- CLEO: The Cat Who Mended a Family
- 作者:海倫.布朗
- 原文作者:Helen Brown
- 編輯:楊郁慧
- 出版社:大塊文化
- 一隻黑色腳掌滑過門縫,她跳上床鋪呼嚕作響,耐著性子等我的淚水退潮,等我從谷底浮出來。
所有人都想擁抱這隻貓
售出12種語言版權.繁體中文版獨家序
作者受訪
售出12種語言版權.繁體中文版獨家序
作者受訪
剛過完生日的九歲男孩山姆,抱著受傷的野鴿朝獸醫診所飛奔,卻被來車撞個正著,當場喪命。目睹悲劇的六歲弟弟瞠目結舌,以為哥哥在演電影。
一個多月後,鄰人輕叩這個哀傷之家的大門,帶來毛茸茸的黑色小生物。
「是山姆的小貓!」男孩來不及收下的生日禮物,讓弟弟臉上浮現久違的笑容。
貓咪選擇自己的主人,出現在自己被需要的所在。
都說小貓調皮,但這隻和埃及豔后同名的小貓克麗奧的「破壞行為」似乎別有目的;她自在歡
快地把貓咪的享樂天性填滿屋裡每個角落,讓這家人在好氣好笑的同時,逐漸從悲傷痛楚的情
緒移開。而某些無言的憂傷時刻,克麗奧從不吝以毛茸茸的摟抱和潮濕的親吻,提供最溫柔的撫慰。
時間或許無法療癒一切,卻帶來寬廣的視野。痛楚或許不會完全消失,卻能被織成獨特的人生圖案。
克麗奧守護這個家長達二十三年半,成為女主人經歷喪子、失婚、單親媽媽、職場考驗的精神支柱,見證這個家增添男主人和新生兒,並身兼小主人的保母、護士和心靈導師——以及最重要的,這個家備受尊寵的「女王」。克麗奧以深情壓倒所有人,讓他們自然而然回報以愛。即使愛終歸帶來失落,但小貓的愛讓他們願意再度把心敞開,重新擁抱生命。
作者簡介
海倫.布朗 (Helen Brown, 1954-)
海倫.布朗 (Helen Brown, 1954-)
紐西蘭最受歡迎的專欄作家之一,多次獲選「年度專欄作家」。她把家庭主婦的日常生活——柴米油鹽、婚姻、大賣場、親子教養、寵物——化為慧黠幽默的文字,廣受讀者喜愛,一寫就是二十八年。布朗已出版九本著作,其中不乏暢銷書。她過去曾在新聞界服務,並撰寫電視節目劇本。一九九一年,布朗榮獲「紐菲德新聞獎學金」,赴劍橋大學進修。布朗生於紐西蘭,目前與家人定居澳洲墨爾本。個人網站:www.helenbrown.com
推薦序
黑貓 克麗奧的傳奇 心岱
黑貓 克麗奧的傳奇 心岱
一隻貓的故事,竟能夠寫成如此厚達412頁的磚頭書?
算一算至少有十幾萬字呢?
當我在今年七月收到出版社寄來的樣稿時,我抱著沈重的一堆影印紙,翻開第一頁,先看到的是『山姆哀嚎的說:「你明明說我們可以養貓咪的,」』
我心理開始忐恪不安,我可以想像為什麼山姆這樣說。
在我年幼時,我也曾這樣向大人抗議,從怒吼、哭泣、到哀求、、、但都無效,小貓終究被送走,這是我第一次感受「生離」的創傷。
這種創傷一直未曾痊癒,留下了日後我很怕面對「人與動物」的種種生變。是虛構小說也好,是真實故事也好,我總是掩卷嘆息,沒有勇氣觸碰到我內心那個黑暗的疼痛。
那麼山姆的媽媽究竟有沒有實現諾言?讓這對兄弟養貓?
在第一章開頭,作者寫著「貓咪選擇自己的主人,而非主人選擇貓咪。」
這句話是經典,養貓的人都知道,愛貓的人更知道,貓確實有「療癒人的心靈之功能」,但是,山姆究竟怎樣說服媽媽呢?
