I watched the beaten-up, collarless tabby.
He looked at me; he knew all along.
He was a cat with particular schadenfreude.
For a moment I expected a salute.
“I s’pose I’ll just take the dog back,” I said, and Rory threw Hector sideways; he went flying a good five meters—and there was high-pitched, bloodcurdled meowing. (I bet he was glad to be home.) Then Rory came stalking over.
“You got the little bastard a dog now?” But he was also partly congratulatory.
And Tommy?
Well, Tommy picked up Hector, and shielded him from the rest of us, and came over and opened the car. He hugged the cat and the dog simultaneously, and said, “God, I can’t believe it.” He looked over at Clay and asked; it’s so strange how he knew what to do:
“Achilles?”
Again, a shake of the head.
I said, “This one’s actually a girl.”
“Okay then, I’m calling her Rosy.”
“You know that isn’t—”
“I know, I know, it’s the sky,” and we were back for a moment together:
His head in her lap in the lounge.
* * *
—
Mid-December, a Sunday, early morning, we drove to a beach in the south, in the depths of the national park. Its official name was Prospector, but the locals called it Anzacs.
I remember the car and the drive there:
That sick and unslept feeling.
The outline of trees in the dark.
Already the traditional smell inside, of carpeting, woodwork and varnish.
I remember how we ran the sand dunes, and they were cool in the sunrise, but punishing; by the top we were both on our knees.
At one point, Clay beat me to the peak, and he didn’t just lie there, or capsize, which was more than appealing, believe me. No, instead, he turned and reached for me, and the backdrop of shore and ocean; his hand came down, and he pulled me up, and we lay at the top with the suffering.
When he talked to me about that later—when he spoke and told me of everything—he’d said, “It was one of our greatest moments, I think. Both you and the sea were burning.”
* * *
—
By that point, Hector wasn’t just back.
It was clear he’d never leave us, ever.
There seemed to be fourteen different versions of that bloody cat, because wherever you went, he appeared. If you walked toward the toaster, he was sitting just left or right of it, amongst the surrounding crumbs. If you went to sit on the couch, he was purring on top of the remote. Even once, I went to the toilet, and he watched from up on the cistern.