I learned to stand and then walk, a little. I began to understand that something was wrong with Mamacat, in her body. Her movements were growing slower. Less milk came.
One night we took shelter in a gulley. Overhead, brambles shivered and lashed in the gale. She warmed me and fed me. She purred. The sound grew weak, her warmth faded. Then she was still. The cold began to creep into me.
There was a roaring noise and a blinding beam of light, not the shivering light of the sky, but a yellow circle. A thing like a spider of flesh, gleaming with rain. I had no word for hand, then. It enclosed me, lifted me from my mama.
‘What’s this?’ The scent of wet earth was strong on him. His cuffs were slick with mud. A beast hummed nearby. He put me inside the beast. Rain hit the metal roof like little stones. He folded me up, warm. The blanket was yellow, with a pattern of blue butterflies. It held the scent of someone I knew, or longed to know. How could that be? I didn’t know anyone, yet.
‘Poor little kitten,’ he said. ‘I’m all alone, too.’ I licked his thumb.
That is when it happened. A soft white glow gathered on his chest, over the place where his heart must be. The glow became a cord, reaching out through the air. The cord approached me. Irowed and struggled. But I was held fast. I felt the light encircle my neck, link me to his heart. It didn’t hurt. It bound us together. I don’t know if he felt it too – I like to think he did.
Then he brought me home to this nice warm house where I can sleep all the time and get stroked. I don’t even have to look at the outside world if I don’t want to! The windows are all boarded up. Ted made me an indoor cat and I’ve never had to worry about anything since. This is our house which is just for us, and no one else is allowed in. Apart from Night-time, of course, and the green boys and Lauren. I could do without some of them, to be honest.
I suppose I should describe us. That is what they do in stories. This is difficult. I can never tell the teds on TV apart. I don’t know what details are relevant. I mean, my Ted is kind of a sandy colour? And he has patches of red fur on his face and thicker fur on his head, which is a somewhat darker shade, like varnished wood.
As for me, Ted always calls me ‘you’, or ‘kitten’. But my name is Olivia. I have a thin slice of white down my chest, which sets off my coal-black coat. My tail is long and slim like a wand. My ears are large with a wide swivel and a delicate point. They are very sensitive. My eyes are the shape of almonds and green like cocktail olives. I think it’s OK for me to say that I am beautiful.
Sometimes we’re a great team and sometimes we fight. It’s just theway it goes. The TV says you have to accept everyone, teds and cats alike, for who they are. But you also have to have boundaries. Boundaries are important.
That’s enough for now. Feelings are very tiring.
I come out of my doze with a start, to the sound of faraway chimes, or a high voice calling.
I shake my head to clear it of the dream. But the noise goes on. Is there someone tiny singing somewhere? I don’t like it.EeeeeeEEEEeeeee.
The orange rug is lovely on the pads of my paws, like walking on soft little pills. It’s the colour of sun setting over the sea. Light dapples the walls through the peepholes. The walls in here are a restful deep red. Ted and I think it’s a beautiful colour. We agree on some things! There’s Ted’s recliner, the leather worn shiny at the head and on the armrests. Silver duct tape covers the hole where he stabbed it with a steak knife during a dirt bike race. I like everything about this room except for two things that sit on the mantelpiece, next to the music box.
The first thing I hate is called a Russian doll. It holds a smaller version of itself inside it, and another inside that and so on. How awful. They are prisoners. I imagine them all screaming in the dark, unable to move or speak. The doll’s face is broad and blankly smiling. It looks so happy to be holding its children captive.
The second thing I hate is the picture over the fireplace. The Parents, staring from behind glass. I hate everything about it. The frame is big, and silver, and has a pattern of grapes and flowers and squirrels. It’s gross. The squirrels’ faces look melted and burned black. It’s like someone poured molten silver over living things and then let it cool. But the picture in the frame is the worst part. A lake, black and glassy in the background. Two people stand on a sandy beach. Their faces are just holes into nothing. The Parentswere not nice to Ted. Whenever I come close to the picture I feel the empty tug of their souls.
