‘Cos it’s easy we’re working?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I dunno, are you not happy?’
‘No, it’s not that.’
‘Then what?’
‘I’m happy, yeah.’
‘But?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’m gonna head up after this, it’s nearly twelve.’ He opened a packet of cigarettes.
‘Ah wait till we finish this.’ She pointed to the bottle of wine.
‘Right, go on, top me up, and we’ve the mortgage so we’re grand?’
‘Yeah.’
She rinses her cereal bowl and then takes the back-door key from the cutlery drawer and takes the tin from the window sill above the sink, retching a little as the smell of cat food catches her off guard. She opens the door and then taps the side of the tin with the spoon. She waits. Nothing happens. She does it again. Still nothing. She walks out into the back garden and calls out. Then the cat walks slowly out of the garden shed and lazily up the garden path. She spoons the food into the bowl as the cat nudges her hand out of the way. Scratch greedily devours the food as she stands there watching.
‘No darling, you’re not getting any more. You’re turning into such a fatty catty.’ The cat rubs against her ankle as she makes her way to the back door. She goes inside and turns the key in the door. She’ll leave Scratch out until later. Someone told her before about smothering cats’ paws in butter when they move to a new place, how it stops them getting lost.
He comes into the kitchen.
‘Has your da given ya that invoice for me yet? Just hate having it hanging over me, ya know, just want to get it paid,’ he says.
‘No but he said he’s gonna. He wasn’t sure of a price, one of the parts I think, like a casket or something.’
‘Do you mean a gasket?’ he says.
‘Ah yeah, that’s probably what it was.’
‘Sure I’ll wait so, and if I don’t hear from him we might drop over on Saturday. You all right with that?’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ she says. ‘That’s grand.’
‘Right so, I’m off now. Is there anything in for dinner?’
‘Could ya pick up something on your way home in case I don’t get a chance.’
‘Ah yeah, no bother. Chinese?’
‘On a Tuesday! Ah yeah, go on, I’m only messin’.’
As he walks towards the door, she calls him back. Reaching out she takes hold of his tie.
‘Ya look great,’ she says, and kisses him.
‘Ah thanks, babes, I did what ya told me. Ya know, light-blue shirt with dark-blue tie? See ya later.’
He leaves and she watches him go. She had called him back and kissed him. There was no need for that.
She used to love his eyes.
Her da said he’d collect her at eleven; ‘It’ll be easier if I bring the van, get it done in one go.’ When she takes her suitcase from the top of the wardrobe it’s dusty. It looks older and more worn than she remembers, she’s had it for years. It isn’t even one you can wheel along – well, it was, but a delay and the chance of missing a connecting flight has left it a wheel short. They had laughed all the way though.
‘If we miss it we miss it, but if we get it all the better.’ He gave her a wink. He kept turning around with a big smirk on his face, a couple of hundred yards ahead. Her laughing had made her struggle even more with the case, and every time he had turned around she laughed again. ‘I’m trying, I’m trying.’ They had made it, more’s the pity, what they both would have given for another week, she thinks to herself.
She’ll have to carry the suitcase out to the van later. She had a picture of just sauntering out the door with her stuff, all in the one go, but now it looks like she’ll have to make a few trips to get everything in the van. She told her da not to get out of the van. She doesn’t like when he comes into the house. He usually barges in and comments on the size of the place and sure what was the point of having such a big house? The kitchen was now all stainless steel enclosed by vast white walls. When they had put the extension on the kitchen, he had asked them was it a restaurant they were opening.
As she puts her clothes into the case, she begins to shake. Opening drawer after drawer and putting clothes into her case, she packs all her stuff, and when that’s full, she starts filling black sacks. She hears the news begin on the radio and realises she hasn’t rung work. She throws around all the stuff lying on the bed as she looks for her phone.
‘Hey Cathy? It’ll just be yourself and Siobhan today, I’m not going to be in.’
‘No probs, everything okay?’
‘Yeah, just have a few things to do.’
‘Ah yeah no probs.’
‘I’ll check my emails later, and if there’s nothing urgent I mightn’t be in tomorrow. I’ll ring ya later and let you know.’