我很想看到這隻貓主角,如何選擇了她的主人,進而改變了這家人的命運。
所以,我一頁一頁的看下去,出乎預料的,在作者講述她的身份背景、家庭成員之後,出現了車禍的意外場景,為了護送一隻受傷的鴿子上獸醫院,山姆被迎面的車子撞死,當場結束了他九歲的生命,還沒來得及看到那隻被「點選」的貓,山姆便與這世界的所有恩愛訣別了。
遭受如此慘痛的家變,這隻名叫「克麗奧」的黑貓,又有什麼能耐闖入這個瀕臨破散的家呢?
彷彿探險小說,又好像推理情節,我無法拒絕的往下看去;作者殷殷切切的、一五一十,鉅細靡遺的描述自從山姆過世,家庭生變後,自己如何深陷在悲哀的漩渦無法自拔的痛苦;就在全家面臨「過不去」的關卡時,鄰人抱來允諾送給山姆的那隻「小貓」,於是,山姆生前對媽媽發出的「哀嚎與質疑」終於獲得了圓滿的答案。
但是,接受這隻小貓,作者歷經了多少掙扎,才說服自己讓貓留下來。看到貓,猶如看到山姆,這是何等的折磨與欣慰交雜的意象呢?人的命運連結了貓的命運,鑄成了這個可以說是「波濤洶湧」的故事。
都說小貓調皮,但這隻和埃及豔后同名的小貓克麗奧的「破壞行為」似乎別有目的;她自在歡快地把貓咪的享樂天性填滿屋裡每個角落,讓這家人在好氣好笑的同時,逐漸從悲傷痛楚的情緒移開。而某些無言的憂傷時刻,克麗奧從不吝以毛茸茸的摟抱和潮濕的親吻,提供最溫柔的撫慰。
本書作者海倫.布朗, 是紐西蘭最受歡迎的專欄作家之一。她已出版九本暢銷著作,大部分的作品是把家庭主婦的日常生活——柴米油鹽、婚姻、大賣場、親子教養、寵物——化為慧黠幽默的文字,廣受讀者喜愛,一寫就是二十八年。
本書是她的親身故事,是一本非常有看頭的以「貓」為主角所書寫的「傳奇」小說,雖是「記實文學」,但又不是冗長難以親近的「傳記」寫法,她以單篇交錯的形式,編織成一個完整的「生命復原」、「家庭再生」的典範。
在平凡無奇的日常生活中,處處閃現光彩與叫人低迴不已的樂音,當然就是她從與貓相處的經驗中,所學習到的美學與哲學。
沒有養貓經驗的作者,卻能把貓的生活觀察得淋漓盡致,並運用她的生花妙筆,精準的描述了貓的各種行為學,甚至洞察了貓這種神祕生物的心靈反射。
在紐西蘭的國度,家貓大都以「半自然」方式餵養,也就是讓貓自由出入戶外野地,不像都市人家的貓,鎖在公寓大廈中。所以你可以看到克麗奧也曾患了跳蚤,也捕獵老鼠與昆蟲;她在家時,是睡在主人被窩的溫柔天使,但是出了家門,她又成了襲擊小生物的殘酷魔鬼,我們該怎麼看待動物?寵物?
而人類難道沒有這方面的矛盾嗎?我們如何以「往生」的美名來隱藏「殺生」的行為?我們又如何以「經濟」之藉口,模糊對「經濟動物」大量宰殺的血腥之實?
