Lee Rourke - Vulgar Things

I grip on to clumps of grass, as if I’m holding on to the entire earth, thankful to the force of gravity for keeping me from drifting off into space. I grip on to the clumps of grass as tightly as I can, just in case it all goes wrong and things begin to fall; in case we’re all suddenly flung off, in some massive jolt, some crack, all of us spewed out into the cosmos. I hang on for dear life; convinced in doing so I’ll remain rooted, firmly attached to this rock, while everything else unfixed shoots past me, out into the vastness, a great surge of things disappearing in an incredible whoosh.

This sudden sense of ill-ease is eventually soothed somewhat by the well-timed appearance of a cat, sniffing my stick. I didn’t notice it at first and it made me jump. I let go of the clumps of grass, which in turn startles the cat. It skips off towards another tree to my right. From the safety of this tree the cat, a tabby, observes me, assessing if I’m a threat, something with food, or just something odd to look at for a short while. I call out to it.

‘Phssst phssst phssst.’

Nothing. I call out to it again.

‘Phssst phssst phssst.’

It decides to saunter over to me. I hold out my fingers for it to sniff before it decides I’m okay. The cat circles me a couple of times, meowing back to me, and then curls up by my side, all sleepy, purring, ready for a nap. It makes me feel like napping too, but I know this could be disastrous, so I straighten my back and make sure that I can see all the houses on Toledo Road. I count ten in total. Ten houses that she could be in. Although some of them could be divided up into flats, which would make things a tad more complicated. It still seems feasible, though. I feel content that I’ll find her at some point. I stroke the cat and wait for her to appear. While the cat begins to doze I gently look at the name tag on its collar. It’s called Homer. I wonder if it’s named after the father of the Simpsons or after Homer the Greek poet. I smile and hope it’s the latter, but something intrinsic tells me it’s most probably the former. In any case, it doesn’t really matter. It’s a lovely little cat, hanging around with nothing to do like the rest of us.

Homer begins to purr loudly now. It’s a sound I’ve always loved. I grew up in a house without pets. It wasn’t until later on in life, when I moved in with my then partner, before the marriage and all that followed, that I began to understand the need for domestic pets. It took me a while, to be honest. She had a cat. At first, I would simply keep my distance, but slowly and surely it won me over with what I now recognise are universal cat tricks. It wasn’t long before I began to allow the cat to sleep next to me at night, when my partner was away on long business trips. It was only then that I appreciated the comfort of a cat’s purr: that shared primordial moment, the feeling of complete and utter oneness, contentedness with everyone and everything. The whole universe purrs when cats are happy, I’m sure of that.

stranded

I must have dozed off, too, because suddenly Homer isn’t here any more and the air around me is busier and colder, and the traffic on Queensway to my immediate left is louder, too. I stand up, my bones creaking and my legs stiff. I lean on my stick and check the time on my phone. I am angry with myself, even though I’ve only been asleep for about ten to twenty minutes. I know that anything could have happened in that amount of time. She could have come and gone from any one of those ten houses, she could have been bundled into a waiting car, walked her dog on the grass verge all around me, screamed for help from her bedroom window, anything, and I’ll have missed it. I want to shout out, to swing my stick at something, but I think better of it. Maybe I haven’t missed her? Maybe she’s at any one of those windows this very moment, looking down at the big cherry tree above me, at the entire grass verge, at me? Wondering to herself why the man from the pier, or the creek if she saw me, or the pub, is now sleeping on the grass verge across from her house? Maybe that’s what has been happening while I’ve been asleep?

I look at each of the houses, staring in through the windows to see if I can detect any movement, any signs of life. It’s no good, it’s too light, each window is like a mirror, reflecting back a wash of green and grey. I stand here, my stick sinking into the grass under my weight. I need to be less conspicuous, to hide from view, but there’s nowhere to hide. It’s like I’m stranded. A scrap of litter, detritus buffeted from pillar to post.

signalling

Now I’m distracted by the same thin layer of grey cloud above me again, separating me from everything else beyond it, shielding me, keeping me rooted, covering me like a protective blanket. I want to pull it down from the sky and wrap it around my shoulders, take it with me wherever I go. When I look back over to the row of houses something has changed dramatically: she’s standing there, on the doorstep of the house with the big brown door about to shut behind her. It’s her. It looks like her. The same hair and eyes, the same beautiful face, the same languid stance. I’m sure it’s her, my very own Laura. I name her on the spot, without hesitation. It seems natural to do so. My beautiful Laura standing before me. My heart’s thumping now. It really is, I’m not just thinking this, I can feel it in my chest. I stand perfectly still, my grip tightening around my stick. She walks down onto the street, shutting the garden gate behind her. I walk down the other side of the grassy slope, towards her road, skipping over the iron railings, about ten metres behind her. I follow her up to the lights and over Queensway, onto York Road, heading up what used to be the steep right-hand bank of the river looking southwards towards the estuary.

Halfway up York Road, just before the car park on the right, opposite the row of Chinese cultural centres and restaurants, a man shouts out from a window in one of the many drop-in centres, hostels or halfway houses at this end of the road. Laura waves at him, signalling for him to come out and speak with her. I hold back just out of view, behind some parked cars. The man appears across the road, dressed in a pair of jogging bottoms, white trainers and nothing else. He’s muscular but skinny, covered in scars and tattoos, some of which are clearly prison tattoos. He swaggers towards her with both hands down the front of his jogging bottoms, a smile revealing both blackened and missing teeth. She hugs him when he reaches her, they both laugh about something, gesticulating wildly, then her face becomes serious. From where I am watching it looks like he begins to act out some kind of fight or altercation, some kind of attack or beating that it looks like he might have been involved in. He’s feigning kicks and punches, laying in to an imaginary figure, demonstrating how someone, maybe him, smashed something, a bottle maybe, over someone’s head. She remains stoic throughout the anecdote. When he finishes whatever it is he’s saying she gives him another hug and walks away, while he swaggers to his front door, just up from me on the other side of York Road. He tucks his hands down the front of his jogging bottoms. I’m not sure, but I think he glances over at me before shouting something to her in a thick local accent, something about her ‘nice arse’. She turns around, laughing, and gives him the Vs, a big smile spreading across her beautiful face. I begin to walk after her again. I want to turn back and hit him with my stick. I feel nauseous thinking about what he might very well have done to someone recently, and the way he shouted after her and the way she responded turns my stomach. She’s too beautiful for someone like him. I can’t believe that someone as beautiful as her could know someone like him. It just doesn’t make sense. It sickens me. It really sickens me to the core.