Chapter Twenty-Five
Christopher
‘What on earth am I going to do with him?’ The cat sits in Christopher’s lap enjoying a chin tickle and the last bits of ham.
The cat, which seemed to have an alarmingly strong preference for pork-based products, had clearly decided that actually it didn’t mind if Christopher picked it up, provided there remained steady access to said food.
They would have had to throw away all the bits the cat had been chomping on otherwise, just for safety’s sake, and so it seemed a waste to not let it eat, even if Christopher was pretty sure Coca-Cola-baked ham isn’t on a cat’s dietary plan.
The poor creature still looked as skinny as the last few times he’d seen it.
After a possibly worrying amount of salt for one small cat, it had attached its claws into his woollen jumper as if to say congratulations you are in charge of me now.
No one had recognised the cat, and after Shaz’s scroll through the various Facebook group posts for missing pets, everyone resolved that it probably was a stray that had survived kittenhood, especially due to its nose for meat.
And so, it made sense for him to just bring the cat upstairs with them.
‘I don’t think you have much of a choice.’ Nash touches the cat’s little pink nose with the tip of his finger. As if on cue, sensing the most perfect moment to really seal the deal and ensure a home for life, the cat begins to purr.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Have you not heard of the old cats pick their owners thing? Or the universal cat distribution system?’
‘The what?’
‘You know, how some people just find a cat somewhere and then that cat won’t belong to anyone and so they then own a cat.’
‘Is this an LA thing?’
‘It’s an everywhere thing! Plus, I think he’s pretty set on living here.’
The cat chirrups in agreement.
‘I have to check it’s . . . they’re not microchipped first.’
That’s the responsible thing to do, after all. Though if this cat does belong to someone, how did they end up in this malnourished state? Christopher dreads to think about it.
Once all the guests had been picked up by various transport methods, everyone remaining had insisted Christopher and Nash go upstairs with the cat for an early night.
There was still cleaning and tidying to do, even after everything had been loaded into the industrial dishwasher. But still, they’d been sent away.
Tegan’s photo documentation of whose dishes and plates and condiments belonged to who turned out to be really handy, and a plan was drawn up to drop them round to everyone tomorrow.
At first he’d felt a little strange leaving people in his kitchen alone, but he’s so bone-tired that he doesn’t have anything left in him to protest.
Plus, it’s quite nice being up here on the sofa with Nash and the cat.
‘It’s kind of incredible that in the last two days you’ve gone from zero animals to two, like you’re Doctor Doolittle or something,’ Nash says.
‘He just spoke to animals. I don’t think he amassed them. And can’t I just be me?’ The cat stands, stretches and promptly curls itself into a neat little croissant on Christopher’s lap.
‘No.’
‘Fine. Anyway, why are you so sure it’s a he?”
Nash shrugs. ‘The unseasonal desire for sausage?’
‘Stop,’ hisses Christopher. ‘I’m too tired for your mischief.’
‘I doubt that. You love it.’
Christopher could swear there’s a hitch in the air. That word spoken out loud, even in jest, feels so awkward, like it’s ripe for misconstruing. Either way, Nash decides to steamroller past it.
‘We should call him Karma.’
‘Because he stole my sausages and now I’ve imprisoned him?’
‘No, because of the song lyric, you know?’ He points at the cat curled up in Christopher’s lap, purring like a steam train.
‘Did . . . did you just make a Taylor Swift reference at me, Nash Nadeau?’
‘Don’t look so surprised. I’m a man of taste. I saw the Eras tour. Plus, you’re the one who recognised it.’
‘Fair point. And yes, I quite like a few of her songs. Just as long as you don’t start singing—’
‘Darlin’ aye fancy yewwww,’ Nash sings in his very loud faux cockney accent. After delivering his performance, he leans back and laughs loudly, extremely pleased with himself. It’s terribly annoying, but Christopher can’t help but smile.
‘There it is.’
‘Well, you are a London Boy.’
‘Not any more. And arguably, it was only temporary. I’m an Oxlea boy, if you want to be technical.’
Nash waves this away like it’s far too much detail. ‘Close enough.’
‘It really isn’t.’
‘Has no one sung that to you before, really?’
‘Surprisingly no. Thank you for bringing about that experience for me.’ He feels heat in his cheeks.
Every word feels heavy, laden with some deeper meaning, now that they’re just sitting here alone again after another busy day.
