘You’ll get through forty minutes.’
Needle stab. Cold fluid up my arm. Good night.
Waking up was slow. Pain in my abdomen. Headache. Nausea. Sore throat. Worse, a sign on a door saying ‘Leave X Ray’s Here’. A nurse asked if I was comfortable. Not with that rogue apostrophe in the room. I’d never have put my life in their hands if I’d known they couldn’t do apostrophes.
Back home I winced with pain changing blood-soaked bandages. Resembling a ‘proper’ woman again involved an inordinate amount of trouble.
I sometimes wondered what Mum would have done if she’d been in my situation. For a woman of her generation, she was extremely image conscious. She’d had an innate sense of style that could turn heads even in her seventies. She’d tried to pass that glamour on to me. Shopping for my first bra with her, I was surprised how the garment pulled and dug into my flesh. Soon after, she squeezed me into a suspender belt and stockings, a sanitary belt with huge safety pins and a surfboard-sized pad, plus a corset (‘It’s just a light one, dear’).The effort involved in being a ‘real’ woman was onerous beyond belief.
In my circumstances, there was no doubt Mum would’ve gone for the full reconstruction gig, plus nipple. Besides, there was Philip to consider. Not to mention a vestige of my own vanity.
Recovery was longer and slower than ‘simple day procedure’ implied. Lydia slid into nursing mode again, providing ceaseless tides of takeaway coffees from Spoonful and cooking meals. Likewise, Jonah seemed to understand I was in pain and snuggled up to me on the bed as if to say, ‘Let’s settle in for a good rest now, shall we?’ I took comfort in the knowledge that once it was healed, all that remained was to have the nipple tattooed a darker colour in a few months’ time.
The sight of Philip appearing in the hallway with a bunch of flowers sent an electrical force through our cat. His eyes became a pair of opalescent saucers, his ears pointed forward, his whiskers tense as fencing wire.
Meowing feverishly, Jonah sprang up on his back feet and stretched the length of his body up Philip’s thighs. With his front paws he dabbed Philip’s hips, begging incessantly.
Jonah wasn’t interested in the flowers themselves, or the paper and cellophane they were wrapped in. He wanted the florist’s ribbon.
Jonah’s obsession with ribbons was by no means indiscriminate. It had to be the right sort of ribbon from the right florist, meaning a particular type of satiny string from a shop called Say it With Flowers near our old house. Whenever someone appeared with flowers wrapped in the wrong sort of ribbon, Jonah put on an operatic display. After the initial surge of excitement, he’d examine the flowers to discover they were wrapped in crisp polyester ribbon, a broad band of silk or some other unacceptable tie. His eyes would narrow with disgust, his tail would sink and he’d skulk away.
If, however, they were flowers from the right florist using the right ribbon, Jonah became ecstatic. The instant the flowers were lowered onto the table he assailed them, gnawing and digging at the string. A human would usually try and shoo him off, and then – to Jonah’s great joy – unravel the bouquet. The instant the ribbon was detached from the flowers, Jonah pounced on it, snaring it between his teeth and carrying it away like a gambler who’d just beaten the casino.
With ceaseless pride and enthusiasm, he’d carry the string around with him day and night, begging people to engage in Jonah-and-the-Ribbon games. T
he alternatives were boundless. The ribbon could be a snake winding across the carpet, a bird gliding through the air, a mouse hiding under the rock of a cushion. He even circled chair legs with it until they were tied up.
Jonah and his ribbon would be inseparable for weeks until the object of his passion frayed at both ends and shredded. Even then, our cat refused to forsake his treasure.
Concerned that the dishevelled strands might be a danger to his digestion, I’d wait until his attention was diverted by a real-life moth or a shadow on the kitchen floor and dispose of the beloved object in the rubbish bin.
Watching Jonah searching for his lost love afterwards was heart-wrenching. I visited the florist shop and furtively asked for lengths of ribbon, no flowers attached. The woman behind the counter thought I was a rose short of a bouquet. Once I explained Jonah’s addiction, she was vaguely amused.
