Cat Lady, page 16
‘Stockwell station is a four-minute walk away,’ he tells me. ‘Take a left, then a right, you’ll see it.’
I stumble as I get dressed. Pigeon is at my feet, she wants to leave too. I realise I didn’t even make her a litter tray last night in my drunken state. Hopefully she’ll hold it in until we reach our next destination, wherever that may be. I put her in her carrier.
‘Ajay, I would appreciate it if what happened remained between us,’ I say, in my grown-up voice.
‘You got it, boss,’ he says. He looks terrible. Exhausted, wasted. I’ve seen him look this way at work before, was it because he’d been up all night having weird sex with someone else? Maybe. He puts on some large headphones, sits at his computer and starts playing a strange game. He is quite off his box. I have started to sober up and my presence here feels entirely wrong.
I open the bedroom door slowly and creep out. I am aware Ajay lives with his mother and I am not looking to meet her. I sneak along the landing towards the stairs and step carefully onto the first step, it makes a loud creaking sound. The front door at the bottom looks like an eternity away. I manage to get close to it, then spot the door of what I hope is a downstairs toilet. I really must use it before I go, otherwise I will likely get a UTI. I leave Pigeon in the hall and slip into the bathroom. After I pee, I wash my hands and open the door. Ajay’s giant Staffordshire bull terrier is sitting in the hall, lifting its gums to reveal its teeth and snarling at Pigeon’s carrier.
‘No, back off,’ I whisper loudly, picking Pigeon up and running to the door, but it’s bolted in numerous different places and I can’t get out. I hold Pigeon’s carrier as high as I can, she is meowing with fear, and I am certain the dog will eat us both alive. I have no choice but to scream.
‘AJAY, HELP!’ I yelp like a damsel in distress from a 1920s movie. I press myself into the door, Pigeon’s carrier held high above my head. The dog is jumping up, trying to get to her. It wants to kill us, why does this keep happening?
‘Petal, Petal, get down,’ a woman’s voice shouts. ‘Petal, leave her alone you silly dog.’
The dog retreats and makes different noises. Quieter, gentler.
‘She wouldn’t actually hurt you, she’s all talk,’ she says. She’s wearing a large t-shirt that comes to the top of her thighs. I can see her nipples through it.
‘I think it can smell my cat,’ I say, grateful I didn’t need to use another stick this time.
‘Yeah, I saw you come in with that cat last night.’
‘You saw us last night?’
‘Yes. I was hoping it wasn’t the same girl from last week, she vomited on my carpet.’ Does she mean the girl in the green dress from the event? Was she here? What kind of sex did they have? Proper sex, probably. Not whatever the hell I just did with this woman’s son. I need to get out.
‘I always have to lock up after Ajay, he never remembers. Us girls need to stay safe, don’t we? See dog for details.’ She thinks that’s quite funny.
‘I’m hardly a girl,’ I say, struggling to look her in the eye.
‘Hey look, if I could get a night with a younger man I’d jump at the chance. He’s a good kid.’
The word ‘kid’ makes me want to run for my life. Is this woman – Ajay’s mother – not fazed by me being here at all?
‘So are you divorced or something?’
‘Why would you presume that?’
‘Well, a woman of your age out on the pull. I did the same when my husband left me. I didn’t have much luck though, good for you! I’ve given up now. Get everything I need from crap TV and salty carbohydrates.’
I feel like an absolute trollop and feel the need to explain myself.
‘My husband has been having an affair. I found out the day before yesterday. With his ex-wife. I’m quite upset because I have a stepson who I love very much and a home that I don’t want to leave.’
‘Oh God, that’s shit. I’m sorry. No wonder you needed a night out.’
‘Well yes, exactly. OK, well if you could just let me out …’
She gets some keys from a little bowl.
‘How old are you, out of interest?’ she asks. I really don’t want to talk. But I am in her house and just had sex with her son so appreciate the need to be polite.
‘Forty-five. If you give me the keys, I can do it,’ I say, as she doesn’t seem to feel any urgency to open the door.
‘I have an older sister who is forty-three.’