作者在書中為我們探討了這些迷思,她面對克麗奧的行為與那些被犧牲的生物,從反感、生氣、到驚恐、愧疚、、起伏不已的情緒反應,讓她找到說服的出口,當她用心去理解「貓的本質」後,作者強調:「你不能干涉大自然。」
這個簡短答案,卻指出了世間萬物生命存活的意涵。書中最迷人之處,無非就是像這樣的「天問」,作者從貓身上得到的「受教」,反芻成深刻的思維,提供了我們眾生面對生死的智慧。
克麗奧雖然也結紮了,不會生育,可是,她的成長過程就像一隻野貓的難稿:偷嘴、咬人、打架、搗蛋、胡鬧,像個不懂事的小小孩,但是大自然會給她造就一個時機,時機到了,她便被自己給馴化了,因為她知道自己的使命是什麼。
貓,真的這樣「神祕」?不,貓,真的是這樣的「神聖」。
克麗奧守護這個家長達二十三年半,成為女主人經歷喪子、失婚、單親媽媽、職場考驗的精神支柱,見證這個家增添男主人和新生兒,並身兼小主人的保母、護士和心靈導師——以及最重要的,這個家備受尊寵的「女王」。克麗奧以深情壓倒所有人,讓他們自然而然回報以愛。即使愛終歸帶來失落,但小貓的愛讓他們願意再度把心敞開,重新擁抱生命。
時間或許無法療癒一切,卻帶來寬廣的視野。痛楚或許不會完全消失,卻能被織成獨特的人生圖案。本書已經翻譯成12種語文,電影也即將開拍,作者把貓的一生,融入了她的家庭,不在刻畫一隻「明星貓」,而是呼喚了我們大家,療癒的關鍵不在書本不在眼淚與宗教裡,而是在對微小事務(一朵花、一片濕草的氣味)的情感裡,她說:「對小貓的愛幫助我再次擁抱世界。」
每隻守護家屋的貓、狗或其他動物,都是為了治癒人類的心靈,教導我們愛的功課。這本厚如磚頭的書,當你展讀時,你一定會被一種莫名的吸引力所牽引,於是,透過女主人的眼睛,見識了貓的世界,再從有如廣角鏡的貓眼中,去發現自我古老陰鬱的傷口,已逐漸的被修補縫合。
內容試閱
窗外的海鷗翩翩飛離,往下俯衝經過渡輪站,繼而橫越海港。剛過完九歲生日的山姆躺進白色棺木、埋入山丘以來,五週已經過去。馬卡拉墓園位於強風吹掃的丘頂,墓碑有如士兵列隊一樣排排站立。那是一片由悲慘拼綴起來的地方。他被葬在兩個活到八十多歲才過世的人之間。我跪在山姆的墓前,淚水灌溉著草地。在那些因抵禦強風而永遠歪扭的灌木裡,沒有一絲他的痕跡。山姆不屬於那個空蕩蕩的地方。我覺得自己好似穿著別人服裝的演員。從外表看來,我們近似一個多月以前的自己。開著同樣的車、上同樣的超市。我的五臟六腑卻感覺已經移位重整,用鋼絲球使勁刷洗過。我再也不相信活著的好處。恨意與暴怒不時湧起。我氣那些躺在山姆旁邊的人。他們無權活這麼久。
***
「我們帶小貓來囉。」善意的鄰人輕叩這個哀傷之家的大門。
「山姆的小貓!」六歲的羅柏衝過玄關,擠過我身邊。
雖然我曾經答應養這隻貓,當作山姆的生日禮物,但那時的我們完好無缺。一場車禍使我們的生活永遠碎裂,哪裡還有容納小貓的位置?
「抱歉,萊娜……」我正要長篇大論一番。
可是我瞥見羅柏的臉龐。他柔情款款地俯望小貓,用渾圓的手指滑過牠的背。我看到我以為早已從世上消失的東西:羅柏的笑容。
貓咪不會前往受邀的地方,而是出現在自己被需要的所在。
克麗奧的破壞行為似乎別有目的。被扯壞的窗簾拉繩、翻倒的相框、散落一地的襪子和塑膠袋使我暴跳如雷,只有在那些時刻,我不會為了山姆揪心扯肺。雖然牠很嬌小,但牠的個性填滿了屋裡每個房間的各個角落。牠淘氣十足又深情洋溢;從尾巴末端到細鬚尖端,牠百分之百地活著。
一大團毛往我的脖子依偎。帶有節奏的呼嚕低鳴在我耳裡隆隆作響。那是波浪滾進沙灘的深沈聲響,是嬰兒在子宮裡聽到的聲音。是大地的搖籃曲或上帝的嗓音。我的胸膛注滿融化的蜜。
克麗奧用慈愛的關懷神情望著我,接著讓我詫異的是,她把潮濕的鼻子往我的臉頰上貼。這就是小貓的吻沒錯。她埋進我的脖子,伸長細緻的前腿。我把那隻腳掌夾在指間撫摩,看著爪子輕柔地張開又閤起。她的腳墊比我的指尖還柔軟。我們「手握手」躺著,人貓的靈魂跨越物種的分界,分享超越言語的連結。
幾個小時之後,我醒來了,克麗奧的身子塞在床單之間,腦袋靠在我旁邊的枕頭上。她覺得自己有資格留在這裡。她文風不動的身形、襯在白棉布上的尖耳、恬靜舒適的呼吸,讓我不禁忖度,我倆一人一貓是不是打從世界的第一個黎明以來,就一直肩並肩這麼睡著。
