To Catch a Creeper (16 page)

‘What a day. I mean, what a damn day.’ He has an odd shine to his eyes. ‘You know, Cathy, I’ve been thinking…really thinking these past few weeks, what with the way things are, you earning money again, making such a success of your job, and what you said about everything going downhill domestically and not being able to manage.’

‘Ah yes, well that is a point and in fact today–’

‘And then with Hugh…’

Oh bloody hell, I inwardly groan. Not bloody Hugh again as he starts on another long spiel about the latest theory of our existence.

The fish fingers are crackling away, nicely browning without being burnt.

‘…the important things in life…’

I start spooning baked beans onto two plates, plucking up the courage for my turn.

‘…and so I did it.’ He looks at me expectantly.

‘You did. Good. Right. Sophie! Josh! Table! Dinner!’

‘I’m so pleased. Phew!’ He sinks himself into a seat with a look of relief on his face and with one hand wipes a pretend bead of sweat from his brow. ‘Because really I was worried what you might say, but I just know it’s right for me, for us – for the whole family. Hey, son.’ He pats Josh on the head as he races through and skids to a halt in front of his meal. ‘I mean we have savings, we have your income, and we’ve got that loan for the downstairs extension which I’m sure we can siphon a bit from if need be while we adjust. No, this is the best thing, I’ve never been more certain of anything in my entire life. From now on, I am not Declan the pen-pusher workaholic from Wilson Inc. I’m Declan the house-husband.’

‘But…but…’ I start.

‘Sorry, I’ve been droning on a bit. What were you going to tell me, love?’

I was going to say, hey, I’ve lost my job, my wages, there’s going be no money coming in, and you’d better grab all the overtime you can get, Buster, ’cos it’s going to be a stormy ride ahead. But now all I can say is a pathetic. ‘Nothing.’

It’s the first time since Hugh’s death I’ve seen him actually smile. I just can’t burst his bubble now. I just can’t. ‘Nothing at all. It can wait.’

Until tomorrow at least.

***

It’s like torture. Eleven-thirty p.m. and I’m making my way down Oakleigh Close having said my goodbyes to the others. All the problems I’d usually disperse amongst my husband, best friend, second best friend and the WOWs, and I can’t say anything to anybody. Not a dicky bird.

I considered confiding in Henrietta tonight because she wasn’t at risk of becoming mentally or physically ill (although she did have worries of her own what with Neil), but then I thought of the Islington connection. It might get out. Just say Henrietta mentioned it to her doddery boss and then the doddery boss mentioned it to the girl in the local sandwich shop, and then she mentioned it to someone, just as Rosa was coming in to buy herself a lunchtime baguette.

And then I pontificated on it some more and decided that if I swore Henrietta to the utmost secrecy, emphasising that a foetus’s life was at stake, then maybe… But it was too late – the gun had been well and truly jumped because before I got to Henrietta, Rosa bumped into her coming home from work and toldher of my great success (ha!).

First thing I knew about it was when I walked into Tropicos earlier this evening. There was a terrible sound of a piano hammering out an almost unrecognisable tune, which turned out to be Cliff Richard’s
Congratulations
, a peculiar form of torture which should never have survived the sixties. I looked across to see who was playing and was flabbergasted to realise it was Isobel (she’d been taking lessons with her ten-year-old daughter) and she raised one hand and waved furiously at me with a big bright beam on her face.

Then as I made my way over to our usual table, trying my best to hoist up my lips into the semblance of a smile, the WOWs all stood in unison (as if they’d been rehearsing it for eons) and started clapping me. All that was missing were shouts of ‘Encore!Encore!’ Henrietta had tears in her eyes and both she and Janet held candles up in my direction as homage to my great talents. Great talents? What a hoot. Miss Nobby-no-job more like.

And finally out came the champagne that they’d all chipped in for, which Carlos brought over with a flourish in a big ice bucket. And it was a massively expensive bottle from France. And of course, I realised although they were patting me on the back and pouring me out a flute, they were also patting themselves on the back and pouring themselves out flutes, for helping me the night before and I couldn’t,
just couldn’t
, disappoint them.

***

I fumble in my handbag for the key to my front door as the rain starts drizzling down on my guilty, shameful self. I feel such a fraud. They were all so happy for me. Thought I was the bee’s knees, somebody worth knowing, worth celebrating with. They reflected in my glory and it was so lovely and sweet, and yet so excruciatingly painful, knowing it wasn’t true.

