Broken Places (5 page)

‘Excuse me,’ Eric said. ‘I wondered if you’d seen a ginger cat? It’s gone missing, you see and …’

The small, black-haired woman standing in the doorway was gazing at him in total incomprehension. Indonesian, by the looks of her, or possibly Vietnamese. A pity he didn’t speak a host of other languages – Bengali, Hindi, Cantonese, Arabic, Malay … Almost everybody he’d asked so far had been not just foreign but non-English-speaking, too.

‘Never mind. It doesn’t matter.’ He backed away, sorry that he’d scared her. She’d looked seriously alarmed, as if he were a bailiff, come to cart off all the furniture.

Turning up his coat collar against the driving rain, he trudged on to the next doorway. He’d reached only the second storey of the huge council block opposite his flat, which meant five more floors to go. Although, on reflection, it was probably a complete waste of time. Most people were out, or perhaps had learned through bitter experience never to open their front doors in such a dodgy area, for fear of burglary or assault. The few who
had
appeared either failed to understand him or slammed the door in his face – apart from one pugnacious Asian who had launched into a tirade about filthy, germy cats that should never be allowed inside a human home, so the more that went missing, the better.

After four more fruitless calls, he decided to try his luck in the local shops, starting with the Indian corner-store.

‘I’ve lost my cat,’ he began.

‘You lost your cash? Sorry, we don’t cash cheques here, but Costcutters may be able to help you out.’

‘No, not my cash – my
cat
.’

‘Can’t help,’ the man said brusquely, cutting off the conversation as a customer walked in – a woman with three kids and a pushchair.

Well, Eric shrugged, he was obviously unwelcome here, but at least they knew him at the café. Having ventured in, he found Hanif and Abdullah sitting at a table playing draughts.

‘No customers?’ he asked.

Hanif grimaced. ‘People stay at home in this weather.’

If only
Charlie
had, thought Eric, increasingly concerned about the cat. She had disappeared yesterday evening and, at twelve years old, was too decrepit to be out on such a stormy night. He had searched the entire area, in vain, returning only in the early hours. And, to make things worse, she was a cat from a rescue-centre and, before he and Christine had taken her on, they’d been questioned almost as closely as if about to adopt a child: did they have a garden, and prior experience of cats; how dangerous was their road; would they agree to fit a cat-flap? Eventually, they’d been given the all-clear, although, of course, the volunteer who came round to check the premises hadn’t known that he and Charlie shared a bond, in the form of their early history.

Hanif handed him the menu. ‘What can I get you? Coffee? Tea? A
fry-up
?’

‘Sorry. I can’t stay. I’ve lost my cat and wondered if you’d seen it?’

Both men shook their heads.

‘Is it male or female?’ Abdullah enquired.

‘Female.’

‘Pity,’ Hanif said. ‘Males come back. Females don’t.’

Too right, Eric mused, his mind switching to his wife and daughter: 5000 miles away, and with no intention of returning.

‘But we’ll keep a look-out. What’s its name?’

‘Charlie.’

‘Charlie’s a
man’s
name.’

‘I know. My daughter christened her.’

The two men returned to their game, and who could blame them? A lost wife, lost daughter and now lost cat might be the stuff of tragedy for him, but not for the world in general.

Sighing, he mooched on to the launderette. The vast, pock-marked woman was there, as usual, guarding a row of empty machines. Today, this Vauxhall backwater resembled a Sunday in the fifties – at least from what he’d heard – a day of rest, stagnation, with everybody closeted indoors.

‘I did see a black cat. It was hanging around outside all day yesterday.’

‘No, mine’s ginger.’ Eric flushed, expecting the usual jibes about one
copper-knob finding comfort with another. But the woman only shifted her huge bulk and stooped down (with difficulty) to inspect a broken machine.

‘Why not ask at the farm?’ she said. ‘Your cat might have ended up there, for a bit of warmth and company.

‘Thanks. Great idea!’ He’d never actually set foot in the Vauxhall City Farm, despite the fact it was just along the road.

He passed the boarded-up
George and Dragon
, and then a row of shops with iron grilles across the windows. The contrast with his previous home was marked. Kingston, although a mere ten miles away in distance, was a different world entirely. Most people in this area were shabby, scruffy, poor, and just didn’t have the luxury of good schools, pretty gardens and relative peace and quiet. Sirens deafened the streets here, jolting one from sleep most nights. And the dreary, soulless council blocks did little to raise one’s spirits. In fact, it was a relief to reach the farm and discover a green oasis, and even rustic smells of hay and straw.

