Хелен Браун - Cleo

When I transplanted the rubber plant into an ugly orange plastic tub its confidence surged. It sprouted dark-green branches the size of Frisbees and sent feelers trailing creepily around picture frames and across curtain rails. Technically more a tree these days, the darned thing had ambitions to engulf the entire suburb. I’d tried cutting it back with a pair of hedge clippers, but that only encouraged it to swamp the sideboard.

About a meter away from the plant’s orange tub Cleo paused. Her ears and whiskers pointed forwards. Her nose twitched as if she was sampling some dangerous perfume. She crouched and, with the stealthy determination of a lion stalking an antelope, eyed her prey—a pendulous leaf dangling from one of the lower branches. Quivering on her haunches, she waited for the moment the leaf would be least suspecting. Satisfied her prey was foolishly absorbed in leafy thoughts, she attacked furiously, claws exposed, teeth perforating the startled victim’s skin.

Then something strange happened. It began with a noise, unfamiliar at first, a soft gurgle followed by vague hiccuping. Our mouths widened, the soft tissue at the back of our throats went into spasm, but not for crying this time. Laughter. Rob and I were laughing . For the first time in weeks we reveled in the simplest, most complex healing technique known to humanity. Grief had pulled me so deeply into its dungeon I’d forgotten about laughing. It took a boy, his kitten and a rubber plant to engage me in a function essential to human sanity. The horror of past weeks dissolved, padlocks of pain were unlocked momentarily. We laughed.

In the Cleo versus rubber-plant leaf war, there was no doubt who was winning. The leaf was twice Cleo’s size and firmly attached to the plant’s trunk. Every time she tried to grip the vegetation between her claws it slipped away and bounced insolently skyward again.

“She’s a gutsy little thing,” I said.

The kitten suddenly stopped and collapsed on her haunches. She looked up at us and emitted a dictatorial mew. No interpreter was needed. Cleo was tired of entertaining us. She demanded to be scooped up for more cuddles. A mournful howl from the kitchen reverberated through the wall, reminding us it was time for Cleo to meet the lady of the house.

I instructed Rob to let Rata out of the kitchen while I held on to Cleo. But what if the dog lunged at the kitten and tried to eat it? Adult muscle strength would be needed to restrain the dog. The only option was to instruct Rob to hold the kitten carefully while I brought Rata in.

Overjoyed to be released from kitchen confinement, Rata showered me with saliva. She was seemingly oblivious of my prison-warden’s grip on her collar.

“Now girl, there’s someone we’d like you to meet,” I said, sounding like a dentist introducing a first timer to the drill. “There’s nothing to worry about, but you’ll have to be very gentle.”

The golden retriever knew exactly where we were going. Like a jet boat with a water-skier in tow, she dragged me into the living room. Rob stood by the window anxiously clutching Cleo close to his chin. Rata took one glimpse of the kitten and tightened every muscle under her collar. Cleo’s eyes widened to become a pair of glittering jewels. The kitten puffed her patchy tufts of fur out to double her size, though she was still hardly big enough to intimidate a chihuahua. She arched her back and flattened her ears. Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, Rata barked, puncturing the air like gunshots. The poor little kitten was going to die of terror.

Any normal animal outclassed in size would have recoiled into Rob’s arms, but Cleo was no common beast. Glowering down from her human fortress, she shrank her pupils to pinpoints and lasered out enough malevolence to intimidate the entire canine empire. She then peeled back her mouth, exposed two parallel rows of fangs—and hissed.

Rob, Rata and I froze. Frighteningly primeval, Cleo’s hiss was something a python would emit before swallowing a rabbit, a hiss worthy of Cleopatra herself. It was an imperial hiss, one not to be argued with.

Rata fumbled under her collar and collapsed on her haunches. Shocked at the kitten’s ferocity, the retriever hung her head and studied the floor. The old dog seemed disappointed, confused.

Then it struck me. I’d been misreading Rata’s signals all along. Her jumping at Lena by the front door had been a welcome, not an attack. The growl just now had been one of friendly excitement, the bark an invitation to play. Rata’s feelings had been wounded not only by me misinterpreting her intentions but by a stroppy kitten not much bigger than her front paw.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Bring Cleo over here.”

Nursing Cleo in his arms, Rob walked cautiously to our side of the room. Rata gazed up at the kitten with an expression so soft and kind it could have been stolen from Mother Teresa. Nevertheless, I maintained the grip on her collar.

“See? Rata doesn’t hate the kitten. She’s just not sure how to make friends. Put Cleo down and see what she thinks. I won’t let Rata go.”

Rob took several steps backwards and lowered Cleo to the floor. The kitten stood on all fours and blinked at her monumental housemate. Rata tilted her head, pricked her ears and whined tenderly as Cleo advanced steadily towards her. When the kitten finally reached Rata’s front paws, Cleo stopped and glimpsed up at the monstrous dog face towering above her. She then turned around twice, curled up like a caterpillar and snuggled between Rata’s giant feet.

Our retriever trembled with delight at being recognized for the super nanny she was. Not since the boys were babies had I seen her so bursting with maternal instinct. In the way she’d been utterly protective with our children, I knew Rata would be equally trustworthy with the kitten.

Ours weren’t the only hearts that had been mashed to pulp. Whatever dog-deciphering system Rata had access to, there was no doubt she knew what had happened to Sam. In some ways Rata’s grief had been more consummate than ours. Without the release of language and tears, she could only lie on the floor and will the hours away. Pats and tender words from us seemed to provide only momentary comfort. But the kitten had rekindled something in the old dog. Perhaps Rata’s heart was resilient enough to open up one last time.

As I let go of her collar her tongue unfurled like a ceremonial flag. Without a twitch of uncertainty, the young intruder succumbed to being lovingly slurped over from tail to nose and back again.

“Where’s Cleo sleeping tonight?” Rob asked.

“We’ll set up a bed for her in the laundry. I’ll fill a hot-water bottle to keep her warm.”

“We can’t do that! She’ll be missing her brothers and sisters. She’ll have nightmares. I want her to sleep with me.”

Rob hadn’t mentioned the words “missing” and “brother” in the same sentence since 21 January. Nevertheless, the Superman watch stayed glued to his wrist. During daylight hours Rob gave a surprisingly good impression of a child enjoying a trauma-free life. Nights were a different matter. Tortured by dreams of being chased by a monster in a car, he slept fitfully on the mattress in a corner of our bedroom.

“There isn’t room for all three of us and a kitten in our bedroom,” I said. “Besides, Cleo’s probably going to make a fuss the first few nights while she’s settling in.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “She can sleep with me in my old bedroom.”

The bedroom Rob and Sam had shared still sat empty. We’d bundled up Sam’s clothes and toys and dumped them in a school charity recycle bin on an afternoon so surreal in its hideousness I’d felt like a figure in a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. After that we’d done the expected thing and set about giving the room a makeover. Steve painted the walls sunshine yellow. I sewed some Smurf curtains and pinned up a Mickey Mouse poster. Steve nailed together a kit-set bed and stained it red. I bought bright new covers. But for all its primary-colored dazzle the revamp hadn’t made a cat’s hair of difference to Rob. I’d envisaged him sleeping in the corner of our bedroom until his twenty-first birthday and beyond.