‘Grand, talk to you then and have another think about Galway. It’ll be fun.’
‘Okay, I’ll have a think about it, bye.’
She has an hour. She gets a pen and some paper from a drawer in the hallway. She sits on the third step from the bottom of the stairs remembering the last note she had written him. It was the week she had gone to Spain with her ma. The note was about the cat. He had called her the minute he had read it.
‘Are you serious that the cat has worms,’ he had asked, ‘cos I’m not going near it, so does it?’
‘Yeah, Scratch has got worms, that’s why I’m gone away. If ya read it properly it says so the cat doesn’t get them. Now give it to the cat on Friday, cos that’s when I usually give it, otherwise it will be the worms.’
‘Ah ya know what I’m like with things like that, I’ll forget. Ya know I’ll forget.’
‘Well just try and remember but sure the cat’ll probably remind ya itself.’
‘Would ya stop. Anyway how ya gettin’ on?’
‘Yeah grand. Ya know, not doing much but like sure it’s nice, bit overcast today but sure it’s better than being at home.’
‘Don’t hold back whatever ya do.’
‘Ah no, I didn’t mean that. Ya know, just good being away for a while.’
‘Right, go on and I’ll talk to you later. And tell your ma I seen your da down the pub with some young wan the other night.’
‘If ya said auld wan she’d probably believe ya. Right go on, talk t’ya.’
She chews the cap of the pen. Changing her mind, she stands up and places the pen and paper on the hall table and walks into the sitting room. She scans the room for the remote. She spots it sticking out from under the oversized cushion on the cream three-seater. Her sister, Elaine, calls this room an adult’s oasis.
‘Ya couldn’t let my lot in here,’ she said. ‘They’d have the place destroyed in seconds. Jumping on the couches with their mucky runners and spilling their drinks?’
Forty minutes now before she leaves. She presses a couple of buttons on the remote, he’s been mad about that mini-series, he mightn’t get to watch it tonight but at least she’ll record it for him now.
Now there is only thirty minutes until she leaves. She goes into the bathroom and gives the sink a wipe and pours bleach down the toilet – no doubt his mother will be over this evening, no point in giving her another thing to complain about. The hoover is out on the landing but she isn’t bothered so she just puts the hoover into the junk room. Then she decides to move the hoover into the office; it’ll probably be his mother who uses it next, she could fall over something in the junk room.
In the kitchen, she decides she doesn’t want to use any more of the milk so she drinks juice instead. The kitchen becomes brighter as the sun beams down from the skylight. She finishes her juice and goes back upstairs. She brings the bags and suitcase downstairs. Her phone beeps—
‘Got last min job on. Will be there before twelve. Da.’
She thinks for a moment – no, he needs to be here sooner than that, just in case. She clenches her right hand and puts it against her mouth and thinks again.
But she’s not completely ready herself, there’s a few things she needs to do. She goes up and gets dressed quickly. Then she scrapes her hair back from her face and ties it up. She is ready in minutes. Her nails – she can do her nails now to pass the time. She first needs to take off the varnish. Finding remover in her bag, she does this with a wipe in the bathroom. She takes a bottle of nail varnish from her bag and sits on the edge of the bath and begins to paint her nails bright red. When the first hand is done she starts on the other but her hands are shaking now and she is smudging her nails, and the more she tries the more her hands shake. She eventually finishes the last nail but needs a wipe to wipe away the smudges. He’ll probably be longer than an hour. She looks in the mirror at her eyebrows and sees a few stray hairs and goes downstairs and gets her tweezers from her handbag and uses the mirror in the hall. She starts plucking but the doorbell rings. Through the frosted glass door she can see the outline of someone, a man. The bell rings again, and the ding-dong travels through the house. Ding-dong again. She thinks about opening the door, but then she hears the letter box being pushed open and watches a leaflet fall to the floor.
