Chapter 11 Cat Camera
Cat Camera
Green flashes. We are at grass level, a strobe of it whipping as we travel fast.
There is no sound.
Edging the shot, above, is Blue’s blue-gray chin as it bounces in and out of view.
We stop suddenly: an old moss-covered brick wall blocks our way. We tilt up; it is high.
It is too high to jump—no human could from this low down.
The camera jiggles with Blue’s wobble and suddenly we are airborne, propelled forward and rising.
A scramble and jostle. Claws enter the shot, hauling us up the final stretch. Blue drags himself onto the top of the wall and then we are there.
The view opens up, in all its glory, and it is incredible: the glowing backs of houses flare into view.
Lights on, domestic scenes playing out as far as the eye can see: people preparing dinner in their kitchens, pans frying, kettles boiling, laundry on drying racks, televisions flickering with neon, wineglasses, garden conversations, a firepit, its flames lapping, and darkened windows.
Affluence and less, side by side. Renters in the split houses, owners in the full houses.
We are moving fast, past the backs of houses.
Dipping, bobbing, catching details as we go—things I would have never seen but from this vantage point: the unkempt gardens, overgrown and tangled in weeds, or others grass bald, littered with abandoned rubbish.
But overly tidy gardens, too, with their expensive lawns and unused lawn furniture, covered and weather-protected, flagstones immaculately power-washed, everything so neatly stored.
And in others, evidence of life, of children—a wind-toppled slide, sun-faded and worn with use, a full wooden fort, a lap pool, then an outdoor gym, a topless man lifting weights.
Then strings of warmly glowing garden lights, two women drinking wine on a patio in the fading evening light, one crying, the other topping her glass—all of these scenes visible in an instant, then gone. We are moving fast and fluidly along the high wall that backs houses.
We see inside some homes, too, through lit windows. More little glimpses of lives: parents serving dinner, homework at the kitchen table, a young boy’s head and his mother’s bent at the same angle, an elderly couple’s backs as they watch television, a woman at a laptop with a glass of red in hand.
Then, high above, a young woman vaping from her first-floor window, her intermittent, soft puffs billowing upward into the open sky. This building, its paint peeling, is clearly split into flats, while the others boast single-family homes.
Blue dips low under vegetation, and then everything is green again.
When the camera tilts up skyward, I see the scale of some of these villas in the area. The people inside these, no doubt, paid double or triple my home’s price tag. The sheer scale of them is eye-watering. How many rooms do they have? How many do they really need?
All of us, residing quietly side by side, with no way of telling from the street how we live beyond those walls.
The camera tilts up again, with Blue’s gaze fixing high above, as a pigeon takes flight from a Victorian chimney. The sunset streaks the evening sky with slashes of blue and pink.
We reach a junction of walls; Blue weighs his options and suddenly we are curving fast away from where we have come. We whip over a mess of ivy, and onto another wall, a fresh set of houses flashing past on both sides as we fly on.
We slow, approaching the back of a set of glass doors, inside a dark slate-and-marble kitchen, where a man works at a laptop. Around his neck an NHS lanyard still hangs from work.
I haven’t seen this man before, but that’s not saying much. He’s about my age, maybe younger, with dark hair, and chic, clear-framed glasses. His face is set in concentration.
We watch him through the glass as he works, his hand absentmindedly reaching for his glass of water. As he gulps the water down, he catches sight of us. The man looks momentarily confused, then he smiles at us and stands, making his way to the door.
We dart away, back into the bushes edging the man’s property, the screen filling with green.
I scrub forward to thirty-six minutes, the jolting screen making me feel dizzy.
Gardens whip past, walls, fences, cars, then suddenly an open window.
I stop scrubbing. There is one hour and twenty-one minutes left of the recording.
We are walking up the low tiled roof of an extension, to the open first-floor window ledge. We rest on the ledge, the breeze ruffling Blue’s chin fur above us. After a moment, we dip to look into the room.
A scented candle burns on a mantelpiece. I recognize the label, and it’s expensive. This is a bedroom, but the bed has been stripped, the naked duvet and pillows piled on the floor and a fresh set of linens awaiting.
The room is beautifully presented, and sparse, a noticeable absence of personal effects. Perhaps this is a guest room.
We crouch further and scan the empty room for danger, but no one appears to shoo us away, in spite of the lit candle and the evidence that someone intends to come back and continue making the bed.
After a moment, we creep forward cautiously and, to my utter horror (and I admit glee), squeeze through the six-inch gap in the window, and bump down onto the soft carpet, slipping seamlessly and unseen under the stripped bed.
A stray tumble-dryer sheet lies here abandoned, nothing else. We wait. No feet appear.
Sensing no present danger, the camera crawls slowly forward out of our hiding place. We head, light on our feet, toward the open bedroom door.
The hallway beyond is deserted; a landing table holds a fresh display of flowers and another, ludicrously expensive, lit, four-wick candle. Someone is obviously home, and keen to make things nice.
We edge into the hallway, the camera swinging left, then right. The house is perfect, impeccably decorated, in earthy, muddy country tones and beautiful Victorian detailing. It’s uncluttered and well kept.
A large abstract modernist painting covers the landing wall of the staircase, a curled black form falling, tumbling down into a gray void.
We stand on the cusp of two staircases: up or down.
The camera tilts up and we glide to the top, where a light glows through an ajar door.
We stop suddenly on the penultimate step. The video has no sound but the abrupt stop makes it clear enough that there is sound coming from inside the room.
We freeze mid-step, recalibrate, then continue, closer to the wall now. Slowly, warily, we approach.
Through the gap we see a master bedroom. It takes up the entire top floor of the house, a modern loft conversion painted in the same earthy tones as the rest of the house.
We see her first. She is in her mid-thirties, and statuesque; her soft chestnut hair hangs loosely about her shoulders, her pale skin blotched red with emotion.
She is one of the women from the street I saw on the morning I moved in.
She is crying as she listens, her body moving with it, as she gestures in agreement.
Whoever is talking is not visible from here.
The woman is half-dressed, in a tailored midi skirt and a silk camisole, the contours of her breasts visible through the silk.
She’s beautiful, even though her eyes are wild and her mascara is smudged.
She gesticulates suddenly in what looks like apology.
It is desperate and exposing; she did not look like this when I saw her, the day I arrived, on the street.
Back then, she was put together, in control. Now she is a raw nerve.
The person she is pleading with comes into the shot, entering the frame as he interrupts her.
Only the back of him is visible. He is tall, physically imposing, his hair short and ashy blond. I do not recognize him. It is clear that he is angry.
I let the video play on, my attention glued to the screen.
He is shouting at her—we can tell from the movement of his shoulders and back, the way he is gesturing, sharp and sudden. Tiny in his shadow, she nods timidly, alive to every word he utters.
Help Me.
It could have been her. But why not just leave, why not scream—but then I know the answer to that: changing your life is easier said than done.
Whether she wrote the message on Blue’s collar or not, this looks bad.
The woman’s focus on him does not waver. She is shaking her head softly.
Suddenly, he appears in the shot again.
We can see his face now, his blue eyes, his handsome features contorted with anger and ugliness. His hands grasping tight on her arms as he whispers something unseen, into her ear, before pulling back.
She nods furiously, her eyes wild, her face flushed and strained.
Her lips form three words; even at this distance I can read them.
I love you.