For Once In My Life

Chapter 4

The following morning, Kitty woke with a very clear sensation that all was not well with the world. It took her a few moments of anxiously sorting through her Rolodex of memories to recall what it was exactly. And when she found it, her heart sank even further. Dave was gone.

It explained the space in the bed beside her, the quiet of the house, the lack of someone snoring loudly or watching a blaring television. Everything felt eerily empty and quiet. It was better when Dave was around because there was something comforting about knowing that there was someone in the world who had shaped their life to fit yours, that they were your person and you were theirs and that your future was laid out like a yellow brick road for the two of you to skip along together to Oz. Or wherever.

But now, lying in bed, Kitty had never felt so alone.

She missed Dave. All of him. Even the awful bits such as his weird nostril breathing, the way he left his clothes on the floor or had breakfast in bed so there were always crumbs. And why were crumbs always so sharp? But he was a good person. Dave never harmed anyone, he was a sensitive man who was going through a difficult time, and she hadn’t always been the most brilliant partner. Just the other evening, she had told him that she was fed up with picking up his clothes off the floor.

‘What do you expect me to do about it?’ he had said, grumpily, drinking the milk from his cornflakes straight from the bowl.

‘Pick them up?’

‘What’s the point?’ he’d said. ‘They’re only going to end back there soon enough.’

‘Because clothes don’t belong on the floor and they make the room look messy.’

He had shaken his head. ‘But why worry about it? They are only clothes. They are not doing any harm. Stop being so uptight.’

Of course, he was right. They were only clothes. And she was uptight. When Dave came back, she would show him that she was willing to not put pressure on him about anything – marriage, clothes on the floor, his monochrome diet. Yes, he was somewhat flawed, lazy and a bit depressing to be around, but she couldn’t abandon him or give up on him, not when there was still a chance to make everything better. She knew what it was like to feel abandoned and given up upon, and she didn’t want to do that to Dave.

Kitty’s parents’ marriage had ended when Kitty was five and from then on her father, Billy, would take Kitty out every Saturday. They were usually boring days spent watching the local football team, the Sandycove Seafarers, and then they’d go to a shabby local café on the seafront for hot chocolate, which was always Kitty’s favourite bit, but when he moved to the States to coach a local team when she was in her early teens, their contact lapsed, and they never quite found each other again. Billy moved back to Sandycove a few years earlier and lived in a cottage in the centre of the village. He was working at least three jobs, as far as Kitty could tell. There was his early-morning shift as a postman, then the morning sandwich-making session at the bakery, and then some evening coaching at the Sandycove Seafarers. Kitty felt a swirl of sadness that their relationship was so insubstantial. She loved him but they had little in common. It was complicated.

Her most loyal companion wasn’t a human, it was Romeo. But he was nowhere to be seen. Normally, by this time in the morning, he had returned from his night-time prowl around the mean streets of Sandycove and had made his way through his cat flap, across the kitchen, through the living room, up the stairs, pushing open the bedroom door with his head, and then hopping, soundlessly, as though on strings, onto the end of the bed, where he would sleep off his night on the tiles.

Except he too was gone. The house was still, empty, with no heartbeat except her own. Kitty felt sick. She pulled on her dressing gown and in a few swift steps was heading down the stairs, barely able to call his name.

She pushed open the door of the kitchen and she almost cried in relief because there he was, curled up in the corner, on the warm patch over the hot-water pipe below. He was fine, just fast asleep, his eyes closed, looking just like the kitten she had brought home all those years ago, his small chest trembling with each breath.

‘Oh, Romeo,’ she said. ‘You gave me a fright… why didn’t you come upstairs?’

She began filling the kettle, thinking of Dave and that, soon, when he returned, she would be so much better. She would even make him his bowl of cornflakes and she wouldn’t have to look away when he tipped the milk into his mouth. She had to change, she really did.

‘I do, don’t I, Romeo?’ Kitty said. ‘I have to change. Be a better person…’ She went to the fridge for the milk. ‘You see,’ she went on, ‘he knows me and I know him and…’ She glanced at Romeo again and he’d shifted a little, revealing his right ear… but it was bleeding.

Kitty dropped to her knees to examine it. A bite had been taken out of Romeo’s ear.

‘Oh, Romeo…’

Kitty gently touched the area around it as Romeo looked back at her, his tiger eyes sad and baleful. Aged thirteen, he was an old-man cat and didn’t deserve this kind of violence. There was only one cat who could be responsible. Timmy, the neighbour’s terrifying tabby, which hissed and snarled at everyone – cats, dogs and humans. He’d attacked Romeo before, but not for a long time, and then Romeo had been sprightlier, far more able to dodge the claws.

‘We’ll have to go to the vets,’ she said. ‘I know you hate your carrier, but there’s no other way.’

She usually went to one in Dún Laoghaire, but they’d been closed for the last few months while the owner was on sabbatical in Thailand. ‘Seeing the world, Kitty,’ she had told her when Romeo was last in for his shots. ‘Life is short and I’ve had enough of this weather and this humdrum life. I’m off to have fun.’