She goes into the sitting room and turns on the TV again and sits in the armchair beside the window. She looks out the window and then back at the TV. A quick look out the window again. Red car, green car, black car. Next, a silver van, not the one she is looking for, she watches it go past. She remembers she left a wash in the machine and goes into the utility room. She opens the machine, drags across the empty basket from the dryer and puts the wash into the basket. Clothesline, clothes horse, tumble dryer, she’s not sure where to put them. The bathroom mat, towels, tea towels – it would take her five minutes to hang them out, but when would they be brought in, and they could go unnoticed in the tumble dryer for days. She decides to put them on the clothes horse. She opens the dishwasher; there aren’t enough dishes to run it.
The doorbell rings.
‘Well?’ He says, stepping into the hallway.
‘Think I’m nearly ready.’
‘Ah yeah, grand. Sorry, love, for getting held up.’
‘Ah no you’re grand, sure. I wouldn’t have been ready anyway.’
‘So how are ya? Now you’re sure about this?’
‘Well it’d be a lot easier if we were fighting or like not getting on. But it would only be a matter of time.’
‘It’s only yourself who knows what’s best, love, ya know. But ya have your poor mammy in bits with worry so we better get home as soon as we can.’
‘Well she shouldn’t be worrying.’
‘Yeah but ya know what mammies are like, like.’
‘Remember egg dinners years ago?’
‘Wha’?’
‘Us all getting different egg dinners.’
‘There was nothin’ else.’
‘Elaine fried, me poached, Denise always crying cos her boiled egg wasn’t runny enough.’
‘Yer ma had to feed yiz.’
‘Yiz were great.’
‘Only having eggs for yiz.’
‘It’s not a dig, Da, just the way yiz managed.’
‘Barely. Right, I’ll start bringing the bags out.’
She watches him pick up the bags and struggle down the garden path. She walks back into the kitchen and sees the cat box. Oh shit, she still has to pack Scratch. Her da has all the bags in the van now. He is sitting in the van waiting for her. She walks to the front door and signals to him that she’ll be another minute. With an anxious look he taps his watch and mouths, ‘Your mammy.’
She runs through the house and opens the back door and calls ‘Scratch!’ She walks out into the back garden and looks around, ‘Scratch, puss! Puss! Scratch pss, pss, pss! Scratch come on, where are you?’ She goes to the shed and finds the cat, curled in a box, helplessly looking up at her, and with two tiny black and white kittens.
‘Oh Scratchie . . . ya poor little thing and me slaggin’ ya cos ya had a big belly! What are we going to do with ya?’
She strokes the cat but Scratch lets out a low hissing noise.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to . . . ’
Closing the shed door quietly, she heads towards the house.
‘The cat,’ she says. ‘It’s . . . it’s having kittens.’
‘You’re jokin’ me, love?’
‘What’ll I do, Da?’
‘Ah ya can’t leave the poor creature.’
‘I know, Da . . . Will ya help me bring me stuff in?’
‘Ah pet, are ya sure this is what ya want to do? Stay?’
‘Da, I’ve no choice.’
‘Ah love, do you really want to stay for the sake of the cat?’
‘No Da, I want to stay.’
‘Sure ya’ve got more to worry about than the cat.’
‘Come on and we bring the stuff back in.’
Her da brings her things back inside and tells her to ring her ma to let her know she’s okay. He gives her a hug and heads off. She goes back into the kitchen and opens the fridge. She takes out the carton of milk. Then she turns and opens the press and takes out a small plate and heads out to the garden shed.
‘Here ya go, Scratch, and I’ll bring ya food when you’re done.’ For the next few hours, she stays with the cat and two more kittens arrive.
Drained from the day, she makes her way back to the sitting room and flops onto the couch and flicks through the channels.
The front door opens and she wakes from her doze.
‘I’m in here,’ she calls.
‘Grub’s up. Got you the house special fried rice, beef and black bean for meself and some spare ribs for the both of us.’
She gets up from the couch and walks into the kitchen. He has his back to her. He is taking plates from the press. She spots two cans of cola on the worktop.
‘Ah ya didn’t get me diet,’ she says.
‘I didn’t get ya diet fried rice either, will ya not be able to eat it?’
‘What’s the point in wasting calories on a bleedin’ drink?’
