The bottles behind him glittered in the glare of the overhead lights, red and gold and clear.
“Yes!” I said. “I’d almost forgotten.” I leaned over to the newspaper stand and picked up a Telegraph—I was itching to get back to the crossword again.
Back home, I lit the gas fire and laid out the teacups. I wished that they matched, but I was sure Raymond wouldn’t mind. I sliced the lemon and arranged the biscuits as alternating spokes on a wheel on my nicest plate, the one with flowers on it. I decided to keep the savory items in reserve. No need to go crazy.
Being somewhat out of practice, I was only halfway through the crossword when the doorbell rang, a bit later than I’d been expecting. Due to hunger pangs I’d been forced to have a few biscuits, so a couple of the spokes on the wheel were missing now. Too bad.
Raymond was holding a cardboard box with handles in one hand, and a huge, bulging plastic bag in the other. He seemed very out of breath, placed both items gently on my hall carpet without being asked, and started to take off his jacket, still puffing and blowing like a beached porpoise. Smoking kills.
He passed me his jacket and I looked at it for a moment before realizing I was supposed to hang it up. I didn’t have anywhere suitable, so I folded it into a square as best I could and then put it on the floor in the corner of the hall. He didn’t look very pleased, although I had no idea why. It wasn’t an expensive-looking jacket.
I showed him into the living room and offered him tea. He seemed quite excitable. “Later, maybe. I’ve got to tell you about the surprise first, Eleanor,” he said.
I sat down.
“Go ahead,” I said, bracing myself. My experience of surprises is limited and not particularly positive. He fetched the cardboard box from the hall and placed it on the floor.
“Now,” he said, “you don’t have to do this. My mum will be more than happy to oblige. I just thought . . . well . . .”
He opened the lid very gently, and I instinctively took a step back.
“Come on, darling,” he said, in a soft, crooning voice that I’d never heard him use before. “Don’t be frightened . . .”
He reached in and lifted out the fattest cat I’d ever seen. It was, in theory, jet black, the darkness extending even to its nose and whiskers, but its thick fur was covered in bald patches which looked all the paler by comparison. He held it close to his chest and continued to whisper endearments in its ear. The creature looked distinctly underwhelmed.
“What do you think?” he said.
I stared into its green eyes, and it stared back. I took a step forward and he offered her to me. There was a bit of awkwardness as he passed her over, trying to transfer her bulk from his arms into mine, and then, all at once, it was done. I held her like a baby, close against my chest, and felt, rather than heard, her deep, sonorous purring. Oh, the warm weight of her! I buried my face in what remained of her fur and felt her turn her head toward me as she gently sniffed my hairline.
Eventually, I looked up. Raymond was unpacking the other bag, which contained a disposable litter tray, a squishy cushion bed and a small box of kibble. The cat squirmed in my arms and landed on the carpet with a heavy thump. She strolled over to the litter tray, squatted down and urinated loudly, maintaining extremely assertive eye contact with me throughout. After the deluge, she lazily kicked over the traces with her back legs, scattering litter all over my freshly cleaned floor.
A woman who knew her own mind and scorned the conventions of polite society. We were going to get along just fine.
Raymond declined all of the biscuits on offer and also the tea. He requested beer or coffee, but I had neither. Taking care of guests was more challenging than I’d thought. Eventually, he settled for a glass of water, which he didn’t even drink. Desi, one of his flatmates, had rescued the cat from the back court of his flats last night, he told me. Someone had put her in a metal dustbin and set it alight—Desi had heard the screams when he was returning home from work. I stood up and ran toward the bathroom, where I vomited up the pink wafers. Raymond knocked gently on the door, but I shouted at him to leave me alone. When I came back, both he and the cat were sitting separately on the sofa. I sat down in the chair opposite, and they both watched me carefully.
“Who would do such a thing, Raymond?” I said, when I could finally speak. Both he and the cat looked sad.
“Sick fucks,” said Raymond, shaking his head. “Desi brought her in and we made sure she was OK. He’s allergic, though, so we can’t keep her. I was going to take her to the Cats Protection, or see if my mum wanted another one, but then . . . I dunno, I thought she might be a nice bit of company for you, Eleanor? Just say if not. It’s a big deal, having a pet—a lot of responsibility . . .”
This was tricky. On the one hand, I could not deny that I was drawn to her. She had an undeniably rakish, alopecia-based charm and a devil-may-care attitude that would melt the hardest of hearts. I could tell that she was a cat that brooked no nonsense. She was, at the same time, a vulnerable creature, one which needed looking after. Therein lay the rub. Was I up to the task?
I thought back to the counseling sessions, how we’d talked about thinking things through rationally, recognizing unhelpful patterns of behavior and being brave enough to try doing things differently. Come on, Eleanor, I said to myself. Be brave. This is not the same as before, not even close to it. She’s a cat, and you’re a grown woman. You’re more than capable of doing this.
“I will assume the mantle of care, Raymond,” I said, firmly. “This creature will be looked after assiduously.”
He smiled.
“I’m sure she will be. She looks at home here already, right enough,” he said. The cat was now sprawled across the sofa cushions, for all intents and purposes asleep, although one ear twitched intermittently as she monitored the conversation.
“What are you going to call her?” he said.
I put my head on one side while I considered this. After a while, Raymond stood up.
“I’m going to nip downstairs for a fag. I’ll leave the door on the latch,” he said.
“Don’t blow the smoke toward my windows!” I shouted after him.
When he came back ten minutes later, I told him that her name was Glen. He laughed.
“Glen? That’s a boy’s name, surely?”
I thought about all of those red labels, all those empty bottles. “She’s named after an old friend,” I said.
The next day I woke with a start to find Glen lying beside me, her head on the pillow and her body under the covers, just like a human. Her huge green eyes were staring intently at me, as though she had willed me awake. She followed me into the kitchen and I gave her some water, which she ignored, and some kibble, which she bolted down and promptly vomited back up onto the kitchen floor. I turned away to get some cleaning materials from under the sink, but when I looked around, she was eating her sick back up again.
“Good girl, Glen,” I said. Low maintenance.