看到我們的幼貓沿著走廊跑跑跳跳,總能提振我的心情。牠永遠從門後撲向我們,提醒我們人生過於深奧、不能嚴肅以待。克麗奧那麼自在地用深情壓倒我們所有人,我們忍不住回報以愛。身為我們最稚嫩也最喜樂的家庭成員,她在山姆之後細密融入了我們的生活。
克麗奧面對逆境時另有妙方。她會往高處去。
我們的貓襯著橙黃的天際,雕像般地凝坐不動、背對我們,尾巴以雅致的環圈繞過煙囪。而我逐漸能感同身受。
往上走一步、拉開距離俯瞰日常生活。往下凝望熠熠閃光的城市,寒風如刃掃刮我的臉頰。從極大的高度去觀察時,有時痛楚會縮小、退入更為寬闊的人生圖案裡。我逐漸得知,只要透過練習與時間,便能拋開當下情緒,感受到貓咪從屋頂觀察世界的寧靜。
克麗奧讓我學會放縱。貓咪的語彙裡沒有罪惡感。牠們從不會因為飲食過量、貪睡太久或霸占屋裡最軟的靠墊而感到懊悔。牠們欣然接受當下每個愉悅的時刻,盡情加以品嘗,直到蝴蝶或落葉讓牠們分神。牠們不會浪費精力細數自己吞下多少卡洛里,或浪擲了幾個小時享受日光浴。
時間也許無法療癒一切,可是它能提供寬廣的視野。害死山姆的那輛車可能早就化成菸灰缸了。我終於能夠完全接受:山姆的悲劇也是那位女性駕駛的悲劇。一九八三年的一月天深深刻進了她的心,如同深深刻入了我的心。她每一次坐進駕駛座或是看到金髮男孩跨越街道,一定都會看到山姆的魅影。
我在情緒上終於準備好,足以面對這個女人了,如果有此可能的話。我想用雙臂環抱她,認可她這些年來必定承受過的痛苦,然後告訴她我原諒她。完完全全地。
每隻小貓都有需要實現的目的、有人類的心等著治癒、有關於愛之真正本質的功課需要教導。
貓咪不是可以「取得」的東西。牠們會在被需要的時候,出現在人類的生命裡,而且帶有起初可能不被了解的目的。山姆死去以後,我不想那麼快就養貓。生命是矛盾的,有時你以為自己不想要的,事實上卻是自己最需要的。克麗奧的摟抱、逗趣以及趾高氣揚,讓我們的心思得以從悲傷移開,提醒我們能夠活著與呼吸是多大的喜樂。她指導我們適時地放輕鬆、盡情歡笑,或是讓自己更強韌。
身為我們家的守護者,克麗奧守望著家庭旅程的每一步。不管她是山姆或貓神差遣來給我們的,她賜予我們療癒的力量時,慷慨大量的程度勝過任何生物。
我們再次對人生產生信任感時,神奇的事情似乎接連著發生。好幾個美妙的人在適當的時機現身。克麗奧見證每次的邂逅,有時竟給人這種印象:這些邂逅其實是她安排促成的。我不能很有信心地說我們完全復原了,但我們改變了且有所成長。山姆的生命與死亡永遠是我們的一部分。
憤怒終究讓位給原諒。多年之後,得知山姆在一位善心陌生人的陪伴下,並非孤零零又恐懼地死去,讓我大為寬心。而我們的貓女神從院子裡月桂樹叢下的安息之處,仍繼續發揮她的影響力,守護著這個家。
法國製作的作者紀錄片
The clever kitten who healed our family's heartache
By Helen Brown Last updated at 8:00 PM on 6th February 2010
When Helen Brown's family was struck by tragedy, they struggled to cope. But help came in a most unexpected form - an intuitive cat called Cleo who gradually eased their grief
Helen's daughter Lydia, seven, with Cleo in 1992
Most days are so similar they’re forgotten almost before the sun sets on them. Lulled into routines involving the same breakfast cereals, school runs and familiar faces, we’re anaesthetised into believing our lives will go on unchanged for ever.