‘Lovely. Would you mind unlocking the door?’
‘I’m forty-one. I started young. I always liked the idea of my son being with a woman who could be my friend. You’d be like an older sister to me. Mine actually died. Can’t replace her, pointless even trying. Ajay won’t move out, doesn’t want me to be alone.’
‘I’m so sorry. Please, I really need to go.’
‘Oh, yes, of course.’
She finally unlocks the door. She’s so close to me. I think I smell. Of her son. A cocktail of stale man sweat.
‘Your dress is nice. My mum had one like that,’ she says, looking like she means it. ‘Next time you come over maybe we can have a takeaway and watch Gogglebox? I think Ajay and I would be so good on that but you can’t apply, apparently you need to be “discovered”.’
‘I’m sure you’ll be on it one day if that’s what you want.’
She smiles hopefully, as if dreaming of that special day. ‘It’s hard not to get lonely, isn’t it? Ajay’s dad left a few years ago. He was sleeping with my cousin, can you believe it?’
A moment of solidarity. I stop trying to escape for a millisecond. ‘I’m sorry, that must have really hurt.’
‘It did. I thought my life was over. But I kept my house, which he tried to take from me, but I wouldn’t let him do it.’
‘Oh? How?’
‘I just refused to leave. The problem with women is we give away all our power. I don’t know why we do it. We give all of our power to men all the time. I had to take mine back to show Ajay that he can’t treat women that way. Best thing I ever did. He’s good to women, ya know?’
I choose not to tell her about the way he just treated me like a stationery cupboard.
‘Yeah, he’s a good kid,’ she says, obviously very proud. There it is again, the word ‘kid’. I really need to go.
‘Take care,’ I say, stepping back out into the world.
‘Come back anytime,’ she calls after me.
I’m never coming back.
17
It’s my house and I have every right to live in it.
I arrive just after 8 a.m. Oliver will have left for school but either Tristan or Belinda could be home, I really have no idea. And I don’t really care. I put my key in the door and open it. I immediately let Pigeon out and can feel her joy that she is home. She runs straight into the kitchen. I follow. I get food from a cupboard that is bursting with tins for her, fill her bowl and put it on the floor where she has eaten her meals for the past seven years. We both breathe a sigh of relief. I remember that I am solvent and capable. A woman like me does not need to roam the streets. It feels right for us to be here. I realise I have some negotiations to do before we can stay but that is what I intend. To stay. It’s hard to remember, when you are cheated on, that you have actually done nothing wrong and that you don’t deserve to be punished. Events of the past forty-eight hours notwithstanding – no one needs to know about that.
I am tired now. Painfully so. The drugs and alcohol have worn off. The inside of my mouth feels furry, my breath stale. I wash my hands, and realise they were filthy. I find apple juice in the fridge and drink most of it straight from the carton. I take a handful of blueberries, then some nuts and eat them by putting my mouth to my hand, as opposed to the other way around. Quite a few fall to the floor, I don’t bother picking them up. I run the tap and put my head under it, allowing the water to run through my hair, across my face. I rub my hands over my cheeks, working hard on my solid eyelashes. I hang there for a minute, over the kitchen sink, drenching my head, washing away whatever debris I have collected. I exhale loudly. A mix of exhaustion and relief.
‘Jesus, Mia, I thought you were a burglar!’ I hear Tristan say as water pours in and out of my ears. I turn my head to the side and there he is, standing a few feet away from me holding a baseball bat. I turn the tap off and stand up, my wet hair now soaking my dress, my legs, the floor. Tristan puts down the bat and instead grabs a hand towel. ‘Here. Use this. Where have you been?’
‘Here and there.’
‘Here and there? What does that mean? And what have you got on?’
‘A kaftan.’
‘Why are you wearing it?’
‘Because it was my mother’s. You’ve never asked me about her by the way, she’s dead.’
‘I know that. You didn’t return my messages.’
‘She died of cancer. I watched it happen. I sat with her because my dad refused to come in the room.’
‘Have you come to collect your things?’