Perhaps he’s just overthinking things, but obviously Nash picks up on it too because he raises his eyebrows and laughs awkwardly.
‘Stop it,’ groans Christopher. God this infuriating man.
‘You’re the one who is being all weird. Look, you’ll upset the cat.’
Naturally, the cat looks completely unbothered, and has started softly snoring in his lap.
‘Fine, if not Karma, which personally I think is a fun little suggestion, what are you going to call him?’
‘I was thinking something classic. Perhaps something like Felix.’
‘When I used to make my videos, I had, like, three British trans friends called Felix.’
‘I’m not sure what to do with that information, Nash.’
Nash clearly doesn’t know either, because he just repeats Christopher’s words back in a sleepy bad English accent, before yawning loudly.
‘Do you need to eat?’ They had come upstairs with a plate of leftovers each, but they had put them in the fridge wrapped in clingfilm for later.
After cooking all day, Christopher is not sure he’s even that hungry right now, but he knows Nash hasn’t eaten anything for a while.
Is it weird that he noticed that? He hopes not.
‘You could call him Paddington?’ Nash says as the cat’s ears stand up straight and he hops over to Nash’s lap instead.
‘Why?’
‘A little lost creature that you rescued . . .’
‘He’s not even a bear.’
‘So? You love Paddington.’
‘I do but I like names that make sense too. He’s not even brown.’
‘He doesn’t even have a suitcase, Nash,’ Nash says in a now rather uncanny version of Christopher’s voice.
‘Hang on, you can actually do my accent?’
‘Yeah, of course I can. I just prefer doing the bad one that annoys you.’
‘Well, what if I started going on about . . . I don’t know . . . moose. Moose and Tim Hortons. And lumberjacks. Or smoothies and wellness cults.’ It turns out that his frame of references for both LA and the entirety of Canada are a little thin on the ground.
On Christopher’s lap, the cat is sat right up, head tilted looking over to Nash, who, for some reason, doesn’t spar back. Perhaps he crossed a line somewhere?
‘Nash?’
Something is clearly not quite right. And not just because Nash isn’t making fun of him.
His face has this kind of minutely slack quality to it that Christopher has never seen before. He looks distant. As if he’s left for just a moment.
‘Nash?’
No response. Only a few blinks. Christopher pulls out his phone and sets a timer. The cat looks up at Christopher as if to say is this what he normally does and he gives the cat a little pet on the head for realising what was going on far before he did.
‘I’m here,’ he whispers, as Nash’s brain quietly misfires in its own private way, his systems rebooting. It’s strange to see him gone, though of course he is still there physically.
Nash is such a big presence in this tiny flat, and his life. His personality and self seem to take up all the space, in a way that Christopher finds he has grown remarkably used to.
He shuffles along the couch so he’s sitting alongside Nash, and slings his arm around the top of the couch, just in case he needs to catch him. He doesn’t want to touch him while he’s out – they didn’t talk about whether that was something he wanted or not.
He’s propped up safely and Christopher is pretty sure that he said he didn’t convulse, but still, there’s nothing he can hurt himself on. Just to be safe, Christopher pushes the coffee table away with a foot.
Hopefully he knows, in some quiet part of his brain, that Christopher is here. That he isn’t alone. The cat gently pads its paws on Nash’s thighs and wiggles its whiskers, clearly thinking the same thing.
‘I’m here, Nash,’ he says softly. ‘We’re here. It’s okay. You can come back when you’re ready.’
* * *
Nash
It all tastes like metal.
That’s usually a big warning sign that something is wrong, and sometimes it happens early enough that he can tell someone, but today everything comes rushing at him like a truck.
First metal, then smoke in his nose, followed by the slow slide away as speech and movement stop being things his brain can do.
It’s like a blink of nothingness that he falls into.
And then, very slowly, things start to come back. It’s a strange feeling to know he’s been gone, while also not knowing how long he was seizing. Has he been out for seconds or minutes?
The fog clears, and his brain latches onto Christopher sitting beside him. His huge eyes are startlingly blue in the low light.
The cat is still on Christopher’s lap, its paws padding gently on Nash’s leg.
He goes to speak but the connection isn’t there yet. The muscles don’t know what he’s trying to tell them to do, that he’s trying to speak. The words in his head are staccato attempts at sentences that die off quickly.