The Two Lives of Lydia Bird(33)

‘Hello, pretty lady,’ I murmur, curling my fingertips through the mesh. ‘How’re you doing?’

She rubs herself against the mesh, all fur and big green eyes. I’m beguiled, and Jonah is too when he stands beside me.

‘Oh, she’s good,’ he says. ‘She’s giving you the hard sell.’

‘It’s working,’ I say, laughing when she headbutts my hand. Betty is ticking all my boxes.

‘Freddie would never have had a cat,’ I say. He really wasn’t a cat fan at all. He was one of those people who felt it necessary to nail his colours to the mast as either a dog person or a cat person, whereas I’m a more even-handed fan of both. All things being equal I’d probably choose to have a dog, but right now it feels like way too much responsibility. A cat though … their relative independence appeals to me, at the same time as giving me something to look after, another heartbeat in the house. Being back at work is great in terms of keeping busy, my days are full on, but it also highlights how quiet it is when I get home. I’m trying not to rely on Elle too much either; she’s still putting in extra hours at the hotel and has precious little time with David as it is.

‘Betty looks like a winner to me,’ Jonah says. ‘Although you might have to fight off the tomcats with a big stick.’

‘I can do that,’ I say. I can be Betty’s defender.

It’s almost a done deal when I glance down into the end pen and come eyeball to eyeball with a really ragged old boy flat out on the floor, white with one black eyepatch, which presumably accounts for the name written on his whiteboard. Turpin, approx. twelve years old, unsuitable for rehoming with children or other animals (not even fish), female owner strongly preferred.

I squat down for a better look almost against my will, and the rangy old cat stares me in the eye, Eeyore downbeat. Nothing to see here, girlfriend, he says. I’ve seen too much and I’ve heard too much, he says. Just leave me here to wallow around in my own misery, sister, he says. And then he shoves his face under his paw and dismisses me.

‘This one,’ I say.

Jonah hunkers down next to me. ‘You think so?’

He’s too nice a person to say anything mean, but doubt runs clear through his question. ‘Twelve,’ he says as Turpin pulls his head back up to take a look at Jonah. ‘That’s pretty senior in cat years. The vet bills might be more of an issue.’

I appreciate his pragmatic approach, and he probably has a point. Turpin is a bit of an old dude.

‘My boss would kill me for saying this,’ the green-haired girl says, peering behind her to make sure no one is listening. ‘But Turpin’s been here for a year or more now, he’s pretty unsociable. Betty’s a safer bet.’

Jonah looks at me, and then we both look at Turpin, who stares back at us with muddy brown eyes. I screw my nose up, about to let my head rule my heart, and then the old boy lets out this bone-shaker of an ‘I knew it’ sigh.

‘I can be pretty unsociable these days,’ I say. ‘He’d suit me.’

Jonah hides his smile behind his hand. He’d do the same thing – he’s as soft-hearted as they come.

Green-haired girl shrugs in a ‘your loss’ way and reaches for the latch on Turpin’s door.

I guess it was the beat look in his eyes that clinched it. I recognized it. I connected with it. It said, My black heart has nothing for you, and I wanted to say, Sure, I get that, bud, but someone I love told me that the sun is going to keep on inconveniently rising so you and I may as well watch it do its infuriating thing together. Misery loves company, and all that. And now he’s here, staring me down in my living room, and I’m beginning to wonder if I had a moment of madness in not choosing the sweet girl who liked me because Turpin doesn’t seem to like me much at all.

‘Food?’ I say, because I was always well aware that the way to Freddie’s heart was invariably through his stomach. The rehoming centre furnished me with a small supply of Turpin’s usual food to get us started, and only after the papers were signed and he was officially mine did they double down on the fact that he isn’t a great mixer with other animals.

‘It says in his notes that he once mauled a guinea pig,’ one said.

‘And he had a pretty spectacular go at our boss when he first arrived here,’ another said. ‘Although we’ve since realized he’s more of a woman’s cat.’ The look on her face suggests this is code for keep him away from men at all costs, but he seemed quite ambivalent to Jonah. He wasn’t too much trouble on the car ride home, just lay in his box on my knees as Jonah tried to take the corners carefully. It was good to spend some time with him – Jonah, I mean. The deep fractures in our friendship are going to take some healing. I’ve asked him to come with me to Dawn’s wedding in a few weeks. I don’t want to let her down, but I can’t face going alone either, and Jonah at least knows most of my work colleagues because the school uses the town hall regularly for events. He’s agreed; another plaster over the fracture.

Turpin doesn’t follow me into the kitchen when I fill up his bowl, and when I head back to see if a shake of the box will entice him, I find he’s decamped on to Freddie’s chair and turned his face away into the corner. He’s effectively giving me his furry backside. It feels like a cat insult.