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Cat was as usual, scarce when we walked, (stumbled!) in, giggling at something inane, and I don't think we even made it all the way to the couch before we were naked and groping and gasping. This time it was far better than the first time – we were a lot more comfortable with each other. Good thing too, because sex when I am drunk is not something I have ever been successful at. I passed out very soon after, and when I awoke freezing, shaking and seriously hung over, to go pee, I discovered that I was naked, on the couch and alone. Mostly. Cat was sitting with her back to the other end of the couch, knees drawn up, staring off into space in the general direction of the TV. The closest she had sat to me in the whole time she had lived there.
She slowly swung her head in my direction as I staggered with a groan to my feet, rose with that feline grace of hers and looking over her shoulder at me, started off in the direction of the hall. The pounding in my head meant that I was unable to match her glide, her silence or her co-ordination. I bounced off the wall of the hallway to see her standing in front of the bathroom door, staring in. When I got there, I could see what had held her attention. Naked, unhappy and noisy about it, Jane, body taught as a piece of spring steel, was curled over the bowl, retching and crying. Well. It had been a wild afternoon and evening. I slowly moved into the bathroom, and sat on the floor beside her and began to stroke her hair. Cat quietly went back to her futon, her duty done. Amazing what an expressionless and silent woman can communicate when she wants to.
I sat with a sick and unhappy Jane for the rest of the night. The silence companionable and comforting, in spite of her distress, then as the dawn crept up the window, we became somewhat more animated. Discussion of the really important things, the critical things discovered between new lovers. Like what her favourite band was and who she went to Europe with when she was seventeen, and why Broccoli made her feel sick, and where she found her lost dog on her fifth birthday making it the best birthday ever.
From time to time, I felt Cat coming to the door and looking at the two of us wrapped in a bath sheet, leaning on our elbows over the toilet and quietly talking. I had my back to the door, but something, maybe the difference in air pressure, or the primal hairs on the back of my neck, would let me know that she had arrived and again that she had left. Not once in the few hours we sat there did I actually hear Cat. It was a nice feeling, though, to know that she cared enough to keep tabs on us.
When I heard the clock radio go off in the bedroom, I creaked and groaned my way to my feet, helped Jane to hers and we staggered off, neither of us totally sober, to the bed where I placed that fragile and unhappy girl, covered her, then went into the kitchen to have my customary coffee. Cat was at the stove, making her perennially terrible coffee, and looking so familiar, that without conscious though I stepped beside her and draped my left arm around her shoulders, without considering or even remembering her distaste for being touched. I gave a gentle squeeze of gratitude, and as I did so she tensed up. In the time it took for a gentle hug and release, I felt the muscles of her upper back and shoulders like cords and bands of steel! There was a lot more to this classy-looking lady than met the eye, (and there wasn't really a lot that didn't meet the eye).
I took a cup of coffee, apologizing to Cat and sat at the table. It took her a couple of minutes to regain whatever composure she had lost, and when she turned with her own cup and sat across from me, there wasn't any discernable change in her demeanour. She sat, casually erect as always, looked me in the eye with total indifference written on her face, and waited for whatever she had already been waiting for ... for eight months!
I sat a little stunned as I realised that she had been silently there in my life for eight months and all I knew about her was that her hair colour was natural, there was a small mole in the centre of her back and she didn't much like being touched. I said something about my astonishment that the time had passed all unknowingly, and there came once again that tiny frown. Interpreting it as I had become wont to do, I quickly assured her that it was not only no trouble, but indeed my distinct pleasure to have a naked beautiful woman about the house. I went on for so long a time telling her of my appreciation of her company that I managed to embarrass my self. She didn't seem to even notice, went back to staring off into space and I was effectively left alone again
IV I finished my coffee, telephoned the night man at work and left a message with him that I wouldn't be in that day, and that I would be working from home, sending in my completed portion of the Wentworth project by the end of the day. (It sure felt good to be well ahead of a deadline for once!). I put on some shorts and a t-shirt, got another cup of coffee and flashed up the computer. First thing I did, as usual was check my e-mail. There were the usual advertisements for cheap computer parts, really unique dirty-picture sites and something from a company that was selling, as far as I could decipher the fractured English, genuine Peruvian Lamas. There was also an odd message from an anonymous server – one of those places that will disguise your sending address and re-send it on so that the original sender can't possibly be traced.