The 21st of January 1983 started out that way. My husband Steve was taking our boys – Sam, nine, and Rob, six – into town. On the way, he dropped me at my friend Jessie’s. As I climbed out of the car, Sam slid into the front passenger seat and his blue eyes beamed into mine. Smiling, I told him I’d see him after lunch. We had no reason to believe that ‘after lunch’ would never happen and that this would be the date our lives sliced permanently in two.
Jessie and I drank soup, talked and laughed about our children. Somewhere a phone rang. I was vaguely aware of her husband’s voice in the background – clipped, then jagged. When he came into the room, he looked pale. The phone call, he said, was for me. I walked into the hallway and lifted the receiver. ‘It’s terrible,’ I heard Steve say. ‘Sam’s dead.’
The words were like pieces from different jigsaws that didn’t fit together. As I screamed, Steve’s voice arrived like rounds of artillery fire in my ear. On their return home from town, Sam and Rob had found a wounded pigeon under the clothes line. Sam had insisted on taking it to the vet. Steve had been busy in the kitchen and told them they would have to go by themselves.
It was only a short walk from our house to the surgery, but it included a perilous crossing by a bus stop. As the boys arrived at the crossing, a bus pulled in. Rob told Sam they should wait. But impatient to save the bird, Sam had run out behind the stationary bus and been hit by a car. My mind collapsed into different compartments. From a position high on Jessie’s hall ceiling I watched myself wailing below. My head felt about to burst.
Sam and Rob swimming with their father Steve
One of the last pictures of Sam, in late 1982, with Rob and the family dog Rata
Twenty minutes later, Steve and Rob materialised like ghosts. Falling to my knees,
I wrapped my arms around our surviving son, and wondered what nightmares were whirling inside his head. He’d just seen his brother run over and killed. How could he ever recover?
Accusations shot like flames from my throat. I yelled at Steve, demanding to know why he hadn’t driven the boys to the vet. Absorbing my recriminations, he reminded me that the boys knew the road rules and there was no stopping Sam when he got an idea in his head. ‘We both know what Sam is like – was like – with animals.’ His change of tense was an obscenity.
For ever. Sam was gone for ever. He was lost to the world – a golden boy who never had the chance to become a man.
We tried to resume normal life, whatever that was. We lived in Wellington, New Zealand, where I wrote a weekly column for the morning newspaper and Steve, who came originally from Guildford in England, worked one week home, one week away, as radio officer on one of the ferries that ploughed between the North and South Islands. A couple of weeks after the funeral, he packed his bag and headed off like
a sleepwalker for seven days at sea.
Few things bridged our two worlds, apart from the small black cat Sam had chosen for us all those years ago
He was still away one evening when I heard the knocker pound on the front door. Another visitor was the last thing we needed. I reluctantly turned the latch. It was Lena, one of the mothers from playgroup, with her son Jake. ‘We’ve brought the kitten,’ she said, smiling steadily.
The kitten? What kitten? ‘Sam’s kitten!’ said Rob, running down the hall and squeezing around me. I had completely forgotten our visit to Lena’s house eight weeks earlier, and my rash promise, in a weak moment, that we would provide a home for one of her cat’s newborn. She was to be Sam’s birthday present and he had already christened her Cleo.
But the kitten was from another time. I couldn’t possibly cope with a baby animal, not now that I’d proved a failure as a parent. ‘I’m sorry, Lena…’ I was about to launch into my speech. But then I saw something I thought had vanished for ever. Rob’s smile. ‘Welcome home, Cleo,’ he said.