‘Does your cat have a favourite colour?’ she asked, fingering the stash of ribbons gleaming seductively from a hook on the wall. If Jonah could see them he’d have experienced religious ecstasy.
‘Pink,’ I replied. ‘Even though he’s a boy. He is Siamese, which might go some of the way to explaining it. Though some say he’s Tonkinese . . .’
The woman was starting to look wary. I’d given her too much information. Still, she was kind enough to let me have the stuff, and supply it on a regular basis. I tried to keep Jonah’s habit under control, supplying one string at a time until he’d destroyed it.
Discipline soon slipped. Ribbons at all stages of the life cycle sprawled over the house, particularly in our bedroom where they were draped over the floor, bed and tables. I wondered what the cleaners made of it. They probably thought we used them for kinky sex.
While he was still hugely affectionate, and adored his morning routine playing fishing rod and ribbons with Philip, Jonah gave the impression his world was far from perfect. Even his exclusive outdoor run carpeted with cat grass and catnip didn’t do it for him anymore. After half an hour lying in one of the hammocks and being tortured by fat pigeons on the fence, he’d trot inside and demand to be stroked or carried.
When he wasn’t getting enough attention from his human subjects, he’d patrol the house like a shark, slinking from one room to the next, sniffing out escape routes. I felt hurt Jonah still wanted to run away. And some of the escapades he sent us on chasing him around the neighbourhood were humiliating.
One evening, after he’d squeezed out of a crack in the front door and the girls and I were forced on yet another Jonah hunt, we saw him trotting away halfway down the street. Ploughing toward him from the other end of the street was a large black dog, attached to its owner by a leash. Confident he could take the dog with a single swipe, Jonah accelerated toward his foe. The girls and I cried out as the animals drew closer together. Confrontation was inevitable. Jonah was about to become dog food.
Not for the first time, I wondered how such an intelligent animal could lack common sense. What made Jonah imagine he could take on a dog seventeen times his size? Dreading what was going to happen next, I closed my eyes.
A baritone bark stabbed the air. It was the joyous, confident sound hunting dogs make when they know they’ve run down a fox.
Suddenly I felt a rush of wind between my ankles. Opening my eyes, I saw a cream and brown streak scoot between my feet. It shot straight behind us to hide under my car. Hot on its heels lolloped 100 kilos of eager canine, closely followed by a bemused owner. After trying to follow its prey through my legs, the dog nearly knocked me backwards. It then took a detour and charged around me toward my car.
‘That your cat?’ the dog owner asked, panting slightly. ‘Spike just wants to be friendly. See? He’s wagging his tail.’
The dog’s bark rose to a staccato tenor as it tried to lure Jonah out from his hiding place for a tête-à-tête. But Jonah wasn’t tempted. He emitted a dark, throaty yowl from under the car.
The dog lurched back on its haunches in surprise.
‘I’ve never heard a cat sound like a cow before,’ said his owner.
Jonah’s yearning for broader horizons continued to be mirrored in our older daughter. The monk’s visit had made her restless.
My heart jarred when she talked of returning to Sri Lanka. I kept an anxious ear out when she phoned the monastery. Whenever she spoke to the strangers at the end of the line, I was intrigued to hear her lapsing into the musical talk she used for chanting.
She’d always had a good ear for languages, but it seemed incredible she could have picked up Sinhalese so quickly. Her sentences ran smoothly and whoever she was speaking to had no trouble understanding her. The more I eavesdropped on Lydia’s secret life, the more mysterious it became.
If she was taking the trouble to learn the language, she obviously believed she had some kind of future in Sri Lanka. I continued monitoring the news. Though the country was still awash with violence, twenty-five years of war was dragging to a bloody conclusion. On 16 May 2009, the Sri Lankan president claimed victory over the Tamil Tigers. A silence rather than a truce, some said. But I hoped it might mean that if Lydia decided to go there in the future it mightn’t be such a source of worry.