As he picked his way between the muddy puddles, a small boy came up to greet him, wearing a sweatshirt blazoned ‘VOLUNTEER’. ‘Hi!’ he said. ‘Want me to show you round?’

‘That’s kind,’ said Eric, ‘but I’m looking for my cat. She ran off last night and—’

‘Hold on a tick. I’ll ask Bella.’ The boy went dashing up to a black woman, busy sweeping the yard. A rather gorgeous female, Eric thought, looking surreptitiously at her big, bouncy breasts, prominently displayed in a skin-tight scarlet sweater.

‘No, sorry,’ the boy said, tearing back again. ‘She hasn’t seen any cats. But now you’re here, why not stop and see the rabbits?’

Before Eric could decline, the boy reached down over the fence of an enclosure, picked up a plump grey rabbit and transferred it into Eric’s arms. After the first ripple of surprise, Eric felt strangely comforted by the cuddly, flop-eared creature, which displayed no fear at all at being handled by a stranger, but settled contentedly against his chest.

‘She’s called Pebbles,’ the boy informed him, clearly glad of company.

‘And what are you called?’

‘Zack. Short for Zachariah.’

Eric fought a sudden longing to grab Zack by the hand and take him and Pebbles back home to his flat. He had always wanted a son – wanted lots more kids; a whole tribe of them, like these rabbits.

‘Rabbits have twenty-eight teeth, you know. That’s one for almost every
day of the month. See that rabbit there?’ Zach pointed to the pen, where a huge brown and white creature was nibbling on a lettuce leaf. ‘She’s a rare breed – what’s called an English Giant. We have rare chickens, too. Come and have a look.’ Having grabbed the flop-eared rabbit, Zack replaced it in its enclosure and led Eric towards a life-size plastic cow, made of plastic or
polystyrene
, but looking surprisingly real. Beneath its black-and-white belly, a variety of unusual-looking hens were sheltering in a seething, clucking mass.

Eric was tempted to join them, if only to shelter from the rain, although in point of fact he was a lot less wet than Zack, who had neither coat nor anorak.

All at once, an exotic hen with a pompommed head was being thrust into his arms, the creature squawking in alarm and scrabbling with its scaly feet. But barely had he time to calm it, when Zack seized it back and moved him on, clearly determined to fulfil his role as guide.

‘See those brown hens by the fence? They’re Polish.’

‘Really? All the way from Poland?’

‘Not Poland – Italy. They come from near the River Po. And, by the way, you may not know that chickens are the closest living relative to Tyrannosaurus Rex.’

Zack would be useful in the library, Eric thought: a mine of information, to help with customers’ enquiries.

‘And those are our ponies,’ Zack continued, pointing to a row of heads peering over the stable doors. ‘You’re not allowed in there, unless you’ve paid for riding, but if you cross the yard, you can see the calves and pigs and goats and things. Enjoy your visit!’

Eric found himself doing as he was told. Although little more than eight or nine, Zack had a persuasive manner and was quite the seasoned
professional
. Enjoy your visit, indeed!

His spirits fell, however, as he saw another man, with a small girl in tow, preceding him along the path. Fathers with their children always induced in him a pang of loss and longing. Even if the fellow was divorced, like him, he still had his daughter with him – maybe living close; not separated by the vast Atlantic Ocean and a cruel, uncaring landmass. Not that the guy seemed grateful for the privilege; rather distracted and impatient as he yanked the girl roughly by the hand, and told her off for splashing through the puddles.

‘Dad, what are those?’ she asked, as the pair stopped at a large outdoor pen, shared by various animals and birds.

‘I told you – twice – they’re goats.’

‘What’s goats?’

‘Goats are goats, Jane. Don’t be daft. And can’t you hurry up? We should have stayed indoors in the dry, not come out on a shitty day like this.’

Go back indoors then, Eric all but said, and
I’ll
look after your kid – although I’ll change her name to Erica. It had always struck him as a miracle, not just to have a child, after a boyhood with no family at all, but a child named after him; bearing his own name, give or take an ‘a’.

As the girl and her father moved on, a small female goat came lolloping over, put its feet up on the fence and shoved its nose into his hand. As he fondled its white head, it went into instant transports of pleasure, arching its back and trying to nuzzle against his chest. A pity, Eric speculated, I wasn’t born a ram, then I’d have more success with females. The goat was even making eye-contact; its yellow eyes fixed adoringly on his.

