Хелен Браун: Cleo

The times we weren’t sure how much longer we could stay together were interspersed with phases of holding on and hoping things might improve for the sake of the boys. Even though we were drifting apart like icebergs on opposing ocean currents, there was absolutely no doubt we both loved them.

“Now, boys,” I said, pulling up outside Lena’s house and heaving the handbrake high as it would go. “Don’t get your hopes up. We’re just going to look.”

They scrambled out of the car and were halfway down the path to Lena’s house before I’d closed the driver’s door. Watching their blond hair catch the sunlight, I sighed and wondered if there’d ever be a time I wouldn’t be struggling to catch up with them.

Lena had opened the door by the time I got there, and the boys were already inside. I apologized for their bad manners. Lena smiled and welcomed me into the enviable tranquillity of her home, which overlooked the playing field where I often took the boys to run off excess energy.

“We’ve just come to look at the…” I said as she escorted me into her living room. “Oh, kittens! Aren’t they adorable?”

In a corner, under some bookshelves, a sleek bronze cat lay on her side. She gazed at me through amber eyes that belonged not to a cat but a member of the aristocracy. Nestled into her abdomen were four appendages. Two were coated with a thin layer of bronze hair. Two were darker. Perhaps once their fur had grown they’d turn out to be black. I’d seen recently born kittens before, but never ones as tiny as these. One of the darker kittens was painfully small.

The boys were on their knees in awe of this nativity scene. They seemed to know to keep a respectful distance.

“They’ve only just opened their eyes,” Lena said, scooping one of the bronze kittens from the comfort of its twenty-four-hour diner. The creature barely fitted inside her hand. “They’ll be ready to go to new homes in a couple of months.”

The kitten squirmed and emitted a noise that sounded more like a yip than a meow. Its mother glanced up anxiously. Lena returned the infant to the fur-lined warmth of its family to be assiduously licked. The mother used her tongue like a giant mop, swiping parallel lines across her baby’s body, then over its head for good measure.

“Can we get one, please, PLEASE?” Sam begged, looking up at me with that expression parents struggle to resist.

“ Please ?” his brother echoed. “We won’t throw mud on Mrs. Sommerville’s roof anymore.”

“You’ve been throwing mud on Mrs. Sommerville’s roof?!”

“Idiot!” Sam said, rolling his eyes and jabbing Rob with his elbow.

But the kittens…and there was something about the mother. She was so self-assured and elegant. I’d never seen a cat like her. She was smaller than an average cat, but her ears were unusually large. They rose like a pair of matching pyramids from her triangular face. Darker stripes on her forehead whispered of a jungle heritage. Short hair, too. My mother always said short-haired cats were clean.

“She’s a wonderful mother, pure Abyssinian,” Lena explained. “I tried to keep an eye on her, but she escaped into the bamboos for a couple of nights a while back. We don’t know who the father is. A wild tom, I guess.”

Abyssinian. I hadn’t heard of that breed. Not that my knowledge of pedigreed cats was encyclopedic. I’d once known a Siamese called Lap Chow, the pampered familiar of my ancient piano teacher, Mrs. McDonald. Our three-way relationship was doomed from the start. The only thing that hurt more than Mrs. McDonald’s ruler whacking my fingers as they fumbled over the keys was Lap Chow’s hypodermic-needle claws sinking into my ankles. Between the two of them they did a good job creating a lifelong prejudice against music lessons and pedigreed cats.

“Some people say Abyssinians are descended from the cats the ancient Egyptians worshipped,” Lena continued.

It certainly wasn’t difficult to imagine this feline priestess presiding over a temple. The combination of alley cat and royalty had allure. If the kittens manifested the best attributes of both parents (classy yet hardy), they could turn out to be something special. If, on the other hand, less desirable elements of royalty and rough trade (fussy and feral) came to the fore in the offspring, we could be in for a roller-coaster ride.

“There’s only one kitten left,” Lena added. “The smaller black one.”

Of course people had gone for the larger, healthier-looking kittens first. The bronze ones probably had more appeal, as they had a better chance of turning out looking purebred like their mother. I’d already decided I preferred the black ones, though not necessarily the runt with its bulging eyes and patchy tufts of fur.

“But the little one seems to have a lot of spirit,” Lena said. “She needs it to survive. We thought we were going to lose her during the first couple of days, but she managed to hold on.”

“It’s a girl?” I said, already stupid with infatuation and incapable of using cat breeder’s language.

“Yes. Would you like to hold her?”

Fearing I’d crush the fragile thing, I declined. Lena lowered the tiny bundle of life into Sam’s hands instead. He lifted the kitten and stroked his cheek with her fur. He’d always had a thing about fur. I’d never seen him so careful and tender.

“You know it’s my birthday soon…” he said. I could guess what was coming next. “Don’t give me a party or a big present. There’s only one thing I want for my birthday. This kitten.”

“When’s your birthday?” Lena asked.

“Sixteenth of December,” said Sam. “But I can change it to any time.”

“I don’t like kittens to leave their mother until they’re quite independent,” she said. “I’m afraid this one won’t be ready until mid February.”

“That’s okay,” said Sam, gazing into the slits of its eyes. “I can wait.”

The boys knew the best thing to do now was to shut up and look angelic. Maybe nurturing a kitten would wean them off war games and tune them into feminine sensibilities. As for Rata, we’d do our best to protect the kitten from such a monstrous dog.

Further debate was pointless. How could I turn down a creature so determined to seize life? Besides, she was Sam’s birthday present.

“We’ll take her,” I said, somehow unable to stop smiling.

A Name

There’s only one correct name for a cat—Your Majesty.

“It’s not fair!” Rob wailed. “He’s getting a kitten and a digital Superman watch for his birthday!”

Lifting the banana cake out of the oven, I burnt the side of my hand and suppressed a curse. The pain was searing, but there was no point yelling. Not with an electric sander drilling my eardrums and the boys on the brink of World War III. I plonked the cake on a cooling rack and glanced out at the harbor.

The risk of living on the fault line was neutralized by the sea view framed by hills stabbing the sky. Who cared if the bungalow had been “renovated” twenty years earlier by a madman who used wood one grade up from cardboard? Wandering over its ivory-colored shag-pile carpet, ignoring the lurid wallpapers, we’d echoed the estate agent’s mantra: “Character…Potential.” Besides, Optimist was my middle name. If the town was hit by a serious earthquake the house would almost certainly plummet off the cliff into the sea, but we’d probably be somewhere else that day. Yes, we’d just happen to be inside one of those downtown skyscrapers built on gigantic rollers specifically designed to endure the earth’s groans.

Steve and I were both hoping our differences would dissolve in the bungalow’s magical outlook. A marriage between two people from opposite sides of the world and whose personalities were as likely to blend as oil and water could surely be crafted into survival here. Besides, Steve was willing to renovate the 1960s renovations, as long as it didn’t cost too much. His latest project, to strip back the paint on all the doors and skirting boards to expose the natural wood grain, was deafening.