Return-Path:
There are some really bad men looking for you and your new roommate. Be warned.
A friend
I read it three times. I didn't have a roommate, new or otherwise. Unless the sender meant Jane, but then she wasn't really a roommate, simply at my place a lot...Unless there was someone watching her, who had seen her coming to my place for a while on a regular basis. Then it hit me! CAT could be considered a roommate. I didn't think of her as an active member of the household, just a warm comforting silent presence in the apartment. Like a housecat. I didn't think that there could be anyone who knew she was there. I didn't think she went out during the day, although when I was at work she managed to bathe herself, clean the apartment and collect the groceries she needed, those nights she cooked. Nonetheless somehow I had the distinct impression that she hadn't been out of the apartment since the night she arrived. I had other things that needed to occupy my attention, so I saved it to my wierdities file and began to work on my project.
The project wasn't complicated or anything other than time consuming, and it was several hours before I raised my eyes from the screen, and going into the kitchen to get another cup of coffee, noticed that Jane was stirring. I grabbed a cup for her and took it into the bedroom. Sitting quietly beside her was pleasant, as she sipped and woke up, (a lot happier than she had been earlier that morning!). I remember thinking that this was something I could get very comfortable with in a hurry.
After a while, She looked at me, smiled and said thanks. Then she cleared her throat and began to look a little worried. "I know you said you didn't want to know, but it is really important that you, me and Cat have a talk. Right now. Very important."
"I can't speak for Cat, but I'm more than willing to listen. What's up?" I was not a little intrigued at something that was so important that Jane was willing to forgo the usual moaning about her head, which, if the experience of the night was any indicator, must have felt like a construction site behind schedule.
"Cat has to be there. This is about her."
"Jane, I told you I don't push Cat. If she wants us to know who she is and why she is here, she'll tell us if she can. I don't even know if she is able to speak. All I am reasonably certain of is that she is fairly familiar with English, and so far hasn't shown the slightest interest in telling me anything."
"Aren't you even a little bit curious? How can you have lived here with her for so long and not even tried to find out about her? Aren't you human?"
"Sure," I sighed, this was going to be tough to explain – most people don't understand the concept of 'leave well enough alone'. "I have just enough humanity in me to be a little curious. I am also aware that for most people, it is uncomfortable to have their past or present actions questioned. I am of the firm belief that an adult is capable of reaching their own lifestyle decisions, and having done so, willing to abide with the consequences – good or bad. Have I asked you anything about you? I don't even know what it is you do or who you work for or if you have any other gentlemen friends or..."
I smiled and she frowned a little.
"That's true. You don't ask even the usual questions. Maybe that's why I feel so comfortable here. You make it so that I don't have to prove anything, and you accept me for being me, you don't try to change or mould me into something I am not willing to become. What kind of man are you anyway?" This last with an impish look in her eye. "All my previous boyfriends have wanted me to be something between a Playboy model, a servant and a mother. You just let me be me. Thanks." The logistics of trying to balance a cup of coffee without spilling it, and give me a heartfelt hug soon had us giggling like a couple of kids. Or new lovers.
"Is that what we are, now? Boyfriend – girlfriend?"
"Does that bother you? I gotta tell you I kind of like it..." She searched my face for some reaction, but not being sure just what I was feeling, I kept my face pleasant and noncommittal.
"I'll have to think about that. I have nothing against it per se, but I don't like being categorised, placed into a slot and then forgotten. I'll let you know if I am willing to be your boyfriend in a little while. I am also not certain whether or not I like being classified as a boy at my advanced age..."
