Helen Brown - After Cleo

Blessed

I’m not religious but . . .

Suitcases were Jonah’s enemies. To him they were as bad as the big black cats down the street. A suitcase or a backpack meant someone was leaving.

B.P. (Before Prozac) the sight of them had sent him into a frenzy. With tail booffed, he’d sprint up and down the hallway, his meows changing key into pitiful ‘Ne-ooooo!’s.

Anyone who tried to catch him to calm him down would be left in the dust as he shot upstairs and down again. Up down, up down. Don’t go, don’t go . . .

If a bag was left open and partially packed, he’d leap into it, dig in and refuse to budge. Zipped-up luggage ready to go beside the front door was even more vulnerable. Jonah would seize the first opportunity to back up against it, ensuring the owner would take more of our cat away with them than they’d intended.

Managing Jonah’s suitcase phobia had been a challenge. I didn’t want to do anything to tip him back into his bad old ways.

We stored all forms of luggage out of sight these days, in the attic or bulging on top of each other in one of the cupboards of my study. Whenever one of us needed to pack to go away, another family member would divert Jonah’s attention with ribbon, fishing rod or flattery. The traveller would then stealthily remove the suitcase from its hiding place, slide into their bedroom with it and shut the door.

We tried to hide it from him, but Jonah always knew, even A.P. (After Prozac). So it was as Lydia prepared to leave for Sri Lanka again. Shut behind her bedroom door, she folded her modest garments along with gifts for the monks and nuns. We’d had a brief scuffle over a blanket of ugly grey and crimson squares I’d knitted. Originally, it had been made to order for The Homeless through Katharine’s school. Then it turned out The Homeless didn’t want it, so I’d started taking it to yoga. I was briefly affronted when Lydia asked if she could take it to Sri Lanka – until I decided it was a compliment. She wanted to take something of me with her.

Desperate to be let in to Lydia’s room, Jonah went on fast-forward, a Pink Panther on speed. Hurtling around the upstairs family space, he leapt from one window ledge to another, across the sofa backs then down on the floor. He threw himself at her door and stretched a paw up to pat the handle.

When Lydia emerged, a vision in white crowned with a maroon beanie, Jonah lunged at her and begged to be picked up.

‘It’s all right, boy,’ she laughed, holding him like a restless baby. ‘I won’t be far away. I’ll beam you golden light every day.’

Jonah stopped writhing and blinked up at her. Lydia and Jonah seemed to float away on a shared wavelength for a moment or two. Maybe they would be able to communicate in some other dimension while she was absent. Who knows what filtered through her brain during all those hours of meditation? Maybe the same trippy stuff wafted through Jonah’s mind when he dozed on the alpaca rug.

Whenever I’d tried to discuss her religious views with Lydia she still closed me down. The most I could get out of her was that the purpose of Buddhism was to achieve Enlightenment.

If I asked if that’s what she was aiming for – to become Enlightened – she’d clam up. That was when I’d fight an urge to take her by the shoulders, shake her and tell her to stop dreaming. But I’d read enough quasi-spiritual books to know the answer to that one. She’d say it was I who was half awake and locked in the dream.

After Lydia kissed Jonah goodbye, I helped her hoist her backpack on her shoulders. The rosemary hedge brushed our clothes with its oily perfume as we headed down the path. Watching her beanie glide gracefully ahead of me, I wanted to explain I had an inkling of understanding of why she was doing this, even though I wasn’t religious.

She heaved her backpack into the car’s boot.

The car coughed to life. Leonard Cohen bellowed ‘Hallelujah!’ at full volume over the speaker system. I hushed his mouth.

If she’d wanted to hear, I’d have said: I’m not religious but . . .

I always light a candle in old churches in memory of friends who are suffering or loved ones who’ve moved on.

Lydia studied her hands. She was already in another world. It’s always easier being the leaver than the leav-ee.

The motorway unravelled under our wheels. She wasn’t going to change her mind. Not now.

I’m not religious but . . .

Certain places on Earth have incredible atmosphere. In the tomb of St Francis in Assisi I wept tears from a cave somewhere deep inside of me. Maybe some locations are portals. Or imbued with goodness because of the person they’re associated with. Perhaps the bricks and stones become consecrated simply because they remind human beings of the potential for goodness within themselves.

We entered the concrete oesophagus of the airport car park. Finding a place to park was surprisingly easy. But it always is with Lydia on board.

I stood back while Lydia checked herself in at the counter. Passport, customs form. She was an old hand.

I’m not religious but . . .

Even though Sam was killed in 1983, I never lost him. The older I get the more I understand people are never lost. They’re always with us.

Likewise, if you go ahead and became a Buddhist nun in Sri Lanka, I won’t be losing you. Not really.

We stood at the shiny goodbye doors. She kissed my cheek.

‘Why don’t you come and stay at the monastery?’ she asked.

Go to a Third World joint run by a monk who’d caused me so many sleepless nights? And let’s not forget the primitive toilet arrangements, leeches and the rat.

The psychologist had told me to put my health first. I had no intention of disobeying orders.

Surely Lydia knew I only went to places that had fluffy towels.

She had to be joking.

‘You know I’m not religious but . . .’ I said, kissing her back. ‘I’ll think about it.’

Serendipity

If you want to know what to do, ask a cat

The first I ever heard of Sri Lanka was at primary school. The teacher unravelled the wrinkled map that hung over the blackboard and pointed to an island shaped like a teardrop off the coast of India. It was coloured reassuringly pink like most of the world (the important parts, anyhow). Like our own country, it belonged to that eternal force, the British Empire.

‘Ceylon’s famous for tea and these,’ said the teacher, holding up her engagement ring for us all to see. The sparkly blue stone in it was a sapphire, she said.

It wasn’t fair. Ceylon had precious gems. As for tea, there was enough British blood left in our veins to know we’d practically die without it. I was jealous of Ceylon. In New Zealand all we were famous for was mutton and cheese.

Before it was known as Ceylon, the island had the even more romantic name of Serendipity. Straight out of a fairy tale, the word Serendipity has Arabic roots. Oddly enough, Serendipity has been voted one of the ten most difficult words to translate from English. Serendipity happens when a person discovers something they weren’t expecting to find. A happy accident.

Sri Lanka was the opposite of serendipity as far as I was concerned. Since Lydia’s fascination with the place, not to mention tsunamis, war and poverty, I’d thought of the teardrop island as a Land of Tears.

A text bleeped to life on my phone. It was Lydia saying it was raining in Sri Lanka. I sent one back saying the roses were out in our Gratitude Garden.

My days had become full keeping Katharine afloat for her last few weeks of school. The poor kid had pushed herself so hard she’d developed chronic tonsillitis at the beginning of the final term. I’d never seen anyone so sick from a sore throat.