Cat Lady, page 21
‘I suppose I convinced myself that I don’t need anyone. It’s easier that way.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s lonely that way. You surround yourself with people who call you crazy and you’ve learned to believe it yourself. You’re no crazier than any of them.’ She frowns, as if talking is getting too hard. ‘Forgiveness, compassion, kindness and love. It’s easier than you think.’
‘You sound like a greeting card.’
I take a glass of water from the table and hold it to her mouth so she can take little sips. ‘I’m so pleased you’re OK,’ I say, resting my head very gently on her shoulder.
‘You need more love in your life, Mia,’ she says with a smile. ‘Get some fucking friends.’
When Simon comes back, washed, changed and looking fresher, I leave Liz. She’s been sleeping for the last two hours, and I’ve stared at her that whole time. My incredible sister. The world might disregard someone like her. No career goals. A housewife who takes on more and more domestic chores. Taking in troublesome kids with a husband who is relentlessly distracted by his own ambition. They might not think she has much to offer. And yet that’s all she does. Offer and love and provide. Even after this, her heart still adamantly in the right place. I remind myself we are cut from the same cloth. We feel the same pain, we cry the same tears. I could be more like her if I allowed myself to be – and I want to be. I want my heart to be that full. But when it comes to allowing people in, I don’t know where to start.
As I enter the Tube station, the headline of today’s newspaper that’s written on a board stops me dead in my tracks:
THEO MAY. SIX CASES OF SEXUAL ASSAULT
Six former employees of Theo May have accused the mogul of sexual assault. His daughter Isabella May simply says, ‘F*ck him!’
The front cover shows images of both Theo and Isabella, a rip mark dividing them. I dig around in my bag for some money and buy a copy. I wait until I am sitting down on the train to read it.
Over the past few decades, while cavorting as a philanthropist, Theo May has silenced multiple women over their claims that he sexually assaulted them. But some women cannot be silenced. Six have now made claims that the mogul offered them highly paid jobs on the proviso that they perform sordid acts of sexual pleasure on him. Claims are as varied as one woman being asked to come to work with no underwear on (‘he would email me and ask me to take pictures of up my skirt for an immediate pay rise’) to being forced underneath his desk to perform oral sex on him while he took ‘very important calls’ – often to the many female-led charities that he supports.
Multiple accusers have spoken of a toxic work environment. ‘Theo May created an environment where to be touched by him was like being touched by the hands of God. He somehow made the women he didn’t prey on feel rejected. That is a new level of predator,’ said one source.
I stop reading to catch my breath. This is horrific. I feel icky at the thought of being in his presence. To think I liked him. And I judged Isabella for being ungrateful for his money. I spot her name a few paragraphs down so read on.
When asked in an exclusive interview, May’s daughter, Isabella, said, ‘My father has silenced many women with money over the years, myself included. It’s not easy to go out into the world and stand against my own father, but I stand with the women who were brave enough to come forward, and for the many who are too afraid to do so. I see you, and I have your back.’
When asked if she will be supporting her father through his trial, she simply said, ‘No, f**k him!’
Holy shit. In an instant, everything I ever thought about Isabella changes.
25
As I come out of the Tube station and walk past the Marie Curie charity shop, I notice a leopard-print dress on a rail inside. It pulls me in in the same way a muffin might lure a child. It’s been years since I’ve come into a shop like this – any style influenced by dead people wasn’t part of the remit. But the truth is, my mother’s kaftan is currently my favourite dress, and that came from a dead person and was on its way to a charity shop before I intercepted it, so who am I to judge what they have on their rails? Also, I’m not sure what I’ve been masquerading in for the past however many years constitutes as ‘style’. I don’t work in an office any more, I can wear whatever the hell I want.
The dress is labelled ‘One Size’. It’s a huge, floaty leopard-print kaftan and it costs £12. To the right of it is a purple cat-print blouse, and on another rail there’s a long, tiger-striped cardigan. There are cat-print shoes, a scarf, even a pair of leggings with tabby cat faces on them. I scrunch them all into a ball and put them on the counter.
‘Is someone going to a fancy-dress party?’ the old lady volunteering asks me.