‘Well then just don’t drink it. Problem solved yeah?’
‘Here,’ she says. ‘When Adam and Elaine gave us that cat, why did we call the cat Scratch?’
‘Wha’?’
‘Why did we call Scratch Scratch?’
‘Cos he was scratching things . . . I don’t know.’
‘You said everything I thought was too girly.’
‘Oh yeah, and you said Tom the tomcat was bloody stupid . . . Do we have serviettes?’
‘Yeah in the bottom drawer . . . Well, Scratch the tomcat did something miraculous today.’
‘He’s not bringing the dead birds again?’
‘No, better.’
‘Wha’?’
‘He had kittens.’
‘No way.’
‘Way.’
‘Whose cat’s it? If it’s yer one from down the road with that manky-lookin’ excuse for a cat, she’ll be after us for maintenance.’ He smiles.
‘No, ya fool. Scratch had the kittens, they’re his . . . I mean hers.’
‘No way? Ha! That’s gas. Did you not have a look when we got . . . it?’
‘I think we just thought she was a he, you and your Tom the tomcat.’
‘Where are they?’
‘The shed.’
‘Right, well, I’ll have this,’ he says, looking at the plate of food, ‘and then have a look at them.’
Walking through the hallway towards the sitting room, he shouts, ‘What’s the craic with the bags out here?’
‘Shit,’ she says to herself.
‘The black bags?’
‘Making room for the kittens, we’ve got four new mouths to feed.’
‘I’ll put a light in the shed,’ he calls. ‘We’ll manage something.’
Brimstone Butterfly
Desmond Hogan
Zapamtite. Remember.
Arriving in Zagreb on a freezing November evening. Like Prague – subdued city lights, the coloured ones at int
ervals from one another, like lighthouses, a peculiar kind of pharos.
Posters all along the airport route for Lenny Kravitz who sang once for the California Boys’ Choir.
I give a girl in a pinafore patterned with steam irons 50 kuna for 29 kuna of groceries in a shop on Palmotićeva. Makes to return 20 kuna change but swiftly puts it back in the till.
When I manage to argue it back I feel like the woman who found the lost silver coin and rejoiced.
Dimitris – musclé like Cristiano Ronaldo, mermaid’s-tail green eyes, in a T-shirt with a sad Cherokee chief on it, under a three-dimensional photograph of elephants, one moment a solitary elephant, the next at a slightly different angle an elephant with a baby elephant – in a flat by the Royal Canal in Dublin had told me the joke. The Demon arrives in Stockholm and causes havoc. He arrives in Berlin, and there is chaos in Germany. On arrival at Zagreb airport he immediately screams, ‘The Croatians have robbed my suitcase!’
At Zagreb airport, Petar, born year of the Vukovar massacre in Daruvar, a Titan with a bottlenose-dolphin face who plays basketball and soccer in St Louis now, had stood in front of the candle. Small lights in red glass along the edges of boulevards, arrangements of these lights in green spaces.
Zapamtite. Remember.
A sixteen-year-old boy had been among the two hundred and sixty people taken from Vukovar Hospital who were massacred near the village of Ovčara, bodies dumped in a wooded ravine.
‘I first learned to ride a motorcycle,’ Dimitris told me. ‘Then I stole my aunt’s car when I was thirteen and learned to drive. Two years later drove my aunt’s car in the war.’
‘To a cruel war I sent him, from whence he return’d his brows bound with oak.’
Dimitris came back from war with a tattoo on his leg of Japanese samurai Miyamoto Musashi, in Japanese pantaloons and hose with a top-of-Mount-Fuji pattern, killing an opponent with a bokken – a staff.
Leontis had done the tattoo.
Hair like mashed bananas and eyes the colour of a crown of thorns which had verdigris.
‘Keep it quiet.’
Dogs of War. Christopher Walken mercenaries.
Bear goulash and hog goulash between sneak attacks.
At seventeen they entered an eighty-year-old Serbian woman’s house near Vukovar. Her scarf patterned with butterflies hovering over garden flowers. Dimitris and another youth went upstairs.