She slugged me with a pillow, got out of bed while calling me all sorts of interesting things not usually associated with the loving nature of a boyfriend, and went into the bathroom. I took the now empty cups back to the kitchen. There I found Cat standing in the doorway to the utility room, looking if anything a little apprehensive. I quietly said that Jane wanted all of us to talk, and she actually nodded, walked silently to the table and sat down. This was perhaps the first solid indication I had that she understood English. The thought had sporadically crossed my mind in the past few months that perhaps her silence was due to unfamiliarity with the language, but several times she seemed to understand what I was saying, and anyway, with the relationship that we had developed, it really didn't matter.
Jane came in, wearing one of my old shirts, sat at the table and I came over with three fresh cups of coffee, and sat too. Jane started by telling Cat that she had been in Winnipeg recently, and she had managed to discover whom she was and could guess why she was in my city and my apartment. Cat got seriously agitated – for Cat. The tremors started, and she tensed up like she was on the starting blocks of a sprinter's match. As she started to rise from the table, Jane reached out and placed her index finger on the back of Cat's hand which stopped Cat's precipitous flight to the utility room. I had to say something, as it was becoming very obvious to me that Cat was panicked at the thought that someone knew who she was.
"Cat, Jane hasn't told me anything about what she seems to know about you. And I haven't asked. I don't want to know, unless you are willing to tell me, when you are ready and comfortable with it. Your presence here is a welcome one, regardless of who you might be or what you might have done." Cat looked directly at me, not something I was accustomed to from her. I sensed that she wasn't totally convinced either that I hadn't asked Jane to tell all, or that her past was her business, or that I was willing to let her stay without some explanation. "Regardless, Cat. Your past isn't of much concern to me and I like getting coffee in bed first thing in the mornings."
Jane, like most people, not happy with being the possessor of information without being able to tell it, looked at Cat, but she spoke to me. "You don't understand. It's not that she did anything bad, but that there are still some pretty rough people actively looking for her, and she is in some danger, and because she is here, so are you."
"Well! That's a pretty dramatic statement, Jane. Cat? Do you feel that you and I are in some kind of danger?" A lone tear crawled down Cat's face, and after searching my face for a long time she nodded slightly. Then she got up and walked silently into the utility room. Jane kicked my shin with her bare foot and started to get up to go to Cat, who came out of the utility room dressed as I had first seen her. Dressed for the first time in eight months. I admit to being a little startled, and just sat there with a stunned look on my face, I am sure. She was a totally different looking woman. Whereas before this moment, she had always walked about erect, shoulders back and proud, now that she was dressed in her street clothes, she seemed to have shrunk a little, almost as if she was cringing inside from the touch of the cloth.
I was inanely thinking that this had to be some kind of record for a woman getting dressed, when I realised that Jane was standing in front of Cat barring her exit from the room and hurriedly babbling about how she and I were more than willing to help, and that she was safer here than on the streets and other stuff of a similar nature. I too arose and added my voice. Cat looked at us both, then looked at me, a slight return to her old proud self. I quickly assured her that whatever trouble she was in, we were both there to aid her through it in whatever way we could. She peered for the longest time at us in turn, and seeing that we were quite serious, she began to remove her clothes, a genuine smile on her face.
It lit up her whole face. What was an unremarkable countenance became in that instant truly beautiful. When she had undressed entirely, she placed all the clothes on the kitchen table, reached into the junk drawer and put a box of wooden matches (kept for power failures) on top of the pile of expensive clothes. I looked at the matches for a moment, and then to Cat.
"You want me to burn them?" She nodded emphatically once, turned and walked into the utility room, closing the door behind her. Jane looking at me for a moment, said, "You'd better do it. This is really important, and I think she just got over a very large hurdle. I'll help. Just let me get some clothes on."
V While Jane was dressing, I went to the door of the utility room, and speaking through the closed panel. I told Cat that I was going out for a bit, but I would be back shortly. Then Jane and I went to the basement of the building, found an old washtub and taking it out to the laneway behind the building, burnt Cat's clothes. It took the entire box of matches and the dregs of a bottle of barbecue starter. What a stink!
While we were waiting for the cloth to reduce itself to anonymous ash, Jane said,
"I think those were all tied up with – well her past, somehow. I suppose that getting you to burn them, she is showing that she trusts you a lot, and I don't want you to hurt her any more than she already has been. You have to get her some clothes so that she won't feel trapped. Try to get something basic, that will be OK in just about any situation."