‘When she died I had to call for the ambulance to take her away. Me, a nine-year-old girl. Making the call: “Hello, my mother has died. Please can you take her away.”’
‘Mia, you don’t seem well at all.’
‘I’m not well, Tristan. I have had a really difficult life, why have you never asked me about it?’
‘You didn’t bring it up. Have you come home to collect your things?’
‘No Tristan, I have come to go to bed. If you all choose to stay, then so be it. I will be in my room, with my cat. I am not leaving. I am no stranger to feeling uncomfortable in my own home. I’m quite good at it, actually. My dad emotionally abused my sister and me. You’ve never asked me about that either.’
‘Again, you never brought it up.’
‘I told you once that I was kicked out when I was sixteen and you said, “What did you do wrong?”’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ he says, still thinking I am the crazy one.
‘My father kicked me out when I was sixteen and you blamed me.’
‘OK, Mia, we could be here all day with you blaming me for everything. Belinda is moving in in a few days. You can’t just …’
‘I’m not leaving.’
I walk past my husband and go to the bathroom. Pigeon follows me. There are women’s products around the sink that aren’t mine. That didn’t take long. I turn the shower on, Pigeon gets in it as she always does and flies out when the water is hot. I take off my mother’s dress but don’t put it into the laundry basket with everyone else’s. I don’t want to wash it. I stand naked in front of the mirror. I look unwell. My toothbrush has gone. I use Tristan’s.
The shampoo bar that I use isn’t in the shower. Instead, there are multiple plastic bottles of synthetic-based products. I use everything that’s there and as much of it as I want. I slather my sore body up with coconut-flavoured foam. I let the suds run between my legs and wipe clean until I squeak. I raise one arm at a time and rid myself of the smell that’s been following me for a few days now. I use a pink razor that is not mine to shave my armpits and my legs. I take Belinda’s scrub and remove the top layer of skin from my face with it. I use her conditioner for straight hair, even though mine is curly. I sit down on the shower floor and gently clean my feet. They are black with bruises and have large blisters and cuts all over them. Red water runs down the drain. I rest my back against the side of the shower and let water hit me from above. Life can take a bad turn very quickly. It’s hard to remember who I was this time last week. I rest my head back and let warm water run down my face.
‘Mia. Mia open up.’ I hear banging. Tristan is hammering on the door. ‘Mia, are you OK? Come on Mia, answer me or I will have to kick in the door.’
‘I’m OK. I’ll be out soon,’ I say, waking up. The shower still pouring down on me. My body slumped at the base. I stand slowly and turn the shower off. I dry myself. I open the door.
‘This won’t work,’ Tristan says as I walk past him in a towel, holding my dirty clothes.
‘Well, I’m afraid it will have to.’
I walk straight to my room and shut the door. I put on a pair of pyjamas. I gather all of the bedding from my bed and walk straight out of my room and up the stairs with it. I drop it onto the floor of Oliver’s room and remove all the bedding from his bed. I throw it down the stairs, followed by his mattress. I then go back to my bedroom and drag the mattress off my bed and heave it up the stairs. I repeat this with multiple items. Swapping Oliver’s things for mine until I have everything I need. For now. Tristan is dumbstruck and just stands there telling me to stop but doing nothing significant to make that happen. I go head first into the cupboard under the stairs and drag out a black sackful of leopard-print throws that I once wanted to decorate the living room with, but which Belinda referred to as ‘whoreish’. I throw the bag up the stairs. I then go to the kitchen and get two tote bags from under the sink. I fill one with food from the cupboards, including some food for Pigeon. I fill the other with bottles of carbonated water. I take a roll of kitchen paper, a plate, a knife and fork. I take it all up to the master bedroom. The last thing I take up is Pigeon’s litter tray. I now have everything I need to survive for a few days and don’t plan to come out until then.
‘Mia, you’re crazy.’
I walk right up to my husband’s face. ‘We’re all crazy.’
I go up the stairs. Pigeon follows me. I shut the door and pull a desk across it so it can’t be opened. I spread the cat-print throws over the bed, floor and chair. I strip. I crawl onto the bed and fall asleep immediately, holding my mother’s dress.
