Mr. Flood's Last Resort(65)

“Of course you did.”

“She said I had one last chance.” Cathal looks at me in despair. “I could stay in my house but if she heard even a peep out of me she would personally come and sedate me with an injection right up my arse.”

“You’re joking.”

“I am not. She said she’d repeat it five times a day if she needed to. And there I’d be, propped up with all the other old people, dribbling peacefully in some corner.” He lowers his voice. “A reformed character.”

“You couldn’t have heard her say that.”

“I could.” His eyes widen. “I’ve got fucking ears, haven’t I?”

“When, then? When did Biba tell you that?”

He purses his lips. “That day you threw out all my cartons. She came round that morning, toting her syringe.”

My breakthrough day.

Cathal frowns. “She told me that if my idiot son was happy to pay good money to keep me in this hellhole, who was she to argue? She said if I wanted to live out the rest of my days compos mentis, I would put up and shut the fuck up.”

I sit down next to him and watch him bite his fingernails, making unsavory noises with his dentures.

“And you say Biba had a syringe?”

He nods, his face stricken. “She showed it to me. She opened her bag and it was all in there. She had this look in her eyes, like she was itching to stick it up my hole. If your woman next door phones the agency I’m done for.”

I am staggered. I wonder how many other clients Biba Morel has threatened and if the real secret behind my magic touch is a case manager with a loaded syringe.

“Do you have Mrs. Cabello’s cat?”

He grimaces. “I don’t.”

“I’m trying to help you, Cathal. Do you have the cat?”

He begins to pat down his pockets looking for his tobacco. After a while he says, “It died, unfortunately.”

“Oh, Jesus, what did you do with her cat? You killed it?”

“I didn’t at all. Now, why would I kill a poor little bald fecker like that?” he roars, indignant.

“Cathal, will you just tell me the truth for once?”

He extracts papers and a twisted nub of tobacco from his breast pocket. I watch him start to roll a cigarette.

“Well now, it was late and I’d been smoking something.” He smiles apologetically. “To help with the sleeping, you know.”

“You were smoking . . . ?”

His smile widens. “Well, it wasn’t Old Holborn, now.”

“Jesus, Cathal—”

“I looked up and in front of me was this apparition.” He sucks at his teeth. “It was a fright to God. All boggle-eyed and wrinkled, just like the alien fucker in that film. Before I knew it, I’d given it a clatter.”

“You gave it a clatter?”

He nods. “I did. With a broom handle.”

“You clattered Mrs. Cabello’s pedigree sphynx cat with a broom handle?”

“When I saw my mistake I buried it in the garden.”

“Ah no—”

“All Christian-like; I may have said a few words, even.”

I suddenly feel very tired. “Where did you bury the cat, Cathal?”

“Of that, I’ve no idea, Drennan. I was motherless on skunk.”

*

I AM standing in Mrs. Cabello’s hallway with a gift box and an ingratiating smile. It takes her a moment to identify me because she is wearing sunglasses. Whilst she does, I stay very still and quiet because I sense she lives life close to the edge. An antique table the size of my flat runs the length of the hallway. Above it is a life-sized photograph of Mrs. Cabello posing in gold thigh-high boots in a wide-legged power stance on a shag-pile rug. A young and dynamic Mrs. Cabello, caught in that irreducible moment—the one before she turned to demand more maraschino cherries and more bubbles in the Jacuzzi. She is wearing hot pants, a middle parting, and a knotted cheesecloth shirt.

Underneath the picture a considerably older Mrs. Cabello stands with the same look of passionate nature in arrested motion. Her hair still flows, although her face is less mobile and she is favoring a pair of leopard-print capri pants today.

“Mrs. Cabello,” I begin. She must detect a hint of bad news in my tone, for she stares at me with horror.

“You have found Manolete?” She rests a bejeweled hand on her highly polished table.

“I’m afraid so.” I wave the gift bag in my hand.

Her eyes are anchored to it.

“Shall we go through and sit down, Mrs. Cabello?” I say brightly, cursing Cathal Flood, his broom handle, and, above all, Biba Morel.

*

I LISTEN to myself telling a story. It’s a wonderful story, about the young doctor who was driving home from his shift at the children’s hospital when Manolete, chasing a butterfly, rushed out in front of his Ferrari. The handsome young pediatrician, who was driving well below the speed limit, was unable to stop or steer his car away (to the left of him a nun was about to cross the road, to the right was an oncoming school bus). I saw it happen. Manolete fell gracefully and the handsome doctor scooped him up and wrapped him in his cashmere sweater. He drove Manolete, as quickly as the speed limit would allow, to a highly skilled veterinarian surgeon. The surgeon struggled for hours to save little Manolete. The handsome pediatrician told the vet to spare no expense and he waited the whole time, pacing the corridor outside. Manolete fought a brave fight but just as the sun came up he breathed his last, a sweet sigh. Everyone with him raised their eyes to God and prayed for the soul of the beautiful cat.