"Ummm. Actually, I hadn't noticed in the past eight months that Cat really felt the need for clothing. And, talented as I am my dear Jane, I suspect that you would be better at buying women's clothing than I would, as I so seldom wear them! Especially the er.. foundation garments."
"Foundation garments? What...Oh! You mean bra and underpants? Hmm you could be right, and I suppose you have NO idea as to sizes or colours or anything. Typical man. And you haven't really thought this through, have you? She hasn't been wearing those clothes because I think that they meant something awful to her, but the fact is, that if she doesn't get some clothes of her own she is going to feel like a prisoner in your apartment." I banged the heel of my hand on my forehead and grimaced. She grinned. "I didn't think so! Well I suppose I will have to come along, but you are still going to have to buy them, I had my purse stolen at the airport, remember? And I should go by my place and get something to change into, the stuff in my suitcase is so dirty, it has a life of it's own and is starting to form it's own counter revolutionary army."
There wasn't any reason to go back upstairs, so once Cat's clothes were little more than warm ash, I washed out the tub, put it back and we got into a cab for the airport, to collect Jane's small suitcase, my car and to report the theft of her purse. The car and Jane's suitcase were the easy parts. Airport Security was a typical bureaucratic nightmare. It seems that anything stolen on Federal Property is done so at the express request of the victim, and Jane's permitting it to happen was the commission of a crime. So we had to sit and await the pleasure of several petty bureaucrats. So we had to answer a lot of idiot questions. So we had to fill out a myriad of forms as punishment: especially me, because I hadn't been there when the crime took place. Then there were the forms needed to describe the forms we had just filled out. Then the ones explaining the errors on the previous forms.
About three hours later we got to her apartment, and after opening the door, Jane took one step inside, shrieked a little and stopped cold. Jane's normal housekeeping skills wouldn't have won her any awards: she was generally a neat person, but there were always magazines out and the odd sweater or something draped over a chair. You could come in and see the dregs of wine in the bottom of a wineglass hidden from immediate view on a bookshelf or the clothes hamper in the bathroom would be overflowing. Now it was a little different.
Nothing was left on a shelf, and all the furniture was overturned, cushions slashed and pictures out of frames on the floor. There was a pile of clothes, books and other detritus of normal daily life in a small mountain atop the overturned loveseat, whose entrails were intermingled with the pile and snaked across the floor in three or four directions. There were fairly large holes knocked in the walls at regular intervals, and that was just the living room. Whoever had searched the place hadn't worried about the careful handling of another person's precious belongings, nor, as the holes were a testament, noise.
It had to have happened in the past day or so, the ketchup mingled with the other foodstuffs spilling haphazardly over the counter and onto the floor (and the dishes, pots and frozen food melted there) was still fairly fresh. The bathroom was a disaster with all the potions; crèmes and powders of a woman's regimen mixed together and tread into the carpet there and in the hall leading to the bedroom. It was the bedroom that was the worst. This was obviously the last room searched and the searchers evidently had taken out all their frustrations on that room. Not only was the mattress and box spring slashed, but also the dresser had been systematically disassembled using an axe or some similarly destructive tool. And in the midst of it all, there were Jane's clothes, each slashed into ribbons: even her underpants.
Atop this particular pile, was her purse, emptied but intact. Amongst the ruined clothing we found her wallet, credit cards, (all cut up) and fifty dollars in bills. Nothing else from her purse was found. It was while we were discovering this and Jane, understandably in a bit of shock, had finally begun to repeat herself as she cursed to eternal damnation the perpetrators, that I heard a noise in the front room. I grabbed a chunk of the shattered dresser and crept down the hall to the living room. I don't quite know what it was I was going to do once I got there, but I remember vague feelings of protecting Jane and avenging this rape of her home. I leapt around the corner, piece of wood held over my head and shouted some primal cry of anger and frustration. And stopped cold. Before me was a woman in her fifties, in curlers, a muumuu and bunny slippers. Even in my red rage, I could tell that this was probably not one of the apartment ravagers returned.