Kitty found the number of the other vets and dialled.

‘Good morning,’ said the receptionist, ‘Sandycove Veterinary Surgery and Day Hospital, your pet is our passion, how may I help you?’

‘My cat has been attacked by another cat,’ said Kitty. ‘His ear has been bitten.’

‘Let me see…’ The receptionist seemed to talk through her nose. ‘We have a cancellation in fifteen minutes. Can you pop down?’

‘Yes…’

‘Name of cat?’

‘Romeo O’Sullivan.’

‘See you in fifteen minutes.’

Kitty carried Romeo in his special carrier, her arm aching, her heart almost as heavy as Romeo, and finally put him down beside the desk, where the receptionist chattered to someone with an energetic chihuahua who was twisting the lead around her legs as though maypole dancing.

‘Prof Sweetman is such a great addition to the practice,’ the receptionist was saying. ‘We’re so honoured to have him.’

The woman with the chihuahua nodded. ‘He’s magnificent,’ she said. ‘Cross between Pierce Brosnan and George Clooney in his ER days. It’s the scrubs, I think. And the dark eyebrows. I am a sucker for eyebrows. Anyway, you know when he operated on Chicolito six weeks ago after he’d swallowed a sock belonging to my husband…’

The receptionist glanced at Kitty. ‘Be with you in a second,’ she said, before resuming her conversation.

‘Chicolito, the poor thingeen, was at death’s door,’ carried on the woman. ‘But the professor worked his magic.’

‘We’re just so lucky that he wanted to work in practice again after being in academia,’ said the receptionist.

‘I knew his brother,’ said the woman with a sigh. ‘The middle one. Patrick, wasn’t it? Such a sad time for the family. The mother was beside herself.’

Kitty stared into the carrier at Romeo. He was still awake and staring out at her, looking not unlike an ailing Victorian poet. ‘Poor Romeo,’ she whispered in to him.

‘He has one of those bedside manners that one could only dream about,’ went on the woman. ‘Honestly, little Chicolito adored him. And his voice… you could drift off to it. He should be doing those audiobooks…’

‘Meditation apps,’ agreed the receptionist, nodding. ‘He’d be perfect.’

‘I’ll say goodbye and let you get on,’ said the woman. ‘Sorry to keep you.’

‘You’re not keeping me,’ replied the receptionist. ‘Sure amn’t I just sitting here all day? See you, Noreen. Look after yourself, yes? Don’t be rushing around like a headless hen like you always do.’ Finally, she turned to Kitty. ‘Take a seat in the waiting area, the vet will call you shortly.’

Kitty and Romeo – still in his carrier – waited on a long bench, where Kitty read the terrifying posters on the wall which warned of horrifying diseases, with images of the most horrific-looking parasites with teeth and the kind of legs which could scuttle about. It made being attacked by Timmy the tabby look almost benign.

‘Romeo O’Sullivan?’ called a voice.

On the back of the conversation she’d heard, Kitty braced herself for an Adonis to emerge. Except, Professor Sweetman was much, much older than she had imagined. Small, nearly elderly, with a white beard and a rounded stomach, he looked more like Santa Claus than George Clooney. But he knew what he was doing and he was so sweet and gentle with Romeo, who needed three stitches in his ear, a tetanus shot, and a course of antibiotics.

Professor Sweetman placed him gently back into the carrier afterwards. ‘There you go, old man.’

Kitty smiled and shook his hand. ‘Thank you, Professor Sweetman.’

The man laughed. ‘Professor Sweetman? I haven’t been elevated to that level. The eminent professor is at Trinity College today giving a lecture… we’re job-sharing at the moment. I’m Joseph Kelly… I’ve had this practice for the last thirty years and when I had my stent put in and decided to take a step back, the stars aligned because’ – he chuckled again – ‘Professor Sweetman said he missed working with the animals. He oscillates between here and Trinity while I oscillate between here and the golf course…’ He picked up Romeo’s carrier and brought it out to reception. ‘Now,’ he said, to Kitty, handing it to her, ‘watch this little fella, won’t you? A scare like he had can be traumatic for older felines. He needs to stay indoors and enjoy his semi-retirement, just like me…’

At home, Kitty placed Romeo in his bed, covered with her cashmere scarf, filled his water bowl and let him sleep it off.

‘Just stay away from that Timmy,’ she warned. ‘You’re too old to be off all night. Stay at home, okay?’

Her phone vibrated. Dave?

She bounded over, wondering if he’d changed his mind and he was coming home. But it was her mother, Catherine, on the family WhatsApp group, wishing her sister, Kitty’s aunt Annie, a happy birthday.

Mum

Happy Birthday, Annie!

Kitty

Happy birthday to the world’s best aunt!

Annie

Thank you, my lovely girls! Happy birthday to me! Have just exited the hot tub. About to join an online spin class and then for brunch with the girls! See you both later for champers!

Annie certainly had a far more fun life than anyone Kitty knew… even more than the levels of fun Shazza was proposing. It just seemed so unfair that out of two sisters, one was having all the fun.