‘No,’ I say, unoffended. ‘I’m just very keen on cats.’
‘I have a whole box of cat-print things in the back. Would you like to see them?’
‘Yes,’ I say, enthusiastically. ‘Yes, I absolutely would.’
There’s so much uncertainty in my life at the moment but I do know that I want to live in my house until I die. I open the front door and walk in with a new determination. Belinda and Tristan are sitting in the kitchen looking stressed. It’s not unusual. They always seem stressed and unhappy in some way. Why am I only seeing that now?
‘Are you Googling ways to have me evicted?’ I say, joking. Tristan shuts his computer suspiciously. I turn the oven on.
‘What the hell are you wearing?’ Belinda asks, forgoing any attempt to be polite.
‘It’s a leopard-print kaftan,’ I tell her. ‘I just got it from the local Marie Curie.’
‘You look like a homeless person,’ Tristan adds.
‘Well, I am not a homeless person,’ I say, smugly. ‘This is my home, any further comments?’
‘Mia, do you really not want to leave? You could get yourself somewhere nice. It would be a lot less expensive for you to move than us.’
He’s talking to me like I’m stupid and I don’t like it. ‘Your finances aren’t my concern. I will buy your half of this house. If moving isn’t something you can be bothered to do then that isn’t my problem.’
‘It’s just that …’ Belinda begins, before I interrupt by mimicking her in a high-pitched, offensive voice, taking us all by surprise. She continues in a lower octave. ‘It’s just that Tristan and I bought this house together when we got married. We dreamed of living here and raising a family here until we grew old. And now we have that chance again and we are asking you to please not get in the way of that dream.’
‘Then why did you have sex with someone and leave him? And when that didn’t work out, you and your big spongy fanny got all sad and wanted Tristan back, but by then he was married to me so you couldn’t have him. But you hung around like a bad smell until he felt so guilty he got back together with you anyway, even though you’re fucking mental and worse to be married to than a dying goat.’
‘A dying goat?’ Tristan asks. Which is fair, it was a very strange thing to say, but I hold my head up high and act like it’s exactly what I meant because I can’t think of anything better.
Belinda pinches the top of her nose with her index finger and thumb and breathes in deeply. ‘I do not have a spongy fanny.’
‘Sorry, marshmallow,’ I say, correcting myself. ‘You have a marshmallow vagina. Which, when you think about it, sounds quite soft and loose.’
‘OK, OK, stop. I can’t stand you two fighting over me any more,’ Tristan shouts, putting his hands over his ears like Belinda and I are two jumbo jets taking off.
There’s a rare moment of solidarity between us as we look at each other quizzically. We’ve never got on, but I’m not sure either of us would ever describe it as ‘fighting’ over Tristan. He’s hardly Keanu Reeves.
‘Keep the damn house, Mia,’ Tristan says. ‘Fill the freezer with cats, you lunatic.’
Belinda looks horrified. ‘What? Tristan, what are you saying?’
‘She won’t leave, I know her. She does what she wants.’
‘But you won’t be happy. You said, this house is where you are happy?’
‘He doesn’t want to be happy, Belinda. He just wants to win,’ I say, casually taking a ready-made vegan mac ‘n’ cheese out of the freezer, stroking Pigeon gently as I close it. I’ve become quite used to her being in there now, I wonder if I might keep her there forever.
‘For God’s sake,’ Tristan shouts suddenly, becoming physically irritated by something. It distracts him from his rage. He starts frantically scratching his beard. ‘This house has fleas, I’m sure of it. We will be better off leaving.’
I catch Belinda subtly scratching herself between the legs. She doesn’t think I notice. I recall my husband’s head between mine on the very seat she is sitting on. I imagine the crabs transferring from my pubic hair to his facial hair. A small but noticeable smile forms across my face.
‘Oh, you think it’s funny we have fleas from your cat?’ Tristan says, angrily scratching his chin.
‘Actually,’ I say, knowledgably, ‘cat fleas don’t live on humans, so it won’t be that. You probably have crabs.’
‘What?’ Belinda says, standing up, crossing her knees a little as she tries to relieve an itch with the top of her thighs. ‘No one gets crabs, it’s not the nineties. You’re completely mad.’