The boys do their best to demolish a cake, 1980
As Lena and Jake disappeared down the path, Rob cradled the tiny creature in his arms. ‘Touch her ears,’ he whispered. Cleo didn’t object. In fact she dipped her head and nudged firmly into my hand to intensify the contact. Part of me wanted to envelop her and never let go. The other part, so wounded, was wary of affection washing over me. To love is ultimately to lose. ‘Let’s see how she walks,’ I said, lowering the kitten to the floor. We watched her paddle through the carpet.
About a metre away from the rubber plant in the sitting room, she paused. Her nose twitched, she crouched and eyed her prey – a pendulous leaf dangling from one of the lower branches. Quivering on her haunches, she attacked furiously. Then something strange happened. It began with a noise, a soft gurgle followed by vague hiccuping. Laughter. For the first time in weeks Rob and I were revelling in
the simplest, most complex healing technique known to humanity.
‘Where’s Cleo sleeping tonight?’ Rob asked. ‘We’ll set up a bed for her in the laundry,’ I said.
‘We can’t do that! She’ll be missing her brothers and sisters.’
Rob hadn’t mentioned the words ‘missing’ and ‘brother’ in the same sentence since
21 January. During daylight hours he gave a surprisingly good impression of a child enjoying a trauma-free life. Nights were a different matter. Tortured by dreams of being chased by a monster in a car, he had vacated the room he shared with Sam and slept fitfully on the mattress in a corner of our bedroom.
‘There isn’t room for all three of us and a kitten in our bedroom,’ I said. ‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘She can sleep with me in my old bedroom. Somebody has to look after Cleo at night.’
When a wife loses a husband she becomes a widow. Children are called orphans when their parents die. As far as I knew there was no word for someone grieving for a sister or brother. If there were, it would have described both boy and kitten. Since birth their lives had overflowed with the noise and physical warmth of their siblings. Now brutally brotherless, they were both lost and frightened. The only option for them was to snuggle into the night together and trust that tomorrow would sort itself out.
Sam's ninth birthday
‘Oooow! Help!’ I woke with my hair pinned painfully to the pillow. Cleo seemed to have decided I was a ridiculous animal. But she had no right to treat life as some kind of joke.
I hurried to the bathroom, leant my forehead against the cool blue tiles and clutched my stomach. My chest muscles ached. Crying had become just another bodily function, like breathing. The idea of escaping pain was suddenly attractive. I slid the cabinet drawer open and held the bottle of sleeping pills to the light. Each pill glowed like a promise through the brown glass. I unscrewed the lid.
The bathroom door opened a crack. Dammit. I hadn’t closed it properly. Glancing down I saw a black paw. Cleo pushed her way in and mewed for me to pick her up. Sighing, I put the pills back in the drawer. Her impertinent arrival was a reminder of my responsibilities. I had no right to opt out when a boy and a kitten needed someone to nurture them. Gathering Cleo in my hands, I sobbed into her fur. She’d rescued me from one of my bleakest moments. She was beautiful, wonderful. And impossible to live with.
Like everyone else in our family Cleo had a highly developed interest in food, and it wasn’t long before she learned the thrill of self-service. To my horror, the headless corpses of mice and birds were soon being deposited on the front doormat. Digging graves for them beside the forget-me-nots was a reminder that life has always been a struggle for living creatures. Somewhere along the line, we humans got hung up about death. Cleo’s motto seemed to be: life’s tough, and that’s OK because life is also fantastic. Love it, live it – but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s not harsh sometimes. I wondered if I’d ever feel strong enough to follow her example.
I’d read that 75 per cent of marriages fail after the death of a child. I was beginning to understand why. Steve and I had met at a party when I was 15 and he was 20. We’d written to each other for three years before I flew to the UK and married him a month after my 18th birthday. Reality had had no hope of matching our early romance. Even before Sam’s death, we had known our relationship was on a fault line.
Now, in bereavement, Steve’s pain was no less than mine, but it was different. While I sobbed and wailed, his ability to convey what was going on behind the fortress of his face had shut down. The more we let ourselves love our young cat, however, the more we seemed able to open our hearts. One night, Steve looked me straight in the eye and said: ‘You look so terribly sad and beautiful.’
