Outside Cat
A cat improves a relationship
As I grew stronger, Lydia took me for drives into the country. Bare paddocks stretched under relentless blue sky. Skeletal farm animals trudged through craters of cracked mud that had once sparkled with drinking water. It made me yearn for the neon green grass and fat Friesian cows of childhood.
Wherever we went, Lydia opened doors for me and walked half a step behind as though I was worthy of respect. She was so deferential I hardly knew how to respond. I certainly hadn’t raised her to treat me that way.
Still, as she massaged oil into my feet I wasn’t about to complain. Through all my weeks of recovery, Lydia couldn’t have been kinder – cooking, doing laundry, cleaning, even mopping up after I threw up over the blue dachshund slippers. Her regular abdominal massages reduced the swelling and saved me from going back into hospital to have the fluid drained.
Jonah was a soothing presence for the two of us. Whenever we spoke to him gently, running our hands through his fur, it was only natural to use softer tones with each other. Lydia and I became closer than we’d ever been.
While we didn’t have direct discussions about if and when she might return to Sri Lanka, I continued forwarding travel warnings and reports of the civil war to her. The response from Lydia’s laptop was zero. When I asked if she’d read my emails, or even opened them, she was vague. The information I had was important, I’d tell her, aware the accusatory edge was slipping back into my voice.
Incense continued to waft indifferently through the house as she strolled downstairs wearing the pale colours of a monastic student. If I asked if she was still considering becoming a nun, perhaps in some nice local monastery, she shut me down.
While I was willing to accept Lydia could do whatever she liked as a legal adult, I was terrified at the thought of her putting her life at risk.
People could meditate on a bus or a beach . . . just about anywhere, I told her whenever I had the chance. They didn’t have to go to . . . I could hardly bear to say the name of the place anymore.
Meanwhile, my efforts to cultivate friends who belonged to ‘nice local Buddhist’ groups fell flat. Beards and hand-made sandals weren’t her style. Gazing at the wall above their heads, Lydia demonstrated a lack of interest bordering on rudeness.
One day her old school friend Angelique came for lunch and to see the kitten. Lydia and Angelique had both been top students at school, as well as a year younger than most of their classmates.
Jonah romped toward our visitor, pouncing on her shoe buckles.
‘He’s adorable!’ Angelique cried, lifting him up and pressing him to her cheek.
Angelique’s blonde highlights made her look like Marilyn Monroe. Her designer clothes contrasted starkly with Lydia’s monastic chic. Angelique was halfway through a medical degree and hoping to specialise in paediatrics, so she had a long path ahead.
Picking through their salads, the girls caught up on each others’ news. Angelique’s boyfriend had just joined a legal firm, and obviously worshipped her. The girls giggled about teachers they’d had, and nodded respectfully about some others. When Lydia mentioned her spiritual ambitions Angelique’s eyes glazed.
She kissed Lydia goodbye and clicked down the hall in a cloud of perfume. Anything I said was bound to come out badly. But drying the dishes, I had to open my mouth . . .
‘Angelique’s looking pretty.’
Lydia dusted crumbs off the table and changed the subject. ‘I was just wondering,’ she said in a tone that was controlled, but somehow dangerous, ‘if you’d mind knitting me a scarf?’
I’m always flattered when someone requests a sample of my terrible handiwork.
‘I’d love to! What colour would you like?’
As she shook the duster into the bin, crumbs scattered on the floor.
‘Maroon,’ she replied, shooting me a look of defiance.
My heart lurched. Maroon was the colour of monastic robes.
‘It can get quite cold in the monastery at night,’ Lydia added.
I put the tea towel down on the bench. ‘My daughter the doctor’ had such a different ring to it than ‘my daughter the nun’.
Regardless, it was clear I needed to get my head around the probability that Lydia would head back to the monastery in Sri Lanka before long. My illness had brought us closer than ever. I was going to miss her enormously. But she’d been so generous with me it was time to respect her spirituality, and accept how important it was to her. She had certainly never promised to stay indefinitely. Though I still creaked about inside my body, I was able to get around by myself now.
I’d even been bold enough to stand naked in front of the mirror a couple of times. While it was still the same old body, I felt oddly separated from it. My heart went out to the imperfect, wonderful conglomeration of cells that had carried me around for more than five decades. It bore the scars of a military campaign.
The wound across my abdomen was still raw and brutal looking. The swelling hadn’t completely subsided. While my new uplifted breasts had a youthful profile, the artificial one drooped slightly lower than its partner. Most of Greg’s needlework had been concealed as promised under the breasts or around the sides of them but my one remaining nipple was circled with red suture lines. On my fake breast, where the nipple should’ve been, a circle of pale skin stared back at me like a giant eye.
I made an effort to keep this strange new body out of sight most of the time, lifting the sheets to cover my breasts when Philip brought tea into the bedroom each morning. He was invariably tactful, assuring me I looked better than before. But I was far from a Playboy centrefold. I wondered what he really thought. Deep down I didn’t want to know in case the truth was devastating.
The tiredness was overwhelming at times. I’d collapse on the bed to sleep and sleep. Too much effort went into getting through each day to worry about the future. Every moment felt precious. I could spend an unfathomable amount of time examining dust particles in a shaft of light, or the painting of a poppy on the wall beyond the end of our bed. Enfolding myself in the flower’s petals, I savoured the miracle of being in a living, breathing body.
Compared to the enormous physical changes I’d been through, the decision to give up thirty years of column writing was minuscule. I felt miraculously free without the burden of Monday morning deadlines. While I missed contact with readers, many stayed in touch. They’d sent floods of emails while I’d been in hospital. Some wrote that after reading me for so many years they felt like friends. A couple even invited me to recuperate at their houses. The generosity of these so-called strangers was overwhelming.
Messages also arrived from women who’d successfully recovered from breast cancer. Most were reassuring, though a few emails were edged with terror. They were from women who’d been recently diagnosed with uncertain futures. One had small children she was dreading leaving. I hoped my attempts to reply to these anguished women weren’t inadequate. They were a painful reminder not to take anything for granted.
Maybe there was more wisdom in Lydia’s request for a maroon scarf than I realised. Knitting was probably an ideal way to sit back, regain my health and reassess for a while.
I’d just hoped something might’ve triggered her to change her mind about leaving. Maybe even the kitten . . .
‘When are you leaving?’ I asked, trying to sound strong.
Jonah danced across the kitchen floor and squeaked up at her. Lydia broke into a smile as she picked him up.
‘Oh boy!’ she said, kissing his forehead. ‘We’d better get you settled as an outdoor cat first.’