‘They do. It’s quite common. I had them, recently. Tristan, you probably got them from me when you performed oral sex on me in here. Remember, a few days after I found out you two were sleeping with each other?’
Tristan has gone very pale. Speechless, and almost translucent.
‘You did that?’ Belinda says, staring at him as hard as she can.
‘Oh, there’s nothing to be mad about Belinda,’ I add. ‘I’ve been sleeping with my husband throughout your entire affair, so really, nothing has changed.’ I take the cardboard off my mac ‘n’ cheese and violently stab eight holes into the foil so it can breathe.
‘You have crabs? How?’ Tristan eventually squeezes out, Belinda still trying to kill him with her gaze.
‘I don’t have them any more,’ I say, dipping my finger into my cold dinner and sucking the creamy sauce off. ‘I did though.’
‘How did you get crabs?’ he asks, not moving. Not believing.
‘I slept with someone, Tristan. A millennial. I had sex with him a few nights before and he gave me crabs and then I gave them to you when you performed oral sex on me. It’s not complicated. And there is nothing to be ashamed of, it’s easy to treat. I have some lotion left if you want it?’ I walk over to the oven, and pop in my dinner.
‘You had sex with someone?’
‘Yes. I know it’s hard for you to understand that. But when I discovered your affair, I went out and I had sex with someone else. It turns out, I am still desirable to men. Very much so. He enjoyed my body very much.’ I feel my buttocks clench at the thought of the implements.
‘You had SEX with someone?’ he repeats.
‘Yes, is that a problem?’
‘You’re my wife!’
‘Yes, and you are my husband. Your point?’ I am facing him front-on now, I feel very strong. He is absolutely beside himself. Belinda has given in and is now scratching her fanny like the fleabag that she is.
‘This is intolerable,’ Tristan says.
‘Yes, it is,’ I agree. ‘I suggest you leave Oliver sleeping and the two of you go to Belinda’s for the night. You can come back tomorrow when Oliver is at school and we can work out how we proceed with the divorce, me buying you out of the house and the logistics of you moving out. Contrary to what you might think, I have no intention of making this harder for any of us than it already is, I just want it done.’
‘I’m not leaving Oliver with you, you crazy bitch,’ Belinda spits.
‘You have every right to wake him up and take him with you, but we all know he is better off where he is.’
‘Well, we are taking Buster,’ she says, trying to upset me further.
‘That would be ideal.’
‘You slept with someone?’ Tristan says, still baffled.
‘I did.’
They make their way slowly to the front door. Embarrassed and defeated. I got the house and they got crabs, so I guess if we must choose a winner it’s going to be me.
‘Oliver has swimming tomorrow,’ Belinda tells me, asserting herself.
‘I know he does.’
Tristan storms to the car and turns on the engine, but Belinda lingers at the gate. I wonder if she’s going to come back to me with some sisterly apology. A woman-to-woman moment where she acknowledges our plight at the hand of men. But no, she scuttles back to the door where I am resisting a cheery wave and says, ‘Get me that lotion then.’ I go upstairs to my bathroom and get it. She snatches it from me with a hiss. When she’s gone and the door is closed, I exhale and fall against it. My house is mine. I took my power back.
I eat the mac ‘n’ cheese alone in the kitchen with the freezer drawer open so I can see Pigeon. ‘I’ll get you out soon, promise,’ I tell her. When I’m done with my food, I wash my plate, wipe the surfaces and turn off the lights. Then I go into Oliver’s room, breathe in the smell of him and whisper, ‘I love you’ to his sleeping face.
26
When you’re married for the wrong reasons, the only things missing when that person’s gone are the things you didn’t realise were slowly destroying you. I spent most of my day with someone who was mildly annoyed with me for seven years. Someone who knew who I was when he married me, but whose disappointment that I was someone else played out in different ways every single day. An argument, a judgement, sometimes just a sigh loaded with resentment. Neither of us married for the right reasons but, in many ways, they were the same reasons. We did it to create a façade. We did it because we presumed it would make us feel better. We did it because we are all led to believe that the traditional family is the route to all happiness, and that any other version of it is problematic or an act of rebellion. For me, the reality of marriage was that it made me play a part. By trying to slot into the role of wife, I could only ever be a disappointment. My need for independence was his problem, not mine. My veganism was his problem, not mine. It’s amazing to me that I allowed someone to be so upset about my eating habits when he never even knew how repulsed I was by his. I spared him from so much of himself.
