The Book of Strange New Things(117)

It all sounds fascinating and exciting. And puzzling. Can the Oasans really be as benign as you suggest? No dark side at all? I would imagine they’re keen to make a good impression on you, but who knows what will emerge when they relax and ‘let it all hang out’. I’m sure you’ll find that they’re more individual and eccentric than they appear. Every creature is. Even cats who are from the same breed and look totally identical reveal all sorts of quirks when you get to know them.

Speaking of which . . . Joshua is becoming VERY neurotic. The period when the bathroom window was broken and all the doors were slamming in the wind really didn’t do him any good. He jerks at any unfamiliar noise and has taken to sleeping under the bed. I hear him snoring, rustling about amongst the shoes and tissues and defunct alarm clocks and whatever else is under there. I’ve tried to drag him out but he just crawls straight back. He’s jumpy when he eats, too, glancing behind him every few mouthfuls. I’ve got him on my lap as I type this and I really need to pee but I don’t want to dislodge him in case he disappears for the rest of the night. Yesterday I was in the kitchen and I sat down to read an incomprehensible letter from the gas people, and Joshua jumped on my lap. I stayed put for ages with nothing to do and my feet turning to ice. Then an ambulance passed by the house with siren wailing and he jumped off. Should I take him to a cat psychiatrist, I wonder? Right now he’s purring. I wish you could hear him. I wish HE could hear YOU and understand that you haven’t left forever.

More about your letter . . .I will try not to talk so much about the awful things that are going on in the world right now. I understand that you’re in a very different headspace up there, and it must be hard to absorb all the details and implications of what’s happening here. As long as you realise that it’s not easy for me to absorb this stuff either. It’s equally overwhelming and mind-boggling for me. And terrifying.

But today is a good day. My hand is feeling better, healing up nicely. I’m hoping to be back at work next week. The house has just about dried out and the bathroom is back to normal. And I got a letter from the insurance company which, if I interpret the arcane language correctly, suggests that they will cover the damage. Which is a big surprise, I must admit – thank the Lord! The tabloids have been running a campaign of ‘naming and shaming’ the insurance companies that are reneging on claims – lots of picture stories about decent, obese working-class people paying premiums all their lives and being badly let down when their house gets trashed by vandals or whatever. EPIDEMIC OF BETRAYAL, it says here. Such big words for a Daily Express headline! I wonder if this is the first time they’ve had a headline with two trisyllabic words in it. What’s the world coming to! (Sorry, I promised I’d go easy on that topic, didn’t I?)

As you know, I don’t usually read the tabloids but the Daily Express promised a free Bounty bar for every reader and it’s too long since I’ve had one of those. Chocolate (or the lack of it) looms large in my life right now and I’ve become an expert in where to get my fix. Biscuit-based bars like Twix and Kit Kats are relatively easy to procure, and there are plenty of Snickers knock-offs that have Arabic writing all over them. But there’s something about the insides of a Bounty bar – that almost camphorous aftertaste that goes right up your sinuses – that nothing else can supply. At least not if you’re pregnant. But it turned out that the ‘for every reader’ offer was a bit of a scam. It was a voucher that you had to redeem at particular shops that don’t exist around here.

But, Bounty bars aside, I’m pretty happy with the food situation today. I’ve just had a gluttonous fry-up of eggs, tinned mushrooms and bacon. The eggs and bacon came from a street stall, a sort of farmers market that was set up in the car park of where the Tesco used to be. The eggs aren’t stamped or dated or anything, they’re different sizes with feathers and chicken crap stuck to them. They’re fresh and delicious and I doubt very much if these farmers are legally allowed to sell them direct to the public. And the bacon was just wrapped in paper and sliced quite crudely – sliced by the farmer’s very own hand, with a knife! Again, probably against regulations. The market was doing brisk business even though it wasn’t advertised. The farmers were restocking their trestle tables from out of the backs of their vans, and there wasn’t much left in there. Good luck to them, I say. Maybe the collapse of big corporations won’t be as disastrous as everybody’s been saying. Maybe ordinary people will just trade and sell things locally – the way we SHOULD have been doing all along. I always thought that buying bacon that’s been transported all the way from Denmark was crazy anyway.

I shouldn’t be eating bacon at all, I suppose. Billy gave me a lecture about meat-eating when we were on our way to the cat show. He’s a vegetarian. So was Rachel, but she relapsed. That was the word Billy used. He and his sister are quarrelling a lot – maybe that’s one of the reasons Billy is so depressed. Sheila says he lives on baked beans, toast and bananas, because he’s not actually that keen on vegetables. A very English vegetarian, then! But he’s right about the suffering of factory-farmed animals.

It’s so complicated, isn’t it? Animals suffer, but Jesus ate meat, and he hung around with fishermen. I’ve been craving fish lately – I must need the vitamin D – and I don’t feel any guilt when I squash a bunch of sardines onto a piece of toast, even if I can see their little eyes staring up at me. They’re feeding our baby, that’s how I rationalise it.