And now what was I going to do about money? Or lack of? And the bank loan? We’ll have to cancel it; I’ll ring them in the morning. And I’ll speak to Declan. Let him have at least one good night’s sleep.

Bang goes our new downstairs extension. Bang goes my great gifts-for-all Christmas. Bang goes everything.

Could it get any worse?

I walk into the kitchen.

Yep.

It just has.

Tic-Tac’s gagging. Crouching down, head almost at the floor, his body stricken with pain as he lurches forward and back in a rocking motion. What the hell’s the matter with him?

I fall to my knees beside him and stare at his twitching torso as he topples to one side. He’s near his dish on which lie a few pieces of left-over chicken. I touch his neck. There’s a slight pulse, but his mouth is open and he doesn’t look like he’s breathing.
Could it be a heart attack like Hugh? Should I perform mouth-to-mouth? Can you do the Heimlich Manoeuvre on a cat? Nothing for it. I grab Tic-Tac, shove him under one arm, dash to the car, throw him in and speed off.

The wipers work nineteen to the dozen as the rain starts lashing against the windscreen. Has he been poisoned? Has he some dreadful illness?

Two minutes later I pull up outside a large house in Birchington Road and buzz the doorbell. Nice part of Crouch End. It was around here that Bob Dylan was meant to have visited, mistakenly waiting for hours in a plumber called Dave’s living room, while thinking he was in ex-Eurythmics star, Dave Stewart’s house. No-one knows exactly whether it’s true or an urban myth but it’s one of the little stories that cheers people up and makes them feel glad that they live in such an interesting, bohemian atmosphere.

A light goes on upstairs. She lives above the practice, the vet. I pray she’s in, but you never know. Her house was one of the ones burgled, again not much taken. The newspapers speculated that it might have been for the drugs, and they made a great show that they weren’t kept on the premises. Just in case they tried again, I guess.

But I’m not concerned with that now. This is a life and death situation.

‘Hello?’ She opens the door a fraction as it’s on a thick gold chain, and asks somewhat nervously. ‘Who is it?’ She has an accent, can’t quite place, Icelandic maybe or Swedish. Looks a bit like Agnetha from Abba, cheekbones-wise but her long hair’s lank, lifeless and a rather nothingy shade of brown.

‘I’m sorry to call on you so late,’ I blurt out, ‘but I couldn’t wait. I-I think my cat’s dying.’

Within seconds, the chain’s taken off and I’m ushered inside. She unlocks the surgery, takes Tic-Tac carefully from my grasp and plonks him on her examination table.

And Tic-Tac sits on his bottom, licks his right paw and begins washing behind his left ear…and he’s purring…loudly.

‘So what’s wrong?’ She gives me a peculiar look.

‘He was lying on the ground. Practically dead. He wasn’t breathing. He was choking. I swear he was.’

‘Right, choking.’ She opens his mouth and looks inside at his nineteen-year-old teeth, checks his nineteen-year-old gums and then pokes a little lighted instrument into his nineteen-year-old ears.

‘He’s nineteen,’ I explain. ‘Been sick a lot lately. Most days in fact. And diarrhoea.’

‘Well,’ she yawns as she switches on her computer and taps in a few details, ‘he seems all right now. Maybe he
was
choking,’ she says this in a doubtful voice, ‘and perhaps it got dislodged. But there’s nothing to see and he looks quite content. Eh boy? Though his ears could do with a clean and according to my notes he’s not up to date with his injections. Unless you’ve visited another vet?’

‘No, no, only you.’ I give a guilty blush. Not that I have taken him anywhere else, but I always feel guilty when being accused of something. I’ve even owned up to things in the past that I haven’t done, because I look so guilty everyone thinks I’m the culprit anyway. ‘We’ve not had him long ourselves. But we’ll get him done. Sorry to have bothered you.’

‘Hey, I’m used to it,’ she says with a resigned voice. ‘Just next time, you know, maybe double-check.’

‘You must think I’m terrible,’ I say, ‘waking you like this. In the middle of the night.’

‘Chance’d be a fine thing,’ she says wryly, before adding as explanation. ‘I’ve not been sleeping too well lately. There was a burglary here not so long ago.’

‘I heard.’

‘You read about it?’

‘Seems like you were the third victim.’