So much of a bad marriage is enabling a partner to behave in a way that you know isn’t right. But the truth is, I’m not sure I ever cared enough to try to fix it. The more distant we became, the closer I got to what I wanted. Which was, ultimately, not him. I found the deceit hard to handle at first. Being lied to shakes your nervous system, I reacted strongly to that. But was I sad because I had lost love? No, I was sad because I lost myself trying to find it.
Tristan took the majority of the furniture, and I am left with little but my house, which at this point feels like a lot. I could have fought for more, but every exchange has been so exhausting that I ran out of fight. I presume I will wake one day with the energy to rebuild my life but for now it’s quite the achievement to just get downstairs when I wake up. But, today, I am almost out of coffee and oat milk. I have consumed nearly every tin of beans, fruit and vegetables from the cupboards and there is nothing in my freezer other than my deceased cat.
I don’t know how long I plan to leave Pigeon in the freezer, but I feel it is my right to decide on when it happens. I find it extremely comforting having her there. I could not control the way she died but I can control what happens now. She is preserved perfectly. Her coat still soft even though her body is hard and cold. I’ve found myself wondering why human death is handled with so much isolation and mystery. The bodies are taken away from the family. They are treated and dressed and it’s illegal to bury them at home or in places that they loved. I’m sure there would be good business for temporary freezing units to preserve dead loved ones while family members take the time they need to plan funerals, while being able to be physically close to the corpse every day. They could set a limit, maybe six weeks until they must remove the body from the premises and make funeral arrangements. If I was to be honest though, I can’t think of a single human who I would want lingering around in a freezer after they die. Maybe the current system is right after all. But there is no doubt that grief has been easier while I’ve been able to open a drawer and feel Pigeon’s fur each day. It’s helping bridge the gap between her being here and her not being here. Every morning when I eventually make it downstairs, I go straight to the freezer, open the drawer and tell her that I love her.
When I shut it, I see the only thing remaining as evidence that this was once a family home: the picture of our family that Oliver drew for Mother’s Day. Five stick figures. One of Belinda, one of Tristan, one of me and one of Oliver, and one of a cat. My hair so fiery and red. A nice detail. Just for me. When Tristan and Belinda came to ransack the place and took everything of any emotional value, this was the one thing they left. It used to sit on the fridge surrounded by more of Oliver’s artistic endeavours. They didn’t want it so now it stands alone. I take the picture off the fridge and with some kitchen scissors I cut around the picture of me then stick it back to the fridge. Just me on my own. No family, no cat. I’m not sure when and how this happened, but here I am.
I am living the sort of life where no one drops in. There are many things that define a week, and when you remove them, days can carry very little difference from one to the next. There is no Monday morning to prepare for, no weekend to stock up for. No lunches to shop for. There are no meal plans, food deliveries, Oyster card top-ups, make-up applications. There is no outfit composition to think about, no schedule of self-care. Each and every day is the same. On the rare occasion the doorbell goes it’s the postman or an Amazon delivery person bringing me the continuous stream of goods that I have been ordering to make up for how much has been taken from this house since Tristan and Oliver moved out. I ordered a desk to put in Oliver’s old room but I’m yet to build it. At some point I will need to work but for now there is no urgency to do anything other than make it through the day. I ordered lots of candles to fill the whole house with the smells that I like the most, now they are not confined to my bedroom. I am living in a confused state. In one way the peace, privacy and space are good. The whole house is mine, I consider only myself. But I am realising that I am maybe more like my sister than I thought. I enjoyed taking care of Pigeon and Oliver. There were even some parts of looking after Tristan that were good for me. Needing to keep someone else’s life in order can help when trying to do the same for your own. I now have nothing to care for. Yesterday I wondered if I might kick a hole in a wall, just so I had something to fix.
