Helen Brown - After Cleo

Over the following days, Jonah became a quieter, more amiable cat. The spraying stopped almost immediately. I started trusting him enough to let him back into rooms he’d been banned from during daylight hours (though not enough to unravel the piano’s cling wrap protection). He spent most of the day in the living room, dozing in the sun on top of the alpaca rug. While he still ran to greet people at the door and jumped at sudden noises, he was altogether calmer and easier to live with. We were happier. He was more content in himself.

The person I’d expected to voice the most disapproval of the new drug regime was Lydia. I thought she’d urge me to seek some other psychic or maybe an animal shaman. But she’d been working in a psychiatric ward lately. Medication, she said, could change lives.

Hoping we were on the brink of a new, odour-free life I embarked on a full-scale house clean. With her impeccable nose, Katharine helped me discover tiny spots on the skirting boards and stair rails that I’d missed before.

We were ready for a new phase.

Sainthood

If your daughter wants to cling to an altar, don’t fight it

Lydia sailed through end-of-year university exams in October. I assumed she’d keep her care-giving work going through summer before embarking on her final year of Psychology in March. It was a great plan. I was perplexed when her response to my cheerleading was lukewarm.

Philip, Katharine, Jonah and I were watching Big Bang Theory one evening when Lydia hovered at the door to say goodnight. Television was too crass for her. I respected that. She was going upstairs to commune with higher energies. As she turned to go, I noticed she was still wearing the same maroon beanie – the one I’d knitted with leftover wool ages ago.

‘You don’t have to wear that hat night and day do you?’ I asked.

‘Not really,’ she said, slowly pulling off her beanie. ‘Though it does get rather cold.’

The noise of the television faded to a murmur. The living room walls turned grey. Philip’s hand froze on Jonah’s back. Our mouths dropped open in unison. My beautiful, feminine daughter was completely bald. Her face seemed unaccountably small without its usual frame of hair.

She’d been looking so pretty lately. We’d been buying good shampoo. I’d lent her my hair dryer and heard its reassuring roar every morning.

‘Your hair!’ I finally choked.

I wondered if she was making a statement – or if it was something more worrying.

‘Cool!’ chirped Katharine, the eternal mood smoother. ‘Did it hurt?’

Lydia shook the pale boiled egg that was her head. The old volcano of anxiety rumbled in my gut.

Whatever the cause or her intentions, I knew overreaction would be futile. Any explosion on my part would push her further in whatever direction it was she was toying with.

‘Wow!’ said Katharine, patting her sister’s scalp. ‘How did you do it?’

‘I borrowed an electric razor.’

‘Did someone help you?’ Kath asked.

‘No. Did it myself.’

‘ Whose electric razor?’ I asked stupidly.

‘Just a friend’s,’ Lydia replied blankly, clearly indicating further questioning wasn’t welcome. I imagined curtains of her glossy golden hair dropping to the floor of Just A Friend’s flat.

‘Lots of boys have electric razors, don’t they, Lyds?’ Katharine cajoled.

‘Was it Ned’s razor?’ I asked, almost hopeful she was seeing him again.

‘No, he’s getting married.’

Just as I began conjuring up the possibility that she’d shaved her head in reaction to his upcoming nuptials, Lydia read my mind. She told me not to worry. She was relieved, in fact happy, that he’d found someone else.

The last time I’d seen the full shape of her head had been when she was a baby after she’d shed the first dark fluff she’d been born with. Her head was pretty then, rounded and curved in gracefully over the back of her neck, ears daintily tucked in at the sides. But even then, I’d waited eagerly for her hair to grow.

Now my daughter’s head glistened under the halogen lights. I was reminded of the Ancient Egyptian statue of Nefertiti. She looked so . . . vulnerable.

‘Are you doing it for a fundraiser?’ I asked, trying to sound casual.

‘No. I’m going back to the monastery.’

The sentence hit me like a landslide. Lydia and I had grown closer through my illness and building the garden together. Even though I’d been nervous about the intensity of her spiritual aspirations, I understood them on some levels. But this announcement summoned all my old fears of losing her and, worse, Lydia losing herself.

Philip showed no emotion. Jonah blinked up at her from his lap. Katharine became suddenly engrossed in an outdated magazine.

My daughter was bald, devout and heading to a monastery for the third time. It could only mean one thing.

‘You’ve decided to become a nun?’ I asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ she answered. ‘I just want to see how it feels for a while.’

I asked what she meant by ‘a while’. A few weeks? Months? A lifetime?

She said she wasn’t sure. Again. How I loathed those words.

‘Can’t you wait till you’ve finished your degree?’ I asked.

‘I can do that any time,’ she replied offhandedly.

I’d thought her rebellion phase was over. If there was anyone behind this I knew who it had to be. That monk. Why couldn’t she be honest with me?

Trying to assemble my emotions, I wondered what she was thinking. Caring for disabled people and vegetarianism were fine and admirable. Shaving her head and becoming a Buddhist nun was a step beyond the realms of normality. Was she aiming to become a Generation-Y saint?

I’d been researching saints. They tend to come from middle-class families. Buddha himself, Saint Francis of Assisi and his sidekick St Clare were raised in comfortable homes. They’d all rejected the abundance their parents had provided.

St Clare’s parents were devastated when she refused to marry. Their anguish is recorded on a fresco in the church dedicated to St Clare in Assisi. While the facial expressions aren’t particularly informative (apart from one nun glowering at St Clare’s mother), the title says it all – ‘Clare clinging to the altar to prevent her family bringing her back home.’

It would be the same for us if we tried to drag Lydia away from her altar of choice.

Gazing at our bald daughter, I tried to dredge positives out of the anxiety. Number one consolation was that the Sri Lankan civil war was over. The likelihood of her being in mortal danger had reduced. Bizarre as it seemed, at the age of just twenty-five Lydia was already a seasoned traveller who knew how to avoid trouble. Going by the phone calls I’d overheard, she had reasonable mastery of Sinhalese. Her teacher and the nuns would be meeting her at the airport and taking her straight to the monastery, which she knew well.

And if this strong-minded young woman really wanted to shut herself away from the world for the rest of her life on some remote island, I couldn’t stop her.

Weariness washed over me. Truth to tell, I’d run out of fight. There was no point railing against the more outrageous aspects of our daughter – nor, for that matter, our cat. All I could do was live my life – and allow them the freedom to do the same.

Besides, Lydia had helped celebrate and soothe me through all the changes I’d been through recently. It was time I stepped back and accepted she was a woman in her own right.

‘Well . . .’ I said, sensing the others were waiting for me to explode in one of my old-time tirades. ‘If you want to be a nun, and it’s the right thing for you, I won’t say I’m over the moon but I’ll fully support you.’