18
It’s early evening, I feel like I’ve been in my cave for days – and maybe I have – and now my phone is flashing with a reminder for the pet bereavement group. It must be Tuesday.
I don’t want Tristan and Belinda to know I am going out, so I climb down from the balcony, onto the garage roof, and jump down onto the soft grass of our front lawn. Pigeon watches me through the bathroom window like a human might watch an Olympic athlete. She seems enthralled by my skill. I suppose in the cat world that level of agility is highly commendable. Any human would be less impressed by the way I flopped from post to post. Not to mention how as my feet hit the ground, followed by hands, I realised that I’d forgotten to wash my face, to tie up my hair, or put on a bra. Getting back up requires more skill than I am capable of, so here I am. Looking like shit. Off to group therapy regardless.
I needed the group in some vague, hard-to-decipher way before, but now I need them like my life depends on it. I belong in that group, with Martha, Tiana, Greg, Ada and Lee. My husband could put his penis into ten thousand marshmallows, and I’d still show up on Tuesdays.
I also need to know that they are doing OK after the article. Did they even see it? Surely not everyone reads the Metro. I’ve read it so many times now I could quote it verbatim. I’ve found myself wondering how Nicole could sit there and lie. And how did she observe me so accurately? How did she see the cat lady beneath, like my skin is made of clingfilm and my skull is made of glass? Did the rest of them see it too?
A woman on the Tube asks me if I’m all right. She just sees a woman in a heap and presumes the worst. Fair enough. I tell her my husband cheated on me. She rolls her eyes knowingly, says ‘Fucking arseholes’ and gets off the train at the next stop. How many of us are there?
I deliberately arrive three minutes late to avoid attention. It occurs to me that maybe members of my staff arrive late at the office for the same reasons. If I could go back, I’d try to do better at dealing with that. Rather than just feeling anger towards people for bad behaviour, I’d question why they are acting that way in the first place. If someone had told me a few weeks ago that I’d be unemployed and under bedroom arrest I’d never have believed it. Turns out we can all be a bit shit when things get rough. Not judging people is so incredibly hard. Maybe that’s why people like Tiana need to go through training. Anti-judgement training. Not many people would pass.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ I say, walking in. They all glance up to say hello then look notably horrified when they see me.
‘No problem, Mia,’ Tiana says, exercising her professionalism to the best of her abilities. In another world she would have screamed, ‘WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU LOOK LIKE?’ But in here, it’s just a polite nod. Skills.
The atmosphere in the room is morose. Everyone is here minus Nicole, of course. No one new. Is that because of the terrible press the pet bereavement groups got this week? Who would want to associate themselves with us?
Martha has her hat on again – hiding behind the clothes she wears. Ada is wearing a red velvet tracksuit. Still vibrant, but less than usual. Greg looks no different, maybe more relaxed, happier. Which is odd. Lee is wearing the same clothes. His stubble now a beard, he doesn’t have red watery eyes today, but he looks even more gentle than usual. Something is off, I can feel it.
‘Welcome again,’ Tiana says, holding her cup of tea with both hands. ‘No new faces. That’s OK.’ She has a nervousness about her. Not as unshakable as usual. ‘Mia, would you like to begin?’
‘I have so much to say, I don’t know where to start … I’ve had a terrible week,’ I say.
‘We see that,’ Ada nods, probably referring to my appearance. I know her better now than to be offended. ‘What happened, love?’
‘My husband has been having an affair with his ex-wife.’
Ada stands up and kicks the air. ‘What is it with men?’
‘It’s OK, Ada,’ says Tiana. ‘Let’s let Mia tell us more.’
Ada sits back down, but now she’s riled, huffing loudly and clearly agitated. I don’t mind, it’s nice that someone cares.
‘I am the managing director of a jewellery brand. I’d been to a pitch at Selfridges with my boss, a woman called Isabella who, if I am honest, I don’t like very much and don’t think is very good at running a business.’ I lose track of where I’m going, take a deep breath.
