Page 75 of To Hell With It
‘Beautiful eyes,’ I said because I couldn’t think of anything else to say while I tried to grab hold of the butterflies in my head to stop them taking over. ‘And she’s so soft.’ I ran my hand down the cat’s back. It was as stiff as a plank of wood and felt as dead as you might imagine a dead cat to feel.
I should probably tell you now that the reason I had to pick up the cat was because I’d had an intrusive thought. And the thing with my intrusive thoughts is they don’t warn me about when they’re coming. They don’t give me any time to get off the bloody bus. They just pop up, clear as day, and don’t go away until I’ve done whatever it is I have to do.
And this one was that I had to lick the dead cat – on its head – otherwise it was all going to go wrong with Jack. So I had no choice, did I? You can see where I’m coming from now, I’m hoping?
I could feel Eve’s eyes on me and I was running out of things to say about her cat on my lap (there are only so many compliments you can give a dead cat). I hoped she might start the engine and drive off so that she had to look at the road instead of me, but she didn’t.
‘So, tell me. Why are you going to Te Puke?’ Eve asked.
‘I’m going to see someone,’ I said bluntly. I didn’t have time for conversation.
‘Who?’
‘A man I met in Ireland.’
‘He’s a Kiwi?’
‘Yep, he’s called Jack. He doesn’t know I’m coming so I’m quite nervous about it. Need to just get there, you know?’ I pictured my tongue against its dead fur, would it stick to my mouth? Was it clean? Could a dead cat be clean?
‘That’s ballsy.’
‘Or just stupid.’ I reached in my pocked for my sanitiser and opened it with one hand. I felt it splodge out onto my skin and seep between my fingers. I’d become an expert at pouring it into the same hand out of sight.
‘Are you going to stay with him?’
‘That’s the plan but I’ll find a hostel just in case.’
Why wasn’t she driving?
‘Good idea, it’s always good to have a plan b.’
Eve didn’t strike me as someone who planned anything.
‘What about you? Will you ever go home?’ I needed to keep her distracted from what I was doing. What the bloody hell was I doing?
‘What for?’
‘To see your family?’
‘My family deserted me a long time ago.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said at the same time as I lifted my hand from my pocket and rubbed it over the top of the cat’s head to make sure it was clean.
Eve was still looking at me, damn her, but she didn’t seem to notice the top of its head was now wet. Why couldn’t she look out of the window or turn away? I glanced back down at her cat on my lap and with as much sympathy as I could muster for a dead stuffed cat; I lifted it to my mouth as if I was going to give it a kiss.
‘Such a lovely cat,’ I muttered and then as quickly as I could, I kissed the top of its head, stuck my tongue out and licked in one swift upwards motion.
‘I’m not sorry,’ Eve continued, and I breathed a sigh of relief that she’d not noticed the lick or thought anything of me kissing her dead cat. ‘My father was an alcoholic who left when I was ten and my mother was never home. I had to look after my brother, and when he left for America, there was no reason to stay.’
‘Don’t you get lonely?’
‘I didn’t when I had Ginger, but now?—’
‘What about a dog?’
‘Maybe one day.’
‘Will you keep Ginger forever?’