I do like the music box, though. The little woman is stretched up so straight, like she’s straining towards heaven.
EeeeEEeee.The high chiming sound is not coming from the Parents. I turn my back on them, lift my tail and show them my butt.
The pink bicycle lies in the middle of the living-room floor, training wheels imperceptibly turning. Lauren. She is Ted’s small ted. Or maybe she belongs to another ted and he just looks after her? I forget. Her scent lingers on the rug, the arm of the chair, but it’s quiet. She must have gone already. Good. But she never puts that god damn bike away. Oh dear. I really do try to say ‘gd’, not – ahem ahem. I don’t like to take His name in vain.
I go to my crate when Lauren visits. There is room for my thoughts in there. It’s always dark and good. I am sure the lord would not approve of what I’m about to say, but – small teds are awful. You never know what they’re going to do. And Lauren has some kind ofpsychological issue; I’m not clear on the details but it seems to involve being very rude and loud. Cats are sensitive to noise. We see with our ears and our noses. I mean, with our eyes too, obviously.
In the kitchen my crate stands against the wall. I put my ear to the cool side to listen, but the whining noise isn’t coming from in there, I don’t think. Ted has piled his weights on top of it again, so I can’t get in. Annoying. Lauren has left scrawling, messy doodles all over the whiteboard by the refrigerator.Blah blah blah, she has written.Ted is Ted. Olivia is a cat.What GREAT observations. She’ll go far. The refrigerator makes its rumble, there’s a drip from the tap. But the little chime in my ears goes on, not matching either of these sounds.
In the room with all the humming, everything is as it should be. The cupboards are all secure. I can hear the machines purringquietly behind locked doors. Cellphone, laptop, printer. They sound alive and I always feel that they are about to speak to me, but they never do.
It goes on, the tiny sound like a chime or a high voice. The machines are not making the noise.
I go upstairs. I like going up stairs. It always feels like an improvement of some kind. I also like to sleep on the step that is exactly mid-flight. It makes me feel like I’m floating. The runner is black and I blend in well against it. Ted trips on me sometimes. He drinks too much.
The sound doesn’t seem to get any louder or quieter as I move through the rooms, which is weird. I skirt the attic door, giving it a wide berth. Bad place. I stand on my hind legs to pull down the handle of the bedroom door. It gives with that robustclickand swings wide. (Love doors. Just adore them.) There are five or six rolls of duct tape on Ted’s bed. He buys the stuff by the yard. I don’t know what on earth he uses it all for. I lick the tape. It tastes sticky and strong. Theeeeooooeeeis still chiming softly in my ear. Irowwith impatience. Do I imagine this, or is the sound slightly metallic, hollow, like it’s coming from a pipe?
In the bathroom I leap up to test the taps. No sound comes from them except the internal echo of air. I give the metal a lick and sniff the scum that covers the edges of the basin. Ted is not a very clean ted. His bathroom does not look like the bathrooms on TV.
The bathroom cabinet door is open. The tubes sit in long brown rows on the shelves. I stroke them with the tip of my tail, and then give a little nudge. The tubes fall in a clatter, pills raining from their mouths. Pink, white, blue. He never closes them properly, because they’re safety caps and he can’t get them off when he’s drunk. The pills are all mixed up on the dirty tiles. A couple have landed in a puddle, left over from his morning shower. They arealready bleeding pink into the water. I bat a green-and-white capsule across the floor.
EEEEeoooeeee.The high song. It’s a message, I know it, and it feels like it’s just for me. But there’s no more time to figure it out because it’s time forher.
I am bound to Ted by the cord, and he is in my care as the lord has decreed. But I do have a life outside him, you know? I have interests. Well, one. It’s time forhernow and that is very exciting.
I race down the stairs and to the window, avoiding the pink bike, taking another route behind the couch, leaving paw prints in the dust. I can’t help being afraid that I’m late even though I know I’m not. But the circles of light are atexactlythe right angle on the walls. I hop up on the small green macramé table. If I stand on my hind legs and stretch a little, I can just look out of the peephole that catches the street, through the little oak tree. The cord trails behind me in the air, a luminous silver.