When the phone shrieked to life close to midnight one night, I fumbled for the receiver. Since Sam’s accident, my nerves had been permanently rearranged and completely lacked resilience around unexpected phone calls. Whenever anyone asked what I’d like for my birthday I’d say anything except a surprise.
To my astonishment, the caller was my Sydney publisher, Louise. Her tone was urgent. I took a breath and waited for terrible news.
Louise said her colleagues had taken Cleo to the London Book Fair – and it was a huge hit. At this very moment, five British publishers were bidding for the UK rights, and publishers from at least ten other countries were keen to translate the book into their own languages.
I’d developed a technique for dealing with bad news – stepping back, slowing thought processes down, trying not to say anything stupid. But good news? Incredibly good news? It was almost impossible to believe our quirky story about loss, love and a small black kitten was being launched into the world.
Now I was fully awake, my mouth was capable of shaping only two words and repeating them again and again. Wow and thanks.
‘You’ve written an international bestseller,’ said Louise. ‘It’ll change your life.’
After I got off the phone, the bedroom shadows seemed to fill with the presence of those I’d tried to honour through the book. Sam and Mum enveloped me with loving warmth, along with Cleo herself. I’d finally found a way to acknowledge the parents, strangers and friends who’d helped us through our loss – along with the man who’d sat with Sam during his final minutes on the roadside. The book had also given me a way to let the driver of the car that had killed our son know that I forgave her at a deep and truthful level.
Stardust
A cat takes on the world
The book Cleo padded softly onto the scene with a launch in a Melbourne bookstore. Among the fifty or so people there, it was wonderful to see some of our dearest friends smiling and generously asking for their copies to be signed. Julie, my yoga teacher, Dave the interior designer, Katharine’s violin teacher . . .
Not so close friends had also dragged themselves away from the early evening news to be there – the shrink who’d helped me through breast cancer; Robert who’d designed my website, though we’d never met.
A wonderful woman I’d made friends with through Lydia’s school, Professor Deirdre Coleman, gave a speech which was so thoughtful and kind I was almost overcome.
Most important was having Philip and our nearly grown-up family there. Rob and Chantelle carried that special glow lovers have. Lydia and Katharine had invited some of their friends along, and were looking especially beautiful.
People sometimes ask how they feel featuring in so much of my writing. All I can say is they’re incredibly generous and tolerant about it. Rob, Lydia and Katharine grew up kn
owing nothing different. They were written about even before they were born, through almost all our ups and downs until the present. I was helped by the fact that for most of their lives they were convinced no one could possibly want to read Mum’s ramblings.
It probably hasn’t been so easy for Philip. It took him a while to adjust to being writer’s fodder, on the understanding he read anything he featured in before it was published.
A week after the Melbourne signing, I flew across to New Zealand for another even more moving launch in Wellington, where much of the book had been set. I was honoured that Louise travelled from Sydney for the event. Both she and Roderick Deane, who’d first encouraged me to write the book several years earlier, gave terrific speeches that were followed by tearful reunions with old friends and neighbours.
With invitations to appear on television and give talks in Australia and New Zealand, it looked like I was no longer destined to live under the middle-aged woman’s invisibility shroud. Maybe I wouldn’t be doing crosswords and watching The Weakest Link until I was carried out of the house in my recliner rocker.
I was half expecting the family to show signs of resentment, but their eyes shone whenever good news about the book came in. And there was plenty of it.
Hurrying to the computer every morning, I could track where the book had just been released by the foreign language emails that had flooded in from readers overnight. Russia and Taiwan one week, Italy the next. I hadn’t realised the Translate function on a computer could be so handy. Cleo’s success was teaching me that people are similar the world over. We cherish our pets and we’d give our lives for our children. Given that humans care so much about the same things, it’s tragic that so much energy is wasted concentrating on our differences.
