Kate Thompson - That Gallagher Girl

Cat hated registers, as she hated all manner of form-filling. She couldn’t get her head round the bureaucracy, any more than she could understand why she had to divulge all kinds of personal stuff to the faceless penpushers who processed the info. Who wanted to know this stuff about her? Why did they want to know it? What was in it for them, and why did they have to make life so unnecessarily, so infuriatingly complicated?

Raoul had offered to help her complete an application form once, for a mobile phone contract, but when she got a load of the stuff you’d need to get one – ID, utility bills, bank account details – she had despaired, and opted for a pay-as-you-go instead.

That pay-as-you-go sounded now, alerting her to a text. She knew who the sender was without having to consult the display. Raoul was the only person in the world who knew her number.

Where are you, Catkin? she read.

In a gud place, she texted back.

Be more specific.

On a roof in lisamor.

I should have guessed. Tin?

No but it is hot.

I like it. Keep your phone turned on. I have news for you.

OK.

News. Good. She hoped it had to do with the house-sitting gig he’d told her about.

A couple of academics, friends of Raoul’s in Galway, were taking a year’s sabbatical in New Mexico, and they needed someone to dust their books and water their marijuana plants and play with their dog while they were away. The house in question was near the village of Kilrowan, and came complete with river views and a light-filled conservatory that Cat could use as a studio. It was ideal, Raoul had told her and – more importantly – it was timely, for since Cat had become a person of no fixed abode, money had become a problem.

She had phoned her father to tell him to stop sending her allowance to the houseboat and that she’d alert him to her new address as soon as she knew it herself. She was chancing her arm, she knew: she was nineteen now, and past the age when she could expect any kind of parental support. But, hey: she was Hugo’s only daughter, she’d been motherless from the age of fourteen, and since the only affection she had ever received from her father had been of that maudlin variety that alcoholics bestow capriciously and indiscriminately, the very least he could do was cough up a few bob to keep her off the streets. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford it.

Her phone rang.

‘Raoul! You punk! It’s been ages since you called.’

‘I could say the same thing about you, little sister.’

‘I can’t afford to make calls. You know that. How are you? How’s your new lady? Tell me everything.’

Her questions went unanswered. ‘I’ve bad news, Cat.’

‘Shit.’ Cat furled herself into a sitting position and reached for her sarong. ‘What’s up?’

‘Your house-sitting gig’s gone to a more deserving cause.’

‘A more deserving cause! Is that some kind of joke? Whose cause could be more deserving than mine? I’m homeless and broke.’

‘I’m sorry, Cat. Their nephew’s volunteered to do it. He’s just been made redundant.’

Cat looked up at the sky, narrowing her eyes against the sun, and watched a tern plummet seaward. ‘Bummer,’ she said. ‘I kinda liked the idea of living in a house with a conservatory.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘On a roof in Lissamore. I told you in my text.’

‘Whose roof?’

‘I dunno whose roof it is. It belongs to one of those great big holiday villas that were being built all over the place when we Irish thought we were millionaires.’

‘Posh?’

‘Yeah. But it looks like no one’s been near it for yonks, so I decided to breathe a little life into the joint.’

‘How long have you been there?’

Cat considered. ‘A week. Maybe longer. What day is it?’

‘Friday. How did you get in?’

‘How do you think? That right-angled screwdriver you gave me has proved mighty handy, Raoul.’

She heard him sigh in her ear. ‘OK, sweetheart. You’ve had your fun. Don’t you think it’s time you went home and did some thinking about your future?’

‘Home? Where’s that?’

‘The Crooked House.’

‘Don’t make me laugh, Raoul. That ain’t my home any more than it’s yours.’

‘Then come to Galway.’

‘I’m not moving in with you, bro.’

‘Then what the hell are you going to do? You said it yourself – you’re homeless and broke.’

Cat got to her feet, yawned and stretched. ‘I guess I’ll have to do that poste restante thing,’ she said, strolling to the parapet and looking down, ‘and get Dad to send cash to the post office here until I find myself some kind of fixed abode.’

‘Cash? Hugo sends you cash? I thought it was cheques?’

‘No. It’s always been cash. Sure, what would I do with a cheque when I’ve no bank account?’

‘Nobody deals in cash nowadays, Cat! How does he send it?’

‘Like the way you would to a kid on their birthday. In a card. He even managed to find a Hallmark one once that had “To a Special Daughter” on it. That made me fall about.’

On the other end of the phone, she heard Raoul sigh again. He must be thinking – he always sighed when he was thinking hard.

‘Has he upped it?’

‘Upped what?’

‘The money he sends you?’

‘No. It’s still a hundred a week.’

‘And that’s all you’ve been living off?’

Cat shrugged. ‘It’s plenty. Sure, I had no rent to pay on the houseboat, and what would I spend money on apart from food and art materials?’

‘Most nineteen-year-olds would have an answer to that.’

‘Maybe. I don’t know any nineteen-year-olds, so I don’t know how they spend their money.’

‘They spend it on clothes. Music. Games.’

‘Clothes.’ Cat looked down at the sarong wrapped around her nakedness. ‘Hm. Maybe I could use a few new clothes. My boots are in bits, and some fucker stole my jacket.’

‘What fucker?’

‘The fucker who set fire to my paintings. He probably thought there was stuff in the pockets.’

‘Did he get anything?’

‘A little cash. Twenty euro, maybe.’

‘No cards? No ID?’

‘I don’t have any cards. Or ID. Apart from that fake student one.’

‘You’ve still no passport?’

‘I’ve never needed one, Raoul.’

‘We’ll have to remedy that, Catkin. You gotta see some of the world.’

‘Right now, this corner of the world suits me fine.’

Beyond the parapet, the dark blue line of the horizon stretched from east to west, dividing sea from sky and trailing a cluster of cabochon emerald islands in its wake. Cat had been painting variations on this view for the past six days, including, as she always did, a little self-portrait. Her minxy self – Catgirl – diving off a pier, or dancing down a sand dune, or shimmying up a drumlin. Having run out of canvas, and with no money to buy more, she’d taken to cutting old rolls of wallpaper into twelve-by-eighteen-inch rectangles.

‘Anyway, seeing the world costs money, bro,’ she resumed. ‘And that brings us nicely to where we came in. I’m going to have to phone Hugo and beg.’

‘Have you spoken to him recently?’ Raoul asked.

‘Dad? Are you mad? No.’

‘He’s not well, Cat.’

‘Of course he’s not well. He’s a raving alcoholic.’

‘It’s worse than that. He’s not painting.’

‘He’s blocked?’

‘Either that, or he’s burnt out.’

‘Oo-er. That is bad news.’

Cat leaned on the parapet and watched the progress of a tiny spider crawling along a fissure in the concrete. A money spider! Maybe if she turned her hand over, it would cross her palm and bring her luck? She crooked a forefinger, to coax it in the right direction.