Reluctantly parting from his new conquest, he inspected the next
enclosure
, where a large ruffled turkey suddenly stretched out its long neck and made a noise like water gurgling down a drain. Eric turned his back. There were enough reminders of Christmas without a turkey adding to the chorus. His last twelve Christmases had been built around Erica – food, presents, decorations, tree: all done in her honour.
This
Christmas was just eighteen days away. He’d better volunteer; help out at a shelter for the homeless, or a Salvation Army centre, if only to distract himself.

Lost in thought, he had completely failed to notice the large, spotted pig in front of him; a handsome beast, with bristly fur and a moist grey snout, munching enthusiastically; its mouth wide open and spraying bits of food all over the place.
Olivia
, he thought, leaning over the fence to watch the porcine glutton. Would he ever meet the right person (barring goats)? He’d read all 200 pages of Stella’s
Flirting
book, but had done little more, so far, than diagnose himself with various so-called dating illnesses: ‘Rejectaphobia’, ‘Stranger Danger’ and ‘Signal Failure’ – the last nothing to do with trains. But, even if he worked through all the given cures, it didn’t change the depressing fact that to find an intelligent, attractive woman, with compatible views on politics, religion and general philosophy of life, would be little short of a miracle.

Wandering on, he all but collided with the black girl, and racked his brains for something riveting to say beyond a flustered ‘Sorry!’ He must be more adventurous, strike up conversations, as Stella had advised, but there were other people in earshot – three teenaged girls, helping sweep the paths,
and a young lad with a wheelbarrow. Did he really want the whole gang of them listening to his chat-up lines? They were all busy talking, anyway; exchanging jokes and banter; a little community in themselves, with a shared purpose and sense of belonging.

Far from astounding them with his conversational flair, he managed to get in the way of the wheelbarrow and was jabbed sharply in the leg. ‘Sorry,’ he gasped again, removing himself to the far end of the site – an area planted with flowers and vegetables, with allotment-plots beyond. The cabbages and carrots and cheerful marigolds brought a surge of regret for his much-missed Kingston garden. It had given him such satisfaction to keep it neat and tidy; grow dead-straight rows of lettuces and beans; pounce on any weed or other threat to its good order. Order was essential when one had grown up in a state of chaos.

‘For fuck’s sake!’ he muttered under his breath. ‘You’re here to search for Charlie, not indulge in self-pity.’ And since he hadn’t seen a sign of the cat, he’d better push off home – although ‘home’ was hardly the word. It didn’t feel like home – never had, never would. The bars on the windows seemed to turn it into a prison; he a lifer in solitary confinement.

‘Come off it! You’re lucky to have a place to live at all –
and
one so conveniently central.’

The black girl was looking at him curiously – and no wonder, when he was talking to himself. He’d better get the hell out of here, before he was locked up as a mental case.

As he retraced his steps and turned into the street, he spotted a child’s red wool glove, waterlogged in a puddle in the gutter. On impulse, he retrieved it; shook and squeezed it dry. Erica had gloves like that, and he could almost feel her firm, woolly grip as she clasped her hand in his. Yet how limp and lonesome the glove looked. Things should be in pairs.

By the time he reached his flat, the rain was slackening off – although that didn’t mean to say he wasn’t drenched. He didn’t bother to change, however, but just sat in his cramped kitchen with a consoling cup of tea. Dusk had already fallen, although basement flats were always pretty gloomy, even in the daytime. The big advantage, however, was that Charlie had access to the garden – access forbidden to
him
, since it belonged to the ground-floor tenants, whom, in fact, he very rarely saw. Those on the first and second floors were more in evidence: one couple prone to
shouting-matches
and the other engaged in non-stop DIY.

Still, now it was as quiet as the grave, which only underlined Charlie’s
absence. He missed her rumbling purr; her little mews of pleasure when he spooned food into her bowl; the way she scrabbled at the door when she wanted to go out. How could he tell Erica that Charlie had gone missing? – not that she was likely to ring. The divorce settlement had stipulated regular phone-calls, along with a raft of other measures to ensure they remained in contact, including a six-week stay in England every summer. This first year of her absence, though, the long-awaited visit had failed to come about, as she’d been stricken with glandular fever for most of her vacation. And, in the last few weeks, even the letters and the phone-calls appeared to be tailing off. He wrote, of course, every week; emailed almost daily, and rang whenever possible, but phone-calls were tricky to schedule when Seattle was eight hours behind, and Erica herself didn’t seem that keen, of late, to return his frequent calls. He feared she might be suffering from depression, after her debilitating illness, although Christine had
vehemently
denied it.