His words stretched across the icy distance and enveloped us. We both desperately wanted another child. We weren’t looking for a replacement for Sam. We knew that would be impossible. But we felt empty. I still set the table for four every night, until a cold gong in my heart reminded me one knife and fork had to be put back in the drawer.
In May 1985, our daughter Lydia was born. Her femaleness was a statement that she had no intention of being a replica for our lost son.
A few months after Lydia’s arrival, I received a call from a newspaper editor in Auckland offering me a job as a feature writer. I had to convince myself I wasn’t dreaming. He was offering every mother’s dream – flexible working hours. But if I wanted the job we’d have to pack up the family, cat and all, and move 600km north. Steve agreed to the move, but while Cleo adapted to our new home without so much as a twitch of a whisker, it proved to be the beginning of the end for our marriage. A year later, we decided to divorce.
* * * * *
Time is said to heal everything. By the time Cleo was ten and I was 38, things were looking good. Rob’s final-year marks at school earned him an engineering scholarship at university. After a few false starts on the dating front, I met Philip Gentry, a banker eight years my junior. We married in 1991 and our daughter Katharine was born in 1992. I was grateful for the loving stability Philip brought us. Nevertheless, there was part of our lives that Rob and I tucked away and seldom talked about.
‘Sometimes I feel as if we’ve had two separate lives – the existence we had with Sam, and the one after he died,’ he said one day when the house was silent except for the mews of Cleo pacing in front of the fridge.
Helen with second husband Phil, daughter Lydia and son Rob
I had to agree. Few things bridged those two worlds, apart from the small black cat Sam had chosen for us all those years ago. Even though we laughed, worked and played, our grief was still real and buried deep inside.
During the holidays after his first university year Rob felt unwell and took to his bed. He was unable to eat or drink for several days. By the end of the week he was admitted to hospital, where he was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. Why this cruel bowel disease should occur mostly in people aged between 15 and 35 is a mystery, although I couldn’t help feeling that, in Rob’s case, unresolved grief over Sam had contributed.
He was prescribed hefty doses of steroids, but eventually needed surgery to remove eight feet of his colon. Cleo and I nursed Rob through recovery. As he regained strength he often draped Cleo over his stomach to let her throaty song reverberate through his wounds. ‘Listen to that,’ he said one day. ‘It’s a cross between a gurgle and a roar – a rurgle.’
‘Do you remember when you were little you said Cleo was talking to you?’ I asked.‘Was that real?’
‘It felt real at the time.’
‘Does she still talk to you?’ I asked.
‘In dreams, sometimes.’
‘What does she say?’
‘She doesn’t talk so much these days as show me things. Sometimes we go back to when Sam was alive. We’ll run up and down the road with him. It’s like she’s telling me everything’s going to be OK.’
Cleo possessed eternal optimism, and she also seemed to have a gene that made her look younger the older she grew. Eventually, however, her black whiskers turned grey, her gleaming coat dulled and her legs, once so tapered and streamlined, became slightly stumpy. She never grumbled, but I wasn’t a fool. She was 231⁄2 years old. We were on borrowed time. When the right side of her face swelled up, I wrapped her in her blanket and carried her to the vet.
‘Hmmm,’ he said grimly. ‘A tooth abscess. I could operate, but I doubt she’d survive the surgery.’ He recommended the obvious. We agreed it was the right thing to do.
‘It’s time, old girl,’ the vet said, slipping a tiny needle into the back of her paw. The movement was so gentle she didn’t flinch. As we said our goodbyes, Cleo curled in the shape of a crescent moon. She was suddenly gone. Philip dug a hole under the daphne bush in the front garden and we buried her there.
People asked when we were getting a new cat. But cats aren’t something to be ‘got’. They turn up in people’s lives when they’re needed. Cleo had helped heal wounds I thought we’d never recover from. Her cuddles, her fun, her uppity behaviour, had reminded us what joy there is in living.
Maybe her work was complete now, and we could get along without her.
Abridged from Cleo: How a Small Black Cat Helped Heal a Family by Helen Brown, to be published by Hodder & Stoughton on 18 February, price £14.99. To order a copy for £12.99 with free p&p, call the YOU Bookshop on 0845 155 0711, you-bookshop.co.uk
(以上文字資料轉貼自博客來網站與MailOnline)
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