‘Yes, well they didn’t take much but that’s not the point. It’s just such a horrid feeling…like you’ve been invaded. Like they’ve been spying on you. Knowing they’ve had their dirty hands on your private property.’ She shrugs. ‘Just makes you a touch vulnerable. If I was a drinker, I’d down some whisky each night, but I’m teetotal.’

‘Sounds terrible. Dog didn’t help then?’ I noticed a lead hanging up from a hook as I came in.

‘Toby? No, he was away. I share custody with my ex. He has him two days, I have him three.’

‘Weekends you take it in turns?’

She nods. ‘Look, perhaps you’d better come back surgery hours. Just so I can give him a proper check-over. This being sick and diarrhoea doesn’t sound too good, especially in a cat of his age.’ She rifles through a basket next to her. ‘Do you want a PDSA key ring – only a quid?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ I write her out a cheque including the cost of the PDSA key ring, say my goodbyes and head home. I quietly open the door so as not to disturb anybody, keeping a firm hold of Tic-Tac under my arm. And there it is.

In the porch.

A lump of chicken gristle.

The bloody cat must have dropped it as I ran out the house with him under my arms.

I’d done the Heimlich Manoeuvre without even realising.

Chapter 15

Thursday. First full day of being unemployed, suspended, sacked, booted-out, call it what you will and I’ve yet to confide in my husband.

So far I’ve got away with it, because as soon as I woke up I explained to him about my late night dash to the vet and just added an extra tag about how she said I’d to keep an eye on him all day today. Almost true. At least she didn’t say not to.

‘I thought I’d lost him.’ I pretended to dab at a tear. ‘He’s like a son to me.’

Declan looked mildly surprised. ‘But you always call him a flea-bitten monstrosity?’

Thing is, about Tic-Tac, he’s Declan’s cat. He was offered him back in the summer by some woman at work who was going abroad and, without consulting me (his wife), he brought him home and presented him to the kids. Yes it was a kind gesture, but I was miffed he’d done it in that way and once I saw the kids’ eyes light up, I couldn’t say no. Even the dog took to him. Not disregarding the fact that when I stroke him, he purrs and rubs his head against me, wanting tickles behind the ear, then just as I think I’ve finally bonded he whips round and gouges me with his claws. Hardly his most endearing quality.

‘It’s different when they practically die in your arms. No, you take the kids to school, I’ll stay home today with Tic-Tac. Turks won’t mind.’

‘But aren’t you up to your neck in work?’

‘That can wait. Family comes first.’

For a second I get all excited thinking I’ve found a new catchy slogan until I remember it was in the film,
Click
, and then I also realise that even if I do find a super-duper slogan it’s too late anyway as I haven’t a campaign or even a job to go with it.

***

By eleven o’clock I’m bored out of my box and itching to leave the house. All right, I could have told Declan the real reason I was home and I almost did several times since he came back from the school run, but he’s so incredibly happy and motivated. Like a changed man really as he works his way around the kitchen, cleaning the table with a metal scourer and bottle of bleach, removing the grease from the tiles behind the hob, scrubbing the floor, vacuuming the curtains (don’t worry he’s not completely lost it yet, there’s a special attachment). In the end, I make an excuse that I need to go off and do some market research.

‘But what about Tic-Tac?’ He asks as I grab my bag.

‘It was the early morning she was particularly concerned with,’ I mutter as I scuttle out the door.

I reach the Broadway and almost immediately bump into Isobel. She looks astounded to see me.

‘Cathy! In the daytime no less! On a weekday! Is this a mirage I see before me?’

‘Better than a dagger I guess,’ I reply glumly.

‘Don’t know about that. Dagger wouldn’t be such a bad thing with the Crouch End Creeper knocking about. Did you hear there was another break-in yesterday?’

‘Gosh, no, where?’

‘Priory Road, just near the auction rooms. Papers haven’t cottoned on yet, but Dad heard about it through his contacts on the force. Single mother, two kids, around five o’clock. Not at work, then?’

‘Our cat’s sick. I’m keeping an eye on him. And Declan’s quit work. So I’m keeping an eye on him too.’

‘Oh.’

‘What, oh?’ It was a very knowing tone.

‘Larry warned me about this,’ she frowns. ‘Said this might be the next thing. Unable to hold down a job.’

‘It wasn’t like that. He
was
able to hold his job down. He
wanted
to resign.’